Orb Visions I

 Episode Name:  Orb Visions I

   Written By:  Shaft

         Cast:  Havaris, Haven, Idrani, Kresa, Medes, Nevaren, Poole 
                and Starfleet.

  Produced By:  Starfleet

  Directed By:  Shaft

     Aired On:  Tue May 06 03:42:49 2003

     Stardate:  53193.5

Time: Wed Apr 30 20:21:17 2003

Stardate: 53180.7

The multi-use Temple is quiet and seemingly deserted when Havaris enters. The peace of the temple is only broken by the gentle hum of the station's power grid. Sitting on the altar is a golden, ornate box that Havaris can immediately recognize as Bajoran handiwork. It is approximately half of a meter in height. Oval opaque green-blue windows are on the four sides of the box and it opens along a side corner, and splits to reveal whatever is inside. An ornate golden latch that appears as delicate as the finest crystal springwine glass holds the two doors closed. Inside that box is the Orb of Destiny, one of the most holy religious artifacts to Havaris' people aside from the Celestial Temple and the Emissary himself.

Havaris steps through the doors to the temple, dressed for the occasion in his Bajoran attire and ear piece. He has brought with him a small prayer bag, containing items of importance where prayer and meditation are concerned. He pauses to regard the closed case of the Orb for a long, long while before moving forward to settle on his knees before the altar. The bag is opened, insence and candles withdrawn, then lit wupon the mandala that Vedek Toralin has left here for the purposes of the Bajorans visiting the Orb. Once the items are lit upon the mandala, Havaris settles his palms into his lap and relaxes back into brief prayer. "Prophets guide me. Make me useful." Brief. Emphasis on brief. He takes in a slow breath, releases it for calm, and opens his eyes to reach out for the latch of the doors, lifting it slowly but decisively.

An old, whithered hand reaches out and touches Havaris' wrist as the Bajoran Operations Manager reaches out to open the latch. There is very little pressure to the touch, but it is a touch of deflection. Looking up the arm, the owner of it is a whethered old Prylar. "It is said that to look into an Orb is to peer into the very hearts of the Prophets," the old man says in a peaceful, gentle tone.

Sneaking up on Kusto is generally considered a bad idea. But neither the touch, nor the old Prylar's presence are a cause for worry. The attempt is successful, Havaris' hand remains still upon the latch, even as his head turns to stare up at the Prylar's eyes. "They say the same thing of dying, Prylar," Havaris replies respectfully, "but we all have to do that sooner or later." Kusto's attention returns to the Orb's case for a moment, then back up to the Prylar. "I would not be here if I did not feel the need to know. This is not about want. Not anymore."

Kresa gives a single, slow and deliberate dip of his wrinkled and grey head, but his cold blue eyes never leave Havaris'. His fingers still rest gently upon the other man's wrist, as if they were two combatants frozen in a snapshot of time. He says, "Your needs may or may not be fulfilled by the will of the Prophets. There is a dark cloud that hangs over this station like a swarm of catterpod locusts in flight over their next meal. Do you believe you are truly prepared to see your destiny in the Tear of the Prophet?"

"I know, Prylar," Havaris answers calmly, "that is why I need to see my Destiny." His gaze remains locked on the Prylar's now, finding a calm and certain center he often times forgets he has somewhere in the middle of all the rest of it. "My needs are always fufilled by the Prophets' will, Prylar. My wants often suffer for Their will, but never my needs." The final question has Kusto silent for a long expanse of time, perhaps in consideration though his expression never shows it. "I believe I have lived my life as best I could, and done with my Path the most that I have been able. If I am not prepared, it will not have been for a lack of trying. And if I am not prepared, I will know it. Perhaps be able to change it. I believe in the Prophets' Hand, Prylar. I believe they guided me here. I believe they guided me in the Orb's recovery. I believe they guided my to my knees. I believe they guided my hand on that latch. I believe I am as prepared now as I can hope to be. And that is all I can say for myself."

Kresa makes no response, verbally. He simply withdraws his hand, straightens up, and takes a step away from the Orb of Destiny.

"Peldar Joi, Prylar." Havaris offer that quiet benediction before his gaze returns to the Orb's case. The momentum he had built, the certainty he had in first placing his hand on the latch is lessened now. In the end he has to depend upon his own admissions to see him through. The latch is lifted, the doors drawn open, and Havaris has his first glimpse of the Orb of Destiny. Or vice-versa as is more likely the case.

The doors part, and light instantly starts to spill forth. Inside the box is the rough, dumbell-shaped Orb, standing vertically within and rotating slowly. It luminesces a bright but soft white light, but is more similar to an eclipse in the way it radiates light. Patterns of light start to swirl off of the orb's rotation, growing in a spiraling orbit, out of the box, wrapping around Kusto and all of his senses. With a mist of light, he is suddenly standing at an airlock, ushering panicked groups of civilians through the airlock and onto the Thomas Paine. Several security officers are assisting, but the civilians are pushing and shoving, and chaos is rule of the day. Havaris Jiasha cries out for her brother as she is pushed through the airlock with the crowd. The station takes a hard hit by some assailant and jostles everyone in the corridor as more people stream off the turbolift.

It takes Kusto a moment to process it all. He checks his uniform. Yellow shirt? Red? His hand brushes his collar, counting the pips. What's his authority? His post? What is he to the Station? He is in the midst of checking his sidearm when he hears his sister call out for him. And that, that is a bitter thing. He pushes a civilian out of the way and calls after her, "Jiasha! Where is Nua!" When the station rocks, Havaris steps clear of the bulkhead and keeps his knees bent a bit to absorb the shockwave. And, leaving the Security Officers to keep order as best they may, he reiterates his request, "Nua, Jiasha! Where is Nua!"

A man starts to shout obscenities at one of the security officers and a woman screams in reaction to the hit on the station. "I don't know! She was at the daycare!" Jiasha screams helplessly, fighting against all hope to get back out as everyone pushes to get in. Again, another pounding on the station and it rocks harder. More shouts, more screams, and the sobbing of a male child somewhere in the crowd.

"Get aboard, Jiasha! I'll find her! Rann should be on Eighteen! Go, and Prophets guide you!" Havaris glances about, taking stock of the situation. The man shouting obscenities at one of his Officers is grabbed by the back of his collar and shoved into the stream of traffic. Let the crowd do the work for him. The child's cries are, sadly, lost in the press of bodies and Kusto is powerless to help him. Leaving one of the Security Officers in charge, Havaris pushes away from the Airlock and begins moving towards the lift, "Computer: Location of Havaris Nua."

