A/N: I'm terrible at updating when I think I'm going to be able to update; I'm sorry about that folks. Plus side, at least, I'm mostly moved in to a better place with a better paying job, and now my commute is less than two hours a day! Yey!
Anyway, story for you!
This chapter will be following our heroine, a Betazoid. Since they're active "listeners," as in, practically every species projects to some extent and they hear it as though the person is talking out loud, I've attempted to write as such. It's a bit of an experiment for me (as much as I do enjoy writing about telepathic species, it's usually controlled circumstances where I can note... yeah. You know, I'm sure).
Anyway. If it's in italics, but no quotes around it, it's Ishta thinking to herself and she expects that others can hear her (if someone near-by is "receiving," that is). Italics in quotes will be someone else thinking. Sometimes I will be specific as to who is doing the talking, sometimes not. Just like real life, in a crowded room, it can be difficult to "hear" properly. If things aren't clear, let me know and I'll edit. Anyone want to beta for me?
Ishta hummed to herself while she wiped a splatter of paint from her paintbrush. She stared at her canvas for a while, cotton rag in hand with the sable bristles scrunching under her fingertips. The sunset was developing beautifully, but not exactly right.
She missed the colors of home. The way the clouds of Betazed refracted the light. The shine of shattered crystal light dancing over dewdrops, blades of grass, the sweat on a lover's skin.
The colors she could find here, on Earth, were fine, of course. She'd found substitutes, over the past year. The yellow chrimsha of home no longer accessible, but ochre was...
Alright, it wasn't right. It was muddy and red and it didn't glimmer the way good yellow was supposed to. A watercolorist who showed in a local gallery figured a way to paint on metal, and promised to teach her the technique one of these days. The steel that artist used wouldn't work, of course, but maybe a burnished gold? Or brass, perhaps.
She sighed, eyed the brush, dipped it in the cup of turpentine again and rubbed it against a clean spot in the rag. The moment she touched the redder parts of the canvas, it seemed to seep everywhere. She wanted pure yellow. Not orange. Or tan. Or mustard.
The communicator rang, just as she touched the bristles to the canvas again. Of course her fingers twitched, sending an unwanted little dabble of white dripping down into the reflection in the lake she'd intended to let dry for a few days more before trying to rework.
Ishta stuck her tongue out, tossed the brush aside, and elbowed the button to activate the speaker.
"Yeah?"
"...Is this the residence of Is... he... ta... shane..."
"Ishitashanane Smith née Guondel," Ishta clarified, before the man butchered her name any further. "Yes, this is she. How can I help you?"
"You are the wife of Commander Gregory Adrian Smith, engineer for the USS Tripoli?"
Ishta wiped her hands quickly and picked up the communicator, disengaging the speaker. "Yes."
Oh god.
"Ma'am..." Oh god. "I regret to inform," Oh please no. "That there has been a terrible," No, not not- "Incident. We do not know all the details yet but-"
Ishta slid down to the ground in a heap.
"He was just here. Only a couple months ago. They couldn't have been in deep space yet, couldn't have even been out of-"
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but as I said, we don't-"
"Is he alright?"
"I don't-"
"Please. Just tell me if he's alive."
"...there has been no communication."
"That's nothing," Ishta insisted. Her voice rising in pitch and volume 'til it echoed tinny even to her own ears. "They're out of range for months at a time. It's normal."
"Not when they're in Vulcan space, ma'am. I'm sorry, but I have other family members to call."
"What?! What was this? Some preliminary call? Aren't you supposed to tell me not to worry? Something?"
The silence on the other end of the line was telling.
"I have other family members to call, ma'am. Starfleet will be notifying everyone as soon as more information is known."
The moment he hung up – I didn't even get his name! – the line buzzed again and she immediately answered.
"Yes?"
"Oh Ishta," her elder neighbor sighed in relief. "Thank god I got you. You're line was busy!"
"I know, I just got-"
"Is your viewer on?"
"My... what?"
"Your viewer! Your TV! Turn it on!"
"To... what channel?" Istha asked, dubious as she wriggled under one of the sofa cushions to find the clicker.
"Any channel!"
She flicked it on, expecting the usual automated signal from the Weather channel, since that's what she had on last. Instead, a live reporter was being piped in over the broadcast.
Grainy, blurry footage, obviously piggybacked from another channel from the stacked icons in the lower corner, filled the screen behind the reporter.
An image of utter horror and destruction as a deep red planet collapsed in on itself.
She flicked through her preset channels, trying to find someone not screaming. Someone with better footage. Anyone who could even say what-
The remote and the communicator dropped to the floor, as one screen, the feed snatching in and out between horrific clarify and bit lines of data, showed what she feared most.
