Fire and Ice

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"Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if I had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice."
-Robert Frost

Summoned to Bergmann's office, Moonstone could not help but wonder if her loyalty was being questioned again. Maybe this time they'll just throw me into a deep, dark pit somewhere. She'd left Dawndagger in her quarters; the old wolf was more and more antagonistic toward Drilaris and she wondered also if the bonds were incompatible somehow. Dismissing that thought for the moment, she pressed a button on the wall and chimes sounded within Bergmann's inner sanctum.

Without preamble, Bergmann said, "We've received a distress call from a Vulcan science vessel. There was an accident in Engineering and the coolant tanks have ruptured. On top of that, the radiation left over makes it impossible to beam the coolant out. They've evacuated to Ghidorah. The two of you have been assigned to clean up."

"Sir, I must advise you that the coolant would severely damage my implants if--"

Bergmann cut Cast-No-Shadow off with a glare. "These orders didn't come from me. Be grateful that we're equipping you with LPEGs. Now get it done or you'll have a new collection of implants to whine about!"

"You're lucky Bergmann didn't implant one of these LPEGs in your ass," Moonstone growled as the pair moved through the deserted ship.

"I was simply pointing out the irrationality of assigning me to this mission. In fact, neither of us ought to be here. You are a highly trained programmer; there is no point to sending you when any new recruit could have been risked instead."

"Don't you get it yet? You got me on the Captain's shit list. And I'm going to stay there until I prove I'm not working with the Athmari or until it gets me killed."

Cast-No-Shadow turned, drawing his bareitha as he did so. Energy weapons would ignite the coolant gas once they were inside Engineering, and had thus been prohibited. He was deeply grateful that he had convinced the Captain to allow him to bring the weapon.

"Please, sir! I am Lieutenant Soleta." The Vulcan raised her hands in surrender.

"Our Captain told us this vessel was clear," Moonstone said, narrowing her eyes.

"It would be illogical to remove all of the personnel with intimate knowledge of this vessel." Soleta turned slowly, showing that she carried no weapons. "If it would reassure you, I suggest that you contact my Captain."

Cast-No-Shadow shook his head and slowly placed the bareitha in its sheath, which was angled across his back. He doubted that the Vulcan would argue with twenty inches of starmetal.

Growling under her breath, Moonstone grabbed the sleeve of her partner's LPEG and stalked off in pursuit of their unexpected ally.

All three were shivering by the time they reached the sealed Engineering compartment.

"I was under the impression, Yeoman, that the entire point of the mission was to cause you discomfort."

"And to make us hurry, no doubt," Moonstone added. "If we don't get this gas contained fast, you and I are going to be elfsicles." She frowned. "I wonder why the chemical engineers haven't come up with something less harmful yet."

Soleta opened the emergency airlock. "I do not know, Lieutenant, but for once I see the reasoning behind this precaution. I always thought that these airlocks were only useful in situations in which things would be going badly enough that there was no point in using them."

The Vulcan closed the outer door of the airlock, then tapped in a security code. The inner doors swung open and she stepped through.

Already tired of telling him not to call her that, Moonstone simply asked, "What?"

"Well...if the Borg took over a ship, one could rupture the tanks and destroy them."

Soleta heard them laugh, but paid no attention. Silence followed. After waiting more than long enough, she turned, intending to ask again if they were going to help her or just stand there.

They were staring into each other's eyes as if the rest of the universe was a useless airlock leading to a cold room where absolutely nothing waited for them.

Unable to hear their lock-sending, Soleta watched in puzzlement as they unexpectedly embraced one another.

Soleta, felt as if she had fallen asleep in the middle of an Academy lecture and woken just as the professor was pointing out something that was absolutely obvious to the rest of the class. "Why?"

Moonstone gripped the arms of Cast-No-Shadow's suit harder. "They lied. I'm not."

Trying to recall everything she knew about Recognition, Soleta asked one more question: "Can you not put this off until we are done? I remember reading about a case in which Recognition was delayed for days..."

Moonstone sat on Shadow's bed, trying to feel even the slightest sensation at all from the new life that had just come into existence. Would it be elf...Athmari...both? Could it bond with an animal?

Cast-No-Shadow had not learned her soul name. That was the distressing part. She wondered if she should start chugging mist as Cereda and Shanin did through all of their pregnancies. From what her Llirn had said, it was bitter and difficult to swallow, sure to make her feel terrible even if it didn't kill her. She found that almost reassuring; if he felt that way about it, he surely couldn't be too Athmari.

He was sleeping soundly beside her, with Drilaris and Angaril in two barely separate lumps between them. There had been some sort of fireworks between the two energy creatures and it seemed to have drained him as well.

Moonstone pulled on a large terrycloth robe hanging in the closet and trudged down to Sickbay, where Sornal scanned and queried and palpated...and showed a maddening lack of emotion.

"It is a healthy girl," was the sum total of the useful information he imparted. "However, it is impossible for me to tell whether she will or will not have a soul name. You would be better off speaking to an elvan healer."

"Thanks," Moonstone muttered. She slid off of the table and began to trudge back to her quarters. Forget the uniform. I'll get it back later.

Barefoot and dishevelled, she attracted quite a few stares. She barely noticed until a rather tall woman in the yellow uniform of a Security officer stopped her.

Staring up into green eyes and a narrow, foxlike face, Moonstone suddenly felt as if she knew the woman. Blearily obeying, she followed the Security officer down the corridor.

Tora n'Sira Betandi shoved Lieutenant Moonstone into her quarters and locked the door.

Captain Blackfire was in desperate need of recreation. Scrolling through the list of holoprograms, she found one that was tagged as hers, but which she didn't remember. Curious, she chose that one and a corridor appeared before her.

