The Word Painter
Chapter Six--World Weaving
by D'Alaire

 

World Weaving

 

    "There is an understanding among Desalians, most ancient:  Our spirits are ever free for development while within these shells we inhabit.  From our birth, we are designed for growth, and our spirits develop accordingly throughout our childhood until we accept our beings' truth, either in the rite of adulthood or upon the first steps of the novitiate.  After, too, we are still to flourish through our experiences. 

  "Though not all subscribed to this philosophy in full--some believe our spirits to be more perfectly set and fate merely brings us to our final place and understanding--it is understood that spirits may turn within the wind of fate which carries us all, as like the seed carried on the breeze, and may be implanted and adapt to soil unlike its origin.

  "Like an accidental hybrid, one cannot ascertain precisely how the seed is to grow, less still in those foreign climates.  And yet it is a blessing of the spirits and all life's wonders, however it appears, when at last the flower blooms..."
 

---

    "Monr kraja tsa ye'o hza'oprisa; kra ne'o mahyull urr Desal tsa mechriva."

    "Ka tsa'o manr llitsa," they responded in unison.  "Hza tsa'o kraja al."

    It began with a lie.

    For over ten du'ave they had gladly lost themselves in the work they had wished for so long.  Having rallied the Desalians at Azlre, they had begun the rewarding process of planning a rebellion against the Unar, beginning with a fleet that was ancient but workable--and a people much the same.

    It was the stillness before the rain, they knew, and yet they enjoyed it for all it could give them.  As they expanded their dealings and business, however, they were broadsided by a complication they might have predicted.

    The Iaskeb trader had been genuinely grateful for their welcome, open to ideas and excited about the change in the Desalian ideal.  Hurrying after the two in the gorge, he was suggesting several good ideas for getting their ships in and out of Cezia and offering some excellent supplies when they walked into Dviglar's main "base," which had been fashioned within the restructured hull of an old cargo ship, refitted to house what communications they could set up.

    Then, when Tom and B'Elanna pulled their hoods away from their heads, the Iaskeb backed away, eyeing their unmarked and unfreckled skin, which denied them both Desalian and Antral ancestry.  Their fairness excluded Sureshan blood; their fairness and lack of cheek ridges made them far from Koba.  With their relative darkness and breadth of frame, they certainly were not Iaskeb.

    "You are not of Irllae," he deduced with dread, staring particularly B'Elanna as he raised a thin-boned finger their way.

    Thankfully, Miztri had been there; she quickly left her work to welcome and assure the man.  "They were under conditions in youth which did not permit their markings," she explained, her dulcet tones like a lullaby sung to a baby as she touched his small shoulder.  "Until they have borne suitable preparation to take the kraja, they must go bare."

    The trader's pale green eyes narrowed further.  "I have not heard of such need for preparation among your people."

    Miztri shrugged, sighed.  "Not all our own were of sufficient blessing to be always among the community of Desal, to be reared understanding the symbols we bear and the effects of them.  Yet they are of Desal, my friend.  More, we are all of Uillar under Hychar, and these children found a mass of his attentions, as you have noticed.  You may not scorn them for an impressive survival."

    The uncomfortable looks on Tom and B'Elanna's faces were enough to make the Iaskeb apologize.  Behind him, Miztri closed her eyes in thanks to the spirits.

    That excuse was not enough for the Antral traders, who had been driven from Sacezia in a hovercraft Tom had devised.  Upon viewing the couple and though they had accepted the makeshift explanation, they yet chose to deal with Sashana'i and Aratra.

    Finally, Sashana'i questioned their behavior and corrected them.  "They are Desalians of Gahahol, a distant and ancient colony far beyond Gozhor--and had we our peoples' ancient records, this would be known.  You behave as does Unar for your poor treatment of those who are equal among us."

    What the trader did not know was that Gahahol was an obscure and unlivable planet on the far side of Irllae, known only for its scientific outpost--and Sashana'i blessed the memory of her great grandmother for it.

    The small mistruths continued, however, giving Tom and B'Elanna all the more reason to perform their duties away from the more official business, the meetings and arrangements.  They didn't mind that too much.  Neither thought themselves diplomats, after all.  Even so, they knew what the others had to do for them, and they didn't like that.

    Worse, those not Desalian simply never listened to them.
 

    It was an ancient ship--at least in their way of thinking of ships.  Over eighty years old, it had required a complete refit of all its systems.  Its worn surfaces were replaced where necessary.  Its battered warp generator and primary systems had already been taken apart and put back together with as many newer parts as could be found.  Its corridors, once ivory trimmed with red, had been stripped of its dirtied softness for plainer uses still to come.

    It was the way of the Desalian resistance, such as it was.

    In the shadows of the corridor, Tom bent over his panels, growling at news coming through on a makeshift long-range comm.  Despite the questions from J'vishi behind him, he continued to read until it was done.  His short hair was grimy above his tensed brow; he bit the grease-streaked edge of his frown, shaking his head at the nerve of the Antral.

    For every breath he'd taken in his life, it seemed as many times he'd told their agents to tell their "allies" not to blow their cover.

    It was clear they didn't care what he said, but went right ahead and took down a colony power grid anyway.  The Unar saw it as a malfunction, a miracle of either their ignorance or some higher force looking out for them.  But Tom knew what it was:  A plan to be saved until after they got their plans in order and at least a few of their ships off Cezian dirt.

    An echo died and grew with each piece of bulkhead being put in place somewhere else on that deck, rustic laser torches hissed with heat, drawing a hazy smoke in the air.  The smoke eventually stuck to the walls.  Under his softly shoed feet, Tom could feel the rumble of the work.  Normally, that feeling was a comfort.

    Just then, he dreaded to think that all their work would be in vain because the Antral were acting...a lot like he used to.  That unnerved him as much as it should have.  In another thought, he sympathized with his father more than he ever had, even if the admiral's work was largely political and performed in a relatively comfortable arena--always knowing Starfleet and the Federation were at hand or nearby.  Despite that marked difference, Tom had definitely learned his father's frustration of knowing he was talking sense and watching people go ahead do the exact opposite...

    "We may yet wait," came J'vishi's voice over his shoulder and he shook his head.  "Unar suspect nothing.  It shall pass."

    "No," Tom responded in Desalian.  "When Treska takes himself for service at Antral, he shall tell them to pull back and settle themselves before they give us away.  Should the Unar discover the resistance--"

    "Antral shall do as pleases them.  Should we yet allow them the time--"

    "No--now!" he snapped.  "Unless you prefer Unar to take them all and continue on for us the following sun, Treska shall tell them to withhold their foolish cravings for another sun!"  Looking at the woman, he sighed, apologized with a gentler stare.  "Please, J'vishi.  Tell him--for the sake of this resistance--more patience is required.  There is no use in using our plans when they cannot be followed with action."

    She took a breath, bowed slightly.  "This is known, good man--and I shall see that Treska makes it known as well." 

    With a pat on his arm, she moved to B'Elanna, nearby at her own work and watching silently as Tom continued to slump and shake his head at the readings.  "I should believe your mate bears tiredness, good lady."

    B'Elanna nodded.  "Yes, J'vishi.  My thanks."  Wiping at a smudge of soot on her cheek with the back of her hand, she offered a smile in afterthought, which was gratefully returned.  With a small bow, J'vishi hurried herself out to speak with Treska. 

    She followed the younger woman with her eyes.  Their friends did worry for them sometimes and likely for good reason.  For the past year, the two ashna'o, or "master teachers," had been trying to teach--mainly by example--a relatively uneducated people how to build both a fleet and a resistance.

    Certainly, it had been a challenge.