The news scrawl under the feed labeled the planet – all too clearly. But the worst... was the spinning bit of debris. A few letters readable. Just for a second. -ipoli. She might not be the fastest reader of Earth Standard, but she knew Tripoli at a glance.
"Ishta? Ishta, can you hear me?"
Her neighbor's shouts over the communicator were barely audible over the roaring in her own head.
He's gone.
There's no way the Tripoli is in so many pieces and he'd be alive.
What about lifeboats?
Oh god. He's gone.
The bit of feed repeated itself several times before the newsman reported a new vid coming in, his eyes as wide as dinner plates while he fell silent, watching the clip for the first time along with his viewers.
Vulcan rotated, whole in the background. Ishta's brain hiccuped a moment before she realized they'd received an earlier feed. The massive ship opened its beam weapons as ship after ship dropped out of warp around it. Slicing through the lot of them like... like...
And there. The Tripoli. Just a brief little glimmer – nothing more than a familiar silhouette in the dark – before she, too, was simply snipped to pieces. Not even time for lifeboats, as the... whatever it was, methodically chopped up her hull before moving on to the next ship. Dispassionate. Unfeeling. Efficient.
Ishta felt the push of her neighbor's mind a moment before she knocked on the front door. "Poor child, they only just moved in. Her husband's dead and now there's no one to look after-"
"Come in," Ishta shouted.
"You dropped the phone dear, Probably lost all of her senses, so I wanted to come check on you. Who knows how these damn aliens are effected... she's been so quiet and withdrawn since his ship left spaceport. At least all those damn parties stopped."
"I haven't been withdrawn, I've just been-" Ishta swallowed the rest at the blinking confusion on the older woman's face. Of course that isn't what you were saying. "Do you know anything?"
"Know anything? Like I'm some idiot? Past what the news says, no. Vulcan was destroyed good riddance by some unknown ship. From all the noise didn't she hear all the ships leaving? It sounds like the whole fleet left orbit. Maybe things will start to be peaceful around here."
"The whole fleet," Ishta whispered, her eyes dragging back to the screen without her permission. Untold wreckages zipping in and out of existence. And then the feed cut out again.
She needed the touch of another. Not physical. Their minds. Needed to feel the pulse of their lives. The inconsequential hopes, dreams, needs, fears. Needed to... not be alone.
Ishta shoved past her more-than-slightly speciest neighbor – well intentioned or not, the underlying hatred burned yet another painful knot she couldn't handle right now – and ran until the soft touch of a thousand minds focused on their internal monologue enveloped her.
She ran down the slope, past houses and front yards filled with playing children. Dark echoes of adult minds inside; housewives and househusbands watching the video on endless repeat.
Up the next hill and along a busy highway, she felt the buzz of shoppers. Midday meant folks hurrying too and fro to get lunch before diving back into their cars. People snagging a bit of a snog in the back seat. The pizza guys cramming too many boxes into their little two door transports. Coffee shops overflowing with disgruntled, rushing minds.
But not today.
Today, there were still people. Not as many. And every mind she passed played those videos again and again. Vivid colors and screaming voices supplied by a thousand imaginations let reign.
Ishta burned to do something, anything. The hum of human minds simply wasn't enough to fill the... what had been... the pleasant quiet in her mind.
She trudged on, half hearing the dissonant notes around her. The calm, slightly cool spring breeze tempted her.
The birds sang; their simple minds filled with lust and guarding territory. Squirrels ran to and fro, judging which humans to beg from and which to run from. A few dogs tugged their people by their leashes; incessant with "Go!" and "Smell!" in a mental language filled with concepts she couldn't translate from the kaleidoscope of scents and tastes and colors and sensation.
Still, she continued onwards. Her mind open to all around her. Some deep, still, rational part knew she was searching for him.
Imzadi.
She knew she'd never find him.
Not listen to his careful calculations; the gentle engineer who shielded so naturally, for a human, and surrounded himself with other quiet, shy, precise, kind people.
Never feel the coarse prickle of his arm and chest hair as he held her.
Never hear his quiet voice as he sung while grilling in the back yard. Not even aware if he were vocalizing or just replaying some tune to himself.
A gentle, rhythmic shushing filled her ears, drew her out just long enough to realize she'd walked straight into the water of the bay. Brackish. Sluggish. ….Burning?
Ishta lifted a foot.
Her feet were bare – did I put shoes on today? - and where there weren't blisters, she sported open wounds.
Ishta blinked around her, the location finally settling in.
The bay. And there's the Golden Gate. Must've been walking for hours.
