In the cold of space, a star shone. It was beautiful, large, golden; like all suns, it was a wonder of creation. There were many others in the universe that were similar to it, but none quite the same. It was younger than most, full of fire and life, warmth and strength. Its brilliant corona flickered and flashed, whispering in the silence of the black void, speaking of the secrets of the universe to any who could listen.
The sun supported a solar system. It, too, was beautiful. There were seven planets in all, and four of them were habitable. These were covered in trees and plants of all sorts, exotic and mysterious specimens that were full of color and fragrances and life of all sorts. Birds and small mammals darted among the branches and leaves, singing intricate songs that only they could understand. Even the three uninhabitable planets were beautiful. They were made of multicolored ice, one blue and one amethyst and one amber, glistening like massive jewels in the rays of the golden star.
The sun was at peace. It had been undisturbed for all of its existence. No one had yet colonized its planets, no vessels had come near it. But it was not alone. Always it could see its distant kin; it could hear them, sense them, and it reveled in its communion with them.
Harper looked down on this beautiful scene and smiled, realizing that he had never felt more at peace than now. He had the sudden feeling that he had finally come home. It was almost like the time when he had returned to Earth, not so long ago, only this was better. More complete. He didn't ever want the feeling to end.
But even as he thought this, it ended. The peace evaporated, and a sense of wariness replaced it. The sun and its planets were no longer the only occupants of the system. Something else had arrived. Something unnatural. Something that was somehow... sinister.
Harper could see it in his mind's eye, a large, dark shape; it shifted constantly as if it could not quite decide what form it wanted to take, but it was threatening nonetheless. He realized that his unease was quickly turning into fear. Fear... of what?
The intruder's shape flashed, and suddenly a bright streak of white fire shot out from it, and a glowing ball quickly made its way into the system toward the sun. Harper's fear turned into complete panic as he realized what it was... realized he could do nothing to save himself.
In the last seconds before he died, Harper looked out at his planets, and once again realized how beautiful they truly were. They were his. It was a shame that they, too, would perish. He looked out at the other stars in the distance, and sent them one last thought. Goodbye.
Then, the nova bomb struck. Harper felt his heart exploding within him, felt the fire that was his lifeblood erupting through his corona and shooting into space in massive shockwaves that would ripple outward for hundreds of light years. As his awareness dimmed, he saw his planets vaporize, and he screamed... in anger, in fear, in sadness, in disappointment, and pain... such pain.
The sun winked out... and he was gone.
Harper woke with a start, sitting up where he had fallen asleep on the floor, gasping for breath. It took him a few seconds to realize that he was still alive, that he hadn't been incinerated. He was still in Trance's body, he saw, but right now, even that didn't seem so bad. "That was freaky," he muttered to himself. "Too freaky." The dream had seemed so real, so vivid. He rubbed his chest, realizing that it ached slightly, almost as if he had been punched. He stood slowly and stretched, groaning softly. "Well, I guess even Trance's body can't sleep on a cement floor for who knows how long without getting sore. Glad I'm not the only one."
He glanced over to the other side of the destroyed lab, where Trance – still suffering from the effects of weariness in his body – had fallen asleep while sitting with her back against an overturned table. She was still out cold
Professor Deedran and the other Perseids were nowhere to be seen. That was understandable. Through the shattered windows of the lab, Harper could see that night had long since fallen on this part of Sinti. Beyond the glowing cityscape, he could see at least one of the moons and the shinning stars. They reminded him of the ones he had seen in his dream.
Without realizing what he was doing, he picked his way over the rubble and went to stand in one of the empty places where a pair of windows had been, and looked out and up at the stars in the night sky. They really were beautiful, he realized. He had never taken the time to notice them before, despite the fact that he constantly lived among them. He didn't know why, but looking at them comforted him, made him feel that no matter how bad things got, he would never be alone.
Suddenly, he heard his voice behind him.
"Beka, it wasn't me! I –"
"Didn't do it," he finished as he turned to see that Trance had woken up, looking completely confused and more than a little flustered. "Yeah, don't worry," he went on wryly, "I have that one all the time."
"You have really... odd... nightmares, Harper," she replied slowly as she stood. She groaned as she straightened and stretched. He had never heard her make that sound before – although, technically, his voice was making the sound. She was just feeling the discomfort.
