Aegis
Oumriel
by Chad Sharpe
(chadsharpe2001@yahoo.com)

Oumriel

Part I

REKINDLED

CHAPTER ONE

Then...

Though the face on the view screen was different than the one she had expected, his words gutted her all the same.

"Ariana's missing," Lt. Commander Geordi LaForge said flatly, his blue ocular implants awash in tears. The Enterprise-E's chief engineer's round, typically jovial face was contorted in grief.

"What happened?" Lt. Commander Aquiel Uhnari mumbled, struggling to bring herself fully awake. She had only taken a sedative an hour ago, after giving up on achieving sleep naturally. Nighttime had never been kind to her, and had become even less recently, with the persisting nightmares of her youth now spliced with thoughts of her last argument with Ivan.

Over and over the spat had played in her head, twisting around her mind, coiling around her heart, squeezing any comfort or peace from her...

"Aquiel," Geordi repeated, his grief stanched with concern for her. "Are you okay?" The Haliian shook her head and wiped her bleary eyes.

"Yes, I should be asking you that question Oumriel," she said, hoping to elicit a smile from Geordi at the mention of their special friendship status. The human's lips remained a flat line.

"Geordi, what happened to Ariana?" Aquiel repeated. During the brief time she and Geordi had been more than friends, Aquiel had forged an enduring friendship with his younger sister Ariana, a Science Officer aboard the Sirius. The friendship had outlasted even the dissolution of her relationship with Geordi a year after she had met Ariana. Aquiel knew part of the reason for that was the amiable way Geordi received her demand for an indefinite cooling off period.

Even with his heart shattering, he had thought enough of her, like he had even before they actually met on Relay Station 47, to put her concerns, her feelings first. That was why he remained Oumriel, why their bond continued to pulse with shared feeling, despite her torrential emotions for Ivan.

One of the brightest spots of the static weeks following Aegis's ignoble return to Earth via directive from Fleet Admiral Shanthi had been reconnecting with Geordi while the Enterprise was docked at neighboring Earth Station McKinley following the end of hostilities with the Dominion. Earth orbit seemed to be swimming with starships, each called home to have their wounds bound before trekking back out into the fathomless void.

"The ship she was on, it was conducting sub-quantum engine tests," he answered, his voice strained. "It went missing 48 hours ago. I just received word...from my father," he paused, his voice cracking. He lowered his head from sight. His sobs came loud, hard.

Unable to stop her own tears, Aquiel touched the screen. "Geordi," she repeated quietly for several minutes. "Geordi it is going to be okay. It could be anything, a communication malfunction, a stalled warp core, something innocuous."

The engineer's head recoiled like the report of a phaser rifle. "No it's not," he snapped, his eyes narrowing. "I've heard that before, from my own lips. About my mother, about the Hera when it had been lost at space...I don't think I can go through this again."

"Is there anything I can do? Anyway I can help?" His hard gaze softened, the intensity leaving his voice.

"I'm sorry...I shouldn't have woken you up. My God, what time is it?"

"Like that matters. Ariana is my friend. I couldn't even imagine what I would do if something happened to my own sister Shiana." She winced as she realized the insensitivity of her comments. It doesn't always have to be about you, she told herself. To him, she said, "Sorry."

"No, it's all right. I understand."

"Geordi I can come over. Alpha Shift doesn't start," she paused to squint at the chronometer resting on the headboard of her alluring bed, "for another four hours."

He shook his head vigorously. "No, no I couldn't ask you to do that." A pause. "It's just that..."

She smiled. "Oumriel."

"Oumriel?" His brow furrowed in confusion. "What does being 'special friends' have to do with this?"

"Everything," she replied, stretching in her seat. "I'll beam over in about 30 minutes."

* * * * *

It actually took her forty minutes, after the soothing sonic shower she found hard to exit. Then she took a few extra moments to pick out her nattiest uniform. Even though they weren't dating anymore, she didn't see any need to not look her best. Besides, she planned to leave Geordi's quarters and transport straight to Aegis's Main Engineering section. She had a lot of status reports to turn in to the ship's temporary CO, Cmdr. Durad N'Daur, a supercilious toady of Fleet Admiral Shanthi.

Before she left her cabin, she grabbed the crystalline structure perched on the shelf by her door. Uhnari couldn't help but pause as she ran her fingers over its slick, textured surface. The Canar was an instrument that helped the partially telepathic Halii focus their mental energies. Geordi was the first, and only Terran she had ever experienced the Canar with. Despite her feelings, or perhaps, because of them, she had been afraid to broach the subject with Ivan. The Canar was a very intimate experience, a merging of souls, and she was not certain if she wanted to see what darkness lurked within him, or more importantly, revealing her own tenebrous heart.

Perhaps it can be some good, Aquiel figured, placing it into the bag hanging from her shoulder, along with several candles. Perhaps I can give Geordi some much-needed support. The idea of being the one person he could rely on warmed and chilled her all at the same time.

* * * * *

Meditation was the last thing on Geordi's mind.

"You're planning to do what?" Uhnari gasped.

"I'm going to take a shuttle and find my sister." He said, his voice matter of fact, his countenance brooking no debate.

"Geordi, do you really think that's the best course of action? Have you thought this through?"

"It's the only course of action," he sighed, his shoulders sagging. "And I can't do anything but think about this."

"Does Captain Picard, or any of the others know?" She asked, referring to the rest of the tight knit Enterprise senior staff. The gelling of her own senior staff had ground to a halt due to the fact that half of them, including Captain Glover, were languishing at the stockade on Jaros II. Though Captain Glover had not been a part of the plot to abscond the Aegis, he had chosen to bear the same punishment as his crew, owing primarily, she was sure, to the fact that they had put their lives and career on the line to save his.

"Captain Picard is on leave at the Ba'ku planet in the Briar Patch. As for the others, no, they don't. You're not going to tell them are you?"

Shocked by the suspicion she heard in his voice, Aquiel replied. "No, of course not. But don't you think you should talk to someone about this? Counselor Troi? Or Commander Data? You've told me how close you two are."

"Data put his career in jeopardy once for me before, when I thought my mother was trapped on Marijne VII. I can't ask him to do that again."

"But you can ask me?" She shot off, not the first time she regretted not taking an oft-asked offer to have her mouth wired shut. He wrapped strong hands around hers. The human looked into her eyes.

"Of course not. I wouldn't want to burden you. Aegis's extradition of the Founder Leader, and the aftermath, is the talk of Spacedock."

"I know," she sighed, the pain of loss and humiliation still fresh.

"Well, I understand what Commander Cherenkov did. If he and the others had just followed orders blindly, we might be at war with the Dominion again."

"Then what do you want from me Geordi?" She brightened as a brief smile flickered across his lips. At least Geordi was one of the few who understood what Ivan had been trying to accomplish.

"Nothing...just I want you to understand what I have to do, in case it doesn't go well."

"Don't say that."

"I didn't finish telling you everything," he replied.

"Oh?" Her interest piqued, she leaned closer to him.

"The surrounding space around the test site has been cordoned off. The experiments seemed to have created an expanding subspace rift. It is believed that the Sirius was enveloped by this rift."

"Really, how did you find out all this?"

"My father," Geordi answered. "By the time he contacted me, he had been informed by some of his friends at Command of the dire situation. HQ has ordered that all starships remain a safe distance from the aperture while an investigation is conducted."

"And so you're going to pilot a shuttle near that thing?" She asked, incredulous. "With its pronounced lack of shielding, engine power."

"Hey, HQ warded off starships, not shuttles."

"Geordi," she lowered her voice, moving her hands out of his grip to place them on top of his. "I can understand how you feel, and what you're going through. But this is too dangerous."

"I'll make that determination Aquiel," he said tightly. "You know how I am once I've made my mind up."

"I know," she exhaled. "So now what?"

"I'm going to borrow a shuttle, with a flight plan for my father's home in Dakar via the Jovian run. Commander Riker, and many of the others, will think I'm just engaging in one of my favorite pastimes. But once I'm out of tractor beam range, I'm going to warp to the Barrens, which should take me less than two days to get there maximum warp."

"And you want me to relay your crazy plan to your father, the Enterprise, and anyone else?"

"Yes."

"I see one problem with that."

"That is?" He scowled at her.

"You know I can't let you do this by yourself."

"I can't allow that," he protested, pulling his hands out of hers, his body language screaming disapproval.

"I don't think you have much choice in the matter."

"But this could be very dangerous."

"I just told you the same thing and it wasn't much of a deterrent." She again locked her fingers around one of his hands.

"I'm afraid," he admitted. She pulled him into a stiff hug.

"Don't be, we'll find Ariana and the Sirius."

"It's the condition that we'll find them in that I'm worried about," he whispered into her ear, his voice barely audible.

* * * * *

A While Later...

Commander Yasmeen Sharma of the Saber-class Starship Kon-Tiki stretched in her command chair, stifling a yawn. She lifted the cup of Chiraltan tea, scrunching her face at the taste of the now tepid, briny beverage. The commander placed the cup back on the armrest, and tugged at her uniform's stiff red collar. I have to do something to stay awake, she thought to herself. Despite the fact that a vortex was rending the starless space of the Barrens less than a light year away, it was expanding at such a plodding pace that she had found herself struggling to stay focused. She had even ordered the ship's main viewscreen deactivated after a time, the incremental march of the smothering, penumbral darkness of the Barrens beginning to bore her.

After months at the helm as the Kon-Tiki's commanding officer, surviving countless engagements against the Jem'Hadar during the recently concluded war, Sharma was having a hard time remembering what post-war life had been like, when the thought of exploration, merely for the sake of sating curiosity, had filled her with such passion.

"Has the probe begun sending readings?" She asked Operations Officer Bhodi. The shaggy Chameloid swiveled in his seat to peer at her with fiery, amber eyes.

"No sir," his voice grated on her ears. "This is the second probe we've lost contact with in as many hours."

"You didn't get any readings?"

"Our sensor array has recorded preliminary traces of tetyron emissions and plasmatic energy. Of course, we could get better readings if we move in closer to the anomaly." There was an almost puppy-dog eagerness in the suggestion.

"And suffer the same fate as the probes and possibly the Sirius? I don't think so," First Officer Gunderson, sitting to Sharma's left, dismissed the notion with a wave.

"But what about the Sirius?" Sharma asked.

"What about them?" Gunderson asked, adding quickly, "Didn't mean it to sound insubordinate like that Captain Sharma."

"I know you didn't XO." Sharma responded, "No need to apologize."

"But really, there's not much we can do. HQ has given us orders to hold position and monitor the phenomenon." Gunderson reasoned.

"Of course, it's just the idea of all those souls trapped in that interfold layer," Sharma ran a nervous hand through her thick shock of obsidian hair.

"Join the club," Gunderson agreed.

"Captain!" Bhodi interrupted the First Officer, his stoic resolve consumed with excitement. "Readings are coming in!" The frantic beeping and flashing of lights on his console underlined the declaration.

Finally, she thought. "What are they?" She eagerly asked, her own ennui fading at the prospect of fresh news.

"Massive tetyron disruption accompanied by violent astral eddies. The readings are spiking off the chart." Bhodi turned his large head back and forth, from his twittering panel back to the commander. "Sir, there's something coming through the aperture."

Sharma slid forward in her seat, a welcome shot of adrenaline tensing her muscles. "On screen, maximum magnification."

"Aye sir," the conn officer replied. Seconds later, the Kon-Tiki's bridge crew almost gasped in unison at the sight filling the panoramic screen. The Sirius, its great darkened circular hull drifted through the opening.

"Life signs?" Sharma asked the Ops Officer. The Chameloid shook his head, his voice heavy with despair.

"The readings are strange...." Bhodi paused, leaning over his console, his face almost pressed against its display. "The readings appear to be winking in and out of our sensory purview, as if the ship is materializing and dematerializing constantly."

"Sharma replied, her knuckles whitening as she gripped her armrests. "What's happening to them?"

"I would need to get aboard to find out," Bhodi answered, his visage more grim than usual.

"What about the ship itself?" Gunderson pondered. "Are there any signs of battle? Damage of any sort?" He looked over his shoulder at Tactical Officer Oram Neith. The swarthy Bajoran frowned.

"Our initial scans show that aren't any outward phaser burn markings or damage to the Sirius that would indicate a hostile encounter. He shrugged, pursing his lips. "I agree with Lt. Bhodi...to a certain degree, we need to get closer to the vessel to conduct a more thorough investigation."

"I may have to amend my previous suggestion," Bhodi replied. "Sensors indicate that the Sirius is in a state of quasi-molecular flux." He tapped several instructions into his console and the main screen zoomed on one portion of the primary hull. Its metallic skin rippled like waves of water. "The rippling effect is miniscule right now," the Chameloid intoned. "But if it continues the ship's hull will eventually buckle."

"Erasing any chance we have to discover what's going on," Sharma said softly, more to herself than the crew.

"Would boarding a vessel in such an unstable state pose a danger to the crew?" Gunderson asked.

"I don't think so," Bhodi offered, "but then again, I can't guarantee you that some danger won't be involved. This is a highly unexpected and unpredictable phenomenon."

"Well, then," Sharma replied, sitting ramrod in her seat, her voice brimming with a confidence she didn't necessarily feel as the ghost ship continued its inexorable glide from the maw of subspace. The space behind it, beyond the rift, now glowed and crackled with an infernal crimson energy. "Let's get to it. Helmsmen, full impulse on my mark"---

"Do you think that's wise Captain?" Gunderson interjected.

"Huh?" Confused, Sharma looked at her askance. "What do you mean?"

Gunderson pointed at the screen, "I think we can avoid whatever fate befell the Sirius crew by holding off our investigation. At least until we notify Starfleet Command, so they can't get more ships out here to back us up." Without acknowledging the suggestion, Sharma turned from her executive officer, and nodded at Lt. Oram, punctuating the silent command by slicing the air in front of her with her right index finger. As soon as the Bajoran returned her nod, Sharma turned toward Gunderson.

"Done XO," she smiled tightly. "Now, let's take a look. Ensign T'Vel," she began, "on my mark"---The command died on her lips when Gunderson tugged her left sleeve, barely whispering through clenched teeth.

"I don't think"---

"Ready room," Sharma shrugged off the First Officer's hand, "Now!"

* * * * *

"What the hell was that?" The commander exploded as soon as the doors to the Captain's Ready room slid shut behind them. "That was gross insubordination. I could boot you back down to ensign, or hell, even out of Starfleet all together for touching my persons, not to mention, openly questioning my orders!"

Less than an arm's length in front of her, Commander Gunderson bunched her shoulders, loudly exhaling, before turning slowly to face her commanding officer. Within the privacy of the Captain's private quarters, the former reserve of their deceased Captain Ra-Neul, she finally felt she could let loose on the usurper that had supplanted both she and her captain. Sharma had already removed the Efrosian's collection of ice sculptures from the room. The situation room was now stark, utilitarian, its only distinction being Sharma's holo-certificates and plaques that adorned the wall facing the captain's desk. No doubt so placed so that the commander could peer at her accomplishments while she sewed up the dead man's chair.

And though the action had made the room more temperate, it had done nothing to warm relations between the two officers left vying in his stead.

"This is not about your personal glory Yasmeen," Gunderson replied, unwilling to choke on the pretense of formality with so many lives at stake.

"How dare you address me like that! I am your commanding officer!" Gunderson rounded on Sharma.

"What you are is a person with connections!" She declared. "Captain Ra-Neul had tapped me to sit in the captain's chair, everyone knew how he felt about you, that you weren't ready. But of course, how many of us have aunts who are Federation Delegates?"

"That's not true!"

"The last time I checked, your aunt was still a Delegate to the Federation Council, a person with her fingertips on all manner of levers, and you used that influence to solidify your claim on the Kon-Tiki."

Sharma's face darkened with anger, but she said nothing. Seeing it as permission to go forward, though she no longer cared about getting permission from Commander Sharma for anything, Gunderson continued. "And though you got command, you still don't have the captain's pips, your victory is not complete. Being related to a Delegate can only get you so far after all. But..." she paused both for effect and to catch her breath, "discovering the mystery swirling within that void, and unraveling the tragedy that occurred aboard the Sirius, now that is promotion worthy."

Sharma gathered herself, her rage subsuming itself under an air of detachment. "You wait till now, of all the times, to come at me about this," her voice was dangerously calm. "I listened, I took your advice. Starfleet Command has been notified. But I don't think its wise to sit here and wait for Command to wrangle together a flotilla of ships while our colleagues might be in danger just beyond that rift. If nothing else, we can get close enough to Sirius, engage the tractor beam to pull it to a safe distance, and then begin our investigation. But I will not sit here and do nothing." Sharma rotated her shoulders, before standing at full height. "These other accusations you've hurled at me, and your rank insubordination can be dealt with at a later time. What I called you in here for was to ask you point blank: Can I count on you to carry out my orders?"

Gunderson froze, her life and career flashing before her eyes. Speaking slowly, each word tearing something out of her soul, she replied. "No, Captain, you can't."

"You are relieved then." Sharma stood away from the door. Head held high, but her senses oblivious to all but her flaming pride, Gunderson strode out of the ready room and tramped to the turbolift without saying another word to anyone.

* * * * *

By the time Commander Gunderson pulled herself off of the floor of her cabin, her mouth filled with her blood, the maelstrom of rage she had felt towards Commander Sharma had completely dissipated.

Grabbing the edge of the thankfully bolted table, she pulled herself to her feet, and struggled to remain so as the cabin floor bucked and the ship turned sharply port, before righting itself. She scoured the now empty table and then the floor around it for her combadge. She had ripped it off her suit and tossed it on the table mere minutes ago. Stifling a curse, and spitting out a wad of blood, Gunderson quickly gave up on her search, her curiosity about what had just hit the ship overcoming her. She rushed to the view port, but saw nothing. Taking advantage of the brief lull, she hurried to the door of her quarters. Pressing a button on its wall unit, she spat another glob of blood out before speaking, "Gunderson to bridge." There was no response. "Gunderson to bridge. What's going on up there?"

