Master of the Ring

Chapter Three: Times of Great Delicacy

Portkey travel in space is, oddly, faster than going from place to place on the same planet. After decades of investigation, all the Unspeakables can say is that it's 'something to do with quantum'.

Regardless, the trip from Merlin to Rhiannon, though dark, stifling and icy-cold, was mercifully quick, and Sarek found himself standing in a room both familiar and unfamiliar. The shape of the room was definitely that of the Heads' Study at Hogwarts, apart from the patio window in one wall that led to a balcony. But when Sarek had been at Hogwarts, the Head had been of Vulcan descent and her study had been an austere workspace.

This room was different, however, being furnished in what Sarek recognised as mid 21st Century style, made from sustainable or recyclable materials -no synthetics or metal, but softwood and natural fabrics – in soft, earth tones. The few, strategically-placed, decorative pieces showed a strong Japanese influence.

"Commander Potter?" He turned to face a woman, almost as tall as himself, full-figured and stately, oddly-dressed in jeans, a check shirt and moccasins, making the amulet hanging from a chain at her neck look out of place. She had thick, snow-white hair in a short bob, skin the colour of coffee, and a harsh-planed, strong face with fierce dark eyes. She put out a hand, which Sarek took, realising that her grip was easily as strong as his own, perhaps stronger.

"I'm Rose Howlett." She said. "Sorceress Supreme, for my sins, but call me Rose. Our families have been friends for too long a time for us to need formality."

"So I perceive." He remarked.

Rose glanced down at herself and chuckled. "Mom would kill me!" She confided. "She'd have wanted me to wear dress robes or something. She always liked the floaty, flowy stuff – when she bothered to dress at all! I'm afraid I prefer my Dads' style -or lack of it!"

"You house, your rules, as my father would've said." Sarek allowed.

"And there he is!" Rose replied. "My Uncle Harry would've said something like that, in just that tone!"

"You were fond of him." It wasn't a question.

"Oh, I adored him!" She replied. "He taught me Defence Against the Dark Arts, trained me as a Seeker and was my Housemaster. He was also one of the very few people my Dad ever really trusted.

"You're a Gryffindor, too, right?"

Sarek nodded. "My mother would have preferred Ravenclaw, but that's a Vulcan thing. The Hat, though, tried to persuade me into Slytherin!"

"Did it, now?" Rose seemed to think this important, but said nothing more about it. Gesturing toward the patio window, she said. "It's a lovely day, let's sit on the balcony!"

There was a table, and chairs. They sat opposite each other. Rose made a gesture, and a bottle suddenly appeared in front of each of them. "Genuine Budweiser!" Rose announced. "Not synthehol. You up for it, bub?"

"Now that, as I understand, is your father talking!" Sarek said, picking up the bottle. "Here's to us!"

"Who's like us?" Rose responded.

"Damned few, and they're all dead!" Sarek finished, and they drank.

"You have a mission for me." Sarek stated.

Rose nodded. "How much do you know?" She asked. "I mean, you gave the right response, or you wouldn't be here, but do you know the whole thing?"

Sarek nodded.

"All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost.

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not touched by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring,

Renewed shall be the Blade That Was Broken,

The crownless again shall be King.

"My father taught me that, when I was a boy. He told me that it belonged to a special group of families, pledged to help each other in times of trouble, and committed to the service of humanity at all times."

"All if which is true, but doesn't cover everything." Rose told him. "These families you speak of all have a common heritage that stretches back to what Terran archaeologists call the Pleistocene, the very beginnings of mankind."

"I know," Sarek replied, "I studied the Red Book of Westmarch at school, it's required reading for History of Magic. The tribes who came into the North-West of the Old World, and became allies of, and interbred with, a group of Aeldari Exodites. They were called the Atanatari and later the Dunedain or Numenoreans. Most European wizards are descended from the same bloodlines.

"When I read that and thought about what Dad had told me, it wasn't hard to put it together."

"Hmm." Rose nodded. "You are good!"

"My Vulcan part." He told her. "It gives me distance, lets me see the wood for the trees."

She nodded again, then said. "Sarek, I need you to recover some stolen property for me."

