Angel of Pain

[Becky Sandoval]

"Amazing," Becky said. "I have often thought I could sense Amiee's emotions, but I've never given it that much thought, but this... This is something else entirely."

[Angel Ryder]

"I always chalked that up to just 'being on the same wavelength' or being a mom, but this... this is something entirely... different." Angel said as she looked at the pattern. "What the fuck are they doing to my girl?" she shook her head and sighed. "I need to find her, we need to get someway of getting her back, I don't care what it takes..."

[Becky Sandoval]

"I hate to say it, but this is art. I don't think their objective is to kill her. I think they are trying to break her spirit. And then do what? Get information from her? Build her into something else? An ally perhaps? Dominus doesn't strike me as a particularly patient or forward thinking individual. But, my counterpart. She's a different animal entirely. She boarded the Erebus, tricked Trinity into following her willingly, and then only disabled the ship. That could have been played out differently, and if it had been Dominus it would have been."

[Angel Ryder]

"What if she's trying to turn Trinity..." Angel said as she simply removed the entire top and got a better look at it in the brighter light of the conference room. "Another time and place and under better circumstances... I would have actually considered this pretty cool... but this isn't simply my daughter getting a tattoo, this is torture, it felt like there are times when the pain is more intense and others less." she looked at herself in the corner window's reflections. "I would am getting more worried by the second. And what if Dominus is working with your counterpart? More than simply allies... like what my father and his Becca are like."

[Becky Sandoval]

"Then... well then she will be the yin to his yang. They could be unstoppable." Becky turned to her mother, "Mom I have to go to work."

"I understand Rua." Rachel patter he daughter's shoulder and walked out of the conference lounge.

"So, what's the plan?" Becky said leaning on a nearby conference chair. "I assume you have a plan, and I will need to brief the crew."

[Angel Ryder]

"I do... but it's risky." Nick said as he handed her a padd. "Only ones that know the full details are you and Angelica. No one else. Three of us in this room are the only ones. I'm not even telling my Becca or Alice. That's how secretive this has to be." he looked at his daughter. "You'll escort me on the Athena, obviously you're my ride home, but I have a couple ideas on how we can reclaim Athena when the time is right. For now, Dominus and Bellatrix will have to believe they won, they got something over on us."

"But I'm pretty sure they'll find any crew we hide." Angel said as she sat down and then got up with a hiss. "I'll stand..." she muttered. "Or any software we install."

"That's why I'm thinking those new MIKI balls but more shielded, hidden in the sensor blind spots of the ship, tiny spaces that nothing transmitting in or out can be detected by. Not that they're fool proof, but when they're inert, they put off no energy until they're activated, we beam them into a location where they're simply part of the inner workings of the ship."

"So what do you need us to do?" Angel inquired. "That isn't THAT secret a plan."

"No... but I need you two to play along with me. Even if it means that I'm giving out something 'classified' and you're taking me into custody or something. They need to believe that whatever I gave them, I gave them at a cost. Otherwise they will entirely think that there's some ruse at play and I'm not sincere or this was too easy. I might need you to give them some of the 414th Fleet. If she's after a ship like an Erebus, she wants to win a battle, and she's going to need more than one ship. We'll have some harsh words, I'll call you a petulant child or something you'll grudgingly turn over the ships, they get the ships minus their crew, you fire on my shuttle, take me in. Malcolm and I already discussed this with the Admirality, but we need you and your COs to sell it, even some token resistance. I want everyone they took, so I'll 'negotiate' with terrorists to get them back home. We can retrieve our ships later."

"No wonder why you didn't want us to tell anyone else..." Angel winced. "So the three of us and the Admirality and the VP... so basically no body 'real' knows the truth. Awesome. Daaaad..."

"I know I know... but you two are the best. We'll make this work, if worse comes to worse, there's always the deep code 'kill' commands we built into every ship in the Fleet." Nick whispered.

