Blood Brothers

Posted on Mon Nov 20th, 2023 @ 8:40am by Lieutenant Commander Lyra Cassiel & Lieutenant Commander Andrei Petrov

Mission: S1 Episode 6: Joy and Ashes
Location: XO's Quarters
Timeline: Date 2371-09-06 at 2230
2699 words - 5.4 OF Standard Post Measure

ON



It was 22:30 hours and Andrei was tucked cozily into bed next to Lyra. They’d gone to bed under an hour before and had drifted off to dreamland just a few minutes after that. He was warm in a gray linen shirt with a neck that plunged to the middle of his stomach, showing a view of his toned pecs and abs beneath it. His hair was tied back in a ponytail and he wore a necklace with a silver-plated bear claw on its end. He draped his strong arm over hers and wriggled his middle closer to her own. Outside the window, the holographic view of the night-time Moscow skyline transported them to a different place.

Lyra had been pleased when Andrei had opted to keep the “alterations” she had made to his room for his birthday. They weren’t constantly on, but he seemed to enjoy activating them more often than not over the past few days. It certainly had more interest than stars streaking by. When he wriggled, she shifted and let out a sighing breath. She cuddled closer to him, but remained asleep.

The comms chimed then, and Ivan Petrov's voice filled his son's quarters.

“All senior staff, this is the Captain speaking. Report to the Bridge. We’ve got something up here I think you’ll want to see.”

Lyra was roused, but her fingers tightened around Andrei’s arm possessively and her eyes remained closed.

Andrei stirred at the call and his eyes opened immediately. Like a robot, he sat straight up in bed, resting his hand on Lyra’s behind.

“Fuck…” he groaned, but shifted and stood up right away, giving a slight stretch before moving to the closet. “Sleep isn’t on the menu, it seems.”

Lyra’s hand grabbed for him - though not seriously - as he departed the bed and she managed to get a pinch on his rear end before he was out of her reach. She lay there abandoned, and with a great sigh she sat up though remained where she was. Her hair was tousled and her expression was dejected.

“Fucking Brasken keeps pushing off clearing me for duty to do whatever he was doing with Nyseth.”

“I noticed that particular paperwork was taking a while to cross my desk.” Andrei said as he stripped off his night clothes. “If you want, you can come along as my plus one’. You aren’t banned from the Bridge after all. Or you could sleep.”

“You know your father doesn’t really like extraneous people on the bridge.” Lyra began to stretch where she sat. Suddenly, the ship bucked violently, and she was thrown from the bed. She managed to land in a way that only moderately hurt, but nothing was severely injured. She looked up at Andrei as she started to get up.

“Go. I’ll be right behind you.”

He moved straight to her, ignoring her entreaty for him to leave, and quickly and carefully pulled her onto her feet. He scanned her with his patch, which he had just put on, and released her when he saw that she was uninjured.

“No, we’ll go together. Get in uniform.” He said, pulling his red uniform tunic over his head and reaching for his jacket.

Lyra didn’t protest and moved to “her” closet and hastily stripped out of her tank top and began to pull on the layers of clothes. The ship shook violently again, but this time they maintained their footing given they were prepared. “Computer, return window visuals to standard.”

The image of Moscow and the night sky disappeared and was replaced by the view of a large nebula and streaking weapons fire all heading toward the Vengeance, the Shadow Fleet and…

“Andrei, look.” She drew his attention to the window projection as a small but very Terran looking ship came coasting by.

“Sabre class!” He said with excitement, moving toward the window and watching the ship sail by as it flashed back its weapons at the nebula. “The ISS Gladius. I can’t believe she’s actually here..”

While Lyra was also thrilled by the appearance of the Gladius, her eyes were drawn to the nebula and the weapons fire coming from it. They narrowed immediately.

“Kazon!” She practically snarled out and violently pulled on her jacket.

“And Vidian, I think.” Andrei said after her. He pulled his boots on and then attached his accessories: the sword and dagger hilts Lyra made for him and a phaser. “I’m ready; let’s go.”

He turned and walked to the door, reaching up and pulling the tie out of his ponytail as he moved. They exited into the livingroom and then made their way into the hallway. A male crewman smashed into him and fell back immediately as if he had hit a brick wall. Muttering his apologies, he stood up and continued quickly on his way. Andrei and Lyra made their way to the nearest turbolift together.