"Havaris Nua is located on Level Eighteen, section five," is the Computer's reply. Another rumble of the station and the lights flicker out for the last few words the computer utters. Emergency power kicks in, casting spears of light through a growing haze of smoke filling the corridor from some unseen fire. It starts to grow so thick that it begins choking Havaris, but the need to find Havaris Nua is a pressing one. Then a great wind blows through the corridor, clearing the smoke away as if it never existed. Havaris is now standing on Level Eighteen, section five, the Counselor's office on one side of the mall, and the infirmary on the other. Bodies lie in the positions that they died in. The station is dark and silent, dead in space, but Havaris can see his surroundings clearly as if he radiated a dim but cold light himself. A thick coat of a blue-white powdery substance covers everything like a dusting of arsenic mixed with broken glass. Glints reflect off the coat of dust from the Havaris-light. As Havaris moves, his boots crunch in the substance. The body at his feet is that of his wife, Aletha Ruth Medes, her body contorted but her face appearing peaceful and preserved like Sleeping Beauty under the dust of her crushed glass coffin, and looking as if a single kiss could wake her. The mall is littered with the bodies of Havaris' friends, loved ones, comrades, enemies. There is Gwen Poole, near Thea. And there is Commander Ghorev. Edwards. Jiasha. Nua. Conspicuously absent from Havaris' slice-of-life boneyard are the Timefleet officers, none are immediately seen.

Havaris moves slowly, his boots making rolling steps to keep the noise to a minimum. Even in the silence, surrounded by the dead, his instincts are fine-tuned. Honed through battles both terrible and numerous. The fact that, in the midst of a surrealist's landscape, he chooses to move in such a way is likely telling. It's ingrained. Instinctual. The Type I phaser he carries is replaced in its holster when he comes upon the body of his wife. The others, they take a back seat to the sleeping beauty that only he, perhaps, could ever fully appreciate. He eases into a crouch over her, his expression cracking for a moment, then cementing into that cold, blank mask he wore in first coming aboard. He works his wedding ring from his left hand and places it in one of Medes' curled up palms. The light he gives off, or seems to give off, does not seem to surprise him. Perhaps he's a Borhya now, walking the dusty halls of the station. Perhaps it's something else. What just doesn't seem to matter. He remains in that crouch, his eyes passing over the preserved faces of his comrades, and all he can think to do is chant away their passing. "Ah kay yah, ah vasu..." And so on, through the words he's spoken often. But rarely so well.

Havaris scans the bodies of his friends and family, and as his eyes finally rest upon the prone, dusty figure of his wife, she opens her eyes, as if his utterances were primordial Bajoran words of faith that could resurrect the dead. She begins to lift her head, the crunching sound of the dust growing with her effort. His wife, she lives after all! The sudden burst of hope is replaced by the dawning horror that her eyes, while open, are clouded, lifeless and empty, not the vibrant (and sometimes fiercely fiery) hazel that Havaris loves in his mate. This is not Thea. She begins to sit up.

"/NO!/" Kusto could handle dead. Barely. Dead he could manage. This he can't. This defies his religion and his sanity. His reaction is immediate. The rush of joy he'd felt dissolves into revulsion, and the small Bajoran springs to his feet and kicks the toe of his boot under the rising head of the restless dead, aiming for the chin. Connect or no, he begins backing away, reaching again for his weapon like a child for its mother's hand. Fearing, perhaps expecting, the rise of the others, Kusto continues backing away, screaming into the empty corridor, "/TYLER/!" Suddenly that light he's giving off isn't quite so comforting. It allows him to watch. And allows himself to be seen. Hoping beyond hope, Havaris calls into the darkness, this time with cold intent, "Computer. Location of Wendy Tyler."

The kick connects, however, it just sloughs the skin off of Medes' jaw, revealing a Lacoesque crystal portion of her jaw. She is otherwise unaffected by the kick, and she continues to rise. His fear is compounded when he backs into Captain Balin, who has risen behind him, and whose eyes stare out into the void like the dead eyes of a blind fish. Around him, the bodies all start to rise, and the creaking crunching cacophony rises into a chorus of crackling.

Havaris skitters away from the chest of Balin risen, wheeling about with his Type I at the ready. He slips to the side quickly, trying to duck out of the trap, only to slam into the chest of Michael Edwards. Thinking on his feet, he slams his boot into the knee of his friend and idol and turns away to attempt an escape in the opposite direction. There stands Poole and Ghorev, and to his right Jiasha. Left, little Nua. Lumbering forward in crystalline horror. Surrounded. He backs his way to the center and turns about quickly, his brain refusing surrender. His body refusing to give in. And when he catches sight of the jawless homonculus of his wife, he freezes, straightens up to his full height, and murmurs a single word. "Lightbringer."

His Type I is thumbed upwards, placed at his temple, and the firing nub depressed.

The trigger to the weapon in effect pulled, the light washes away from Havaris Kusto, Operations Officer, back to the station, back to the here and now, away from the horror. Instinctively, his hand has risen to his temple when the reality of the emotions dump upon him like a flood. The doors of the orb close slowly at the Prylar's touch, and the old Bajoran mystic latches it shut with a click.

Havaris releases a cry when the Orb's power withdraws, leaving him alive and empty handed on his knees before the altar. The survival instinct kicks in at once, and he pops to his feet, lowering his hand as though it had betrayed him. He ends up overbalancing and falling onto his backside to skitter across the floor a few feet in order swallow up this blessed distance. Reality may have set in to his perception, but not his emotions. He remains on his back, panting for air, before looking to the Prylar in desperation.

Kresa moves beside Havaris and offers his hand to assist him to his feet. "The path you walk is filled with darkness and peril, Havaris Kusto," the Prylar says, his old hand outstretched. "May the Prophets guide you on your journey."

Right. Uh. No. Havaris continues staring at the Prylar, unable to accept that hand up for whatever reason. He scrabbles to his feet on his own power and retreats from the temple without further fanfare, leaving the benediction unanswered.

"Peldar Joi," the Prylar says after Havaris. The weathered man nods to himself, satisfied that he gave the man sufficient warning that the Prophets aren't always kind, especially in dark holes such at this strange station he is visiting. He moves to the candles and blows them out one by one.

Time: Thu May 01 18:17:39 2003

Stardate: 53182.9

Medes, her hands folded behind her back, shuffles quietly into the temple, wearing her civvies and her earpiece. Her hands are thoroughly degreased, nails clean. Her head's even freshly shaved. Alethea doesn't know much about these Orbs, but it would seem that 'clean' would be a good way to go into one of these things. She pauses just inside the doors to the Temple, clears her throat slightly, and looks at the box with the wide-eyed expression of a child staring at the front doors to the school on the first day to kindergarden. Gulp.

