Pirate Kitty/Krezek

[M'karll]

[Random Corridor]

After receiving the death glare from all of the women in sickbay over his likely ill-timed comment, M'karll had beat a hasty retreat to his quarters to prepare himself for a celebratory holodeck trip over his new purchase. As he headed towards one of the Horizon's holodecks decked out in traditional Terran high seas pirate garb, complete with eye patch and a number of corked flasks of rum, he hummed a bawdy tune that it was unlikely anyone else knew the words to but him nearly being run over by a sobbing member of the Horizon's crew going in the opposite direction.

"Ya-har! Watch where ye be goin' ye scab'rous space dog," he growled a bit threateningly at the man, not recognizing immediately who it was. "Ye almos' made me spill me rum!"

Jeral Krezek looked up at the man, a little perplexed by the manner of his dress and said quietly, "Sorry, I'm just... a little shaken right now." He didn't know how else to put it or what to say about how he was behaving, nor did he expect to run into a Caitian dressed as a pirate, but it was enough to get him to stop.

"Ye be lookin' like a sailor withou' a boat," M'karll replied, thrusting the open flask of rum into Krezek's hands. "Take a drink me hearty!"

The trip to the alcohol in his quarters could wait, as he smelled the dark rum within the flask, taking a sip of the pungent liquid and feeling it burn his throat. It wasn't something he had had before, and it went down a lot better than he thought... and it was stronger. "Ack," Jeral said after te first swig, nearly spitting it out but keeping it in as it burned his throat. When he saw the Caitian's stare, he shrugged. "It was what I was headed towards, anyway, the five bottles of wine from my family that I had on board..." He paused for a moment, getting a good look at the person under the costume. "You're M'Karll, right?" he asked, almost rhetorically.

"Wine," the Caitian asked, his nose wrinkling slightly in disgust. "Ye never be puttin' hair on yer chest with wine," he cried as Jeral took a swig. It seemed he was not about to be reprimanded for snapping at a senior officer, so much the better. "Aye, I be the mos' dread pirate M'karll, at yer service," the pilot replied to the question, sketching a small bow.

"I'm supposed to arrest you," Jeral said in a matter-of-fact tone, remembering what had happened in the sickbay through a tear or two. "Something about some inappropriate comments to a senior officer in front of about a dozen witnesses, one of them happening to be me."

"Ye mus' be jokin' matey," M'karll said with an easy laugh, grabbing another flask of rum from his belt and uncorking it to take a big swig. "How's about we forgo the brig and do a spot o' drinkin'?"

Jeral considered the offer, then said, "I'm thinking we should do both. Let's do some drinking... in the brig. This way, both of us can't be thrown out of Starfleet for dereliction of duty, and I'm probably going to end up in the drunk tank by the time the night's over anyway. Let's just make the process more efficient."

M'karll considered this for a moment. He'd spent what he felt was more than his fair share of time in the brig for various small offenses, and he'd never been allowed to keep his rum before in the cell, which always made the time pass much more slowly. However, that unfortunate problem would not, by the security chief's own word, be afflicting him during this brig stay. "We have an accord," he declared, holding out the paw that was not clutching an open flask of rum for Krezek to shake.

Jeral shook the offered paw with his hand, and together they started to head towards the brig. "What were you headed to do, anyway?" Jeral asked with curiosity as to how the Caitian was dressed.

"Holodeck," M'karll grunted, taking another pull. "I s'pose ye be makin' me turn over me cutlass?"

Jeral just looked at M'karll and said, "That would be preferable. Weapons in the brig aren't exactly a good idea." Jeral also took another drink from the rum when offered, which was doing exactly what it was designed to do: getting his mind off of his problems. "Then again, neither is alcohol, but alcohol can't stab you."

"Yar, fair 'nuff," the Caitian replied. "I'll turn 'em in when we be makin' port."

The tears had started to dry up in his eyes, and the liquor was starting to relax him a little more as they made their way to the turbolift. "That's some good stuff... what was it again?"

"Ye mean ta be sayin' ye don' know what rum is," M'karll asked, flabbergasted that someone could possibly not know what rum was or just how wonderful it was to drink.

Jeral shook his head. "Can't say that I do," he replied. "My family is made up of a long line of wine makers, though, spanning back generations on Betazed. I grew up with wine, not much else, and I was never really a party person in the Academy." He sniffed the flask. "What's it made out of?"

"It be comin' from a Terran plant, cane o' sugar I think they calls it," M'karll replied, sliding into a turbolift with Jeral. "Take us ta the brig ye scabb'rous movin' box!" Obediently, the lift whisked off in the direction it had been told to go in.

"Sugar cane?" Jeral exclaimed. "No wonder my family hasn't adopted it... gotta send a note to cousin Pierce about this..." he trailed off again as he took another sip. "By the way, sorry for almost colliding with you in the corridor. I guess I'm not myself right now."

M'karll waved away the apology. "Yar, no worries thar matey... we not be spillin' the rum an' that be mos' import'int." As the lift came to a stop and the doors slid open M'karll stepped smoothly from the lift. Having visited the brig so many times before, he knew the way by heart. "In ta the teeth o' the cannons," he cried, heading for the entrance to the brig.

"I've never heard it referred to that way," Jeral commented. As they walked the short distance to the brig and in the door, Jeral asked, "Mind if I take the cutlass now?"

"Aye," M'karll replied, "An I 'spect ye be wantin' all o' it." He proceeded to unsheathe a cutlass and pass it to Jeral, then he unsheathed a second one and passed it over. "Aye, there be more!" Next he drew a quartet of black-powder pistols from various places on his person and handed them over one at a time. Then came long knives, one from each boot and a third from somewhere within the voluminous coat he was wearing, all of which he passed hilt first to Jeral one at a time. After passing over the knives the pilot stood there for a moment, a puzzled look on his face. "Know I be fer'gettin' summat," he muttered, then he snapped his fingers. "Right, now I 'member." M'karll slapped each arm to his side, hard, and a throwing knife slid from up the sleeves of the coat down into each of his paws. He passed these too over to Jeral. "Tha' be all o' it matey!"

"...you take your Holodeck excursions a little too seriously, M'karll," Jeral commented, handing the knives and ancient pistols over to the brig guard, then taking the Type 2 and backup Type 1, plus the boot knife he kept off and gave it over to the brig guard. "I want those back," he said to the brig guard, and then took his place inside the containment cell. "Raise the field," he ordered.

"Sir, you're in the brig," the brig guard said.

"Trust me, today, I am in here because it makes more sense to drink in here instead of getting drunk out there and then getting thrown in by my own security force," Jeral replied. "Raise the field."

"Aye, sir," the brig guard said with a puzzled look, raising the forcefield.

"Now," Jeral said. "Let's break into that rum."

"Ya-har, I be likin' the way ye theenk," M'karll cried, unstoppering a flagon of rum and taking a long pull before passing it to Jeral. "A night o' drunken revalrie fer we!"

"Good enough reason for me," Jeral replied, receiving the offered liquid, then raising it up. "To those lost, but never... forgotten..." He bit back a tear, then took another pull of the drink.

"Yar, spoken like a true shipmate," M'karll said, clapping the man on the back brusquely. "An' if we run out ye can send along the cabin boy ta fetch more rum!"

"Aye," Jeral said. He looked around. "You know, for some reason... this is comforting. Weird to say, isn't it? I was born in one of these, you know... a cell, during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor."

"Was ye now," M'karll asked, settling himself in on one of the bunks for a night in the brig.

Taking another drink, Jeral nodded. "My daughter was also born in one... fitting." He passed the bottle back to M'karll.

"Didn' know ye had a passle o' bilge rats," M'karll said, taking a slug from the flask and passing it back. "Never had any me self, yonder fair maiden in sickbay never seemed int'rest'd in me fer some reason."

"No," Jeral said. "I did have one child... and I had to deliver her." He took a swig of the flask, his gaze getting a little unfocused on where he was. "And she was taken away on that same day."

"An' why might tha' be," M'karll asked, beginning to slur his speech a little as he took another pull of rum.

[Jeral Krezek]

[Random Corridor]

After receiving the death glare from all of the women in sickbay over his likely ill-timed comment, M'karll had beat a hasty retreat to his quarters to prepare himself for a celebratory holodeck trip over his new purchase. As he headed towards one of the Horizon's holodecks decked out in traditional Terran high seas pirate garb, complete with eye patch and a number of corked flasks of rum, he hummed a bawdy tune that it was unlikely anyone else knew the words to but him nearly being run over by a sobbing member of the Horizon's crew going in the opposite direction.

"Ya-har! Watch where ye be goin' ye scab'rous space dog," he growled a bit threateningly at the man, not recognizing immediately who it was. "Ye almos' made me spill me rum!"

Jeral Krezek looked up at the man, a little perplexed by the manner of his dress and said quietly, "Sorry, I'm just... a little shaken right now." He didn't know how else to put it or what to say about how he was behaving, nor did he expect to run into a Caitian dressed as a pirate, but it was enough to get him to stop.