    They'd had similar hard schedules in the past--just not as encompassing.  It was hard not to show their strain some days, particularly after the news about how the Desalian policy of wait and undermine had greeted the ears of the more anxious races of Irllae.

    We need the leaders meeting--badly, she thought, hearing Tom's snarl roll from his throat once more as he scrolled down another report. 

    Before she could formulate a comment on that, however, she saw Latsari hurry in from where J'vishi had left, throwing her thick, tawny braid over a shoulder as she hopped easily over a conduit casing.  B'Elanna immediately straightened from her crouch on the floor.

    "Don't tell me the comm manifold crashed again," she sighed, ready to go to it as she reached for her tools.

    Latsari grinned at her friend.  "How busy you have been, good Be'i," she said, offering a small bag of wet cloths.  "We have finished with those components this early sun and have already begun to reinstall the data matrices.  I have brought myself to tell you the primary systems should be functional by third sun, as Toma has hoped.  He may begin recalibrating the navigational core at that time."

    B'Elanna smiled--amused at herself more than annoyed--and took a cloth to wipe her face.  "I would think our pupils are too diligent, my friend," she commented, switching back to her learned tongue.  "You outlearn your instructors with too much ease."

    "I should doubt that, good Be'i," Latsari smiled.  "Our work is but what you teach, though it is learned well.  Yet as you are our only trade instructors at that, there is little opportunity for dissent."

    "I would wish there were another option," B'Elanna said, airing the rag to cool it again, and then washing her neck.  "Not for only the work required at present, I would wish you had more to learn."

    Latsari shrugged at that, taking her lady's soiled cloth and replacing it.  "As you have said, options in this are not available, and I should believe we bear far more gain in this at present.  Our toil at Uillar could never speak so to our minds and spirits."

    B'Elanna closed her eyes against the feel of the cool moisture on her face.  A few droplets rolled down her chin and neck, and she was suddenly unable to push away the memory of that searing sun, those brutal days when she and Tom worked with Latsari and Bolmra on the landing deck of the work row, nor the tearing in her lungs each time she coughed on that dust...  Hychar passing along the barricade, watching them...

    She sighed, blinked it away.  Much as it made her cringe inside, she was accustomed to those images invading her quieter moments.  Their friends from Uillar never minded talking about that time, and with so many of their volunteers being survivors of that camp, the reminders had become frequent.  But it was far more gain than inconvenience, since the Uillaran refugees had been the most easily trained and had some mechanical skill.  They were also accustomed to working long hours on single tasks.  More, many were good friends, with whom they had survived a great deal and could relate to better than anyone else in Azlre.

    B'Elanna's natural impulses still tried to push those memories away, though.

    "My thanks for the refreshment, Latsari," she said, placing the second cloth in the bowl.

    "It pleases to see you improved by it, good ashna'o'i.  It shall take the pain from your sight."

    B'Elanna grinned.  "I should think it would be slightly late for that.  I am well enough."

    Latsari peered over to Tom.  "Shall I take them to your mate?"

    B'Elanna shook her head.  "My thanks, yet I shall," she replied and took another couple cloths.

    Latsari touched her friend's bare temple--"Be at peace, good lady"--and moved away as quietly as she had come.  Pocketing the cloths for the present, B'Elanna turned to finish the remaining installations there.  She did want that to be done no matter what.  For that matter, Tom remained unmoved on the other side of the corridor. 

    Sometimes she wondered if it was such a good thing that she and Tom resisted leaving anything unfinished.  At times, their intensity worried their friends and elders, despite Tom's careful explanation that they had worked in much the same way in their former professions, despite any aches and pains or tiredness.  The Desalians often observed that the two pushed themselves more than they should, that they should delegate more outside of lessons.  The ashna'o consistently had difficulty doing that, though this was a surprise to no one.

    Still, B'Elanna had learned when to stop.  Her aching skull was an efficient alert to worse upcoming.  Just then, it was just a dull pain around her right eye and in her temples with light flashes of sharper pain just below her brow, so she moved to finish her work on the grid with a few more touches of the japr'tolle--so the Desalians called it.  She still called it a hyperspanner more often than not.

    Once done, she moved behind Tom, who was still reading the reports, though more quietly then.  She touched his hand and he gave her fingers a gentle squeeze, but didn't look up until he had finished the rest.  She didn't bother looking.  Though Bakali had been able to improve her sight with drops made from Brijan medicines and muscle therapy, B'Elanna knew her eyes were shot for the day--especially in translation.  Instead, she pulled one of the cloths from her pocket and ran it slowly over his neck, smiling at his pleasant reaction.  Tom loved it when she did simple things like that, and he easily relaxed under her attention.

    "It can't all be bad, can it?" she asked when he finally clicked off the monitor and took her washing hand to kiss it.

    "No," he said.  "The Antral at Mihor Colony are being a pain in the ass."

    "As usual," she shrugged.  "Once we get this meeting going, finally meet their main representatives instead of sending our agents through them, we should be able to organize ourselves better."

    "If we can manage to make them trust us, you mean."  He took the cloth she handed him.  "Thanks."

    The corner of her mouth turned wryly inward.  "Gidjo again?"  He nodded as he washed his face.  "I'll ask Sashana'i to talk to him tomorrow morning--or maybe Aratra.  He knows Gidjo better."

    He ran the cloth under his jaw and under his collar.  "That's the problem, B'Elanna:  We need to be talking to him.  Sashana'i and Aratra might be the regents, but neither of them are experts in the nuances of the stellar equations he's playing with in the fields. I am."

    "Then let him get himself blown up so we can spend our time elsewhere," she replied.

    "If he had any worse a ship, I would have already."

    She snickered.  "It would be a shame to lose a good ship."

    Finished with the cloth, he let her take it then pulled her into his arm.  "So, how would you like a candlelight dinner, maybe some morrev wine and a warm plate?  Get out of here before sunset for a change this week?"

    "Mmm, I might like that," she said.  "Do you feel well, or should we take the hover back?"

    "I'm okay.  The walk will do us both a little good, I think.  We were here since sunrise."

    She agreed with a squeeze around his ribs, which set them off, forward to the bridge.  Passing and greeting Miztri, who was generally in charge of keeping the primary repairs organized, B'Elanna pulled her hood, not forgetting to grab a few spare ferranide batteries for barter then hopped out of the front hatch after Tom.

    "Toma, Be'i, zharosp'llor!"

    "Rosp llehaj," they responded, giving Bolmra a wave and a bow as they passed, repeating it several times with other friends before ducking behind the ship they'd been concentrating on for a full moon. 

    Before leaving as an agent, Cali had helped them literally uncover it and had renamed it the Korchau--the "ocean stone."  Ironic, that:  Cali had not seen the ocean yet.  It was one of many ships they would be taking into another field altogether.  But that space bound resistance would come later--when over thirty other crafts awaiting more repairs and upgrades to their allies' ships were done.  Because of that, the resistance could only be active in its subterfuge just then.  Soon...

    Skirting under the low landing struts and around one of many presently inactive nacelles, they cut through a slice in the rocks.  Then, walking easily into the field beyond the fair rock face, Tom and B'Elanna settled into a steady but relaxed pace back to the whitewashed city, looming just over a few rises of silver grass and below the crisp blue sky.

    For that striking view and the quietness of that nature, they never came to complain about the distance or rely on the hovercrafts, even when they had to stop for joth herds and others passing by on the road that had been worn into the dirt for all its travelers. Rather, they enjoyed the peace between the work at Dviglar and the bustle in the city.

    "Good children!" Bakali chimed, turning even as she treated a coughing, squirming child in the clinic's front room.  "We are blessed to see you before evening meal.  How fares your work?"

