Subject: Grail: Great Brightness: Queen to Queen Pt 2 (Brinn)

<<OOC: John, this was going to be the intro to our joint post, but it

kinda.... grew. I'll have something for you soon. I hope.>>

Athalya Anne and Thalissa sat together on the biobed in silence as Dr

Ramius ran a medical scanner over her. He nodded in the affirmative.

"She is well." He said before moving on.

And so it was that Athalya Anne and the rommie chick had a bit of

privacy, give or take a security ensign or two. "Come on." Athalya

Anne gestured with her head to the left. The security gaurds followed.

Of course.

"Look at them all." Athalya Anne said quietly eying the occupants of

sickbays 'contaminated' ward. There was an over crouded wing of various

sorts humanoids in the process of dying gory deaths. "There's not a

danmed thing we can do for them." Athalya Anne said wistfuly. "Not one

danmed thing." Her voice betrayed no emotion.

Thalissa said nothing, but the look on her face said it all. 'That's

not my problem.'

"Oh, yes.." Athalya Anne continued to mumble. "That is your problem."

Athalya Anne turned to her and smiled. "You're on my turf now. My

problems are your problems. As it turns out, you're gonna be staying

here for a while. If we live, you live. If we don't, you don't." She

barked a bitter laugh. "And you want to know the the really funny

part?"

Thalissa kept her silence.

"It's all your fault. Oh, yes... you have the blood of all these people

on your hands. You never met a danmed one of them. Oh, and by the way,

the children were the first to go. Children! Who would have figgured?

And its all your fault.... Tell me, Thal..." Athalya Anne opted for a

shortened version of her own name for the chick, "Do you like having the

blood of children on your hands?"

"I don't need your theatrics, Major." The Ice Queen informed Athalya

Anne.

"Theatrics? Theatrics?" Athalya Anne all but shouted. "Come here."

Thalissa had little choice. Athalya Anne lead the way to the mourge.

Once there, with the assistance of a biocontainment field, Athalya Anne

found the body of a reletivly young fatality with reletive ease.

"Does this look like a theatric? Does he look like he he can get up and

dance around? He never will any more and it's all your fault, Thal!"

Athalya Anne hissed at her.

"Don't patronize me, Athalya." It was interesting - how they had fallen

to a first name basis. "You know that you're being overly dramatic as

well as I do."

"No." Athalya Anne backed away from the child. "A dead child is not

dramatic. A dead child is tragic." She smiled a half smile and turned

to the Rommie. "A tragedy, which, interesting enough, you could have

prevented."

"If memory serves," Thalissa countered steadily, "In the Terran

theatre, the genere of tragedy is classified under drama. Thereforth, a

dead child is dramatic. And what would you have had me do, Athalya?

Send a mesage to your ship, warning of impending disaster, when my own

ship was in such peril?"

"There is such a thing as restraint, ya know."

"Yes." Thalissa scardonicly said. "I'm sure the Federation has ~no~

idea whatsoever on how to make a biological weapon."

"Sure we do." Athalya Anne shot back, "We just don't use them."

"Finaly." Thalissa said. "A non dramatic statement from you."

They turned to eachother with identical scowles on their faces and

simultaneously left for Thalissa's quarters. And so it was that Epic

Terrakian was to become the luckiest s.o.b. in the galaxy: he was going

to be locked up with the most gorgeous woman on the ship and a Romulan

and both of them were angry.

LMaj Athalya Anne Brinn