“You’d be amazed,” Deanna said, “how often former enemies learn to work together as friends. Many of the Federation’s founding members were once at each other’s throats. And many of our greatest onetime enemies have become allies, or at least tolerant neighbors.”
“Many of those in our alliance have battled each other at times. Sometimes they still do, when the threat of starbeasts is not so immediate.”
“A common enemy can only do so much to unite people. It’s the willingness to commit to understanding each other, doing the hard work of building and maintaining a relationship, that makes the difference. Not unlike a marriage,” Deanna suggested.
Qui’hibra smirked. “I have had marriages that took endless work. And one that was nearly effortless…or so it felt to me, though probably only because she bore the burdens I placed on her with such grace. Qui’chiri is her issue, and her image.”
What showed through his reserve made Deanna smile. “I can tell how much you love your daughter. If her mother was like her, you must have been very happy indeed.”
“As happy as I think you are with your mate,” he replied. “You work well together. I—” He broke off, and she felt his control clamp down again. “Well. All things are fleeting, and we must be grateful for what happiness we have, while it lasts.”
Some of his pain slipped through despite his control. A sense of guilt too. Qui’chiri’s mother had no doubt died in the Hunt, under his command, and some guilt was inevitable in that circumstance, even among a people as accustomed to death as the Pa’haquel. “I understand what you mean. During the troubles of the past few years, I became very aware of mortality, and of the real possibility of losing Will Riker. It was part of why we finally decided to get married. We’d waited far too long.”
“And if death came to one of you tomorrow…would you feel you had been cheated?”
“No. I would’ve been happy even to be his wife for only a day, if that had been all we could have.” She gave a small, wistful smile. “Although my mother would be sorely disappointed if I failed to give her grandchildren.”
Qui’hibra stood silently for a moment, studying her, and something slipped through his mental armor. She realized that the guilt she’d sensed was not about the past…but about the immediate future.
Fortunately, she and Tuvok still had a partial mind-link, which he had been using to help him manage the jellies’ emotions. She had been gradually weaning him off of it, letting his own mind learn to take up more of the slack, but enough remained to allow communication. Qui’hibra’s plotting something,she told him. Move discreetly behind him and be ready to act.
Acknowledged.
“What about you?” Deanna asked. “You must have many grandchildren by now.”
“And some of them have grandchildren. I have been blessed.”
“No doubt you want your grandchildren’s grandchildren to grow up in a galaxy where the Pa’haquel are prosperous and the chaos is kept at bay. I believe that the star-jellies can still help you achieve that. And they’re willing to try…if you are.”
“We all do what we believe is best for those we care about. I hope you understand that.” Without warning, he whirled, and his taloned foot struck Tuvok’s phaser from the hand that had just begun to draw it, leaving deep emerald gashes across the brown. Keru and his team began to draw their phasers, but Qui’hibra moved with uncanny swiftness, seizing Deanna before she could react. “Now,” Qui’hibra barked into his communicator.
A second later, she felt a star-jelly transporter effect engulf her, and she and Qui’hibra rematerialized aboard his ship. He shoved her into the arms of a Fethet guard. “Bind her. Watch her. She is tougher than she appears. Propulsion team, move us out of the mounts’ transporter range, now! Use the planetesimals as cover. Sting team, fire a few blasts to occupy them.”
His team efficiently carried out his orders as the Fethet roughly wrenched her arms behind her and slapped shackles upon them. On the sensation wall, she saw the jellies recede as they retreated from the hunters’ fire and as the hunters pulled away. Rescue would not be forthcoming.
Qui’shoqai, Qui’hibra’s son and huntsmaster, came up to him. “Elder. The watchfleets have detected Titanon the far side of the Proplydian. It is apparently being pursued by a quartet of branchers.”
The elder looked at him sharply. “Branchers! No doubt intending to communicate. He is a fool. Propulsion team, engage maximum warp and proceed to intercept. We must get there while there is still a Titanto seize. Are the watchfleets in range to rendezvous with us?”
“Not for some time, Elder. The prize will be ours alone.”
Deanna felt the energy rumbling through the jelly’s body as the distortion generators built up the warp field. Qui’hibra came over to her. “You can end this now if you give me the sensor and shield information which you gave to the skymounts. Show us how to counter their advantages and I will do what I can to see that your lives are spared.” She said nothing. “As I expected. I apologize, Commander Troi. I must now take your husband’s ship before he gets it destroyed by the branchers. I will pray for the Spirit’s forgiveness…and I would hope you can grant me yours.”
Her gaze seared him. “We were trying to help you, Qui’hibra. We are not your enemy.”
“Not mine, no. But I am but one in the Conclave, and I abide by its judgments. This is how the balance falls.”
“Then you’d better pray it doesn’t lead to the downfall of your people, and countless others.”
He held her eyes. “I already have.”
Rage!
Tuvok reeled under the force of the star-jellies’ anger. He had been largely insulated from their fear when the Pa’haquel fired on them; but now, with Counselor Troi being warped out of range, he felt the mind-link fading. Some telepathic effects (he reminded himself, striving to cling to analytical thought) were nonlocal quantum phenomena, acting independently of distance; but his link with Troi was not one of them, requiring the direct contact of a mind meld to initiate and attenuating with distance.
That was the cause. The effect was the rapid loss of his ability to insulate himself from the star-jellies’ emotions [fury/betrayal/disbelief/despair].No, not all his ability; this had been a weaker link than the first, allowing Troi to retain much of her own shielding ability while Tuvok used the rest to supplement his. He reminded himself that he still had some control of his own—even while the despair building within him fixated on Ree’s prognosis that his control would never again be what it was.
Keru touched his shoulder, and Tuvok jerked away reflexively, not wishing to have to cope with the Trill’s emotions as well. “Tuvok!” the burly security chief cried. “Come on, focus. We have to get after them!”
The words resonated with a desire he now felt crystallizing in the jellies. Pursue! Pounce! Save Deanna! Sweep the parasites from our dead [avenge their treachery]!He felt, both in body and mind, their distortion generators powering up for warp.
“Pursuit…is under way,” Tuvok managed to get out. “Now leave me! I must concentrate.” Wait,he told the jellies. Restrain yourselves. There is danger there, both from the Pa’haquel and the Crystalline Entities.
Don’t care [afraid/going anyway]! We must save Deanna [sister/self]!
Fascinating. The star-jellies had accepted Counselor Troi as part of their collective identity. And because of that identification, they were willing to launch an attack to liberate her, even against enormous odds. When properly motivated, they could be fighters.
Tuvok felt in them the same manic determination and clarity that had driven him when he had attacked Lieutenant Pazlar and stolen the data. That same conscious choice not to care about the fear or the consequences because they simply did not matter as much as that one overpowering desire to act. In this case, though, the emotional imperative was acting in Tuvok’s favor, in his crewmates’ favor. Perhaps instead of fighting it, he could use it to his advantage. There would be no harm in letting it take him over.