As seems to be the custom with the tenders of the Orb, the empty temple is proven to be otherwise. A form moves out of the shadows, bent and elderly with more wrinkles than dayworn linen. "Greetings, my child. Peldar Joi." He wobbles up to her side and settles his serious gaze on her own. "If you have come to view your Destiny, I should warn you... shadows gather about this place. Nothing is certain. What you see will be your own, and you must not speak of it. Are you prepared, child, to face your Destiny?"

"Peldar Joi," Medes responds automatically, still watching the box. It's only after a moment that she turns her attention to look at its caretaker, offering him a sheepish sort of smile and a shrug that conceals the backbone behind her next statement. "I have to face it sooner or later. It might as well be sooner. Forewarned, forearmed. Stuff. Uhm. In other words, yes, I have. Thank you for the warning. I want to anyway."

"You want to anyway," the old Prylar parrots with mild amusement, "it is a common thread that weaves through the fabric of the people here. Defiance of good sense, perhaps. Or sensible defiance. Time will tell." Kresa motions with his hand towards the Orb's case. "Lift the latch and draw open the doors. That is all that must be done. Prophets guide you."

Her mouth opens and closes, but there's nothing Thea can really say to that. She just nods slowly, and shuffles forward. "Thank you." There. There's something to say. Deep breath in, deep breath out, and she forces one shaking hand to do as she commands: lift the latch. Open the doors.

The orb, once revealed, is a gorgeous thing. A slowly turning beacon of light, a corona of purity in the midst of so much darkness. It ebs and brightens as though it had a living pulse. As though it drew breath. The light begins to brush outwards, hilighting Medes' face and curling about her head until the whole of her is awash in it. Time grows nebulous, space loses definition, and soon her vision is overtaken in white light...

The landscape is nothingness for some time, just whispers from bright shadow. Darkness creeps in from the edges of her vision, a flash of terrible things passed over as though from above. Blue hulking creates pounding through lines of Starfleet's finest, sewing disarray and chaos. Her husband rests at the center of the line, screaming orders...

...The vision is brief and fleeting, it dims into the white light as though it had never been seen at all. The scene shifts once more, those same hulking creatures approaching like darkness that eclipses all light. And suddenly Medes is on the deck as the station rocks from weapons fire and chaos looms around. Officers running, fleeing the combat, only to be trod into the deck by the advancing darkness in which those shapeless forms seem to exist, never clearly seen. Poole is there, Ghorev too, and strangely her Father as well at Havaris' side, attempting to hold the line beside the small Bajoran. The fire is thick, the corridor strewn with bodies and filled with smoke, screams of terror, moans of dying men...

...The shadows contain everything known of fear. The whirr of Borg, the laughter of Jem'Hadar, the shod boots of Cardassians, the scraping crackle of Lithian movement. And all of it is blurred, a prismatic view of a moment of surreal horror. And she is there, in the middle of it all.

"Hold the line," her husband calls, a shout echoed by the voices of her pack. And behind them, only white light and whispers.

Her first instinct is to flee, the bald-faced terror that accompanies these things into her mind ripping through her from gut to throat like a talon, shredding at her courage. Medes staggers, looking for a moment confusedly down at herself and then out at the incoming terrors. She gasps for breath... and then she hears Kusto's voice again. Hold the line. The words are echoed like return howls by her packmates; her belly begins, for the moment, to hold in its fear rather than spilling it like so much glistening intestine onto the floor. She feels for a weapon in her hand. She holds the line. With her pack, and her father.

The shadow looms forward, pushing its way through the flagging flanks of this mismatched and impossible array of persons. The image softens for a moment, losing its definition and freezing all motion in a flash of visceral horror, before speeding up to right itself in a rush of terrible noise and screaming. The shadows seem to sniff weakness and begin to encroach on Thea in a whirr and crackle like necks breaking by mechanized means. She is weaponless. It becomes clear that many of them are. Yet they stand and shout defiance into the darkness. When her fear is swallowed up, the shadows draw back and snap out at a screaming Idrani, drawing her into the shadows where her dying words are lost in a crackle of rock and silicon. The shadow, as it must, lashes out at her Father, dragging his body away and spitting it back out into the light at their back, leaving only an ephemeral image of her father, standing defiant still, a thing no shadow can touch or wound. The shadows whirl and spin, circling the group, surrounding them. And still they stand untouched, batting away attacks with bare hands, and sometimes only a scream of white noise. Medes herself begins to glow from the inside, a beacon of light amid the shadows, brighter evne than her father now.

She screams -- as she must -- when her father -- as he must -- is drawn into the shadow. Idrani's death brings a weaker scream, but one nonetheless. Medes continues to howl and beat away the shadow as best she can, circled up with her pack, tight and close. When she begins to glow, a brief thought runs through her mind -- warp spasm, Lightbringer -- and her epithets and attempts to beat back the darkness redouble. The loss of her father renewed, she runs on the fury and hurt of an eighteen-year-old, with all the determination of the woman a decade older.

The noise and images grow more frenetic, the lights and shadows more contrasting, until nothing stands out as anything at all. There is just the combat and the cacaphony, and the whispers in the back of her skull. A cool breeze moves across all things, then, swirling it all away to leave her in a field of light. Calm and quiet reigns here, where all is nothing and nothing is everything. A nameless distance ahead, floating on a ground that is only light, there is a bundle of cloth. It seems to be squirming from the insides. Alive.

She loses herself in that muddle that becomes a sharp contrast of black and white, dissociating sensation from thought and yet... not at all. She acts without thinking, and thinks outside of it in phrases and fragments that are no more than repeated babbles of scripture and personal invocation. Alethea draws in a deep breath as the scene is cleared, closing her eyes once for a long moment and then opening them. When there is a bundle, and it is so, what is the thing to do? Obviously, there is only one choice: walk up to is and look. Move the blanket as you must.

As the distance closes by her movement, the squirming bundle of cloth is clearly a swaddled infant in Bajoran bedclothing. A hand woven blanket covering up a little baby in warm comfort. Despite the absence of an adult, it was not crying. Just squirming to attract notice. The squirming ceases when Medes draws near, a pair of soft blue eyes staring up at her from either side of a subtly ridged nose. It smiles, then, releasing a quiet coo. Its ear is decorated with a tiny ear piece, the cupped hands and star of the Medes, the warriors sigil, and a cuff with Bajoran characters. Medes Nar. A little boy.

Oh. It aches. It aches and hurts. It aches and hurts and wants. So. Much. Medes's eyes flicker over the earpiece, and she draws in a short, sharp breath. Medes. ... Her hands shake at first, but she kneels on the ground (which is light) and slides her hands gingerly under the swaddling blanket. How do you /hold/ one of these things, anyway? Well, let's see, some delicate joints here, better support the neck, maybe if she just lays it along her forearm like it was a delicate bit of machinery she was cradling... ah. See. Now. That wasn't so hard. "Medes Nar." It's a whisper, that name, as she lifts him. Amazed.