Before the mounting fear took hold of her, another barrage pounded the ship, throwing her off her feet, the back of her head striking one of the compartment's duranium supports. Her vision filled with bright flashes of light, her ears assaulted by the shriek of a multitude of alarms.

Gunderson lied still for several minutes, the world literally and figuratively spinning around her, before she ventured to check on her head injury. She gingerly touched the throbbing wound, wincing with pain. Her fingers were slick with her blood. She tried to get up but couldn't.

The commander closed her eyes, focusing her mind, gathering her strength. Willing her muscles into compliance, shoving her pain to a far away place in her mind, Gunderson slowly inched up to her feet. With slow unsteady steps, the relieved First Officer had almost made it to the door of her cabin, her entire purpose in life now to make it to the Kon-Tiki's bridge, when the entrance disappeared.

Stumbling backwards, her heart freezing in her chest, Gunderson screamed. A pulsing hole had replaced her door, and long, sharp nailed fingers ringed its edge. Dark, insectile eyes peered at her from the void.

She leaped for the phaser lying on her bed, but she never reached it. Levitating in mid-air, trapped in some kind of energy field, Gunderson could only look, cry, scream, and curse as she was pulled into the voracious fissure.

* * * * *

"I feel naked," Commander William Riker proclaimed.

"That's an understatement," Counselor Deanna Troi giggled as she traced a lone fingernail over the curve of her lover's exposed hip.

"Very funny Deanna," Riker replied, grabbing her errant finger and pulling her hand first to his lips and then to his beardless chin. "You know what I mean," he guided her hand over and underneath his chin several times, before she pulled it away and tickled his Adam's apple. "I never would've shaved the old thing off if you hadn't wanted me to," he teased.

"I'm not the one who put that razor in my hand."

"But how could I resist? You didn't like it when I kissed you with the beard. If it was a choice between a few strands of hair and another lonely night, the beard had to go."

Deanna cocked her head at him, her gaze quizzical. "Will Riker has never spent too many nights alone, with or without me."

"The truth is," the First Officer's tone grew serious, " they were all lonely without you Imzadi."

"Ever the golden tongue," the counselor rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. Riker smiled, his tongue placed in the pocket of his left cheek.

"In more ways than one," he quipped.

"Really," Deanna purred.

"Really," Riker matched her purr with a throaty growl. He pulled the Betazoid close to him. Their naked bodies were already on their way to melding when the intercom shattered the mood. "Damn," the commander mumbled. "Riker here."

"Alpha Priority message from Admiral Shanthi, Spacedock," Lieutenant Commander Data answered with modulated cheer. The First Officer looked down at Deanna, his brow furrowing. She returned the expression with a knowing nod. He sighed before rolling off her and sitting on the edge of the bed. "Pipe it down here Mr. Data."

"Aye sir."

After meeting the stern admiral once during the last Klingon Civil War, Riker knew what a stickler she was for protocol. Bad enough he would be taking her communiqu‚ in his quarters, but Riker would rather risk having her wait a few minutes than accepting the message in anything less than being fully clothed in a uniform.

Bypassing the rumpled tunic and pants lying in a jumble with the counselor's at the foot of his bed, Riker scrambled over to his closet and pulled out a fresh black and gray uniform. Quickly putting it on, he smoothed its gray ribbed-shoulder band before accessing the monitor interface on his desk. "Commander Riker here."

The wooden face of Admiral Shanthi peered back at him. "Did I wake you Commander?" She asked, accusation coiled behind the innocuous comment.

"No sir," Riker replied, unconsciously adjusting his posture in his seat. He quickly cut a murderous glare at Deanna for giggling at his perturbation.

"Are you otherwise occupied then Commander?" The admiral asked.

"No sir," Riker answered again, failing to fully stifle the annoyance in his voice at the admiral's line of questioning. Whatever this is about, spit it out already, he thought.

"Do you know the whereabouts of Lt. Commander LaForge?"

"He's visiting his father in Dakar." Riker answered, feeling Deanna's empathically produced worry at the question. Had something happened to Geordi? Or his father?

"When was the last time you spoke with Commander LaForge?" Riker's eyes narrowed as he tried to remember.

"Almost 12 hours ago, right before he borrowed a shuttle to journey to Dakar."

"Is it standard policy aboard Enterprise to waste resources by piloting a shuttle when transporting to Earth would've been more efficient?"

Riker frowned, shrugging his shoulders. " I thought Commander LaForge might want to borrow the shuttle to take a few laps around the Jovian run. It was an old hobby of his. I didn't see anything wrong with it," he concluded, a defensive edge to his declaration.

"And Captain Picard, or you in his stead, doesn't regularly check on senior officers' whereabouts?"

"Commander LaForge, as well as most of the senior staff are on shore leave until repairs are completed on the Enterprise," The First Officer retorted, his patience at an end. "What does all this pertain to Admiral?"

Shanthi merely glared at him without responding for several seconds. Finally: "Do you know Lt. Commander Aquiel Uhnari?"

The commander cocked his head, as he sought to capture the wisp of memories attached to that name. With a gunshot like snap of his fingers, he replied almost a minute later. "Yes, from Relay Station 47. She was a communications specialist at the station. She had been a suspect in the murder of Lt. Keith Rocha, until we found out that the culprit was a coalescent being. I believe she's chief engineer aboard the Aegis last I heard."

"Did you know that Commanders LaForge and Uhnari were associates?"

"Yes, they became close during the investigation. Geordi believed in her innocence more than any of the rest of us did."

"I see," Admiral Shanthi stroked her long chin. "So that's why..." she mumbled.

"That's why what?" Riker prodded, increasingly unafraid of incurring the parsimonious admiral's wrath. Shanthi leaned forward in her seat.

"Commander N'Daur aboard Aegis reported to me that Commander Uhnari didn't show for her duty shift at 0900 hours this morning. The ship's computer indicates that she had left the station and boarded the Enterprise almost six hours before."

"Okay," Riker nodded, holding his questions, afraid an interruption might shut off the fitful spigot of information.

"Commander LaForge stopped at Station Salem One to replace a defective impulse flow regulator three hours ago. I believe Commander Uhnari was with him, and I also believe both of them are headed for the Barrens."

"The Barrens? Why? What is this all about Admiral?"

"We have lost contact with two starships, the Sirius and the Kon-Tiki, within the Barrens in less than 72 hours."

Ariana, Geordi's sister, is aboard the Sirius, Deanna informed him via the telepathic link they shared as Imzadi.

Thanks.

"Commander?"

"Ah...yes Admiral. Please continue." Shanthi leaned back again, but her expression had become more severe.

"The Sirius was conducting tests with a sub-quantum drive. We speculate that something went wrong. Instead of teleporting Sirius across the quadrant at a prearranged destination, we now believe that the ship was trapped within one of tertiary subspace manifolds it was supposed to traverse. Before we lost contact with Kon-Tiki, they sent us reports of a rapidly expanding subspace rift. We can only assume that both starships were enveloped in the tear."

"Tertiary subspace manifolds?" Riker croaked, his face blanching at the memories of the inhumane experiments conducted on him, Commander LaForge, Worf, Ensign Rager and several others by a solanagen-based species residing within a tertiary subspace manifold. One crewman, Lt. Edward Hagler, had died as a result of the experiments. "Oh my God," he whispered.

"Will," Deanna ventured, sliding out of the bed, her concern for him overriding the admiral's perceived sense of propriety. A blue bed sheet wrapped around her shapely form, she approached him, placing steadying hands on his now trembling shoulders.

"They're back."

"Who's back Commander?" Shanthi asked, but Riker could tell from her neutral tone that she already knew the answer.

"The solanagen-based entities that invaded the Enterprise-D. We had postulated that they were conducting experiments on life forms within normal space in order to find a way to survive in our realm. If they have a found a way, or if the rift can't be closed, it could give them a beachhead to invade normal space."

"Do you think these beings pose that much of a threat?" Deanna asked.

"Don't you?" Shanthi nodded. "I think Commander LaForge had come to the same conclusion. With his sister's life also in the balance, I think he took it upon himself, despite a restriction from Starfleet Command to venture into the area, to find out. Owing to your experience with these subspace aliens, I want you to follow Commander LaForge and confirm or debunk our suspicions."

Riker cleared his throat. "I can expedite the repairs to the Enterprise,"---

Shanthi cut him off with a raised hand. "I don't want a half-repaired ship on this mission. You will take temporary command of the Aegis, effective immediately. A change in command request has already been sent to Starfleet Command. You will leave within the hour."

Stunned, Riker struggled for a response. "Admiral," he finally managed to speak. "Do you think such steps are necessary?"

"Captain Riker, you don't want to know what I think," Shanthi tried to smile. "Good hunting. Shanthi out."

Riker craned his neck to look up at Deanna, his face flushed red with perplexity. "What do I do?"

"Get packing." Deanna replied, the warmth jesting in her voice betrayed by the dark foreboding in her gaze.

* * * * *

Now...

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," Aquiel managed to say through clattering teeth, as she held onto the shuttle's operational console with all her strength. The Du Sable yawed and pitched, alarms ringing throughout the small cockpit, warning of imminent shield collapse.

Crouching at an open aft conduit, Geordi paused just long enough to shout over the din, "I didn't force you to do anything remember. I never could," he hopped back as a surge ran through the jangle of exposed wires. Gingerly placing a cover plate back over the conduit, the Enterprise engineer stood up, brushing imaginary dust off the knees of his uniform. "Try the stabilizers now. Full reserve."

She complied, running her fingers over the smooth interface surface. "Nothing," she spat seconds later. "We're still being pulled in." The Du Sable's wraparound screen revealed the pulsating, indigo subspace scar illuminating the lightless void of the Barrens, undulating plasmatic tendrils crowning the expanding rift. Several of the tendrils had lashed the shuttle's hull, damaging guidance and navigational systems, leaving the Du Sable powerless, vulnerable, and on an inexorable journey into the maw. For frantic minutes that felt more like hours, both she and Geordi had used every engineering trick they could devise to free the shuttle, all to no avail.

"Damn," Geordi replied, as another astral eddy struck the battered shuttle, knocking him against the wall and setting off another round of alarms. "How about we try again to demagnetize the hull," he forced his way back to the seat adjacent to Aquiel's. "We still might be able to reverse the hull's polarity..."

She placed a stilling hand on his shoulder. "Geordi, it's too late for that," she whispered, looking into the cosmic maelstrom now visible within the rift. It raged with a mesmerizing, azure zeal.

"We can't just give up," he grumbled, the muscles in his shoulders tightening with frustration.

"I don't think we have much of a choice," she smiled, strangely calm. The first serenity she had felt in a long time, if ever. I will miss you Shiana, she thought, but the memories rushing through her mind of her sister didn't fill her with the sadness she thought they would. She felt more relieved than anything, ready to put it all behind her. Shiana had always been the stronger sister. Aquiel was not worried about her younger sister coping and moving on with her life after Starfleet informed Shiana of her death.

"I love you," Geordi said, his hand caressing her cheek, before pulling Aquiel closer to him. "I never stopped loving you." His lips were soft, tender. She closed her eyes, shock, horror, fear, peace, and thoughts of Ivan all commingling as she gave in.

Oumriel, the thought flowed unbidden through her mind, washing away everything else.

They remained in each other's arms long after the shuttle had been sucked into the void.

Part II

MENAGERIE

CHAPTER TWO

Then again...

"I think we need some time apart," she had whispered at the desktop screen in her cabin.

"By order of Fleet Admiral Shanthi, I'm incarcerated at Jaros II for three months. How much farther apart can we get?" Ivan Cherenkov asked in strained jest. The unusual twinkle in his blue eyes quickly receded, replaced by his usual exacting glare. "Just what are you saying Aquiel?"

"That we need time apart." She repeated.

"Is this about my borrowing Aegis to rescue Captain Glover from the Cardassians?" He asked, a plaintive crack running through his voice's hardened edge. "I thought we discussed this."

"No, you discussed this," Aquiel shot back.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I'm more than a subordinate officer to you. This is more than a regular work relationship."

"I know that."

"Do you?"

"You're not making any sense." The indisposed First Officer groused.

"With everything on the line you left me out of the loop. Why?"

Cherenkov snorted, throwing up his hands. "We've been over this how many times now?"

"Humor me."

"I don't see anything humorous about this."

"You don't?"

"Of course I don't," he snapped. "I'm sorry. Look, just spit it out whatever you have to say."

"I already did. We need time apart."

"We've got that, not necessarily by choice though."

"Perhaps we need to make it by choice," she replied. "I think we both need space to reevaluate where we are and where we're going."

"No, what I think is you need space. I know where I am. Jaros II, and I know what I want. You." He paused, his eyes clouding. "But what do you want Aquiel?"

"I don't know," she admitted.

"You know, but you're afraid to admit it."

"How can you say that?"

"I know," his words dripped with jaded wisdom. "How could I not be with you, share your bed, and not know."

"No, I don't think you do," Aquiel lied. "Everything that happened at DS9 showed me that you don't trust me."

"I have served the Federation for twenty years in both war and peace." The First Officer's eyes were now flints of ice. "My whole life has revolved around duty and service. And I threw that all away to do the right thing, to save our captain. Starfleet is punishing me. Don't punish me too."

"I don't want to. It's just the lack of trust"---

Cherenkov cut her off, his voice limned with exasperation. "There's no trust issue. At least not on my end."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You know damn well what I mean! This is all about commitment."

Aquiel vigorously shook her head, "No, no it's not about that at all."

"Yes it is. I haven't experienced that Canar thing with you, but I don't need to know that you're afraid of commitment, of lowering your guard, of being vulnerable. And you've had a tendency to run away anytime anyone got to close to you, anytime someone penetrated your defenses."

"That's not true," she managed to get out before her throat closed up.

"A cursory review of your service record, of the clashes you've had with colleagues, it all shows that you have to be in control, that you have to show your toughness, and it stems from your past."

Aquiel's skin crawled with dreadful anticipation. "What do you know about my past?"

"As part of the command staff I had access to your psychological profile. I know about your father Najal. I know what happened to your mother."

Cherenkov flinched when Aquiel punched the view screen, yelping in pain seconds later. "You had no right!"

"As your XO I had every right to know about your mental and emotional stability." He answered, concern evident on his face. "What happened in the past is the past. You can't run forever."

"It's not," sobs washed away her sentence. Ivan looked off screen a second before placing a large open palm against the monitor. His weathered face appeared to have aged several years within nanoseconds.

"I have to go. I don't get much face time here. I wish you would let me be there for you, in spirit if not in the flesh. But you've got something's you're going to have to work through on your own. Whenever you figure it out, contact me," he concluded, regret soaking his voice. Before she could muster a reply, he deactivated their communication link, leaving her to wallow in the darkness....

* * * * *

Now Again...

Captain William Riker squeezed the cool leather armrests of Aegis's command chair. It felt both right and wrong to be in a command chair not his own, or in lieu of Captain Picard. Though the chair was a comfortable fit for his tall, broad frame. He knew that Captain Glover, the ship's indisposed commanding officer, also shared similar physical dimensions. Again he took in the bridge, trying to commit faces and stations to memory. Smaller and sleeker, bullet shaped, the command bridge was a solemn, almost depressing collage of monochrome grays and blues. There were no standing consoles, the ship's officers' perched in their seats, diligent hands, claws, and tentacles at work on their consoles. A prickly Danteri sat rigidly at his right, his displeasure at Shanthi's command decision readily apparent.

I didn't have much of a say in the matter either, Riker thought, but knew he would never voice that sentiment. For one, he didn't like the idea of becoming too chummy too fast with this crew. Two, every Starfleet officer had to learn how to contend with orders they didn't agree with, and three, his gut told him to keep his cards close to his vest around Commander N'Daur. "Status of ship's systems Mr. N'Daur?"

The Danteri's bronze face darkened. He glanced down at the display screen inset on his armrest. "Chief Kenner in Engineering has just submitted the last diagnostic report. Aegis is ready to disembark."

"Good." Riker turned from N'Daur to his left. Sitting uncomfortably in a chair reserved on Aegis for the ship's Diplomatic Officer, was Starfleet Medical psychiatrist Lieutenant Commander Chamita Xacian, assigned to the ship to help the crew adjust to the interim leadership change. A light patina of moisture glistened the Xyrillian's burnished copper-skinned pate. "Is everything all right?" During his wandering years, he and Xacian had engaged in a brief dalliance while serving aboard the Potemkin over twenty years ago. The affair had been brief and a needed palliative to gloss over his feelings for choosing his career over Deanna at that point in his foolish youth.

Now, after recommitting to Deanna, his Imzadi, Riker couldn't help but grin at the irony of running into his old rebound. The circular nature of things, he surmised.

"Is there something funny?" Xacian asked, frowning. She's nervous, he marveled, amazed that their surprise reunion had penetrated her remote exterior. During their time together their lovemaking had had a detached, clinical air to it, like coitus with a Vulcan. To this day, he sometimes wondered if their affair had been more for his benefit, pity sex of a sort, to help bind his emotional wounds, more so than for the Xyrillian's mutual pleasure.

"Just thinking about an old Terran legend, likening time to a serpent or worm constantly eating its own tail."

"Care to elaborate?" She asked, game enough to force a smile. He haltingly returned the gesture, allowing a bit of his own nervousness to shine through. Seeing her again, under such circumstances had been awkward, but the need to see a familiar face and to at least have counsel he could rely on trumped his own discomfiture.