    "Well," Tom said, crossing to give the elder woman a touch on the temple--and the sick child a playful tweak on the chin, making her giggle--before leaving with his bag of market goods for the washing room.  "There shall be kibrashuk this moon," he called behind him.

    "Very well!" Bakali called back.  "Bala brings your favorite, Be'i."

    "Nido'ev?"  B'Elanna smiled, already able to taste it.  For the season, the greenish sweet potatoes were relatively less available.  But it was Bala's allotment that week, so he would have three or four.  "We would need to procure some chisak and kibull for the serving, then.  Bala's cake was too delicious to make rare."

    Bakali laughed.  "Ka, we shall do that, Child.  Shall you assist me now, however?  Our dear girl Gesdani has contracted her fever again.  Could you bring the prajirrek tubes?"

    B'Elanna eyed the little girl, grinning knowingly before she retrieved the items from the cabinet.  Born sickly in a labor camp before she and her parents were deposited in Azlre by an Antral labor ship, Gesdani would keep Bakali for hours if she wouldn't hold still.  Bakali obviously already had just gotten her there, probably having carried her from the market where her parents worked, and hadn't even completed a decent scan.

    "I should think you were wishing rather to live here, Gesdani, for your constancy to this place," B'Elanna said as she gathered the equipment.  "You would avoid your schooling and sewing for your love of the clinic."

    "Not so!" the girl laughed--then coughed.  Slightly rougher, she whispered,  "Though I should enjoy nido'ev fraka."

    B'Elanna's full mouth turned up.  "I may not wish to give away any portion, it is so good.  Yet I shall sell a piece to you."

    The girl furrowed her thin brow.  "Sell?"

    B'Elanna nodded.  "Yes.  Should you be as still as the stones atop Mecrisop, even for the birds which land upon them like Bakali's tools upon you, then I shall ask Rahna bring you and your own a fair portion upon tomorrow's evening meal when he takes your bread."

    The child nodded eagerly then made herself indeed like those stones, much to Bakali's approval.  The healer returned to her work, talking quietly as she did, so Gesdani knew exactly what she was doing. 

    B'Elanna heard Tom's chuckle behind her as she straightened from the treating table.  Turning, she saw him leaning against the door to the washroom, his sleeves already wet and stuck to his strong forearms and smiling appraisingly at her.  With his upward nod, she joined him to help clean the food.

    "I didn't know you had such a knack for bribing children," he said, switching back to their native tongue.  "I'll have to remember that when we talk to the Antral."

    B'Elanna snorted.  "I don't think potato pancakes will shut them up."

    He stepped ahead to open the washing room door for her, muttering, "It might if we shoved them up--"

    "Please, Tom, I would rather enjoy dinner."

    His smile widened.  "Did I say something?" he asked innocently and hugged her in his arm when she rolled her eyes.

    The routine was easy when they were home early and did not eat in public, with Tom continuing the preparations alongside Bala, while B'Elanna and Bakali set their places on the floor.  Since the steadier power supply had come with their selling repairs--thus keeping the city's replicators, energy grids and waste reclamation units working more steadily--even that routine was eased somewhat.  With solar-powered irrigation pumps, there were more foods able to be grown locally.  Their diet was just as it was and willingly so; they were accustomed to the small servings and, better, they now ate with the knowledge that everyone did.

    On occasion, however, they did indulge in a small glass of wine, a guilty pleasure finally available with better access to the fruits growing on the north ranges.  Adding to the luxury of such evenings, they turned down the lighting units and relaxed in the firelight to speak of their day.  Some nights, usually second and sixth night, Bala and Bakali would choose to meditate with each other.  Sometimes, Tom and B'Elanna watched or left; other times, they joined them.  There was no habit in that, only mood. 

    That night, all four had decided on the quiet talk.  Tom, B'Elanna and Bakali were particularly willing for their well-earned evening.  Accordingly, Bala served them wine, his ever-patient ear and his understanding for the children.  The problems at Dviglar--of which the elders were not ignorant--had been troubling enough to bring the topic again to the young couple's tongues.

    Bala and Bakali's response was a temperate one.

    "Irllae is sheltered not only in space, but in its peoples," Bala told them.  "In the times of our ancestors, our knowledge of each other was all but assured.  Even in these relatively primitive times, we bear full awareness of our neighbors."

    Bakali sighed.  "Not for centuries, Children, had we known of any from outside the Barrier.  So rare this is, only the fact among our elder word paintings confirm that peoples truly exist in that place--your birthplace."

    "This is to our shame," Bala said,  "yet this truth has bred a latent distrust.  --Not hatred, for most within Irllae did once practice much openness.  The Koba are a rare difference.  Yet since Unar swept away our freedom, I should believe that distrust of that which is not known would flourish."

    "So what would you suggest?"  Tom asked.  "I wouldn't mind it at all in any other situation, but we need to work with these people."

    Bakali sighed, leaning forward to refill B'Elanna's cup.  "My children, I should think you would do well to delegate your responsibility should you choose not to claim Desal completely."

    "Delegate?"  B'Elanna asked.  "Bakali, we still have to teach them in order to pass duties on to them."

    "And we can't hide from them all the time," Tom added.

    "As Bakali has stated," Bala said,  "you must delegate or take upon yourselves Desalian citizenship sooner than you have planned.  You may be able to sway Cezia for your being known here, and for the policy of Sashana'i and Aratra, their regents--who are what our people follow, in truth.  The other races of Irllae, however, are far more disparate, bear no organized leadership and would rather seek to take what you know as trade rather than work with ones whom they feel are unclaimed.  It is a sorrowful truth, yet truth."

    B'Elanna stared at him then Bakali, and then to Tom, who knew just what she was thinking.

    Fortunately, Tom spoke first:  "We'll see how the next few meetings go."

    The elders simply nodded and did not speak on it again.  It was an equitable change of topic--they all knew each other well enough to leave their thoughts for rest.  Instead, B'Elanna mentioned Uslani's quest for cloth pieces for a scrap blanket twisting the next Tsi'omad, which she and Aratra would drop by on for a while if they had time.  Bala brought up the need for a card of ferranide.  He wished to replicate some more readers for the children.  Tom promised to bring it.

    "The nido'ev was most pleasing, Bala," B'Elanna told the elder some time later, after Tom had pulled her up to her feet and they all began gravitating towards their respective sleeping rooms.

    Bala smiled and touched her temple.  "It pleases you were able to share it with us this moon.  My selfishness would wish you here always, dear Child, having been indulged by constancy once."

    B'Elanna returned his gesture by giving him a kiss on the cheek.  "The indulgence was not exclusive," she admitted then gave Bakali a smile and nod of goodnight.

    Bowing his good night to the elders, Tom took B'Elanna's hand to escort her upstairs.  A simple routine they'd followed for over two and a half years, he had not tired of it.  Certainly as well, he was not tired of closing the ground door and turning to see B'Elanna already undressing, pulling at her gown ties, resting her hand on a shelf to unwrap her small, soft boots, her shoulder-length curls falling in her face.

    When she'd pulled away her gown, he moved behind her, kissed her neck softly.  "May I?"  he whispered as he moved his hands around to the front of her bodice.

    "Please," B'Elanna smiled.  She loved it when he offered.  Whether or not anything came of it, she thought it incredibly sexy, the way he turned each clasp apart, smoothed the stiff fabric away, brushed his smoothly callused fingers over her skin, bringing it alive again.

    Turning her head back, she moved her lips against his as he pulled the garment away from her, tossed it onto the trunk.  Turning her around, he kissed her again, and they pressed themselves to each other with all the comfort of well-learned lovers.  In that kiss, however, she knew already that they were tired, as neither did much to spur on the other.  It was a pleasant arousal in any case.