"Isn't that a job for an Auror, or Federation Security?" He asked.

"No." She replied. "For one thing, it was stolen a long time ago. For another, it actually belongs to your family." She gestured again, and an image appeared between them, floating above the tabletop. It looked to Sarek like a large brooch or clasp, of the kind old-fashioned wizards still used to fasten their cloaks in winter. A silver, spread-winged eagle, magnificently crafted, with a large green jewel at the centre. A jewel that glowed with its own inner light, rather than reflecting or refracting external light.

"That's an Aeldari crystal, an Elfstone!" Sarek said. The wizards had a number of these, they had many uses, but the secret of manufacturing them remained with the Aeldari, who made a point of being hard to find, and uncommunicative when located.

"The Elfstone, you might say." Rose told him. "The Elessar. Made on Earth by Celebrimbor and given to Queen Galadriel, who gave it to her daughter Celebrian, who passed it to her own daughter Arwen. Arwen gave it to her human lover, Aragorn, who became King of Men under the name Elessar. It was supposed to become an heirloom, but Eldarion son of Elessar refused to take it from his father, so it remained in Elessars' tomb in Minas Anor when the Great Cataclysm came and the city disappeared under what's now called the Black Sea. It was discovered and brought up in the early 21st Century by a human archaeologist called Lara Croft. The stone has the ability to slow down natural decay and ageing indefinitely, to maintain fertility and health in its environment, and to heal almost any injury or illness, in the right hands. That meant a lot of people were after it. Eventually SHIELD got control of it and sent it to Project Pegasus.

"When Pegasus was shut down, all the living specimens were released, and all the artefacts and non-human tech were sealed in the base. But sometime during World War Three or the period that followed, Pegasus was breached and most of the things were stolen. The Elessar was one, and we have reason to believe it was taken off Earth some years later. The files have been put into the computer on your ship, but you should start at Deep Space Nine. Find the Elessar and bring it back here. How you do it is up to you, you're a Ranger now!"

"About that…" Sarek began.

"Aw, c'mon, bub, ain't you figured it out yet?" Rose growled impatiently. "That's what the Rangers are! Descendants of the Numenoreans. Admiral Riker is one himself, and he built the Rangers just for this. What you're doing is just the beginning! Now get out of here and get started!"

XXXXX

"The story begins where many of us thought that it ended." Lord White began. "When Frodo Baggins cast the One Ring into the Cracks of Doom."

"Only he didn't." Deadpool pointed out. "He choked, couldn't bring himself to do it. That little worm Gollum was the one that took the Ring into the Fire, and himself with it and good riddance to both! Not that I blame Frodo, I'd probably have claimed the Ring myself, in his place!"

"Difference is," Logan pointed out, "that you'd have had Saurons' ass in a sling five minutes later! Which is why we're all so thrilled you weren't there! The Dark Lord Wade Wilson just don't have that cool sound to it, right?"

"Quite." White replied. "Frodo never claimed to have done the deed himself, but it was a common perception among Men, Dwarfs and Elves at the time that he had, and we never challenged that. Both Bilbo and Frodo wrote rather more honestly than was always convenient, which was why so few people were ever permitted to read the whole of the Red Book, and why the version Lord Sparda gave to Professor Tolkien was a redacted one.

"But the fact remains that the Ring went into the Fire and Nyarlathotep was forced to release his hold on Sauron. By that time there was little left of Sauron himself. Just enough for him to pull his Dark Tower down on himself in his despair and destroy his physical form. His spirit, what little is left of Mairon the Admirable, still dwells in the Halls of Mandos, though Namo himself Ascended long since.

"But the Ring itself was deemed destroyed, and indeed in so far as being useful as a tool of power, it was. But the Ages waned on, and the Great Cataclysm, then the Great Flood, changed the shape of Middle-Earth, and none knew any more where the Cracks of Doom might be.

"Now, millennia later, during their long war with the Go'a'uld ruled by Zeus, the Source Vampires had established strongholds in the Carpathian mountains. The Olympians unleashed a fatal disease on the Vampires just before they themselves were defeated by the Spartans under General Kratos. So the Vampire strongholds came under the rule of their Undead human thralls, the so-called Black Court Vampires."

