Title: Exiled Pain
Author: Jewels
E-mail: jhantor@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: All publicly recognisable characters and places are the property of Tribune Entertainment. They're not mine, never have been mine, even though I wish they were.
Summary: A Kimera criminal, a spate of mysterious suicides, and peculiar memories rising in the mind of Liam Kincaid come together to form this dark little piece.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Dark Matter
Category: Drama, dark themes
Notes: This fic assumes in places that at some point before the Taelons wiped the Kimera out, there was a period of, if not cooperation, then the Taelons weren't trying to kill the Kimera. This is firmly in AU territory, although placed after "Dark Matter".

This award was given for the character of Ma'rel in this fic, and I am /dead/ pleased with it. Thank you to everyone who voted for me. :)

**

Part One

**

Zo'or was staring into space. This in itself was nothing unusual, as it was the space that could be viewed through the virtual glass shield of the mothership bridge. Liam Kincaid had always wondered about that shield. Considering that the Taelons were at war with an aggressive species, their bridge would have thought to be more protected. It was the same mode of thought, he pondered, that had TV producers put fictional bridges on top of their ships, some even putting a nice little dome in for enemies to take potshots at. It was something akin to painting a target on a ship and saying 'alright, guys, aim right /here/'.

Although the view was actually rather nice.

After a very long moment, when Zo'or still hadn't acknowledged him, Liam pointedly cleared his throat. The Taelon jerked around as if he hadn't realised anyone was on the bridge at all.

"Major?" Zo'or's words, harshly spoken, contained a question.

"You wanted to see me, Zo'or?" Liam prompted, daring to take a step forward, bringing him closer to the Synod Leader.

"Yes. Yes." The words were said slowly, as if Zo'or was having trouble recollecting for a moment, then certainty returned. "What is Agent Sandoval's condition?"

"He's stable." Liam said, diplomatically. "Just like all the others." Liam had had a hard time walking into the medical bay to get an updated status report on all the victims. They all said the same thing. Critical, but stable.

"None show any improvement?" Zo'or asked, although he sounded like he already knew the answer.

There was no reason he shouldn't, Liam knew. Zo'or automatically got reports from every section of the ship, and yet he still seemed to need the words spoken aloud.

"No." Liam said simply, watching Zo'or stare out of the viewport for a moment longer, before turning and heading back to his seat. "Perhaps you can enlighten me, Major." he said as he took a step up to his chair, turning slowly to sit down.

Liam blinked. "I'll certainly try." he said, wondering what Zo'or wanted to know.

"I have noted that Humans have..." Zo'or seemed to cast around for a suitable term. "Such a powerful will to survive. Such a driving force. What could possibly drive a Human to attempt to end their own life? For any... being to do so."

Liam took a deep breath, feeling Zo'or's eyes resting on him. "I don't know." he honestly replied. "I know that some people think that they have nothing left worth living for. They feel in pain and that the only way to end the suffering is to die." He shook his head. "I'm oversimplifying. There are so many reasons. It's not an easy issue to deal with."

"Indeed." Zo'or said. He dropped his gaze to the control panels on the armrests of his command chair for a moment, seemingly contemplating this thought. "Then perhaps, Major, you can tell me what would possess thirteen people to do so? All within three days of each other?"

Liam took a deep breath. "That, Zo'or, is something I would like to know as well."

**

Four Days Earlier

**

Volunteer Marie Caruthers stepped into the bright sunshine, squinting as the uncharacteristically clear blue sky. "Ain't that a sight." she said, turning her gaze on the sky. "No clouds. Bloody unusual round these parts."

Her colleague, Harry Jameson, chuckled quietly to himself. "I'm surprised you're not jumping around screaming 'it burns, it burns'." he gestured to the sun as he spoke.

"Nah." she said with a grin, resisting the urge to tug on her jumpsuit collar. The problem with Britain, she thought, was that when it got warm, it got humid, and Volunteer uniforms weren't renouned for their breathable material. "I save that for when I'm piloting. It gives the instructors the fright of their lives if I do that mid-flight."

Harry punched her playfully in the arm. "You're nuts." he said, a grin threatening to split his face.

"S'why you love me." she returned, smiling at him.

She meant it in jest, but for a moment, his face softened, but then he dropped his hand almost immediately, and his expression turned to one of droll humour.

"Yeah, right hon." He said, giving her shoulders a quick squeeze. "Now, off we go investigate that meteorite we're meant to go take a peek at."

Marie glanced ahead of them, seeing they were approaching the door that lead to the building housing the UK Embassy's shuttles. "This should be fun. Hey," she nudged him with an elbow before reaching down to pull her swipecard out from a hidden pocket. "How about we bring back some pretty weeds for the Embassy? We're gonna be in the middle of the countryside. Don't get to do that often."

Henry grinned. "Why not?" He patted her on the back and released her as she opened the door. "I'm sure Rhi'at would appreciate the splash of colour." Marie just giggled quietly under her breath.

"You know," she said as she climbed into the pilot's seat of the shuttle they had been assigned. "It was nice of you to volunteer to come with, but you really don't need to."

"Oh come on," Henry said, grinning at her. She wondered if the man had any other expressions. "I don't mind."

"No..." Marie shifted in her seat. "Come on, Henry. You've worked a double shift already, you don't need to come out all this way for me."

Henry looked, to her at least, somewhat disappointed. "You sure?" he asked, one last time.

"Yeah." Marie made a shooing gesture. "You know protocol only requires one of us to go out. Go have fun with your mates." she urged.

"Well..." Henry didn't look too happy about it. "Alright. But you'd better bring me back some nice weeds."

Marie grinned as she waved her arms to bring up the virtual glass shield. "Deal." she said, before he was out of hearing range.

She took the shuttle out to a particularly quiet region of the Scottish countryside. It was, apparently, where a rather large meteorite had crashed. However, current Taelon policy was to investigate all atmospheric incursions, whether they had a Jaridian signature or not. But whenever it didn't, it was usually a piece of space debris whose orbit had decayed, or a rock. All such events were clumped together under 'meteorite' to the Volunteers.

It was sort of drudge duty. It wasn't fun, it was generally muddy (when conducted in the UK, anyway) and they weren't allowed to return until they'd done a careful scan of the whole area. Most usually cheated and did a flash scan from the air though, just giving the crash area specifically a look over.

This time, though, a trench stretching nearly two hundred meters in length immediately caught Marie's attention. It was about half a meter deep, and whatever had made it had apparently skipped along the ground until finally coming to a stop in what appeared to be an abandoned quarry.

"Meteorite my arse." she muttered, not hesitating as she set the craft down, reaching behind her to retrieve her rifle and her helmet, pulling them on before stepping outside the shuttle.

The ground was slightly steaming, having heated up quite a degree by whatever it was that had crashed. She trod carefully, trying to be as stealthy as possible in her approach. It wasn't especially easy to do so in her attire, but she did at least try.

The quarry had obviously been abandoned a long time, probably had been so a long time before the Taelon's arrival. The edges of the pit were slightly rounded, and water had pooled in deep dips in the ground that had been cut away. Marie had to step over rubble in order to reach the object of her search, which sat rapidly decomposing near the far wall.

It looked to be made of Taelon bioslurry, or a distant relation thereof. It wasn't especially big, looking to have been about two meters in length when it was intact. Now it sat, slowly crumbling into a black-green gooey mess in the rocks, making a thick sound when Marie nudged it with her toe. There didn't seem to be anything else around, so she dropped her rifle's nose slightly, making a noise of confusion.

"Huh." she said aloud, liking the sound of her voice as it resounded through the quarry. "Maybe I should call the Embassy."

{That, you should have done earlier.}

The voice seemed to have been spoken directly into the back of her skull, in a whispering, caressing voice that made her shiver. It was like she was hearing the mental echo of words that had been spoken out loud. But she /knew/ no one had spoken.

She reflexively whirled, coming face to face with something that Marie had never seen before. She stood mesmerised for what seemed like eternity, but what in reality was less than a second. The creature roughly ripped the helmet off her head, pressing unbelievably warm hands to her face. Marie was dimly aware of the sensation of energy coursing through her; like she had touched a live electrical wire. She was dimly aware of someone screaming. It didn't occur to her that it was she who was screaming.

Her last thought was: 'Is that a Taelon? But it's so bright...' before her consciousness slipped away.

**

Ma'rel released the head of the now inanimate human woman, and let the body drop to the rocky ground. She knew it hadn't been strictly necessary to take the life of the woman. All she had needed to do was assimilate the genetic material of the host and then leave her in biostasis. But to Ma'rel's mind, the thought was: what is the point?

Her mind automatically reached out for the Unity. It wanted to ask: what is the point? Should I have let her live? But, as there had been throughout all these millennia, there was no response. Not that she had expected one. The Kimera had wanted her exiled, and she had been exiled in the worst manner. They had separated her from their collectivity.

They had overreacted, in Ma'rel's opinion.

She looked at the body she now possessed, reaching up to touch hair, skin, breasts, the artificially smooth material possessed of metallic fibres of obviously Taelon origin. Interesting.

Ma'rel knew the Taelons were there. She could sense them. She could sense them on this planet, she knew from her host's memories that they were rife on this pathetic little ball of rock.

Stupid, she thought. Stupid. To invite the Taelons in. They must be shown the error of their ways. She would have to teach them. One by one if necessary. And Ma'rel had not spent millennia in solitude without learning to be patient.

She smiled, picked up the dead woman's rifle, kicking the body so it rolled down a slight incline and half into a rainwater pool. "As I told the Kimeran Assembly long ago, dear." she said to the inanimate form. "Don't think of it as joining the Void before your time. Just think of it as beating the rush."

And with that, she strolled away.

**

Halfway around the world, Liam Kincaid awoke, shivering for reasons he couldn't understand. Trying to dismiss the nightmarish images of death he had been dreaming of, he simply turned up the heat, and went back to sleep.

**

Part Two

**

"I will see your packet of fruit gums, and raise you a sherbet lemon."

Ma'rel absently tapped the back of the cards she held in her hands. Humans, to her mind, had some peculiar recreational games. Like this one. She could not fathom it. Assigning value to pieces of card with certain images of them, in a certain order. She would have called it a phenomenal waste of time and have skipped out on it entirely, except she knew Marie, her host, had been an avid player.

And it allowed her to observe. To choose.

There were nearly thirty of the Taelon Volunteers in their common room, six of them, Ma'rel included, ranged around a large circular table near a wall. The rest of the room occasionally glanced over their colleagues shoulders to monitor the progression of the game. And to occasionally take snacks from the pot.

"Remind me again," Lisa Sansk, one of the youngest volunteers, was sitting in on the game, and looked to be rather puzzled. "Why are we betting sweets rather than money?"

"Because," Henry Jameson said with a note of infinite patience in his voice. "Taelon rules prohibit us from gambling. This is just an interesting way of distributing food." He shot Ma'rel a grin, his eyes glimmering towards her.

Ma'rel looked at him a moment, taking clinical note of the expression, and then offering what she deemed to be the proper response, a small, polite smile. Henry looked at her long enough to see her return it, then turned away and back to the game.

"So..." he said, starting up a new conversation. "Where did you get all of these?" he addressed his question to the male who had managed to get all the candy and chocolate for the game.

"Well, you know when I was on patrol this morning? Well, there's this really great store just down the road as you walk back up towards the Embassy, and..."

While the Humans continued in their inane bickering, Ma'el closed her eyes briefly, taking a slow even breath, before taking a long, scrutinising look at her tablemates. Judging them, checking them. Feeling their energies.

Sansk's energies were an almost vibrant, eager green. Young and fresh, and so eager to please. It would be hard to find a flaw in her character while she was still so excitable. She would be one of those unfailingly cheerful types. Ma'rel moved on. Keith Chan was a deep, sullen maroon, bespeaking a grouchy personality. He would be fun to play with had she more time. So she moved onto the one closest to her. His outer energy fields interacted with her own, and Ma'rel could almost sense his emotions.

Deep and abiding love for the woman sitting next to him, the woman Ma'rel claimed to be. And underneath it all, a fear of rejection that threatening to eat him alive should it turn out to be unreturned. Which was why he had not acted in any of Ma'rel's host's memories.

Yes, she thought, a genuine smile creeping over her face. He would be perfect for a first attempt.

**

Ma'rel didn't like Taelon buildings. They virtually crawled with their very essence, sending little crawlers running up and down her central energy plexus. It tickled and tantalised her, and she kept wanting to glance over her shoulder to see if the building was watching her. She knew it was, but she knew she hadn't been detected. If she had been, she wouldn't have been strolling the Volunteer level by Henry's side to his quarters.

"Oh by the way," she said, opening a hidden pocket at her hip. She spoke with what she hoped was the usual tone that Marie would have used, but even to her ears, the words were clipped, somewhat forced. She simply hoped the Volunteer Lieutenant was too besotted with her host to notice. "I picked these for you." She offered the small, somewhat squashed bunch of weed-like flowers to her companion, who took them, beaming at her.

"Well, you said you wanted some pretty weeds." she said, forcing a girlish giggle out. The things she had to do.

"That's sweet of you." he said, still grinning at her, making a point of sniffing them, even though Ma'rel knew for a fact that they had no scent as such.