    Not that he argued about it either way.

    Minutes later, they spooned up against each other beneath their old, knotted blanket.  The mattress needed to be aired, they knew, though they were used to the smell of the old fabric and slight mildew.  At the foot of the bed, the warm mantel stones creaked without rhythm, and she rubbed her small, bare feet on his shins.  He snuggled even closer to her, tasted her shoulder idly.  She purred her goodnight, nestling back against him.  Without much trouble, they drifted off to sleep with her holding his hand against her chest and his gentle breath upon her nape.

    It was good, when they could have quiet evenings like that.

    They knew they wouldn't have that always, however.  Every morning they woke, took breakfast with their elders and met with the others en route to Dviglar, blending in with all the other robes and cloaks on the two-kilometer walk to the shipyard, they were reminded of their work and planned on future.  All their routines would change soon, when the ruse presently at work in hundreds of Unar households, was finally brought to fruit. 

    But not just yet.  There was still work to be done there, they also knew, painfully well.
 

---

    "How nestled into the household she is makes no difference.  Her release shall be arranged, Tridl.  There is great need for her here.  No Cali, no deal.  This is the bargain now, and it shall not be altered."

    The Antral trader held his breath, prepared for the worst.  Though the very idea of a Desalian resistance had thrilled the blood of all within Irllae, their small group of leaders--the Allanois family, such as it was with those two highly unusual members of it--was not the easiest to deal with.  Like many others, he had expected to have more power over the Desalians. 

    Be'i and Toma of Azlre in particular would have nothing of it--and even their regents were more progressive and firm-footed than they could have imagined.  In truth, though, they did have the right to lay down conditions, having more knowledge than any that Tridl knew--which in itself made him question them.

    "Be'i of Azlre, will you not consider what more she may extract--"

    "Do not make me angry with you," she warned.  "Cali returns by the Rritskara Tsaborr, or you shall repair this pile of Unar dung yourself--as shall the remainder of your sniveling, greedy people."

    Her mate glanced up from his own work.  "To put it with plainness, Tridl, remain at Azlre for the duration of your small, simple life or assist Sashana'i in arranging Cali's relocation.  We bear painful awareness of the act of patience.  Are you?"

    "You would not give up your desires so easily," Tridl said.

    "To make an example of you, we would," Tom said with a humorless grin.  "You have not yet seen a true extent of obduracy--yet."

    Tridl knew better than to tempt them.  For that matter, there were hundreds of other Cezians prepared to poison the Unar well--a stop to that would be a stop to it all.  Cali of Azlre was but another agent--though she had been a good one, his sources were saying.  All the Desalians were, in fact.  Their latent and excellent mnemonic skills had been an asset their underground sorely lacked.

    Perhaps he should not have told them of Cali's successes in ingratiating herself into the commander's personal service.  The news had sent Sashana'i of Cezia hurrying out the door without excuse and had only managed to make Be'i and Toma even more determined towards him.  Tridl wondered why it disturbed them so, though, despite their connection to the woman.  Copulation with drichka servers had always been common.

    Bowing his head, he sighed.  "I will have her extricated."

    "And carefully," B'Elanna told him.

    "Yes, Be'i," he said, reigning in his patience.  "Carefully.  We do not want to lose her, indeed."

    As soon as Tridl was gone, Tom heard the echo of her growl across the deck.  Were there a wall before her, she may well have hit it.  "Tridl is an idiot, B'Elanna.  We'll send Sashana'i after him tomorrow.  --And Cali will be just fine."

    "I know that, but I don't like her there," she muttered.  "I just don't, Tom."

    "It never went over well with me, either," he reminded her.  "But that was the plan--infiltrate, get and give information, get out--and a lot of other people's friends with children are doing that right now.  And not all of them are going be all right.  Everyone had to accept that if they were going to work for this resistance."

    She sighed hard, dropping her hands to shake her head.  "I know.  I was Maquis, remember?  I guess I just wish I could do more.  I don't like sending them without going myself, without knowing I can do something or work with them.  It's too...executive."

    "You are doing something--here.  And you--we--are doing a lot."  Tom dropped his tools for the mean time to go to her, run his hands over her softly sleeved arms.  Looking down to her, he offered her a supportive smile.  "Cali will be fine, and o'e tsahull, we will get through these repairs.  After the meeting in the coming season, we'll start to see some action here and not just preparation."

    "Though we still require our underground," she admitted.  "I am also anxious for this meeting--if it can actually be arranged in the end." 

    "It shouldn't be so much their coming to Cezia if the Unar stick to their present concentration in Onast and Marsyho.  As long as Tridl has to ship equipment out that way, it shouldn't be any more risky.  The hard part will be making the plan--and making them be as patient as we have been."

    She nodded her agreement to that then shrugged.  "Well, after a year of this, I think we're ready to start something more...progressive."

    His hands slid down to her hips as he gave her a decidedly more playful look.  "Oh?  Well, I might be able to arrange that."

    Willingly broken of her concerns for the moment, she reached around and gave his buttocks a firm smack.  "Or I might."

    "Oh, so you want to play?" he grinned, just as easily distracted.  They had been working on Tridl's transport ship for two days as it was, much less dealing with his report on the "drasks" adding to the Antral's doings on Mihor the week before.  It was definitely time for a break.

    So, he jerked her gown upwards and swiftly leaned down to grope the back of her knee--the only ticklish spot on her body, he'd learned with much time and practice.

    He grabbed the right spot on the first try:  She squeaked and nearly jumped right out of the circle of his arms.

    "You just ask for trouble!" she protested, smiling ferociously at his boyish delight and stepping forward even as he moved back--then poised to make his escape.  She feinted, and he slipped around and past her to the hatch of the small ship, chuckling mischievously.  "Come back here, you worm!"

    "You would of course require finer effort than that!" he called back in Desalian.

    B'Elanna wasn't about to disappoint him, if only for the gauntlet he'd thrown at her.  Running out of the ship, jumping down to the rocky ground, she darted out into the long grass after him, chasing every circle he maneuvered. 

    "Your guts will give out before I do!" she called.

    "Only if you can see me!" he returned and cut another corner to escape her.

    Over the soft, silver knolls, she sped after him, laughing even as she felt more determined than ever to catch her jaunty lover and teach him a good lesson about teasing her.  They disappeared in the grasses over the rise, leaving only the echoes of their banter behind them.  The seasonal breeze masked the path they drove.

    As the wind ebbed at the main entrance of the Dviglar base in-progress, a long four-seated hovercraft bearing drivers and two passengers stopped.  From it jumped Aratra, and then Dalra, who strode around to assist Zepra in escorting Lledri from the craft.  As he dutifully unfolded a row of steps from the side of the craft, Aratra gave Sashana'i, who waited with Miztri and Bala at the edge of the gorge, a wink and a flick of his brows.

    If Lledri noticed the young man's playful gesture, she gave no indication.  The grey-braided prichava had rather been preparing to give her usual formal greeting to the Allanois regent, holding herself properly as her softly booted foot finally touched the pliant earth, her hand barely touching Zepra's arm.  She took her breath to speak in the warm Azlreian air, pulling a placid smile and bowing to tell her fair regent--

    "You filthy bastard!"

    Lledri spun at the curse.  "By the ancestors," she breathed.

    Sashana'i skipped up to embrace the prichava from behind.  "My humble greetings this lovely sun, good lady Lledri," she quipped.  "As fairly can be seen, my noble house bears its usual order."