"Captain, Earth Station McNair has given us permission to disembark." N'Daur interrupted their conversation, right before it got interesting. Riker regarded the impertinent Danteri with narrowed eyes. Voice coated with displeasure, he replied,

"Thank you Commander, but in the future you act only when I order it, and you speak only when called upon." N'Daur jerked his head in confirmation. Riker hoped the public dressing down would preclude the need for more drastic measures. From what little he knew of the Danteri, they were a hubristic, arrogant people and the commander seemed to fit the stereotype almost too well.

"Aye sir."

"Good. Ensign, disembark on at my command."

"Yes sir," the painfully young brunette at the helm briefly glanced back at Riker, chancing a smile, before looking again at her console. Not a fan of Mr. N'Daur either, he supposed.

"Mark." Despite the soundproof walls, and inertial damping, the ship trembled slightly as the loud popping of the station's spider-like clamps released the Aegis to the bosom of space. "One quarter impulse till we've cleared the station and Earth, then take us to warp 8, destination the Barrens."

"Aye sir." Once the ensign had expertly piloted the ship away from McNair station, warping away into the stars, Riker glanced at N'Daur. "Schedule a meeting of all senior department heads, in the main observation lounge, at 1600 hours."

"Yes sir." The Danteri replied, with less displeasure than usual.

"You have the conn Mr. N'Daur." Riker pushed out of the seat, the confident gesture masking his niggling doubts and persisting worries about Geordi. The Danteri quickly assumed the command chair. Riker glowered at the tactless move, but said decided to let his commentary pass as he headed for the turbolift, eager to return to his quarters and process the day's unpredictable turn before the staff meeting.

Though he had every right to use Captain Glover's ready room, which for the duration of this mission, belonged to him for all intents, it didn't feel right.

"May I join you Captain?" He paused, one foot already in the turbolift door. Turning around, he smiled. "Of course Cmdr. Xacian." The atypical smile back on her face, she gracefully exited her seat and walked with measured grace to the lift. Riker stepped aside to allow her to enter first. He jumped slightly as the alien's arm brushed against his, the bioelectric field that radiated from her skin, shocking him more from his forgetfulness than from any pain or discomfort.

"I forgot about that," Riker replied after the turbolift doors closed. Making love to a woman with an electric field suffusing her body had been a shockingly pleasurable experience for him. How could I have forgotten, he wondered. The elaborate pre-intercourse activities involved with making love to a Xyrillian, with their electric charges and ability to impregnate compatible males had forced him to grease his entire body in a contraceptive gel before each of their sessions.

"I'm disappointed," Xacian pouted. "You handled it better than most."

"Hey, I want to be a father, but not that badly," Riker joked.

"So, you have no offspring?" Xacian asked. "After all this time?"

"I thought you were supposed to be understanding," Riker gibed defensively, his cheeks reddening with inexplicable shame at the perceived judgment.

"Do you have children Xacian?"

"Yes," the Xyrillian frowned, her gold-flecked eyes staring light years away. "I have sired several younglings. I was raising them with my mates on Thera before Starfleet reactivated me because of the accursed war."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Riker's frown mirrored hers. "A lot of people were called on to make all kind of sacrifices during this war. I'm just glad its over now and we can all get back to living our lives."

"I concur." Xacian nodded. "My service term is over at the end of the year. I don't plan on continuing. I'll leave counseling to the young." The Xyrillian's smile was wistful; bittersweet.

"So," Riker's own smile returned. "Do you have any pictures of the tykes? I would love to see them."

"Sorry," the Xyrillian approximated a human shrug. "I didn't bring many personal affects with me during this mission. I didn't intend my stay on Aegis to be too long."

"Oh." The commander's smile receded. He drew up his shoulders, feeling at a loss for words. He turned from her, staring at the flashing lights on the carriage's wall, denoting each deck the lift passed.

"Captain...Will..." Xacian said softly. He turned his head, dipping his shoulders to hear her.

"Yes, Chamita?"

"I'm the one that recommended you for this mission."

"What?"

"Admiral Shanthi was confident that Commander N'Daur could handle this mission."

"And you weren't?"

"Yes...no...well, yes and no. N'Daur is competent, if not necessarily pleasant to be around. But from my initial observations of this crew during the interim period, the crew needed a proven officer that could command their loyalty and respect in any hostile situation. The prickly natures of the Danteri species almost negate any such bonds being formed between them and their subordinates, even on Danteri vessels."

"Is that right?"

"Yes," Xacian nodded. "If 'push comes to shove' as I remember you being fond of saying, Aegis needs someone sitting in that chair that understands them."

"But I just got here," Riker protested, but Xacian cut off his declaration with a wave.

"N'Daur cares more about his career, and he won't risk the captain's chair he believes he deserves for anyone or anything, whether it's the right call to make or not. He reminds me a little of you."

"Ouch."

"Let me amend that, of how you used to be. I've checked up on your career from time to time. I've even spoken with Deanna a few times at a conference or two since your stint on Enterprise."

"Double ouch."

"Don't worry, I told her all about us. She is a pearl of a woman. You were a fool to let her go. I'm glad to see that you have corrected that mistake."

"Thanks, but isn't this advice coming twenty years late."

"Better late than never."

"Touch‚."

"Sticking by Picard, turning down a host of commands, rekindling a relationship with the greatest love of your life. It all speaks to me of a man who is settled, who has found peace and worth within, and not from external things like captain's pips or shiny starships."

"And you told this to Admiral Shanthi?" Riker's cheeks were now scarlet.

"Not in so many words."

"She doesn't seem like a woman who puts much stock in psychoanalysis," the Commander ventured.

"Thusoana doesn't," Xacian replied. Riker stiffened at the mentioning of the formidable Fleet Admiral's given name. "She likes results. And she knows I have been right more times than I have been wrong."

"I'll grant you that."

"And I'll take it." Xacian smiled, rubbing against the human again. He jumped.

"Watch that," Riker warned playfully. "I didn't bring any gel." Xacian pulled back.

"A pity you are committed. We parted before I had finished instructing you in the rituals of pleasure."

"Instructing me?" Riker swallowed a laugh. "Is that what you thought you were doing?"

"You were a sturdy, strapping lad, but a little bit of a slow learner. Too impatient for Xyrillian sensibilities."

"Is that right?"

"But hopefully I did my part in breaking you in for Deanna." Xacian's expression was deadpan.

"You've changed too," Riker observed. "You're much more loose, relaxed."

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

"A lot can change in twenty years I suppose...for both of us." Riker remarked, winking, running expert fingers along her spine. Xacian shivered in delight. "And I've vastly improved since my time aboard Potemkin. Erogenous zones are my specialty."

"Watch that Will Riker. I don't want you returning to Enterprise with child."

"Neither do I." The commander chuckled. "Neither do I." The previously frigid turbolift warmed with their laughter.

* * * * *

A Little While Ago...

Her phaser glinted on the floor as rough, pronged fingers grabbed her arms, pinching her gun hand, the crush of robed bodies pressing her against the bulkhead of the Du Sable.

Intermittent between the cursing and screaming, one question reigned in Aquiel Uhnari's mind: "Why did you kiss me?"

Similarly pinned on the opposite wall, barely visible among several of the gaggle restraining him, Geordi LaForge spat out: "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Barely pushing away an overwhelming tide of fear, Aquiel kicked one of the aliens, hoping that the area she connected with underneath the robe was a knee or something more fragile. The bug-eyed alien let loose a frenzy of chattering peals, falling to the floor. Momentarily free, Uhnari wrenched herself from the grasp of the other startled alien holding her, jumping for her phaser. She grabbed it right as the fallen alien recovered enough to reach a long arm around and chop her in the nape of her neck.

"Aquiel!" Geordi cried, the sounds of struggle intensifying between him and his restrainers. "They're saying something...in my mind! Stop!" The human sank to his knees.

Black waves swam before her vision, but Aquiel held on to her phaser, quickly setting the weapon's setting to kill. The second swing of the fallen alien was it's last as it dissolved noiselessly into the ether. With satisfying vengeance, she made short work of the other aliens. The phaser clattered hollowly against the deck when she was finished. Aquiel slumped against a bulkhead, massaging her throbbing neck.

"Are you okay?" Geordi was at her side within seconds, his voice ragged, his chest heaving. He caressed her aching neck.

"I could ask you the same question," she replied, shocked at how empty her voice sounded, and how remorseless she felt at what she had just did. "You said they were trying to communicate to you...that they said something to you. Do you remember what it was?"

Geordi winced, shaking his head. "Yeah," he said, his voice arid. "It was one word: 'Help'."

"Help?" Aquiel asked, suppressing a shiver. "Help from whom? I thought they were the bad guys."

"So did I," he said as he made his way to the Du Sable's aft section to the shuttle's storage locker. He slid on a bandolier laden with concussion grenades, and took out two phaser rifles. He handed one to Aquiel before fishing back through the locker for a bag full of phaser power cells. Uhnari placed the bag's strap over her shoulder. "Let's go," LaForge replied, clipping a tricorder on his belt. He then handed Aquiel a compression rifle before attaching a phaser beside the tricorder.

"Where exactly?" Aquiel asked, taking the pouch containing her Canar from an upper baggage compartment. She also grabbed a medkit satchel.

"Out there," he slammed the wall unit by the locker. The back of the shuttle opened up into the abyss.

Striding with purpose into the Aegis Observation Lounge, Lt. Cmdr. Xacian at his side, Riker was glad that his erstwhile bedmate had invited herself to his quarters.

The Xyrillian had helped flesh out the fault lines riveting the Aegis crew, primarily between the old officers and the temporary command staff placed in charge of the ship by Admiral Shanthi. The officers now sat around the compact lounge table in groupings similar to how the counselor had labeled them.

On the far side of the table, the stars streaking behind their backs sat the old officers, the 400-pound plus simianoid Chief Medical Officer, Amoros, standing out the most among them. To his left sat the remote Kelvan, Science Officer Lomar. Xacian claimed the empty seat beside the Science Officer. He greeted her arrival with a stiff, overly formal nod.

Facing them sat the cabal of officers Fleet Adm. Shanthi had authorized to oversee the fallow ship's retrofitting: N'Daur sat tall and proud in the seat next to the captain's chair, the tip of his ceremonial cinquedea clipped to his belt gleaming even in the room's soft light. The sandy haired assistant engineer, Chief Bruce Kenner sat beside him. Next was the willowy, blue green Benzite Lt. Mendoc, the ship's Operations Officer. Hulking over the reedy Benzite was Lt. Cmdr. Zhosa. The sinewy, gray Arkonian served as interim Tactical Officer.

Riker walked slowly to the unoccupied captain's chair, still inspecting the curvature of the ship's Observation Lounge. Smaller and more utilitarian than he was used to compared to the spacious meeting and briefing area aboard Enterprise, it served as yet another reminder to him that not each starship conference room's focus was debate, discussion, and inquiry. The realization of the brutal necessity for such warships made the commander sad. He couldn't help but rub the arm the subspace aliens had cut off and reattached during one of their experiments seven years ago. Though he had felt no pain during the operation, Dr. Crusher's revelation of the amputation during a subsequent examination had worked on his imagination, causing occasional tingling in the reattached nerves.

Settling down into Glover's chair, Riker propped his elbows on the table and relayed the information Shanthi had authorized for him to parcel out to his staff.

"How did the Enterprise-D close the breach?" asked Chief Kenner.

"We used a coherent graviton pulse to seal the subspace rupture." Riker answered.

"Isn't it conceivable that we just use another graviton pulse then?" Zhosa asked, with lilting sibilant tones.

"Perhaps," Lomar intoned dryly. "Then again perhaps not."

"What do you mean?" N'Daur prodded.

"It is possible that the utilization of the sub-quantum drive has changed the nature of the space in the affected area of the Barrens, in essence turning subspace inside out."

"Huh?" Zhosa asked, confusion etched over her scaly face.

"I speculate that the Sirius's experiments have created a subspace vacuole, on a much greater scale than the Enterprise-D did several years past," the Kelvan said, his expression never changing, his arms hanging limply at his sides, almost as if he had forgotten they were there. "Normally subspace vacuoles are short-lived interspatial pathways, but somehow a more enduring gateway has been opened, and appears to be growing."

"Well, how do we stop that thing?" The hairless Arkonian looked at Riker. He frowned.

"I don't know Commander," he admitted. "Mr. Lomar, do you have any suggestions?"

"Not at this time sir."

"Well, I guess we'll have to figure that out when we get there," jibed Winters. Shifting in his seat, Riker glanced from left to right. "Ensign Lomar and Lieutenant Mendoc, I want you pouring through every subspace theory you can find to give us a leg up on this thing."

"Aye sir", both said.

"Commander Zhosa I want you to see to it that each crewmember is armed. If the solanagen-based entities are involved, it is a strong possibility that they will seek to board this vessel in search of more test subjects."

"Yes sir."

"Dr. Amoros, please prepare your trauma teams for a massive influx of injured crewmen. Also, I want you to inoculate everyone with inhibitors to guard against their neural sedatives. The inhibitor was the only thing that kept me alive when the entities came for me that last time." The air of command briefly forsook Riker as thoughts of being pulled into a subspace hole and being placed on a cold, alien table, with sharp instruments poised to vivisect him, all for some unknowably sinister purpose, gave him pause.

"I will expedite the inoculations immediately Captain," Amoros replied, his voice and manner surprisingly urbane juxtaposed to his bestial countenance.

"Good," Riker forced a smile, trying to maintain an encouraging front, "Commander N'Daur, what is our ETA?"

"We will arrive at the Barrens in ten hours," the Danteri replied. "We shall reach the last recorded coordinates of the spatial schism six hours after that."

"Okay crew," Riker nodded. "You have your assignments. Make it so."

* * * * *

"What do you see?" Aquiel forced her teeth not to clatter as the shakes took hold of her again. She hadn't been in such distress for a long time. Not since...

"Nothing," Geordi replied, "And everything." In the sepulchral warren leading out from the shuttle, the only sounds present were soft, steady susurrations emanating from the gently undulating walls and ceiling, punctuated every few seconds by the mechanical whirr of Geordi's implants as the engineer cast his extraordinary sight far beyond, looking for friends or foes in the dim passageway. Geordi's bioelectronic vision had made the portable beacon clasped around her left wrist unnecessary.

It couldn't have been less than half an hour since they had bested, since she had bested, the boarding party that materialized from the ether to carry them to gods knew where. She was certain that sooner or later others would come to find out what happened to their compatriots, and with their abilities to appear out of thin air, she had to be doubly alert and vigilant. Her stomach knotted each time they encountered and passed an adjacent shadowy corridor.

All Uhnari wanted to do was lean on Geordi, feel familiar arms around her, familiar fingers brush her hair, caress her face, and whisper familiar lies, like everything will be all right, that she will be safe, that no harm will come to her. Just like before...

"My implants are detecting heat signatures from a multitude of sources," Geordi's enthusiasm cut through her brooding. "About 20 kilometers ahead."

"Human?" Aquiel asked, a strain of hope in her voice.

"Can't tell, this complex appears to be powered by thermionic energy. It's playing havoc with my visual acuity." The Enterprise engineer shook his head. "We can only hope so."

The rifle in her hands no longer felt like a lead weight at the news, but a shroud of gloom remained wrapped around her. "Hoping is good." She managed to say, her mind pulling her far into the past.

"Aquiel." She jumped with a start, the rifle's power cell whining to life as she swung it in the direction of the intruding noise.

"Whoa there!" Geordi sidestepped the arching weapon's emitter cone.

"Sorry." She lowered the weapon. "What is it?"

"Since it's going to take us almost another half hour to reach the people," he paused, close enough to her now for her to see him shrugging his shoulders. "I think we need to talk."

"About?"

"The kiss, for one," Geordi's voice trembled with trepidation. "And also about what I said."

"Did you mean it?" Uhnari moved close to him, his arm moving reflexively around her waist. "Do you love me?" She whispered in his ear.

"Yes." LaForge replied without hesitation. "Yes, I do." She shifted the rifle, and peeled his arm away from her. The Haliian moved in front of him, bringing herself in front of his sight line, wishing to see him eye to eye.

"Geordi, I'm seeing someone else." The words plowed out of her mouth, faster than she had expected, stunning even Aquiel.

"Oh." There was more hurt in that simple word than Aquiel had heard in years. "I'm sorry." Awkward apologies began to gush from the Enterprise engineer's lips. "I didn't know. Please forgive me."

She kissed him, dropping her rifle as she cupped both sides of his face pulling LaForge deeper into the kiss, his skin feverish with desire. Breaking contact with a large, wet smack, Uhnari gulped a bevy of air before smiling. "Thank you."

"Thank you?" The flustered human asked, his breathing almost as ragged as it had been after taking on the alien boarding party. "I should be thanking you."

She shook her head, smiling. "Thank you for loving me Geordi. My Oumriel. Even if I don't deserve it. Especially since I don't."

He tried to embrace her but she pulled away. "Why would you say something like that?"

"It's a long story," she mumbled.

"We've got a few minutes," his voice carried a smile. "I'm a willing ear." Uhnari grabbed his free hand with her own.

"I don't know Geordi," she began. "It's been with me for so long, bottled up inside. It's like it's become a part of me. That it is me."

"What is it? Is it something I can help you with?"

"I think you already have," she answered. "Just by being you. By being Oumriel."

Walking along to the corridor, heading toward an uncertain fate, she revealed her true self to him, praying that he would not leave her in the darkness like so many others had done...

* * * * *

Almost everything that mattered to her died on the hottest day she ever known.

Halii's crimson sun blazed through the scant overgrowth provided by the planet's large, semi sentient Muskan seed stalks, sizzling on her skin whenever the rays poked through the withering protection provided by the tree stalk's leaves.

Her village had been undergoing an almost catastrophic draught for the last seven cycles, parching both the land and its people, unraveling the holistic tie her people held with nature, as the stalks and the animals hoarded their dwindling energies for survival.