As they rounded the corner, they saw that their way was particularly blocked before them as a bunch of rubble and pieces of ceiling had fallen down in one of the blasts. With the hustle and panic around them, having resulted in everyone else clearing the deck. The pile jostled and the two of them saw the hint of a dusty uniform.

“Someone’s under there.” Andrei said in characteristic calm. Then he moved forward and started moving debris. “Give me a hand here. We might be able to get them to sickbay in time.”

Lyra considered reminding him that he really needed to go to the bridge, but she knew it would do nothing in the end. Instead she simply complied with Andrei’s prompt and began to pull debris away from the other side. She was the first to pull a piece of bulkhead away, revealing the officer buried underneath.

“Ah hells, Johnathan.” She cursed with impatience. It was met with a pained groan.

“Good gods.” Andrei said, looking down at the man. He was dazed but still very-much alive. Andrei paused in his effort to help the man when he saw who he was. “Johnathan Anderson, what the hell happened to you?”

“Help… Andrei…” Came the muffled, weak voice from within the debris.

Lyra did notice that Andrei had stopped helping, but didn’t think too much of it in the moment given her focus was freeing Johnathan from under the rubble so that they could get to the bridge if nothing else. The ship rocked hard again, and Lyra cursed softly under her breath.

“We are blood brothers after all,” Andrei said with a sigh and a grin. He moved a chunk of metal which rested on the man’s shoulder, but released it again, causing it to fall back into place. “You know, because you’re fucking my father’s biggest mistake. How is it by the way?”

When Andrei let the debris fall back onto Johnathan, she looked at her lover with confusion in her eyes but also stopped trying to free the young man from his trap. He had given no reply but a pained sound when the weight hit him again followed by another groan.

“Tell me, brother. Do you remember a day shortly after we arrived in the Delta Quadrant, after I bent a certain emotionally fragile half-blood Ensign over a desk, resulting in a quite-hilarious pregnancy scare? The silly girl didn’t take the necessary precautions before apparently sleeping with half the ship. I laughed, of course, and you punched me in my nose.”

Andrei knelt down now, the dust from the debris gathering on his boots.

“That knife in the back and everything that followed…that was me.” He said with a sigh. “You were part of bigger plans, but it was so good to see you bleed.”

There were sounds of Johnathan struggling and shifting, trying to free himself from the pile.

“Lyra… help!” He beseeched her.

Lyra remained standing where she was, listening to Andrei speak his secrets and confirm a suspicion she had long held about the incident but hadn’t cared to dig. When he turned to seek her help, her brows lifted slightly. Her only answer was to reach out and delicately place her hand on Andrei’s shoulder.

Andrei picked up a large piece of metal which was heavy in his hand. Looking down at Johnathan, he smiled a satisfied smile unlined with discomfort or hesitation. He was a cold killer, and he knew it.

“Fuck the Kazon, right?” He asked, and threw the large metal fixture down directly on the helmsman’s head. The sound of cracking skull and squishing was unmistakable. Andrei turned to Lyra and shrugged. “According to him, he was the only man who could fly this bird. I guess we're doomed.”

For a moment, the typical joy that Lyra displayed in cold hearted murder wasn’t there. Instead, she seemed momentarily conflicted. She had no problem ending their lessers - including any individual with even remotely diluted Terran blood - but Johnathan was a full blooded Terran where Terrans were a rarity.

He had, however, made the astoundingly poor choice to act against Andrei, and that couldn’t abide.

She smiled then and shook her head. Neither of them seemed to be inclined to rush even though they were obviously under attack. Her lips parted to speak, but no words passed them and instead her head shifted quickly and without explanation she took off running down the corridor. Only a few seconds passed and then Andrei would hear a woman scream. The voice was familiar, but it also wasn’t Lyra.

Several beats filled with only the shuddering of the ship and the sound of weapons fire elapsed, and then Lyra appeared again with a firm hold on a struggling blonde woman in front of her.

“Look who I found watching us, darling.” Now Lyra’s dark eyes were alive and a cruel smile played on her gorgeous lips.

“Oh. We had Eritrea the temptress, and now we have Eritrea the spy.” Andrei said under his breath, stepping carelessly over Johnathan’s lifeless body.

“I didn’t see anything, I swear!” She said, her hands scrambling to move Lyra’s fingers from her hair. “I know how to keep my mouth shut.”

“Not in my experience.” Andrei said with a frown.