    From the knolls, Tom and B'Elanna appeared, still hot with the dart and chase and barely slowing.  Her head not covered by scarf or cloak, her dark locks bounced nearly upright with every canter.  His robe was but a kite in the breeze as he jumped down another roll and intoned,  "Jhi sarull mes'va'i mrullo!"

    "Tull mara'achk dosk ye'a--hotshot!" she rebounded and grabbed the skirt of her gown to gain some ground.  She was very fast, but not in navigating those turns he pulled.

    Lledri tried unsuccessfully to push down her smile at their antics--like two playful mountain joth, albeit rather frank ones.  She glanced back to the girl still hugging her, wondering precisely where the two adopted Allanois had learned such colorful phrases.  Yet she had to smile at their play, in spite of their disturbing the traditional greeting, due to all regents.  She would have no spirit at all to have resisted the amusement completely.

    As they unwittingly urged on their audience's laugher, Tom careened around another high mound in the field, almost disappearing in the wheat.  B'Elanna was right behind him when he suddenly turned and caught her around the waist.

    "Got you!" she announced as she threw her legs around him, successfully sending them both careening down into the grass with a loud cry, and then rolling down the back of the hill where they could not be seen.

    The next thing that echoed up from those hills was an exceedingly pleased cry.

    Lledri peered back at Sashana'i again.  "They are not with child yet?"

    Sashana'i shook her head.  "They bear no desire for children."

    Lledri's brow rose.  "Perhaps this might change."

    "Perhaps--yet perhaps not.  Great love rests between them, yet their independence is most valued and the children already born to Azlre pain their hearts.  Their present arrangement is content, good lady, and they bear no requirement otherwise, I would believe."

    "This is truth.  Immediate procreation is a tradition of the Antral."  Dropping the matter at that, Lledri moved toward the others who had come to greet her in proper fashion.

    When she finally turned to it, the sight of Dviglar brought the prichava to a pause.  What was upon her first visit nearly a year ago but a yard of disgraced scrap was a busy, organized industry.  Though many of the ships still lay around that open grave, they had either been stripped or cleaned and set upright upon their landing struts.  Others more fortunate to be originally situated outside the well of rocks sat in the rocky plain beyond the gorge.

    Some of the smaller ships had been grounded permanently, nestled into the ground and covered with living weed vine.  Down the rows, which paths conformed only to either the natural rock walls or shape of the ship it moved around, she could see not a spare part nor scrap left astray.  Everything had been given a home, it seemed.  Many worked in the niches created by those ships, on parts and equipment Lledri knew nothing about but suspected were important, and a steady buzz of chatter rose from it all.

    More people than she anticipated busily moved within the gorge, too, purposeful, though still as dust-stained as they had been when Lledri first visited that part of the continent.  They would always want for regular rain in Azlre, if but to bathe, it seemed.  They continued to ration their replicated water and use their dew collectors for irrigation only.  Still, they did seem healthy and happy in their duties.

    As she passed, they all greeted her humbly and with great affection, as was the way.  She returned each sentiment genuinely.

    Seeing the base, she was more anxious to see Azlre itself.  The city was likely unchanged but for the people's improvement, though this would be a happy sight.  Even the detractors, those who did not wish that Desalians to engage the Unar, enjoyed greater public services, and their resistance of the increased health and vitality it brought their good people had ceased.

    Lledri smiled to think Dulla's designs and Watsha's prayers truly might have been intended.  She had coaxed a great many citizens after Trisjorr's horrific fate and required some reassurance herself, and yet her people's rebounding hope and strength upon their regents' call to freedom was difficult to ignore.  Desal may well have been meant for restoration, along with the regency, in her lifetime.  In her most secret prayers, she had begged that dream.

    Yet dream no more, she believed, smiling over to Sashana'i, who walked without affect and on her bondmate's proud arm.  Healthy and strong, they would see great things before them. Desal's fortune was turned.

    "Aliche'o!"

    Sashana'i turned and snickered as Tom jogged easily up with B'Elanna by him.  "I would have thought you more occupied in the field just now," she teased.

    B'Elanna rolled her eyes.  "In a joth field, Sashana'i?  We are not that lustful."

    "Oh?"  Bala clucked, earning a throaty chuckle from his bondmate when he reached to pluck a straw of grass from his spirit-daughter's hair.  But he let it go easily enough.  "We are to show Lledri the 'grid' you are constructing then take ourselves to be again in Azlre.  Shall you join us?"

    B'Elanna nodded.  "Until Tridl decides to have Cali returned to Cezia, no other appointments press us."

    Lledri's stare widened as she turned her attention to the young woman.  "Our good child yet languishes in that lair of Prihar?"

    "Yes," B'Elanna muttered as her eyes locked on a familiar form in the row, the short burgundy hair and sepia coat of the Antral trader.

    Sashana'i blew a breath through her nostrils, her eyes narrowing slightly as she regarded the man.  Only seconds later, she nodded.  "I shall speak with him--once more--good Be'i.  There may be a solution which shall please him, I would think."

    "Thank you," B'Elanna said sincerely.  "I would believe that Tom and I have enjoyed enough discussion with a wall."

    As the young regent moved away, straight backed and smooth gated, Miztri was still curious.  "Tridl yet shows hesitation?"

    "Why should he change?"  Tom replied sourly.

    Miztri swallowed her immediate comment, but rather moved closer to her friends to hold their attention for a moment.  "Your choice on how this shall be handled henceforth shall need to arrive soon--for all this and, more, for you.  This disturbs too readily your daily affairs."

    "We know."

    Tom and B'Elanna looked at each other, neither decisive, neither quite comfortable, either.  Drawing a breath, he gave her hand a tug so to bring her closer, whereupon he put his arm around her.

    Lledri glanced at them, and then out at the trader, who similarly gave Tom and B'Elanna a look before speaking with Sashana'i.  Raising her brow, she tucked her hands into the straight folds of her robe to continue through Dviglar and see what had been possible from the two.

    She could wait for what answers she required--though she had already guessed what they were.  Indeed, without her having to ask, she found out that the Antral trader Tridl had tried to test the "outsiders'" boundaries by trying to get more from one of their "agents" than any of them had bargained for.  If anything proved Be'i and Toma were not born to Desal, it would be their reaction to that vain attempt.

    Lledri only needed a few well-planned days in Azlre, following Tom and B'Elanna in their errands at the bazaar and speaking in her own time to a few of the foreign marketers, to find her original suppositions correct--that the couple's ambiguous origins and pre-occupation mechanical skills were indeed the source of their neighbors' distrust.  That alone made Lledri decide that it was time for Be'i and Toma to take their places among Desal. 

    She found herself shocked to also learn of an equal discrimination among her own people, even among those who could not for reasons of health or responsibility participate in the resistance, yet supported it.  According to them, Be'i and Toma were adopted foreigners, well-liked but uncommitted to Desal's spiritual health and truth.  Their ways could not be followed without the decree of their regents.

    It did not bode well, Lledri knew.  Were it a time of planned peace, she would have roundly corrected all those people for their spiritual narrowness--in fact, she did correct some for their lack of gratitude, even if she too had questioned Be'i and Toma's citizenship upon their first meeting. 

    Still, she knew all the while that some conformation would be required, particularly considering the house with which Be'i and Toma were affiliated.

    Desal needed as many Allanois as they might afford.
 

    "Many rallkle have passed before me," said the prichava after a simple but well-presented dinner, as they all reclined from the floorcloth with a cup of wine.  "Yet in my experience, good friends, within mere suns here, I have learned of some who may not trust our good lady and man.  Not even some of Azlre itself shall put forth their beings, I should fear.  Our philosophy of oneness may only travel a small distance with a Desalian spirit."  She looked at Tom and B'Elanna.  "There is no desire to insult you."

