"He'll doom us all." Troi had barely whispered before falling into unconsciousness. Unbeknownst to Picard and the rest of the crew that surrounded her, she had not escaped their new guest in medical.
Her lapse from consciousness had merely lowered her conscious defences and now she was at the mercy of the strangers' unhinged mind as it fought the unexpected intrusion.
He was trapped between the stages of sleep and awakedness. Behind his closed eyelids, he could not see the crewmembers that surrounded him.
Trapped within a suit of power armour that he had not removed in centuries, he could not feel the soft carpeting underneath him. He didn't feel the cold touch of the medical bed he had crushed, nor the metallic touch of the 10 gold service studs punched into his skull.
All he could feel was the intrusion of the witch. He heard a roar. His own voice inside his head, and he heard the vow. Burn the witch.
She heard it too, and he felt her recoil within his mind. Gathering his hatred and faith in his immortal Emperor he unleashed a new barrage against this unknown attacker. Abhor the witch. Kill the witch. The presence withdrew further, but could not escape his wrath. In his mind's eye, he saw her. A human. Dark hair and brown eyes, mortals would have perhaps described her as beautiful. It didn't matter. Kill the witch.
Though she attempted to flee from him, he caught her, whatever meld with his mind she had created, she could no better escape than he could. Her pleas of mercy passed through him, his soul unaffected in his duty. She was the enemy. To show mercy to this woman would later invite betrayal, the witch knew this and yet begged all the same as he loosed his righteousness upon her. His rage poured forth at her attempted assault on his senses earlier.
His fury exploded at the thought of her continued existence. His soul cried out as it had done on Terra, almost 800 years ago. He lamented and detested her very existence as he smote her psychic form trapped in his mind, the image of Keeler conjured itself before him as if willing him to stop. This time, there was no hesitation. His fist punched through her fragile stomach. Lifting her screaming form into the air, his other hand took hold of her skull at the base of her neck. With one, smooth, slow motion he ripped the witch in two as he should have done the first time.
As she lay dying within his mind's eye, just as a fog disappears during a sunrise, he became increasingly aware of his surroundings as her presence left him.
His consciousness slowly began to regain control of his mortal body, and the latent warp taint writhed invisibly around his armour. Crusher, now kneeling beside him saw none of this. The only thing that she would notice in these precious few seconds was a pronounced drop in ambient temperature around the warrior's armoured frame.
Crusher looked up, her mouth opened as she began to inform her assistant that normal brain activity was returning and to inform the Captain. It appeared that their new guest was coming out of the coma and in a few hours the Captain should be prepared to greet him.
She had barely started to speak her assistant's name when she was stopped short by a sudden snarl of servo motors as the artificial muscle fibres belonging to the armour roared to life. Before Crusher could turn to look, she was thrown from her feet by the giant as he regained consciousness.
Vision blurry and her head spinning, she looked up at her new patient. He was so large, yet possessed a regal grace in his movements that rivalled perhaps the greatest of dancers. Such supple grace coming from something so huge should not be possible. Further still, she found it more and more difficult to look at him.
His eyes were fiercely blue, matching the colour of the most perfect oceans. Handsome. He would have been so handsome in another life. Fighting to stop herself from collapsing, she remained on all fours, breathing in great gulps in an attempt to refill her lungs.
Unwilling to meet his piercing glare she looked at his feet. "This is the Starship Enterprise, you're safe. We mean you no harm." She had no idea if he understood her, but he didn't move, regarding her and his new surroundings.
The situation was different in the Conference Room, Crusher had had no time to call out on the communicator before the stranger had awakened and the conference room party was still surrounding Troi's limp body. Riker rose to his feet, "Conference room to Medical, send an emergency team at once. Counselor Troi has collapsed!" still prone and immobile, Troi's nose had begun to bleed.
