LTCmdr. Quentin Collins - The High Cost of Living

[Justin Partridge]

((Interior. The Caves of Theta 122. Liminal Space.))

Collins: m-more than y-you would think...reach into any of our minds. Trust me. You'll find all you need to know...

Quentin Collins felt his words burn with conviction. And with experience. 

Though he relished his career and felt a beaming pride in his rank, his career and life in space had already cost him much. And that was on top of the shroud of death and loss that hung over his ancestral hometown. It clung to him. To his clothes, to his soul, to his heart and mind. 

And that ache was only honed in the Wilds and then again before his introduction to the Isles. 

But the moldering Iconian felt and heeded little of the psychic gloaming coming from his panicked mind. He had no idea how long he could actually hold this trance state (one of the still unknown range of abilities his lack of study around his increased Delta wave production afforded him), but by the splitting of his headache and the shortness of breath he was feeling (still pressured by the Iconian's...hands, as they were) spoke to his situation becoming more and more dire by the picosecond.

Thet's eyes bore into him, causing his gaze to drowse itself and swim further away from the shores of his consciousness.

oO If you die in a waking dream, do you still die in reality? Somebody oughta study that...Oo

Suddenly new shadows swam into his view, directly behind Thet's looming patchwork frame.

Positive energy suddenly saturated the area with a commanding, yet still readily beautiful voice.

R'Ariel: ~STOP!~

The alien's massive form hoved backward, snapping it's upper section away from Quentin and back toward the voice, releasing the tendril and sending him plopping to the sand of the mindscape's pantomime of their surroundings. Quentin's eyes instantly refocused with his renewed "breath" and saw the owner of the voice to be...The Counselor! "Standing" just to the edge of the waterline, a heavy rope corded around her waist and trailing impossibly upward. Quentin could see just the faintest edges of the "surface" the line hung from and it looked like Mister Wilde and their new friend Kal were keeping R'Ariel's corporeal form suspended within the aperture of the psychic event.

Quentin wondered if this was why he couldn't see them earlier, they were still on the "other side" of the energy transfer. But again, he didn't have time to really think about what he was currently living through. That was for the after report. Again it's voice boomed through his brains.

Thet: noooooooooooo sttoooopppppppp. rreeeeepairrrrrrr...RETURNNNN!

Collins: You don't have to do this! WE KNOW HOW YOU FEEL!

Again he felt Thet's hateful eyes snap toward him.

Thet: hooooooowwwwww? you areeee butttt lowly carrrrbbbbooon foroommmms.

Collins: How? I'll SHOW you how.

Quentin snapped his eyes shut and opened his mind to the party.

((Exterior. Collins House Graveyard. Liminal Space.))

The caves were replaced by a mournful, but familiar sight to Quentin. He actually wasn't sure how powerful this memory would be, wondering if it would be powerful and tangible enough to be able to conjure whole cloth in their momentarily shared mindscape, but here it was all the same. Lit by the same damp darkness of the cave and eerie, sickly yellow of the Iconian's body. 

Rows and rows and rows of his dead ancestors stretched out before them, gated in cold rolled wrought iron and cresting with the marble mausoleum that stood atop the hill that dotted the backlot of the graveyard. The only thing missing was the smell of the sea, but that was always with him no matter where he was. It wasn't part of his lesson to the fallen alien.

Thet: whaaaat issss thissssss?

Collins: It's my family. Generations of them. Lost to either time or calamity. Its where my father is buried. It's where I'LL be buried. You don't have a monopoly on loss. Nor a dominion over life and death. 

Quentin blinked heavily, calling forth another painful, shaming memory from the dark of his mind and the surroundings changed again. 

((Interior. U.S.S. Eagle, Deck 1 Bridge. The Lonesome Death of Irina Pavlova.))

Once again flew the Eagle, but her Bridge now stood without walls, once again taking on the lighting of the cave and the eerie yellow light. The people were in chaos as Irina Pavlova started to realize she was taking her last breaths. Seized by her latent and untreated maladies, her last acts of life were saving her crew and Captain. And Quentin wasn't there to see her die.

Thet: doooon't understaannnnndddd...wwhyyyyyy show meeee thissssss?

Collins: TO prove what I said. You can't decide who lives or dies, no matter how powerful your abilities or sciences are. And to show you that us carbon forms experience the randomness of mortality too. She didn't know she was about to leave us. None of us did, and even if we did, we wouldn't have interfered. SHE wouldn't have wanted us t-to.

Quentin blinked again, suddenly exhausted to the point of collapsing.

((Interior. The Caves of Theta 122. Liminal Space.))

His memories faded and the cave returned and Quentin collapsed to the ground again. He pointed to his friends and struggled to stay...whatever kind of awake this was. Or was he dreaming now? He felt light. Almost bubbly.

Collins: A-ask them too. They will t-t-ell you. You...aren't alone, Thet. B-but you have to make a choice.

He blinked again. Suddenly feeling heavy and withdrawn.

((Interior. The Caves of Theta 122. Corporeal Space.))

Things suddenly felt...solid again, but the exhaustion of his body felt ten times heavier now. He felt himself lurch backward and hit the dusty ground, as if trying to burrow down into a bed after a long day at summer camp.

Collins: s'gotttta make'a choiseeee...

R'Ariel/Wilde/Kal: RESPONSE

--

TAG/TBC

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER 

QUENTIN COLLINS III

FIRST OFFICER

U.S.S. ARROW NCC-69829

ID: E239512QC0

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