The Fall Part Two

Posted on Fri Nov 7th, 2025 @ 8:24am by Lieutenant Darius Korveth

1,758 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: What was Lost is Found
Location: Somewhere in Orion Space
Timeline: Three and a half years ago

Previously in Part One
Rezzan laughed, a sound that promised future complications. "Then perhaps you've been playing the wrong role all along, Darius Korveth. Perhaps you were never meant to be the one in charge."

Darius said nothing, because there was nothing safe to say. His mind catalogued tactical information—Rezzan was already lowering his guard, the vulnerability that made him recruitable was beginning to show—but his body ached with the evidence of his own response.

I did what the mission required, he told himself.

But the truth was more complicated, more damaging, more impossible to reconcile with the man waiting for him back in Federation space.

The truth was that somewhere between the acting and the reality, Darius had stopped pretending.


He returned to his own quarters two hours later, immediately engaging the privacy locks before collapsing onto his bed. His hands shook as he pulled out his concealed communicator to log the mission progress.

Initial contact successful, he typed mechanically. Target responding as anticipated. Proceeding with recruitment phase.
What he didn't type: I enjoyed it. Gods help me, I enjoyed it.

What he couldn't admit even to himself yet: And I'm going to do it again.

The following two weeks fell into a pattern that both troubled and validated Darius's approach. Rezzan's initial suspicion gave way to careful trust, and that trust opened doors throughout his network. Information flowed—cargo manifests, scheduled runs, contacts within the Syndicate hierarchy. Everything Starfleet Intelligence needed to map the criminal organization's operations in this sector.

Darius documented it all, encoding reports in seemingly innocuous personal logs and transmitting them through carefully scheduled dead drops. His handler's responses came back positive: Excellent work. Continue current approach.
Current approach. That was one way to describe it.

Rezzan summoned him twice more during those first two weeks, each encounter following the same pattern—aggressive demand meeting calculated surrender, business negotiations bleeding into physical arrangements. Darius told himself he was maintaining the asset, playing the role, doing what the mission required.

But the line between performance and reality blurred more each time.

By the third week, the intelligence picture was nearly complete. Rezzan had provided names, locations, operational details that would take Starfleet months to gather through conventional surveillance. He'd grown comfortable enough to complain about Syndicate leadership, to hint at disagreements with their strategic direction, to suggest that perhaps alternatives existed for someone with his skills and connections.

Everything was working. Mission parameters were essentially fulfilled—Darius just needed to maintain contact long enough to formalize the arrangement and establish ongoing communication protocols.

He should have been pulling back, establishing professional distance, preparing for extraction.

Instead, he found himself thinking about Rezzan at odd moments. The dangerous confidence. The unapologetic violence. The way he existed in the criminal world without the constant internal conflict that Darius carried. Rezzan didn't question whether he belonged—he simply was, completely and without reservation.

It was intoxicating in ways Darius hadn't anticipated.

On day twenty-three of the mission, Darius stood in his quarters reviewing the latest intelligence reports, recognizing that the operation had achieved its core objectives. He could request extraction, and return to his life with Ryan.

His communicator showed no messages. No demands from Rezzan, no summons to his quarters, no immediate operational necessity.

Darius should have been relieved.

Instead, he felt something uncomfortably close to disappointment.

He found Rezzan in the station's observation lounge two days later, watching ships come and go through the viewport. The Orion pirate didn't turn when Darius approached, but his reflection in the transparisteel showed awareness.
"Korveth. Didn't expect to see you here."

"Had some free time." The lie came easily. Darius had manufactured the free time, rearranging his schedule specifically to create this opportunity. "Thought you might want company."

Now Rezzan did turn, those dark eyes studying him with the same intensity that had first reminded Darius of Ryan. Except these eyes held none of Ryan's warmth, none of his husband's careful consideration. These eyes calculated, assessed, and found what they wanted.

"Company." Rezzan's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Is that what you're offering?"
Darius could have deflected. Could have steered the conversation toward business, toward the intelligence gathering that justified his presence. Could have maintained the careful distance that professionals were supposed to preserve with their assets.

"My quarters are closer," he said instead.


What followed was different from their previous encounters in ways that Darius recognized but didn't examine. This time, there was no mission justification, no operational necessity, no handler's approval for this level of personal involvement. This time, Rezzan hadn't summoned him or demanded proof of loyalty.

This time, Darius had initiated. Darius had chosen.

And this time, he wasn't acting at all.

Rezzan's hands were familiar now, his particular brand of rough demanding welcome rather than endured. When they fell into his bed—Ryan's and his bed that existed in another life entirely—Darius didn't think about betrayal or mission parameters or the husband waiting for him in Federation space.