"Ye be lookin' like a sailor withou' a boat," M'karll replied, thrusting the open flask of rum into Krezek's hands. "Take a drink me hearty!"

The trip to the alcohol in his quarters could wait, as he smelled the dark rum within the flask, taking a sip of the pungent liquid and feeling it burn his throat. It wasn't something he had had before, and it went down a lot better than he thought... and it was stronger. "Ack," Jeral said after te first swig, nearly spitting it out but keeping it in as it burned his throat. When he saw the Caitian's stare, he shrugged. "It was what I was headed towards, anyway, the five bottles of wine from my family that I had on board..." He paused for a moment, getting a good look at the person under the costume. "You're M'Karll, right?" he asked, almost rhetorically.

"Wine," the Caitian asked, his nose wrinkling slightly in disgust. "Ye never be puttin' hair on yer chest with wine," he cried as Jeral took a swig. It seemed he was not about to be reprimanded for snapping at a senior officer, so much the better. "Aye, I be the mos' dread pirate M'karll, at yer service," the pilot replied to the question, sketching a small bow.

"I'm supposed to arrest you," Jeral said in a matter-of-fact tone, remembering what had happened in the sickbay through a tear or two. "Something about some inappropriate comments to a senior officer in front of about a dozen witnesses, one of them happening to be me."

"Ye mus' be jokin' matey," M'karll said with an easy laugh, grabbing another flask of rum from his belt and uncorking it to take a big swig. "How's about we forgo the brig and do a spot o' drinkin'?"

Jeral considered the offer, then said, "I'm thinking we should do both. Let's do some drinking... in the brig. This way, both of us can't be thrown out of Starfleet for dereliction of duty, and I'm probably going to end up in the drunk tank by the time the night's over anyway. Let's just make the process more efficient."

M'karll considered this for a moment. He'd spent what he felt was more than his fair share of time in the brig for various small offenses, and he'd never been allowed to keep his rum before in the cell, which always made the time pass much more slowly. However, that unfortunate problem would not, by the security chief's own word, be afflicting him during this brig stay. "We have an accord," he declared, holding out the paw that was not clutching an open flask of rum for Krezek to shake.

Jeral shook the offered paw with his hand, and together they started to head towards the brig. "What were you headed to do, anyway?" Jeral asked with curiosity as to how the Caitian was dressed.

"Holodeck," M'karll grunted, taking another pull. "I s'pose ye be makin' me turn over me cutlass?"

Jeral just looked at M'karll and said, "That would be preferable. Weapons in the brig aren't exactly a good idea." Jeral also took another drink from the rum when offered, which was doing exactly what it was designed to do: getting his mind off of his problems. "Then again, neither is alcohol, but alcohol can't stab you."

"Yar, fair 'nuff," the Caitian replied. "I'll turn 'em in when we be makin' port."

The tears had started to dry up in his eyes, and the liquor was starting to relax him a little more as they made their way to the turbolift. "That's some good stuff... what was it again?"

"Ye mean ta be sayin' ye don' know what rum is," M'karll asked, flabbergasted that someone could possibly not know what rum was or just how wonderful it was to drink.

Jeral shook his head. "Can't say that I do," he replied. "My family is made up of a long line of wine makers, though, spanning back generations on Betazed. I grew up with wine, not much else, and I was never really a party person in the Academy." He sniffed the flask. "What's it made out of?"

"It be comin' from a Terran plant, cane o' sugar I think they calls it," M'karll replied, sliding into a turbolift with Jeral. "Take us ta the brig ye scabb'rous movin' box!" Obediently, the lift whisked off in the direction it had been told to go in.

"Sugar cane?" Jeral exclaimed. "No wonder my family hasn't adopted it... gotta send a note to cousin Pierce about this..." he trailed off again as he took another sip. "By the way, sorry for almost colliding with you in the corridor. I guess I'm not myself right now."

M'karll waved away the apology. "Yar, no worries thar matey... we not be spillin' the rum an' that be mos' import'int." As the lift came to a stop and the doors slid open M'karll stepped smoothly from the lift. Having visited the brig so many times before, he knew the way by heart. "In ta the teeth o' the cannons," he cried, heading for the entrance to the brig.

"I've never heard it referred to that way," Jeral commented. As they walked the short distance to the brig and in the door, Jeral asked, "Mind if I take the cutlass now?"

"Aye," M'karll replied, "An I 'spect ye be wantin' all o' it." He proceeded to unsheathe a cutlass and pass it to Jeral, then he unsheathed a second one and passed it over. "Aye, there be more!" Next he drew a quartet of black-powder pistols from various places on his person and handed them over one at a time. Then came long knives, one from each boot and a third from somewhere within the voluminous coat he was wearing, all of which he passed hilt first to Jeral one at a time. After passing over the knives the pilot stood there for a moment, a puzzled look on his face. "Know I be fer'gettin' summat," he muttered, then he snapped his fingers. "Right, now I 'member." M'karll slapped each arm to his side, hard, and a throwing knife slid from up the sleeves of the coat down into each of his paws. He passed these too over to Jeral. "Tha' be all o' it matey!"

"...you take your Holodeck excursions a little too seriously, M'karll," Jeral commented, handing the knives and ancient pistols over to the brig guard, then taking the Type 2 and backup Type 1, plus the boot knife he kept off and gave it over to the brig guard. "I want those back," he said to the brig guard, and then took his place inside the containment cell. "Raise the field," he ordered.

"Sir, you're in the brig," the brig guard said.

"Trust me, today, I am in here because it makes more sense to drink in here instead of getting drunk out there and then getting thrown in by my own security force," Jeral replied. "Raise the field."

"Aye, sir," the brig guard said with a puzzled look, raising the forcefield.

"Now," Jeral said. "Let's break into that rum."

"Ya-har, I be likin' the way ye theenk," M'karll cried, unstoppering a flagon of rum and taking a long pull before passing it to Jeral. "A night o' drunken revalrie fer we!"

"Good enough reason for me," Jeral replied, receiving the offered liquid, then raising it up. "To those lost, but never... forgotten..." He bit back a tear, then took another pull of the drink.

"Yar, spoken like a true shipmate," M'karll said, clapping the man on the back brusquely. "An' if we run out ye can send along the cabin boy ta fetch more rum!"

"Aye," Jeral said. He looked around. "You know, for some reason... this is comforting. Weird to say, isn't it? I was born in one of these, you know... a cell, during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor."

"Was ye now," M'karll asked, settling himself in on one of the bunks for a night in the brig.

Taking another drink, Jeral nodded. "My daughter was also born in one... fitting." He passed the bottle back to M'karll.

"Didn' know ye had a passle o' bilge rats," M'karll said, taking a slug from the flask and passing it back. "Never had any me self, yonder fair maiden in sickbay never seemed int'rest'd in me fer some reason."

"No," Jeral said. "I did have one child... and I had to deliver her." He took a swig of the flask, his gaze getting a little unfocused on where he was. "And she was taken away on that same day."

"An' why might tha' be," M'karll asked, beginning to slur his speech a little as he took another pull of rum.

"Well," Jeral replied...

--------------------

Jeral had just finished with the afterbirth when the door slid open and there was three disruptor rifles pointed at them. "Bring him and the baby," was all they heard.

"NO!" Sajida screamed, but all her protests were met with a butt of a disruptor rifle to her temple, knocking her out.

Jeral began to react, but the rifle butt came down on his head, dazing him and making him go limp. He couldn't move, and all he could hear was his baby girl screaming her head off as they moved down the corridor, for what seemed like forever, until they got to a small, dark room. He felt his hands being bound behind him, and then, as he slowly started to regain control, he could see that he was in what looked like an interrogation room meet his eyes. He couldn't see what was going on, as the room was dark and his vision was still clearing, but he could still here.

"Congratulations on the birth of your baby," a voice said. "She certainly is a beautiful baby."

"Go to Hell," Jeral spat.

The voice laughed, and then Jeral felt a fist come down and hit him in the cheek. "You're a very cheeky one, Lieutenant Krezek," the voice continued. "A family trait, no doubt. But we must get down to business. A most unpleasent kind, in light of the circumstances... but we must all do what we can." The voice was approaching him from behind, and he felt a hand grab his hair and yank his head back, and breathing in his ear. "I will make this simple," he whispered. "Tell me the command prefix code for the Highlander, and I won't harm your child."

Jeral's eyes went wide as he realized the full depth of the situation. "You wouldn't," he accused. "You're not that heartless."

"I would, and I will," the voice replied. "You don't even know who I am. Sure, your security reports might peg me as one thing, but I can assure you... I am that ruthless."