Everything had felt so empty, lonely to Aquiel as she briskly walked back home, her younger sister Shiana clasped to her arm, her little fingers sticky against her scorched skin. In her other hand she carried a bulging satchel of Muskan seeds.

Her mother had sent her out to barter with the Muskan trees, for a few seeds to make the sweet punch and deserts she and her sister loved so much in exchange for a smatter of their water reserves.

Mother had known full well that their Father would not approve, and she had admonished Aquiel to hurry home to avoid both the wrath of the suns and their father. Najal Uhnari, selling the new plants he now harvested, would not be pleased that his wife wasted valuable water reserves, no matter if it made his children happy or not.

Even at the tender age of nine, she understood the importance, for all their sakes, of Najal returning home to a nice dinner of breads and fruits, with a pitcher of Muskan seed punch dominating the spread. He would complain of the expense, and perhaps bellow at their mother about her extravagance. But Aquiel was sure that he wouldn't strike Mother, or punish she or Shiana once his lips had tasted the orange nectar.

They left the protective embrace of the seed stalks. Their small house was nestled among a crest of hills. Aquiel accepted the idea of having to trudge uphill with the sun flogging her back, preparing herself for the ordeal when her life changed forever.

"Aquiel!" The voice screamed through her mind.

"Mother," she called, looking around her. The softly swaying trees, which usually imbued her with a sense of much needed serenity, now appeared threatening. Uhnari realized that the brownish decay creeping along their roots, rotting their leaves for the first time. She saw no one. Her mother wasn't there.

"Where's Mother?" Shiana asked, yanking free of her older sister. "Mother?" She too also looked around, mimicking Aquiel's frantic gestures.

"Aquiel! Run!"

It took her seconds to realize that the voice was in her mind. Mother was using the psychic link they all shared, stronger between the Uhnari women who frequently conversed through Mother's Canar. Father often had scoffed at them, dismissing the ritual, along with much of Haliian spirituality as antiquated nonsense.

"Run!"

Aquiel froze. Run? Run where? From whom? She looked down at Shiana. The six-year-old's eyes had rivaled the size of their planet's overlarge sun. But she wasn't meeting Aquiel's gaze, she wasn't trembling in confusion, and fear, waiting for Aquiel to explain everything to her. Her small body was taut, her eyes locked to a spot behind Aquiel.

"Shiana?" She asked even as she turned around to follow her terrified sister's gaze.

A small craft screamed from around the curve of their hillside home, several large, evil looking aliens filling its open cockpit. Before Aquiel could do anything, the ship stopped, its turbines whining as it lowered itself in front of them, the blast of heat from the engine, almost knocking both sisters to the ground.

The largest of the aliens, a thick ridge in the middle of his jutting brow, hopped from the open car, a large, blood soaked machete in his hands. Whose blood was that? Aquiel wondered, rooted to the ground by fear, her muscles a quivering mass.

The alien regarded them for several seconds, swinging the serrated blade in the air above them, droplets falling on her. Aquiel flinched as each drop struck her, more powerful than all of her father's blows.

"What do you want me to do with these two?"

"Nothing," replied a smaller, hairless alien, with very big ears. "There's no need to wipe out the entire bloodline is there? I think we made our point. We have received our payment...in blood, if not latinum. And I am sure that you two will keep our presence here a secret. Right?" He nodded softly, his voice strangely avuncular.

Aquiel nodded, the fear bounding her tongue, and controlling her neck muscles. The large eared man clapped, smiling, rows of dagger-like teeth gleaming in the smoldering sunlight. "Good." He cooed. "Raimus, let's leave."

The larger alien glared at them once more before clambering back into the craft. Aquiel's body didn't reanimate until minutes after the air car had careened through the trees, stripping leaves and bark in its wake, her mind too seized with fear to accept the knowing pain of the Muskan stalks. It was then that Aquiel noticed the acrid smell of smoke.

"Aquiel, something has happened to Mother and Father." Shiana's voice was very small, making the simple truth of her words even more powerful. Aquiel leaned down, putting a determined cast on her face that would brook no debate. Clutching the tiny girl roughly by her shoulders, she said:

"Shiana I want you to go to the dipping pond. Hide in one of the reflecting caves, and don't come out until I call out for you. Okay?"

The usually feisty six-year-old bit back the protestation twisting her lips. She nodded meekly. Aquiel patted her on the bottom. "Go." Shiana turned and ran through the forest.

Finding a tree limb ripped off during the aliens' escape, Aquiel hurriedly climbed the granite steps laid out by her father. Her small frame crouched low to the ground. Each step felt even more heavy and leaden, but she forced her legs to move. Her eyes teared and her nose burned as the dolorous odor of smoke grew.

Reaching the top of the hill, her stomach dropped. The only home she had ever known, where she had found love and hatred, joy and fright, was on fire, being consumed by ravenous flames.

Forgetting her own safety, Aquiel threw the stick away, and dashed into the inferno. "Mother!" she wailed. "Father!" she screamed.

Trying to hold her breath, but succumbing to wracking coughs, she braved the searing, licking flames as she pounded on every door in the small house she could, looking for her mother. But they were all locked, some of the doorknobs blistering heat. All except one...

Learning her lesson, she used most of her remaining strength to kick open the door to the living quarters. It gave way with such ease that she lost her footing, stumbling into the room. A crouched figure kneeled in the center of the space, seemingly oblivious to the smoke and flames.

"Father, where's Mother?" Aquiel yelled over the roaring blaze, approaching her father with practiced caution. She gingerly touched his shoulder. He turned slowly, his dark eyes blinking finally with recognition after several seconds. Aquiel forced herself not to recoil from the man's ruined face.

"All gone, everything...tried to do right...tried..."

"Where's Mother?" She asked again, more insistent. Her father coughed as the smoke got to him. A thick film of blood flew from his lips. Aquiel maintained her grip on his shoulder.

"Mother!" She screamed, fighting against another bout of coughing herself.

"Syndicate..." he mumbled. "Red ice..." Looking up at her again, as if for the first time, his voice cracked. "Aquiel...I'm so sorry."

"What did you do? What did they do to her?"

"She's gone. It's my fault," he admitted.

"Where?" She cried, smoke and heartbreak blinding her with tears.

"They killed her." He said, his voice as torn as his face. "They said it was payment. For missing my quota."

"Quota?"

"Red ice."

"Red ice?"

He grabbed her suddenly, his grip iron, the old fierceness boiling once again in his eyes. "Red ice. What do you know about red ice? What have you been doing?"

She tried to break free, but couldn't. "Father, you're hurting me!" She whelped.

Just as quickly his grip slackened, then his hands dropped from her, and he resumed his almost catatonic crouch.

"We've got to go," Aquiel tugged at her father, the splintering and crackling of wooden supports reinforcing her statement.

"No." She pulled on him, but he wouldn't budge.

"Father, please!"

"No, I've caused you enough pain. Let it end. Here. Now." Her father lowered his head. "I'm so sorry Aquiel. So sorry for being a failure."

"Please!"

"Get out now!" Within a blink, rough hands had grabbed her again, pushing with force, propelling her wiry frame into the hallway. Seconds later, a loud crack and rumble boomed through her eardrums, as the ceiling to the living area fell in, her father disappearing in a mound of flaming debris.

"Gods no!" She screamed, "No!" Crawling backwards on her hands, she scuttled out of the house, collapsing in a heap a safe distance from the building, watching much of her life burn away until the fire suppression units finally arrived...

* * * * *

"My God," Geordi whispered, stopping to wrap her in his arms. "I never knew."

"No one did," she said, quickly amending. "Except a few, some without my permission..." she paused, her thoughts lingering briefly on Ivan. "But outside of Shiana, you are the only person I have told."

"I...I don't know what to say." She placed a finger to his lips.

"Don't say anything. Just accept the trust I've given you. Don't abuse it. Please."

"You know I won't."

"I know." The whispered words echoed throughout the still corridor.

"Aquiel...there's something I need to tell you."

"What Geordi?"

"I haven't been as forthcoming as I should've been with you."

Her brows knit with suspicion at her friend's admission. "Really?"

"Yeah," Geordi fidgeted. "These aliens...I...we've...the Enterprise has encountered them before. They experimented on several Enterprise crewmembers months before I met you. I was one of the test subjects."

"And you're just telling me this now?"

"Well...I wasn't a hundred percent sure that these aliens were involved in the disappearance of the Sirius and Kon-Tiki. But I did have my suspicions. I didn't want to worry you unnecessarily."

Uhnari exhaled her anger, and then smiled. "Plus you knew I would doubly insist on coming with you huh?"

"That too."

"So what's the story on these aliens?"

"They are a solanagen-based life form that reside in this tertiary subspace manifold. We made contact with them when modifications I made to the Enterprise-D's sensors accessed their realm. They experimented on me, and several others for days on end, pulling us from our rooms while we slept, drugging us with some kind of neural sedative..."

"Why did they experiment on you? Did they hurt you?"

"We never learned the reasons for the experiments. I was able to close the rupture with a coherent graviton pulse before they could do even more harm to us. I personally can't remember any pain, but one of our crewmen-Lt. Hagler died."

"Oh," Aquiel gasped, her hand covering her mouth. "I'm sorry." Geordi nodded solemnly before continuing.

"We learned that the life forms couldn't exist in normal space for long periods. I can only speculate that they were trying to gain more knowledge of carbon based life."

"But why do they need our help?"

"I don't know."

"Do you think it was some kind of trick? For us to put our guard down?"

"I can't say Aquiel," Geordi replied, rubbing the back of his head. "I just felt this explosion in my brain, and the word help wailed through every part of me. Somehow, the solanagen aliens are able to communicate with me. At least enough to get one message through."

"Perhaps they altered you during their experiments." Aquiel offered.

"Maybe," Geordi glumly agreed. "I bet its some kind of neural implant. One our scanners didn't detect. The idea of some alien thing inside me, all the years...doing Lord's knows what..." The engineer shuddered. Aquiel touched his shoulder.

"It's going to be okay Geordi."

"No, it's not," a hoarse voice grated through the darkness.

"Who?"

"Friends," the voice replied. "Commander Sheila Gunderson, Starship Kon-Tiki. I'm currently hiding just inside the passageway to your left. Please don't shoot me." Both Geordi and Aquiel aimed their weapons in that direction. The Haliian was angry with herself for becoming so wrapped up in her pain that she had failed to notice a potential ambush spot.

"Come out slowly," Geordi said, his voice surprisingly hard. "Hands where we can see them." The woman inched out from inside the passage, her hands stiffly raised above her head. The Enterprise engineer lowered his weapon. "She's human Aquiel." He replied, tapping his temple to draw attention to his implants. "These don't lie." Gunderson turned around and made a motioning gesture. A lanky man stumbled into the murk from the pitch, a cloaked figure hanging limply from his shoulders. Both Geordi and Aquiel raised their weapons again. "What's going on here?" LaForge asked.

"Nothing," Gunderson raised her hands. "He's with us, he needs medical attention."

LaForge looked at Aquiel first before moving towards the man and the alien. "He's with you?" He asked incredulously. He helped the man lay the alien against a pulsating wall. The creature's breath was ragged, and his robe was matted with a thick, viscous liquid the Haliian could only speculate was its blood. Aquiel reluctantly handed Geordi a medical tricorder from her satchel. He stood over the alien, out of striking distance, and scanned it.

"He's dying, isn't he?" Gunderson asked. Geordi nodded his head, grim lines etched across his face.

"What happened?" She beat Geordi to the punch.

"It helped us escape," the man wheezed. "It stopped us from being processed."

"Processed?" LaForge asked.

" For the others."

"Others?" Geordi asked. Both Commander Gunderson and the other human said nothing, their eyes becoming glassy, and their faces even more grim. "What's going on here?" He cried, grabbing the injured alien and shaking the hapless being. "What?" He demanded. The other humans remained rooted, their minds wrestling with the horrors of their experiences.

"Speak to me again damnit!" Geordi screamed. "Where's Ariana?" The alien said nothing, its head lolling. Aquiel moved behind the manic engineer.

"Geordi," she said softly several times, before finally touching him. He stiffened. "It's me, Aquiel." His head snapped back to look at her, his eyes gushing tears.

"Where's Ariana? If anything has happened to her..."

"Let me help," Aquiel pulled the Canar from her pouch. Geordi's eyes widened.

"Do you think you can link with this being?" He asked, voice tinged with both hope and concern.

"It's worth a try," Uhnari offered, wiping sweat from her ridged brow. She shooed LaForge out of the way and knelt down beside the alien. Placing the Canar on the ground before him, she forced herself to touch him, placing his damp hands around the object before placing hers atop his. She closed her eyes, seeing the comforting glow of the Canar with her mind's eye, the tug of the cold, foreign mind just beyond the horizon pulling her from her corporeal existence.

"What is she doing?" Gunderson asked, now alert and even more frightened.

"She's Haliian."

"That's obvious," the man replied. "Dr. Andrew Park, exobiology department, Starship Sirius."

"Sirius?" Aquiel heard Geordi say excitedly. "Do you know Lt. Ariana LaForge?"

"Not personally," Dr. Park answered. "But I do know her. Yes."

"Is she alive," she heard LaForge croak, "or has she been 'processed'?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know," Geordi's voice had an edge to it now. "And just how did you two, out of all the others escape?"

She never heard the answer. The kaleidoscopic Canar suddenly turned as black as the void the alien mind took her too, ripping away everything around her...

* * * * *

"We are explorers of a sort. Like you." The alien spoke so plainly through its mouth slits, that she knew that the telepathic link was a success. "From the Eclosian star cluster."

"Where are we?" Aquiel asked, looking around the void. She had never experienced a link like this.

"In here," the alien removed its hood, revealing rough skin, pebbled by rows of sharp protrusions. "It was the only way you could truly understand. By witnessing our folly with your own eyes."

"What are you talking about?"

"Watch." The blackness exploded into a soundless array of light, forcing Aquiel to close her eyes. After a few seconds, she chanced opening them again, the orbs quickly readjusting. She was in another dark room, but not as dark as the void she had just occupied with the alien. Dim, red lighting cast the room in ominous crimson. She looked around. Her guide was nowhere in sight.

The room was large, but the omnipresent shadows made it appear small, intimate. Solemn. Several empty slabs with display platforms dominated the room. A group of robed figures flittered around one of them. Her attention was riveted by the hypnotic swirl of the schism just beyond the occupied bed. A portal, she realized. Just like the kind Geordi had said the aliens used to transport him from Enterprise. A smaller version of the rupture that had sucked the Du Sable into the fabric of subspace...

After a brief pause, Uhnari walked slowly over to the throng, standing on her toes to look at the object that had captured their interest. She gasped. Another alien was supine on the hard bed, its velour skin mottled with dark purple splotches. It was from a race she had never seen before, and hoped that she would never see again. Its large, wedged shaped head was attached to a long, ungainly body by three strands of corded muscle. The creature had been placed on its side, to accommodate its awkwardly placed third leg.

Ringing the entity, each of the hooded aliens had a sharp instrument. Feeling a weight in her hand, she looked down to discover a scalpel in her hand as well. When he said I was inside, he wasn't kidding, she realized.

In succession, each tried to carve into the unconscious being. Aquiel found herself doing so too, and meeting similar disappointment. The scalpel had almost snapped when she had tried to incise the subdued alien's impenetrable hide.

One of the hoods left the group, returning moments later with a cart, its wheels squeaking as he rolled it over to the bed. A more elaborate array of sharp knives and needles adorned the arm jutting from the table. Uhnari followed suit as the other robed aliens stepped back. One of them pressed a button on the rig's console. The instruments whirred to life, on a direct course to penetrate the alien.

They never reached their destination. The alien's smoldering eyes flapped open, the long fingers of his wiry arms whipping out from its body to crush the skull of one hood and puncture the throat of another.

The remaining aliens backed away, Aquiel among them, with a series of frenzied clattering. The now conscious alien, nimbly back on its feet, took stock of the room and of the other hoods, regarded the open vortex before clambering down from the table and leaping through it. Both Aquiel and the being she inhabited jointly breathed a sigh of relief...

"They came back," she whispered. "In force...legion."

"Aquiel are you okay? What happened?" The voice was gentle, bursting with concern. Geordi.

She blinked her eyes open, removing her hands from the clammy alien's. His dropped to the ground as his body sagged against the wall. "He's dead."

Dr. Park knelt beside him, feeling for a pulse. Geordi handed him the tricorder. The exobiologist confirmed her statement seconds later.

"She's right. The being has expired." LaForge grabbed Aquiel around her waist and pulled her up.

"Can you stand?" She nodded, quickly finding her footing.

"Eclosians, from the Eclosian star cluster...they are explorers. Like us," Aquiel said, pointing at the alien's corpse. "Then again, not like us. Trapped here, in this subspace realm millennia ago, their cellular structures mutated...evolved to survive. All they wanted was a way out. To return home. To die underneath their native stars. This drove their pursuit of knowledge," Uhnari babbled, knowing her words were flying almost nonsensically out of her mouth but unable to stop. "Whenever beings encountered their realm, or they chanced upon others, they sought as much information as possible, desperately trying to find the right molecular elixir to free them from the slavery of their own despoiled genomes. They thought they found it when they encountered the Enterprise...but that avenue had been closed to them. They sought other exits...in a distant, fluidic domain...a race of beings with a dense genetic structure, resilient against the subspace radiation that had warped and poisoned them. We were fools," she screeched. "We thought we had captured them, but they were toying with us. They allowed themselves to be taken...to find the doorway to our manifold...and they came in hordes."

"Who came?" Geordi asked, but Aquiel's mind was beyond the present reality, looped within the vagaries of time and space.

"They enslaved us...killed many, so many. The rest...they used us, forced us to scour the galaxy for them, used the knowledge we had collected on countless species, searching for threats...everything, everyone was a threat to them."

"Including us." Gunderson replied grimly.