The corridor twisted and turned, forcing abrupt changes of direction...then ended just as abruptly, opening up into an arena. The place was filled entirely, and Blackfire noticed that all of the occupants had the same curved ears as Alinn n'Sira did. Many were as tall and narrow-faced as the Betandi, as well. Athmari.

"Computer, end program," Blackfire snapped, confronted by uncomfortable memories of Darkhawk's games.

The computer beeped and added, "Voice control of exit protocol has been disabled. You must end the program before voice control can be enabled."

Moonstone forced herself to wake up as she suddenly realized why Tora seemed familiar. The set of the face was different, and the ears were certainly not right, but she looked almost like a n'S'aryn. The elf wasn't sure whether she should attack or go along with it.

"You know, I've been trying to find you." Not good. Any messenger from Shanin or Kado would know exactly where to find her.

Moonstone continued to watch the Athmari while still putting the pieces together. She'd seen a face like that before...

The room was absolutely stuffed with plant life, and every single pot held something that would bear fruit or vegetables. Another Athmari quirk? Did they refuse to eat anything replicated? Tora shoved aside a miniature tree and opened up a compartment in the floor beneath. There was a small box inside, which she placed in her lap. She continued: "Not even an Athmari could have done what you did, except perhaps Shanin or her father, and for that I have to respect you. But, I'm afraid..."

She opened the box and held up its contents in one fluid motion. "Respect just means you get a quicker death." The pulser was set to minimal radius. It was a real sacrifice on Tora's part; she didn't want to let the elf get away so easily after the attack she'd suffered. Of course, she also didn't want to clean up the mess that a slow death would create. The elf couldn't break her lock fast enough, and she'd taken the precaution of having a skinshield implanted so that no metalshaper could detect or damage her other implants.

Having been taken down a peg by an upstart alien, Tora was now nothing if not thorough.

The match was not going well for Blackfire. Forced to learn Athmari weapons in a matter of minutes, she was still not entirely accustomed to the way that the longsword worked together with the shorter one - really, an oversized dagger - and she could not use her magic against the hologram.

Spinning around after one particularly exhausting exchange, Blackfire got in a lucky jab. Her longsword grazed Kymil's side - but she had left herself open.

Kymil frowned. "You're going to have to do better than that. Hold the shortsword a little higher and don't swing quite so hard." Then he turned toward a large booth at what must have been one of the best viewing angles in the arena. "Disengage the mortality failsafes!"

A figure within the booth pressed a button - there must be a control panel there.

The hologram quickly returned his gaze to his opponent. "You'd better give me a good fight this time, or I really will kill you."

Moonstone used her metal-shaping to jam the door's locking mechanism open, then darted through the open door before Tora could recover from the confusion. She couldn't take the chance that the n'Sira would attack her openly; she had no idea how important it was to her. Blackfire would not be lenient even if she did discover who Tora was, but more than one Athmari had disappeared from Ghidorah despite every security measure that had been taken.

She turned a corner, opened up an access hatch, and slid into the Jeffries tubes. Her size would give her an advantage there, and she doubted that Tora had memorized the twists and intersections of the kilometers of tubing. Crawling and climbing from deck to deck, she quickly reached Cast-No-Shadow's quarters.

Her mate was still asleep, but Drilaris and Angaril seemed more alert. She sent them mind-images of what had happened.

/Kill Melain!/ Angaril was still unaccustomed to communicating with the elf; its thoughts could only come through at the most simplistic level.

/No, no! If we kill them, the Captain will kill me. We have no way to prove who she is, at least now. Stay here and guard Llirn./

She raced outside, pausing only to lock the door again, and slid back into the tubes. As she placed her hands on the rungs of the ladder and prepared to start climbing again, a strong arm wrapped around her neck.

Tora struggled to keep her grip upon the elf, bring her pulser to bear, and still not fall down the shaft. /They say if you heat a moonstone up enough, it'll melt. Let's find out./ Moonstone had never received such a clear, strong mind-message from an Athmari before.

She jabbed an elbow up into Tora's chest. Tora wobbled, almost sending them both down the shaft.

Feeling the impact of Kymil's last blow with all of her body, Blackfire knew that she had to do something quickly or she would die.

There had to be some catch. That worm wouldn't trap her in a contest of brute strength and not give some devious way out. It was how he himself operated, taking every loophole possible.

Blackfire thought back to the computer's error message. Voice control of exit protocol has been deactivated.

Blackfire smiled as the hologram prepared for another attack. He wanted her to become angry...but she would pass the test if only she could remain cool.

Moonstone's foot flew out to brace them against the opposite wall of the tube. Neither of them was getting anywhere with this! If they continued this way, both of them would tire and eventually fall. Perhaps Tora would see that as a victory, but Moonstone didn't particularly relish the idea.

Tugging at Tora's immovable arm, which was still wrapped somewhat tightly around her throat, Moonstone felt the presence of a Joiner spirit. This one was not either of the pair she'd left behind in Shadow's quarters, and it could not be the weakened Melain.

A hand grasped the front of her bathrobe, threatening to pull it off of her. She gave up her grip on Tora and instead held on to the stranger's wrists.

Moonstone was pulled into a Jeffries tube. Then her rescuer rapped Tora's head sharply against the walls of the vertical tube and set her down in another, adjoining tube.

She was all leg, from ankle to armpit, and her arms were on the same scale. Barely able to pass as a Federation race, Moonstone thought. The rippled color of her artificially treated skin probably masked a tone slightly darker than Shanin's, and the disguised Athmari's hair and eyes were both light brown.

Later, when Moonstone examined the pockets of her borrowed robe, she found a small plastic card left by Kierri. It depicted, in grey, a stylized woman with long hair holding a moon and star.