Star Trek: Deep Space Nine®: The Soul Key by Olivia Woods

Author:Olivia Woods
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2009-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

9

TWO DAYS AGO

Taran’atar dreamed.

He floated naked and weaponless beneath the surface of a golden ocean and knew that he was adrift in the divine substance of the Founders. It surrounded him and moved through him, buoyed him and pushed him outward until his eyes broke the surface of the Great Link and saw the black sky into which he’d been born to obey, and fight, and die.

But the Founders had not released him. Coated in their slick residue, they clung to him with viscous tendrils that stretched up from the surface of the Link. They entangled his body and his brain, infiltrating every muscle and every thought, restricting his movements, impeding his ascent.

Taran’atar looked out across the endless sea of his creators and remembered how the Founders he had known had denied their divinity, how they had led him to question what it meant to be a Jem’Hadar without gods. As the memories stirred, he felt the Link’s hold on him ebbing, and he knew that he was close to understanding something important.

As quickly as the tendrils began to recede, they suddenly ceased their withdrawal, holding fast to his body; they darkened and transformed, as did the entire ocean below. No longer golden and fluid, the tendrils became dry ropes of streaming copper, fine strands that constricted his arms and legs, choked his windpipe, dragged him down into the flowing chaotic mass that had somehow usurped the Great Link, tainted it, smothered the answers he seemed so close to grasping. Their hold on him was indissoluble; he was paralyzed, an impotent shell of flesh and bone, powerless to act—powerless even to conceive of acting.

My mind to your mind…

It was only a whisper, but he heard it as if it came from very far away.

…Your thoughts to my thoughts…

Closer now. A presence that seemed to be approaching from everywhere and nowhere, even as more strands of copper lashed out from the hideous mass below and pulled him down.

Fight what you see. Fight what you feel. Follow my voice. Listen to me….

The voice was feminine, familiar. Who are you?

I am L’Haan, came the answer, as if she were there beside him. I believe that I can help you. But I need you to help me in return.

You can help me how?

Close your eyes.

He strove to remember how to do that, but the knowledge eluded him. I cannot, he told her somehow, speaking without speaking.

You can, L’Haan insisted. You fail because your altered mind will not permit you to follow the commands of anyone but her. But I do not seek to command you, Taran’atar. I merely offer an idea, and I invite you to make the choice to close your eyes.

Not a command. An idea. A choice.

Somehow, Taran’atar closed his eyes.

Well done, said L’Haan. When you’re ready to open them again, things will seem different.

Taran’atar opened his eyes. He was no longer ensnared. The black sky and endless red ocean were gone. He was simply standing in the midst of nothingness.

Facing him was the stoic figure of L’Haan.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.