    "We know," B'Elanna said.  "Bala and Bakali have already talked to us about this."

    "What is required is not a discussion, Child, yet..."  Lledri paused, looked over their cautiously curious faces.  "More consideration of your fate among us may be required."

    Sashana'i drew her gaze to the older woman.  "You wish them to bear the kraja," she said, not surprised.

    "Ka," Lledri replied.

    "Not yet," B'Elanna responded.  "We've been through this before.  Tom and I are still unsure if it would be right for us."

    Lledri had expected that.  "Child, I would understand your hesitance."

    "It's not hesitance," Tom told her.

    "Then what would it be, good man?"  Lledri countered.  "Why should you not wish citizenship when you have expressed no desire to leave Desal?  Or have you planned to return to your homeworld eventually?"

    "That place is lost to us, Lledri," Tom said with a wistful grin, glancing to Dalra nearby as he sighed.  "It was a long time ago, and it's even farther away now."

    Lledri furrowed her greyed brow.  "What mean you?"

    B'Elanna sighed a small breath.  "It means the traders guessed right:  We are from outside the Barrier.  Our birthplace is thousands of light years away; we have no way of returning to it."

    That successfully shook Lledri from her placid facade for more than one reason.  "You are alien to Irllae?"

    "We were crewmembers on a ship trying to get back to its home when our shuttle was sucked into the plasma field," B'Elanna explained.  "The Unar found us and took us to Uillar.  I am surprised you didn't suspect it already."

    "The need to inquire had not been necessary," she replied.  "It was believed by me, as others, that you were born among the distal Onast races.  For tact, your precise origins were not demanded, as you are of Azlre now.  Your true birth yet does not trouble me, as we are all of one creation, Children.  I would not publicize your details further, however, yet rather enjoy your mysteriousness."

    "Considering the good our 'birth' has done for us recently," Tom said,  "I have to agree."

    "It yet remains that you bear no recourse but to keep yourselves among us.  How such spirits as your own had borne the life of a Cezian, in truth, was a curiosity of mine."

    "Don't misunderstand," B'Elanna said.  Leaning forward, she placed her hand on the prichava's.  "We are here because we want to be.  We might have fixed a ship and left a year ago.  But Tom and I care about what happens to you and feel we belong here."

    Lledri smiled warmly.  "This is known, Child, and adored about you."

    "Then maybe you understand," Tom said,  "that this is about more than being Desalian.  We left our 'origins' behind a while ago.  And though we were still with our birthpeople, we both had wanted change.  I admit we'd never expected this much difference, but we do call this place home now--and we're not sorry for it.  So, it's not as if we had never thought about taking the kraja.  We have, and we want to be considered citizens.  But...this would be for good."

    Lledri nodded quickly, but said,  "Yet you allow us your Desalian names.  What would your appearance matter in comparison to that which you hear more often than view?"

    "We look at each other," B'Elanna said.

    "You look into each other's spirits and see truth."

    B'Elanna shook her head.

    "Perhaps you might understand that other races judge that appearance," Lledri added,  "and hold it dear.  Were not a resistance formed, no one would pay heed to your race.  To appear as alien beyond Irllae in these times, however, shall bring no grace to their understandably hardened beings--and to our own people's need of leaders who truly embody Desal.  Our neighbors may even deny your cooperation for lack of trust."

    "Cooperation?"  B'Elanna grinned.  "Lledri, they would not have anything to resist with if it weren't for what we have put together and fixed for them.  Even the Antral bend when they see nothing gets done on their ships without our involvement."

    "It would create unnecessary difficulties," the older woman insisted.

    Sashana'i glanced up at Aratra then to the prichava.  "Lledri, with the respect that is due a woman of your bearing, Be'i and Toma could simply be said to be of Tyroran descent and from Traeldis."

    "And Be'i's scarring?  Toma's height?  Their way of speech is yet rudimentary.  As such alone, they would not be considered Desalians of Tyror or other places Desalian."

    Sashana'i drew a deep breath, seeing the unresponsive faces of her friends before her, and among the others, great tact.  "Actions have been taken to protect them for the present."

    Aratra winked at his bondmate.  Tom and B'Elanna gave them both a look, but didn't ask.

    "Yet their decision alone should bless such a fate, Lledri," Sashana'i concluded, unaffected by Aratra's amusement.

    "I would agree," Bakali said.  "Should it be meant--should Be'i and Toma find it is a part of their nature to do so--then it shall certainly be celebrated.  Otherwise, we would be in better spirit to accept our continuance as we live now."

    The prichava sighed.  "Our own people practice the acceptance of all life, gentle elders--yet they shall not give their spirits' health to any, particularly having given it to Unar too freely and learning too well Unar's use of it.  Our neighbors would certainly not and shall never bear trust in them as outsiders."  Turning, she touched B'Elanna's smooth, bare temple.  "It would not need hold you here, Child, should it be desired that you seek your origin someday despite its distance."

    "Do you honestly believe we could change back to what we were just like that?"  B'Elanna asked.  "Lledri, Tom and I have so little left--not that we took advantage of what we had when it was available, when it was right in front of us.  We did not have very...satisfied lives.  But now, we see what might have been, and can be, but...  I know I'm not saying this the way I want to."

    Bala raised a finger at the two to catch their attention.  "More loss of your identity is not desired, as you partially wish to redeem your former uneasiness with your actions here," he clarified.

    Tom drew a full breath at that observation, not knowing whether to regret the many journeys he and B'Elanna had taken with their elders.  Still, Bala had only spoken of that present conversation.  Rather, his intent was to tell them what he thought they were really saying.

    Catching the meaning well enough, Tom glanced back to Lledri.  "Why is this so important you?  If we just let it go, they'll probably come around."

    "Being not born here," Aratra finally said,  "you could not know that as an absolute, Toma.  I would wish you chose your spirits' truth as well, yet Lledri bears her point well."

    "I wish as well for Desalia to be restored," Lledri said in answer to Tom's other question as she traced the smooth, cool lines of her cup.  "The spiritual traditions of our people have been my life's trade, on this insignificant planet given to base refugee status by Unar.  Our only importance here is the mass of bloodlines native to the homeworld, our good regents' included, which likewise I would see restored to their rightful place and propriety.  As we are presently, by your protestations, our spirits are endangered and must be defended.

    "I resisted in my first thought this change brought by you, adopted Allanois.  This freely is admissible without shame.  There is, however, fear for all my people; I would wish our bodily life to be not one of constant danger.  Yet we, despite our relative comfort here, enjoy no safety, nor do our ways, nor our purest spirits with exposure to Unar poison.  Thus, our movement has been accepted fully by me.

    "As you, Be'i, had told me, should it be meant, it shall be.  If not, then we shall not have lost anything but numbers.  They shall be welcomed by the ancestors should they bear spirits of truth and goodness.

    "At present, I would wish that this alliance be successful.  For more than one hundred eight years, since the beginning of the Unar incursions within Irllae, there has been relatively little contact between us and our neighbors but for the trade of our people to Unar in the past fifty-four years.  This meeting in the next moon bears exceeding importance for beginning the struggle to reclaim Irllae's true way and to restore a proper Desalia that is humbled, yet bears the freedom to continue its growth in peace.

    "You and Be'i are forward members of this movement--dawn was brought to our dark-bound people through your public plea for change, and that was brought into the sun with your sister's public reclamation of the Allanois Regency.  Thus, we have now stood, ready to sacrifice our love of peace and spiritual conscience to answer your call.  Yet more is needed as we deal with the prime powers of Irllae--the Antral, the Koba, the Sureshan, Iaskeb and Brijan, among the others sent to desolation by Unar.