Ma'rel giggling raising a hand to her mouth in a demure fashion, receiving a puzzled look off Henry. "Oh," she said, reaching out tentatively. "You have some pollen on your face."

She moved to gently wipe the pollen off his face, her fingertips resting briefly against his cheek. It was certain he didn't see, let alone feel, the small spark of blue energy that leapt from her palm to his skin-

Marie's hand moved further up from his cheek to run gently through his hair. He couldn't believe this was happening. Every sense felt acute, vivid, and there was an almost unreal quality to the whole experience. And yet Marie kept carressing his face gently, over and over.

"Do you... uh... do you want to come in?" he asked, terror knotting in his stomach, threatening to burst through his chest.

Marie smiled gently, seductively, at him. "I'd like that." she whispered.

He fumbled for the door mechanism in his nervousness, finally managing to get the door open only after a few seconds. And then he stumbled backwards as Marie pushed him inside, the door irising shut behind them.

She leant forward and kissed him, long and hard. She tasted sweet, her lips soft and warm against his. He wrapped his arms around her body even as she ran her hands through his hair, over and over. He knew this was the time to say this, as the happiness burst throughout his body. He had to tell her.

"I love you." he murmured, when her lips parted from his enough for him to draw breath.

The result could not have been more devastating. She froze, drawing back several inches. Her jumpsuit, which he had no recollection of starting to remove, was split nearly a foot along the seem, showing a generous amount of flesh from the neck downwards.

"That's a shame." she said, her voice cold. She made no move to reseal her jumpsuit, even though the effect of what she was displaying had a rather obvious effect on him.

His stomach felt like he had swallowed a pound of lead, and he felt physically ill. "What?" he said, rather weakly.

"I thought you just wanted to screw me." Marie said, contempt overflowing in her voice. "Instead you love me? That's just..." she shook her head, and then her mouth quirked into a smile. "Ridiculous." she said, vague giggles starting to escape her.

He just stared at her, dreading the thought that she was going to elaborate on that thought. Of course, she did. She pulled out his heart and stomped on it with every word she spoke.

"Well look at you! You're hardly a prime specimen of the male half of the species. I just figured, hey, you might have hidden talents and be good in bed, but I can see you weren't thinking along those lines. You'd probably even want a relationship, wouldn't you." she laughed harshly, the sound grating on his nerves, despair and misery upwelling within him. "You are messed up, Jameson. Who'd want y-*cough*"

Marie's voice cut off as he lunged for her, wrapping his hands around her throat. She made an attempt to prise his hands away, but kept on laughing at him, at his love, at everything he wanted to offer her. He felt her soft skin beneath his fingers, remembering how he had wanted to carress it, but knew he would never be able to.

"I could have loved you, I wanted you. You stupid woman!" he screamed at her, even as her body grew stiller. Then finally, she moved no more, and the enormity of what he had just done hit him.

"No." he muttered, stumbling backwards, away from the body that lay unmoving on the floor. "No..." it was a plaintive, mournful sound. "How could I?" It was barely audible. Blind with grief, he stumbled around his quarters until he reached the sidearm hidden in the sidetable, his hands wrapping around its cool metal casing.

"How could I?" he asked himself, once more, staring at the cold, inert form of his love, and pressed the barrel of the gun to his temple...

Outside in the corridor, Ma'rel stood, as she had stood ever since forming the connection with Jameson, and pushing him into his quarters; feeling his emotions, twisting them, manipulating his thoughts and turning them to what she wanted him to see. The walls were soundproofed, and though she couldn't see him, she knew the exact moment when the connection failed, the agonising scream reverberating throughout her mind.

Fool. She thought. Taelon collaborator.

"Hey Marie..." It was Sansk and another female Volunteer, heading back to the barracks before lights out. "Waiting for Henry?"

"I wanted to say goodnight to him." Ma'rel said, in a slightly breathy, excited tone. "But I keep..." she gestured to the unopened door. "Putting it off."

"We'll sort that." said Sansk's companion, hitting the door chime.

There was no response.

"That's weird." Ma'rel said, trying to sound genuinely puzzled. "I saw him go in."

Sansk looked at the door. "It's unlocked." she said, and without even seeming to ponder the privacy issues, she tapped the release. Probably hoping to catch him less than fully clothed, Ma'rel figured.

Ma'rel entered ahead of the other two, taking several steps in and pretending to look around, calling out Jameson's name. Then she froze, and shrieked loudly, jumping back in terror.

"Oh my god..." she sobbed. "Oh god."

There, on the floor, was Jameson's body. He had obviously killed himself with a single gunshot wound to the head.

**

A few hours later, Ma'rel, suitably teary-eyed and miserably made up, entered her host's commander's office. "Sir," she said, attempting to stand to attention.

"Yes, Volunteer Caruthers?"

"Sir. This Volunteer wishes to request reassignment, sir."

Her CO bobbed his head slowly, looking at her intently. "I see. Would this have anything to do with Volunteer Jameson's suicide?"

Ma'rel tried to make it sound like she was trying not to sniff too loudly. "Yes, sir."

Her energies swirled with his own.

{Pity her.} Her energies tempted. {It's a horrible shock.}

"I know it's a horrible shock." he said, sounding like he was pitying her. "I believe there's a opening on the mothership rotation. I can get you up there before tomorrow morning."

"Thank you sir." Ma'rel said, offering him a gratified smile.

**

Part Three

**

Liam Kincaid awoke, his skin cold and clammy, mind still swirling with nightmarish images that had haunted him all night long, leaving him with no way of getting a decent nights sleep. The sheets on his bed with twisted, partially on the floor, a testament to the tossing and turning he had done all night long.

"If anyone slipped anything into my drink," Liam muttered darkly, as he stumbled into the bathroom to splash water on his face. "I'll give them to Zo'or and say they're Jaridian spies."

He felt nauseous. He simply couldn't shake the residue emotions the dreams had left him with. Swirling colours tied to feelings of pain, suffering, anguish, and a sort of sadistic pleasure wrapped around a silvern laugh that sent chills down Liam's spine as he even tried to recall it.

His global, as he moved back into the apartment proper, was chirping. Liam figured it could wait a few seconds while he gathered his clothes together, but after a moment, the chirping became annoyingly unbearable, and nerves already set on edge felt like they were being gently polished with sandpaper.

"Receive." He snapped to the device. "Voice only." He almost spoke right over the confirming chirrup, trying to sound reasonably pleasant, but instead sounding like a serial killer who's just been informed that a critic of his work wanted to speak to him. If there were such a thing. "What. Is. It." he growled into the global.

"Major."

Liam winced. Of all the people to call him. Sandoval. Just what he needed.

"Can I help you?" he said slowly.

"You were meant to be on the Mothership half an hour ago. Da'an had to get a shuttle from a volunteer."

Liam glanced at the clock and closed his eyes briefly, fighting the urge to let loose with a series of very interesting Celtic curses his mother had learnt during her 'rebellious teenager' phase. "I'll be right there." he snapped, and flicked off the global before Sandoval could say anything further.

He pulled on the rest of his clothes in record time, and was still buttoning up his shirt at he went out through the door.

**

Liam arrived at the mothership in the middle of a shift change. The result was he had to walk through corridors, generally silent and empty during the day that were suddenly filled with volunteers coming off duty, or fresh ones arriving. The usual gentle noises of the living ship were obscured by the chatter of volunteers, released from the necessity of keeping silent at their posts, that were catching up with whatever might have gone on during the hours they were on duty.

"... and then Sa'ron looked at me like I was... well, if Taelons had pet dogs..."

"...we just got a new shipment of volunteers from the surface, apparently its that time in the rota when we switch over..."

"...I almost screamed when Tara miscalculated that 2nd dimensional vector..."

As such, in his current state of mind and of the corridors, he kept walking into people, treading on their toes, and generally having to keep up a stream of speech sound like, "Excuse me. Pardon me. Watch out... sorry about that..." all the way from the portal to the bridge.

Then he walked straight into a rather diminuative woman, knocking her to the floor. She swore softly as she hit the deck with a rather hefty thud for someone so small. Her rather mousy brown hair came free of its knot and hung around her head and she lay on the floor for a moment, stunned.

"Oh! I'm sorry." He said, reaching out a hand to the woman to help her up. "I didn't see you."

The woman looked at him with startling blue eyes, seemingly at odds with the rest of her complexion. They were unnaturally bright.

Probably her way of flaunting regs. He decided after a moment. Coloured contacts. They must be.

"That's ok..." she grunted slightly, pushing herself to her feet and looking at his hand briefly before accepting it to help herself to her feet. Her warm hand grasped his-

I look down from my position in the Assembly, staring at the figure that looks so small at this distance. She brought it on herself, this judgement, and the judgement was unanimous, but I can't help but feel sorry for her. She's sick, I'm certain and needs help.

Such a shame... I murmur to my seatmate to my left. We should have been able to help her.

Ki'i looks at me, energies flickering in vague disgust for a moment before they are subdued. You are always too soft, Ha'gel...

Liam blinked at the unnexpected memory. None of the memories of his father had come to him like that since he was only a few days old and still adjusting to life, to his growth, to the realities of his existence. The dream had unsettled him more than he had realised. But...

Liam stared into the face of the Volunteer whose hand he was still gripping. "Do I know you, Volunteer...?"

"Caruthers, sir." The woman said, smiling tightly and somehow loosening her hand from his, reaching down to pick up the bag that she had been carrying, knocked to the floor when she had been. "And no, sir, I'd remember if we had."

"Ah." Liam said, searching around for something to say. For some reason, all his nerves were buzzing, like he was standing right next to a power conduit, a vague humming that he couldn't quite put his finger on. "Well, sorry about that."

"No problem, sir." She said in a voice like liquid silver, her mouth quirking into a slight smile as she brushed past him.

Liam shook his head, trying to rid himself of the buzzing sensation, and carried on down the corridor.

**

Ma'rel licked her lips, turning slightly to look behind her as the protector who had run into her disappeared around the bend in a corridor.

Interesting. She thought. Most interesting.

**

Part Four

**

Selene Markov was a low level lab tech working in the depths of the medical wing. Most of the material she worked with was doing cursory examinations of Volunteers as they were posted to the Mothership (for their lack of vulnerability to Earth-borne bacteria, the Taelons were awfully finicky about the health of their Volunteers). But most of the time, she worked on gene splicing in the Medical Wing's lab.

Which is what she would rather be doing than running scanners over the bodies of volunteers all morning. All day her mind had been going over the subtle complexities of genetic resequencing, how to enhance particular strands to their optimum effectiveness. In her dreams, she saw base pairs dancing like fairies before her eyes.

So it was rather understandable that when she noticed something odd about her next patient she at first didn't notice until she was asked,

"What's that noise?"

"Hmm?" Markov blinked, pulling her brain out of her latest experiment and glancing down at the mousey looking woman on the pallet before her. Then she noticed the strange readings her scanner was giving her.

"Oh, so sorry." She said, picking up the scanner and peering intently at the readings on the screen inset into the wall. A puzzled look crossed her face. "It seems to be malfunctioning." That could truly be the only explanation for the peculiar readings on the screen.

She ran the scanner over the woman again, glowering at the screen as it made funny noises. She made an irritated noise and smacked the side of the scanner, as if that would help. The sooner it started playing nice and actually doing its job, the sooner she could go back to her DNA sequences.

"Look, I'm sorry about this." she said in an exasperated tone, shaking the scanner to see if anything would rattle. "The scanner keeps reading you as some strange freaky mix of something that's not quite Taelon and human. Probably a fault in the neuragel links." It was the mothership's equipment of blowing a fuse. Volunteer workers on the ship liked to blame anything that went wrong on a neuralgel link, in spite of the fact that nothing ever went wrong with them. Nevertheless, Markov was sure that because this girl was new to the ship, the fact that Markov spoke with great authority would convince her that this was fact. "I'll just wait for Mit'gai or Na'ar to come back and check it over. You should probably report back for your scan tomorrow."

The volunteer just blinked at her. "Does that mean I can go?" she asked, in an oddly flat voice.

Markov tried not to sigh at her. "Yes." she said as she replaced the scanner in its place. "Vamoose. Begone. Shoo."

The woman sat up and extended her hand. "Thank you, Volunteer Markov." she said, a small polite smile on her face.

Markov stared at her for a moment, surprised at the unexpected courtesy. "Uh, yeah." she said awkwardly, reaching out to take the hand in a firm handshake. But as she touched the volunteers hand, something like a static shock flickered over her palm, and she jerked her hand away with a sharp "Ow!", rubbing her palm.

"Sorry." The volunteer said, with an apologetic smile as she slipped off the pallet. "Must be these boots." And with that, she stepped out of the room.

Markov glared after the woman, then started to wipe down the pallet for the next time it was used.

**

Ma'rel only walked a few meters down the corridor, to where there was a small alcove she could huddle into. Such as shame that for once, Taelon technology was doing its job. She wasn't planning to have to do anything this early on, but, honestly, she really did have no choice.

She pressed her palm on the slightly warm leathery bioslurry separating the corridor from the infirmary, and concentrated on making the Connection.

