Nightmares

[will_marx 0]

Will lay in his quarters, wide awake. Despite being tired, and pleasantly so at that, he couldn’t fall asleep…and it wasn’t because he was the center of a spouse sandwich. Having two wives cured him of his tendency to toss and turn as he fell asleep, and the wives took turns which side they would be on each night. Tonight found Xian Pu on his right, and Ranko on his left; each wife wrapped around his arms like a limpet.

 

No, his wives weren’t the reason for his insomnia. Nor was it his fear of deep water, particularly since they were headed for a planet that was all intents and purposes, ocean. It was family history that suddenly and quite unexpectedly reared its ugly head.

 

Romulans, with suicide bomber androids, before the New Year; Romulan delegations on Axrekrav. How many were members of the Tal Shi’ar? How many were members of the other secret organization, the Tal Pra’lex? How many knew of the bounty that his father incurred, with too many “sneak and peak” missions with Antietam into Romulan space?

 

Will was fortunate that the Warbird and scout that caused a number of problems in that mirror universe were destroyed by the graviton bomb. But who knew if they had reported his demise? Fleet Intelligence had lost their best humint asset, code named ‘Enigma’, when the entire Romulan Senate was assassinated by Shinzon. And Ambassador Spock’s underground didn’t have members in the two secret police agencies hunting them.

 

Even though he didn’t want to admit it, Will had been having nightmares the past few nights since leaving Axrekrav. Nightmares involving his capture by members of the Romulan secret police; his subsequent torture at their hands, not for intelligence, but for merely for the amusement of his captors. He would wake up just prior to his death, in any manner of varied and usually gruesome means—from live disembowelment and beheading to infestation by any number of parasites.

 

Shaking his head, Will disentangled himself from his wives and climbed out of bed. Watching the stars race by as the Arcadia sped towards their destination, he poured himself a shot of four hundred year old Jägermeister. Will wasn’t like his brother, drinking, and smoking cigars that had Cuban and Dominican origins; he only drank when he couldn’t sleep. The younger Marx treated his body like a temple, what Sensei Genma enforced—even though his overweight father-in-law usually gorged himself on what ever food was available before drinking himself into a stupor.

 

He chuckled thinking about what the condition of the Wild Stallion might be in right now. Chris was faithful to his wife’s Alexandra’s memory, but he was only human. Rumor had it, from his mother of all people, he’d added a new first mate…a former Orion slave girl.

 

Taking another shot, Will began to feel comfortably numb. He made his way back to his bed, but not before checking in on the kids, and fixing their blankets. He crawled back into bed, and, closing his eyes, hoped that his dreams would take on pleasant tones.