"Deep code kill command?" Angel raised an eyebrow and glanced at Becky.

"Yeahh.... something I had installed at the core code level of every Alliance ship. Just in case. Need to know thing." Nick replied.

"And I didn't know..." Angel rolled her eyes. "I didn't need to know... right?"

"Bingo." Nick said with a wink of his eye "Even Kitea has it. Hey... once S31..."

"Always S31..." Angel agreed and sighed heavily. "I really hope you know what you're doing dad."

[Becky Sandoval]

"And what about General Talon? He was down in the Officer's Lounge drinking himself into a complete stupor. I had to send security in last night to escort him to quarters. He took a swing at Lieutenant Andersen, but was too intoxicated to make contact."

[Angel Ryder]

"Let's let him sober up before we point him at someone and tell him 'kill that." Angel sighed. "I'll have to have a talk with him." she nodded her head. "It's funny, a few years ago, I would probably have been right there along with him. I used to drink quite a bit. Being pregnant changed that."

[Becky Sandoval]

She nodded, "I can handle that. And, Mr. President I think I can boost your shield emitters. Let you take a greater pounding. Dominus isn't stupid, and I'm guessing my counterpart is also as smart as myself. She's not going to believe the ruse if we don't actually score some solid hits."

[Angel Ryder]

"And we aren't letting you do any sacrifice plays, we've had quite enough of that too." Angel said firmly. "But I do think we need to do this... might be our only way of figuring out where Dominus' new base is and who else he's working with, or at least getting an idea of where they'll be."

"I'll gladly take those shield mods and yes Angel... I know... that's why I'm having you follow me, you're my ride home." Nick said and looked at Becky. "And if we make it out of this, if Angelica does not promote you at your next yearly evaluation or at least do something... she's still small enough to take over my knee."

"DAD!" Angel exclaimed and laughed. "Holy shit... I think you only ever really did that to me a couple of times when i was little."

"And it worked... never had to do it again. Didn't work on Marcus or your sister." Nick shook his head. "We're getting our people back, Trinity and Teri."

"We'll do our part. Now if you'll both excuse me... I need to take a pain killer and lay face down for a little while." Angel looked at the marks her fingernails were making on the palms of her hands. "If it's this bad for me, I don't even want to imagine how bad it is for her. Or if this is permanent for me... this stays between us but... I don't care what her husband says, she's coming home. I'll take care of her recovery. Feel like a bitch of a mother, but I wish she never agreed to be a Marine. I could have put her on any other starship, given her whatever role she wanted. Or even paid off the sheriff to retire so she could run for his job."

"Now you know why I kept you so close." Nick said softly. "Not that I didn't love having you as my right hand, but you needed to fly free. I knew that once you got onto a capitol ship, you'd run up the ranks fast, faster than I did because you're that much smarter than I was. When you got injured in the Borg War... I was trying to find ways of getting you retired. Hell, USO was the best I could do, but what'd you do... you went into combat zones to perform and spy... " he chuckled. "Healed up, got strong enough to kick your drummer's ass in combat sims. Look at you now."

"Jena was a good trainer. Still glossing over the fact that my twin sister and her whatever Riddick is not to her, have been sleeping with her." Angel chuckled.

"I'm glossing over the fact that all of us HAVE slept with her." Nick winced.

"No..." Angel looked at him with wide eyes.

"Almost. For a big girl she doesn't hold her booze... or I'm just that much sturdier than an Orion. Passed out on my couch about ten minutes before I did, so 'technically' it's sleeping together but not 'sleeping together." Nick whispered. "Now Tony... did..."

"Becky... you can see why I latched on to you, I needed a best friend that isn't everyone's girlfriend." Angel shook her head and sighed. "Oh and have Aimee come by my quarters to wake me up I might need her to put something on my back, kid's got the hands of a surgeon. I really think we're going to have an actual Doctor Sandoval someday."