"That part we know." Harry reminded him. "By some weird kind of coincidence, or maybe not, Schloss Orlok was built over what was left of the Cracks of Doom. That lava was laced with Red Lyrium. Orlok never knew it, or at least never tried to use it, but it might explain why he was insane and why Dracula had to overthrow him and take over the Black Court. We had to destroy Schloss Orlok later on, when the Black Council tried to use the lyrium to open a portal to Kadath. That lava is sealed away now."

"And it was well done." White acknowledged. "But Orlok was indeed aware of the dangerous nature of what lay beneath his castle. He was not so foolish as to tamper with it directly, but nevertheless he was fascinated by it.

"When your old ally, Count Dracula, defeated Orlok for the first time, he took away all the books of lore Orlok had written. Centuries later, he carried them with him when he and the last of the Black Court left Earth with the help of the Orions, during your Third World War. Since then, I have visited him and searched those tomes. It seems that the Cracks were occasionally restless, and during one such spasm, a piece of rock was thrown out. Black, but threaded with red and flecked with gold.

"Orlok took this rock and shaped it according to the principles of a certain type of mathematics."

"Like Arithmancy?" Harry asked.

White shook his head. "This is as far beyond your Arithmancy as Quantum Mechanics is beyond long division, My Lord Seeker! Orlok hoped to be able to use the stone to scry not only the most secret places of Arda, but also across the Universe, to seek out new lore and perhaps allies.

"However, the Source Vampires were ever cautious in limiting the abilities of their thralls, and Orlok was not able to use the stone. So when young Nephren-Ka, before he became Pharaoh, travelled from the College of Karnak, seeking new magic in other lands, and stayed awhile with him, Orlok gifted him the stone. The rest we know."

"So you're saying," Harry said, "that this Shining Trapezohedron is what's left of the One Ring?"

White nodded. "The subtle crafting that made Sauron's Ring as mighty as it was is all destroyed, but the intrinsic power of the materials still remains. It's power of fascination, and its ability to summon Nyarlathotep. But thus far, none who have used the Trapezohedron have been strong enough to become a true avatar of the Crawling Chaos.

"But one with sufficient lore in Ring-making could take, from a study of the stone, the correct proportions of each element required to craft another Ring."

Harry sighed. "Celebrimbors' tomb was found by Ron and Hermione ages ago." He said. "The books were all taken by the Ministry. They've been copied endless times, but nobody – muggle or wizard- has been able to come up with a full translation, especially of the technical parts. We've even asked the Aeldari, but they refused to help."

"As is the way of the Asuryani." White agreed. "But the Drukhari are less scrupulous. If one approached them with an acceptable offer, they would be willing to provide a translation, and more."

"And of course, we never even considered approaching the Dark Eldar!" Harry said. "They'd have asked a price we'd be unwilling to pay!"

"Just a second!" Duncan said. "Are ye tellin' us, Lord White, that somebodys' makin' or has made a new Ring of Power?"

"The Aeldari have seen signs that a Ring of Power is indeed active." White allowed. "But that it is a copy, not of Saurons' Ring, but of Celebrimbors'."

"Makes sense." Logan noted. "If I got my homework right, the two Rings were identical except that Celebrimbor used blue eezo while Sauron used red. Anyone who's done the reading knows what happened to Sauron and what red eezo does to you!"

"Eezo?" White asked, puzzled.

"Element Zero," Harry told him, "it's what muggles call lyrium. They don't have much -it's not common and can't be replicated – but it can be used to generate Dark Energy, something that could revolutionise drive and shield technology.

"But lyrium, even the blue isotope, is toxic to most life-forms."

"Except for the shobogan, the Founders and the Borg." White replied. "That is the fear. If a rogue Founder or TimeLord, or the Borg Queen, were to make such a Ring, they might wield it unhampered and to terrible effect."

At that moment, all of them heard a familiar whooshing, groaning sound.

XXXXX

Beginnings are times of great delicacy. The Reverend Mother reminded herself. Not that this should have been a beginning; the Missionaria Protectiva was one of the oldest parts of the Sisterhood, after all. But it seemed that here at least, there had been changes enough to warrant the admonition.

