Thanks to the people who pointed out that Tim went to MIT, not Harvard. I knew that, I'm just a bit dozy sometimes. I've corrected it.
And a huge thanks to everyone who is still reading and reviewing, you're fantastic after such a long break!
Disclaimer - I do not own anything NCIS.
Timothy put a hand on Harriet's shoulder, drawing her behind him again in a move that was more protective than commanding. He felt a sudden need to shield her from the voice, which was clearly toying with her for its own amusement. To his surprise, she allowed it, making no sound of protest as he stood half in front of her.
He'd never heard her speak like that before. The words were meant to intimidate and Timothy could see, from the sudden stillness in the room, that they had hit their mark for everyone else. But he felt oddly uncomfortable. As if seeing her, for the first time, as almost … vulnerable.
Harriet had no need for threats; her reputation did it all for her. She had let her anger get the best of her. It was undignified, in a strange sort of way, and McGee had a strong urge to remove her from the situation before she cracked even further.
"You will address me if you wish to talk." McGee commanded. He kept his eyes on the waveform output up on the screen, for lack of a better place to look. He didn't want to look at Harriet. "This is my command."
"Oh, I know, General." The voice sounded, once again, amused. "I've heard all the stories. I even know which ones are true and which ones are myth. You're very impressive."
"What do you want?" McGee was fast losing patience with the conversation. He was beginning to get the feeling that their enemy just wanted to keep them talking, as if hoping they would slip up and reveal something they hadn't wanted to. To rattle him, as it had Harriet.
The combined weight of everything was beginning to make his head throb. Though he sounded sure of himself in his dismissal of the voice's claims, inside there was a growing doubt.
The Void? Why claim to be the Void, of all things? Everyone knew the stories were nothing more than metaphor - a warning against the dangers of intergalactic travel. What was the point?
"To win."
"You really think you can beat us with a few missiles and a misfit bunch of soldiers?" McGee said scornfully.
"Oh yes, General, I do." There was a smile in that cold, cruel tone. "Your Captain's threats do not scare me. You will all fall before the Void."
"I will never bend to a fairytale character."
As McGee spat his words out, Gibbs felt once again that thrill of dread in his gut. He wanted more than anything to jump forwards and tell Timothy not to insult the voice any further. It was a horribly uncomfortable feeling, wanting to act but holding himself in check. Whoever their enemy was, they had somehow gotten inside his head and had left behind a trace of its darkness that was now reacting strongly.
Gibbs' gut told him - and even up here, it hadn't let him down so far - that their enemy was just looking to get a rise out of Timothy. The reason, whatever it was, could not be good.
"I am not a fairytale!" The sound whiplashed through the room, making everyone but Gibbs and the three in the centre jump. Like Gibbs, Harriet seemed to have been expecting it. Timothy and Kinoan were simply immovable.
"It is my turn to make threats, now, General." The malice in the voice was more pronounced than ever and the temperature in the Control Room felt as though it had dropped even further. "You have seen what I can do. Zsais died at my hand. I will bring ruin to your everything. I will burn every planet and every person until you, General, are the last one left alive."
If McGee was intimidated, he didn't show it. His expression and posture didn't change at all, though the rest of the room seemed to be finding it harder to breathe.
"Only when there is nothing you love left will I kill you, General, and by that time you will be begging me to end it. And once you are gone I will take the rest of the universe, and all will know they die in screaming agony because you have failed them." There was cold fury in every syllable - but this sounded more natural, somehow, than the cold amusement of before, as if something had snapped and the enemy's true nature could not be held back any longer.
Abruptly, before McGee had a chance to respond, the waveform output vanished and a low buzz echoed through the room, indicating the signal had been cut off. Several people jumped at the sudden change.
A worker quickly flicked a switch to stop the buzzing but, otherwise, the silence carried on for several long beats.
When Timothy turned around, he seemed completely composed. Harriet looked vaguely disturbed and Kinoan was, as ever, serene. Gibbs got to his feet when Timothy's gaze landed on him, lingering there for a few moments until he turned to address Commander Ti.
"I'm still waiting for information on that teleportation beam," McGee said coolly. "And start tracking that transmission immediately."
Without another word, he strode from the Control Room with Kinoan, Harriet and Gibbs on his heels.
None of them said a word the entire journey back to Kinoan's office, which had become a kind of hub over the last few days, each replaying the conversation in their heads and trying to figure out the meaning of it all.
Timothy halted, once again in the very centre of the room, as the heavy wooden door shut behind them. Harriet, in a manner very unlike her, sank onto the couch immediately, breathing as if she'd run the entire way there. Gibbs sat down opposite her, watching Timothy intently, worried but not quite daring to approach.
The Timothy he'd just witnessed was nothing like the man he'd known and that sight, more than all of the extraordinary things he'd seen and heard this past week, made the stalwart agent begin to appreciate how the rest of the Peace Force felt in Timothy's presence.
Kinoan, however, walked straight over to Timothy and laid a gentle red hand on his shoulder.
"Are you okay, old friend?" He asked, his solemn voice quieter than ever. There was worry in his three yellow eyes. Though he had remained detached throughout the conversation, Kinoan hadn't missed a single detail and had seen clearly the effect it had on his colleague.
"It bothers me," Timothy began. He was staring fixedly through the small window behind Kinoan's desk, through which he could see the light from several stars burning bright in the inky darkness of space. "Why pretend to be the Void? What's the purpose, what advantage could that possibly give you? No one fears the Void anymore. It's metaphor, just pretty language."
"What if it's not?" Gibbs asked.
Timothy stared at him.
"But it is." He said, blankly. "It's just a … a fable. To explain why we don't attempt intergalactic travel anymore."
Kinoan turned to look at Gibbs now, dropping his hand from Timothy's shoulder.
"Almost forty years ago, the research branch of the Peace Force developed a method of transport that could travel between galaxies in a matter of months, making intergalactic travel a real possibility for the first time." He began to explain.
Kinoan had the voice for stories; even Harriet came out of her stupor enough to look up and listen. "But very soon we began to hear stories, of people going missing. Sometimes it was just one person disappearing from a ship, sometimes one ship from a procession and sometimes whole convoys just vanished. That's when the stories started. People spoke of a Void with the power to steal life, to absorb it."
"It's not real, though." Timothy insisted, sitting down heavily next to Harriet. "Intergalactic travel is risky for the same reason why fighting wars in the space vacuum is risky. The fabric of the universe gets distorted and impossible things happen. People, ships, planets disappear. It's not some malevolent consciousness, it's just physics gone a bit wrong."
"It's not." Harriet's voice was hoarse and brittle, as though she was having to force the words out of her throat. "It isn't a metaphor, it isn't physics. It's real. The Void is real."