Captain's log, stardate 41601.3. While in the Zed Lapis sector on a mission to rescue survivors from an unexplained shuttle crash, the away team has encountered a strange creature which seems able to assume different forms, including one which resembles humanoid.
Yar, Data, Worf, and Crusher stood warily, each trying to understand the entity in front of them.
"I am Lieutenant Commander Tasha Yar of the USS Enterprise."
The voice gurgled, echoing from the sludge and land surrounding them. "I am Armus. Why are you here?"
Yar announced, "We mean you no harm. We have injured crewmen in the shuttlecraft. We need to get to them. May we pass?"
"You haven't given me a good enough reason."
Yar frowned. "What reason can we give you? We want very badly to help our people."
"I do not care what you want. You may leave now, if you wish." The creature spread out menacingly, a clear barrier between the away team and the shuttle.
Worf yelled, "It is our duty to help them. We cannot leave without them."
"You can," Armus growled, "and you will. Or you will die."
With his own growl, Worf leapt to the side to bypass the slow-moving creature. Armus didn't bother moving to intercept him; a bolt of energy emerged from the creature and struck the Klingon, sending him flying backward.
"Medical emergency; beam Worf to sickbay," Data announced even as he and Tasha fired on the amorphous entity, to no apparent effect. Crusher and Worf vanished in a transporter beam, and a moment later, the two more senior officers left likewise.
*****
Soriana awoke surrounded by pain.
There was her own pain - some bruises, relatively minor. There was the much more serious pain of Ben Prieto, who lay unconscious nearby. But both of those were weak, compared to the other sensation.
It was a deep emotional pain, a self-loathing so profound that it poisoned perception itself. She felt the power of a large mind, a more encompassing intellect than hers, and it was mired in this pain. Mixed with the self-loathing was undirected rage and opportunistic malice. It was horrifying, and there was no end to it.
"You're awake," it said. "Good."
"Who are you?" she asked.
"I am Armus," it said. "Your friends were here, but I sent them away." She felt an echo of the anticipated thrill of a fight, and the disappointment in its aftermath.
"Did you hurt them?"
"Yes." Pleasure at the thought… no, at the prospect.
"Why?"
"I wanted to. It amused me."
Soriana shook her head. She carefully moved her right hand to her left wrist, and was grateful to find the tchiroz bracelet still there, the three stones each worked into the trefoil design. "Did it amuse you? Was it satisfying?"
"No," Armus admitted. "It was too easy. They are weak."
"You want a challenge," she probed.
"I want nothing," it lied.
"Then let us go."
"Not yet." The anticipation was back. A craving to cause suffering, joy at the fear of others.
"Armus," Soriana said, "why do you believe that harming others will make you happy?"
"Foolish girl," it said. "I cannot be happy. But I can enjoy making others as miserable as I am."
*****
"He'll live," Doctor Crusher said, "but it's a close thing. If he were human rather than Klingon, he'd certainly be dead now."
"But why did Armus attack him?" Yar said. "We are clearly no threat to it."
"The creature appears capable of manipulating energy fields at will," Data assessed. "We cannot make contact with the shuttlecraft or even be certain of their condition, but the creature has made no attempt to prevent us from transporting to the surface as before."
"It could have easily killed all of us," Yar admitted. "So why didn't it? What does it want?"
"It must think," Crusher said, "that as long as it holds Soriana and Ben, we will interact with it."
"It's not wrong," La Forge pointed out. "We won't leave as long as there's any chance of saving our people."
"So," Picard mulled, "we can't hurt it, it can harm us easily, and it has hostages. What do we do?"
"Find out what it wants," Tasha declared. "Maybe we can give it something in exchange for our people."
"Anyone who beams down," Picard pointed out, "is in its hands the same as the shuttle."
"We don't have any other choice," Geordi insisted. "I should go. Maybe I'll see something we can use."
Picard nodded. "All right, but I'm putting the team on standby for emergency beam-out."
*****
"Please," Tasha said. "Just tell us what you want. We have no wish to harm you. We just want our people."
"I let you go," Armus gurgled. "And yet, you returned. How easily I could kill you."
"But why?" Crusher asked. "Why kill us; why stop us from helping them?"
"Why should I let you? What concern is it of mine?"
"I don't understand these readings," Geordi shared. "It doesn't fit any natural or manmade substance."
"Then your instrument is useless," Armus retorted. The visor left La Forge's head, clattering to the ground nearby, and he immediately went to the ground to find it.
"Don't help him," Armus ordered.
Yar and Data exchanged a look, but both remained silent as Geordi found and replaced his visor.
*****
Soriana shuddered as the darkness and pain moved from nearby to enveloping her mind again. Armus's voice echoed. "You said they wouldn't amuse me. You were right."
"You're lonely," she intoned.
"I am alone." It resonated, as the thing's identity and into its memory. Thoughts of loss and isolation.
"Who deserted you?" Soriana asked.