The woman sitting across the table from her, for instance, bore the title 'Reverend Mother', but the plaque on her door said "Doctor" and she wore a crisp, white outfit rather than the formal black aba robe her rank required. Her opening words were also disturbing.

"I hope, Helen, that there's a very strong reason for this." She said briskly. "We try not to meet unless necessary, coded messages are usually enough."

"Of course there is a reason, Sister." The Reverend Mother replied. "I am concerned for you." There! Now she will be more willing to answer. "When I arrived I expected to be accommodated in a Chapter House, but instead I was sent to an apartment and given credits to provide food for myself. Now I find you here, working as a counsellor rather than dispensing guidance as a Reverend Mother. Has there been trouble recently?"

Reverend Mother Graccus Maria Domingue shrugged. "No more so than usual." She replied. "This is how we operate here, and have since the Exile. We keep safe-houses and credit accounts and arrange travel for any Sister sent here from the Enclave. This is why we are here, is it not?"

Now Mohiam was as angry as she was curious, but she kept her tone even. "I thought," she said, "that the job of the Missionaria Protectiva was to be the advance guard of the Sisterhood. I believed that your role was to ensure that as and when any sister came here, she would be received with the respect and deference due her. I expected to find Chapter Houses, to find Sisters at the right hands of the powerful and as wives or concubines in the ruling families.

"How many Chapter Houses do you have? How many active Sisters? How many Reverend Mothers? How many novices? What is the status of the bloodlines we were forced to leave here?"

Domingue sighed. "There are no Chapter Houses. There are five thousand active sisters here on Earth and perhaps another three thousand scattered among the colonies – it's not easy to be sure. There are twenty other Reverend Mothers on Earth but none elsewhere. Half of them have novices under training, but our retention rate is poor. We lose more than half before we can Test them and even then the Test is no longer reliable. We make our livings as best we can in civilian industries, we cannot enter Government or Federation service, much less StarFleet. There are no ruling families to marry into, concubinage is illegal and we have nothing to offer the powerful. As to the bloodlines, we have some records, but the families are dispersed across two quadrants and we have no means of managing their breeding.

"This is not the Enclave, Sister. Here the Bene Gesserit must remain secret and silent or cease to exist."

"You were meant to prevent that." Mohiam used the Voice now, expressing every shade of disappointment and contempt. "You were meant to guide the people and their rulers into the correct ways, or at least prepare the ground for a return to them. How have you failed us? How could this be? Have the machines so dominated here that no true humans remain?"

Domingues' eyes widened for a moment, then she closed them and expelled a long breath.

"Please, Helen," She urged. "For your own safety, do not rely on Voice here! Even the ordinary folk here have some resistance to it now. Those who enter Government, Federation or StarFleet service are trained to resist it fully. The Vulcans are immune, so are the Ferengi. Use Voice on a Betazoid or a Joined Trill and they will laugh in your face. Use it on a Klingon and they will strike you down where you stand!

"Jehanne was wrong, Helen. The machines never stood in the way of human development. They aided it! The animal-humans we so feared are long gone. Humans have evolved, Helen! Even the least of them are no longer slaves to their basic instincts. Billions of them can process data more quickly and accurately than the best Mentat. They are faster, stronger, more sensitive and intelligent than all our breeding programmes could have made them.

"Worse, there are true Psykers among them now, open and accepted.

"Whatever is happening in the Enclave, our cause is lost here. Without allies, without overwhelming force behind us, the Sisterhood can make no return to power."

"Suppose," Mohiam said, "That we had such a force? What then?"

"There might be hope." Domingue said. "But only in certain conditions."

"What conditions?" Mohiam demanded.

"Consider." Domingue told her. "Some seven years ago, the Daleks, the race even we feared, swept across the Romulan Empire, laying it waste. But then they were confronted and defeated by the Federation and its' allies. That is the key, Sister, the Federation and its' allies. Because without the Federation, the Andorians, Klingons, Dominion and Ferengi would never work together. They would be at war with each other. But as it now stands, each of them knows that if they attack another faction, the Federation will defend it, and the other powers, rather than remain neutral, will side with the Federation. Only the Federation has the wealth to match the Ferengi Alliance, for instance, or the military power to equal the Klingon Empire.