A light turned on, and there was little Miral Michelle, in a seat asleep. A neural stimulator was in front of her. "It's amazing what the brain can do, even on a newborn," the voice continued. "A stimuli here, a firing neuron there, and they can be something so advanced they can make even modern computer cores look to be... obsolete." The man behind the voice waled over to behind that little girl and touched a control, activating a biomonitor. "So young... and yet, the way she is right now, she's got nothing in her brain... can't have that, now, can we? The children are our future, after all." He touched a control on the device on her head, and the biomonitor changed ever so slightly. "I just sent a charge through her brain, which stopped all neurological function for a split second. Give me what I want, or I will increase it until your daughter's brain is depolarized."

Jeral just sat there, looking at his daughter. Tears started rolling down his cheek. "I don't know them," he said.

"You're lying," the voice said, and he touched the control again, causing the biomonitor to wink out for longer than before. "Oh, look... it actually caused brain death for a moment. I better not do this too much, or else it will kill her."

"I am telling the truth!" Jeral shouted, struggling against the restraints.

"Come now, Jeral, all Starfleet Chief Tactical Officers are required to know the command prefix of their own ships," the voice said. "The fact that you don't is a problem for your own job, is it not? So let's try this again." The hand hovered over the control again. "The command prefix code, please."

Jeral looked at his daughter, sleeping peacefully. He could see her chest rise and fall with the movement of air through her lungs. THe fact that she was still alive was good, but at what loss... "One five seven three two four nine eight five," he said after a long pause. "Just please... don't harm my daughter." Tears were streaming down his cheeks, and the fact that he was restrained was torture enough. He wanted to rip out the guts of the person doing this to his daughter.

The voice was silent for a moment, the hand still hovering over the device on Miral's head. Finally, he heard, "Good." The hand retreated, and Jeral breathed a sigh of relief. "We're transmitting that message to the Highlander now. Untie him, and let him be with his daughter."

The restraints loosened, and Jeral was led to the little girl at disruptor point, and he picked her up and hugged her close, careful to keep his back to the people holding him hostage and keeping his bulk in between them and the baby. Jeral didn't listen too closely, because he could have heard what was coming next.

He was spun around, and before he could react, there was a disruptor bolt, and he was flung to the ground by the force of the blast. He landed with a jolt, in pain. His right arm wasn't responding, and as he looked down, he saw a burn right where the child's makeshift wrappings were. His heart stopped as he reached over with his left arm and looked in the wrapping...

----------------------

"She was killed because someone changed a code on a ship," Jeral said simply, "as per Starfleet regulations. Not telling some people that were holding me hostage cost me my marriage, my sanity and nearly my life." The alcohol numbed the pain considerably. He touched his right shoulder with his left hand, which instinctively hurt, more psychologically than actual pain. "The birth today... it brought those memories up."

[M'karll]

[Random Corridor]

After receiving the death glare from all of the women in sickbay over his likely ill-timed comment, M'karll had beat a hasty retreat to his quarters to prepare himself for a celebratory holodeck trip over his new purchase. As he headed towards one of the Horizon's holodecks decked out in traditional Terran high seas pirate garb, complete with eye patch and a number of corked flasks of rum, he hummed a bawdy tune that it was unlikely anyone else knew the words to but him nearly being run over by a sobbing member of the Horizon's crew going in the opposite direction.

"Ya-har! Watch where ye be goin' ye scab'rous space dog," he growled a bit threateningly at the man, not recognizing immediately who it was. "Ye almos' made me spill me rum!"

Jeral Krezek looked up at the man, a little perplexed by the manner of his dress and said quietly, "Sorry, I'm just... a little shaken right now." He didn't know how else to put it or what to say about how he was behaving, nor did he expect to run into a Caitian dressed as a pirate, but it was enough to get him to stop.

"Ye be lookin' like a sailor withou' a boat," M'karll replied, thrusting the open flask of rum into Krezek's hands. "Take a drink me hearty!"

The trip to the alcohol in his quarters could wait, as he smelled the dark rum within the flask, taking a sip of the pungent liquid and feeling it burn his throat. It wasn't something he had had before, and it went down a lot better than he thought... and it was stronger. "Ack," Jeral said after te first swig, nearly spitting it out but keeping it in as it burned his throat. When he saw the Caitian's stare, he shrugged. "It was what I was headed towards, anyway, the five bottles of wine from my family that I had on board..." He paused for a moment, getting a good look at the person under the costume. "You're M'Karll, right?" he asked, almost rhetorically.

"Wine," the Caitian asked, his nose wrinkling slightly in disgust. "Ye never be puttin' hair on yer chest with wine," he cried as Jeral took a swig. It seemed he was not about to be reprimanded for snapping at a senior officer, so much the better. "Aye, I be the mos' dread pirate M'karll, at yer service," the pilot replied to the question, sketching a small bow.

"I'm supposed to arrest you," Jeral said in a matter-of-fact tone, remembering what had happened in the sickbay through a tear or two. "Something about some inappropriate comments to a senior officer in front of about a dozen witnesses, one of them happening to be me."

"Ye mus' be jokin' matey," M'karll said with an easy laugh, grabbing another flask of rum from his belt and uncorking it to take a big swig. "How's about we forgo the brig and do a spot o' drinkin'?"

Jeral considered the offer, then said, "I'm thinking we should do both. Let's do some drinking... in the brig. This way, both of us can't be thrown out of Starfleet for dereliction of duty, and I'm probably going to end up in the drunk tank by the time the night's over anyway. Let's just make the process more efficient."

M'karll considered this for a moment. He'd spent what he felt was more than his fair share of time in the brig for various small offenses, and he'd never been allowed to keep his rum before in the cell, which always made the time pass much more slowly. However, that unfortunate problem would not, by the security chief's own word, be afflicting him during this brig stay. "We have an accord," he declared, holding out the paw that was not clutching an open flask of rum for Krezek to shake.

Jeral shook the offered paw with his hand, and together they started to head towards the brig. "What were you headed to do, anyway?" Jeral asked with curiosity as to how the Caitian was dressed.

"Holodeck," M'karll grunted, taking another pull. "I s'pose ye be makin' me turn over me cutlass?"

Jeral just looked at M'karll and said, "That would be preferable. Weapons in the brig aren't exactly a good idea." Jeral also took another drink from the rum when offered, which was doing exactly what it was designed to do: getting his mind off of his problems. "Then again, neither is alcohol, but alcohol can't stab you."

"Yar, fair 'nuff," the Caitian replied. "I'll turn 'em in when we be makin' port."

The tears had started to dry up in his eyes, and the liquor was starting to relax him a little more as they made their way to the turbolift. "That's some good stuff... what was it again?"

"Ye mean ta be sayin' ye don' know what rum is," M'karll asked, flabbergasted that someone could possibly not know what rum was or just how wonderful it was to drink.

Jeral shook his head. "Can't say that I do," he replied. "My family is made up of a long line of wine makers, though, spanning back generations on Betazed. I grew up with wine, not much else, and I was never really a party person in the Academy." He sniffed the flask. "What's it made out of?"

"It be comin' from a Terran plant, cane o' sugar I think they calls it," M'karll replied, sliding into a turbolift with Jeral. "Take us ta the brig ye scabb'rous movin' box!" Obediently, the lift whisked off in the direction it had been told to go in.

"Sugar cane?" Jeral exclaimed. "No wonder my family hasn't adopted it... gotta send a note to cousin Pierce about this..." he trailed off again as he took another sip. "By the way, sorry for almost colliding with you in the corridor. I guess I'm not myself right now."

M'karll waved away the apology. "Yar, no worries thar matey... we not be spillin' the rum an' that be mos' import'int." As the lift came to a stop and the doors slid open M'karll stepped smoothly from the lift. Having visited the brig so many times before, he knew the way by heart. "In ta the teeth o' the cannons," he cried, heading for the entrance to the brig.

"I've never heard it referred to that way," Jeral commented. As they walked the short distance to the brig and in the door, Jeral asked, "Mind if I take the cutlass now?"

"Aye," M'karll replied, "An I 'spect ye be wantin' all o' it." He proceeded to unsheathe a cutlass and pass it to Jeral, then he unsheathed a second one and passed it over. "Aye, there be more!" Next he drew a quartet of black-powder pistols from various places on his person and handed them over one at a time. Then came long knives, one from each boot and a third from somewhere within the voluminous coat he was wearing, all of which he passed hilt first to Jeral one at a time. After passing over the knives the pilot stood there for a moment, a puzzled look on his face. "Know I be fer'gettin' summat," he muttered, then he snapped his fingers. "Right, now I 'member." M'karll slapped each arm to his side, hard, and a throwing knife slid from up the sleeves of the coat down into each of his paws. He passed these too over to Jeral. "Tha' be all o' it matey!"

"...you take your Holodeck excursions a little too seriously, M'karll," Jeral commented, handing the knives and ancient pistols over to the brig guard, then taking the Type 2 and backup Type 1, plus the boot knife he kept off and gave it over to the brig guard. "I want those back," he said to the brig guard, and then took his place inside the containment cell. "Raise the field," he ordered.