The infant relaxes all the more when its mother lifts it from the ground. No stiff joints, no squirming, no crying, just content. Its head lolls against its mother's chest, impacting with ... robes. Not a uniform. At least, not her usual one. Unfamiliar, but just as familiar as the baby in her arms, it is a nursing gown. And it seems baby is hungry.

Well. That's... Okay. She can accept that. After a few curious glances between her clothing and the baby, Medes nods her head. Right. Hungry. Well. That's not so hard. Is it? Can't be. Tab A, Slot B. Basic Engineering Principles once again apply to baby care. But she can't get enough of him. She can't stop watching him, even as she's fumbling with the gown, even as she's attempting to fold her son (her son) up to her tiny chest.

As with all things, even this must end. Her chest is less tiny, it would appear, than normal. Producing, as it seems capable of producing, food enough to sustain a child's life. She nurses baby Nar for only a few moments before light overtakes her once more and the whispers return. Then the light, and the whispers, fade away. Fade back with a snap of reality. The calm that was in her body and her mind all of this time -- for the body is not the soul -- is broken by all of the emotion she had felt in so brief a time. The weathered hands of the Prylar gentle close the doors and shut the latch. He watches her, with her arms positioned as though nursing a child, with a gentle smile.

Medes's mind is a series of heavy emotions: terror, pain, rage, stilted confusion, and then peace. And then joy. The tiny woman folds her arms against her chest, breathes out a long sigh, and offers the old man only a broad smile and a "Peldar Joi" before getting to her feet and skittering out of the Temple. It is not as though the pain and fear are forgotten. No. They are simply outweighed.

Kresa turns to watch the woman retreat, folding his hands together before him with a slow nod of the head. "Peldar Joi."

Time: Sat May 03 16:04:20 2003

Stardate: 53187.5

The temple is quiet, but for the thrum of the station's power grid, apparently empty though it is steeped in shadow. Upon the alter rests an ornate case with four oval glass windows, the home of the orb itself. Its golden latch, delicate and beautiful, is shut fast, containing the unknowable power of this most precious of Bajoran relics. All is, for the moment, peaceful. A waiting silence broken by the pulse of 419 itself.

A voice speaks from the shadows, a crackling and kindly voice, deeply touched with advanced age. "Peldar Joi, my child. What brings you to the Temple?"

Idrani's antennae move in the direction of the voice, even before her eyes do. "Pel..dar Joi." She replies, stumbling a bit over the unfamiliar Bajoran words. "Curiousity, maybe? How often does one get the opportunity to see one of the Bajoran Orbs?"

"Often enough to keep an old man out of his bed, young lady. Often enough." The form remains in the shadows, a bent frame with an apparently kind cast to his shadowed features. "It is not a matter that we take lightly, such communion. Those who go seeking answers to their questions are often disappointed, or enlightened in ways they did not desire. To look upon an Orb is to look upon the Heart of the Prophets. I do not caution you out of disrespect... I simply caution you. Curiosity brings you here. Think well what you will allow to bring you to the Orb."

Idrani considers for a moment. "I'm not a religious person. And I am not sure I accept the divinity of your Prophets, though I mean no disrespect to your beliefs." Hey, at least she didn't call them "wormhole aliens". "But I do respect that they exist and that they may provide insight into... something." A pause. Then, in a stonger voice. "I am looking for independent confirmation."

"Are you not, now?" The old man shuffles from the shadows, a much wrinkled face with arms folded into his russet robes. "Do not apologize to me, Child. Divinity is a word, as sure as air, or gravity, or Honor. Something has it or it does not, and belief does not change it. Our religion depends very little on faith, save for faith in oneself. You seem to have enough of that for two." Kresa's smile broadens a touch. "Independant confirmation. You think to ask them to analyze some data for you? This orb deals in Destiny, my child, not in empiricism."

Idrani replies, "I've already had one person tell me my destiny. I'm looking for a second opinion, before I put too much stock in what this person told me." She pauses. "I didn't like what I heard."

"A conundrum. The words of one regarding your destiny are sufficient to bring you doubt, doubt enough to guide you here. To me. To the orb. To seek another opinion from entities whose divinity you doubt. And should those opinions differ, my child, which will you choose to believe? And if they coincide, will that be proof enough to keep you from seeking another opinion? And what of that opinion, then?" The old Prylar tilts his head to the side with a soft smile. "I, too, mean no disrespect. Before you step forward, before you commune with the Orb, you should know if it will be answer enough. For it will change you, child. That I promise you."

Idrani considers it carefully. "I don't know." she answers finally. "Should I receive a confirmation, maybe I will take action to ensure that it does not come to pass." She says this with a certain grim finality, then falls silent again. "Or perhaps not. Perhaps I will keep focused on the here and now and let the future take care of itself. If they differ, I'll put far more stock in this orb than my other source." She says this without hesitation, having her doubts about the credibility of said first source.

"Then I will say only this. A dark cloud is cast about this place, my child. Shadows loom and all is uncertain. You are not the first to come here, and you will not be the last. But as I cannot speak of what I have seen, here, in the eyes of those who came before... I will say this. Those shadows gather. Proceed, if you must. Undo the latch and open the doors to the Orb. Seek your answers." Kresa turns to move towards the orb's case, resuming his patient stance. "Prophets guide you, child."

Idrani waits for a moment, pausing until her muscles relax and her breathing slows. Will over instincts, something that the young Andorian prizes, something that keeps her natural aggression and passion in check, at the conference table. When Idrani is ready, she approaches the alter, unlatches the orb's case, and open the doors.

When one hears the word 'orb', one imagines sphere. The Orb of Destiny is not a sphere, rather an hourglass sort of shape, perhaps a dumbell. It has a light to it, a corona more than an inner-light. It pulses slowly and gently, almost as though it were alive. Perhaps it is, indeed, the Heart of the Prophets. As Idrani watches, the light begins to reach out, sliding over her face and body, wrapping her in a cool sort of calm that is at once entirely pacifying and alien in its strangeness. Seconds become meaningless moments and sense of space recedes entirely.

There is a wash of white light in her vision, a suffusing glow that begins to recede to the sounds of distant explosions and subdued screams. Form begins to take shape, a corridor of the station, apparently a civilian deck. People are running in opposite direction as the klaxons wail. Security officers are running amid the crowd, some carrying children, others small arms. Against a wall, near a burning terminal, rests the body of a yellow shirted Ensign Harris. His throat is slit by a piece of the terminal, his eyes staring blankly upwards as blood dribbles from his mouth and onto the floor. The station rocks. All is chaos.

Idrani blinks, staggering for only a split second before instincts and training kick in. So much for will. She checks for weapons. Phaser or bladed.