"But just as the Federation is the lynchpin of the Alliance, so mankind is the centre of the Federation, and there lies any opportunity we might have. If we could weaken the unity of the human race, break them apart along cultural or ethnic lines as we once used to, then as human unity faded, so the Federation would lose its centre and fall apart."

"I see." Mohiam said. "Once that happens, all that is needed is a threat aimed at humans alone. Then we provide a leader to unite them, a leader who will bring them back to the old ways, and we will again be what we were, and Jehannes' dream of a human culture without thinking machines, bred to order and obedience, will come to pass."

"We have watched and waited." Domingue said. "This new human society does not understand the power and value of secretiveness. Openness and accountability are their watch-words. We have taken advantage of that. I can give you lists of colonies where the demand for independence is growing. I can give you the names of leaders and thinkers who support and inspire these movements.

"The rest, Sister, you must find or provide!"

XXXXX

Captain Sorek was Vulcan to the core. Tall, rangy, with angular features and not an ounce of spare flesh to him. He was stoic, logical and brilliant, laconic in his speech and with the unexpected but deep vein of dry humour that not even Surak had been able to erase. He stood now with the rest of the command crew, watching as a team of doctors and technicians worked on the cyborg Shepard and his squad had captured.

"Your Technical Sergeant did an excellent job of deactivating this specimen without unduly damaging its systems." He was telling Shepard. "However, someone else has inflicted excessive damage on the outer shell, causing corresponding damage to the systems immediately beneath the areas of impact."

"That would be Wexx." Shepard acknowledged.

"Wexx is a Gorn name, is it not?" Sorek replied. "Then I must commend Rifleman Wexx for showing exceptional restraint in his handling of the specimen. Most enemy tech captured by Gorns arrives in a much larger number of pieces."

"Well, it's in a lot of pieces now." Lore noted. "Is it what it looks like, Sorek?"

"Yes, Commodore." Sorek said. "A blend of Cyberman and Borg drone.

"The entire system is flooded with Borg nanoprobes, but a larger amount of the original organic structure has been replaced in the manner typical of the Cybermen. The emotion suppressors are cyber-tech, and allow the individual unit greater independence and initiative than a Borg drone. Although the internal communication system is based upon the Collective, it should be noted that this individual, and presumably others like it, has been optimised for military operations."

"Not like the Borg, then." Picard noted. "Borg drones are general-purpose units, designed to be adaptable for any task. The design of a specialised drone such as…such as Locutus…is rare and considered wasteful by the Collective."

"But the Cybermen were primarily a military force." Worf remarked. "They would have considered the creation of a general-purpose Cyberman to be wasteful. They would sometimes cybernetically enhance organics to improve their performance as slave workers."

"Fascinating." Sorek remarked. "It appears from the readings Sergeant Nemarovna took that the workers on the planet were native Eminians who had been injected with nanoprobes to assimilate them to the Collective, but had no other modifications."

"This is all pretty damn scary." Shepard put in. "But it doesn't tell us about what they're doing on Eminiar and why."

"It does not." Sorek said. "We have accomplished all we can from this distance. I propose we separate the Enterprise-Beta and move in closer under cloak. This will allow us to make a more detailed survey, and we need not approach closely enough to risk detection."

"Make it so." Picard ordered.

The Enterprise-F was one of the new Gemini-class starships, and marked a return to first principles for StarFleet. From the first NX Warp Five ships onwards, StarFleet had built its' capital ships with an eye more to exploration than combat. That trend had reached its apogee, many said, in the Galaxy-class vessels, while others (Picard among them) had favoured the more compact Sovereign- class.

But the threat of the Borg, the Dominion War and the unpredictability of the Romulans had caused StarFleet to create more specifically military vessels, beginning with the Defiant-class destroyers and culminating in the Invincible-class dreadnaughts. However, those threats had receded to the degree that StarFleet Command now felt able to return to what had been their original mission of Galactic exploration.