**

Markov wiped her hand off on the iridescent gown that functioned as a Taelon labcoat. It wasn't the sort of labcoat she liked. Selene had grown up watching a diverse range of television shows, and one thing she had always known for certain: if she was ever going to work in medicine, she was going to have a labcoat. Of course, the Taelons then gave her a gauzy throw, but Selene considered most of her childish dreams to be just that. Childish.

She sighed, reached for the datapad-

"Selene." The sharp voice cut through her consciousness, and she whirled around, the datapad skittering off the worksurface and onto the floor.

Selene shook her head, trying not to shake too much, her hand clutching onto the worksurface's edge so hard that her knuckles turned white. "No..." she whispered, still shaking her head compulsively. "No... you can't be here. There's no way you should have managed to get on board."

Her father gave her a condescending look. "I always said you weren't smart enough to figure things out. Stupid girl. I suppose it's good that you have your looks." he stepped closer, and Selene took a step back, trying to keep distance between them.

"Although," he said, reaching up to touch her hair. She was briefly frozen in place out of sheer terror. "You cut your pretty hair."

Her hand went up to her short black hair, closely cropped to her skull. Feeling it seemed to catalyse her in some way, and she slapped her father's hand away. "No." she whispered, feeling disconnected from her body, hearing her blood pounding in her ears, feeling as if there were a layer of cotton wool between her and the world. "No." she replied, with what she hoped was some measure of courage in her voice. "I'm not ten anymore. You have no right."

"I have every right." He whispered, stepping closer and backing her up against the wall. "You're my daughter."

Whimpering, Selene slipped down to the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. She would give anything to make this stop, to make it end.

Out of the corner of her eye, the glint of a laser scapel caught her eye.

**

Liam had been rather brusquely dismissed from the bridge by Da'an, who had become increasingly irritated with his protector's rather bad temper. He had had a message to be delivered shoved into his hands and sent on his way down to the Medical Wing. There were Volunteers Da'an could have assigned for such a mundane task, but Liam personally was in no mood to stand on the bridge and listen to the chatter of Zo'or and Da'an, which was mainly delivered in Eunoia (out of boredom, he had been mentally translating it from Eunoia to English to Kimera and back again). So he had gone, without raising a word in objection.

Sa'ron seemed to be cataloguing the Infirmary's drugs when he entered, message pad held in front of him as if it was poisonous. "Healer Sa'ron?"

The Taelon looked up at him, and Liam could have sworn it looked annoyed at the interruption. "What is it, Major?"

"I have this message for you from Da'-" Liam was interrupted by a hoarse scream coming from an adjoining room, and he turned, looking in the direction it came from.

He turned back to Sa'ron to see the Healer looking utterly bewildered. Without a word, he set down the drugs her was inventorying and he and Liam strode over to the archway, Sa'ron waving a hand to get the bioslurry to iris out of the way.

"Oh god." muttered Liam as he caught sight of the woman huddled against the far wall, her muscles completely slack. There were microscopically thing lines on her wrists still trickling blood, which pooled on the floor around her. In her loose fingers, a laser scalpel was being held.

Sa'ron crouched down, distastefully avoiding the blood on the ground and reaching out to check her pulse. "She is still alive. Assist me, Major."

As Liam picked up the lab technician's body, and carrying her, still bleeding, over to the table under Sa'ron's direction, he got that maddening silver laughter again, and his stomach turned, feeling as if it was going to lose its contents. Then an upscaling whine filled the air. Seconds later, sparks flew from the console behind Sa'ron, sending the healer forward, looking slightly stunned but unhurt. The console, however, was a dead loss.

What the hell?

Outside the Infirmary, Ma'rel moved away.

**

Part Five

**

"What happened?"

Brief and to the point. Those were, to Sandoval's way of thinking, two of Zo'or's most well-honed qualities. Whether they were good qualities or not was debateable as Zo'or, a member of the diplomatic caste, was hardly diplomatic in any of his approaches.

Although it had to be said that Zo'or, like any fine diplomat, could turn words to his advantage with ease.

"That's unclear, Zo'or," he said, hands clasped loosely behind his back. "All that is known is the Volunteer attempted to commit suicide by cutting her wrists."

"Curious." Zo'or said. Sandoval waited for the Synod Leader to expand on that pronouncement. "Were there any prior indications that Volunteer Markov was suicidal?"

"No." Sandoval glanced down at the floor a moment, his CVI kicking up an image of the report on the incident in great detail, then looked up once the momentary disorientation had cleared. "She had just taken and passed a routine psychological evaluation two weeks ago. She was unusually dedicated to her work, but there was no evidence of psychosis."

Zo'or fixed Sandoval with steely eyes that glinted softly in the light of the bridge. "Obviously they were mistaken." he stated, as if this error was Sandoval's fault.

"Obviously." Sandoval repeated, trying not to sound exasperated. "She's currently in medical in critical condition. She lost a lot of blood before they got her on life support."

"Perhaps, if she revives," Zo'or said. "She may tell us what possessed her to do such a thing."

Sandoval said nothing.

"What about the console?" Zo'or asked, tilting his head, staring at Sandoval even more intently, if that was possible.

Anything that goes wrong, Sandoval thought, He holds me personally accountable. Being Zo'or's protector was probably one of the more humiliating jobs in existence.

"Likewise, there was no evidence of fault. However, several datalinks seemed to spontaneously burn out, and all data from the Volunteers physicals were lost."

Zo'or didn't seem to bothered about that. He waved a hand sharply, dismissively. "Immaterial." He stood up. "This is a perplexing incident, but not, really, one that needs to be unduly dwelled upon."

Zo'or proceeded to start quizzing Sandoval on a range of other materials requiring the Synod Leader's attention. But Sandoval couldn't shake the niggling feeling that something was wrong.

**

Night cycle in the female Volunteer barracks was never usually a quiet affair. After spending the day guarding areas of the ship or manning stations, the volunteers were usually catching up with gossip, and the gossip for the day was the mysterious attempted suicide by the Volunteer lab technician.

"You know," one woman was saying, "I hear she couldn't handle working for the Taelons, that she's been pretty much anti-Taelon from the beginning." The woman, Eliza, was perched on her bunk, several other female volunteers gathered around her. She leaned forward as she spoke. "They say she was a resistance operative that was never shut down, and it's been tearing her up inside."

A woman called Kira snorted, loudly, showing her opinion of that. "Oh please. It's probably nothing so exciting. She just had some sort of neurotic break. It happens."

Ma'rel said nothing for the moment, staring into the mirror inset into the inside of the locker she had been assigned, scrubbing at her face with a cleaning cloth. There were microscopic particles in the mothership's atmosphere that had a habit of adhering themselves to Human skin and hair. If left unchecked, it eventually covered the Human in question in a fine glittery sheen. Ma'rel couldn't see any evidence of it just yet, but she wasn't taking any chances. It was something that most of the volunteers in the barracks did in order to keep their skin looking normal.

"What I think," A young woman, still practically a girl, named Mandy spoke. She had apparently been a 'Goth' before she joined the volunteers (according to the gossip one of the Volunteers had been more than happy to tell Ma'rel with very little prompting), and had a morbid sense of humour. "is that..."

"Here it comes." muttered Kira, folding her arms and leaning back slightly. Mandy ignored her.

"What I think is that wouldn't it be a really cool way to murder?"

Ma'rel's head whipped around and she stared at Mandy, forcibly calming herself, and trying to get her energies to calm before she lost her host facade. It would not do to luminesce in front of all the girls in the room. "What do you mean?" she managed to say in a semi-normal voice.

"Well, you know," Mandy said, twisting her hair around her finger. "Convince someone to commit suicide, and y'know, there's like no way to trace it back to the murderer, cause, like, the victim's dead."

"Selene ain't dead." Eliza said, pointedly.

Mandy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but if she's had a psychotic break, she's not gonna be in her right mind, is she?"

Very good point, Ma'rel thought contemplatedly. They have no idea how right they are...

**

Part Six

**

"We have found her."

Ha'gel looked up at the Council Head from his contemplation of a rather esoteric work of art. It had taken him a while to identify its origin, but eventually, he had realised it was a rather good imitation of the sand sculptures of the Crawlers of Nephren. They were a rather unfortunate species of reptiles, wiped out after getting caught in the crossfire of an interstellar war several millennia earlier. The Kimera had uncovered the remains of their civilisation a few hundred years, included thousands of examples of their art. The Nephren Crawlers had taken great pains to preserve their art, almost to the exclusion of any other record of their existance.

What that said about their civilisation, Kimera scholars had been debating for a very long time.

"This is a relief." he said, turning to Sev'rei, who was sitting staring at a datastream. His energies were a shifting whirl, and Ha'gel merely got a muddle of impressions, and he glanced away until Sev'rei was able to control himself.

Eventually, the Councillor waved away the datastream, seemingly calm again.

"Where was she found?" Ha'gel said, opting to continue this line of conversation.

"In the cargo hold of an unmanned freighter. It stopped at a Taelon checkpoint and they decided, in their infinite wisdom," Sev'rei's shifted to a dusky auburn with the irony of the statement. "That justice would be best served by turning her over to us for punishment."

Ha'gel looked at the crystalline surface of the floor. It looked oily, black, where the energies of the Councillor caused the crystal to change colour. Sev'rei was obviously distressed. All the signs were pointing to his emotional distress.

"You forget yourself." he warned, and Sev'rei made a conscious attempt to draw in his energies as Ha'gel said, "You would have preferred they execute her on the spot."

"Yes..." Sev'rei said, consciously shrinking in his misery. "Then I would not have to pass judgement..."

The temporary quarters Liam occasionally used while on board the mothership were dark when he opened his eyes. While Da'an was aboard, there was really no reason for Liam to remain during the night. Even on Earth he was not bound to do so. Except he felt the need to stay. He couldn't explain it, or understand it really, but he knew he had to.

Except he had a feeling that remaining there was making the dreams more intense.

Almost before he realised it, he was sitting up on the pallet, and his hand was reaching for his global, punching in a number. There was several long pauses while it rang, which Liam used to run a hand through his hair in a vague effort to look presentable, before the other person answered.

"Liam?" Street didn't look too wonderful. Her hair was sticking out at odd angles and her shirt was somewhat rumpled. "Do have have any idea of the time? Do you know what an interrupted sleep cycle can do to the body's neurochemical balance?"

"I need a favour." he said without preamble, squinting at the screen in the dim light of the chamber.

Street looked unamused. "It's three am. The payback for this favour had better involve you, me, and a can of whipped cream."

In you dreams... Liam thought, not unkindly. Then he tried to remember what the favour was. Like the dream, though, it was fading fast, skittering from his mental grasp every time he reached for it. Then he remembered.

"I need you..." he said slowly, getting the idea straight in his head before speaking aloud. "To get me a list of everyone who's been put on the mothership rotation in the last week."

Street looked even less amused. "And the reason this couldn't wait until I'd had my recommended hours of sleep?"

"I..." Liam paused, then realised there really had been no reason to call her at such an hour. "Sorry." he said, lamely.

Street sighed. "It's not a problem, forget about it." she said with a slight smile. "I never could resist a favour from you anyway." she said teasingly. "I'll get back to you when I have it. And during the day."

With that, she signed off.

Feeling like he'd done something, but honestly having no idea what he had just set into motion, Liam lay back, staring at the bioslurry ceiling.

**

The very idea of purposefully losing conscious for up to eight hours at a time was anathema to Ma'rel. She had been purely curious and had, for a moment, lost herself to the human urgings of her host, and submitted to sleeping for a few moments. It had terrified her so badly that she strictly denied herself doing so again.

It hadn't helped that while in that sleep, she had dreamed. And they had been nightmares.

So now she lay on the hard uncomfortable pallet, blanket pulled up to her waist, contemplating her hands. The nails. The skin. The nails were or particular interest to her. They seemed to keep growing in spite of the fact that Ma'rel had no keratin with which to produce more of the nails.

It was a lack of control that disturbed her.

{Shal'vra... keemal cheno...}

Ma'rel tossed aside the blanket and rolled off the pallet, crouching on the floor, eyes flickering about from side to side, searching the barracks. In spite of the near absence of light, Ma'rel could see perfectly, and apart from the shifting about of the other volunteers, and the occasional snore, there was no disturbance.

"I know you're here..." she whispered to the air, getting to her feet slowly, padding around her cot to stare in the direction of the door. A shiver abruptly went through her, almost painful, and she lost her concentration on holding the form of her human host. For a brief instance, she returned to her normal form, bathing the barracks in an eerie blue-white light. Then it vanishes as she consciously snapped her facade back into place.

Her eyes went from volunteer to volunteer.

They saw me... She thought, panicked. They had to have seen me... there's no way they couldn't have... they're just faking sleep now... I have to stop them from telling anyone...

All thoughts other than hiding from the Taelons until she could finish her task were obliterated from her mind. All worries of being suspected, all thoughts of discretion.

She went from bunk to bunk, forming a connection with each of the eleven slumbering minds.

And then she took them into their dreams...

**

It is bright and sunny. There are rolling green hills stretched as far as the eye can see and a forest starts at the top of the hill on which they sit on. Some are lying down, most are just sitting absorbing the sun and the peace of this place.

"Do you know what I think..." Eliza says ponderously, a dandelian clutched in her hand, as she slowly plucks the petals away from its head, allowing them to drift down to the ground into a small bright yellow heap.