She carries no weapon. No blade, no phaser. The Security personnel speeding past with their weapons cannot be stopped to surrender one. And none will, besides. How many red shirts have they passed, demanding they die unarmed rather than them? Few, if any, even answer a screamed order. There is a blast that rocks the station yet again, killing the lights and raising a scream in general from the people on this deck. Emergency power kicks in with a flicker, dim lights now in place of bright ones. And there is an unmistakable wind, now, rushing counterclockwise. The hull is compromised and the fires begin to dim.

Idrani hisses between clenched teeth, moving toward a turboshaft, a jeffries tube, anything. Hull breach means that the deck will be sealed off. She leaves the body of Harris behind, not able to help him, but if she help drag wounded or herd children, she will.

Some wounded lie about, though she can only pick one. Just one. Air is rushing away like hope, and the lights are only dimming more, now. Hands reach from the ground, begging for help. Children amid the crowd are numerous enough, some crying in empty desperation where they stand, others running with the general herd for the lifts. But breath is coming short now, and her vision is beginning to dim and soften. There is no time. Not if she is to live.

Idrani bites her lower lip, hard. Instinct takes precedence over will and it is something that will haunt her. She grabs a child, the nearest one, forcing herself not to look or to think. Then, she runs. She is young, athletic and uninjured. Survival now, that screaming voice of self-preservation is the only thing she hears.

The nearest possible escape is a Jeffries tube. The faceplate is no match for her strength, even waning as it is with the thinning air. The child is still in her arms now, gasping shallow breaths. The fit is narrow, the child cumbersome. Dead weight having to be shoved ahead of her in the narrow confines of the tube.

Idrani pushes the child in front of her. "Climb!" she almost snarls, "We have to climb or we're both dead." Then, a sliver of will returns and her voice softens a little. "You can do it. Go. One hand, in front of the other." Her tone is more encouraging and she repeats similar words in a mantra, pushing the child in front of her. Speed is vital as is the need to get to the deck above.

Another blast rocks the station as the child struggles up the ladder. She screams, terrified, and slips from her hold, landing against Idrani's chest and quaking with fear. The lights go out for the last time as Idrani struggles up the ladder still. In the shadows, all becomes silent, but for the crying of the child and their own labored breathing. Pressure seems to have evened out. Perhaps the tubes are sealing themselves. Perhaps the affected section has been closed off. Perhaps a dozen things. But in that silence, there can be heard the sound of dripping. A wet, sticky patter splashes on her face as she struggles higher. It gets in her eyes, covers her nose, oozing. Another blast rocks the station and again the child screams. The rungs vibrate, her grip loosens, and the pair tumble down the tube, back onto the floor below. Sensation recedes with a tingle. Perhaps she broke her neck. Perhaps she is unconscious and the vision continues besides. But in the darkness, from the shadows, comes the crackling and scraping of massive forms. The child clutches to Idrani's uniform, shaking her, but she does not move. The ooze on her face drips into her open eyes. A crystal colored blue.

She lies paralyzed as they come for the child and the shadows consume her.

Idrani does the only thing that she can do. Prays to die.

With a cool wind, the vision recedes into white light. It's as though the color and form of all things were simply drawn mercifully away. The child's screaming is the last thing to die away. And then, perhaps wishing to calm their charge, there rests a few moments of white and peace. This, too, finally gives way to the thrum of the Station and the comfortable presence of the Prylar standing nearby. Her body, standing peacefully before the orb's case, is suddenly beset by all of those stored up emotions. From peaceful repose to full sensation, all in a moment. All of this, as the weathered hands of the Prylar shut the case's doors with a subdued whisper of air and a click of of the latch.

Idrani falls to her knees, burying her face in her hands. She weeps.

This is a reaction the Prylar has yet to witness. And despite this fact, he settles to his knees beside Idrani and lays a hand on her shoulder. "My child... Oh, my poor child. All is uncertain. All things. Even this."

Kresa tried to warn her, after all. He tried. Uncertain of what to do, he keeps his hand resting on her shoulder and purses his lips tightly. Perhaps this is why he is no Vedek?

The selected cargo hold is, perhaps as a gesture of determination, one of the smallest, most cramped, and dank places on the station. Great pains were taken to place the orb in the least desireable of all locations. It rests on a cargo crate coated with a fine layer of dust, the case of the Orb itself standing out as some impossible jewel amid so much grime and shadow. It has four oval portals of green glass, and a latch that holds shut the doors of its face. The handiwork is phenomenal, a priceless treasure in its own right. The room is dimly lit from a single candle that burns upon a mandala next to the orb, flickering the darkness into umbras of orange, distorting form into a morass of half-light. All is silent here, waiting.

As the doors part to allow access to the corridor, Harris enters silently, hands folded behind his back. He holds a reverent air about him - he doesn't understand the worship of the Prophets, to be completely frank - but he remains open, trying to learn... and that's why he's here.

A voice speaks from the shadows, rather as though it is continuing a conversation that it and Harris had paused some time ago. The voice itself in aged, it rasps in places, but never fails to be kindly. "My people worshipped in such places for sixty years. In mountain caves and prison camps. When we resisted, they killed us. When we went quietly, they killed us. When we prayed, they killed us. We hid. For sixty years. While our Warriors fought. It is fitting, wouldn't you agree, that this Orb -- stolen during that war -- returns to us now? Like this?"

"Strangely enough, yes," Robert replies softly as he tears his gaze from the orb to more closely inspect the surroundings. "In the end, all we have are memories, after all... and even they fade with time."

That voice in the shadows chuckles softly. "And here... I had assumed you came to me for wisdom! You seem to have plenty enough for yourself, my child. Though I would argue that, in the end, we have far more than memories. Far more than that, my boy. For, if all we have are memories, then what are we but our pasts? And if all we are are our pasts, why do we live in the now? No, my son, there is always the future. And in the end, that is all we really need."

Harris inclines his head to the shadows. "Point taken," he murmurs in response before looking back to the orb. "On the other hand, it's the memories that define the future. What I did yesterday reflects on what I'll do tomorrow. What I'll do tomorrow will shape the next day." He ponders that for a moment, then shakes his head ruefully. "And that is why I don't get involved in philosophical discussions. I'm too literal in the end."

Taking a step forward, Robert's eyes try to penetrate the gloom. "You mentioned wisdom earlier," he replies after a moment of thought. "That's what I've come for. Wisdom. Understanding." His shoulders lift in a soft shrug before he carries on, another step closer into the dank space. "Another step forward in getting to know my new home, as much as I miss the old. That's why I'm here."