Lyra kept Eritrea in hold with ease. The girl had the “confidence” of an eighteen year old… which was another way to say the stupidity of one who thought they could conquer any challenge and knew everything there was. She had believed herself to be scrappy, but in the end she was weak and ineffectual, only good for what was between her legs.

Though she wasn’t good for that either in Lyra’s book.

“Please! I swear! I’d never speak out against you.” Eritrea looked up at Andrei, her blue eyes starting to well with those weaponized tears. “Master… please…”

Andrei shook his head and grinned at that.

“You really think I’m stupid, don’t you?” He asked with only a hint of irritation in his voice. “You mean nothing to me and you never did. I used you in every way I wanted, and when I saw what you really were, I cast you aside. You were a glorified sex toy.”

“No!” Eritrea wailed slightly then worked to turn her head so she could get an eye on Lyra. “You! You ruined everything!” She looked back to Andrei, “She doesn’t love you!”

Lyra just laughed and looked at Andrei. “You know… this seems to be a theme with your ex playthings that gets thrown at me a lot.”

“She respects me. She knows my power.” Andrei said, stepping close to Lyra. “Whatever you call it, I don’t care. She is mine; I am hers. You are…nothing at all.”

It did feel good to hear the words when Andrei spoke them. It wasn’t uncommon when they were in bed together of course, but outside of the peace of their quarters, their possession of each other was generally relegated to looks or the occasional subtle touch if it was displayed at all. Lyra just shook her head in an almost disappointed way at Eritrea and sighed. She had a boy, Lyra had the man.

“Please! I’ll do anything, Master!” Eritrea continued to beg, knowing her only hope would be to convince him and if she could just get close enough, the tears rolling down her cheeks would certainly help. “Use me. However you want; I’ll do anything!”

“What I want is to have you quickly become a memory.” He said abruptly. “Can you do that for me, Eritrea?”

“Wh-what?” The young woman questioned, looking up at him with her watery eyes.

So young. So stupid. Lyra pushed her closer to Andrei but kept her well away from the line of fire as it were of the woman’s tears.

“Would you do the honors, Lyra, or shall I?” He asked, looking past Eritrea and directly at Lyra.

“I love to watch you do it, darling. You look so handsome when you watch the light go out.” Lyra replied, her voice a purr. While it was true, she also simply wanted to see him take retribution against the slave who had manipulated him through his love of women first and then continued through a trick of her biology.

Andrei nodded as he began to search the corridor.

“Well, it’s best it looks like an accident, or else there will be questions we don’t feel like answering.” He said, accepting that he didn’t like any of his options. Then his eyes fixed on the bulkhead beside them as the ship shuddered violently. “I’ve got it.”

He came up behind Lyra and replaced her fingers with his in Eritrea’s hair. Closing his fist tight, he grabbed a handful of her skirt to control her better.

“You were running down the corridor on your way to your assignment when the ship shook, you lost your footing, and you hit your head hard against the bulkhead right there. How does that sound?”

“No… no…” Eritrea whimpered out. “Master…”

Lyra had moved to give Andrei room, and as Eritrea continued to whimper and beg she finally rolled her eyes. What a pathetic and useless creature. At least Andrei had seen that before he was truly compromised by it.

“Oh, shut up.” Andrei said dryly as he walked her over to the bulkhead, pulled her head back, and then smashed it like a melon against the surface. With a sickening crunch of skull meeting metal, she went immediately limp under his fingers and he let her fall naturally. He turned around and looked to Lyra, swiping his hands together casually to get off any dirt or mess there. “To the Bridge, then.”

There was a certain amount of satisfaction watching him end one of his former women - his actual known mistress, in fact. She wondered if he might kill the rest if it pleased her; it didn’t… yet. As he turned to her and rubbed his hands, she stepped up to him and reached up to wipe some of the blood spatter from this handsome face. Once she had it off and he was presentable, she gave a nod and slight smile then turned to walk the rest of the way to the turbolift.

As they entered the lift and the ship was buffered again by weapons fire, Andrei reflected in that brief moment on the emptiness in his soul. Besides a slight movement of excitement, the thrill of the kill, he felt nothing about what he had just done to Johnathan or Eritrea. This kind of thing had become normal over the course of his young life, and he was capable of killing without even the slightest remorse. That he was bound to Johnathan by promises of friendship and to Eritrea by their past hadn’t stopped him. One might wonder if vows meant anything at all to the man.

OFF