    "As you bring us to fight, Children, is it with unfairness your citizenship is desired before that truly begins?"

    B'Elanna looked back to see an unreadable gaze in Tom.  For a moment, she considered the floor, her own hands, and then finally the prichava again.  "We shall give the matter thought," she said quietly, in the woman's tongue.

    Lledri bowed respectfully.  "My thanks."

    They sighed throughout their quiet retirement that evening.

    Her cheek resting upon his chest, her fingers idly tracing the pattern of the scar across his waist, B'Elanna stared at the shelves on the opposite wall without focusing.  She felt his hand smoothing over her bare hip in slow, warm circles, but for being as lost in thought as he, she didn't move.

    "She does have a point," B'Elanna said softly, breaking the loaded silence in the barely lit room.  "It will only get worse, when others come for the trade.  We haven't even dealt with the Brijan yet and they're known to be suspicious."

    "Not to mention the Koba," Tom added, almost unwillingly for the reminder Lledri had unwittingly placed in his mind.

    But B'Elanna followed that thought, breathing in Tom's rich scent, feeling her eyelashes brush his skin when her eyes turned down.  "Padan took advantage of us because he knew we weren't from here.  He knew we wouldn't act like Desalians--or many other people he knew."

    "He smelled the fight in us," Tom agreed.  "Llulo lla'ach tso'e." 

    "Knew a stubborn one when he met one," she translated loosely in agreement.

    Sighing hard, squeezing her hip, he nudged her head for her to look up.  She did.  "You know I wouldn't mind as much as you might, B'Elanna, but I don't want to leave this all to you.  You would be pretty pissed if I did."

    She smiled briefly in thanks for that wit, but it melted quickly.  "You would be willing to take the kraja?"

    "Yes, especially if we need to."

    She sighed, unconsciously turning her hip into his hand.  He began to stroke it again.  "It looks like we might," she finally said.  Her gaze considered the line of his shoulder, flexing slightly with his moves.  She blinked slowly.  "I know we had talked about it a couple times."

    "I think we were too busy to bring it up again," he said weakly, knowing they both knew better.

    "I hadn't really thought about it," B'Elanna admitted,  "until we met Okeleb Nazir.  He left me wondering all the sudden what I am--half Klingon and Human or adopted Desalian refugee with one hell of a history sitting on her forehead.  I thought I knew.  Well, I do know who I am, but...I hadn't thought of us as outsiders for a long time."

    "The first thing I thought about when he called us outsiders was how I felt when I came on Voyager--which I hadn't since before we left Uillar, I'm sure."  Tom sighed, remembering the plain look of distrust on the man's face.  "I know I have less to think on with that, but I've felt the same sometimes--when I remember that I was born human." 

    "So, do you think we would be buckling into their discrimination if we did this?"

    "I don't think I'd call it anything that strong, though you could.  The reason we have to think about it now makes it seem like that.  But we've already let go of what we couldn't keep in this place and taken on what we needed to.  We said it downstairs:  This is our home now, and they are our people.  This is just another thing we have to do to accept that, and we can get used to it like everything else.  It can't be worse than what we've already managed, right?"

    B'Elanna didn't doubt it.  Tom had certainly gotten used to her injuries--had always accepted her as she was.  Nor did it seem to faze him when they made love, even with the glowglobes fully activated.  He stared at her as if she were the most beautiful woman alive.  She might not have believed it for herself, but he did make her feel it sometimes.  No, she did feel it sometimes.  And that was only one thing among so many other changes they rarely thought about anymore:  Their clothes and food, the languages they'd learned and were still learning, the everyday traditions and the general mannerisms and etiquette.  All of it was becoming more natural to them both.

    Staring at him still, she wondered what a little dye on their temples might make as a difference to anything else they were doing--except making it less troublesome. 

    "You're right," she said.  "I mean, like Bakali said, it'll stimulate new nerve endings, but it won't mess with our minds.  It's a mark of citizenship--and even if it's wrong they would need it to trust us, it wouldn't be anything we might not have done otherwise someday."

    "Even so, we're pretty accustomed to being the outsiders."  His lips turned up.  "Sure you can handle blending in?"

    Despite his light tone, she did think on it.  "Funny," she said,  "as much as I always wanted it when I was a child, it will be a little...different, won't it?  --Do you think you could do it again?"

    "I actually missed it, when I wasn't."  He paused, nodded slightly.  "The more I think about it, the less I mind the idea of knowing we officially belong to Desal.  And maybe Lledri's right about their deserving it, too.  They've been nothing but good to us, protected us, took us into their homes, been friends--plus some."

    She nodded with her eyes.  "Yes.  They have.  And we do owe them something besides a fight.  We've asked so much of their beliefs and ways--even if Sashana'i helped that."  She sighed.  "We could give that much, at least...right?"

    He nodded, his hand drifting around the small of her back.  "I think so."

    With that, she placed her head on his chest again.  Kissing it, she cuddled in and closed her eyes.  "Then we'll do it."
 

    The morning sun, just crawling through the misty hills of Dviglar threw shadows under the older man's heavily chiseled face as he considered the two--and their decision.  "Yet bear you certainty that this belongs to your spirits?"  Dalra leaned on the cart of supplies the group of friends was to take to the next ship under repair.  "I should believe your decision is influenced."

    Tom stared at him.  "Dalra, I would have expected anyone but you to disagree.  --Why didn't you say anything last night?"

    "It was not my place."  Looking to his friends, his eyes glazed with concern in the warm, white sunrise.  "With her broken tongue, Sashana'i had made your callings, Be'i and Toma.  Your birth names remain B'Elanna and Tom.  This has not been forgotten.  It is yet your address of each other."

    B'Elanna blinked.  It was very strange to hear him say their names.  Even Miztri and Aratra, who had congratulated the couple only minutes before, looked up from their separate assemblies to hear the words pass the man's lips. 

    "But you have always encouraged Tom and me to be more Desalian," B'Elanna protested.  "You have always asked us into your ways--shill kre'al ye tsa'o."

    He laughed.  "By my spirit, I would not say so much.  Perhaps it was wished that you would accept ways which would be beneficial to you...and, yes, perhaps I have prepared you for a life among us," he confessed,  "to accept our daily ways and our traditions.  Yet identity among us lies in the kraja.  Greater than citizenship, this is a bond with Desal--and this shall be felt more than you suspect at present."

    "I understand that," B'Elanna said.  "And Tom and I might have given it more time, but the resistance needs more than our word, like Lledri said.  And more, we do plan to stay here, following your way, folding our bread and wearing cloth shoes for a very long time--the rest of our lives.  So what would be the trouble in looking like something we might not be by birth but are by choice?"

    Listening from her own work nearby, Sashana'i didn't ask.  Her very spirit screamed it, demanded it, and insisted she ask the very logical question that yet would only have confused her friend.  Yet for Desalia...  Sashana'i fought her face as she was reminded of her knowledge and her guilt.  They are needed.  I need them.  Irllae needs their skill and spirit.

    Tom finished binding a row of components they'd just repaired and put them in the cart.  "Dalra, we know what the kraja means," he told him with a steady stare.  "You know by now we would never do this without respect."

    "Ka.  Yet it is uncertain should it be best for you."

    Would they not wish for their origins, however?  Sashana'i asked herself.  Despite the troubles there, their strife and bitterness, would they not wish to be returned to their own?  Certainly, their people should wish them returned.  They are needed both here and there, these adopted ones...

    "Like B'Elanna said, it might just be the best for everyone.  As for ourselves, though, you're right--we won't forget completely what we came from--tsa lullotsu ye'o cha wi'odla."