Aquiel nodded, her voice returning to its normal pitch. She squinted her eyes, focusing again on Geordi and then the others. "She is right. The sub-quantum tests sought to eliminate the use of warp drive by threading from one point in space/time to another, folding space via subspace. The new masters of this realm saw it as a direct threat. And sent the solanagen aliens to collect information. But our friend here," she jerked a thumb in the direction of the dead alien, "and some of his cohorts had a different plan. They had sought to use the Sirius to escape, calculating that its modified metaphasic shields could protect them from the eventual ravages long enough for them to reach their homeworld."

"And where is home for them?" Dr. Park asked.

"I...I don't know." Uhnari answered. "The link only lasted for a few minutes."

"That was a hell of a lot of information you relayed in just a few minutes." Gunderson replied.

"Telepathic communication is a tricky business," Geordi said, his voice brusque with defensiveness. "With all due respect, lay off Commander." He wrapped an arm around Aquiel. She squirmed out of the grasp.

"I'm okay Geordi, really."

"So, what do we do now?" Dr. Park asked. Geordi looked at Aquiel.

"We find the others."

"I'm not going back there!" Gunderson protested. " We've got to get out of here...to warn Starfleet!"

"I'm not going to leave my sister or anyone else to be 'processed'," Geordi thundered back. "Not if I can help it. We've got a duty as Starfleet officers."

"And that means we must be willing to sacrifice a few for the whole. Now, Lieutenant Commander, explain to me just who you two are, how you two escaped processing, in addition to how you acquired all those weapons?" Gunderson's voice boomed with authority.

LaForge again looked at Aquiel, shrugging sheepishly. "I can't believe I didn't introduce myself. Lt. Commander Geordi LaForge."

"From the Enterprise?" Park asked, almost dumbfounded. "You're Lt. LaForge's brother?" LaForge nodded.

"We're saved!" Gunderson crowed. "So, that's why you want to push further into the complex. You're doing reconnaissance for Captain Picard?" Most of the tenseness flowed from the battered woman's body.

"No quite."

"What do you mean, 'Not quite'?" Gunderson peered at him with a hooded expression, her voice dropping an octave.

Uhnari stepped forward, sticking out her hand in a well-studied Terran custom. "Lt. Cmdr. Aquiel Uhnari, Starship Aegis."

"The ship of incorrigibles?" Gunderson grinned, "I like your style. So, Aegis is here instead of Enterprise? That's fine by me. I'm sure the power of a Prometheus-class starship can blow these bugs and their overseers straight to Hell."

"That's not it either," LaForge interjected, with obvious reluctance.

"Then what is it Commander LaForge?"

"Starfleet doesn't know that we're here. We took a shuttle and entered the Barrens without permission. I had to do all I could to see if Ariana was all right."

"And you thought you could do that with a shuttle, instead of a starship?"

"I...didn't know what to expect," Geordi offered.

"From the look on your face LaForge, I don't believe that." Gunderson jibed. "You at least had to have a suspicion. Starships don't just vanish." Geordi stiffened, his eyes misting.

"Leave him alone!" Aquiel snapped.

"And if I don't, what are you going to do about it?" Gunderson roared. "I outrank all of you!"

"Damnit Sheila. You don't outrank me. I'm a civilian," Park huffed. "Now is not the time to go on ego trips. We've got to figure out the best course of action and pursue it."

"Then just what the hell do you suggest we do? Huh?" The Kon-Tiki commander asked, hands on her hips.

"We have to save as many people as we can, and we've got to find a way to close that rift," Geordi answered.

"Do you know if the breach is being artificially maintained?" Aquiel asked Park.

"I can't be certain," he admitted. "It's not my scientific area. However, I think it is. The sub-quantum engines only thread through subspace, they were not designed to open lasting holes in its fabric."

"But you can't be sure of that," Gunderson replied. "Something did go wrong remember?"

"Of course I remember," Park said tersely. "I just lived through it. One of the 'lucky' few." Geordi winced at the flippant statement. "Sorry." Park added.

"Even if we can't save any of the crews from Sirius and Kon-Tiki, we've got to find and disable whatever is keeping that breach open." Geordi declared.

"He's right. From what little I can recall from the alien's memories, the slavers now dominating their space will likely invade our own once they have finished doing whatever they're doing to our people." Aquiel agreed.

"So, that sums it up," Gunderson said. The rest nodded. "I'm heading towards your shuttle, and you dismantle the perforating device." The others frowned.

"That's not what I" Uhnari began, before the Commander cut her off.

"That's an order," Gunderson replied. "Now, one of you, hand me a phaser rifle and a beacon." Geordi reluctantly complied. Aquiel removed the light from her wrist with a grunt. Gunderson checked the phaser's power cell, and then clipped the light on. "Get going." Without waiting for a response, the Kon-Tiki First Officer turned and dashed into the pitch, a small circle of light guiding her way.

"I hope she makes it," Dr. Park grumbled.

"I hope she doesn't get herself killed," LaForge sighed.

"And I hope for a tall, frosty glass of Muskan seed punch once this is all over." Aquiel joked. The skittish laughter lifted her burdened spirit.

CHAPTER THREE

"Processing is complete," the woman staring down at her wore her face. "The isomorphic injections appear to be holding."

"What is this all about?" Lt. Ariana LaForge fought to keep the rising hysteria out of her voice. She pulled against the bindings that tied her to the operating table. "What did you do to me?"

Her doppelganger frowned. "We didn't ally ourselves with the Borg. We didn't invade your space-twice. Even after your representative Janeway offered a truce." The face was hers, but the voice was off, as if the impostor were speaking for the first time. She said each word slowly, rolling it around to familiarize herself with them.

"The Borg? Who's allied with the Borg? We hate the Borg! They tried to assimilate us," Ariana bawled, her emotions getting the best of her. "Who is Janeway? Who does she represent?"

The replica slowly shook her head from side to side. "The time for subterfuge is over. The weak shall finally perish." She leaned over Ariana, blocking out the bright white light hanging overhead, her seemingly bronzed human hand transforming into its natural, purplish state. "I would be lying to you if I told you this wasn't going to sting a little," the duplicate said. Four long fingers dug into LaForge's flesh.

You did lie, Ariana thought as the pain flared through her body, robbing her almost completely of sentience. This stings a lot...

"Are you sure this is the right way?" Aquiel asked, yelping as her side raked against a jagged shard jutting from the access tunnel. Grunting behind her, Dr. Park replied.

"Yes...I just crawled through this very tunnel less than an hour ago."

"It will lead us to the others?" Geordi paused, wincing as he twisted his body and head to look back at the others, inadvertently catching the bright, twin beams of the beacon he had given to Aquiel.

"Sorry," the Haliian doused the light.

"Thanks." Geordi replied, swatting the black spots swirling in front of him. He shifted the bandolier of grenades for the umpteenth time, making sure that they didn't contact anything that might set them off prematurely.

"Yes," Dr. Park said brusquely.

"You don't have to get snappy about it Doc," Uhnari replied. Geordi felt the same way, but kept his opinion to himself.

"Stow it Aquiel." La Forge figured that the injured man had more to concern him with than repeatedly answering the same questions. Normally he wouldn't be so insistent, or full of doubt, but Ariana was in danger and he had to do all that he could to rescue her.

Using his elbows and upper arm strength to propel him forward, the human inched through the cramped, dank tunnel, the continuing grunts and groans of his confreres meshing with the increasing thrumming rattling the enclosure.

Thoughts of his sister floated through Geordi's mind, tormenting him with anguish and longing. After he had joined Starfleet, he had grown too far apart from his sister and the rest of his family. Despite the almost instantaneous communication provided by the subspace networks, he had lapsed into being negligent in checking up on his sister, and his father too, just like he had before his mother had disappeared on the Hera.

He had never responded to his mother's last communiqu‚. He had taken Silva LaForge for granted and he had paid for that thoughtlessness. Geordi thought he had learned his lesson, but he realized now, in the awful, forsaken darkness of a cloistered alien tunnel, with his soul laid bare, that he had failed to make good on his promise to be more attentive and appreciative. He had again let duty stand in the way of keeping close to those he loved. Even his friends not currently aboard Enterprise, Susanna, Leah, Wes, Worf, Reg, Ro, and many others, he had all let them down.

Unable to deal with his own guilt, he forced his mind to shift to other things. The only other subject his cruel gray matter zeroed in on was softly cursing just beyond his boots at the moment.

"Aquiel are you okay?"

"I will be when I get out of this damned tunnel. I hate dark, cramped places."

"Darkness isn't one of my favorite things either," he replied charitably.

"How would you know?" She retorted, her voice was high strung.

"I didn't always have a VISOR or implants," he answered, his voice hollowing as brief, terrifying memories of a fire he had been trapped in as a child, before he had been outfitted for a VISOR filled his mind's eye. Imaginary smoke clogged his lungs. Spectral flames seared his fingertips. He gagged, shrinking back. Aquiel plowed into his stationary boots.

"Geordi are you okay?" She spat. "Geordi?" Concern bloomed in her voice. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes...of course," he said, fighting to regain his composure.

"What happened?" Dr. Park asked. His voice sounded faded, as if miles away.

"Everything's fine," LaForge brayed, now understanding Park's frustration a tad bit better. "Let's just keep going." He resumed the crawl, his ocular implants painting the cylindrical world of the tunnel in an array of blues.

After interminable minutes, he informed the rest. "There's an opening up ahead." New, more varied splashes of color representing the heat signatures of several species seeped into the crosscut via a grated lid at the mouth of the tunnel.

He scrambled up to the edge of the lid, pressing his face against its wet, metal lattice. The scream erupted from his throat before he realized it. Humans and aliens, in various stages of decay writhed on endless rows of tables, Eclosians and other aliens, even more vicious looking clustered around them. The ichorous stench of dissolving flesh and organs assaulted his nostrils.

"Geordi what's wrong? What is it?" Aquiel wailed behind him, tugging at his pants leg.

"Is every..." Park began to ask, his words lost in the rending of metal. The grated lid flew off its hinges. Long digits, supported by elongated, supple limbs grabbed Geordi, flinging him from the tunnel. A wiry, naked tripod alien slithered through the burrow.

Head thudding against the cold, slick ground, he laid motionless, his mind frozen in shock. Light erupted from the hole in the tunnel, and a squeal of pain rumbled through his mind. Aquiel?!

The thought of his friend, his Oumriel, who had put her life in jeopardy to help save Ariana jarred him from his stupor. By the time he reached his feet, his head throbbing, the manifestations of a lifetime of nightmares surrounded him. Tall, sinewy, and triple-legged, the lipless aliens glared at him through slitted eyes. Behind the phalanx of beasts flittered several more humanoid shapes, in Starfleet black and gray. As one, the tide closed around Geordi, trapping him in their fleshly pincer.

"Stop!" A voice, familiar...yet different, sliced through his fear. Another flash of movement. Then a curse drew his attention back to the tunnel's opening. His bladder almost gave out when he sensed motion, and then a presence, was within his personal space. Lean, petite fingers caressed his face, running along his cheeks.

He blinked, unwilling to accept the data his implants were sending to his brain. "Ariana?" He croaked, his mouth suddenly parched. "Is that you?"

"Why do you ask?" His sister replied, her voice more raspy than he had ever heard it. "You are not like the others."

"The others?" He asked, confused. "What do you mean?" She ran a questing finger around his eye sockets, her head cocked to the side. Her eyes searched him as if she was seeing him for the first time in her life.

"These are not organic."

"Yeah," Geordi huffed, grabbing her finger. "That's old news. What's going on here Ari? What did they do to you?"

"The facsimile is not working," a Bolian male came from the throng. The four pips on his uniform's collar identified him as a captain. The Sirius captain: Chiba. LaForge had met him only once, during a joint relief mission to the war ravaged Nychindi Holdfast. The jovial, avuncular Chiba was evidenced nowhere in the stern, almost lifeless countenance now peering at him.

Geordi looked past his sister, to the human. "What's going on Captain? What have these things done to you and Ari? What's happening to the rest of your crew?" He gestured to the still twitching half-deads splayed on the slabs. Most of the aliens had resumed their work, leaving only a scant circle around him.

LaForge noticed in the pause that no further noises issued from the tunnel. "Aquiel?" He gasped, remembering. He tried to turn his head in its direction even though he was afraid of what he might find. Ariana locked an iron grip on his chin. He yelped as she jerked it in place.

"Oww!" He tried to pull away from her, but couldn't. "Ariana let me go! We've got to get out of here!" His sister said nothing. The captain stepped forward, close enough to Geordi that he could smell the man's sweat and blood soaked uniform. There was also another smell nestled with the very Bolian scent. Something unusual. Something off.

"Such augmentation was not anticipated." Ariana said.

"Why does your voice sound like that? Why are you talking that way?" Geordi demanded, terrified of the answer his mind had already arrived at.

"Augmentation?" asked Chiba skeptically as he thoroughly looked the engineer up and down. "This alteration appears to be compensation for a genetic imperfection. A weakness."

"Impurity," said the other humans in unison standing behind the aliens. Stepping as one from behind the tripods, they added, "Weakness."

"The weak shall perish," A petite woman, with swarthy skin, indigo hair, and Executive Officer pips, intoned.

Ariana, her voice finally assuming a semblance of its old warmth, replied sadly "Goodbye Geordi." She gently touched his forehead. He didn't even feel the ground slip from beneath his feet.

* * * * *

The monster slinked through the tunnel, its infernal gaze burning through the darkness. "Move your ass Park!" Aquiel screamed as she scrambled backward, pumping the oncoming alien with output from the highest setting her phaser could muster. Each blast tore into the creature, slowing it down, but not stopping it. Or dissolving it into the ether as Uhnari had hoped it would.

"Damn," she muttered, thoughts of survival trumping her fears about Geordi. The last thing she had heard from him was his scream, before he had been yanked from the crosscut. Unable to bite back her fear, she gave in to it. Squealing, she unloaded most of her cartridge into the alien.

A harrowing screech ripped open her mind as the beast halted its advance. They're telepathic, the thought emerged from her reeling sanity. Perhaps there is another way to fight them, she thought. She fumbled for the satchel at her side.

"Commander Uhnari?" Park ventured hesitantly. She ignored him, pulling out her Canar, and checking it for damage. She breathed a sigh of relief that the crystalline sculpture was still intact.

"Commander, why have you stopped?" The exobiologist asked, his voice on the verge of panic. "We've got to get out of here!"

"Quiet!" She snapped, placing the Canar before her, and wrapping both hands around its cool exterior. The alien had begun stirring again, shaking off the effects of the energy discharge. Try to shake this off, Aquiel thought, closing her mind, using the Canar to tune and focus her mental energies. The burrow lit up in a vibrant parade of color.

She heard movement, and then felt a deep coldness. She gritted her teeth as the coldness crept into her mind and over her body, settling in her marrow. She was touching it, it's mind, its consciousness...

It was so very different, so unfamiliar, and so powerful and filled with hate that she struggled to hold onto the tiny speck of that which she was, fought to keep her own consciousness from being submerged. Pushing against the frigid, Stygian tide she harnessed the scant telepathic abilities she had not to commune with the thing glaring down at her, not to understand it, but to kill it, to destroy it, to wipe it from existence forever. She knew fear and she knew hate, and if there was a contest between whose anger was the stronger, this demon was already a memory.

The Canar turned a fiery red, its crimson heat pulsing in her mind's eye. She locked onto the pulsing coil of energy, fashioning it into a psychic spear. Uhnari flung the weapon into the maelstrom of darkness bordering her mind.

The link ended abruptly, without pain. A mild buzzing ringing her ears, Aquiel's eyes fluttered upon. The creature was limp before her. She grunted, a little unsatisfied at how easily the alien had died, before her the psychic feedback fried her synapses.

* * * * *

Sheila Gunderson rushed through the pre-flight checks, her anxiety forming a lead ball in her stomach. Looking over her shoulders, every few seconds, into the too dark environs of the shuttle, while the Du Sable's engines slowly hummed to life; she couldn't shake the onset of dread. She had inspected the vessel's interior thoroughly when she had first entered, finding nothing. But the discovery left her less than enthused. The aliens were shape shifters of a sort, like the Founders. They could be anything. She looked down at the tricorder resting beside her chair. She had programmed the small device to constantly scan for life forms and alert her to any organic presence. So far, it had been blessedly silent.

The sooner I'm away from this place, back in Federation space the better, she thought. Hopefully she could find some help for the others, but she doubted it. Even if the shuttle was able to escape the complex and traverse the rift, by the time she reached another starship or one responded to her emergency beacon, it would probably be too late. Those things butchering her crewmates and the Sirius' officers didn't seem like the patient, long drawn out type.

The commander's fingers ran over the slick surface of the piloting interface. "Computer, halt standard pre-flight procedures."

"Pre-flight diagnostic has not been completed." The computer blithely replied.

"Belay it," Gunderson snapped, realizing how silly she sounded barking at a mindless computer, but unable to stop herself. "Initiate manual control."

"Initiating manual control." The computer answered. Gunderson could've sworn the there was a reproachful strain in the computer's tone. I'm really cracking up, she thought. Du Sable rose on a bed of air, as she gently pumped the craft's maneuvering thrusters. Angling the small ship around, Gunderson slammed a fist into the interface, and screamed a hoary Enolian curse.

"Please repeat request," the computer droned. Sheila ignored it. Instead she looked at the massive black wall before her. In her rush to reach the shuttle and make sure it was secure, she hadn't even checked on how to get the shuttle out of the holding bay. Hell, she couldn't tell where the bay doors began and its supporting walls ended.

"Computer, locate entrance to holding bay."

"Unable to comply." Gunderson huffed.

"Why?" She whined.

"Increased bioelectric interference prohibiting accurate sensory data compilation."