Kira blinks against the sun and turns her head to look at Eliza. "Why should we know..." she asks. She lies on a soft woollen blanket, still incongruously attired, as they all are, for this setting, in their volunteer uniforms. The shimmering metallic filaments in the fabric pick up the light and reflects it in a myriad pattern of dancing light.

"I think," Eliza pauses, as if what she is about to say is a matter of great importance; something for philosophers of the future to mull over and yet still not be able to understand all its levels. "I think that Darth Vader wasn't really Luke Skywalkers father."

Mandy looks up from carefully applying her lipstick with the aid of a small mirror she holds in her hands. "You're nuts." she says, not without affection. "We all know that Darth Vader was Anakin Skywalker. And he was Luke's old man."

"He could have been illegitimate." Eliza says, still plucking at the dandelion, which has more petals than can ever be picked, and so still looks unchanged; as if it had never been picked.

"You're nuts." Kira repeats, before anyone else can. "Really. Truely. Nutso."

Ma'rel resists the urge to give into the laughter that upwells within her. This place, this interaction. It reminds her so much of the Unity. The togetherness. The peace.

The Unity she was exiled from. The Unity that left her to die on a barren world without energy, forcing her to feet off whatever small creatures she could to survive. At least they had spared her from feeling her fellows death's as the Taelon's exterminated them. Small comfort, she thinks bitterly.

She starts influencing the dreamscape subtlely, slowly. The air slowly grows colder, and the sun seems to dim, turns a cold blue as the sky starts to darken. "Does anyone hear that?" she whispers.

The other volunteers grow still. A girl, Lis, blinks rapidly. "Oh god..." she whispers. "I can hear something coming."

"We have to run." Eliza says, terror apparent in her voice. There is nothing there, but fear creeps into their hearts, Ma'rel's dreamscape telling them that they must run. Absolutely must. They have to save themselves.

"We can hide in the forest!" Ma'rel cries as she gets to her feet. "But we have to run."

The others need no convincing. All twelve of them bolt towards the treeline, terrified of what is coming to get them. They dive into the darkness of the woods, the dank and the dark surrounding them. The tree branches whip about them as they run, and twigs crunch underfoot.

Behind them, the sounds of something great and massive crashing through the trees can be heard. And suddenly a shriek, the noise of a thousand souls screaming in torment stops them in their tracks, freezing them in pure terror.

"We can't hide from it!" Mandy cries, holding onto one of the volunteers who collapsed during the run having fallen while looking behind her. "As long as we're alive it'll catch us!!"

One of the women burst into tears.

"What if we're not alive..." Ma'rel suggests in a breathy whisper. "Our implants. We can use them to slow our heart to nothing. It won't be able to catch us."

"It's the only way." Kira says gravely, blinking rapidly to hold back her own tears of fear.

"It's coming!" one of the women screams, huddling closer to the group.

"Concentrate." Ma'rel whispers fiercely. Many of the woman close their eyes and try to block out the noise of the creature. "Slow the heart, the breathing... slow... slow...

"Stop."

**

In the medical wing, half a dozen alarms suddenly went off, starting the Volunteer on duty and summoning several sleepy looking medics, along with two Taelon healer, to the source of the alarm: a console displaying suddenly flat lines as nearly a dozen implants report their hosts lifesigns suddenly ceasing.

**

Liam was out walking the corridors, trying to get his mind of the disturbing night imagery. He was expecting to try and at least put some of the churning thoughts out of his mind. What he was not expecting as to have a medical team nearly push him through a wall in their haste.

"What's going on?" he demanded of one of the human medics as she trailed along after the gurneys that we being pushed along the halls at a dead run. He had to break into a run himself in order to keep up.

She shifted the medical equipment under her arm. "We suddenly got eleven termination signals from a Volunteer barracks." she said, her voice breathy from the energy she was expending in the run.

Liam went with them even though several medics gave him disapproving looks.

When they reached the barracks, all seemed normal. No one would have known that the inhabitants were dead, not sleeping, if for the fact that only one of them was roused as the medics snapped on the lights and bustled inside, chattering loudly.

"What's going on?" she muttered groggily, squinting her eyes and rubbing at them.

"What happened here?" Sa'ron demanded as the human medics got to work on the others in the room. There was a general call for epinephrine and defibrillation paddles, and the noise in the room raised tenfold.

"What...? There's something wro...?" The woman, who Liam now recognised as Volunteer Caruthers, who he had bumped into earlier the day before. "Oh god... are they..."

"We're trying to revive them." he said, gently putting a hand on her shoulder.

"But..." her eyes swam with tears as she looked up at him. "I just went to sleep with them few hours ago."

She started to cry, and Liam slipped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed them gently.

No one can tell me, he thought That this isn't someone's doing.

**

Part Seven

**

"Major," Zo'or's voice cut through the bridge even before Liam had cleared the archway. He tried to suppress a wince. Zo'or starting a conversation with /that/ tone of voice did not bode well.

"Yes, Zo'or?" he said, coming to stand in front of the command chair. Da'an stood just behind the Synod Leader, watching his protector attentively.

"I presume you have come to report on the incident in the volunteer barracks?" Zo'or gave him a look which indicated that he had better hear a report from the Major quickly.

Liam didn't disappoint. "Three of the volunteers died. The other eight are currently comatose. The medical staff report their condition as critical."

Liam had to wonder why Zo'or demanded face-to-face reports from personnel. After all, Liam knew for a fact that the Synod Leader received regular reports via datastream from all departments.

"Apparently," Liam continued, aware of the fact that Da'an, Zo'or and Sandoval were all staring at him intently. "The volunteers in question simultaneously used their implants to lower their heart rates, several stopped their hearts completely, which triggered the alarms. Everytime the staff revive them, they suppress their vital functions again. They can't be brought out of the comas."

"And I suppose you have no idea as to why this happened?" Zo'or, without waiting for an answer, made as if to drum the arm rest of the chair with his fingers, but instead the fingers wavered in the air for a moment before settling again. Then he said, "What of the other volunteer in the barracks? Does she have no idea what caused her fellow's sudden lack of desire to live?"

"She's traumatised, Zo'or," Liam said slowly, mental flashing back to the look of terror on the Volunteer's face when she had seen the bodies of the other Volunteer's being rushed out of the barracks to the medical wing. The last Liam had seen of her was helping her to the infirmary, the girl sobbing the whole way. "I don't think she remembers anything."

"Really." Zo'or said contemplatively. Then he waved a hand sharply in the air. "You are dismissed, Major."

Liam inclined his head slightly, and headed out of the room. Zo'or watched the archway even after the Major had disappeared from sight, then without turning to look at his protector, instructed Sandoval: "Agent Sandoval. You will review the implant logs." Zo'or turned towards the human, icy blue eyes glaring piercingly at him. "Inform me if there are any discrepancies."

Sandoval looked from Zo'or to Da'an, frowned, obviously annoyed at the tacit dismissal, and left the bridge, non-too pleased with being kept out of what he knew was about to be discussed.

"I get the distinct impression," Zo'or said, not turning his chair as Da'an moved out from behind him to stand slightly to the side of the Synod Leader, so he could look his child directly in the face. "That this is hardly an implant malfunction."

"I am inclined to agree." Da'an said, his gaze wandering in the vague direction in which the medical wing lay. "There have been isolated cases, but on this scale, simultaneously..." Da'an returned his attention to Zo'or. "I am dubious."

"I suppose," Zo'or said, slowly getting up from his seat and starting towards the virtual glass shield, separating the internal environment of the bridge from the harsh vacuum of space. "That you have no alternate explanation."

Da'an did not. But then, neither did Zo'or.

**

Liam entered the medical bay, automatically looking around for Volunteer Caruthers. It wasn't hard to spot her. She was sitting, legs folded beneath her, on one of the medical pallet, a shimmering iridescent blanket clutching in her fingers.

"Volunteer," His voice attracted Caruther's attention, and she glanced up, her smile somewhat shaky as Liam headed towards her.

"How are you feeling?" he asks kindly once he got close enough to speak without having to raise his voice.

In response, Caruthers glanced at the unconscious, comatose bodies littering the infirmary. "Not so good." she whispered. "I don't want to see... this." she said.

Liam followed her glance, then looked about for medical personnel. When he saw none, her jerked his head in the direction of the door. "Come on." he urged. She needed little other prompting to follow him into the quiet corridors.

"I can't imagine how it must be for you." he said, once they were clear of the infirmary, and she had seemed to relax slightly.

"I went to bed..." she whispered, her eyes looking haunted. "We were talking a little after lights-out. I know we're not meant to, but Kira had this really funny story and-" She broke off, her voice cracking.

Kira Newsham. Liam's mind found the name virtually immediately. One of the three volunteers that had died during the night.

"I just can't believe this is happening."

They walked along in silence for a few moments. "What's your name?" Liam suddenly asked, earning him a surprised look. "Your given name, I mean."

"Ma-" Caruther's stuttered slightly. "Marie." she finally grated out. "Sorry," she said, apologising for her stumble. "I'm just not used to giving my first name. So many just want my surname."

"Marie." Liam repeated. "Pretty name."

"Derived from Mary." Caruthers said, almost absently. "Meaning bitter in Hebrew."

Liam looked at her for a long moment. There had been a note of such harshness in her voice when she had said that. For a brief second, he had the distinct impression that the meaning was deserved.

"I..." Caruthers looked almost embarrassed. "I don't even know your name."

Liam blinked, realising they had never been introduced. He extended his hand. "Major Liam Kincaid. A pleasure to meet you Volunteer Marie Caruthers."

Caruthers actually giggling slightly, even if her eyes still had that haunted look. She shook his hand awkwardly. "Likewise." she said, before hurriedly taking back her hand.

"What's your assignment on board?" he asked, suddenly possessed of this curiosity about the girl.

"Oh, I hadn't got my assignment yet." she said, looking at her hands, which seemed to be slightly glittery in the lighting of the corridor. "I was meant to get it today, but I'm now on medical leave..." she shrugged. "I'm sort of at a loss. But I'm not going back there." she waved a hand in the direction of the Infirmary.

"I understand that." Liam said. For a few more meters they walked in silence. "Tell you what. You can function as my assistant until they let you off medical leave. Unofficially of course, but it means if they ask, you can stay away from the infirmary."

Caruthers smiled shyly. "I'd like that." she said.

They walked on.

**

Part Eight

**

He's a threat. Eliminate him.

Ma'rel forced the urge down into the depth of her psyche.

He can't know. She insisted to herself. There's no way he could. No reason to hasten his own demise.

But still...

Ma'rel watched Liam Kincaid from where she stood, walking along the corridor a foot or so behind him, as if contemplating the back of his jacket. She trusted him. And she had no idea why. And yet she knew deep down that there was nothing she could do. They all had to die sometime, and all she had to do was hasten their joining the void. His own fault really. If he wasn't a Taelon collaborator, she might have actually considered sparing him.

Then his global beeped. He took it out, taking a glance at the ID for a moment, then turned to address Ma'rel with a smile. "Why don't you go on ahead?" he said to her.

She just smiled vacantly at him, a calculatedly bland expression. "Sure." she said, feigning disinterest in his call. In truth, anything that required him to dismiss her was probably worth her while listening to. She stepped part way around the next bend, hiding in a small alcove. It wasn't that hard to hear. The body of the host was merely a facade, and it was far easier to sense the rhythm of the sound waves moving through air. Kincaid's voice came to her loud and clear, along with the sounds of a pair of volunteers having a conversation on the other side of the bioslurry wall, and the natural burbling sounds of the Mothership going about her business.

"Hey, Liam."

Human female. Young. This tells me little.

"Street, what have you got for me?"

"Well, I pulled a list of everyone who's been put on mothership rotation in the last five days. That was about as far as I got before I got spotted by some watchdog programs they must have installed recently, because I sure as hell haven't seen 'em before."

Ma'rel closed her eyes briefly. He did know. Or at least he had his suspicions. She had to do something about this. She couldn't afford to be caught. She needed more time. She needed to get closer. Needed to clear the way.

She slowly eased her way out of the alcove, to see that he had his back to her as he leaned against the wall slightly, head down as he spoke into his global. She approached him, palms raised an glowing an unearthly blue-white.

Is there a name for that colour? Ma'rel's mind wondered distractedly. 'Destructive duck egg blue', maybe?

"I've uploaded them to your global." The girl, Street, was still speaking, giving Kincaid the information he needed to know. "Why d'you need them, anyway?"

"I think there's someone on the Mothership causing volunteers to suicide."

Ma'rel's palms grew a little brighter as the nervous tension she felt fed itself into the energy already present.

"Wow." The girl sounded vaguely respectful for a moment. "Who could do something like that?"

"I don't know. But I'm going to find out."

"More, to the point, why would anyone do that?"

Ma'rel hesitated a moment, only a few feet away from Kincaid, the bioplasmic energy of the mothership gingerly melding with her outer energy shell. It would cause anyone who looked at her out of the corner of their eye to just perceive her as part of the mothership. Unless they were looking for her, they wouldn't see her. It would be easy to strike now. To make his death quick and painless. To end all possibility of him discovering her. She somehow didn't want to cause him pain. Vaporising him would be the quickest method, although it would attract even more attention.

