notes: sorry for the delay in update. writer's block is a bitch.
Part XVIII: Magisterque Discipula
The emptiness of the Void opened its arms and embraced Kathryn Janeway.
She stood upon the emptiness, upon the blackness, and stared ahead at the shadows that coiled and writhed on nameless winds. She stood, and she listened, and she waited. And the nameless winds blew and coiled and writhed around her, tugging at her hair and at her clothing, until it looked as if she stood still and silent within a gale.
"Virgil," she said at last, and her voice was the tolling of a church bell calling for Mass. It echoed and rang until the nameless winds shouted with the memory of it.
The Void buckled, and thickened-and coalesced, until standing before her was the shape of a man, faceless and as empty as the Void which had birthed it.
"Kathryn," the shape said, and the voice was the same that had called and questioned Kathryn for what now felt like an eternity.
"Virgil," Kathryn said again, and the shape nodded.
"Hello, Kathryn," said Virgil. "It is good to finally see you."
Kathryn peered at Virgil and frowned. Narrow lines had appeared since she first saw him, delineating narrow eyes and a thin mouth.
"Why am I here?" Kathryn asked. "And who are you?"
"I am your guide," said Virgil. "And you are here to stand the trials."
Kathryn frowned. "What trials?"
"The trials of my makers," Virgil said.
"And what do these trials entail?"
"They are meant to judge you and your crew."
"To judge us?" Kathryn asked. She shook her head. "I still don't understand."
"What is it you fear?"
"Stop asking me that, dammit," Kathryn snapped.
But Virgil shook his head. "I cannot," he said. "Not until you answer me: What is it you fear?"
"Stop asking me that," Kathryn snarled again, and she took a step forward.
Virgil backed up a pace, and the thin lines of his face contracted into what looked like fear. "You cannot hurt me," he said, and his voice was the strength of the storm undercut by soft, spring rain—bold but fragile. "You cannot touch me."
Kathryn took another step forward and, reaching out, seized Virgil around the wrist, halting him from taking another step back. "I think I can," she said, and her voice was a warning.
Virgil now definitely looked afraid. "You do not understand," he said, seemingly suddenly small and very frail. "You do not know what you are contending with."
"A small little man who gets off on the fear of others?" Kathryn asked, hard and cruel.
Virgil laughed. And suddenly he was no longer the fearful, shrunken man he had appeared to be; he seemed to grow, shoulders broadening and legs lengthening until his wrist was torn from Kathryn's hold and he stood towering over her.
"I am not a man, Kathryn Janeway," he said, "and you would do well to remember that here you are in my domain. Here you are under my power."
There came a grinding roar, like a tornado ripping through trees, and the empty world beneath Kathryn's feet opened up. She fell.
When Kathryn opened her eyes, it was to the red sky and dusty air of a Vulcan desert. Kathryn sat up slowly, gingerly feeling each muscle complain in turn, and climbed carefully to her feet. The fine sand shifted beneath her boots, and the wind tugged at her hair and uniform jacket as she stood, spitting grit into her face and making her cough.
"Kathryn."
Kathryn turned quickly at the sound of her name, and found herself standing in front of Tuvok. His face was impassive and stern, and his hands were folded into the loose, trailing sleeves of a traditional Vulcan robe. He was an impenetrable shadow at the heart of the sand and wind and sky, untouched by the elements, unbothered by the heat.
"Tuvok," Kathryn said, with some relief. "You scared me."
"That was not my intent," Tuvok said. Then, after a moment of silence in which Kathryn tried, and failed, to find something to say, Tuvok said, "Do you know why I have brought you here?"
Kathryn looked around herself. In the near distance rose the great Mount Cohsarn, an eons-dead volcano that still rose in craggy magnificence to the clouds. Behind them, almost lost to the desert haze, was the shadow of the city of Kahairn, where Tuvok lived with his wife T'Pel.
"You brought me out here once before," Kathryn said, looking once more up at Tuvok. "This is where you taught me to meditate."
"Indeed," Tuvok said. "But that does not answer why I brought you here now."
Kathryn frowned, and looked around herself again. "I don't know why," she admitted at last. "I don't even remember the journey coming out here."
"You have always said that you appreciate my candor," Tuvok said, not answering Kathryn's silent question.
"I do," Kathryn said.
"Then I feel it prudent to tell you now that I think you were in error to destroy the Caretaker's Array."
Kathryn looked around herself again. "But we made it home," she said, and gestured around herself to the desert, to Mount Cohsarn, to Kahairn.
