Miles To Go Before I Sleep
A Voyager/Crusade crossover by Taya 17 Janeway.
I know I'm getting worse. I can't help it.
Interlude: Drawing The Bait
It was dark inside the Cepylaspoa ship; for ones that did not need eyes to see, light was unnecessary. It was not a design which would have made humanoid lifeforms comfortable, but the Cepylaspoa were not humanoid. Neither were they Vulcanoid, or any other kind of -oid that humans were accustomed to associating with.
They were different.
Cepylaspoans were abstruse forms that were neither solid, liquid nor gaseous-- they structure was such that they straddled all three classifications. They merely took on the form of the substance they occupied for the moment. They were incorporeal forms, mathematical possibilities from higher planes of reality that existed by manipulating matter in the first three dimensions.
In fact, ship was a misnomer for the nine vessels streaking through space; colony might have been a more appropriate term. Each ship actually consisted of thousands of individuals, each becoming a different part of the ship, each performing a different function. There was no conflict, no enmity. They Understood.
They Understood, and the Mortals did not.
Conflict was ever-present in the corporeal world. The Cepylaspoans had observed this ever since the first carbon-based lifeforms had crawled from their primeval roots and begun societies of their own. Even after millions of years, after so many of them had eventually transcended, things still remained the same.
The Cepylaspoans were old; they were older than the Preservers, older than the Founders, even older than the Q. They were the last of the Ancients, the races which had existed from the creation of the universe. They were ones who had come into being when the universe were born from the Void, and they had endured the years in between, observing, watching, and not liking what they saw very much.
One of the greatest mysteries of the Universe, the Cepylaspoans felt, was how well the younger evolved races accepted these foolish mortals. In the beginning, when there had been only a few of these mortals, the situation had been bearable. But now, their kind had infested the universe, spewing destruction and discord everywhere.
It was only in deference for the sensibilities of the other evolved races that the Cepylaspoa left the lesser races alone. But the recent events in several galaxies- the devastating Zygma war in one that had wiped out nearly half of the galaxy's population, the deadly confrontation between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance in another, countless minor conflicts in others- had led them to the decision that they would tolerate no more such behavior. They would find a way to eradicate these lifeforms while keeping the rest of the universe intact.
The leader of the ninth ship had no name; Cepylaspoans had no need for names. He was referred to as "Ninth Leader"; should his position be changed, his form of address would change accordingly. It should be here by now.
It will arrive soon. The bait has been drawn. replied Fifth Leader. The Ninth will not betray us.
No, it will not. It is not mortal.
Yes. It is not.
