CHAPTER FIVE
Deanna Troi was strolling through the Promenade when she saw Captain Racer gazing out one of the large viewports. She had spent some time talking to Worf, surprised to learn that he had married the Trill science officer on the station. She had only felt a slight twinge of disappointment, but thought nothing else of it. As long as Worf was happy, as happy as a Klingon would admit to getting, that is. Besides, the relationship between her and Riker was starting to pick up again.
She had intended to quietly walk up behind Apollo; during the whole time she had been near time, she didn't get so much as a glimpse of his emotional state. They were tightly hidden behind shields. As she approached, she thought she could see him stiffen slightly, but as quickly as it seemed to have appeared, it was gone, so she thought nothing else of it. She had almost reached him when suddenly he said, "You know, Commander, I never can get enough of the beauty of space. Empty, but not empty. Dark, yet thousands of lights shine amidst it's velvet scenery. Almost makes one feel warm and safe, yet under the wrong conditions, it's cold, unyielding."
Troi recovered quickly from being startled. "Interesting. Do you always see things with such duality?"
Apollo slowly turned to face her. "Isn't that how things are, Counselor?" he asked, intentionally using her title as though to let her know he was aware that she was trying to shrink his head. "Light and dark? Good and evil? These things are never pure in any form. They exist everywhere, in everything." He turned back toward the viewport. "And everyone. That is what you're thinking, isn't it? Wondering what I have locked up so tightly in my mind?"
Now she couldn't keep from letting her surprise show. "How did you..."
"Oh, come on, Commander. Surely you've done some homework on me."
A ship chose that moment to emerge from the wormhole. As the vortex burst open like a flower, it caught Apollo's attention. Suddenly, a memory he thought buried years ago came rushing back up with perfect clarity. He staggered slightly. His mental shields flagged, and Troi was brushed by the edge of an emotional wave of such intensity that she visibly weakened. She struggled, and through monumental effort, managed to regain control.
None of this had escaped Apollo. "You don't like my thoughts, do you Counselor." he said dangerously.
"I can only sense emotions," she replied automatically, "I'm only half-Betazoid."
"But I have done my homework. You know as well as I do that song and dance only works with non-telepaths." His eyes narrowed to slits, but his neon-blue gaze continued to feel to her as though it penetrated through to her soul. He slowly nodded once, then added, "Would you truly wish to help if you knew what you were getting into?"
His partially lowered his shields, and again she was hit with a wall of emotion. She let out a moan and staggered toward the railing that lined the walkway. "Such... despair..." she whimpered in a tiny voice, "mixed... with rage..."
That rage was threatening to once again consume Apollo, and his look grew feral. "Would you like to see exactly what I've been hiding all these years?" On that note, he lowered his shields completely.
All at once, she felt more than emotions. Images at first flooded her mind, but then they slowed to a certain point. She saw him on the bridge of a ship, years ago. He looked to the officer at the science position, and she felt an intense feeling of love and peace. That person obviously meant a great deal to him.
Suddenly, the scene shifted. She saw him on the bridge of another, stranger ship. It was almost as if she were there, too, but only as an observer. She saw the immediate horror on his face, watching as a particle beam struck his ship and destroyed it. She recoiled, feeling as though something physically attached to her was instantly yanked and torn away.
Then the scene darkened, as a black wave of destructive rage rolled over her and Apollo. As she watched with intense fear at the carnage he was creating before him, Troi's mind started shutting down, overwhelmed by the intensity.
Kira was just getting off her shift. She stepped out of the turbolift onto the Promenade, and was instantly greeted by the sight of Troi, on her knees and in tears with a look of total fear on her face; Captain Racer was hovering over her, his face contorted in anger. She took the first option that entered her mind and ran with it. "Leave her alone!!" she shouted, leaping into a dead run. As she approached she showed no sign of recovering, nor he of letting up. "I said... stop it!" On her last two words, as she came to a stop, she put all her weight and momentum into a right cross that caught Apollo squarely on the chin. Unprepared for the attack, he was knocked back, off his feet, and over the railing.
Kira stopped long enough to check on Troi, who had collapsed to a sitting position as soon as the link to Apollo was broken. "Are you all right, Commander?" Kira asked. Upon seeing Troi nod feebly, as she didn't yet have the strength to do much else, she rushed to the railing, slapping her combadge. "Kira to security. We have..."