"Oh." Sheila nodded. "I understand," she said, not understanding at all. She twiddled her thumbs for a half a second before a crazy idea came to her. She brought up the Du Sable's scant tactical complement on her display. "Computer, target forward phasers on the following coordinates..." she grasped for correct coordinates, before eventually settling on, " straight ahead of us."

"Target locked and acquired." Sheila was glad that it hadn't questioned the very questionable decision to blow a chunk out of the complex. She could only hope the aliens had shields or blast doors that could seal off the rest of the complex from the loss of atmosphere.

"Okay," Gunderson whispered to herself. "Here we go." She punched the firing mechanism. A rain of golden disruptive energy hammered the wall before her, demolishing it within seconds. Score one for the good guys, she thought, as she powered up the Du Sable's engines and propelled the tiny craft from it dark abode at full impulse.

"Shields up," she ordered the computer as soon as the vessel had cleared the complex. Unable to stanch her curiosity, she programmed her small viewer to shift to its aft sensors. Sprawled like a disease, its darkness standing out even in a well of starless space, the ramble of biodomes radiated malevolence. Gunderson shuddered, switching the viewer back to its usual forward position. The jagged tear of the sanguine vortex writhed in space ahead of her, splitting it like a mouth, with rows of deadly plasmatic flares serving as its sharpened teeth.

So happy to be free of the overseers' clutches, to have escaped processing, Gunderson welcomed the challenge presented by the breach. Even if she died crossing it, at least she would die of her own efforts, with a Starfleet deck beneath her feet.

At least she could perish as a hero, and not a disgraced officer drummed out of the Fleet by a vicious harridan. Even though she knew that Sharma was suffering a fate worse than death, she still felt little sympathy for the woman. The blood between them had become too poisoned. Captain Ra-Neul would disapprove of her pettiness, she knew, but he couldn't discount her bravery.

The man had been like a father to her, the only family she had ever known. Plucking her from Canamar, sponsoring her admission into Starfleet Academy, guiding her every step. She had even shorn most of her 'human' beliefs, finding her first measures of solace in Efrosian religion. Ra-Neul had been her teacher in that as well. Spending eternity with him would not be such a bad thing, she realized, warmed by the thought.

She met the grinning maw with a beatific smile of her own.

* * * * *

Feverish pain knifed through Geordi, bringing him back from the brink. He sat up with a start, the sudden movement making him dizzy. A sheet of teeth chattering cold fell upon him, making him grip his shoulders to mitigate the shivering. Something told him to look down at his hands. They were covered with large, pus-filled boils.

"What's happening to me?" He croaked, his throat as raw and dry as the small patch of Sahara Desert his grandparents took him to often in his youth.

"You're dying Geordi. Whatever it is they infected us with...it's eating us alive." Geordi turned his strained neck muscles slowly in the direction of the voice. Ariana's smiled through the mass of pustules marring her heart-shaped face. She lay on her side in the bed next to his.

"Ari?" Geordi gasped, fighting to form the words. "You're...alive?" He smiled too, even though it hurt him to do so.

"Not for long." The smile disappeared as his younger sister swept her gaze over her ravaged body. "We don't have long." Geordi tried to slide off of the bed, the movement again making him light headed.

"Lay down brother." LaForge wanted to protest, but he listened to his sister. His head cleared when it touched the slab's cold hard surface.

"There's some things I want to say to you...before...I...die."

"Don't say that!" Geordi pleaded, his love and anguish pouring out of him. "We're going to make it."

"No you are not." It was his sister's voice, but it wasn't Ariana. The thing masquerading as her stood at the foot of his bed. Geordi glared at her, at the moment more angry with the alien for intruding upon this private moment with his sister than it infecting him with a terminal disease. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because it has to be done. The weak shall perish."

"Who...are you to determine who's weak?" Ariana gasped. The Ariana-thing looked at her, shaking its head.

"If you were the stronger, our positions would be reserved. They are not."

"How can you say that?" Geordi challenged. "The Federation doesn't oppress less advanced civilizations."

"A people that do not honor its treaties, that ally itself with the Borg are capable of other atrocities."

"The Borg?" Geordi wheezed. Ariana groaned.

"Not this again."

"Ari, what is she talking about? We've never worked with the Borg." Ariana turned her head away from him as her body was seized in a spasm of hacking coughs. Geordi screamed with frustration, wanting to help his ailing sister, but knowing he wasn't able to, or that he wouldn't know how even if he could sit up without becoming woozy.

"A Federation starship, the Voyager, gave the Borg technology to assimilate us after their initial incursion into our space was repelled." The impostor continued as if Ariana's coughing spell and Geordi's outburst had never occurred.

"Voyager?" Geordi plucked almost forgotten information from the ether of his memories. "The Starship Voyager was lost, assumed destroyed, over five years ago."

The Ariana-thing now regarded him with the same reproachful glare that it had given his sister moments earlier. "Despite your protestations, Federation starships have twice invaded our domain, and now you possess a propulsion system capable of even accessing our natural fluidic realm. You are a threat that can no longer be tolerated."

"What are you going to do?" Geordi cried, trying to sit up, hot tears running down his face at the futile effort.

"The faction that brokered the cease fire with the Voyager maintains the prevailing opinion of your species' amicable intentions within our realm. We aim to reveal your true motives."

"And those are?" Ariana asked.

"Lull us into complacency, while you develop lethal technologies to compensate for your biological frailties."

"That's not true," Geordi retorted.

"We shall see," the alien replied. Voice softening, the Ariana-thing said next, "You have served your purpose in the greater natural order. Spend your last hours comforting each other."

"You see," Geordi snapped his fingers, wincing as one of his pustules burst. "You know we are capable of love and compassion. You've just admitted it. We're not monsters. We're not out to destroy you."

"It is your emotions that concern us. Fleeting, mercurial, intense. From a cursory review of your databanks, this concept of 'love', for deity, kindred, or nation has made your kind do despicable things, wiping out entire sentient races or even your own kind. If love is your saving argument, then you have damned your entire race." The alien moved from the bed, gliding out of the door.

"I would rather be damned than feel nothing at all," Ariana remarked. Geordi nodded, unable to stop the tears coursing down his cheeks.

"So, what did you want to tell me?" He began. They talked until the light dimmed from his sister's eyes.

* * * * *

Despite the alien overseers' familiarity with the Terran knowledge they gleaned from the databanks of the Sirius and Kon-Tiki, Aquiel knew they still needed to learn a thing or two about a game Ivan had taught her called "playing possum." With her mind still mending from the onslaught wreaked by the death of the alien attacker, feigning unconsciousness was about the only thing she could do at the moment.

She opened her eyes slightly. Two humanoids stood over her, the room's dim lighting shadowing their features. She saw they were more focused on each other than on her, which is just how she liked it.

"This guise is too confining," complained the male.

"You will get used to it with practice," the female reassured him.

"It is doubtful." The man grumbled. "I don't see why we need to maintain this masquerade in the first place. These beings are inferior. We should just invade their space and purge them from the galaxy." The alien sentiment spoken in a generic human tone chilled her. Uhnari squeezed her eyes shut, straining to open up her hearing and other senses. She gingerly expanded her empathic reach, searching for Dr. Park. She pulled back after a few minutes, after finding nothing, and afraid the Psi-sensitive aliens might be alerted by her entreaties. Where is Park? She wondered, dreading the answer she somehow instinctively knew in her heart. Geordi...Ariana...She threw out the telepathic lines, hoping against hope for a bite, her abject loneliness overriding self-preservation. The resultant silence fell over her like a funerary shroud.

"On the surface it would appear so," the woman agreed. "But what of this one? She killed one of our kindred." Something sharp jabbed Aquiel's leg. One of the creatures drew near her, peering over her body. Glacial hands touched her temples.

"She has partial telepathic abilities," the man said, a dismissive tone in his voice.

"And with those, she bested one of our own. This sector of space contains beings with telepathic abilities much greater than hers."

"What are you inferring?"

"That perhaps these inferior beings aren't as weak as we believe them to be."

"You are wrong," the man concluded, his voice dripping with menace. "Once we have dissected this one, we will learn how to neutralize this method of attack."

"I don't agree."

"You don't have to. The Eclosians will provide us the data we need. Come, we must prepare for our foray into their space. There is much work to do." She felt the hovering presences recede, replaced by the swishing of robes and the creaking of misshapen joints.

Aquiel chanced another glance. At least two hooded Eclosians now stood over her, cradling gleaming, curved instruments in their elongated hands. She remained immobile for several more seconds, options running through her head as she gathered her strength. The soft whirring of a device she could only imagine was a saw of some kind, moved her to action.

Gathering the remnants of her strength around her, she grabbed the wrist holding the descending buzz saw, twisting it with all her might. It snapped like dry kindling. The creature keened and then fell back, clutching its broken wrist.

Uhnari was sitting up on the slab by the time the other hood with a wickedly long scalpel, overcome his shock. The scalpel shifted hands, and he wielded it like a weapon instead of a medical tool, its sharp tip whistling through the air on its way to shredding her face.

The Haliian didn't wait around on it. With a reservoir of strength and agility she didn't know she had, Aquiel rolled, albeit clumsily off of the front of the bed, her knees striking hard against the unyielding floor. Ignoring the shock of pain in her legs and the persisting wooziness in her mind, Uhnari charged the Eclosian, relying on the Tactical training she had put to deadly use during the Dominion War, and had been further honed in practice sessions with Commander Cherenkov.

Startled by the woman's aggression, the scalpel-wielding Eclosian fell back. Uhnari plowed into him, giving in to her fears, and her anger over what the hooded aliens had helped do to her friends and colleagues. She connected with a fury of blows, moving so close to the alien that it denied him another chance at a swig. A jarring punch to the midsection doubled the alien over. Aquiel finished him off by ramming her knee into the alien's face. He crumpled in a satisfying heap. She smiled as she heard the clink of the scalpel hitting the floor.

A searing pain in her right side stole her joy. Grasping madly at the source of the torment, she whipped around even as she yanked the knife from her. Unable to stop herself from screaming in agony, her tear filled eyes focused on the new threat. The alien with the broken wrist shuffled away from her, grabbing another scalpel from a table filled with a row of sharp instruments beside the bed.

Crouching, it approached her warily. There would be no element of surprise now, she realized. So she did the first thing that came to her mind. She collapsed. Falling strategically over the downed Eclosian, she furtively reached underneath the insensate creature for the instrument he had tried to shred her face with only seconds ago. Wrapping her fingers onto the scalpel's hilt, she allowed her muscles to slacken, ignoring the white-hot pain still radiating from her bleeding wound.

The approaching Eclosian regarded her with caution, poking at her several times with an outstretched foot before moving to pull her off his cohort. He tugged on her, turning her face up. The pitiable alien didn't even see the scalpel tucked within her palm as it penetrated one of its compound eyes with a sickening crunch. Chalky, mucilaginous fluid seeped from the punctured orifice.

"Eww," Aquiel gagged, quickly wiping the thick fluid onto the robe of the prone alien while simultaneously pushing the fading Eclosian to join him on the floor of the room. Standing up slowly, her legs quivering, she grabbed her side, warm blood flowing through her fingers. Gingerly inspecting the wound, she realized that it was very deep, and had possibly punctured a blood vessel or organ. There was a cold, metallic taste forming in the back of her mouth.

Got to find something to stop the bleeding, she thought, there has to be a coagulant around here somewhere. Her gaze, followed by her free hand, swept over the table of instruments, knocking them all to the floor in a clatter of metal. "Damn," she muttered. "Nothing but cutting tools." She stumbled around the room, again fighting light-headedness, searching for her medkit or at least the phaser the aliens had taken from her. She found neither.

Steadying herself against the doorframe leading out of the room, Uhnari pushed herself forward into the gloom, not knowing what she would do next, but realizing that she had to do something to save the day, or at least die with a semblance of honor. She owed her mother, her sister, Geordi, and Ivan that much.

Part III

DENOUEMENT

CHAPTER FOUR

Commander William Riker leaned forward in his seat, scratching his beardless chin to allay nervous energy. The schism filled Aegis's main viewer; a variegated rip across space and time. And it was growing. Rapidly.

"Based on its last recorded position, the subspace breach has expanded over several hundred kilometers in a matter of hours." Ensign Lomar replied.

"Are there any traces of the Sirius, Kon-Tiki, or the shuttle Du Sable?" Riker asked, knowing the answer beforehand.

"No sir." The Kelvan crisply replied.

"What should we do next Captain?" Commander N'Daur asked, his voice ripe with judgment. Riker paused, more for dramatic effect than because of any indecision.

"Let's get a closer look."

"Are you sure we should get closer to that thing?" N'Daur's face grew even darker. "The same spatial forces that either destroyed or pulled three vessels into the breach could likely do the same to us."

"You're right," Riker said, looking first at Xacian before glancing at the reluctant Danteri. Eyes twinkling, he said, "but with this lil' ship we've got three chances at failure. Mr. N'Daur, prepare the ship for auto-separation. We're going to take the primary hull closer to the breach. Who's going miss a few more officers eh?" He bleakly joked.

"You can't be serious, Sir!" N'Daur huffed. "At one third our engine and shield strength the primary hull would be even more susceptible to the plasmatic forces churning within that anomaly."

"Preserving life is my primary concern," Riker's voice hardened. "Reducing the casualties suffered by this ship while also seeing if rescuing any other Starfleet officers trapped in that void is possible."

"So, you're willing to sacrifice our lives for some risky possibility?"

"That's what we do everyday Mr. N'Daur," Riker snapped. "So carry out my orders, or I will relieve you of duty."

The Danteri bit back a retort. "Yes...Sir." He grumbled, tapping several commands into his armrest display.

"Sir!" Mendoc barreled into the test of wills, voice almost breathless. "Something's coming through the vortex. It's a shuttle, with a Federation warp signature."

"The Du Sable?" Riker said excitedly, the simmering quarrel with N'Daur instantly forgotten. "Any life signs?" He squeezed both of his armrests in dreadful anticipation. "Belay auto-separation," he said as an after thought while waiting for more information from the Ops station.

"Complying sir," N'Daur answered.

"There appears to be an unusual amount of bioelectric static clouding ship's sensors," Lomar broke in.

"Really?" Riker asked, ignoring Mendoc's glower. Internecine rivalries would have to wait for later. He briefly glanced at Commander Xacian. She nodded her awareness. "Any speculations?" He left the question wide open.

"No," Lomar said glumly.

"It is quite possible that it is a residual side effect of the tertiary subspace domain," Mendoc offered, satisfaction filling his voice.

"Could such interference pose a danger to whoever's onboard that shuttlecraft?" Riker posited with a frown.

"I think crashing against our hull would prove even more of a danger," Xacian replied.

"Wuh?" Riker asked, confounded.

"Look," Xacian pointed at the screen. "The shuttle is on a direct collision course with the bow of this vessel. Its engines are on full impulse and it isn't slowing down."

"Hail them Commander Zhosa." Riker ordered.

"The static has also aversely affected communications," the Arkonian murmured in response. "I can't establish a link."

"Great," Riker muttered.

"What's great about that?" Xacian said slowly, out of earshot for the rest of the crew.

"I believe the statement is an example of human sarcasm," Lt. Mendoc instructed, lowering his head at Riker's withering look.

"Sarcasm," Xacian repeated the word, nodding her head as she sought to decipher its meaning. "What is the purpose of its use in this instance?" Despite Xacian's extensive knowledge of Terran psychology, human idioms still confounded her. Riker found that oddly refreshing. A little mystery was never a bad thing.

"I'll explain it later." Riker muttered.

"Might I suggest raising shields," N'Daur cut in.

"You might," Riker replied, "But first let's see if we can lock a tractor beam onto the shuttle and stop its pilot from killing themselves." He gestured at Zhosa. A greenish beam appeared from the underside of the ship moments later, churning through space as it sought to latch onto the shuttle. "Once you've established a lock, guide it into Shuttle Bay Four."

"Aye sir." The Arkonian crisply answered, before exclaiming a hiss seconds later. "Shuttle has taken evasive maneuvers."

"What?" Riker asked, turning his head to gaze at the perplexed Tactical Officer. The reptilian bunched up her shoulders in exasperation. "Raise shields." Before she could comply, the deck beneath his feet rumbled.

"Is that what I thought it was?" Riker asked as the ship trembled again. Thick fingers laced tight around his display, N'Daur replied. "The Du Sable has activated its forward phaser array. Its weapon's system is charged and the shuttle is coming around for another strafing run."

"Damage report." Riker groused.

"Shields holding steady at 60%. Minimal damage to decks 13-14." Mendoc quickly replied.

"Main Engineering," Xacian gasped.

"Any damage to the warp core."

"There are some reported coolant leaks. Sickbay has been alerted, and emergency medical teams are in route." The Benzite answered.

"I'd call that more than minor damage," N'Daur spat.

"Evasive maneuvers. Ensign Jenkins, Pattern Epsilon Sigma Beta." The young woman relayed the information into the ship's bio neural computer core, the Aegis veering almost instantaneously to avoid a more virulent barrage from the attacking shuttle. The much larger ship dipped under the errant blasts, completing a full circle, arriving in its previous position almost an instant later.

Reserving his approval at the almost fluid grace of the Prometheus-class ship, Riker kept his face stern and voice firm as he stared at the Du Sable's bow from the main viewer. "Mr. Zhosa, end this."

"Aye sir." The Aegis's phasers punched through the ship's weaker shields, disabling the craft's weapons and propulsion systems in two quick strokes. The concussive blasts left the shuttle spinning slowly in their wake for several seconds as the muted lighting inside the shuttle and along its nacelles went dark.

"Good shooting Mr. Zhosa," Riker had no problem giving just praise.

"I do my best sir," the Arkonian said with as much modesty as her supremely confident race was able to muster.

"Now, engage the tractor beam and guide it into Shuttle Bay Four," Riker commanded. "But this time I want a security awaiting our mysterious assailant."