"Sir, you're in the brig," the brig guard said.

"Trust me, today, I am in here because it makes more sense to drink in here instead of getting drunk out there and then getting thrown in by my own security force," Jeral replied. "Raise the field."

"Aye, sir," the brig guard said with a puzzled look, raising the forcefield.

"Now," Jeral said. "Let's break into that rum."

"Ya-har, I be likin' the way ye theenk," M'karll cried, unstoppering a flagon of rum and taking a long pull before passing it to Jeral. "A night o' drunken revalrie fer we!"

"Good enough reason for me," Jeral replied, receiving the offered liquid, then raising it up. "To those lost, but never... forgotten..." He bit back a tear, then took another pull of the drink.

"Yar, spoken like a true shipmate," M'karll said, clapping the man on the back brusquely. "An' if we run out ye can send along the cabin boy ta fetch more rum!"

"Aye," Jeral said. He looked around. "You know, for some reason... this is comforting. Weird to say, isn't it? I was born in one of these, you know... a cell, during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor."

"Was ye now," M'karll asked, settling himself in on one of the bunks for a night in the brig.

Taking another drink, Jeral nodded. "My daughter was also born in one... fitting." He passed the bottle back to M'karll.

"Didn' know ye had a passle o' bilge rats," M'karll said, taking a slug from the flask and passing it back. "Never had any me self, yonder fair maiden in sickbay never seemed int'rest'd in me fer some reason."

"No," Jeral said. "I did have one child... and I had to deliver her." He took a swig of the flask, his gaze getting a little unfocused on where he was. "And she was taken away on that same day."

"An' why might tha' be," M'karll asked, beginning to slur his speech a little as he took another pull of rum.

"Well," Jeral replied...

--------------------

Jeral had just finished with the afterbirth when the door slid open and there was three disruptor rifles pointed at them. "Bring him and the baby," was all they heard.

"NO!" Sajida screamed, but all her protests were met with a butt of a disruptor rifle to her temple, knocking her out.

Jeral began to react, but the rifle butt came down on his head, dazing him and making him go limp. He couldn't move, and all he could hear was his baby girl screaming her head off as they moved down the corridor, for what seemed like forever, until they got to a small, dark room. He felt his hands being bound behind him, and then, as he slowly started to regain control, he could see that he was in what looked like an interrogation room meet his eyes. He couldn't see what was going on, as the room was dark and his vision was still clearing, but he could still here.

"Congratulations on the birth of your baby," a voice said. "She certainly is a beautiful baby."

"Go to Hell," Jeral spat.

The voice laughed, and then Jeral felt a fist come down and hit him in the cheek. "You're a very cheeky one, Lieutenant Krezek," the voice continued. "A family trait, no doubt. But we must get down to business. A most unpleasent kind, in light of the circumstances... but we must all do what we can." The voice was approaching him from behind, and he felt a hand grab his hair and yank his head back, and breathing in his ear. "I will make this simple," he whispered. "Tell me the command prefix code for the Highlander, and I won't harm your child."

Jeral's eyes went wide as he realized the full depth of the situation. "You wouldn't," he accused. "You're not that heartless."

"I would, and I will," the voice replied. "You don't even know who I am. Sure, your security reports might peg me as one thing, but I can assure you... I am that ruthless."

A light turned on, and there was little Miral Michelle, in a seat asleep. A neural stimulator was in front of her. "It's amazing what the brain can do, even on a newborn," the voice continued. "A stimuli here, a firing neuron there, and they can be something so advanced they can make even modern computer cores look to be... obsolete." The man behind the voice waled over to behind that little girl and touched a control, activating a biomonitor. "So young... and yet, the way she is right now, she's got nothing in her brain... can't have that, now, can we? The children are our future, after all." He touched a control on the device on her head, and the biomonitor changed ever so slightly. "I just sent a charge through her brain, which stopped all neurological function for a split second. Give me what I want, or I will increase it until your daughter's brain is depolarized."

Jeral just sat there, looking at his daughter. Tears started rolling down his cheek. "I don't know them," he said.

"You're lying," the voice said, and he touched the control again, causing the biomonitor to wink out for longer than before. "Oh, look... it actually caused brain death for a moment. I better not do this too much, or else it will kill her."

"I am telling the truth!" Jeral shouted, struggling against the restraints.

"Come now, Jeral, all Starfleet Chief Tactical Officers are required to know the command prefix of their own ships," the voice said. "The fact that you don't is a problem for your own job, is it not? So let's try this again." The hand hovered over the control again. "The command prefix code, please."

Jeral looked at his daughter, sleeping peacefully. He could see her chest rise and fall with the movement of air through her lungs. THe fact that she was still alive was good, but at what loss... "One five seven three two four nine eight five," he said after a long pause. "Just please... don't harm my daughter." Tears were streaming down his cheeks, and the fact that he was restrained was torture enough. He wanted to rip out the guts of the person doing this to his daughter.

The voice was silent for a moment, the hand still hovering over the device on Miral's head. Finally, he heard, "Good." The hand retreated, and Jeral breathed a sigh of relief. "We're transmitting that message to the Highlander now. Untie him, and let him be with his daughter."

The restraints loosened, and Jeral was led to the little girl at disruptor point, and he picked her up and hugged her close, careful to keep his back to the people holding him hostage and keeping his bulk in between them and the baby. Jeral didn't listen too closely, because he could have heard what was coming next.

He was spun around, and before he could react, there was a disruptor bolt, and he was flung to the ground by the force of the blast. He landed with a jolt, in pain. His right arm wasn't responding, and as he looked down, he saw a burn right where the child's makeshift wrappings were. His heart stopped as he reached over with his left arm and looked in the wrapping...

----------------------

"She was killed because someone changed a code on a ship," Jeral said simply, "as per Starfleet regulations. Not telling some people that were holding me hostage cost me my marriage, my sanity and nearly my life." The alcohol numbed the pain considerably. He touched his right shoulder with his left hand, which instinctively hurt, more psychologically than actual pain. "The birth today... it brought those memories up."

"Ya-har," M'karll replied, taking a long pull before continuing. "Soun's like we needa do a bit o' privateerin' an' get the dam'd scabb'rous bastards! Where be they makin' 'ome port?"

[Jeral Krezek]

[Random Corridor]

After receiving the death glare from all of the women in sickbay over his likely ill-timed comment, M'karll had beat a hasty retreat to his quarters to prepare himself for a celebratory holodeck trip over his new purchase. As he headed towards one of the Horizon's holodecks decked out in traditional Terran high seas pirate garb, complete with eye patch and a number of corked flasks of rum, he hummed a bawdy tune that it was unlikely anyone else knew the words to but him nearly being run over by a sobbing member of the Horizon's crew going in the opposite direction.

"Ya-har! Watch where ye be goin' ye scab'rous space dog," he growled a bit threateningly at the man, not recognizing immediately who it was. "Ye almos' made me spill me rum!"

Jeral Krezek looked up at the man, a little perplexed by the manner of his dress and said quietly, "Sorry, I'm just... a little shaken right now." He didn't know how else to put it or what to say about how he was behaving, nor did he expect to run into a Caitian dressed as a pirate, but it was enough to get him to stop.

"Ye be lookin' like a sailor withou' a boat," M'karll replied, thrusting the open flask of rum into Krezek's hands. "Take a drink me hearty!"

The trip to the alcohol in his quarters could wait, as he smelled the dark rum within the flask, taking a sip of the pungent liquid and feeling it burn his throat. It wasn't something he had had before, and it went down a lot better than he thought... and it was stronger. "Ack," Jeral said after te first swig, nearly spitting it out but keeping it in as it burned his throat. When he saw the Caitian's stare, he shrugged. "It was what I was headed towards, anyway, the five bottles of wine from my family that I had on board..." He paused for a moment, getting a good look at the person under the costume. "You're M'Karll, right?" he asked, almost rhetorically.

"Wine," the Caitian asked, his nose wrinkling slightly in disgust. "Ye never be puttin' hair on yer chest with wine," he cried as Jeral took a swig. It seemed he was not about to be reprimanded for snapping at a senior officer, so much the better. "Aye, I be the mos' dread pirate M'karll, at yer service," the pilot replied to the question, sketching a small bow.

"I'm supposed to arrest you," Jeral said in a matter-of-fact tone, remembering what had happened in the sickbay through a tear or two. "Something about some inappropriate comments to a senior officer in front of about a dozen witnesses, one of them happening to be me."

"Ye mus' be jokin' matey," M'karll said with an easy laugh, grabbing another flask of rum from his belt and uncorking it to take a big swig. "How's about we forgo the brig and do a spot o' drinkin'?"

Jeral considered the offer, then said, "I'm thinking we should do both. Let's do some drinking... in the brig. This way, both of us can't be thrown out of Starfleet for dereliction of duty, and I'm probably going to end up in the drunk tank by the time the night's over anyway. Let's just make the process more efficient."