She was going to check over the railing, expecting to find Apollo's inert form lying on the floor of the level below. Instead, she jumped back shocked as he suddenly appeared in her face. He stood there, arms crossed, scowling at her; his anger was gone; he was completely impassive, yet the disapproval of her action was plain on his face as well. The thing that made the scene odd was that he was standing on the other side of the railing, in mid-air.
Kira stood there in a defensive position as Odo came running over to her. Riker, who was talking to Picard, had been just walking around the bend further down when he saw Troi go to her knees and Kira slug Apollo over the railing. They rushed over to help Troi to her feet. "I'm all right," she said, "just a little overwhelmed."
"A little?!" Kira objected. "What the hell was he doing to you?"
They all looked to Apollo, waiting for an explanation, but he just hovered there, staring at Kira, moving his jaw back and forth, testing it to make sure it still worked. Troi spoke up. "He..." she paused, then turned out of habit to Picard. "I sensed that he was having a little difficulty. I was talking to him when the wormhole opened. It triggered a memory buried deep within him that caused him to temporarily lose control."
"Temporarily, my foot." Kira still wasn't convinced. "If I hadn't stepped out when I did you would have lost consciousness."
"I simply wasn't prepared for such an intense emotion," Troi said to Kira. "I would have been fine. The Betazoid mind is designed to shut down if it can't handle the stress of what it is experiencing."
"Still," Picard said, "if Captain Racer was trapped in his emotion, there still was no telling what could have happened." He still remembered clearly his little encounter with Apollo in his ready room.
Riker looked over to Apollo. "Captain Racer. Do you have anything to say?"
Silence was his response at first. Finally, Apollo said, in an even, neutral tone, "Troi would not have been harmed."
Picard looked to Troi, but she shook her head and said, "I can't read anything. His shields are up again; if possible, more tightly than before."
Apollo placed his hands on the railing and vaulted over it, landing nimbly on the deck. It was at this point that the others who had arrived late to the scene realized he had been hovering in mid-air all this time. He turned to the constable. "Odo, I will go with you, if that is necessary."
Odo didn't know what to think. He looked to Troi, who shook her head. "I'll be fine." She then said to Apollo, "Captain, you do have some issues that clearly need to be resolved. I'd still be willing to help you, now that I know what to expect." She smiled slightly to assure him that her offer was sincere, and not just her performing her duty.
"Thank you, Counselor, I'll keep that in mind," he replied, the corners of his mouth turning slightly upwards themselves. "Constable?" he said to Odo, expecting a reply.
"Uh... that won't be necessary, Captain. Just... don't let it happen again," he said, and headed back toward his office.
Kira had relaxed from her stance. Apollo turned to leave, but stopped, and faced her again. "And Major," he said, a chilling smile creeping on to his face, "that was a very good blow you landed, but a word of advice. The next time you decide to attack me..." He put an underlying tone into his next words that sent a chill screaming down Kira's spine, "follow through and make sure I'm down for the count, or I guarantee you, you won't be using that hand for anything again." As he walked down the corridor, the temperature of the area where they were seemed to have dropped several degrees.
~ * ~
During this whole episode of Apollo's flashback, something had happened. As he showed Troi what had happened, as he had replayed his memories for her, a circle had been closed, and a new cycle began. As the moment Apollo's ship was destroyed played itself out, Apollo did something unconsciously, something he had actively done during that same moment so many years ago. As the Valiant was being obliterated in a massive ball of plasma, Apollo's thoughts raced out. These were the same thoughts he had back when it really happened. And they were basically summed up in one word: safety.
In that same instant, somewhere in Federation territory, on a small, peaceful planet, a city full of people were calling it a night, turning off their lights, and getting ready for sleep. That night, some of the more sensitive people would have nightmares, but they would be forgotten shortly after they awakened the next morning.
Out in the wilderness, several forms of nocturnal life flourished. The soothing sounds they made off in the darkness have been used on many occasion to lull those who found it hard to sleep into quiet restful slumber.
That night, for no discernible reason, the sounds of the night creatures stopped as a loud cry of agony cut through the darkness and echoed across the land. There was dead silence for a few minutes, then, as though it never happened, the night sounds resumed their blissful song.
In that same instant, encased in his own little subspace bubble, just enough out of phase so that no one on DS9's Promenade could see him watching this spectacle, Q grinned.