On the Other Side of the Outmarches
Aidoann t'Khnialmnae, once a proud Antecenturion and third-in-command of the premier warship of the Romulan Star Empire’s powerful Fleet, looks at her reflection in the public restroom. She sees the woman smile warily back at her. She congratulates herself on thinking only the Federation Basic name for her people, rather than what they call themselves.
She risks her operational security by closing her eyes and not having her hood up. She had locked the door to the restroom, as well as put out an ‘Out of Order’ sign outside. That would hopefully prevent her from having to turn an unsuspecting patron, only looking to relieve themselves of a bursting bladder, into an outline of ash on the far wall.
Easy, girl, she thinks. You’re not in the Fleet, anymore. Haven’t been in two decades. You’d only stun them.
The smile grows in the mirror. The voice of her conscience is of course delivered in Ael’s dry voice.
Her khre’riov knows her too well. She returns to the study of her face. If her hood and mask was removed, she could pass for a Vulcan—at least she thinks she would.
The eyebrows and the ears, plus the bronze skin tone, all would protect her true identity. She reaches up and draws her waves of black hair, grown out since they had somewhat violently removed themselves from the Fleet and the Senate’s service, back, tying them at the back of her neck with a piece of elastic. It lies in the hood that rests below the hair against her upper shoulders.
Some curls would escape over her forehead, but shouldn’t cause suspicion.
Only her eyes might give her away. She isn’t sure that she can hide the fire in them.
Aidoann starts as she hears the door to the restroom rattle. She touches the small disruptor holstered on her thigh, but relaxes as she hears a spoken word in a familiar voice.
She moves over and opens the door.
A human male steps in, one that she had known for nearly a decade, off and on. He pulls the ridiculous brimmed hat that hides his face, from his head. She looks into his dark green eyes with the gold flecks. She shakes her head, then reaches up and runs her long fingers through the short hair on his head, touching the puckered scar on the left temple, almost concealed by his hairline, along with the three other knife scars on the center and right side.
The hair had turned gray in the last year, from its familiar red-gold. The face is much younger.
“You ready?” he asks in Rihan.
“Ie,” she replies. “Are you?” she asks, switching to his language.
“Think so. But you’re the one bearing the brunt of this one. Neither he nor his wife can suspect that I’m involved. Neither can any of the Border Dogs, until I can bring them in.”
She smiles, then reaches over and kisses him. His eyes widen at the warmth—much warmer than a human’s and a little warmer than the Deltan’s that he had loved.
About the same temperature of the Vulcan that he and the Deltan had loved and lost.
She exhales. “Time for me to slide into a new name.”
He grins. “A new soul, as your people would say about an undercover persona.”
He is quickly gone. She looks at the woman in the tight black hood and the mask that hides all but her dark eyes.
She slips out of the door.
Her own soul intact, but concealed.
Like any Soul-Dancer.