M'karll considered this for a moment. He'd spent what he felt was more than his fair share of time in the brig for various small offenses, and he'd never been allowed to keep his rum before in the cell, which always made the time pass much more slowly. However, that unfortunate problem would not, by the security chief's own word, be afflicting him during this brig stay. "We have an accord," he declared, holding out the paw that was not clutching an open flask of rum for Krezek to shake.

Jeral shook the offered paw with his hand, and together they started to head towards the brig. "What were you headed to do, anyway?" Jeral asked with curiosity as to how the Caitian was dressed.

"Holodeck," M'karll grunted, taking another pull. "I s'pose ye be makin' me turn over me cutlass?"

Jeral just looked at M'karll and said, "That would be preferable. Weapons in the brig aren't exactly a good idea." Jeral also took another drink from the rum when offered, which was doing exactly what it was designed to do: getting his mind off of his problems. "Then again, neither is alcohol, but alcohol can't stab you."

"Yar, fair 'nuff," the Caitian replied. "I'll turn 'em in when we be makin' port."

The tears had started to dry up in his eyes, and the liquor was starting to relax him a little more as they made their way to the turbolift. "That's some good stuff... what was it again?"

"Ye mean ta be sayin' ye don' know what rum is," M'karll asked, flabbergasted that someone could possibly not know what rum was or just how wonderful it was to drink.

Jeral shook his head. "Can't say that I do," he replied. "My family is made up of a long line of wine makers, though, spanning back generations on Betazed. I grew up with wine, not much else, and I was never really a party person in the Academy." He sniffed the flask. "What's it made out of?"

"It be comin' from a Terran plant, cane o' sugar I think they calls it," M'karll replied, sliding into a turbolift with Jeral. "Take us ta the brig ye scabb'rous movin' box!" Obediently, the lift whisked off in the direction it had been told to go in.

"Sugar cane?" Jeral exclaimed. "No wonder my family hasn't adopted it... gotta send a note to cousin Pierce about this..." he trailed off again as he took another sip. "By the way, sorry for almost colliding with you in the corridor. I guess I'm not myself right now."

M'karll waved away the apology. "Yar, no worries thar matey... we not be spillin' the rum an' that be mos' import'int." As the lift came to a stop and the doors slid open M'karll stepped smoothly from the lift. Having visited the brig so many times before, he knew the way by heart. "In ta the teeth o' the cannons," he cried, heading for the entrance to the brig.

"I've never heard it referred to that way," Jeral commented. As they walked the short distance to the brig and in the door, Jeral asked, "Mind if I take the cutlass now?"

"Aye," M'karll replied, "An I 'spect ye be wantin' all o' it." He proceeded to unsheathe a cutlass and pass it to Jeral, then he unsheathed a second one and passed it over. "Aye, there be more!" Next he drew a quartet of black-powder pistols from various places on his person and handed them over one at a time. Then came long knives, one from each boot and a third from somewhere within the voluminous coat he was wearing, all of which he passed hilt first to Jeral one at a time. After passing over the knives the pilot stood there for a moment, a puzzled look on his face. "Know I be fer'gettin' summat," he muttered, then he snapped his fingers. "Right, now I 'member." M'karll slapped each arm to his side, hard, and a throwing knife slid from up the sleeves of the coat down into each of his paws. He passed these too over to Jeral. "Tha' be all o' it matey!"

"...you take your Holodeck excursions a little too seriously, M'karll," Jeral commented, handing the knives and ancient pistols over to the brig guard, then taking the Type 2 and backup Type 1, plus the boot knife he kept off and gave it over to the brig guard. "I want those back," he said to the brig guard, and then took his place inside the containment cell. "Raise the field," he ordered.

"Sir, you're in the brig," the brig guard said.

"Trust me, today, I am in here because it makes more sense to drink in here instead of getting drunk out there and then getting thrown in by my own security force," Jeral replied. "Raise the field."

"Aye, sir," the brig guard said with a puzzled look, raising the forcefield.

"Now," Jeral said. "Let's break into that rum."

"Ya-har, I be likin' the way ye theenk," M'karll cried, unstoppering a flagon of rum and taking a long pull before passing it to Jeral. "A night o' drunken revalrie fer we!"

"Good enough reason for me," Jeral replied, receiving the offered liquid, then raising it up. "To those lost, but never... forgotten..." He bit back a tear, then took another pull of the drink.

"Yar, spoken like a true shipmate," M'karll said, clapping the man on the back brusquely. "An' if we run out ye can send along the cabin boy ta fetch more rum!"

"Aye," Jeral said. He looked around. "You know, for some reason... this is comforting. Weird to say, isn't it? I was born in one of these, you know... a cell, during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor."

"Was ye now," M'karll asked, settling himself in on one of the bunks for a night in the brig.

Taking another drink, Jeral nodded. "My daughter was also born in one... fitting." He passed the bottle back to M'karll.

"Didn' know ye had a passle o' bilge rats," M'karll said, taking a slug from the flask and passing it back. "Never had any me self, yonder fair maiden in sickbay never seemed int'rest'd in me fer some reason."

"No," Jeral said. "I did have one child... and I had to deliver her." He took a swig of the flask, his gaze getting a little unfocused on where he was. "And she was taken away on that same day."

"An' why might tha' be," M'karll asked, beginning to slur his speech a little as he took another pull of rum.

"Well," Jeral replied...

--------------------

Jeral had just finished with the afterbirth when the door slid open and there was three disruptor rifles pointed at them. "Bring him and the baby," was all they heard.

"NO!" Sajida screamed, but all her protests were met with a butt of a disruptor rifle to her temple, knocking her out.

Jeral began to react, but the rifle butt came down on his head, dazing him and making him go limp. He couldn't move, and all he could hear was his baby girl screaming her head off as they moved down the corridor, for what seemed like forever, until they got to a small, dark room. He felt his hands being bound behind him, and then, as he slowly started to regain control, he could see that he was in what looked like an interrogation room meet his eyes. He couldn't see what was going on, as the room was dark and his vision was still clearing, but he could still here.

"Congratulations on the birth of your baby," a voice said. "She certainly is a beautiful baby."

"Go to Hell," Jeral spat.

The voice laughed, and then Jeral felt a fist come down and hit him in the cheek. "You're a very cheeky one, Lieutenant Krezek," the voice continued. "A family trait, no doubt. But we must get down to business. A most unpleasent kind, in light of the circumstances... but we must all do what we can." The voice was approaching him from behind, and he felt a hand grab his hair and yank his head back, and breathing in his ear. "I will make this simple," he whispered. "Tell me the command prefix code for the Highlander, and I won't harm your child."

Jeral's eyes went wide as he realized the full depth of the situation. "You wouldn't," he accused. "You're not that heartless."

"I would, and I will," the voice replied. "You don't even know who I am. Sure, your security reports might peg me as one thing, but I can assure you... I am that ruthless."

A light turned on, and there was little Miral Michelle, in a seat asleep. A neural stimulator was in front of her. "It's amazing what the brain can do, even on a newborn," the voice continued. "A stimuli here, a firing neuron there, and they can be something so advanced they can make even modern computer cores look to be... obsolete." The man behind the voice waled over to behind that little girl and touched a control, activating a biomonitor. "So young... and yet, the way she is right now, she's got nothing in her brain... can't have that, now, can we? The children are our future, after all." He touched a control on the device on her head, and the biomonitor changed ever so slightly. "I just sent a charge through her brain, which stopped all neurological function for a split second. Give me what I want, or I will increase it until your daughter's brain is depolarized."

Jeral just sat there, looking at his daughter. Tears started rolling down his cheek. "I don't know them," he said.

"You're lying," the voice said, and he touched the control again, causing the biomonitor to wink out for longer than before. "Oh, look... it actually caused brain death for a moment. I better not do this too much, or else it will kill her."

"I am telling the truth!" Jeral shouted, struggling against the restraints.

"Come now, Jeral, all Starfleet Chief Tactical Officers are required to know the command prefix of their own ships," the voice said. "The fact that you don't is a problem for your own job, is it not? So let's try this again." The hand hovered over the control again. "The command prefix code, please."

Jeral looked at his daughter, sleeping peacefully. He could see her chest rise and fall with the movement of air through her lungs. THe fact that she was still alive was good, but at what loss... "One five seven three two four nine eight five," he said after a long pause. "Just please... don't harm my daughter." Tears were streaming down his cheeks, and the fact that he was restrained was torture enough. He wanted to rip out the guts of the person doing this to his daughter.

The voice was silent for a moment, the hand still hovering over the device on Miral's head. Finally, he heard, "Good." The hand retreated, and Jeral breathed a sigh of relief. "We're transmitting that message to the Highlander now. Untie him, and let him be with his daughter."

The restraints loosened, and Jeral was led to the little girl at disruptor point, and he picked her up and hugged her close, careful to keep his back to the people holding him hostage and keeping his bulk in between them and the baby. Jeral didn't listen too closely, because he could have heard what was coming next.