He thought about the way Rezzan's weight felt like an anchor, grounding him in this moment, this identity, this version of himself that didn't apologize for wanting dangerous things. He thought about how surrendering control to someone who would never love him felt easier than the vulnerability required to maintain a marriage. He thought about how being Navek Korveth's son felt more authentic than being Starfleet's carefully reformed criminal.

Rezzan took him apart with practiced efficiency, and Darius gave himself over to it completely—no reservations, no guilt, no divided attention. There was only this: the physical intensity, the dangerous connection, the particular freedom of existing in a world where violence and desire were two sides of the same currency.

When Rezzan's mouth found the junction of his neck and shoulder, biting down hard enough to mark, Darius didn't think Ryan will see this. He thought yes, more.

When strong hands gripped his hips with bruising force, positioning him exactly where Rezzan wanted, Darius didn't think I'm betraying my husband. He thought this is who I really am.

When his own body responded with eager enthusiasm, meeting Rezzan's aggression with equal intensity, Darius didn't think about Federation values or Starfleet ethics or the vows he'd made. He thought about nothing except the heat and friction and dangerous pleasure of being exactly where he wanted to be.

The rest dissolved into sensation—Rezzan's demanding voice in his ear, the rough treatment that somehow satisfied something Ryan's gentleness never could, the particular satisfaction of being claimed by someone who saw him as Navek's son rather than Starfleet's officer, the dark pleasure of finally admitting what he'd been denying since the first encounter.

He liked this. He wanted this. He chose this.

Reality crashed back afterward with devastating clarity.

Darius lay in his own bed, Rezzan's warmth beside him, and felt the weight of what he'd done settle like lead in his chest. The mission was complete. Rezzan had provided all the information they needed. At least for the moment. He could always come back later.. There had been no operational reason for this encounter, no justification he could offer his handler or himself.

He'd initiated because he wanted to. Because some part of him preferred this dangerous liaison to the marriage waiting for him. Because being the criminal felt more honest than being the reformed officer playing at domesticity.
Oh god. Ryan.

The guilt hit like a physical blow, stealing his breath and turning his stomach. Every touch he'd welcomed, every response he'd given freely, every moment of genuine pleasure became evidence of a betrayal far deeper than mission necessity could excuse.

"You alright?" Rezzan's voice carried lazy satisfaction rather than concern.

"Fine." The word came out steady despite the chaos in his mind. "Just thinking."

"Dangerous habit." Rezzan's hand found his shoulder, the touch proprietary now. "You proved yourself, Korveth. Whatever doubts I had about you, they're gone. You're one of us."

One of us. The words should have felt like mission success. Instead, they felt like an indictment.

Darius had set out to prove his commitment to the Syndicate world as operational cover. But somewhere in the past three weeks, the performance had become reality. He'd crossed a line that had nothing to do with duty and everything to do with choice.

And the worst part—the part that made his self-loathing complete—was that even now, even knowing what he'd done to Ryan, part of him didn't regret it.

Part of him wanted to do it again.

Rezzan left an hour later, and Darius immediately purged his quarters' environmental systems, as if eliminating the physical evidence could somehow undo what had happened. His hands shook as he pulled out his communicator to file his report.

Final intelligence package transmitted. Suggested contact again in six months.


What he couldn't write: I betrayed my husband not because I had to, but because I wanted to.

What he couldn't admit even to himself: And I don't know if I can ever explain why.

The mission was complete. Darius Korveth had successfully infiltrated a Syndicate network, and provided Starfleet Intelligence with actionable information that would save lives and disrupt criminal operations.

He'd also destroyed his marriage, though Ryan didn't know it yet.

Extraction came three days later. Darius said goodbye to Rezzan with the promise that he’d return, though he doubted that he would.





The transport back to Federation space took six days. Darius spent them in careful isolation, preparing the lies he would tell and the truth he somehow had to confess. His body bore fading evidence of those final encounters—marks that would be gone before he saw Ryan, but that he felt like brands nonetheless.

I did what the mission required, he'd practiced saying.

But that was only half true.

I made a mistake, he'd tried.

But it hadn't felt like a mistake in the moment.

I love you, he'd whisper.

And that was true, devastatingly true, which made everything else so much worse.

By the time the transport docked at the starbase where Ryan was waiting, Darius had no idea what he would say. He only knew that whatever words he found, they wouldn't be enough to undo what he'd done.

The mission was complete. The intelligence was secured.

And Darius Korveth had learned exactly who he was when given the choice between the life he'd built and the life he'd been born to.

He'd chosen wrong.

Lt. Darius Korveth
Chief Strategic Operations Officer
USS Valkyrie

 

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