And yet, she did not. She stood there, palms raised, staring at him. She didn't even notice that the light of her shaquarava extinguished themselves without any conscious thought.

"Were you going to push me over?"

Ma'rel hadn't even realised that she'd lost herself in staring. Kincaid had finished his call and had glanced at her over his shoulder, speaking to her and snapping her out of her daze before turning to face her.

"What?" Ma'rel glanced at her hands, as if seeing them for the first time, and lowered them. "Uh... no... I know you told me to go on ahead. But I got down the corridor and got lost."

"Don't you have the schematics in your implant?" Kincaid asked, curiously.

"Oh yes... so I do." Ma'rel said, weakly. How could she have forgotten such am elemental thing?

Weak. Stupid. I am becoming enamoured. Of a Human. How could I? His energy shells are pathetically dim. So cold. I am the Last. Accept. I will perform my duty. Then all Taelons will have joined oblivion. And I will be free. Destiny has no bearing here, despite the thoughts of the Unity.

Kincaid seemed to take her sudden attack of silence as a sign that she was still fairly traumatised, and placed a hand between her shoulders to guide her down the corridor. "Look, just follow me. Da'an needs to see me on the bridge a moment. You can handle that, right?"

"Right."

The bridge. The perfect opportunity. Da'an.

Hatred. Remembrance.

Zo'or. The Synod leader. Perfect.

Clear the way ahead. And let no emotions cloud my judgement.

**

Liam had warned Caruthers, as they approached the bridge, that Zo'or would probably demand her account of what had happened in the Volunteer barracks. She had professed that she was ready for the questions the Synod Leader would throw at her, since she'd been having healers asking her most of the day about what had happened.

Now, as she stood there, hands clasped loosely behind her back as she stood at a textbook 'at ease' stance, her face calm and impassive, Liam wondered why he had been concerned.

Her energies are calm, undisturbed, the barest vein of vermillion tracing her conjunctional pathways. She stands contained, the guards pressed in on either side of her as she pronounces herself prepared for judgement and submissive. She lies well.

The mood of the Supreme Assembly shifts. They are prepared to hear the High Council choose her fate...

"And you saw nothing in the unusual in the behaviour of your fellows that might have led you to suspect they might choose to end their lives?"

Liam blinked rapidly as he attempted to clear his mind from the brief flash of imagery. It dispersed from his mind as quickly as a dream.

"No, Zo'or." Caruthers was saying, her voice even and calm. Almost dissociated from herself. "They were happy. Chatting."

"About what?" Zo'or demanded, leaning forward infinitesimally from where he was sitting in his command chair.

"About whether Darth... uh..." Caruthers blinked rapidly, changing her words midsentence. "Popular culture, Zo'or."

Zo'or stared at her for a moment, then waved a hand irritably. "Since you have no information of use," he snapped, as if this were her fault personally. "You are dismissed, Volunteer."

Caruthers took a deep breath as she snapped to attention, bobbing her head in acknowledgement slightly before turning sharply to her right and heading towards the archway of the bridge, where Liam had stood during her entire questioning. As she moved, Sandoval came through the doorway, as usual, striding in a manner that showed he expected all before him to get out of his way. Either Caruther's didn't see him, or she wasn't reading his body language, but she walked straight into the implant with such force that it spun them both around.

"Volunteer!" Sandoval snapped, tugging at his jacket where it had been dislodged when she had walked into him.

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" Caruther's raised her hands towards him, fingertips brushing Sandoval's sleeve. Sandoval blinked abruptly, a look of puzzlement coming over his features. "I didn't see you..."

"That's... alright."

Liam's eyes widened at Sandoval's sudden shift in attitude, staring in utter confusion as Caruthers turned away from the implant and started back towards him, while Sandoval blinked, as if trying to clear his head, before crossing the bridge towards Zo'or, who had ignored the whole incident.

"What happened there?" Liam asked Caruthers, frowning at her. For a second, he could have sworn he saw a spark of blue light arc from her fingers to Sandoval's jacket.

{it was static}

Liam blinked in confusion as the thought arose almost spontaneously from nowhere. Caruthers was staring at him with disturbing intensity.

"Nothing." She said, abruptly leaning back and smiling wanly. "Just wasn't paying attention."

"-listening to me, Agent Sandoval?"

Liam's attention was diverted from the Volunteer abruptly, to where Zo'or was standing on the command dais, glaring intensely at Sandoval, who seemed to be staring into space.

"Agent Sandoval!" Zo'or repeated, but louder.

There was no response from Sandoval. He didn't even blink. As Liam stepped forward to get a clearer view, he didn't notice Caruthers drawing back, almost seeming to merge with the walls as she stepped into the vague shadows at the very edge of the bridge.

**

The bridge is cold and dark, and the air tingles, almost as if it anticipates something happening, and happening soon. Sandoval tries not to shiver and feels a leaden weight settled in his stomach.

"What happened?" he asks the room at large, empty save for a few people.

"It is not obvious, Agent Sandoval?" Zo'or asks, a superior expression firmly in place as he steps down from the command dais and away from Sandoval, towards where Major Kincaid and Da'an stand, on the far side of the bridge. A third person is hidden in the shadows, and everytime Sandoval tries to look at them, they disappear, as if they can only be seen when they are not being looked for.

"What's obvious?" he demands, starting after Zo'or, but somehow cannot get further than a few steps, the distance between them remaining constant. "What's going on?"

"I would have thought you of all people would know." Kincaid says, tilting his head and looking in amusement at him.

"What is wrong with him?"

"I don't know. His lifesigns are stable..."

Da'an continues his protector's statement. "It was," he says, "After all, your fault."

"What's my fault?" Sandoval almost shouts, his frustration building from their cryptic remarks.

"You see." Zo'or says harshly, addressing his companions rather than Sandoval. "He does not care. How could any parent do such a thing?"

Sandoval's mouth goes dry, and his stomach seeming to turn over, the leaden weight worsening. "Parent?" he repeats.

"There's something unusual in his bioelectric field. I can't tell though..."

"Summon a medical team."

The third figure steps forward, and Sandoval vaguely recognises the woman as the Volunteer Zo'or was quizzing. Her eyes are fixed on Sandoval, but he only looks at the burden she carries in her arms. It is a human boy, only a few years old, a characteristic skrill burn over most of his torso.

He shakes his head, backing away, instinctively knowing who the boy is, trying to deny the information that he somehow knows.

"You killed him." she whispers, harshly, accusingly.

"No." he says, in a voice that to him sounds detatched from his mind. He can only see the boy. The dead boy.

"You. Killed. Him." Zo'or repeats, hissing each word.

"You murdered your own son." Kincaid says, his voice colder than ice.

"NO! You did this!" Sandoval yells, waving his hand at Da'an and Zo'or. "You did it, you murdering Taelon bastards!"

**

Ma'rel, mothership energies entwined about her in a soft cocoon where she stood pressed against the slightly warm bridge bulkhead, stared in disbelief at the images bombarding through the Connection she had formed with Sandoval.

He could be useful to her. Very useful. He could help her eliminate the Taelons. He had no particular love for the Taelons. Ma'rel did not need to remove him to get to Zo'or. He could help her. That was if he wasn't too far gone already. That was the problem. After a point, their own minds took over, and rushed them to the urge to be self destructive.

Very carefully, she worked at freeing his mind from the illusion she had crafted.

**

The Volunteer approaches him, boy still clutched in her arms, and all Sandoval can see is the angelic face, permanently slack and a disturbingly pale shade. This was his son. He has murdered his son.

"No." He sobs, shaking his head, as if to deny the reality of this. "How could I do this, how could I?"

"You're worthless. Pathetic. You're a monster. Who killed his own son. His own flesh and blood." The Volunteer sets the boy down by his feet, and Sandoval finds himself paralysed to move from the spot. All he wants to do is bolt. But instead he finds himself crouching over the body, his hand shaking as he reaches out to touch the child.

The Volunteer strides behind him, leaning forward, her lips mere millimetres from his ear, and a silver voice whispers, "You don't deserve to live."

Sandoval looks down at his hand, and sees his weapon resting in it.

"Sandoval! Put the weapon down!!"

The voice pierced Sandoval's consciousness like a scalpel, wielded by an overly enthusiastic amateur, causing a lancet of pain to run through his skull. He cringed, raising his free hand to his head. He barely retained enough sense of mind to realise that there was a clear area of several meters around him, and Zo'or was standing somewhat behind Kincaid, whose weapon was drawn and aimed at the agent.

"You don't understand," he said in a hoarse, broken voice. "I killed him."

"You've killed a lot of people, Sandoval," Kincaid said caustically. "This isn't the time for a fatal attack of conscience."

Sandoval didn't even realise he was holding the gun to his own head, the muzzle pressed to the soft flesh where the throat met the underside of the jaw.

"You don't understand!" he cried again, this time, his voice raised in anguish.

His finger tightened on the trigger-

-and in a brief flash of light, was halfway across the floor, leaning dazed against the wall, groaning.

Liam whirled around to see where the shot had come from, and saw Caruthers standing behind him, the skrill on her arm glowing a dim blue. "I did not give the order to fire!" he snapped at her.

Caruthers looked upset. "I didn't want him to do to himself what the others did." she said, biting her lip and averting her gaze.

Liam turned his attention back to Sandoval, not wanting to see the anguish on Caruthers' face as she relieved events in her mind.

Two volunteers, had, in the meantime, followed Zo'or's snapped orders and had rushed across the bridge to restrain the agent, who was starting to come to his senses, still sobbing about having 'killed him'.

"Go and see to the medical team." Liam said gently to Caruthers, who nodded, blinking back tears and headed for the door.

**

Ma'rel curled her hands into fists, hiding the light she had not silenced quickly enough and belatedly thought to make the skrill she had exuded from her host's arm glow somewhat, as if it had just fired. It was beyond her abilities to mimic two lifeforms simultaneously, merely shift the form of her body to pretend that she had a skrill implant. In truth, it had died with Marie Caruthers.

She couldn't let Sandoval kill himself. Not when he could provide her with such useful information. Risking exposure by using her shaquarava was a calculated risk (not that Ma'rel realised she wasn't up to assessing risks very well), but she could not allow Sandoval to kill himself and take all that useful information about the Taelons with him.

"Go and see the medical team." The order drew her back to reality, and she nodded, urging the tear ducts of her host eyes to begin secreting liquid for an added effect, and ducked through the archway out to the corridor, where she could see the medical team running towards the bridge.

Well, crap. She thought, the expletive quickly surfacing from her host memory. I wish I'd known all this about Sandoval before...

It was too late now. She would simply continue with her original plan. With Sandoval out of the way, Zo'or was without a protector. He was exposed, vulnerable.

Excellant.

**

Part Nine

**

Da'an had arrived on the bridge not long after Sandoval had been taken away to the medical wing by the emergency team that had arrived after Zo'or had had them summoned. He was stunned to hear of the protector's sudden mental breakdown, and had asked if Zo'or wished to postpone their discussion.

Zo'or's curt reply about hardly needing Sandoval to 'hold his hand', as humans put it, quickly dispelled that notion. And had scornfully dismissed Major Kincaid when he had showed a rather unusual amount of concern for the female Volunteer who seemed so upset by everything.

It was late in the night shift now, however Zo'or had not returned to his private chambers. Instead he stood on the bridge, scant inches away from the virtual glass barrier, and stared at the stars. Millions of stars. Millions of planets. The galaxy's inhabitants died by their thousands every second. How many of them induced their own death?

How could any of them wish to?

Disturbed, Zo'or turned away from the vista, and strode over to the datastream, saving a message for Major Kincaid. He knew the major was, for some reason, staying aboard the mothership currently. It was his right, as Da'an's protector, however it was not something he, or many of the protectors at all, indulged in. Most preferred to return to their own homes. Zo'or instructed him to check on Agent Sandoval, get an updated report from medical, and then to report to the bridge.

That done, he waved off the datastream, staring contemplatively at the wall where Sandoval had been thrown against. He looked at the silhouette of energy from the blast that had sent Sandoval reeling.

"Curious." he muttered, almost to himself, then turned away, and left the bridge.

**

The next morning, Zo'or was back on the bridge, engaged in rapt contemplation of her stars. There was a low buzz in the Commonality, as its members avidly debated what could be causing these suicides of Human volunteers and implants. Zo'or had not lingered for the discussions, but he could hear enough to know that not one Taelon among them had an explanation.

Curiously, Da'an was remaining absent from all discussions.

The sound of a throat being cleared caused Zo'or to pull his attention away from the psychic link and back to the hear and now. He did not need to glance behind him to know who it was that made his presence known.

"Major?" He prompted, not removing his gaze from the stars.

"You wanted to see me, Zo'or?" Kincaid prompted, and Zo'or could hear him take a step forward.

"Yes. Yes." Zo'or took a moment, attempting to recall why he had summoned the Major before him. He turned away from the stars and looked at the protector as he remembered. "What is Agent Sandoval's condition?"

"He's stable." Kincaid said. "Just like all the others."

Zo'or already knew the answer he would receive to the question, but asked anyway. "None show any improvement?"