"Medical to conference room," a quiet replied the communicator, "he's awake." From her hiding place in a storage cabinet, Ensign Ramires fought to control her pounding chest. It was so loud, she was sure whoever it was in that suit of armour could hear it. How could he not? It was all she could focus on. Boom. Boom. Boom. So loud. Boom. Boo-
The cabinet door was ripped off its hinges, the flimsy metal crackling as it hit the floor. Piercing blue eyes bore into hers. More powerful than a phaser, Ramires couldn't take her eyes from them. They were so beautiful, and yet so flawed. Her mother had said the eyes were a gateway into the soul but Ramirez had always dismissed it as 'old people talk'. If it were true, then all people had boring souls. All eyes looked the same once you got past the colour. Here she saw a soul in fragments. Shattered and rebuilt over the course of who knew how long, whatever was left was a hollow shell.
The warrior frowned. The woman before him and the woman who had knelt over him meant him no harm. His mind still awash, still blank from the warp exposure earlier. Wherever he appeared to be, he did not appear to be over Cadia. His boarding torpedo most likely hit an explosion of erratic warp energy that had snaked its way through the void-battle several times. He could not afford to remain here any longer, the defence of Cadia was crucial and his forces were massively outnumbered. "State our current location, in the name of the Emperor." He would requisition this vessel and rejoin the battle.
"Back away!" A voice interrupted any reply from Ensign Ramires as three men thundered into the apparent medicae chambers he stood in. Two appeared to be human, though one was obviously more machine than organic, the silver tint giving it away. The other was an alien. Most likely a slave given freedom to serve as evidenced by its silver sash of office.
All of this, the warrior saw and understood in a microsecond. The machine man came first. It's attempt to overpower him was short lived. An armoured gauntlet gripped its neck and hurled it into the far wall in a combined snarl of servo motors and vocal cords, the sound of which was like a thousand mountains crumbling to dust.
A single phaser shot was all Worf managed before the warrior appeared before him. It was impossible that something so large could be so fast. Riker fared worse, he had not managed to raise his phaser before the giant had moved in a blur and disarmed them both.
One hand had crushed the phaser in Worf's, and the hand itself, while a backhand had hurled Riker into the wall. Worfs howls of pain were drowned out by the armoured giants own roars "IN THE NAME OF THE EMPEROR, WHO IS IN COMMAND OF THIS VESSEL?" It had been a tense few hours after the initial conflict had subsided.
Captain Picard had arrived shortly after Data, Riker and Worf, however, due to the speed at which they had been dispatched it might as well have been an hour. After Picard had made his entrance, things had become immeasurably worse unimaginably quickly. The giant had become enraged almost immediately.
He was insulted that the Enterprise was not at "Cadia" to aid him and his "Chapter" against "The Despoiler". Nobody had known was he was talking about, and none were prepared to admit it. Most of all, Captain Picard who was still trying to come to grips with what had happened in the 5 seconds he was outside medical before entering behind the others.
Picard had first attempted to tell their guest that none of those names? Places? Were familiar to him or the crew. This had only enraged him further and a gauntleted fist tore another medical bed from the wall as it slammed onto the bed-frame in an effort to vent this titanic, monumental surge of agitation. How could the Enterprise not know? All battlegroups had been called to repel the Chaos incursion. More confusion followed and yet another medical bed fell victim to a fit of violence. Delicate medical instruments vibrated dangerously, some shattering as the giant's voice became louder in its ridicule of the Captain, the giant rued that if the situation was not so dire, he would have killed him already. Ships were needed, and if this one had to burn out every astropath and navigator on board, it would find Cadia and force its way through the warp to get there, no matter the cost. He didn't care how.
Astropaths? Navigators? Picard asked what the current year was. The giant turned to look at Picard, the 10 golden service studs embedded in his skull glinted in the light. "It is 781.M31," after a brief silence the giant restated, "it is the year 31,781."
Captain Picard sat, his small desk in his ready room separated him from their new guest, just as the years set them apart. Sapphire blue eyes, heavily contrasted by the black armour and accented by golden studs met his. These were the eyes of Captain Sigismund, High Marshal of the Black Templars Chapter.
There was much to discuss and Picard didn't know where to start or how.