He was spun around, and before he could react, there was a disruptor bolt, and he was flung to the ground by the force of the blast. He landed with a jolt, in pain. His right arm wasn't responding, and as he looked down, he saw a burn right where the child's makeshift wrappings were. His heart stopped as he reached over with his left arm and looked in the wrapping...

----------------------

"She was killed because someone changed a code on a ship," Jeral said simply, "as per Starfleet regulations. Not telling some people that were holding me hostage cost me my marriage, my sanity and nearly my life." The alcohol numbed the pain considerably. He touched his right shoulder with his left hand, which instinctively hurt, more psychologically than actual pain. "The birth today... it brought those memories up."

"Ya-har," M'karll replied, taking a long pull before continuing. "Soun's like we needa do a bit o' privateerin' an' get the dam'd scabb'rous bastards! Where be they makin' 'ome port?"

"I never found out," Jeral said. "And every lead I've ever turned up has turned out to be a dead end. But... I never forgot the voice."

[M'karll]

[Random Corridor]

After receiving the death glare from all of the women in sickbay over his likely ill-timed comment, M'karll had beat a hasty retreat to his quarters to prepare himself for a celebratory holodeck trip over his new purchase. As he headed towards one of the Horizon's holodecks decked out in traditional Terran high seas pirate garb, complete with eye patch and a number of corked flasks of rum, he hummed a bawdy tune that it was unlikely anyone else knew the words to but him nearly being run over by a sobbing member of the Horizon's crew going in the opposite direction.

"Ya-har! Watch where ye be goin' ye scab'rous space dog," he growled a bit threateningly at the man, not recognizing immediately who it was. "Ye almos' made me spill me rum!"

Jeral Krezek looked up at the man, a little perplexed by the manner of his dress and said quietly, "Sorry, I'm just... a little shaken right now." He didn't know how else to put it or what to say about how he was behaving, nor did he expect to run into a Caitian dressed as a pirate, but it was enough to get him to stop.

"Ye be lookin' like a sailor withou' a boat," M'karll replied, thrusting the open flask of rum into Krezek's hands. "Take a drink me hearty!"

The trip to the alcohol in his quarters could wait, as he smelled the dark rum within the flask, taking a sip of the pungent liquid and feeling it burn his throat. It wasn't something he had had before, and it went down a lot better than he thought... and it was stronger. "Ack," Jeral said after te first swig, nearly spitting it out but keeping it in as it burned his throat. When he saw the Caitian's stare, he shrugged. "It was what I was headed towards, anyway, the five bottles of wine from my family that I had on board..." He paused for a moment, getting a good look at the person under the costume. "You're M'Karll, right?" he asked, almost rhetorically.

"Wine," the Caitian asked, his nose wrinkling slightly in disgust. "Ye never be puttin' hair on yer chest with wine," he cried as Jeral took a swig. It seemed he was not about to be reprimanded for snapping at a senior officer, so much the better. "Aye, I be the mos' dread pirate M'karll, at yer service," the pilot replied to the question, sketching a small bow.

"I'm supposed to arrest you," Jeral said in a matter-of-fact tone, remembering what had happened in the sickbay through a tear or two. "Something about some inappropriate comments to a senior officer in front of about a dozen witnesses, one of them happening to be me."

"Ye mus' be jokin' matey," M'karll said with an easy laugh, grabbing another flask of rum from his belt and uncorking it to take a big swig. "How's about we forgo the brig and do a spot o' drinkin'?"

Jeral considered the offer, then said, "I'm thinking we should do both. Let's do some drinking... in the brig. This way, both of us can't be thrown out of Starfleet for dereliction of duty, and I'm probably going to end up in the drunk tank by the time the night's over anyway. Let's just make the process more efficient."

M'karll considered this for a moment. He'd spent what he felt was more than his fair share of time in the brig for various small offenses, and he'd never been allowed to keep his rum before in the cell, which always made the time pass much more slowly. However, that unfortunate problem would not, by the security chief's own word, be afflicting him during this brig stay. "We have an accord," he declared, holding out the paw that was not clutching an open flask of rum for Krezek to shake.

Jeral shook the offered paw with his hand, and together they started to head towards the brig. "What were you headed to do, anyway?" Jeral asked with curiosity as to how the Caitian was dressed.

"Holodeck," M'karll grunted, taking another pull. "I s'pose ye be makin' me turn over me cutlass?"

Jeral just looked at M'karll and said, "That would be preferable. Weapons in the brig aren't exactly a good idea." Jeral also took another drink from the rum when offered, which was doing exactly what it was designed to do: getting his mind off of his problems. "Then again, neither is alcohol, but alcohol can't stab you."

"Yar, fair 'nuff," the Caitian replied. "I'll turn 'em in when we be makin' port."

The tears had started to dry up in his eyes, and the liquor was starting to relax him a little more as they made their way to the turbolift. "That's some good stuff... what was it again?"

"Ye mean ta be sayin' ye don' know what rum is," M'karll asked, flabbergasted that someone could possibly not know what rum was or just how wonderful it was to drink.

Jeral shook his head. "Can't say that I do," he replied. "My family is made up of a long line of wine makers, though, spanning back generations on Betazed. I grew up with wine, not much else, and I was never really a party person in the Academy." He sniffed the flask. "What's it made out of?"

"It be comin' from a Terran plant, cane o' sugar I think they calls it," M'karll replied, sliding into a turbolift with Jeral. "Take us ta the brig ye scabb'rous movin' box!" Obediently, the lift whisked off in the direction it had been told to go in.

"Sugar cane?" Jeral exclaimed. "No wonder my family hasn't adopted it... gotta send a note to cousin Pierce about this..." he trailed off again as he took another sip. "By the way, sorry for almost colliding with you in the corridor. I guess I'm not myself right now."

M'karll waved away the apology. "Yar, no worries thar matey... we not be spillin' the rum an' that be mos' import'int." As the lift came to a stop and the doors slid open M'karll stepped smoothly from the lift. Having visited the brig so many times before, he knew the way by heart. "In ta the teeth o' the cannons," he cried, heading for the entrance to the brig.

"I've never heard it referred to that way," Jeral commented. As they walked the short distance to the brig and in the door, Jeral asked, "Mind if I take the cutlass now?"

"Aye," M'karll replied, "An I 'spect ye be wantin' all o' it." He proceeded to unsheathe a cutlass and pass it to Jeral, then he unsheathed a second one and passed it over. "Aye, there be more!" Next he drew a quartet of black-powder pistols from various places on his person and handed them over one at a time. Then came long knives, one from each boot and a third from somewhere within the voluminous coat he was wearing, all of which he passed hilt first to Jeral one at a time. After passing over the knives the pilot stood there for a moment, a puzzled look on his face. "Know I be fer'gettin' summat," he muttered, then he snapped his fingers. "Right, now I 'member." M'karll slapped each arm to his side, hard, and a throwing knife slid from up the sleeves of the coat down into each of his paws. He passed these too over to Jeral. "Tha' be all o' it matey!"

"...you take your Holodeck excursions a little too seriously, M'karll," Jeral commented, handing the knives and ancient pistols over to the brig guard, then taking the Type 2 and backup Type 1, plus the boot knife he kept off and gave it over to the brig guard. "I want those back," he said to the brig guard, and then took his place inside the containment cell. "Raise the field," he ordered.

"Sir, you're in the brig," the brig guard said.

"Trust me, today, I am in here because it makes more sense to drink in here instead of getting drunk out there and then getting thrown in by my own security force," Jeral replied. "Raise the field."

"Aye, sir," the brig guard said with a puzzled look, raising the forcefield.

"Now," Jeral said. "Let's break into that rum."

"Ya-har, I be likin' the way ye theenk," M'karll cried, unstoppering a flagon of rum and taking a long pull before passing it to Jeral. "A night o' drunken revalrie fer we!"

"Good enough reason for me," Jeral replied, receiving the offered liquid, then raising it up. "To those lost, but never... forgotten..." He bit back a tear, then took another pull of the drink.

"Yar, spoken like a true shipmate," M'karll said, clapping the man on the back brusquely. "An' if we run out ye can send along the cabin boy ta fetch more rum!"

"Aye," Jeral said. He looked around. "You know, for some reason... this is comforting. Weird to say, isn't it? I was born in one of these, you know... a cell, during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor."

"Was ye now," M'karll asked, settling himself in on one of the bunks for a night in the brig.

Taking another drink, Jeral nodded. "My daughter was also born in one... fitting." He passed the bottle back to M'karll.

"Didn' know ye had a passle o' bilge rats," M'karll said, taking a slug from the flask and passing it back. "Never had any me self, yonder fair maiden in sickbay never seemed int'rest'd in me fer some reason."

"No," Jeral said. "I did have one child... and I had to deliver her." He took a swig of the flask, his gaze getting a little unfocused on where he was. "And she was taken away on that same day."