"No," Tuvok said—and as the word left his lips, the scenery bled to wax around them, then fell in a cascade of sand to the ground, where it washed around Kathryn's boots like waves of dust. In its place stood a stark and bleak landscape: barren rock, grey sky, and a few stunted, half-withered trees.
"No," Tuvok said again. "You did not."
And then, as if a veil had been snatched from her eyes, Kathryn saw, resting amid the broken stone of the earth, countless mounds of stone erected in crude but careful cairns.
"You damned us, Kathryn Janeway," Tuvok said, and his voice was the tolling of a bell, the echoing ring of finality and eternity. "You killed us all, all to save the Ocampans from a fate they may never have even faced."
Kathryn was breathless. Thoughtless. Hopeless.
"No," she whispered. She turned on numb feet and stumbled toward the nearest grave. "No, please…"
She fell to her knees, and did not wince as the rough stone cut through the cloth of her pants and into her flesh.
Tuvok stood behind her, watching as she knelt beside the graves of those she had sworn to protect and guide, stern and impassive like the stones of the tombs beneath his feet, his face drawn in narrow lines of shadow.
~*x*~
El'mar of Beckhan Cove was not having a good day.
"Eight ships destroyed," Dor'tek, the High Admiral of the Kaminoan Fleet, all but yelled. He was sitting behind his desk in his office, El'mar standing before him with his hands clasped behind his back. The early morning sun filtered in through the windows at Admiral Dor'tek's back, wan and pale through the ever-present clouds scudding overhead. "More than four hundred lives lost. And all for what?"
"We had no choice," El'mar said, protest in his voice. "We had to collect Captain Janeway."
Admiral Dor'tek's flint eyes glittered slate. "Did we?" he asked. His voice had gone suddenly calm, calmer than it had been since El'mar had entered the office. He did not think that boded well.
"The Council decided—"
"I know what the Council decided," Admiral Dor'tek said in reply, still with that poisonous calm.
They looked at each other for a long moment, slate eyes on black. When Admiral Dor'tek did not make a move to speak again, El'mar said carefully, "Is that all, High Admiral?"
Admiral Dor'tek nodded. "Dismissed," he said.
El'mar bowed, and backed out of the office.
He made his way down to the first floor of Fleet Central Command, distractedly ignoring the numerous greetings he received as he went. He instead watched the mosaic tiles beneath his feet, and looked up at the vaulted and tiled ceilings, lost in thought.
A short speeder ride later, and he was back at his lab.
"What did the High Admiral want?" Cos'ak, El'mar's assistant, asked when he entered.
"He wanted to inform me that Captain Janeway has been retrieved," El'mar said. He crossed to the nearest table and flicked his eyes over the equipment sitting there—numerous tubes filled with multi-colored liquids that frothed and bubbled over blue flames—grounding himself with the comfortable sight and scent of his work.
The third floor of the United Confederation of Science's Laborator, UCSL, where El'mar had his lab, was sprawling. Larger than the first and second floors, with the last third of the building supported on pillars grounded in the UCSL's courtyard, it was made primarily of windows and glass walls. El'mar's lab was in the west corner of the floor, and as such two of its four walls looked out over the sullen grey of the sky and the stark grey of the courtyard's pavement.
His lab itself was cluttered, but in such a way that it was at once obvious that it was in a particular order. There were five lab tables scattered throughout the room, each bearing different experiments in different stages of completion.
"So they did get her then," Cos'ack said, spinning on his lab stool to follow El'mar's trek through the room.
El'mar nodded. "At great cost to us," he added, somewhat bitterly. "The High Admiral was furious." El'mar hesitated, wondering if he should speak on or if he should hold his tongue. At last, with the thought, Gods damn the politics of it all, he said, "The High Admiral didn't seem pleased." Of everyone in El'mar's life—including his partner and their daughter—he trusted Cos'ack the most. He was not only intelligent, but he was also wise, and knew when and where to hold his tongue.
"With the retrieval?" Cos'ack asked.
"With the whole situation."
"But the Council—"
"I know. The Council voted for it. And I think the Council made the right decision. But the truth of it is that we lost eight ships trying to retrieve her. Is her life really worth that?"
Cos'ack rose from his stool and threaded his way through the lab tables. "You sound yourself unsure," he said, the skin on his brow creasing in a frown.
El'mar shook his head. "No. It's not that I'm unsure. I think the right decision was made. But I can understand why there are those angry with the Council's decision."
"Do you think they will cause trouble?" Cos'ack asked.
"I hope not," El'mar said. "But I am almost certain they will."