The Enterprise-F was similar in general outline to the Sovereign- class, but twice as large as a Galaxy-class. The lower section, Enterprise-Alpha, had four, rather than two, nacelles and the pylons that supported them were shorter and sturdier. The second pair of nacelles housed the reverse-engineered coils that enabled the ship to access the TransWarp Corridors once used only by the Borg. The upper section, shaped like a blunt arrowhead, was the Enterprise-Beta, and it was this section that now smoothly parted from the rest. As it did so, a pair of nacelles unfolded from its' ventral surface and locked into place.

The Enterprise-Beta was now a fully self-sufficient, warp-capable Science vessel. It moved off, cloaking as it did so. Captain Worf, commanding the Enterprise-Alpha, pulled that section, which functioned as a battleship, a short distance further away from Eminiar VII to ensure that they were not detected.

Shepard met Lara Tilson in Ten-Forward, by arrangement.

"You've requested that I be seconded to your unit, Colonel." Lara said. "I'm flattered, but not sure why?"

Shepard shrugged. "You and I both know that Psyker Branch isn't a specialist Branch." He said. "People in the Branch come from all kinds of disciplines, all they actually have in common is their special abilities. I don't know about you, but I believe the fact that a person is a Psyker doesn't or shouldn't define them any more than the shape of their ears, the colour of their skin or the ridges on their forehead."

"On the whole, you're right, of course, and most people would agree with you." Lara acknowledged. "But Psykers are a special case. We choose to mark ourselves out in order to avoid being accused of hiding our abilities for our own advantage. It actually makes it easier for others to accept us. That was something Charles Xavier was very keen on -that we should openly acknowledge who we are so people didn't have to be scared of us."

"You know, in every dealing I've had with Psykers, that name comes up." Shepard said. "Who was Xavier?"

"A Psyker." Lara told him. "Charles Xavier was born in the 20th Century on Earth, and was one of the most powerful telepaths on record. At that time, numbers of humans were being born who displayed unusual abilities of various types, including Psykers. They were called Mutants, and were variously hailed as the future of mankind, or feared as the enemies of humanity. Xavier – who was brilliant as well as a Psyker -studied genetics and related fields and, along with another man called Erik Lensherr, tried to come up with ways of detecting and classifying Mutants. Xavier spent most of his life trying to find ways for Mutants and ordinary people to live together in peace.

"We preserved as much of his work and thought as we could over the years, but during the Post-Atomic Horror, we decided to go underground and stay that way for as long as necessary. Then as time went on, the Silurians emerged and were accepted, then the wizards were rediscovered and welcomed, so we decided it was safe for us to announce ourselves."

"What happened to the other Mutants?" Shepard asked.

Lara looked sad. "They became extinct within a few generations." She explained. "A lot of the other mutations turned out to be life-shortening, some affected fertility, and the Psyker strain proved to be the only stable one. We pass on our abilities to most of our children, even if we have them with non-Psykers, other Mutant strains were more miss than hit in that respect.

"But you still haven't answered my question, Colonel."

Shepard nodded, then said. "Down there on Eminiar, you proved you could handle yourself under fire, and you got through to Williams when our comms were jammed. Now, SFMC has been slow to introduce Psykers, except as Intel officers. I've been thinking for a long time that Psykers have a place in combat units, especially for Recon, but Command have been cautious.

"But this is my battalion, and I'm in charge, so I want to give it a trial. I was hoping you'd give it a go as well. Interested?"

"Hell, yes!" Lara said. "I've been stuck doing tech stuff for a while now. It's my second string, though, and my original training was military."

"You were with the Rangers." Shepard said. "I checked. That's' another reason I asked for you. All that is gold does not glitter."

"Not all those who wander are lost." She replied. "I should have guessed, you have the look. Why aren't you in the Rangers?"

"I was asked." Shepard said. "But Rangers work alone, and I'm better in a team, so I chose the Marines. Admiral Riker understood."

"He's a good man." Lara allowed. "Well, then, Colonel, kinsman, I accept your offer! When do I start?"

"You just did." He told her. "Semper Fi!"

Lara rolled her eyes, but replied. "Hoo-ra!"

Then the Red Alert sounded.