"No." Kincaid said simply,

Zo'or gazed out of the viewport for a moment, using the stars to order his thoughts momentarily before he turned away, back to the command dais. "Perhaps you can enlighten me, Major." he said as he took a step up to his chair, turning slowly to sit down.

Kincaid appeared surprised at such a request. "I'll certainly try." he said, his tone betrayed his curiosity.

"I have noted that Humans have..." Zo'or cast around for a suitable term. "Such a powerful will to survive. Such a driving force. What could possibly drive a Human to attempt to end their own life? For any... being to do so."

Zo'or stared at him, waiting for an answer. Kincard took a deep breath before responding. "I don't know." he replied. "I know that some people think that they have nothing left worth living for. They feel in pain and that the only way to end the suffering is to die." He shook his head. "I'm oversimplifying. There are so many reasons. It's not an easy issue to deal with."

"Indeed." Zo'or said. No, never easy. Death is never easy, and so many fight it so desperately. Why give up the fight?

"Then perhaps, Major, you can tell me what would possess thirteen people to do so? All within three days of each other?"

"That, Zo'or, is something I would like to know as well."

"You know as well as I do, Major," Zo'or said, his words harsh and cutting. "That this is hardly a series of spontaneous events. Something has pushed these previously stable individuals to death." He glared at Kincaid. "Find out what is going on." he charged him. "With Agent Sandoval's... demise. You will be assuming his duties."

He half expected Kincaid to question him about what Da'an would say about Zo'or suddenly reassigning his protector without warning. Oddly enough, Kincaid just nodded, a relieved expression on his face, as if he had hoped for this eventuality.

"Yes, Zo'or." Kincaid said.

"You are not surprised by this order." Zo'or said, tilting his head to stare even more intensely at the Major.

Kincaid took a slow breath before responding. "No. I agree, Zo'or, something is going on. Something... someone..." Kincaid's eyes drifted for a moment, as if losing himself in thought. Zo'or was about to summon his attention with a sharp remark, when Kincaid's eyes returned to looking at Zo'or. "Someone is affecting these people."

"You are convinced it is a person doing this." Zo'or looked at Kincaid in askance.

"I don't see how it could not be."

"Very astute, Major." Zo'or said. He turned his chair slightly so he had a clear look out at the stars.

Thousands of beings... all dying... how many wish it so?

"Very astute indeed." Zo'or paused, glancing at the bioslurry wall for a moment before addressing Kincaid without looking at him. "I suggest you get the healers to do an energy scan of the blast that felled Agent Sandoval." Zo'or did now look at him, mouth quirking humourlessly. "As humans say, I have a hunch."

**

Part Ten

**

"You have reassigned my protector."

"Yes."

"Why?"

Zo'or turned his attention away from a detailed breakdown of the Mothership's current status from the engineering section, pausing the display before too much information could scroll by. "Because mine is current under heavy sedation for fear he will take his own life."

Zo'or did not expand on that statement, but his attitude as he returned his attention to the display indicated that he feared no such thing, and if Sandoval really wanted to do so, there would be little Zo'or would try and do to stop him. He flicked a finger at the datastream, bringing up a new level of information regarding the energy mass flow system.

"So you take Major Kincaid away from me, at a time when people are suspiciously killing themselves?"

Zo'or did not turn away from the datastream. "Thus far, only humans have been affected." he said sharply, dismissing the engineering breakdown and throwing up a new report that Da'an, from where he was standing, could not see what it read. It did seem, however, to give Zo'or much food for thought, as the Synod Leader sat there for several seconds, fingertips brushing the air over the armrest of his chair. Then he waved a hand dismissively and stood as the datastream disappeared.

"You have the bridge." was all he said as he turned and headed away from the bridge, leaving a rather puzzled Da'an in his wake. It was not like his child to abandon his post in the middle of the shift.

The apprehension which had been gripping Da'an for days now returned full force as he stepped up to the dais, sitting in the command chair. He sat there for several moments, unable to relax even minutely, his mind agitated. Several more moments passed before Da'an called up the datastream Zo'or had been reading before vacating the bridge. Fortunately, his child had not thought to lock the information before leaving. Quite unlike him.

From the embedded datafile, Da'an could tell it had been flagged for the Synod Leader's attention by Liam Kincaid, and it appeared to be the results of a bioenergy scan conducted on Agent Sandoval. The dispersal of the energy on the human's body was quite consistent with a skrill blast, but there was something about the energy's frequency, something familiar...

Da'an closed his eyes briefly, attempting to recall where he knew the energy signature from. It was something a long time ago, he knew that much. But as his core energy ran out, pathways realigned, and some memories dimmed in the distant past. It was from when he had been very young, not even a full member of his caste, hundreds upon thousands of years earlier...

Except Da'an could not recall. And he knew, for some indefinable reason, that it was extremely important.

**

It managed to escape notice and infiltrates every nook, cranny, every molecule of the mothership it can find... if they ever find out, it will be in trouble. It will be lucky if it can even touch three dimensions when They are through with it. So it must work quickly...

Where?

WHERE?

**

Zo'or arrived in the medical wing to find a Human technician partially embedded in the bulkhead. Of course, the reason for this was that it was the only way for the Human to actually reach the internal circuitry without climbing into the wallspace itself.

"How's that?" he called to his colleague, a Human female who stood before an active datastream, looking at little more than nonsense characters that scrolled by at speeds too rapid for the Human eye to follow.

"Still no good..." she said, her voice trailing out of Zo'or's attention as he headed for where Sa'ron stood over the body of Agent Sandoval.

"His status." Zo'or said.

"Stable. Unchanged since you last asked after him less than an hour ago." Sa'ron said, a slight tinge of amusement colouring his outer energy levels, invisible to Human sight. "Some might think you were concerned."

"Hardly." Zo'or snapped, glaring at the Healer, who looked remarkably unrepentant for his remark. "I seek to understand what would cause these individuals to wish to die."

"You will get little response from them while unconscious." Sa'ron pointed out, double checking the intravenous medicaments that were being delivered to Sandoval's body.

"You," Zo'or said, tiring of the Healer's impertinence, "Are dismissed."

Sa'ron didn't say anything further to the Synod Leader, merely picking up his instruments and leaving the room. Zo'or got the distinct impression that Sa'ron would have done so anyway. Glancing down at Sandoval, Zo'or paused, then moved on. He had no particular desire to see into the mind of his protector.

He left the room and moved onto one of the smaller wards, where the surviving volunteers of the incident in the barracks. The eight of them lay on their pallets, one or two of them twitching slightly in their comatose states.

Zo'or swept the room with a gaze, then crossed slowly to a Volunteer halfway across the room from him, rather small in form, with short red curls falling to the surface of the pallet about her head. Her breathing was shallow, and her eyes flickering rapidly under her closed lids. Zo'or stood by the pallet a long moment, before reaching for the woman's hand, feeling the cold, clammy skin, and holding it gently between his own.

"I seek to understand." he said to the woman, though she gave no sign of hearing. Her fingers twitched spasmodically in his grip.

"Show me." He whispered.

**

It ran through all the possibilities rapidly, finding and discarding, finding and discarding. It was running out of time. Unless it found an organic base to adhere to, it would have to return to the Unity before its energies became chaotic.

It brushed against minds, thoughts, emotions, and tried to find one that would accept it.

No time, no time... where can I find one...?

**

Commander Olga Komonanov, Protector to the Russian Companion before he had been forced into stasis, stood leaning against the doorframe to an energy plexus, where Volunteer Engineer Hunter was tweaking the conduits that carried core energy to the mothership's engines, enabling it to stay in an orbit that didn't decay rapidly.

"Come on!" Olga said, not unfolding her arms as she pleaded. "All I ask is you answer me honestly."

"You know, Olga," Hunter said as he passed a handheld vasodilator over the conduit, widening the energy flow slightly. "Since Ti'ar entered stasis, you've had far too much time on your hands."

"It would not be too much effort." Olga said, irritably brushing at the back of her neck, where a distinct tingling had been developing for several minutes. "Simply tell me whether there was any truth in the rumour."

Hunter sighed heavily. "You really want to know if I'm sleeping with her."

"Da." Olga said, dryly. "I believe I asked that."

**

It finally located a suitable mind. The form would accept its. If only for a short time.

Very carefully, very slowly, it merged with the body, hoping the molecular bonds would not simply break apart under the strain.

**

Olga's breath caught in her throat as the tingled sensation at the base of her skull turned into a sharp stabbing pain. She attempted to scream, but her throat simply closed up on her. She wanted to cry out to Hunter, but she couldn't make a noise, and his back was turned to her. She started to tremble, the muscles of her body seeming to spasm of their own accord.

"Well, you know, at first it was just rumour and stuff. But... we spent time together, and we got to know each other and-"

At that point, Olga lost the tenuous grip on her motor control that she possessed, falling to the floor and spasming as if in the grips of a seizure. The sound of her body thudding dully to the floor brought Hunter around in shock, his mouth dropping open as he saw his friend lying helplessly on the ground.

"Olga? Olga!" Hunter dropped to the floor beside her protector, trying vainly to read her pulse without having his hand dislodged from her neck. Her breathing was irregular and her eyes had rolled back up into her head.

"I'll get a medical team." he said, when her spasms didn't seem to be ceasing, and started to get to his feet.

Olga's eyes snapped open, fixing him with a glare, her body suddenly still. Her hands shot out, gripping Hunter's head before he was even half way to his feet. He tried to pull her hands away as her hands luminesced. He was unconscious before the light faded.

"My apologies." she murmured in a dead language as she got up herself, tugging on her jacket to straighten it. "But I have little time."

She left the small alcove, sealing it, and the unconscious volunteer behind her. There was a small console a few meters down the corridor, and Olga stepped quickly towards it, activating it with several graceful movements.

"Ship," she said, carefully forming her words in English and listening to them as if she had never heard them before. "Locate Liam Kincaid."

... searching ...

**

Part Eleven

**

The woods were dark and deep, and had no end in sight. It was not exactly night, nor was it merely an overcast day. Rather, the darkness arose from an absence of light; everything was drained of colour and life, and terror reverberated around between the leaves of the trees. Zo'or, for a long moment, stood in a small dip in the woodland floor, between the exposed roots of two large trees. He should have been able to see the Volunteer he had chosen to share with. This was her mindscape. It revolved around /her/.

But instead, all Zo'or could see was foliage, the occasional flash of silver from Volunteer uniforms, and the crunching of footsteps as their owners pounded through the underbrush. He stepped out between the trees, and out of the corner of his eye, caught site of a volunteer uniform. He turned quickly to try and track the woman, but caught a glimpse of raven black hair.

It was another of the volunteers. But he /knew/ which one he was joined to. He could sense it, nearby, but the other minds of the Volunteers were also present. They were frightened, trying to hide, but they were there.

"You are Connected." Zo'or murmured wonderingly, before closing his eyes, trying to locate the mind of the volunteer he was linked to.

{that way}

Zo'or found his bearing, and started off through the undergrowth.

**

Liam frowned to himself as he walked through the corridors, heading away from the residential sections of the mothership. He had arrived to make sure Marie Caruthers was alright after the incident on the bridge. She had been relieved of all duty, so he had expected to find her in her temporary quarters or in the mess hall, but he had checked both locations and had not been able to find the woman.

Anyone that Liam had asked if they had seen her just looked at him in vague puzzlement, and after the third person, he had given up.

Now he was walking the corridors, trying to mentally plot out how he was going to follow Zo'or's orders in finding out what was going on with all the suicidal volunteers aboard. Although it wasn't restricted to volunteers anymore, not with Agent Sandoval's-

Jo'ii, the Senior Investigator assigned to the case, produced a datarecord with all the information gathered thus far on it.

"It is sufficient," he said, offering it to Ha'gel. "To convict her of murder, treason, and assault." He blushed deeply at the mere recitation of such charges.

"The Assembly has already decided without the evidence." Ha'gel pointed out, opening the datarecord and scanning it briefly to get an idea of the contents before closing it once more. It had contained images, scans, witness accounts, and other such incriminating evidence. "It will be a brief judgement."

"We must locate her first."

"Already accomplished." Ha'gel said, glancing across the courtyard to the central building, which housed the seat of government. "The Taelons apprehended her on an unmanned transport. A junior member of their diplomatic caste contacted Sev'rei early in this cycle past."

"I profess surprise that they did not execute her-"

Liam grunted, bringing a hand up to his temple and paused for a moment in the middle of the corridor, trying to shake off the sudden disorientation and mild pain that accompanied it.

"You hear the Unity." A voice, carefully enunciated and soft spoken, broke through Liam's consciousness, causing him to bring his head up sharply to look at its own.

"Olga?" he asked, briefly wondering why the woman had abruptly lost all traces of her Russian accent.

"No." Said the woman, moving soundlessly across the floor, her movements liquid and fluid, as if she had no idea that joints were meant to jut out. She smiled gently as she came to a halt before him. "But her form accepted me. It will not last long, however. A twelfth dimension form cannot be held within a fourth dimensional host for long, without said host experiencing detrimental effects."

As she spoke, she reached up, her fingers brushing his cheek. For an instance, she glowed brightly, as if the skin of her body was a translucent veil behind which was contained a being of light. Warmth trickled into his skull, and the pain vanished as abruptly as it had arrived.

