How to Break the Prime Directive (and get away with it)

Part 3: A Disloyal PetaQ

When the announcement came over the intercom, Grax shuddered. For a moment, he felt no reaction from Ylmaq, who was walking down the hallway beside him. For that instant Grax hoped he had misheard. Then Ylmaq's emotions crashed over him like a tsunami – shock and fear followed within seconds by anger – and Grax gasped, feeling rather like a beached fish.

Ylmaq glared at him, and her thoughts bored into his brain. Grax had grown up on Starbase 112, surrounded mostly by humans. He had learned early that listening unbidden to other people's thoughts was a quick way to get beaten up. His psionic barriers were strong. Ylmaq's thoughts were stronger. Klingon emotions were always difficult to block – a passionate people, they had opinions on everything – but this was different. It was almost as if Ylmaq wanted him to know her thoughts, as if she didn't care if her thoughts were so loud the whole ship would overhear. Grax could feel the thoughts hurling themselves against his barrier, piercing it like an arrowhead. They were all hurtful thoughts, all angry, with a particularly Klingon sort of fury, simple and pure. And they were all directed at Grax.

Within seconds, Sabian was well aware that any and all problems Ylmaq might face in the near future were all his fault; that he was a legendary idiot - only an idiot would stuff a sentient being into a sample bag, after all - and that Ylmaq would be quite, quite happy to kill him if that would solve the problem, except that she knew it would not. He was a filthy, moronic, disloyal petaQ, who deserved everything that was coming to him. Sabian actually staggered under the weight of Ylmaq's anger, though he tried not to show it. That kind of weakness would only increase Ylmaq's contempt.

When they reached the turbolift, Ylmaq's strides lengthened. She was very nearly strutting as she walked through the lift doors. Grax had to force himself to keep up with her, not just because of her longer legs and taller frame, but because of the black misery her thoughts were pushing into him. But more than misery, Grax felt worry. Ylmaq's thoughts were very specific. Too specific, for Sabian's comfort.

Once the turbolift began to flash upward, Grax forced himself to turn and face Ylmaq. Her anger rolled over him in a wave of nausea. Grax fought the nausea down, and, gulping down his trepidation, said, “Ylmaq. You're broadcasting.”