"A medical team might be required as well," Mendoc said. "Sensors are detecting an imminent warp core breach."

"Really good shooting Commander," N'Daur chided. Riker silenced him with a withering look.

"Lower shields," he ordered the miffed Tac Officer. Riker then toggled open a channel on his armrest display.

"Transporter Room Two. Ensign Huber speaking."

"Ensign, this is Com-Captain Riker. I want you to get a lock on whoever or whatever is inside of that shuttle before its warp core explodes."

"I would like to do what you ask...but I can't." Huber meekly replied.

"And why is that Ensign?" Riker barked.

"Because someone has just transported from the Du Sable." Riker looked askance at both N'Daur and Xacian.

"Repeat that Mr. Huber."

"My sensors have just confirmed that a transportation did take effect." Mendoc interjected.

"Where to?" The commander asked. "We just lowered our shields. He couldn't have beamed aboard so quickly. Does this guy have a death wish?"

"That, or a space suit," Mendoc quipped. "Our elusive quarry is currently residing on the tertiary hull, near the upper starboard nacelle juncture, Section 14." The Benzite paused as he squinted at the readings flowing down his screen. "On second appraisal, the aggressor isn't wearing an EVA suit at all."

"What?" N'Daur exclaimed, beating Riker to the punch.

"I want to see this guy," Riker said. "What is his species?" The main viewer split into four screens, the upper left screen revealing a speck along Aegis's outer hull.

"Magnify." The camera zoomed in on the alien. It was one of the most bizarre and malevolent looking beings Riker had ever seen. Three, strong legs supported a strip of wiry muscles, topped off with a triangular shaped head. An oblong weapon was clutched in the alien's right hand. The alien's focus appeared to be the duranium shell beneath its feet.

"Is that some kind of weapon?" Xacian asked no one in particular.

"What is that thing?" Riker asked.

"I can't answer either of those questions at the moment," Lomar replied. "We will have to... 'Wait and see'".

"That's comforting," the commander exhaled, rearing back in his seat.

"More sarcasm," Xacian confirmed.

"Levity can sometimes be a good thing in a bad situation." Riker replied, talking out of the side of his mouth, his eyes remaining glued to the screen. "Can we get him off our the hull?"

"The alien hasn't made any hostile gestures thus far," Lomar stated.

"Outside of attacking us in a Starfleet shuttlecraft," N'Daur grumbled.

"We can't be certain that this particular being was the responsible party," Mendoc offered. "The bio-electric interference impeded our ability to determine the total number of the shuttle's occupants."

"I'm not taking any chances," Riker remarked. Opening another line on his armrest display, he ordered. "Chief Kenner, we have an intruder hanging on the outside hull of your section. Polarize the hull by 300 joules."

"That's a pretty big jolt Captain," Kenner replied. "Are you sure it won't be a lethal dosage?"

"No Mr. Kenner I am not, but somehow I don't think it will be. Polarize hull on my mark," he tapped the link, before activating another one.

"Dr. Amoros, Sickbay."

"Doctor, we presently have a creature of unknown origin crawling along our outer hull. I have ordered Chief Kenner to polarize the hull, hopefully dazing it enough to find out its possible involvement in the attack on Aegis. I want you to be ready to receive the alien once we capture it in a confined transporter beam. I intend to send it along with a security detachment to your infirmary."

"Bring it on," the Chiruwan said with brio uncharacteristic of any Chief Medical Officer he had ever worked with. "And several crewmen experienced moderate burns and lacerations as a result of our previous tussle," the doctor added.

"Thanks for keeping me informed. Riker out." His face turned a faint russet at the faux pas. Checking on the status of injured crewmen, people under his command, was a procedure of prime importance. Not only because it was decent and humane to be concerned about your fellow beings, but it also showed that the commanding officer had the crew's safety and well being first and foremost in his mind. Way to screw that one up Will, he grumbled to himself. He relayed his plan to Ensign Huber, ordering the transporter specialist to stand by.

Keep your focus, he chided himself. Doubts are for after the smoke clears. He reopened the channel. "Do it Mr. Kenner."

"Aye sir," the engineer replied, his voice devoid of the disapproval Riker knew he harbored over the decision to shock the alien into insensibility or perhaps even death. A pulsing wave of energy ran along the hull towards the alien. The intruder stopped its inspection to look at the curious, crackling tide, twisting its triangular head in a perplexing gesture. It reached out to the wave, just as the energy seemed, at least to Riker, to leap from the ship's metal surface and twine around the being's outstretched arm. The commander held his breath as the wave coiled around the alien, and it leapt into the air, thrashing wildly.

"Transport! Now!" Riker yelled into his armrest's comlink. Seconds later, the alien dissolved in a shower of sparkles.

"Beam in successful," Huber confirmed, his voice high strung. "Creature has been trapped inside a reinforced annular confinement beam." Riker refrained from pumping his fist in exclamation, in imitation of the now emotionally endowed Commander Data. Instead, he leaned back in his seat, and tugged on his uniform. "Commander N'Daur, I want you to lead a security detail with Commander Zhosa and Ensign Lomar to Transporter Room Two. I want to know what that thing is and how it might be related to whatever has happened to the Sirius, Kon-Tiki, and Du Sable, pronto."

"Aye sir," N'Daur replied sharply, his eyes flashing at the promise of action. He nodded to the aforementioned officers before bounding out of the command well and to the turbolift. Zhosa and Lomar were almost on his heels.

"So, what now?" whispered Xacian leaning over in her chair.

"We wait," Riker sighed. "One of the things I like least about this job."

"I sort of figured that one out."

"I'm glad you're so perceptive."

"You don't know the half of it."

Warming again to the distracting banter, Riker flashed a smile. "Have I told you already that you've changed."

"And do you like what see?" Xacian opened up her arms, allowing for a more full inspection.

Feeling a little improper at the informality of their discourse, but reveling in it nonetheless, Riker replied. "I plead the Fifth."

"The Fifth?"

"The Fifth Amendment, a legal construct from a nation-state on Old Earth. It protected people from being forced to incriminate themselves during a legal proceeding," Lt. Mendoc cut in.

"Thanks for the history lesson," Riker groused, the intrusion bringing him back to reality.

"I never got my answer," Xacian cooed.

"And you never will," Riker said coyly. "Now, back to work."

* * * * *

Aquiel Uhnari stumbled through the darkness, blood pouring through the gash on her side, leaving a slick trail in her wake. She pushed on, at times not even feeling the earth beneath her feet, her mind shifting back and forth between dream and reality.

She was home again, searching frantically, in vain for her mother. The doors were back, appearing along the murky corridor, each locked, preventing her from entering, from saving her mother. The fires that had once seared her back and arms were now localized at her gushing side. The flames flared out from the wound, suffusing her with entire body with malignant heat.

She fell, a new pain in her ankle fighting for recognition against the familiar pain at her side. She leaned against the wall, cradling her twisted ankle, her back sinking its forgiving surface. The fleshy wall throbbed as nutrient fluids rushed through it. Her stomach tightened with revulsion. Tears soaked her face.

"I can't do this," she wailed. "I can't. I'm so sorry Geordi. I'm a failure...a coward. I always have been. Ari...Shiana." Spectral shapes darted along the peripheries of her vision. She reached out to them, clutching nothing but dank, stale air. Shivering with pain and despair, Uhnari tucked her head into her chest, madly trying to shake it clear of the daunting reality before her. "Why couldn't this all be a dream, a terrible nightmare that I'm about to wake up from?" She whispered to uncaring gods.

"This is your wake up call." She looked up into the hooded face of an Eclosian. The willowy alien stood before her, his face shrouded in darkness. Aquiel stiffened, pushing her back against the wall, trying to use it for purchase as she scrambled to her feet. Her throbbing ankle screamed in protest.

"Be careful," the hood said, stepping back, his hands outstretched. "You're among friends."

"Who? How can you speak?" Aquiel was almost on her feet, balancing most of her weight on her good leg, preparing to pounce.

The alien removed its hood. A shaggy, simian face stared back.

"You're a Chameloid," Uhnari exclaimed.

"Lt. Bhodi, Starship Kon-Tiki Operations Officer to be more precise."

Her back still against the wall, her voice laden with suspicion, Aquiel replied. "How...how did you escape? Where did you get one of their robes?"

The shape shifter jerked his head around a bend. "It was more his idea actually," Bhodi said, his voice oddly conversational. "I abhor violence."

"I don't," a dark skinned Bajoran warily stepped into view, clutching a phaser as it were a life preserver. In fact, Aquiel realized that it might have been.

"Lt. Oram Neith, Kon-Tiki." He nodded with such terse force that the row of grenades strapped to his chest jangled.

"Lt. Cmdr. Aquiel Uhnari, Aegis," she replied, wincing as her throbbing ankle buckled. Bhodi captured her, and Oram was at her side within seconds.

"You're injured," Bhodi replied. Aquiel squelched a snappy rejoinder. Instead she allowed the officers to gently prop her against the wall.

"Severe wound on her side, a lot of blood lost," the Bajoran replied, reading off a tricorder he had pulled from a familiar looking satchel.

"Where did you find that?" Aquiel breathed, her voice hitching with pain. "The Canar...is it?"

"Canar?" Oram asked, his brow furrowing in confusion. He dug into the bag, pulling out a crystalline object. "Are you referring to this?"

She smiled, reaching out her hand. "Give...it." Without hesitation, the Bajoran handed it to her. Uhnari placed the Canar to her breast, the object instantly flaring a pallid gray at her touch.

The Chameloid fished within the folds of his robe, producing a pen-shaped silvery object. He gingerly removed her fingers from her side. "This is a dermal regenerator," Bhodi said softly. "It will repair the wound." A flashing, stinging beam ran up her side, stitching her skin together. It was over within seconds.

"And this," Bhodi said, holding a hypo to your neck, "should take care of your ankle. I have nothing to replenish your blood lost I'm afraid." The cool prick of the hypo instantly soothed the nettlesome pain in her ankle.

"Thanks," she whispered, trying to rise.

Bhodi pushed her back down. "Give it a few minutes Commander, or else you'll re-injure yourself."

"Okay," Aquiel glumly agreed, her eyes focusing again on the vigilant Oram, and her bag hanging from his shoulder. "You haven't answered any of my questions. How did you escape? And where did you recover my satchel?"

The Kon-Tiki officers looked at each other before Bhodi sighed and returned his gaze to Aquiel.

"It seems that our blood types appeared resistant to infection. They separated us from the others for further study, when a distraction, which I'm guessing you might know something about occupied the attention of the tripods, leaving us alone with the insectile aliens."

"Which are much easier to break," Oram interjected.

"After subduing them, I studied their basic bodily structure and appearance, donned one of their robes and pretended that Lt. Oram was my test subject."

"Interesting, do you have any ideas what was special about your blood chemistry?"

"I'm a Chameloid," Bhodi replied simply, shrugging his shoulders.

"I contracted Orkett's disease as a child in the Kolyat work camp on Bajor. After removing my blood through a total transfusion, they supplemented the replacement blood with allogenic microbes. It kept me alive...what can I say. That's the best hypothesis I can conjure. As for the bag, we found a repository where they dumped a lot of our equipment...combadges, weapons, tricorders, concussion grenades, and the like. Picking your bag was the luck of the draw I guess. Or maybe the will of the Prophets."

"Alright," Uhnari nodded, not fully comprehending the vagaries of Cardassian medical experimentation, Bajoran blood chemistry, or Bajoran theology. "That's good enough for me." She used the spongy wall to push herself to her feet; swatting away Bhodi's aid. The Haliian hopped several times on her tender ankle before placing it on the ground and gingerly applying pressure on it. Biting back a yelp, she set her jaw, hoping she cast off a look of tenacity. She gave the Canar back to Oram. "Hold that for me will you?"

"Can you walk?" Oram asked. She nodded. The Bajoran frowned but let the matter drop. Instead he handed her the other phaser clipped to his belt. "We have to reach the Sirius. These aliens use a techno-organic based technology. Bhodi was able to partially access one of their binary interfaces. The infiltrators plan to use the Sirius to leave this subspace domain and insinuate themselves into Starfleet and the Federation."

"Just like the Founders attempted to do," Bhodi added.

"Just the Founders did do," Oram corrected. "But it's not going to happen this time. We just fought this war. I see no need to do it again."

"I agree," Aquiel said, checking her weapon. "However, you've seen those things...there are only three of us. It's a good guess that more members of Starfleet are being held for further study. Let's try to find them. Strength in numbers and all."

"That's a good idea," the Bajoran confirmed, before glowering. "But we don't have time. Bhodi only received snippets of the information flowing through their living computer core. Once that ship takes flight, we and the entire Alpha Quadrant might be done for."

"You're right, however, the Sirius could already be gone. What's rounding up a few others? It can only help us."

"She's right." Bhodi offered. "We need all the help and expertise that we can rally."

"I don't like it," the Bajoran huffed.

"You don't have to," Aquiel said. "Thank goodness I didn't have to pull rank. Now, gentlemen, help me down this corridor." Sidling under her arms, the two men carried her down the hallway. She held a tricorder, tuned to trill at the first recognition of carbon-based or silicate-based life.

Ten minutes later, the device went off. "Put me down," Aquiel whispered. They promptly complied, each joining with her in a crouch. They duck walked to the room's entrance, returning to their knees at the doorway. Oram was right behind her, and Bhodi was at her side. "I've got something, several life signs in the next passageway offshoot ...to the right. It's a very big room."

"Any other signs?" Bhodi asked.

"Solanagen-lifeforms."

"Not the others?" Oram asked, warily relieved.

"Solanagen-based only."

"This will be as easy as shooting Cardassians," the Bajoran flippantly remarked, upping the power setting of his weapon.

"Don't like the analogy, but I hope you're right." Aquiel said. "But...I want your phasers set to stun."

"Stun, why?" Oram's voice bordered on petulant.

"Because the hooded aliens...Eclosians...are just as much victims as we are. The tripodal aliens have enslaved them."

"Eclosians? Is that the name of the hooded aliens?" Bhodi asked. "How did you come by that information?"

"I'm a Haliian," Aquiel shrugged.

"Oh." Bhodi regarded her with the same confused look that she had earlier given him.

"Set phasers to stun," Uhnari repeated. She plucked three grenades from Oram's bandolier. The Haliian activated them, and rolled them into the enclosure. The room illuminated with several rapid blasts, followed by groans and thuds. The Haliian pointed at Bhodi. She handed him her tricorder. "Check it out," she whispered through grated teeth. She tapped Oram's shoulder. "Follow him."

The Chameloid donned the hood from his pilfered robe, his own phaser covered by a fold of its cloth as he appropriated the shambling walk of an Eclosian. With the grace of a hara cat, Oram was right behind the Operations Officer, his phaser sparking fire before abruptly ceasing. Quickly gathering her strength, Aquiel launched herself from the wall, waving the phaser in front of her as she crossed into the room.

The stench of pestilence, rot, and decay overwhelmed her. She snagged to her knees, vomiting the remnants of the last meal she had eaten over two days ago onto the floor. Her gag reflex stimulating her optic nerves, she wiped tears from her eyes. Oram was clutching his stomach, his phaser hanging limply from his other hand, forgotten. Bhodi seemed oblivious to the effects of the abattoir. He had shorn the robe and morphed to his impressive normal girth. He had already checked to see if the Eclosians lying about had been sufficiently stunned, and now was waving a tricorder over the beds of the dying, looking for anymore anomalies like himself, Oram, and Aquiel had to figure, herself as well.

He lumbered methodically through the rows of beds. By the time he was finished, both she and Oram had regained a semblance of composure. Unable to speak, disgusted by the thought of the stench seeping into her mouth and crawling down her throat, Aquiel gestured for a response.

"They are all dying," he grumbled.

"Is there anything we can do for them?" Aquiel covered her mouth as soon as she finished, hacking as the odor tickled her gullet.

"Not anything within my purview," the Chameloid replied.

"Is this the only sanitarium?" Oram asked.

"I can't be certain, but they are hundreds of crewmen in here. These are probably the only ones left living."

"I don't think we're going to find much help here," Oram said gently. "Let's go. The layout we downloaded has the Sirius within several dozen meters of this place."

"No...not yet." Aquiel said, holding down her gorge. "There's something I've got to check out. I've got to see if someone is here."

"But Commander"---

Aquiel whipped around, her eyes flashing. "Stand guard at the entrance. That's an order." Oram turned sharply on his heel without saying a word. "Lt. Bhodi, the tricorder...please."

"Yes ma'am."

"Follow me." With the large Chameloid stalking behind her, Aquiel walked between the rows of the dying, as quickly as her still tender ankle would allow her. She refused to look at their tormented faces and misshapen forms. "Mr. Bhodi, did you see a human, about my skin completion, with ocular implants?"

"My apologies, but I can't recall. My focus was on determining the health of any of the infected, not remembering their faces."

"I understand." Aquiel returned to her grim search, a pregnant dread coiling in her belly each time she started down a new row of the afflicted. In the middle of the fourth row, her legs and her heart stopped. Clasped, leprous hands blocked her path.

"Geordi...Ariana." She held up her tricorder, sweeping it over both of them. "My gods. I'm so sorry Ari. So sorry," she wept. The Haliian knelt before them, and said a prayer, before carefully untangling their interlaced fingers.

"What are you doing Commander?" Bhodi asked with morbid curiosity.

"Geordi is still alive. He's coming with us."

"But sir, he's dying."

"Not if we can get him aboard the Sirius and back to Federation space. I won't leave him."

"But...they're others still alive too. We can't take them all."

"We're not. We're just going to take Commander LaForge."

"But is that fair?"

"No, but he's my friend. My Oumriel. I don't expect you to understand. But I down expect you to follow my orders. Pick him up and let's get out of here." Bhodi knelt and eased the ailing, unconscious man onto his shoulders.

