[SHAH] Oracle: In Peace, They Said

[richyulin]

((Ohanze starship, edge of the Shahrazad system))

::Within the Ohanze ship’s small control chamber, a visitor would be forgiven for mistaking Oracle’s form as part of the ship’s structure. Like the starship around her, her own body exhibited a bioluminescent glow. Instead of the hard angles and metal finishes of most civilizations’ vessels, Ohanze starship architecture instead seemed to take its cue from the biological structures of creatures one could find in a planet’s deepest oceans. Translucent support structures rose up from the deck, arching towards the ceiling.::

::There were no consoles, displays, or even windows. Instead, Oracle and the other Ohanze occupants operated the starship while gathered in a small circle around a central holographic display that projected the local space around them.::

::As Oracle studied the model of the Shahrazad system floating in space in front of her, she thought back to the legends of her tribe, the Red Sun, that she had heard since she was a youngling. Supposedly at one time, the five Ohanze tribes of Red Sun, Yellow Sun, White Sun, Blue Sun, and Black Sun had been united as one, with a central homeworld. Over the millennia the location of that homeworld had been lost, but among the presumed candidates, the Shahrazad system had always been a likely contender.::

::Looking here now, though, it was difficult to see why. The system had not a single hint of life among its confines. In fact, the only signs of life now were what had brought the Ohanze and Oracle here: a distant Borg vessel, orbiting the fourth planet. It had first been detected by a patrol that happened to be passing by the dead system and nearly cataloged as space junk. It was only after the Ohanze began detecting strange and powerful energy readings from the vessel that they identified the ship as Borg and reluctantly sent a message to the Federation and Starfleet.::

::The Ohanze’s history with the Federation was complicated. While some Ohanze were curious about other species that lived beyond their borders in the Shadows, most had not forgotten the painful early period of time when the first pre-Federation Earth colonies began appearing in the Shoals. Oracle herself was much too young to have been present when those first ships arrived, but she remembered the stories of her great-grandmother.::

::”In peace,” they said, and yet they still came.::

::The sound of footsteps signaled to the others that their guest, the Starfleet cultural anthropologist, was approaching. Oracle turned her large, translucent head to address the guest through the universal translator device that Starfleet had provided for communication with its liaison.::

Oracle: (synthesized voice from the universal translator) Hello, Raissa of the Moonsong clan.

Moonsong: Response

::Raissa was hardly the first Federation contact that Oracle had known in her duties as the Circle of Five Suns' liaison to the Federation for the past twenty years. Some were young and idealistic. Others terribly ambitious or deceitful. And yet, seeing this humanoid pregnant with child, there was a refreshing sense of honesty and vulnerability that had been shared with the Ohanze just by her presence.::

Oracle: The Borg vessel’s position remains unchanged.

Moonsong: Response

::The Ohanze liaison looked back at the holographic display.::

Oracle: Whatever they seek remains at the fourth planet.

Moonsong: Response

TAG! TBC…

Oracle

of the Red Sun Tribe

Liaison to the Federation

I238705TZ0