"An' why might tha' be," M'karll asked, beginning to slur his speech a little as he took another pull of rum.

"Well," Jeral replied...

--------------------

Jeral had just finished with the afterbirth when the door slid open and there was three disruptor rifles pointed at them. "Bring him and the baby," was all they heard.

"NO!" Sajida screamed, but all her protests were met with a butt of a disruptor rifle to her temple, knocking her out.

Jeral began to react, but the rifle butt came down on his head, dazing him and making him go limp. He couldn't move, and all he could hear was his baby girl screaming her head off as they moved down the corridor, for what seemed like forever, until they got to a small, dark room. He felt his hands being bound behind him, and then, as he slowly started to regain control, he could see that he was in what looked like an interrogation room meet his eyes. He couldn't see what was going on, as the room was dark and his vision was still clearing, but he could still here.

"Congratulations on the birth of your baby," a voice said. "She certainly is a beautiful baby."

"Go to Hell," Jeral spat.

The voice laughed, and then Jeral felt a fist come down and hit him in the cheek. "You're a very cheeky one, Lieutenant Krezek," the voice continued. "A family trait, no doubt. But we must get down to business. A most unpleasent kind, in light of the circumstances... but we must all do what we can." The voice was approaching him from behind, and he felt a hand grab his hair and yank his head back, and breathing in his ear. "I will make this simple," he whispered. "Tell me the command prefix code for the Highlander, and I won't harm your child."

Jeral's eyes went wide as he realized the full depth of the situation. "You wouldn't," he accused. "You're not that heartless."

"I would, and I will," the voice replied. "You don't even know who I am. Sure, your security reports might peg me as one thing, but I can assure you... I am that ruthless."

A light turned on, and there was little Miral Michelle, in a seat asleep. A neural stimulator was in front of her. "It's amazing what the brain can do, even on a newborn," the voice continued. "A stimuli here, a firing neuron there, and they can be something so advanced they can make even modern computer cores look to be... obsolete." The man behind the voice waled over to behind that little girl and touched a control, activating a biomonitor. "So young... and yet, the way she is right now, she's got nothing in her brain... can't have that, now, can we? The children are our future, after all." He touched a control on the device on her head, and the biomonitor changed ever so slightly. "I just sent a charge through her brain, which stopped all neurological function for a split second. Give me what I want, or I will increase it until your daughter's brain is depolarized."

Jeral just sat there, looking at his daughter. Tears started rolling down his cheek. "I don't know them," he said.

"You're lying," the voice said, and he touched the control again, causing the biomonitor to wink out for longer than before. "Oh, look... it actually caused brain death for a moment. I better not do this too much, or else it will kill her."

"I am telling the truth!" Jeral shouted, struggling against the restraints.

"Come now, Jeral, all Starfleet Chief Tactical Officers are required to know the command prefix of their own ships," the voice said. "The fact that you don't is a problem for your own job, is it not? So let's try this again." The hand hovered over the control again. "The command prefix code, please."

Jeral looked at his daughter, sleeping peacefully. He could see her chest rise and fall with the movement of air through her lungs. THe fact that she was still alive was good, but at what loss... "One five seven three two four nine eight five," he said after a long pause. "Just please... don't harm my daughter." Tears were streaming down his cheeks, and the fact that he was restrained was torture enough. He wanted to rip out the guts of the person doing this to his daughter.

The voice was silent for a moment, the hand still hovering over the device on Miral's head. Finally, he heard, "Good." The hand retreated, and Jeral breathed a sigh of relief. "We're transmitting that message to the Highlander now. Untie him, and let him be with his daughter."

The restraints loosened, and Jeral was led to the little girl at disruptor point, and he picked her up and hugged her close, careful to keep his back to the people holding him hostage and keeping his bulk in between them and the baby. Jeral didn't listen too closely, because he could have heard what was coming next.

He was spun around, and before he could react, there was a disruptor bolt, and he was flung to the ground by the force of the blast. He landed with a jolt, in pain. His right arm wasn't responding, and as he looked down, he saw a burn right where the child's makeshift wrappings were. His heart stopped as he reached over with his left arm and looked in the wrapping...

----------------------

"She was killed because someone changed a code on a ship," Jeral said simply, "as per Starfleet regulations. Not telling some people that were holding me hostage cost me my marriage, my sanity and nearly my life." The alcohol numbed the pain considerably. He touched his right shoulder with his left hand, which instinctively hurt, more psychologically than actual pain. "The birth today... it brought those memories up."

"Ya-har," M'karll replied, taking a long pull before continuing. "Soun's like we needa do a bit o' privateerin' an' get the dam'd scabb'rous bastards! Where be they makin' 'ome port?"

"I never found out," Jeral said. "And every lead I've ever turned up has turned out to be a dead end. But... I never forgot the voice."

Unsure as to what to say to this, M'karll passed the rum to Jeral. "Yar... drink up, matey."

[Jeral Krezek]

[Random Corridor]

After receiving the death glare from all of the women in sickbay over his likely ill-timed comment, M'karll had beat a hasty retreat to his quarters to prepare himself for a celebratory holodeck trip over his new purchase. As he headed towards one of the Horizon's holodecks decked out in traditional Terran high seas pirate garb, complete with eye patch and a number of corked flasks of rum, he hummed a bawdy tune that it was unlikely anyone else knew the words to but him nearly being run over by a sobbing member of the Horizon's crew going in the opposite direction.

"Ya-har! Watch where ye be goin' ye scab'rous space dog," he growled a bit threateningly at the man, not recognizing immediately who it was. "Ye almos' made me spill me rum!"

Jeral Krezek looked up at the man, a little perplexed by the manner of his dress and said quietly, "Sorry, I'm just... a little shaken right now." He didn't know how else to put it or what to say about how he was behaving, nor did he expect to run into a Caitian dressed as a pirate, but it was enough to get him to stop.

"Ye be lookin' like a sailor withou' a boat," M'karll replied, thrusting the open flask of rum into Krezek's hands. "Take a drink me hearty!"

The trip to the alcohol in his quarters could wait, as he smelled the dark rum within the flask, taking a sip of the pungent liquid and feeling it burn his throat. It wasn't something he had had before, and it went down a lot better than he thought... and it was stronger. "Ack," Jeral said after te first swig, nearly spitting it out but keeping it in as it burned his throat. When he saw the Caitian's stare, he shrugged. "It was what I was headed towards, anyway, the five bottles of wine from my family that I had on board..." He paused for a moment, getting a good look at the person under the costume. "You're M'Karll, right?" he asked, almost rhetorically.

"Wine," the Caitian asked, his nose wrinkling slightly in disgust. "Ye never be puttin' hair on yer chest with wine," he cried as Jeral took a swig. It seemed he was not about to be reprimanded for snapping at a senior officer, so much the better. "Aye, I be the mos' dread pirate M'karll, at yer service," the pilot replied to the question, sketching a small bow.

"I'm supposed to arrest you," Jeral said in a matter-of-fact tone, remembering what had happened in the sickbay through a tear or two. "Something about some inappropriate comments to a senior officer in front of about a dozen witnesses, one of them happening to be me."

"Ye mus' be jokin' matey," M'karll said with an easy laugh, grabbing another flask of rum from his belt and uncorking it to take a big swig. "How's about we forgo the brig and do a spot o' drinkin'?"

Jeral considered the offer, then said, "I'm thinking we should do both. Let's do some drinking... in the brig. This way, both of us can't be thrown out of Starfleet for dereliction of duty, and I'm probably going to end up in the drunk tank by the time the night's over anyway. Let's just make the process more efficient."

M'karll considered this for a moment. He'd spent what he felt was more than his fair share of time in the brig for various small offenses, and he'd never been allowed to keep his rum before in the cell, which always made the time pass much more slowly. However, that unfortunate problem would not, by the security chief's own word, be afflicting him during this brig stay. "We have an accord," he declared, holding out the paw that was not clutching an open flask of rum for Krezek to shake.

Jeral shook the offered paw with his hand, and together they started to head towards the brig. "What were you headed to do, anyway?" Jeral asked with curiosity as to how the Caitian was dressed.

"Holodeck," M'karll grunted, taking another pull. "I s'pose ye be makin' me turn over me cutlass?"

Jeral just looked at M'karll and said, "That would be preferable. Weapons in the brig aren't exactly a good idea." Jeral also took another drink from the rum when offered, which was doing exactly what it was designed to do: getting his mind off of his problems. "Then again, neither is alcohol, but alcohol can't stab you."

"Yar, fair 'nuff," the Caitian replied. "I'll turn 'em in when we be makin' port."

The tears had started to dry up in his eyes, and the liquor was starting to relax him a little more as they made their way to the turbolift. "That's some good stuff... what was it again?"

"Ye mean ta be sayin' ye don' know what rum is," M'karll asked, flabbergasted that someone could possibly not know what rum was or just how wonderful it was to drink.

