Chapter Text
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 2: Astral Traveller
Scene 13: And In The Ruins
2.13
And In The Ruins
Pel had sought out Captain Rhonda Carter and Lt. Ki Kresid. They were to be found in Lt. Kresid’s temporary quarters aboard Deep Space 9, along with General Krank.
They hadn’t called this meeting. It was more like the meeting had called them.
Even though the rooms were among the smallest available on DS9, they seemed enormous compared to Ki Kresid, who was up and wandering around, clearly enjoying the feeling of space - needing it. The minuscule roylan casually scrambled up an apparently featureless wall to make use of the replicator, clinging to the wall with her left foot and right hand like a spider while she retrieved a tiny, freshly replicated, square cup of something called teka teka nectar.
The fact that Kresid was comfortable being seen doing this was striking. Pel was aware that roylans preferred to conceal their abilities so that they would come as a surprise when needed to escape predators.
General Krank was in a corner, sitting absolutely still, eyes closed, doing his best impression of furniture. Furniture decked out in highly polished klingon armor.
Kresid slid down the wall from the replicator, walked across the room and effortlessly hopped backward onto her bed, dangling her tiny legs over the side.
Captain Rhonda Carter sprawled comfortably all over the divan. She was in dress uniform - her dress uniform jacket carelessly folded over the back of a nearby chair.
“Well,” said Pel, “We’re all here…”
Kresid flicked her long, thin, clearly prehensile tongue down into the nectar with a slight clicking sound. Her eyestalks clicked slightly as she focused first on Trader Pel, then on Captain Rhonda Carter.
“All three of us shared each of three dreams… visions… journeys…” Rhonda Carter offered. “But do either of you know what an ocean-going battleship from Earth’s 20th Century looks like?”
“I do now,” said Pel.
“No, you don’t,” Carter rejoined. “But you know what a bizarre caricature of one looks like. Can you crawl upside down on a metal ceiling?”
“No,” Pel responded. “But now I have an idea what it feels like.”
"Krank seems to think we're communicating with their souls. That's why so much emotion and context seems to be coming through," Carter added. "Not direct experience... more subjective... dreamlike. As if we're sharing their dreams."
"According to Captain Howard, some physical part of us is actually traveling," said Pel. "He and Dr. Uto saw it - right here in this room. Skip called it, 'astral projection,' whatever that means."
"They're reaching out to us," said Carter. "Baring their souls to us, as much as they can. They might not even be consciously aware they're doing it."
“They want our help.” Ki Kresid seemed garrulous for the normally reticent roylans. “They don’t want to hurt us. But they will kill us if at all they can.”
“Because that is their nature,” Pel said, only realizing it in that moment.
“It’s what they were made for,” Captain Carter concluded.
“They are machines,” said Krank. “War machines. Machines created to end the race that built them.”
He opened his eyes to see the three small astral travelers looking at him.
“My people have history with this,” the elderly klingon general added. “There are great swathes of my home planet, Qo’nos, that are completely uninhabitable. Because of the machines our ancestors built to do their fighting for them. There is an ancient myth that we klingons killed our gods because they were meddlesome… querulous… troublesome. We had created them to be exactly that. It is why we became warriors. And why we will never again allow anyone, or anything, to do our fighting for us.”
There was a long silence.
Captain Carter got up. Put on her dress uniform jacket. Smoothed it down.
General Krank rose. His armor wasn’t different. But it was spotless. They had a banquet to attend. He followed Captain Carter to the door.
“So what do they need our help for?” Pel finally asked.
Krank turned at the door and fixed a steely gaze on the tiny ferengi:
“They need our help to die.”
2.13