"Creatures whose beauty now dazzles all who see them," Awe, but tinged with resentment and envy. "They would not exist without me."
"You were together?"
"They perfected a means of bringing to the surface all that was evil and negative within. Erupting, spreading, connecting. In time it formed second skin, dank and vile. And then they shed me, and left me here." The self-loathing was intense.
Soriana frowned. "You… believe that is what you are? How you were created?"
"You doubt it?"
She nodded. "It doesn't explain the whole of what you are. Fear, anger, hatred, malice - these are just one part of a consciousness. If that was all you were, how could you form words? Negative emotion can't recognize itself; it can't plan and decide what to do; it can't seek amusement."
"And yet, here I am." She felt anger rise; it did not like her response.
"If we can figure out more about what you are, we may be able to help you," she insisted.
The anger grew again, so much that it choked her. The voice echoed, much louder than before. "I did not ask for your pity."
The pressure abated as Soriana saw the planet's surface through the shuttle's windows. But barely a minute later, Armus returned… and it wasn't alone.
Piercing like a needle, the fear of Tasha Yar came clearly through the anger of Armus. The creature had enveloped her, coating her entire body in its corrosive slime. Soriana felt her strength, her futile fight against the tremendous pain and force surrounding her.
"No, stop this!" Soriana screamed.
"She struggles," Armus complained. "If she gave herself over, the pain would diminish."
"That's enough!" Soriana decided. Moving her left wrist in front of her face, she focused all of her might, all of her frayed attention on tiny red crystal. As she felt it begin to glow, she boldly intoned, "Reunite Armus with its former people."
A flash of light and loud hiss accompanied the change of scenery. Soriana was in her seat; she saw that Geordi, Tasha, Data, and Worf were also at their assigned stations. Both Ben Prieto (uninjured) and Doctor Crusher stood on the bridge.
"Captain," Worf reported, "sensors show Armus to still be on the planet, but also register several other strong energy signatures. Also unknown."
"Sir," Data added, "I do not register how I moved to this location. My last memory is of watching Lieutenant Yar be captured by-"
"That's what happened to all of us, Data," Doctor Crusher pointed out.
Worf added, "Sir, one of the energy signatures is rising rapidly above the planet's surface. It's on an intercept course."
"Shields up," the Captain ordered. "Yellow alert for now. Open hailing frequencies. This is Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation Starship Enterprise. We come in peace."
On the screen, a small glowing cloud of pearly light coalesced into a vaguely humanoid shape. Soriana couldn't help but compare it to Armus, but even as it approached, she felt a sense of calm and confidence fill her.
"We are the Vagrans," a smooth, melodic voice spoke over the channel. "We see that you were harmed by our brother, Armus. Please, be assured that this will not be repeated."
"Sir?" Soriana asked, and at the captain's nod, asked, "Armus claimed that you made him from the negative parts of yourselves. Is that so?"
"No," the voice said. "Long ago, Armus asked to take on our hatred and anger, believing it would make him stronger. But all it did was separate him from us. When we left this place, Armus demanded to be left on the planet, that he would finally be happy with no one to hate. We did as he asked, but we now see that he learned to hate himself."
"What will you do with him?" Soriana asked.
"As much as he will allow us, and that we do not know," the Vargan said. "But this we promise… he will no longer be alone."
*****
Soriana was not surprised to find the man sitting patiently in her favorite chair when she returned to her quarters.
"Will," she nodded. "How's the continuum?"
He sighed. "I think 'daunting' would be the best word to describe it," he admitted. "I just wanted to make sure you were happy with your first wish."
"Oh, yes," Soriana agreed, glancing at her tchiroz. The shape of the bracelet was a figure-eight now, with two stones remaining. "This was the sort of thing you were looking for me to use it on, yes?"
The tall human nodded. "A situation that is neither the fault of the Federation to begin with, nor within the power of the Federation to deal with. Yes, this was exactly what I meant."
She shook her head. "What I don't understand is, why the bracelet at all, then? Why not just identify the situations yourself and take care of them?"
"Because that provides no opportunity for growth."
Soriana rolled her eyes. "Do you have any idea how patronizing that sounds?"
Will nodded. "Yes, trust me Soriana, I genuinely do. But unfortunately it's still true." He stood from the chair, looking into the distance. "It's… not anything like I thought it would be. So many times, the results of a removed obstacle or a sudden boost in tech was a later stagnation or extinction event." He sighed. "I always felt the Prime Directive was a bit of a cop-out, but I understand it far better now. How easy it is to want to do the right thing in the moment while ignoring the devastating consequences centuries down the line."
"Hence the WQR document, rather than some sort of miracle where all the diseases are cured."
"Right again," Will smiled. "I jump-started the next era of medical research, rather than making medicine obsolete. And, trust me: with some of the things coming up in the next century, the Federation is going to need good medical research."
"For example?" Soriana smiled sweetly.
"Now, now," Will Riker grinned. "That would be telling."
With a flash, he was gone.