JP - Commander Teller, Commander Saveron & Lt. Alieth - It's the End of the World as We Know It (Finale)

[Alora DeVeau]

OOC: I jumped the gun (okay, fine, I miscounted the number of parts they said the jp contained before I posted it) when I posted the other sections, but honestly, perhaps this was as it should be.  While this may be the finale, it deserves its own entry.  From laughter to tears, this part of the JP moved me both ways.  Well done @Alieth, @Saveron, and @Geoffrey Teller.

 

[[Holosuite 3, Deck 5, USS Thor, In orbit over Vulcan]]

((Twenty Minutes Later))

In the holodeck’s version of the Temple at Mount Selaya, the trio stood. Saveron didn’t need the atmospheric location, but perhaps the others did. There was a lot to be said for how ambiance could affect an individual’s thoughts. 

 

Reaching out, he placed his long fingers on one side of Commander Teller’s face, slowly shifting his fingertips until he found the strongest synaptic nodes. Satisfied, he repeated the movements on Alieth’s face, until he could feel both of their minds hovering just within reach. 

 

Next, she placed her hand on Teller's temple, the fingertips where his synaptic centres were strongest. The other side of his face was occupied by Saveron's slender fingers. Alieth's other hand rested on the vibrating crystal placed on the electronic device.

 

An asymmetrical circle. 

 

An origin, a bridge, a guide and a destination. 

 

And a soul to be coerced to go around the circuit.

 

Alieth took a deep breath and looked at the two men beside her. Then, she closed her eyes briefly. She lowered her mental barriers and opened herself to mental contact. The other Vulcan's mind resonated in hers as a clarion call. Saveron shone bright and strong. Clear as the first light of morning. Like the birth of a star.

 

Alieth: ~~ Osu ~~

 

Saveron: ~~ Orensu ~~

 

He would not normally condescend to call Alieth his student, but in this alone he was the only one with any experience. 

 

Their walls came down, hers first, then his, and their minds touched, as intimately as if they were lovers. It seemed as though he saw Alieth clearly for the first time, without the barriers of the physical world. She was a flame; burning bright and slightly angry. 

 

Anger could be a powerful driver.

 

Saveron: ~~Ready?~~

 

She nodded minimally. It was more an intention than a movement in itself. Her dark eyes turned to Teller's green ones. Her fingers flexed lightly at his temper.

 

In the holographic reconstruction of the temple, far away, out of the shady recesses under the columns, there rang a chime.

 

And the shriek of a kestrel.

 

Alieth: Ready Geoff?

 

Teller: ~~I CAN HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS IN MY EYES~~

 

Alieth: ~~Just the answer I was waiting for~~

 

She pushed lightly, and the tenuous walls to enter his mind cracked open wide, to that cacophony of an orchestra tuning up before a great fanfare that was the human mind. A confusion of brass and wind and string noises and for some strange reason, a duck.

 

The mind wove strange stories in this dreamscape. Saveron was there to guide Sern’s katra and keep the situation from becoming confused. It was easy to forget one’s goal when memory crowded so close. 

 

Alieth: ~~No trips down memory lane this time, we just look for Sern, okay?~~

 

Teller: ~~That’s fine by me, I still feel like I have sand in my boots from the last time~~

 

One corner of her mouth, both inside and outside the meld, curled into a tiny smirk.

 

Saveron: ~~Bring to mind, if you can Commander, the sensation you experience when you ‘hear’ Sern’s thoughts.~~

 

Geoff concentrated, turning his mind's eye to the place where he and Sern would meet. It had always been just out of focus when Geoff had gone there but now the details were clear and sharp, the meld helping to enhance his recall. He could see the sand on the arena floor, stained with dark green blood. This is where Sern had hidden himself away, residing forever in the last moments of his mortal life. As if beginning a journey, Geoff felt himself drawn from one memory to next, and every time they felt a step closer. 

 

There was a spark. Something long extinguished coming to life one last time, a flame burning the dregs of its remaining energy in one last bright, ephemeral blaze.

 

The moment that they found Sern he became apparent to Saveron, the only one who did not yet know him. Around them for a moment a combat arena resolved, dust in the air and blood on the sand. What a place to linger; it was as though he didn’t know where else to go. 

 

This was why he was here. Silently, Saveron’s mental avatar, clad in a deep desert suit and robes as he tended to appear in the dreamscape, reached out a hand and beckoned Sern to follow him.

 

Outside the meld, Teller’s contraption sprang into life, beginning to detect and analyze a living Vulcan neural pattern entwined with a human’s. Components whirred and hummed, dissecting subquantum data states and rapidly forming a transcription matrix. A few components sparked and shook under the strain.  

 

Over and over it spun, burning out whatever existence it had left on an never-ending trail until a summon from Saveron showed it the way, and a gentle nudge led it to the bridge.

 

And Sern crossed him. 