In one last bout of protest, the Ops Officer asked. "Aren't you worried about infection? The disease eating away at these people could be communicative."

"Since we've all been exposed, that's not really an issue now," Uhnari shrugged. "Besides, if your friend Oram is right, and the Sirius launches with them things at the helm, infection will be the least of our worries."

CHAPTER FIVE

Wanting to sit in the command chair but wishing not to offend her blue skinned counterpart, the alien wearing Commander Yasmeen Sharma's face, folded her arms in consternation. "This is taking too long."

Captain Chiba looked up at her from the center chair, seemingly as comfortable with his bipedal form as if he had been born into it. It was another reason to be jealous. Her lip twitched at the realization of how easy emotions came to her in this inferior masque. It would be something she would have to guard more vociferously against.

"The transfer of our compeers is almost complete." Chiba replied. "Rest easy...Commander Sharma...the Alpha Quadrant will be made clean."

"But why do we have to do it with their technology? It is so metallic...so impure," she wave dismissively at the sterile, silvery blue guard rails, consoles, and seats that adorned the Sirius's bridge. Their ships were extensions of them, allowing instant access via telepathic link to each vessel's binary matrix. The concept of reading and deciphering a jumble of information rolling off of a screen, of not actually feeling yourself travel through organic space, she couldn't imagine it. These frail beings were so alien...too weak to allow continued existence.

"Until we can fully ascertain the strength, resolve, and imperialistic designs of the Federation, discretion is best."

"We've never skulked around before."

"We've never had to. The fluidic realm was ours alone."

"And it will remain that way," Sharma promised.

"Yes, it will."

"The Federation will pay for its intrusion, for contaminating our space."

"Transport is complete," an inflectionless voice materialized from the air, causing Sharma to jump. Chiba chuckled.

"It's just their central computer. It communicates verbally. I informed it to notify me once all of our kindred were aboard."

"Of course."

"Of course," Chiba smiled. She wondered how gleaming that smile of his would be without teeth. Oblivious to her black thoughts, Chiba ordered. "Ensign, release docking clamps, and head toward the vortex at half impulse." The young woman with pointed ears looked back at him.

"By your command," the statement dying before Chiba's frosty glare.

The masque beside her, another blue skin, but this one with a shock of white hair and twin antennae, leaned over to the dumbfounded woman. "Say 'Aye sir.'"

"Aye sir," the woman meekly repeated.

Chiba smiled, expertly appropriating the mannerisms of the original, known as a jolly sort according to the avalanche of personal logs each alien had devoured in preparation for their missions, supplementing the gaps left by the telepathic communion with lesser minds.

"Engage." The Sirius pulled away from the biodome. Sharma sat uncomfortably in the empty seat beside Chiba, curious as to how the isomorphic injections had twisted and perverted her form, drawing her third leg up into her. She didn't care to know where it went, but she couldn't help ponder the question as the metallic shell approached the widening rift. If they were successful, and she saw no reason why they wouldn't be, Sharma wouldn't see her third leg for a long time.

* * * * *

If N'Daur had hackles, they would've been raised to the glorious heavens above Danter. Even with a phalanx of security guards behind him, and flanked by an Arkonian and a Kelvan, the Commander couldn't erase the lump swelling in his throat.

He fondled the compression rifle clutched in his strong hands, and took a gulp as he pressed the release lever to access Transporter Room Two. His head had already contacted the outer wall of the corridor, blood springing from a gash at the place of impact before he could even point his rifle, much less get off a shot.

Through dimming eyes, he watched as the creature tore through the security detail. He tried to lift his weapon to help. Failing in that, he tapping absently at his chest, trying to activate his communicator. Transfixed by the whirlwind of devastation, it took him a few precious minutes to realize he was tapping his left breast. The combadge was on the right. Correcting his mistake, he said weakly, "N'Daur to bridge...we..." He passed out before he could say anything else.

* * * * *

When the alien finally faced him, Lomar smiled. He had stood back, allowing the beast to cut a swath of destruction through the security team, studying its fluid, lethal movements. It had dispatched Commander N'Daur and the human members of the security detachment with ease. Commander Zhosa had proven its most formidable opponent, scoring the creature several times with her sharp claws and serrated teeth, burning its flesh with her corrosive saliva. She occupied the alien's attention for several minutes, until it grabbed her swinging tail in the midst of another successful strike, and picked Zhosa off of her feet, slamming the gray skinned reptilian into a bulkhead. She crashed to the floor in a heap, her neck twisted at an impossible angle.

Her death would be avenged, he thought, surprised that he would care enough to even think such nonsense. Before leaving New Kelva, Antediluvian Kellinda had warned him of the intoxicating influence of humanoid contact. He had scoffed at her then. But as the alien rushed towards him, he wondered if she had been right after all.

He stored the thought to ponder later as his humanoid guise folded in on itself, the pale, soft flesh subsumed in a mass of black tentacles and slavering mouths. Normally the sight of a Kelvan's true appearance would drive many an attacker mad with fear. The ensign was somewhat glad that this creature evidenced no such trepidation.

He hadn't worked out in a long time...

* * * * *

"N'Daur report," Riker pounded the armrest. "What's going on down there?" He said as he rose from his seat. "Send additional security to Transporter Room Two," he ordered the Jarada occupying Zhosa's station. It clacked in confirmation. "Commander Xacian, you've got the conn." The commander pounded out of the command well. With one foot in the turbolift before the Xyrillian stopped him.

"I don't think you want to go anywhere just yet Captain."

"And why's that Chamita," Riker turned around. "Never mind."

The Intrepid-class Sirius pushed against the breach, fingers of plasmatic energy gripping onto its scored hull.

"Sirius is in a state of severe quasi-molecular flux." Mendoc intoned. Riker imagined the creaking and groaning of the ship's beleaguered structural integrity failed.

"Hull is buckling." The Benzite replied with a damnable curious detachment.

"Magnify." Riker ordered. The picture zoomed onto Sirius's oval-shaped primary hull. Fractures ran along the outer hull like cracks in a frozen pond of ice.

"What can we do for them?" Xacian gasped.

"Structural integrity has failed." Mendoc replied as the duranium began ripping from the ship's frame, revealing bits of its skeletal structure as bodies and debris were thrown into the void, some quickly consumed by the voracious astral eddies nipping around the ship.

"Beam them out Mr. Nsin!" Riker snapped at the Jarada.

"I wouldn't advise that," Mendoc interjected. "A surge in tetyrons has irradiated the space encapsulating the Sirius. Beaming them out would surely result in their deaths."

"Doing nothing will accomplish the same result," Riker growled. "Give me options people." He couldn't help but regard the Aegis crew through the prism of his experience aboard Enterprise. At this telling moment, he found them very lacking in the creativity and ingenuity that he had become so accustomed on the Federation flagship.

After a pause, Mendoc smartly postulated. "Based on extrapolations of the tactic used by Chief Engineer LaForge, perhaps we can close the rift with a gravimetric modified quantum torpedo."

"That, or blow the Sirius to smithereens," Riker replied, hating that it was the only theory that came close to having a fighting chance. "Get on it Mr. Mendoc. Coordinate with Chief Kenner."

"Aye sir." Sirius's punctured hull continued to relent underneath the cosmic forces bearing down on it, lashes of plasmatic energy flaying strips of duranium with an almost premeditated sadistic enjoyment. Unable to simply remain seated while his compatriots were slowly being killed, Riker walked over to Mendoc's console. He leaned over the Benzite's shoulder. Riker noted that a thin sheen of sweat layered the Operation Officer's hairless head. He was glad that the Benzite understood the pressures they were all under, with so many lives on the line.

"What's the status of that torpedo?"

"It's coming sir." Mendoc snapped. "Only a few more minutes." He tapped several more commands into his console. Riker smiled grimly.

"I need that torpedo." He prodded, wiping a trail of perspiration from his forehead. He kept his eyes pinned on the Benzite's back, placing an arm over the back of the chair and shifting his weight on it. He was not above using his size to his advantage, the only old trick of his father's that he employed frequently. For some strange reason the man had referred to it as the "Johnson Treatment." Riker had never understood why and Kyle Riker had never stayed around long enough for his son to ask.

Mendoc's console beeped. "Torpedo is ready!" He crowed. Riker clamped a large hand on the alien's slender shoulder, causing the Benzite to flinch.

"Good work. Mr. Nsin, fire." The lone torpedo exploded just above the crunching ship, its explosive impact propelling the ship into normal space. The bridge erupted into cheers, and Riker smacked the startled Benzite on his back. A chain reaction reverberated throughout the rift, dissipating it in a furious spray of color, producing a shockwave in its wake.

"Hold tight," Riker gripped the back of Mendoc's chair, as the band of energy overtook the vulnerable Sirius before battering Aegis. Several consoles sparked, filling the bridge with a patina of smoke. But thankfully none of the station's exploded or caught fire.

"Shields are holding. Minimal damage." Nsin reported without waiting to be asked. Riker nodded his approval. He returned to the captain's chair, where he quickly checked the status of all of the ship's departments and systems. Each checked out in good order, with minor damage on Decks 6, 11, and 13. He quickly turned his attention to the Sirius. The ailing ship dominated the main viewer, large patches missing from its hull.

"Hail them," Riker breathed, sleep walking back to his seat. Not being able to take his eyes off of the ship, he stood at the captain's chair, not wishing to sit. "Raise shields. Red alert." He ordered, the klaxon blaring as the bridge's lighting turned a crimson shade.

"Sir, they're returning our hail," Mendoc replied. "They say they've got wounded on board."

"Deactivate red alert. Contact Sickbay."

"What about the shields?" Xacian asked.

"Let's keep them up for now, at least until the alien is subdued." Almost as if reading his mind, a ragged, heaving, almost unrecognizable voice filtered through the bridge's comsystem.

"Ensign Lomar...to Captain Riker. Alien... has...been neutralized."

The commander shivered at the Kelvan's cold detachment. He nodded. "Are you okay Ensign?"

"I am functional."

"I want you and that thing in Sickbay. A security detachment is headed your way."

"Aye captain. Lomar... out."

"Sirius is hailing again," Mendoc said.

"On screen." The main viewer blinked, the image of the slow moving Sirius replaced by the face of a battered, though smiling Bolian. The angle widened to include a brown skinned, dark haired woman wearing commander's pips.

"Captain Chiba, Starship Sirius." The Bolian introduced himself. The woman followed:

"Commander Yasmeen Sharma, formerly of the Kon-Tiki."

* * * * *

"Comm-Captain Riker, USS Enter...Starship Aegis." He grinned sheepishly at Xacian before hiding his embarrassment behind a steely professional veneer.

"We owe you our lives," the Bolian said, his smile receding. Riker dismissed the praise with a wave.

"All in day's work." He grinned again. "It's just good to have you back."

"We are in need of assistance." Chiba replied.

"We'll give you all the help you need. But first, what happened over there?" Confusion glossed the Bolian's gaze.

"In the subspace domain."

"There were aliens there.... they experimented on my crew, along with the crew of the Kon-Tiki. They captured my vessel as soon as we entered the subspace funnel created by our tests. The used the sub-quantum drive to create a rift into our space. It was to be the launch pad for an invasion." Riker shivered again, touching his reattached arm, ghosts of nightmares past nipping at him.

"When the Kon-Tiki was sent to set up a perimeter, we too were pulled into the rift," the woman's voice fading as she leaned back in her seat. The commander knew better than most how harrowing an ordeal the two must've just survived.

"Did you encounter a shuttle, designation Du Sable?" Riker pressed. "I believe it too was lost in the rift."

"Commander LaForge," Chiba nodded. "Yes, we just took him onboard right as we made our escape. Him...along with a Haliian. He's in terrible shape... infected by some contagion. Our engines, weapons, and with many of our other systems were compromised in our escape attempt. It was all we could do to sabotage the sub-quantum drive they had reverse engineered to open a portal...destroying years of hard work in the process." Chiba shook his baldpate in consternation.

Riker's stomach clutched. "Beam him over to our Sickbay right away." He looked at the Jarada. "Cadet, lower shields."

"Aye sir." Chiba looked off the screen, issuing several commands. The camera returned to him seconds later.

"We are ready to transport Commander LaForge."

The commander smacked the communicator on his chest. "Dr. Amoros, prepare for an emergency transport directly into the infirmary. I'm on my way." He deactivated the link before the doctor could respond. Looking back at the screen, Riker said, "Commander Xacian will coordinate with you to supply any assistance you will need."

"Thank you Captain Riker," Chiba smiled again.

"That's very gracious of you," Sharma added.

"All in a day's work. That's what Starfleet is all about." Riker said, putting on as much of a cheerful front as possible, his heart and prayers already with Geordi in Sickbay.

"Is it really?" Sharma asked, the question pulling Riker's thoughts back to the bridge.

"Of course it is, why would you ask a question like that?"

"No...reason." Sharma offered. "Forgive me...it's been a trying day."

"I agree." Riker said, already back at the turbolift, unable to wait any longer. "Commander Xacian, you have the bridge."

EPILOGUE

The alien liked its new guise better. A more slender frame than the hairy porcine it had previously been, a beast of burden with a lowly rank, it was now important: An engineer of one of the most advanced and powerful starships in the Federation fleet.

Still fearful of the concept of sleep, of surrendering to the bizarre images of burning houses that assaulted her whenever she sought to engage in it, the masque preferred walking around the great thrumming heart of the ship's warp engines. The swirling array of colors running the length of the transparent warp encasement made her finely crafted heart flutter.

It was the closest thing she had found yet to kindred technology, with its gentle, pervasive susurration.

"Aquiel, what are you doing up at this time of night?" She turned in the direction of the smiling man rapidly approaching her. She mirrored his smile.

"I could say the same of you. Dr. Amoros ordered you to take it easy."

"I know," Geordi exhaled. "And Dr. Crusher seconded it. But I had to find you."

"Why?"

"To tell you thank you."

" 'Thank you'"?

"For not leaving us...to...die on that slab."

"You don't have to do that," the alien turned away, hoping the gesture would end the conversation. It wanted to be alone, to allow the whirling colors to ease it's troubled mind. The alien flinched when the human grabbed its limb. She allowed the human to turn her around. Killing him would compromise her mission.

"Are you okay?" Geordi asked.

"I could ask the same of you," the masque winced at her limited mastery of personal conversational phrases. She had poured through the engineering procedurals with little problem. Jargon flowed masterfully from its foreign tongue. But intimate talk was still a minefield that it treaded carefully.

"You're talking about Ariana?" the human asked. She said nothing. "Yeah...some days are better than others." The alien merely nodded. "But she is recuperating at home in Dakar. Thanks to you." She nodded again, not sure if another gesture was necessary or more appropriate.

"You're welcome to join us...if you like?"

"I'm busy." Even she winced at her brusqueness.

"Oh...I see. I understand," the human paused. His body language registered disappointment with her response.

"Well...I see you're busy," Geordi said with strained amiability. The alien started to apologize for offending the human. She didn't want to upset him or draw any special attention to herself. All she had been doing was gazing at the warp core when he had interrupted her. But she stopped itself, after realizing the human was attempting to end contact. "Your CMO has cleared me for travel. I'm going to spend some time with my family before the Enterprise is called to another assignment." The alien nodded mutely again. "Take care of yourself Aquiel."

"You...too."

"I hope Commander Cherenkov takes good care of you," Geordi added, "because if he doesn't I'm only a few light years away." He chuckled, smiling again.

Not knowing what to say, afraid an errant comment might damn her, the alien once again repeated the human's gesture.

"Take care...Geordi." Watching the receding back of the small, weak, pitiable human, the masque couldn't help wonder why she hadn't left him to die as soon as the band of inferiors had made a pathetic attempt to commandeer one of the empty biopods the kindred were using to transport to the Federation starship.

Turning to gaze at the warp core again, she begrudged the foolhardy bravery of such a stunt, in the face of overwhelming odds. Kindred knew no fear. To attempt such an act would be as easy for her kind as breathing oxygen molecules were for these creatures. But to overcome their fears, to face the extinguishment of their insignificant lives to seek freedom, was a commendable act. She guessed.

But other thoughts troubled her, as she sought to lose itself within the kaleidoscope dancing above it and failing. She should've dispatched the human as easily as the other two intruders: the Bajoran and Chameloid. Of course the human had posed no threat, already stricken with infection. The unique psionic abilities of the template she had mimicked had warranted a more thorough examination before disposal.

She had been fortunate to be chosen, by the Bolian no less for the role, taken from waste reclamation to take on a much more important assignment.

Because of the being's telepathic powers, that she had used once to murder kindred, they had approached with caution, several accessing her mind at once, peeling each layer, stripping her to her essence.

Once they felt confident that she posed no threat, the others left her with the biped. The taking of memories was normally a sacred act, even when such lesser beings were involved. The embarrassment of contamination was not something to be shared.

Alone, it had realized that the Haliian was stronger than she had appeared. The biped had sought to push into her mind, thrashing with wild, psychic desperation. She had succumbed...eventually, but not before she had impressed upon it: Save him, she had gasped, her eyes closing. Oumriel. And then her essence was gone. Stepping back from the husk on unsteady legs, it had done what she asked. And it had performed the inexplicable act, killing the disease in his body, leaving only mild, masked symptoms for the Federation medics to combat.

And that's what troubled it. The Bolian, the swarthy woman, and the other masques had said nothing. There was no reproach. Even the Bolian had spun the event to their advantage, engendering the trust of the human Riker. The survival of at least one genuine human would allay suspicion of the true nature of the changed behaviors in many of the returned crewmen for months and maybe years to come. And by then it would be too late.

But the masque still couldn't explain why she had did what the Haliian had asked of it, why she had granted mercy, or why the masque had felt good to do so. The sparkling lights mocking in their energized glee, the alien ambled back to Aquiel Uhnari's quarters for another sleepless night.