"I advise we relocate." she said in that same soft voice, but it was strained, her eyes briefly closed as she seemed to fight to bring the luminescance under control. Eventually, it faded and she reopened her eyes. "We do not have much time, and I would not like to explain my presence to a guard."

**

The volunteer tech who was working on the console and datastream that had inexplicably exploded at the same time as its user committed suicide made a sudden sound of glee. "AHA!"

His companion look at him, ducking slightly to peer at him under the floating display that was the active datastream. "You've got it?" She waved the wand connected to a scanner a little further to her right, dragging little motes of energy with it, gaining more data on how the datastream was functioning.

"Yeah!" He said, reaching out blindly for a new tool to finish fixing the console's internal circuitry. "Looks like a couple of the gel links were subjected to a massive pulse of energy. It managed to fuse several cells together and the enzymes denatured. I can bypass until we get around to replacing it."

There was a few minutes of muttered cursing and rummaging in the wall's innards before the datastream rather abruptly snapped back into working order, showing the last image to be displayed upon it. A biophysical exam for a female volunteer. And it had a peculiar energy signature.

"Josh..." The female said, frowning at the datastream. "I've seen something like this before. The energy signature. From a few years ago..."

Josh wasn't listening. "Yeah, that's great." He was trying to extract some blue gunk from a neuro-junction before it short circuited the whole system.

The female volunteer was so fixated on the readings, she didn't hear the door iris open, or the footsteps that entered. She felt the hands that gripped her chin and the back of the skull, but it happened too quickly for her to speak out, before, with an audible crunch, her neck was broken.

Josh didn't have the time to realise his companion was dead before he followed her into the darkness.

**

It was an empty storage chamber that the Olga-being brought Liam to. Once upon a time, it would have been used to store various sundry items, but it had been depleted a few days earlier. Now it was merely a dimly lit empty room, a few meters square.

"Who are you?" Liam demanded, without preamble, before the door had even irised closed fully.

The Olga-being turned towards him as she entered the room fully. Now that they were out of the harsh lighting of the corridor, Liam could see a perpetual diffuse glow surrounding her like an aura, particularly bright at her eyes and mouth. But any light shined upon her cancelled it out.

"Names mean little," she said, a look of amusement crossing her features. "They delineate between individuals, prevent confusion. But they truly do not tell who one is, or what one may become." As if realising her gregarious turn of phrase, she looked down briefly, before a wan smile crossed her face. "But, if it helps you, I was known as Sev'rei."

Liam stared for a long moment at the creature inhabiting Olga's body. "I know you." he said finally, his voice dropped to a whisper.

"In my time I lead our Unity. Our meeting of minds." For some reason, Liam had the distinct impression that Sev'rei was including Liam in that statement. "It is memories of that time, memories of Ha'gel, that the Unity shows you."

Things were moving too fast for Liam, the concepts coming at him too quickly. "The Unity?" he asked, bewildered.

"They hoped you would not require direct intervention." Sev'rei was saying, voice rising in pitch and urgency. "They hoped you would understand quickly. But she is moving too fast, she is interfering-"

"Stop." Liam waved his hands in the air, silencing the other with the gesture. "One thing at a time. Who /are/ you?"

"I," Sev'rei said, forcefully. "Am not meant to be here. Only Ha'gel is to interact with you. For any of those who are not permitted to do so would alter destiny. And that cannot happen. I have risked much leaving the Unity to come here."

Liam cut her off again. "You're Kimera, aren't you?"

"Yes." Sev'rei was beginning to look irritated, as if she had considered this blatently obvious. "Except I am not permitted to be here, so kindly be silent and allow me to explain."

She took a sharp breath as the light within her briefly intensified before fading again. "And this body was not prepared. My high energy state is dangerous. I have little time." She paused once more, collecting her thoughts, and this time Liam did not interrupt.

**

The distinctive red hair of the volunteer, one of the few splashes of colours in this dismal mindscape was mainly what helped Zo'or to locate the Volunteer he was trying to reach. Her mind kept skittering away from him, as if fleeing, and was not able to identify him as one that did not wish harm to it.

There was a harsh cry up ahead, and he heard a thump that signified that the Volunteer had stumbled and fallen. He quickened his step to catch up with her, and within seconds, caught sight of the volunteer trying to drag herself to her feet.

The twigs he broke with his step created noise that caused the Volunteer to spin around, crying out in fear. Then the fear lessened slightly.

"You aren't the monster." she said, in the voice of a small, frightened child.

Zo'or stared at her for a long moment. She didn't recognise him. "No..." he said slowly.

"You have to help me!" The Volunteer's hand snaked out and snatched his hand. Zo'or resisted the automatic urge to pull away in disgust. "I couldn't stop it before. My breathing, my heart. I couldn't. It'll find me if I can't! Please... you have to help me."

**

"You have been experiencing a great deal of supposedly inexplicable deaths, am I correct?" Without waiting for a response, Sev'rei continued. "It is, as the Unity has been attempting to show to you, a member of our species who has been committing these heinous acts."

Liam's eyes unfocussed, and he found a name rising to the surface of his mind. "Ma'rel." he said softly.

"Yes." The words was softly spoken, hardly audible. "She was a murderer." Sev'rei said, her voice stronger now as she spoke slowly, standing before Liam, hands raised loosely in front of her stomach. "It took me a very long time to understand what drove her to it. To destroy so willfully... it was inconceivable to us at the time."

When the pause extended for several seconds, Liam asked, "Why? Why did she kill?"

"She foresaw the destruction of our species. She believed there was nothing after death. It drove her mad." Sev'rei closed her eyes briefly, but this time in emotional rather than physical pain. "She decided to destroy the Taelons before they destroyed us. And she possessed a remarkable gift. She could Connect with people so easily... and then she showed them the very thing that would bring them to the depths of despair."

Sev'rei luminesced again as she said, "She killed twenty eight Taelons before they caught her and delivered her to us." Sev'rei's next words were rushed, as if they would be less painful if spoken hurriedly. "We exiled her from our home and our minds. Cut her off from the Unity and abandoned her on the moon of Illre. We thought she would die quickly."

The last words contained a trace of bitterness in them. "We were very obviously wrong."

**

Zo'or's confusion grew tremendously. "But why?" He asked her, not pulling his hands back from the Volunteer's-

{... janet's ...}

-hands. "Why do you so wish to die?"

There were tears in Janet's eyes as she looked at the Taelon. "Because it'll catch me, and it'll hurt so much. I can't let it. I have to hide. I can only hide if it can't hear me. I can hear my heart..." Janet shook through pure terror. "It can hear me to."

"There is nothing here," Zo'or insisted, as tears poured down the Volunteer's cheeks. "This is only your mind."

There was a blood curdling shriek from somewhere in the distance, causing Janet's head to snap around to search for the source. "Oh, please," she whispered, as if praying to a deity. "Not Eliza, please, not her."

Zo'or knew this was not how the mind of someone who had simply undergone some sort of psychotic break would appear. It was the mind of someone who had been placed in a situation designed to terrorise them. Scare them, quite literally, to death.

He had wanted to know why they would choose death over life. Why people with decades ahead of them, long life, children, would choose to end it all because something had happened that they could not stand. He had wanted to know what could drive a Human to such despair.

And he could see it.

"Kira... Mandy... Louise... they hid well. Even we can't find them now. They're safe. They're quiet, so quiet..." Janet swayed on her feet for a few moments, repeating the words like a mantra.

"I need to hide. Help me!" Janet pleaded, her voice rising.

Zo'or hesitated, debating internally for one brief moment what to do. "I cannot." he finally said, staring at the look of blind panic that came over the Volunteer's face.

"Oh god!" she shrieked, attempting to pull away from Zo'or, looking over his shoulder. "It's coming!!"

"What is?" Zo'or insisted, only gripping her hands tighter, "Who is it?"

"That would be me."

Zo'or whirled at the voice, dropping the Volunteer's hand and breaking off the sharing. Behind him stood Marie Caruthers, who lunged at him, palms glowing brightly with the restrained power of the shaquarava.

**

Part Twelve

**

Liam paced a short section of the floor in the storeroom, while Sev'rei's control over her host body had apparently weakened, and she was sitting slumped on the floor, her back resting against the wall and knees draw upwards slightly. She looked, for all the world, like she was about to doze off.

"So," he said, slowly, arranging the information in his mind. "You exiled Ma'rel to Illre, without an energy shower, after having cut her off from your Commonality-"

"Unity." Sev'rei corrected firmly, as if this were an important difference.

For all Liam knew, it could have been. But for the moment, as far as he was concerned, it was just a matter of semantics. "Unity," he said, altering his setences and continuing, "On a harsh barren world." he paused and looked at Sev'rei. "Wouldn't it have been kinder just to kill her there and then?"

A humourless smile quirked Sev'rei's lips, although it was an odd expression, as if the Kimera spirit wasn't exactly sure how all these muscles on the face operated. "Yes." she said. "That was our failing. We thought we were being so civilised. If she died, it wasn't really us that killed her. But then we never thought she'd get off the moon."

"How did she leave?"

Sev'rei closed her eyes, trembling slightly. "We do not know. Perhaps a survey ship, a transport, even just a small shuttle, stopped by. I have no doubt she killed the crew, unless it was unmanned, and headed for the locus of the Taelon Commonality." She spread her hands about her to gesture to the mothership. "Here."

"But..." Liam paused in his pacing, looking at Sev'rei with a frown. "The Taelons sensed Ha'gel. How come they didn't sense Ma'rel?"

Sev'rei didn't open her eyes as she responded, vague gestures accompanying her speech. "We reconfigured the conjunctional pathways of her neural plexus. We excised the portion of her that allowed her to psychically link to another." She paused, her hands abruptly stilling in midair. "Actually, come to think of it, that may have been a contributing factor to her madness. To be unable to sense the Unity, even though we have passed beyond."

Liam glared at Sev'rei. "And you did it anyway? You drove her mad?"

Sev'rei's head snapped up, eyes opening and burning with their own inner fire, snapping with the Kimeran spirit's ire. For an instant, Liam got a sense of the sheer strength of character, of a leader, that left no doubt in his mind that the one before him had, at one time, lead the Kimeran race.

"It was not something we had to do previously!" Sev'rei's irritation was such that the occasional syllable slipped into its Kimera equivalent. Then she paused, taking a deep breath. "And something we regret."

Liam watched Sev'rei for several long moments. "Alright then." he said finally, willing to defer arguing about the Kimeran system of punishment. "But what do you want me to do?"

"You are Kimera. The only still remaining on this plane." Sev'rei said, her voice the level, even tone he had come to expect from her, without inflection. "She is also Kimera. She is our responsibility, and as such, we need you to deal with her."

"In case it escaped your attention," Liam said, moving over to crouch down beside. "I'm Human now. I used the last of my Kimeran energy to save the Taelons."

Sev'rei's mouth twisted into that strange half-smile. "You, of all people, Liam, should know that some things go deeper than biology." She reached out and placed a single finger against his sternum. "Some things get passed on through the soul."

Sev'rei's hand dropped and she took a deep breath. "Either way, you must deal with her. The Unity wished this, but they also did not wish to interfere with you directly. You have been hearing them, in visions, in dreams. Seeing memories of Ha'gel. His memories of Ma'rel. However, Ma'rel is moving quicker than the Unity. By the time you knew all, it would have been too late." She leaned her head back against the wall. "And so I came, without the knowledge of the... the..." her eyes narrowed, before asking, "mira'sey?" as if looking for a translation.

"Big People?" Liam said, in disbelief.

Sev'rei ignored his tone. "Yes. Basically, I have to tell you to do this now. Because otherwise it will be too late to stop her."

"What?" Liam asked, looking concerned at the sudden expression of anguish that crossed the Kimera's face. "What do you need me to do?"

"Plain and simply, Liam," Sev'rei said, bringing her head up once more. "We need you to kill her. There is no alternative. Otherwise she will not only annihilate the Taelon species, but a good deal of Humanity."

**

Da'an's head snapped up as he heard footsteps approaching rapidly, surprised as he should not have been, at the entrance of Zo'or to the bridge. His child seemed perperbed by something, hands dancing in the air in agitation, close to his body as if to hide their motions.

"Zo'or?" he spoke loudly, garnering a sharp look from Zo'or as he stood up from the command chair, dismissing the datastream he had been reading. "Are you well?"

"Of course I am." Zo'or snapped, eyes glinting in the bridge lighting like chips of ice. "Why would I not be?"

Da'an hesitated briefly before speaking his concerns. "There was, for a brief moment, a flicker of your presence in the Commonality. You were afraid. Is that not cause for concern?"

There was a moment of silence, where Zo'or simply glared at Da'an, and the Companion was somewhat surprised to see the pure hatred blazing with them. Their relationship had deteriorated, but rarely did Zo'or allow himself to show any of his thoughts on Da'an to him. Da'an didn't realise until his feet touched the floor that he had been driven into stepping off the command dais.

"As you can see," Zo'or said as he stepped up and onto the dais. "I am perfectly well. There is therefore no cause for your concern." Zo'or took his seat, and for a moment, a brief moment to Da'an's eyes, seemed to be luxuriating in being seating in such a position. "You are dismissed." he said sharply, waving a hand and accompanying the gesture with a glower.