 

It was only then that she could feel him. The warm familiarity. The long summers in the shade of the trees of his clan house. Hundreds of anodyne study afternoons, with hardly any words, just each other's company as they each focused on their subjects.

 

The first hovercar race. Her first accident. HIS first crash. An escape to Vulcana Regar with a bet, three Orions, a Nausicaan and four broken ribs. Sern's, of course, not hers.

 

Then, the day he confirmed her the news of his engagement. Her own wedding, not so long after it. And that last goodbye of her fingers on his.

 

These were scenes that were familiar to both, he could see, and re-lived far more times than they had actually been lived. A comfortable place, a clinging to what had been. Gently, Saveron nudged at the pair, politely pushing Sern towards the path he must walk. He couldn’t stay here, not again, not without losing himself. But the pair deserved a certain amount of respect. Saveron knew what it was to hide the pain of a love lost. 

 

Before what followed, before the bitter end, and the thievery and the escape and the hidden years, she let him go. And just as quickly as he had moved through her mind, he left it.

 

The last trail, the last faint echo of the familiar psyche swirled over the fingers that touched the crystal.

 

There was a moment of stillness.

 

Alieth pulled her fingers away from the crystal and only three were left behind. Three minds and three bodies, connected as closely as they could be, but not intermingled as Sern had been with them, each their own being, in their own flesh.

 

Beep

 

She opened her eyes and looked at them, her heart trembling for a loss she had foreseen but not overcome, for what she had regained only to be lost again.

 

Beep, Beep

 

There were no words, but there was a sense of warning, a sense of urgency transmitted quickly through shared neural pathways.

 

Beep, Beep, Beep

 

Somewhere between consciousness and whatever the mind meld was, Geoff could perceive a sound on the very edge of his hearing. A bad sound. A sound that meant they had to run.

 

The machine started whirring. Fingers were quickly removed from the other's temples. The whirring grew to an agonised whine, the sound of a dying beast.

 

The sparks became a living fire, the radiation sizzled on their skin, leaving livid greenish-black marks behind.

 

As one person, the remnants of their shared consciousness still fraying between their minds, they all ran..

 

No sooner had the door closed than the ensuing explosion shook the corridor and lobby, filled them with smoke and, more than likely, left a cracked hatch connecting the holodeck to the adjoining decks.

 

Geoff sagged against the corridor wall as the alert klaxons rang, the throbbing behind his eyes competing with some plasma fire burns on his hands. He’d made one desperate half-blind grab towards the workbench as they’d escaped and he’d paid for it with blisters and reddened skin. 

 

Alieth: Are you...?

 

Geoff rubbed his throbbing head and looked within, but found himself properly alone for the first time in months. He certainly felt like himself, for whatever that was worth.  

 

Teller: ….ungh...no more...mind melds….

 

Saveron: That would be advisable. 

 

He’d felt, in that moment before the beeping that Teller had forewarned them about, Geoffrey’s mind settled into it’s full and whole space, no longer having to make room for another, even a mild lodger like Sern. He would recover. 

 

Her gaze darted around

 

Alieth: Is he…?

 

Geoff extended his burnt hand and gingerly opened his cracked fingers. It may have been a little scorched but he’d managed to get his hand around the ark, and it appeared intact. His palm had been seared with the impressions  of several Vulcan characters, but that seemed to be the limit of his injuries.  He reverently passed it to Alieth with his remaining strength.  

 

Instead of responding, he took his hand and, in her palm, placed the crystal. Faint, subtle, Sern's essence reacted to the touch of her fingertips.

 

Alieth took the container that held her best friend and cuddled him against her chest, then she rested her back against the wall and let herself slide down to the floor plates. 

 

Saveron looked away, politely pretending not to notice Alieth’s emotional indulgence. He had felt the strength of her attachment to Sern, in that place behind her emotional shields. She had carried him for years, and they all knew that this would be goodbye. 

 

The heavy footfalls of the approaching damage control team could be heard up the corridor, but Geoff found he had little strength and happily accepted their assistance when it was offered. To their questioning glances he simply shrugged. He’d explain this some other time.  

 

He was alive.

 

They all were.

 

And they were fine.

 

[[END]]

 

OOC:

 

ma maat katra → The clan owns the katra

Fal-tor-pan → Right whereby a katra is transferred from an individual’s mind into another destination

T’Sai → Lady

Osu→ Sir, used as a form of polite address for a man

Orensu→ Student

 

=================================

 

As simmed by: 

 

Commander Saveron

First Officer

USS Constitution-B

R238802S10

 

&

 

Commander Geoffrey Teller

Executive Officer

USS Thor - NCC 82607

Commodore A. Kells, Commanding

V239509GT0

 

&

 

Lt. Alieth

Chief Medical Officer

USS Thor NCC-82607

E239702A10  

Image Collective Co-Facilitator /Art Director

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