"Yeah, well, at least mine make sense," he said as he helped her brush dirt from her shirt. He really had nice shoulders, he realized. Stronger than some would think at first glance. His time on the Andromeda had been good for him. "If Beka found out I was fibbing to her about that little incident, she would literally kill me. As for you, I didn't know you were so paranoid about supernovas."
She was silent for a moment, as if trying to figure out how to respond. Or perhaps she was remembering that dream herself. "Well, supernovas can be dangerous," she said lamely. "I certainly wouldn't want to be caught in one."
He sensed there was something else she wasn't saying, but he didn't feel like pressing her at the moment. He supposed she was lucky she hadn't suffered some of his other, less benign dreams. "Hey, no argument from me on that one," he said cheerfully. "You feel better now?"
She shrugged and nodded as she let him finish brushing the rest of the dust off of one arm. "Yeah, a little, I guess. With the sleep I just had, I would be good for the next week, if I was in my body. But right now, I feel like I could keep sleeping for another twelve hours, at least."
"Wow, there are disadvantages to being me," he said in a mock tone of surprise. "I would never have guessed. I suppose I'm not perfect after all."
She gave him a small smile. "You're trying to cheer me up, aren't you?"
He shrugged and tried not to turn red in the face, or whatever color Trance's face turned when she was embarrassed. "Nothing wrong with that, is there?" he asked in what he thought was an innocent voice.
She shook her head. "No. It's just that I'm usually the one offering you encouragement. I appreciate it, though. It's sweet."
He shrugged again, trying to act nonchalant. "Yeah. Well. I guess you're starting to rub off on me, if you know what I mean."
"Yes, I do," she replied. "And that's what bothers me. We need to find that photonic resonator."
Harper nodded slowly. "Right, yeah. Okay, well, I'll take that side of the room, you take this one. We'll keep looking until we find it, this time."
Trance smiled and nodded back. "Right."
They hadn't been searching for more than a few minutes when Professor Deedran appeared in the doorway. "Oh, Mr. Harper!" he called enthusiastically.
Harper tried not to groan. That voice was really starting to grate on his better-than-usual hearing. He stood and made his way over to the Perseid. "Hey, Prof!" he greeted the other cheerfully. "I thought you were in bed."
"Oh, no, on the contrary, Mr. Harper," he replied, "I haven't slept a wink since the explosion. I've been in my office, going over hypotheses as to what might have gone wrong, and how we can fix it."
"Great! Any luck?"
"Um, well, no, but I've learned of a great many ways that one can blow up a teseract generator. Unfortunately, none of those methods end up with the same results as those we've seen here."
"Oh," Harper replied glumly. "Well, thanks for trying."
"My pleasure."
"Is that all you came by to tell us?" he asked. "Because if so, I am really depressed."
"Actually, I was wondering if either you or Mr. Harp – er, I mean, Trance Gemini – would like anything to eat?"
Harper arched his eyebrows. "Now you're talkin', Prof."
Nearly a quarter of an hour later, a pair of Perseids arrived with some food trays. Harper nodded his thanks as he took them, then went over to where Trance had managed to push herself halfway under a particularly large piece of debris.
"Dinner is served," he said in a regal voice as he set the tray down next to her. He sat not far away and started unwrapping his food. "Despite all their knowledge and scientific hoopla, I don't think the Perseids have quite grasped the meaning of fast food yet, but it's the thought that counts, right?"
Trance gave a grunt as she pulled herself out from under the piece of debris. She sat up and gratefully took the sandwich he offered her. "Thanks," she said simply.
"No problem," he replied. "Knowing me, you're probably getting pretty hungry by now." He popped open his can of Sparky Cola.
"Yeah," she replied as she started devouring the sandwich.
Harper started to tilt his head back as he lifted the Sparky Cola to his mouth.
Trance looked up and saw him, her eyes going incredibly wide. "Harper, no!" she exclaimed.
He started and choked as she grabbed the can away from him. "Hey, what's the deal?" he spluttered.
"Harper, you are not going to pour that stuff into my body!" she said sternly, waving a finger in his face.
"Aw, come on," he said imploringly, "it's not like one can is going to kill you! Besides, I thought you said you liked Sparky Cola."