Da'an blinked. It was not uncommon for Zo'or to behave thusly, but for him to do so at the same time of the strange flicker in Zo'or's presence in the Commonality... it was not something that Da'an was simply willing to dismiss.

**

Liam shook his head, drawing away from Sev'rei, getting to his feet and backing towards the entry. "No." he said numbly. "You can't ask me to do that. I will not kill anyone just because someone thinks she should die."

"We know she must." Sev'rei insisted, her voice growing in both volume and strength. She pushed herself to her feet, but still rested her hands behind her against the wall to support her. "This is not my view simply. It is the view of the Unity. This is what they have been showing you. They have been showing you who she is and why she must not be allowed to accomplish what she wishes."

"I won't do it." Liam insisted, glowering down at her.

"There is no death for us. Simply a change of reality." Sev'rei said in a softer voice. "This is what Ma'rel could not accept. This is why she strives to kill all those who killed us." She reached out, stepping away from the wall to take his hand. "Accomplish this task, and Ma'rel is our concern."

"You're forgetting one thing," Liam said, deliberately not touching on his killing one of the last survivors of a dead species. "I don't even know where she is."

**

Zo'or sat in his chair, looking about the bridge as if he had never seen it before. To Ro'nar, one of the bridge officers, eyes, he looked as if he was afraid of getting caught at something. He did not, however, speak up. Everyone knew better than to speak out against Zo'or. He returned to his sensor readings, scrolling through a detailed long range scan of the Tau Ceti system.

"Get out!"

Zo'or's voice brought Ro'nar's attention, and the attention of all others on the bridge, sharply towards the Synod Leader, who was standing on the command dais, glaring at all those present.

"All of you! Get out!"

Ro'nar had heard this order before. Zo'or's shifts of personality had often caused him to order the bridge cleared without warning. Ro'nar did not know what prompted such dismissals, and, if he were truly honest with himself, Ro'nar was not sure he wanted to know. So he and every other member of the bridge crew locked down their consoles and headed for the exit.

Ro'nar was the last to depart the chamber, and, as he reached the entryway, glanced back towards Zo'or out of habit. What he saw was Zo'or leaning over the engineering console, calling up the engine core readouts and tapping in an override code.

It took only a few moments for Ro'nar to retrieve the code from his memory. It was, if he had indeed seen the sequence accurately, the code to set the energy in the core on an exponential spiral buildup. Eventually, the containment fields would not be able to be strong enough to hold the energy, the core would rupture, and the resulting release of energy would destroy a good portion of the mothership, and send the remains into Earth's atmosphere.

The self destruct sequence.

"Zo'or!" Ro'nar found himself calling out to the Synod Leader as he had previously not dared to. "What are you doing?" The rest of the bridge crew had left, and so could not hear his questions. "You will destroy us all!"

Zo'or turned slowly, fixing Ro'nar with an unnerving glare. Ro'nar could not help but wonder what had happened to Zo'or to drive him to such an action, whether the Synod Leader were as mad as the lower ranking caste members whispered about between themselves, in the depths of the Commonality that their leaders would not stoop to and they could communicate in secrecy.

Then Zo'or raised his hands, both glowing brightly, altering the colours of the bridge to a pale washed out version of themselves in Ro'nar's vision, exposed to the vivid energy fields.

That, Ro'nar could only think, Is not Zo'or.

Unfortunately, before he could transmit this knowledge loudly throughout the Commonality, Ro'nar felt the hot burning sensation of energy slamming into his torso, lifting him up as if he weighed nothing more than an insect, and dropping him on the floor. Ro'nar was unconscious before his energy was disrupted enough that he dropped his facade.

**

Ma'rel lowered her hands, looking at the long and slender fingers that taking Zo'or's form had given her. Slowly, the light of her shaquarava faded, leaving pale hands traced with azure lines.

Taelon hands.

Ma'rel shivered with disgust and finished tapping in the self-destruct sequence, adding in several more commands for good measure, stepping away as the Mothership sounded an automatic alert.

Now would be a good time to leave...

She spun on her heel, contemplating assuming the facade of the human Volunteer she had killed, but instead retaining her biolink, and thus the form of Zo'or's body, ensuring he would not wake up. The last thing she needed was for him to revive and stop the sequence before it's completion.

As she left the bridge, she gave Ro'nar's body a firm kick, causing it to roll over, and barely gave it a passing glance.

**

The alarm sounded slightly dimmed in the storeroom, where Liam and Sev'rei looked towards the exit sharply as the mothership announced, in clear, precise English, that the ship had been set to self-destruct.

"Who aboard can do this?" Sev'rei asked in a near whisper.

"Only Zo'or." Liam answered, realising with a sinking feeling what she was speaking about.

"Then you know where to find Ma'rel." she told him.

Liam hesitated, then spoke aloud, "Computer, locate Synod Leader Zo'or."

Synod Leader Zo'or is located on deck twelve, medical wing.

Synod Leader Zo'or is proceeding portwards on deck fourteen.

Liam turned and headed out to the corridor, Sev'rei trailing behind him like a wraith. Then he whirled around to stare at her, seeming to debate the course he should take internally before abruptly asking, "How am I meant to take care of her?"

"As Ha'gel found out," Sev'rei said dryly. "Anyone with a skrill should suffice."

Liam shook his head sharply. "Without killing her." he clarified.

Sev'rei was silent for a long moment. "Drain her energy."

"There's no way to do that."

"Then you'll have to kill her."

Liam shook his head. "No." was all he said, before taking off for the nearest tube to the other levels.

Sev'rei stared after him, and it was not until he was long out of the way that she heard a tickling in her ear, and a chorus of voices whispering directly into her mind.

You have interfered.

"Yes," she said aloud, unable to communicate mentally as well in a host form as she could outside of it.

Did you think we would not know?

"No."

And you lied to him. Energy drainage would kill Ma'rel. She is too weak.

Sev'rei closed her eyes. "Yes." she said, tiredly.

The chorus was silent a long moment, but Sev'rei knew it was because they were debating amongst themselves.

You have interfered. You will return. We will take care of things from here. If the situation can be salvaged at all.

Sev'rei slowly detached herself from the organic base, and her host's eyes rolled upwards into her head, and was momentarily enveloped in a bright light that moved away from her and towards the hull.

Olga Komonanov slumped to the floor, unconscious, but her body her own once more.

**

Part Thirteen

**

As Ma'rel strode through the corridors, she saw confused Taelons and their Volunteer slaves milling around in confusion around portals and escape pods, unable to discern why the systems had locked down. The Human's voices rose in confusion, their agitation exacerbated by the evacuation alert klaxons sounding in the air, while Taelon voices sounded in harsh counterpoint. Ma'rel could just imagine the confusion resounding throughout their commonality, as the Taelons tried to understand what was going on.

She imagined the chaos in the engineering decks as the engineers attempted to shunt power away from the engine core before it reached critical mass. She imagined the panic of the Synod members as they realised they could not reach their leader.

And she imagined the sounds of the deathscreams of the Taelon race, and their servants.

It would be wonderful.

Ma'rel felt the energies of those around her, of the mothership herself, the latter gaining strength as she moved away from more crowded regions and towards a secondary shuttlebay that she had isolated from the rest of the ship using the security protocols she had gained during her linkage with Zo'or.

Such a shame that she couldn't have drained the energy from Zo'or's body there and then. Truth be told, she badly needed the energy, and the pitiful bioelectric field she had insinuated herself into when she had caught Marie Caruther's was barely enough to satiate her needs. Maybe she should take control of one of the Taelon energy showers. It might reconstitute her. And her full control over her own form would reassert, as her facade had been consistently flickering. In the barracks, she had dropped the human facade, and on the bridge, she had faltered in her projecting of Zo'or's energy shells, and that bridge officer had realised she was not the one she pretended to be.

But if she had killed him, taken his energy, his presence in the Commonality would disappear. And then they would know. And she could not allow them to know. Until it was too late.

Like it was too late for us. I tried to warn them... tried to warn them all... but no, they just rolled over and accepted their fate like good little denizens of the multiverse. Fools.

The booted soles of the Zo'or facade made a soft shuffling sound on the floor of the mothership. In spite of its hard appearance, the floor was still organic, and the energy shells of the facade interacted gently with the mothership's bioslurry, softening it somewhat. Thus, Ma'rel moved soundlessly.

Unfortunately, so did the one who was just ahead of her.

"Zo'or?"

Da'an stood half a corridor away, just visible before the bend in the walkway. It seemed that Da'an had been heading for the same shuttlebay that Ma'rel had been. The fact that he had been doing so did not concern Ma'rel much, since she had the whole ship locked down under her control, but she had not anticipated running into the diplomat.

Ma'rel stood there for a long moment, contemplating Da'an. Da'an's energy. Da'an's facade. She focused her mind hard on the visions she had used to sustain herself throughout her long exile, and felt a flood of warmth as her shaquarava burst into light, and she raised her hands. All she could see in her mind's eye was Da'an's body dissolving, the energy dispersing into the atmosphere, being absorbed into walls.

She was so involved in her hatred and her thoughts that she barely saw the look of pure astonishment on Da'an's features, saw the diplomat take a step back, nor did she see his eyes flickering to a point just behind her. The only thing that finally reached her through her visions of destructive light, was a voice that snapped her back to reality with an almost tangible bang.

"MA'REL!"

Palms still glowing, Ma'rel whirled to the sound of the voice, to see someone ducking into an alcove behind her. Muttering an oath in her native tongue, Ma'rel realised that whoever had called her name knew. They knew who she was, and what she was doing.

They were a threat. She had to deal with it.

She started to run, her focus leaving her, and her rather clumsy Zo'or facade faded in favour of her true form, for an instant, before she reformed the more streamlined Caruthers facade.

Da'an was left, somewhat forgotten, behind her as he saw her form shift before she disappeared from his sight. But he wasn't focused on his near death, he was focused on the name he had heard.

"Ma'rel." he repeated, in a near whisper, closing his eyes.

And he remembered.

**

Several Thousand Years Earlier...

Da'an dampened down his energy, attempting not to let his agitation show in visible wavelengths. He had not yet acquired the skill necessary to hide the less easily viewed wavelengths, accessible by those older. Thus, sometimes, he felt as if he was an open datastream before his elders.

And none more so than Xa'a, who had been Da'an mentor since he was old enough to take his first steps away from the Creche, out of the hands of the Caretakers who had raised him. Xa'a had a manner of gently brushing the edges of his energy shells against Da'an's in a manner that let him know that he knew exactly what the young one felt.

Da'an respected and admired Xa'a as he did few others, but for a moment, wished that Ho'shin were there. His friend always had a kind word, and while he informed Da'an that he understood his thoughts, he had also experienced them in his life. That was not Xa'a's way, but Xa'a was his mentor, and so Da'an said nothing against him.

"Be strong." Xa'a cautioned him. "And calm. For when you approach others, you must show only what you wish them to see. Such is the basis of the diplomat's function. A calculated deception."

Da'an nodded slowly, taking in his mentor's words as if they were elementary particles from an energy shower. He knew they were important. All the information that Xa'a had been giving him over the decades, small bits of experience and wisdom, Da'an had carefully absorbed and mulled over. Xa'a was a member of the Synod, and to be chosen as a protegee to such an august figure was an immense honour. Da'an knew that his Second Parent, in spite of open protestations in the Commonality of impartiality in regards to his offspring, was proud that he had chosen to affiliate with the diplomatic caste.

Sometimes Da'an wished that his First Parent did not follow Taelon convention and claim no association other than by the Commonality to his offspring. Da'an knew, that when he had offspring, that he wanted them to know that they who he had carried were cared for.

There was a slight rocking as the ship on which Da'an and Xa'a stood completed its forced docking with the small unmanned cargo freighter. As one, Mentor and Protegee turned and entered the small chamber just adjacent to the airlock.

Inside stood a team of Som'cha'a. They were a tall, willowy species, their bones thin and brittle thanks to their worlds low gravity. They stood slightly taller than the Taelons and the skin of their hairless bodies had a slightly greenish cast to it. Their eyes were damp looking, limpid, liquid black.

They had been briefly considered as candidates to aide in the Taelon's fight against the Jaridians, and while they were quick and intelligent, they were not particularly inclined to fighting. They had, as quickly as they been selected, been discarded. They had their uses, but the Taelons had so infiltrated themselves into their ecosystem, when the time of their inevitable withdrawl from that system came, the entire system would probably collapse, the species extinction following soon after.

Da'an knew these things and yet, as Xa'a had explained it, the Taelons interests came first. Their species had to survive. Besides, Xa'a had said, there was a chance that the Som'cha'a would learn, in spite of their limited knowledge, how to operate the Taelon technology integrated into their ecology and stabalise their environment. And that chance, Xa'a said, was better than no chance at all.

But one thing the aliens were good at was locating and apprehending individuals. In that respect, they exceeded the Taelons in skill, which is why Xa'a had insisted a team be assigned to this mission.

"The individual we must catch," Xa'a said, speaking in clear, precise words of the alien's own language, "Is a member of the Kimera species. I trust you have all familiarised yourself with this species?"