Jeral shook his head. "Can't say that I do," he replied. "My family is made up of a long line of wine makers, though, spanning back generations on Betazed. I grew up with wine, not much else, and I was never really a party person in the Academy." He sniffed the flask. "What's it made out of?"

"It be comin' from a Terran plant, cane o' sugar I think they calls it," M'karll replied, sliding into a turbolift with Jeral. "Take us ta the brig ye scabb'rous movin' box!" Obediently, the lift whisked off in the direction it had been told to go in.

"Sugar cane?" Jeral exclaimed. "No wonder my family hasn't adopted it... gotta send a note to cousin Pierce about this..." he trailed off again as he took another sip. "By the way, sorry for almost colliding with you in the corridor. I guess I'm not myself right now."

M'karll waved away the apology. "Yar, no worries thar matey... we not be spillin' the rum an' that be mos' import'int." As the lift came to a stop and the doors slid open M'karll stepped smoothly from the lift. Having visited the brig so many times before, he knew the way by heart. "In ta the teeth o' the cannons," he cried, heading for the entrance to the brig.

"I've never heard it referred to that way," Jeral commented. As they walked the short distance to the brig and in the door, Jeral asked, "Mind if I take the cutlass now?"

"Aye," M'karll replied, "An I 'spect ye be wantin' all o' it." He proceeded to unsheathe a cutlass and pass it to Jeral, then he unsheathed a second one and passed it over. "Aye, there be more!" Next he drew a quartet of black-powder pistols from various places on his person and handed them over one at a time. Then came long knives, one from each boot and a third from somewhere within the voluminous coat he was wearing, all of which he passed hilt first to Jeral one at a time. After passing over the knives the pilot stood there for a moment, a puzzled look on his face. "Know I be fer'gettin' summat," he muttered, then he snapped his fingers. "Right, now I 'member." M'karll slapped each arm to his side, hard, and a throwing knife slid from up the sleeves of the coat down into each of his paws. He passed these too over to Jeral. "Tha' be all o' it matey!"

"...you take your Holodeck excursions a little too seriously, M'karll," Jeral commented, handing the knives and ancient pistols over to the brig guard, then taking the Type 2 and backup Type 1, plus the boot knife he kept off and gave it over to the brig guard. "I want those back," he said to the brig guard, and then took his place inside the containment cell. "Raise the field," he ordered.

"Sir, you're in the brig," the brig guard said.

"Trust me, today, I am in here because it makes more sense to drink in here instead of getting drunk out there and then getting thrown in by my own security force," Jeral replied. "Raise the field."

"Aye, sir," the brig guard said with a puzzled look, raising the forcefield.

"Now," Jeral said. "Let's break into that rum."

"Ya-har, I be likin' the way ye theenk," M'karll cried, unstoppering a flagon of rum and taking a long pull before passing it to Jeral. "A night o' drunken revalrie fer we!"

"Good enough reason for me," Jeral replied, receiving the offered liquid, then raising it up. "To those lost, but never... forgotten..." He bit back a tear, then took another pull of the drink.

"Yar, spoken like a true shipmate," M'karll said, clapping the man on the back brusquely. "An' if we run out ye can send along the cabin boy ta fetch more rum!"

"Aye," Jeral said. He looked around. "You know, for some reason... this is comforting. Weird to say, isn't it? I was born in one of these, you know... a cell, during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor."

"Was ye now," M'karll asked, settling himself in on one of the bunks for a night in the brig.

Taking another drink, Jeral nodded. "My daughter was also born in one... fitting." He passed the bottle back to M'karll.

"Didn' know ye had a passle o' bilge rats," M'karll said, taking a slug from the flask and passing it back. "Never had any me self, yonder fair maiden in sickbay never seemed int'rest'd in me fer some reason."

"No," Jeral said. "I did have one child... and I had to deliver her." He took a swig of the flask, his gaze getting a little unfocused on where he was. "And she was taken away on that same day."

"An' why might tha' be," M'karll asked, beginning to slur his speech a little as he took another pull of rum.

"Well," Jeral replied...

--------------------

Jeral had just finished with the afterbirth when the door slid open and there was three disruptor rifles pointed at them. "Bring him and the baby," was all they heard.

"NO!" Sajida screamed, but all her protests were met with a butt of a disruptor rifle to her temple, knocking her out.

Jeral began to react, but the rifle butt came down on his head, dazing him and making him go limp. He couldn't move, and all he could hear was his baby girl screaming her head off as they moved down the corridor, for what seemed like forever, until they got to a small, dark room. He felt his hands being bound behind him, and then, as he slowly started to regain control, he could see that he was in what looked like an interrogation room meet his eyes. He couldn't see what was going on, as the room was dark and his vision was still clearing, but he could still here.

"Congratulations on the birth of your baby," a voice said. "She certainly is a beautiful baby."

"Go to Hell," Jeral spat.

The voice laughed, and then Jeral felt a fist come down and hit him in the cheek. "You're a very cheeky one, Lieutenant Krezek," the voice continued. "A family trait, no doubt. But we must get down to business. A most unpleasent kind, in light of the circumstances... but we must all do what we can." The voice was approaching him from behind, and he felt a hand grab his hair and yank his head back, and breathing in his ear. "I will make this simple," he whispered. "Tell me the command prefix code for the Highlander, and I won't harm your child."

Jeral's eyes went wide as he realized the full depth of the situation. "You wouldn't," he accused. "You're not that heartless."

"I would, and I will," the voice replied. "You don't even know who I am. Sure, your security reports might peg me as one thing, but I can assure you... I am that ruthless."

A light turned on, and there was little Miral Michelle, in a seat asleep. A neural stimulator was in front of her. "It's amazing what the brain can do, even on a newborn," the voice continued. "A stimuli here, a firing neuron there, and they can be something so advanced they can make even modern computer cores look to be... obsolete." The man behind the voice waled over to behind that little girl and touched a control, activating a biomonitor. "So young... and yet, the way she is right now, she's got nothing in her brain... can't have that, now, can we? The children are our future, after all." He touched a control on the device on her head, and the biomonitor changed ever so slightly. "I just sent a charge through her brain, which stopped all neurological function for a split second. Give me what I want, or I will increase it until your daughter's brain is depolarized."

Jeral just sat there, looking at his daughter. Tears started rolling down his cheek. "I don't know them," he said.

"You're lying," the voice said, and he touched the control again, causing the biomonitor to wink out for longer than before. "Oh, look... it actually caused brain death for a moment. I better not do this too much, or else it will kill her."

"I am telling the truth!" Jeral shouted, struggling against the restraints.

"Come now, Jeral, all Starfleet Chief Tactical Officers are required to know the command prefix of their own ships," the voice said. "The fact that you don't is a problem for your own job, is it not? So let's try this again." The hand hovered over the control again. "The command prefix code, please."

Jeral looked at his daughter, sleeping peacefully. He could see her chest rise and fall with the movement of air through her lungs. THe fact that she was still alive was good, but at what loss... "One five seven three two four nine eight five," he said after a long pause. "Just please... don't harm my daughter." Tears were streaming down his cheeks, and the fact that he was restrained was torture enough. He wanted to rip out the guts of the person doing this to his daughter.

The voice was silent for a moment, the hand still hovering over the device on Miral's head. Finally, he heard, "Good." The hand retreated, and Jeral breathed a sigh of relief. "We're transmitting that message to the Highlander now. Untie him, and let him be with his daughter."

The restraints loosened, and Jeral was led to the little girl at disruptor point, and he picked her up and hugged her close, careful to keep his back to the people holding him hostage and keeping his bulk in between them and the baby. Jeral didn't listen too closely, because he could have heard what was coming next.

He was spun around, and before he could react, there was a disruptor bolt, and he was flung to the ground by the force of the blast. He landed with a jolt, in pain. His right arm wasn't responding, and as he looked down, he saw a burn right where the child's makeshift wrappings were. His heart stopped as he reached over with his left arm and looked in the wrapping...

----------------------

"She was killed because someone changed a code on a ship," Jeral said simply, "as per Starfleet regulations. Not telling some people that were holding me hostage cost me my marriage, my sanity and nearly my life." The alcohol numbed the pain considerably. He touched his right shoulder with his left hand, which instinctively hurt, more psychologically than actual pain. "The birth today... it brought those memories up."

"Ya-har," M'karll replied, taking a long pull before continuing. "Soun's like we needa do a bit o' privateerin' an' get the dam'd scabb'rous bastards! Where be they makin' 'ome port?"

"I never found out," Jeral said. "And every lead I've ever turned up has turned out to be a dead end. But... I never forgot the voice."

Unsure as to what to say to this, M'karll passed the rum to Jeral. "Yar... drink up, matey."

"To vendettas," Jeral said, accepting the bottle and raising it before taking a large swig. After swallowing, he said, "May they not be the death of anyone."

[Jeral Krezek]

(I think we can post this now... )

[M'karll]

Agree to this proposal I do.