Whenever homesickness struck, Gregory tucked her onto his bike. She'd cling like a little burr to his back and wonder at the world passing by. They'd go into Starfleet headquarters and he'd take her to one of the big astroprojectors and they'd marvel at the whole of Betazoid's northern hemisphere playing across the dome overhead. Ishta didn't think it was real time, but she didn't pry and he didn't offer. The constellations were always right, and that's what mattered. The familiar Bird's Nest, the Holy Rings, the Delphan Star, the Lode Star.
Missing home hurt a little less.
He'd take her hand, kiss the palm, close her fingers over the admiration he felt towards her.
And everything would be alright. For a little while.
Gregory would marvel at her bravery. So brave, his mind echoed, to leave everything for him. She renounced her claim as heir to her house, lost her citizenship, left her world behind, and in it's place, he treasured her every molecule. Every moment. Every movement. Every sigh, even over subspace. Every kiss and touch and-
Ishta pressed her fists into her eye sockets. She couldn't block the pain; in truth, she didn't want to.
All she had left of Gregory resided in their house and in her mind. The pain, as much as it hurt – her eyes burned, her throat ragged with untold sobs – it stood testament to his love for her, and she would not turn that way. Not block it out.
The bridge called to her. Memories of the time with her Imzadi called to her. So, Ishta's hot, bleeding feet carried her there.
The sun-heated metal soothed and burned at once. Thousands of minds, some talking, many more speeding by, filled her inner silence. Roads became thick with tourists, officers, hopefuls. Closer and closer to her destination, echoes of turmoil washed against her.
"It's gone. It's gone."
"My husband."
"My wife."
"Only one month to retirement."
"He was just a child."
"What idiots thought that sending untrained cadets was good-"
"Why him! I should have been on that ship!"
"What'd those Vulcans do to deserve-"
"Fucking Romulans will burn for this!"
"Bet it was the Klingons. They're the only ones disgusting enough to-"
When the shockwave hit her feet, Ishta was already clutching her head, screaming.
She didn't need to look up. Thousands of minds projected the darkened cloud, the vicious points of metal stabbing the sky. The horrific weapon drilling right where she'd been just minutes ago-
A blast of wind knocked her to her knees. Others tumbled around her. Falling into her.
Panic, the blind panic of cattle trying to escape their deaths, washed over her. Paralyzing her as the humans clawed their way to their feet and ran as one. Sharp heels trampled her.
Ishta curled in on herself, trying to protect mind and body.
A hard nodule pressed against the heaving tide. Hard duty, painted black and unreadable but for the red touches of frustration bent over her, shoving the panic aside.
Strong hands clutched her shoulders, dragged her to up, stayed on her until her feet supported her.
Ishta blinked, uncomprehending, as a gold-shirted... Admiral! She stared at his pips as he held her, shook her.
"I'm okay," she answered, finally, when she realized what he was probably asking. A short nod and he shoved her along with the crowd.
Duty, purpose, drove him onwards towards the destruction.
Ishta focused on that. The calm, professional intent. Used his mind to block out the hundreds around her. Focused just enough to keep herself upright as all around her desperately attempted to escape, and yet look back at the same time. Part animalistic need to see if the predator still followed, part morbid curiosity to see what followed.
Somehow Ishta escaped the stampede. Her mind buzzed at the sudden lack of sound.
Then Betazoid looked up, taking longer than usual to sound out the alien letters. The icon, however, she processed without thought. Hadn't she stroked over that embroidered sigil often enough while straightening his uniform before shift?
She passed like a ghost through the empty halls.
Eventually, a persistent buzz tickled at her ear. Empty hall led to empty hall until the buzz became a hum, then whispered, and murmurs, and finally shouts.
Ishta opened the doors on a hundred voices, all fighting to be heard over one another. A hundred minds clamping down on their panic in favor of industriousness.
"What is she doing here?"
"Who is that?"
"God, she looks awful."
A few noticed her, but spared nothing more than a glance before returning to their tasks.
Another admiral, this one in red, approached. Wariness loud in his mind, his eyes filled with her bloody feet, even as he met her gaze with a reassuring smile half-convincingly plastered on his face.
"What does she want?"
"I want to help," she answered before he got the chance to ask aloud. "Please. I have nothing left."
The truth echoed in the sorrow of her eyes, plain enough for the man to read without empathetic abilities.
"Which ship?"
"The Tripoli," she answered again.
"My-"
"Please. No condolences, just tell me what to do."
One nod, just a short downward jerk of his chin.
By the time he found her a desk, she'd calmed enough to glean the purpose of this room from those around her.
Rescue efforts. Trying to figure out who still lived, dispatch rescue ships, organize what little they had left...
Yes. This, this I can do.