The lights of the small Maquis camp do not penetrate very far into the surrounding jungle. This planet has no moons, and the primeval blackness of its night lasts for almost an Earth-standard week. The air hangs heavy, humid, and still, drenched with the scents of poisonous flowers and decaying vegetation.
Pale silvery-white gleams emanate from the slender trunks of a grove of luminescent trees, standing like silent ghosts on a hillside not far from the camp. A fierce howl rises into the night; a predator has scented her prey. She strikes without remorse, without mercy, raking her claws across her victim’s body, sinking her teeth into the vulnerable flesh, exalting in the hot salty taste of blood.
She is half-Klingon, this huntress, and she licks the blood from her lips with a ferocious enjoyment that can be matched only by the thrill of battle. The soft features of the woman who lies submissively before her, bruised and torn, appear to be Bajoran; but here in the depths of the jungle, things are not always what they seem.
A faint mist rises from the damp ground where the women’s bodies are intertwined. There is a dark exaltation, also, in the act of submission. The lips that move obediently over the muscular thighs of the huntress are swollen and deeply cut; the taste of blood mingles with musky female juices in a bitter mixture that is familiar, condign, welcomed. The huntress breathes harshly, then cries out again as she finds her release. The madness fades from her eyes, and she takes her partner into her arms and caresses her possessively.
*****
Most of the rebel fighters are sleeping. Sentries slowly pace the camp’s perimeter, a routine that is always observed, although there is no other sentient life on the planet. In a corner of the tent she shares with her half-Klingon lover, Seska sits quietly tapping the keys of a padd, her face and body restored to their usual appearance by the use of a dermal regenerator. If B’Elanna should wake and glance this way, surely she will think Seska a diligent worker, intent on planning the logistics of their next raid.
Seska finishes typing a thorough description of her lover’s sexual proclivities. Her Cardassian spymasters may find this information useful someday.