"Ahhhh," the voice says, now visibly belonging to a stoop backed form in the shadows, dressed in dark colored robes. Or dark appearing robes, at least, given the shadows, "Wisdom and Understanding. Another step closer to understanding-- yes...! Of course." The form shuffles out of the shadows, revealing a shadowed face so deeply lined that it defies description. Old. His ridges are lost somewhere in all of those wrinkles. "Then perhaps you should turn around and go speak to the Station Counselor. Perhaps the Crew Management Officer. I hear he is Bolian, and they are a very friendly people. Perhaps you could open your heart, and your eyes, and your ears. Rather than seek in dark places old men to spin you tales. What you seek, my child, is not here for the taking. It lies within you."

Harris folds his arms over his chest. "I don't think it does," he replies softly. "And the people out there don't truly understand. When I was born, there was none of this. No orbs. No Bajorans. No Dominion... and now, 113 years later, they're major players in a future that I still don't understand. The counselors tell me that I have trouble adjusting. That I need more friends. Bolians suggest I should listen to happy songs and drink fruit juice." He pauses, allowing his head to bow for a moment before he looks back up. "And that's not what I need. Maybe it's absolution that I seek. Maybe it's not. What I do know is that this place - right here, right now - seems more real to me than any comfortable counselor's office or bar. It's something I can connect to. Experience with my own senses... it's tangible."

"Ah! We are peers, then, you and I. Though, may I say, you wear your years better than I do." Kresa chuckles softly, moving a shuffled step closer to get a better view of the human before him. "When you were born, you did not know of us. But we were there, my boy. When your ancestors were discovering fire, we were writing poetry that could rend the soul and sew it back up again. Have I not lost my friends and my family? Have I not lost my peers? My children? Was not my world turned upside down, righted, and twisted all around again?" A pause. "Then again, you found me here. So who am I to argue? You come seeking Wisdom, and I have offered all I wish to give. If this moment, this place, brings you peace, I welcome you to it. But... press no further. There is a shadow hanging heavy over all that you know, and all that you may come to know of this place. Thick and cloying. Find your peace and go. Speak with me if you wish it. But to look on an Orb of the Prophets, child, is to look on their very Heart. You cannot possibly know what that means, nor can you know if you are prepared to face what they might show you. Fear is a brother to Wisdom, child, and where there is one, the other will follow. Listen to one, or the other, and find its Brother. Elsewhere."

"I'm no stranger to fear," Robert murmurs, his eyes tracing the other man's features. "I've watched death rain from the heavens like shooting stars. Had good friends die in my arms. If there's a shadow, and I'm already covered by it... isn't it better to recognize what it is?" He pauses for a moment, his eyes dropping to his boots. "I know that something terrible is going to happen already. I saw it in Gwen Poole's eyes when we went for a flight in a shuttle. I know it's two years away." He looks up. "I want to know more."

"Then you know more than I, child. For all of my age and Faith, I will not look into the Orb in this place." Kresa leaves it at that, stepping to the side to allow Harris access to the Orb's case. "Lift the latch, draw open the doors. And may the Prophets Guide you."

With a few steps, Harris's hand rests on the latch for the orb. He pauses for a moment, then nods to Kresa. "Thank you," he murmurs before lifting the hatch and gently opening the case to gaze on what's within.

Or allow what's within to gaze on him, as it were. The orb is not, as convention may dictate, a sphere. It is a vaguely hourglass shaped object, surrounded and suffused with a soft light. It pulses and turns, alive and ambulatory. A moving, throbbing thing. The light of the Orb begins to reach outward towards Harris, and in that moment there is a warmth to the light. A peace that calms and pacifies. Harris' body becomes eased, his mind free of worry, even as his soul is thrown into a vague and nameless future where space and time lose all definition...

For a moment all is white and whispers.

...then there are sounds of screaming voices from far away. As though viewed from above by some departed soul, Harris passes over a sea of carnage and fleeing civilians an starfleet personnel, running wildly through corridors, pressing into airlocks. Fires burn, and there is smoke enough to obscure all shape and color.

Suddenly, Harris himself stands at a terminal in one such corridor, his hands poised above the LCARS terminal bearing his access codes and name, though different than he may remember it. Lieutenant Harris, Assistant Operations Manager. Havaris is nearby, carrying a rifle and herding passengers through an airlock. It must be Deck 21. He is shouting at Harris, despite. "...waiting for, Robert! Cut all secondary systems to shields, we need to buy the Paine time!"

There's a pause - the space of two heartbeats, while Harris tries to process the information before him... and then he enters the proper sequence. "Secondary systems rerouted to shields, aye!" he shouts over the noise of the apparent evacuation.

The station rocks as something unknown pounds her like a welter-weight in a prize fight, sticking her to the ropes where only a bind can earn a bell. She's losing. She will fall. From the corridor ahead rush a detachment of Station Security, some carrying rifles like Havaris, others Type II or Type I Phasers. Two of them drag a screaming comrade between them. It is Donavon, a second hollow-pip at her collar. She is screaming empty sounds of pain, her legs shredded meat below the knees. Havaris has Security stand in, allowing him to grab Harris by the collar and drag him up the corridor, away from it all. "We have to get to Station Security! If the armory falls, that's it! MOVE!" The vision fades into distortions of space and color for a moment, before snapping back into focus. The background behind the two men seems to rush along at three-times speed, while the pair move horribly slow. If only for one elongated moment.

"...Meg...?" is all that Harris manages to get out before he's drug up the corridor, unable to look away for a long moment before his training kicks back in. Gaze snaps back to the hallway in front of him, and he moves willingly forward. "What's going on here?"

The Bajoran's reply is slurred and indefinite, words pour out, lips moving at full speed, but there is nothing of comprehension to them. Behind them, there is an explosion. Fire bursts out of the Airlock, sending shrill screams pouring forth as easily as heat that singes the hairs of Harris' head. Bodies tumble out of the inferno, red skinned and flailing. No time for that. Havaris keeps moving, only to have another blast tear through the corridor directly before him. Harris' face is powdered in wet blood as the majority of Havaris' upper body literally disintegrates, and his lower extremities lurch forward to the ground. Fire on both sides of him, behind and ahead, the vision begins to recede...

...Now Harris stands on an empty mall deck, all is soft darkness and silence, but for the distant sounds of a child crying in the darkness.

Wiping at his face, Harris starts to move again. Station security was the goal before his boss got vaporized, and he's going to get there - or die trying. He remains silent, quashing the desire to call out to the sobbing child - there will be time for that later.

Station Security is just up ahead, though it is a burned out hole now. Charred bodies lay on the floor, covered in a thin cover of dust. Once again, Harris is years too late to save anyone. Once more, everyone he knows is dead. Once more, he is alive. Surviving them all. A new future to manage. New rules to learn. New ethics to adopt. From the shadows, that child still cries. And from the shadows come voices, speaking all at once, but each one distinct. Poole's voice, and Nevaren's. Donavon's, too. The crisp British tones of Nolte clashing with the subtle ones of Gwen. A chorus of accusers to pin the blame on Shakespeare's dupe. "Who are you, Robert," they ask in hollow tones, "why do you not belong?"