"You weren't at the Broken Hammer when Dylan, Beka, Tyr, and I were there, but if you had been, you would know that alcohol and I don't get along too well." She held up the Sparky Cola. "From the size of this can, there'd be enough of it in there to... to..." She waved her free hand around as she tried to come up with something convincing to say. "I'll – you'll be useless for the rest of the night if you drink this!"
"All right, all right," he said placatingly, holding up his hands. "I'll drink water."
Trance set the can down – away from him, he noticed belatedly – and nodded. "Thank you, Harper. If there's one thing worse than me being drunk, it's me seeing myself drunk."
Harper snorted. "I'll take your word on it."
She started to take another bit out of her sandwich, then stopped and looked at him strangely.
He looked back at her warily. "What?" he asked. "You're not gonna say that bologna is bad for you too, are you?"
She ignored the jibe. "Harper, when I woke up earlier, were you staring out the windows?"
"Yeah, I was looking at the stars. Why?"
"We haven't found the photonic resonator yet," she replied, "because I don't think it's in the lab anymore."
He stopped eating as he realized what she was saying. "You think it got blown through one of the windows," he said. "Outside!"
They both hurriedly stood up, and started for the windows.
"Yep, here it is," Harper said as he pulled it out of a particularly beautiful but equally thorny bush. "What's left of it, anyway." He held it up so that Trance, who was standing in the window opening five feet above him, could see it. It had been warped almost beyond recognition, likely from the heat the teseract generator had given off before exploding from the power generator overload. A few wires still dangled from one end. "Here, catch."
Trance caught the chunk of metal as Harper tossed it up to her. "This is bad," she said.
"Yeah, no kidding," Harper replied sardonically. "There is no way we're going to be able to use that one again."
Trance didn't respond immediately as she studied the destroyed resonator.
Below her, Harper started trying to scale the wall to reach the windows again. He spent several minutes working on it, and finally, he nearly reached the top. He looked up to see Trance still studying the resonator. "Hey, a little help down here?"
Trance looked down at him, as if just now remembering he was there. "Oh, sorry." She reached down and pulled him up with one hand. "You're stronger than I thought you were," she commented as he reached the top.
"Either that, or you're just lighter than you thought you were," he said wryly.
"I know exactly how much I weigh, Harper," she replied a bit curtly.
"Sorry, it was supposed to be a compliment."
"Oh. Well, thanks." She went back to studying what was left of the photonic resonator. "We may not have to use this particular resonator," she went on. "If we can just figure out what was wrong with this one, we might be able to duplicate it in a new one."
"What makes you so sure that the problem is with the resonator?" he asked.
She shrugged. "You know how it is with me. I don't know, something's just telling me that this is where our solution begins."
Harper nodded. "Okay. Well, I know better than to question your hunches. Let's get this to Professor Deedran, and we can start off with some scans. I don't know, maybe there was an impurity in some of the materials I used, something that rendered it ineffective."
"Or maybe it was too effective," Trance interrupted. She glanced up at him to see a puzzled expression on his face. "See these wires?" she explained. "If I'm not mistaken, these are the improved networking connections you were boasting about. You've got too many. When the power generator started to overload, they started to siphon energy off just like they were supposed to, but they siphoned too much of it off right back into the teseract generator. We ended up with a power feedback loop that made a minor problem turn into a really big one."
Harper chuckled mirthlessly for a moment before saying, "Okay, you are really starting to creep me out now."
She looked at him in confusion. "Why, am I not right?"
"Oh, you're right," he said, "but since when did you get so good with engineering stuff?"
"Well, apparently since I got stuck in your body," she replied. "And it's getting better – I mean, worse. I'm getting all kinds of ideas about how to build an entirely new teseract generator, and that is one thing I do not want to know about."
"A new one, huh?" he asked, rubbing his hands together. "Do tell."
"No," she said shortly. "After we build one that is exactly the same as the one that got us into this mess, we are going to destroy it, and I will personally hunt you down if you try to build another one."
He held up his hands defensively. "Okay, okay," he said. "I'll give it up after this."
"Your word?" she prompted.
He nodded. "I promise."
"I'll hold you to that, Harper. Now come on, let's get this to Deedran and make sure we can build another one like it."
"And the sooner the better," he added under his breath as he started after her.