How does one respond to the accusations of the dead? Harris settles to his knees before the remains of security. "I'm not one of you..." he finally whispers. "I've managed to outlive everyone I care about. Everything I know... again. Who am I that I deserve such a fate? Why do I get to carry on, while everything I know turns to dust?" He's silent for a long moment after that. "I don't deserve it."

Harris turns slowly to face the boy, eyebrow raising - life in the charnel house continues. "So am I," he admits softly.

The child's crying grows closer, though nothing moves in the shadows. Nothing.

Nothing.

The voices speak again, one or two taking a more bitter tone, while the others remain impassive. "You were afraid to belong, Robert. You pushed us away. We were alone, in the end." Poole's voice, especially, grows touched with fear at the next words, "We always knew we would end that way." The crying grows closer still, and still nothing moves in the darkness. "You deserve all the loneliness you have found. Death is a mercy. You refused your present. Look upon your future."

From behind him, there is a tug at his uniform. The voice of a tearful boy whispers, "I'm scared."

The boy is oddly familiar. It takes a moment to process the knowledge, but it is very clearly a young Harris. Perhaps age eight. As Robert watches, the boy's flesh begins to pucker and distend, blue crystal parting the flesh of his face as the child stares up at Harris with dead eyes.

"It's okay. You're not alone anymore."

Harris pushes to his feet, backing away a step or two as his body forces him to recoil. "What *are* you?" he demands, voice filled with revulsion.

The skin of the child's face begins to slough off like rotten meat from the bone, dropping in gobbets to the floor. That crystal blue fattens, tears skin, pushes outward until -- like some comic blue starfish -- it stands in the corridor in silence.%R%R"The question," a voice he has yet to hear speaks in a whisper at his ear, "is what are *you*?" The voice is female, somewhat aged.%R%RAnd without further fanfare, the vision recedes into white noise, and the hands of Prylar Kresa are seen closing the doors to the Orb's case. "What you have seen is yours alone to carry, my child. But its burdens you may share, if you choose to. Simply do not speak of what you have seen. And go, in peace, with Their guidance. Peldar Joi."

Harris staggers backward, breathing coming in ragged gasps as he eyes the Prylar. "Pe...Peldar Joi..." he manages to get out after a moment as he backs toward the door. After a moment, the corridor reclaims him... and he's gone.

The old Prylar shakes his head, patting the Orb's case as though consoling it. "They never do listen, Prophets." He glances upwards ammending, "To me, anyway." Chuckling dryly, the old man totters off into the shadows to lie in wait for his next Faust.

Time: Tue May 06 01:28:50 2003

Stardate: 53193.3

The cargo hold is cramped and tiny, covered in dust and grime. A disused and abandoned corner of the station that has never known a purpose. Cargo crates of materiel line the walls and act as an altar for the Orb's case. The light here is provided by a single candle only. It flickers atop a mandala set before the case upon which the Orb rests. The silence here is alarming, for the ambient hum of the station -- normally audible as background noise -- is absent here. Just the light ringing of ears and the occasional distant dull metallic ping as the metal contracts and expands. Shadows are lengthy and shift with the candle's flicker.

Poole steps into the cargo hold, fearless as is her wont. She holds her chin up as she looks around, ignoring the shadows. Lips pursed, she's thinking to herself as she walks on up to the Orb.

. o O Poole thinks "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. When it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

"Another visitor," speaks a kindly voice from the shadows -- one that elocutes the words crisply, "how unexpected. Welcome, my child. Welcome. It is, I must admit, not the finest of temples in which I have offered my services, but it is certainly not the worst. What brings you here, in the birth of a day, walking regal amongst the shadows?"

Poole looks into the shadows, partially startled although she hides it well. "To share in the experience... The Orb... Perhaps, to talk or listen to the Prophets... if they'll let me." It's an honest answer, if a bit on her toes.

"At last," the voice says pleased, "someone who has an answer I can accept! Your goals are admirable, child, and I wish I had it in me to welcome you to your pursuit. But... this place. The whole of this place. Stormclouds gather here. A shadow hangs overhead, obscuring much but that which seems desolate. The Prophets welcome your communion, child, as do I. I would spend many hours speaking with you, if that is what you wish. But this is no matter to be taken lightly, child, facing one's own destiny. Is that truly why you have come? Are you prepared to face what you may be shown?"

Poole answers that question with one of her own. "Can they show me a future darker than the one I have already imagined for myself?..." Not waiting for an answer, she says firmly, "I am prepared." No nervous twitches this time around.

Kresa replies to the rhetorical, "Yes. They can." With that said, the figure of an aged and stoop backed Prylar shuffles from the shadows, his ear piece dangling nearly as much as the skin of his neck. "We shall see, child," he murmurs in reply to the last, "we shall see." His eyes narrow slightly before he offers the rote instructions. "Lift the latch and draw open the doors. What you see is yours alone. Do not speak of it to anyone. Peldar Joi, and may the Prophets guide you."

Poole murmurs, "Peldar Joi, Prylar." She steps up to the orb case and reaches a hand out to lift the latch. Then, slowly, she draws open the doors, peering curiously inward.

The orb is not a sphere as may be assumed by the name. Rather, it is a dumbell shaped object, slowly turning within the case, surrounded in a corona of soft light. It fills, or seems to fill, the whole of Poole's vision, that light. Reaching outwards in tendrils and snaking branches until she is surrounded with it. For a moment, all is peaceful and calm. Her body holds no tension, her mind is at peace. It remains so, in fact, through the whole of her vision.

The vision itself is another matter entirely.

Poole appears on a field of white, a world of light. There is ground beneat her feet, but it is only whiteness and glow. In the distance there are whispers, she is alone. All is peaceful for the moment.

As the seconds tick by, shadows begin to creep in on the edges of the white, smokey billows of darkness that begin to dirty out the purity of this surrealism. With a loud explosive noise, she is suddenly standing in a corridor of the Station's mall deck, section five at first glance. Personnel or running in both directions, Security is trying to keep order, arming themselves to repel boarders. The station shakes from outside fire, the lights flicker.

Poole blinks at her surroundings, "This isn't right... this isn't...." She looks at the personnel running about, then moves towards the security officers, wondering (and dreading) who they are repelling.

Rann is there, of course, a rifle in his hands shouting orders to his men. Things are frantic now, there isn't a confident eye to be seen. There is only fear. A near hopeless dread. "Gwen," Rann calls from a distance, "what in the name of Opaka are you doing here? You're supposed to be at the cordon on Deck 21! Kusto and Thea are down there, the Thomas Paine is trying to debark, I think Nevaren's on the evac crew. Move! They're thin on time!" Without even thinking it over, Rann shoves his rifle into Poole's hands and ducks back inside. The rifle in question is well used and dented. It's seen a lot of action. It's about to see more, it seems.

Poole checks the rifle in her hands. She holds it. Knows it. It's familiar and comfortable. And she knows it is likely of little use in this place. Still, she hefts it, dialing it up to it's maximum setting. Then she calls upon her rallying voice and shouts, "Stand firm, all of you. Trust in yourselves and each other." That said, she hurries off to find her way to deck 21.

The visions shifts, the passage of time unknown, the method of arrival uncertain. Forms shift and fade, light dims and brightens again, and when matters have been set to rights, Poole appears in the middle of a charnel house of horror. The airlock to the Thomas Paine gutters with flame, charred bodies lie in a corona of sickly black nearby, their names and faces lost amid the char and ash. Around either stretch of that corridor lie the corpses of those she knows. Many she knows. Kusto is slumped against a bulkhead, his wife held against his chest, her skull collapsed and nonetheless cradled in his arms. His other hand carries a Type II phaser, dangling limp from likely dead fingers. Nevaren is not far distant at all from the two, though his body is broken as though tortured upon the wheel. Crushed until his eyes bleed and his tongue lolls from his mouth. Others are here, of course. But of the list of those Gwen counts as friends and loved ones, those three are stand outs. It isn't until a second glance that she notices the light by which she views this is her own. The station floats dead in space with no power to sustain her.

Poole grips the rifle in her hands tightly, her breath coming raggedly now. Her voice is stricken from her and she cannot make even a hoarse noise. Her stomach clenches and she takes a step towards the bodies, but her instincts keep her from moving any closer. In the back of her mind she knows better. Finally the words come and she screams out into the dark corridor, "Where are you...? Filth?... I fear you not. I'll kill you. I'll kill you all."

Only silence answers her screaming for some time save for the hiss and crack of boiling corpses at her back. Finally, a voice answers her. "Gwendolyn," it comes from Kusto. It's his voice, "you have to leave. They killed everyone. The Thomas Paine. Eisak, Jiasha, Nua..." His gaze shift towards the nearby doors to the shuttlebay. "Go. Get out of here."

Poole shakes from head to toe, defiant. "No!... No, no! We fought them back." The denial lasts only a breath... nothing changes, the crackling in the background in still there. She drops to Kusto's side finally, desperately, "Get up... you're coming with me..."

When Poole crouched beside him and attempts to move him, Kusto's arm falls lip to the ground, the phaser dropping from his fingers. Thea's body slides down his stomach, spilling her brains onto the floor with a wet splat. The angle of Kusto's torso is unnatural, the blue slop splattered across his chest? Moreso. He manages to move his neck somewhat, enough to look her in the eyes, "My wife is dead. My child with her. I can't lift my arms or my legs. And I'm infected." His eyes shift to her rifle, then back to her. "Do it. And go." And all he can really think of as a send off is an apology. "They were too strong, Gwendolyn. Even for Nevaren. I'm sorry. Do it. And go."

GAME: Poole spends a courage point.

Tears start trailing down Poole's cheeks now, her lip quivering. "I'm sorry... Kusto... I love you." She leans in and kisses him on the cheek, so that he knows that she does. "Good bye..." And then, she stands and runs for the shuttlebay, doing what she's told.

The Bajoran can barely lift his head, so any hope of returning the gesture are lost to him. As a matter of principle, he doesn't cry. "I know." He coughs softly, letting his eyes close, no doubt anticipating a rifle shot. Likely hoping for it. When she takes off running, leaving him in the pile of bodies and a crystal prison? Then he starts to cry. Until the first throws of the transformation end even that.

The bay doors are cracked open, enough to slide through. A single shuttle lies prepped and ready, Kentoz lying at the rear of the craft where he was killed before he could scramble. Va'tol, too, lies in two pieces before the flight control terminal of the bay. All that's left is to board, automate the departure, and fly to the relative safety of space. Perhaps to Dulcais or Bak'TUR and Avok's people. Perhaps.

Poole wipes at the tears and brushes her hair back, rifle held tightly. She runs for the shuttlecraft, sprinting for that safety. Even though she knows she couldn't possibly be alone in this place.

. o O Poole thinks "Kusto, Kusto.... I've left you... God forgive me. ... I will not fear. I will not fear."

The Shuttle is empty, but for Kentoz' body. And when she crests the back of the craft and sets off the sensors, the door begins to rise, lifting the Napean's corpse upwards before it finally slips away to thump on the ground.

Poole keeps her weapon out as she moves to the pilot's seat. "Computer?..." She calls ahead. "Initiate automated departure sequence..." And in case it doesn't respond, she moves towards the controls to make them work. She's leaving this place, even though she knows running won't help her.

The shuttle chirps to life and the lights rise up, a glowy and comfortable coffin. Systems begint to show green and the field ahead of her falls away as the automated departure begins. The shuttle slides outward gracefully, out into clear space, dotted with stars.

Each one, a cold. Hard. Blue.

Into a sea of Lithians.

Into the mouth of the enemy.

Alone.

In her lap rests the rifle she carried with her, dented and marked from numerous battles. Its handle, even, etched with little hashes to count its kills.

There, scratched into the stock of the weapon are a few Cardassian characters. Sometimes it doesn't pay to know Nevaren. To be his husband. To learn his languages. It reads:

'The last thing you will ever see.'

They wouldn't let Kusto wear it on his helmet anymore, after all.

Looks like God can forgive her. But if Destiny works the way it's said, that may be Kusto saying he never. Ever. Will.

The edges of her vision begin to close in with shadow and darkness, before even the stars begin to fade away, and all hope along with them.

And then the Prylar's hands are seen closing the case, and all of that calm and serenity her body knew is washed away by every emotion she felt in the four or so seconds that the case was actually opened.

Poole 's hands shake as she comes back to herself. Her whole body, as one, shakes as she steps back from the Orb. She trembles like a child and yet, does not turn on her heel to run away. Tears streak down her cheeks, but she doesn't look away from the Prylar and the Orb case.

Kresa turns to regard Poole with a soft sigh and a shake of the head. The rote words continue now, laced with the edge of 'I tried to Warn You'. "Nothing is certain. An infinite array of possibility lies before you. What you have seen need not be. But may be should you wish it, or in negligence, bring it about. Speak of it to none, it is yours--" and then the hammer falls "--alone."

Poole 's jaw works at that last bit. She turns and walks away... as noble a retreat as she can manage. She starts again the mantra she started when she first entered, only outloud this time, "Fear is the mind killer...."

"No, child," the Prylar replies in a whisper, "it is Wisdom's brother." He shuffles back into the shadows with that said, his own expression dark.