    Dalra laughed again.  "True!  Stubborn as named by myself, as well." 

    "But that doesn't mean we can't be Desalian, too."

    Reaching out, he patted Tom's shoulder.  "My friend, it is merely wished that you truly knew it to be truth for yourselves.  As you yet have never released all which you were, I bear concern for your most sacred spirits."

    B'Elanna shook her head.  "But Dalra, we do belong here, and we have let go our of former ways."

    "Not fully.  You would not seek vindication with Unar had you accepted our ways utterly."

    "Oh?  And how would you explain your regent?" she countered.  "She was born here and wants Desal's resurrection.  Tom and I want it not for revenge or politics.  You know this.  Or would you suggest we belong to nothing rather than accept what we have claimed--only because we weren't born here?"

    Dalra conceded to that with silence, and held further argument behind a flick of his brow, a glance down to his hands.

    Sashana'i finished her bundle and brought it to the cart.  Drawing a full breath, she eyed both Tom and B'Elanna.  "For myself and Desal, I bear such gratitude you remain among us, and that you accept yourselves in my house."

    "Yet Dalra's concerns do bear meaning," Aratra said.  "Indeed, the origins of your spirits cannot be forgotten, Be'i, Toma, no matter what they have or may become--tsa zjiva ch'gya'l tsa'o."

    "Ka'i zhal tsani'o," B'Elanna smiled.  "I think Tom and I have room for both incarnations," she then said to Dalra.  "Thank you for understanding, though.  You're concerned for our spirits.  Zhachi va'e--you are sweet to think of us.  But we've made our decision."

    "Should you feel you are destined to this way, there is little but to see what fate procures," Dalra allowed with a gracious nod.

    "We do," Tom replied, adding more lightly,  "Or at least you would not get rid of us that quickly, friend."

    With a more genuine smile, then, the older man finally bowed.  "Then I shall make myself present with my bondmate at your ceremony, as you feel your continued challenge of my being is meant as well."

    "Bakali says it's formal, by the way," B'Elanna grinned then gave a pleased Miztri a wink.

    Yet for as much confidence as they showed their friends, they spent the day catching each other's blank stares then digging back in to their separate tasks so as not to return to the topic.  They had decided and they weren't going to turn back.  Still, Dalra, who had been respectfully quiet when Lledri had made her points the evening before, had made some points of his own.  They couldn't help but wonder, if only to themselves...

    But then, as if designed to spite their reformed doubts, after leaving their friends to return to their new communications center, they met yet again with Tridl, who immediately requested Aratra's help in configuring his shield frequencies.

    They returned to Azlre with the humble yet sincere request for their elders.
 

---

    "It should be said that the Kraja of Growth is as sacred and painless as the first touches of Bihla and Sa'alli.  Our first markings are administered by our parents upon birth, our lines of life drawn each succeeding second year until the tenth year.

    "The first circle, symbolizing the child's liberation from our mother's waters, is marked here, at the creases of our eyes; our father's earth is traced upon the ground of our temple, here.  In growth, our following tracings are placed, as is seen, a delicate chain extending from our eyes, the seeds of our steps within our young lives.  At tenth year, we are blessed with our full complement of kraja, a time of great joy and celebration amongst our beloved families.  Puberty and the first donning of daily worn headscarves would follow approximately two revolutions past this dear time.

    "Yet this is another ritual entirely."
 

---

    It was a small gathering.  Only those closest to those involved attended--completely within tradition even in normal circumstances.  Also according to custom, the floor was dressed with silver grass rugs and cloths kept aside by the elders for finer occasions.  Even the wall sconces were lit with oilstones, adding to the lush light of the mantel and hanging a sweet aroma in the warm, dry air.  Small, bread-wrapped vegetables and cheese was piled on a plate.  A decanter of mohrrev wine sat beside it.

    Little Haviki fingered the two lines and circle she presently bore as she watched Bala and Bakali, dressed in their old finery, set out their kraja tools with pride.  As they cleaned and inspected each part of the small, slender devices, they explained to the five year-old how the tradition began and how it had been preserved over time, even during the occupation.  Meanwhile, while Lledri, Dalra, Miztri and Zepra talked quietly by the glowing golden fire, a series of thumps and thuds sounded above.

    Shaken from her curiosity, Haviki looked up to the closed hatch at the top of the ladder.  "What are those sounds?" she asked her elders.

    Bakali giggled before she answered.  Had Sashana'i and Aratra not followed their charges upstairs, she would not need wonder.  "They may be simply walking.  The ceiling is thin."

    Bala chuckled at his first response to that, but said, "Perhaps Sashana'i attempts to braid Be'i's hair."

    "Why does Be'i's hair bear so little length?" Haviki then asked.  "May it not grow properly?"

    Bakali shrugged.  "I would believe that many women of her birthpeople wear their hair upon their shoulders, as do some Antral and Sureshan women.  It is part of their uniqueness, Child--which is to be embraced, particularly at this time."

    "Yes, Nali-Bakali."

    Another round of thumps and slides on the third floor was then followed by an echo of deep laughter--the men.  Bala and Bakali grinned at each other, snickered as they continued the preparation.

    "Deell weat eeht," said Sashana'i in her siblings' tongue as she grabbed the last row of stays on the back of B'Elanna's gown.

    "Deal with what?"  B'Elanna demanded, as she clutched the support beam.  "I can hardly breathe like this."

    "You shall sit straight and the fabric shall stretch."

    "I hope so!  --Damn!" 

    "This was made to be upon you," Sashana'i insisted.

    "Made to kill me, you mean," B'Elanna growled in reply.  "If you weren't so nice, I would--"

    "You would yet bear the gentleness and mirth wished for in your heart."

    "Even if it's about a ficha wide now," B'Elanna returned and shot a stare back to the snickers coming from the bed.  "Keep laughing and you will be wearing this dress to dinner, Toma Azlreat'a."

    "Sorry," Tom chuckled.

    When she blew out her breath, she felt the tug and her waist slowly contract.  B'Elanna was certain those ties were going to grip her spine alone once Sashana'i was done. 

    Finally, the lady stopped, tied off the ribbons then turned B'Elanna around to boldly dip her fingers into her bodice and yank it up.  B'Elanna choked, but didn't bother saying any more beyond a growl.  It was a proper, ankle-length gown Sashana'i had dug up somewhere, and B'Elanna had insanely agreed to do everything right that night.  In for a penny...  she harped to herself. 

    Then she turned around to get her headscarves out of the trunk--and the men's laughter ceased instantly.  Their jaws literally dropped.  B'Elanna blinked.

    Well, maybe it isn't *that* bad, she grinned to herself as she felt her ribs trying to readjust to their new form.  "What?" she asked, even if she knew--definitely knew--that look on Tom.  For the first time in a long while, she wished she had a long mirror.

    "Wow," Tom said, lost for any other words.  Aratra remained speechless.

    "Well, don't get used to it, as this will never be worn again," she told him, teasingly as she played their reaction with turn on her heel, a precisely maneuvered bend into her trunk--even if that was difficult.

    "Unless you take to bonding," Sashana'i smiled.  "You have brought yourselves as far that it would not be a curse upon you."

    B'Elanna snorted.  "And wear this thing again?  --Tom, don't you dare ever ask me."

    "Sure, Chief," he breathed, his gaze lost on the wondrous curves Sashana'i had made of B'Elanna's torso and waist.  It made the sap green cloth and satiny embroidery look like water pouring over her hips to the ground, curling in at the slits on each side of the skirt, hinting at the sheer leggings within and pooling slightly in the back.  Exquisite had been his first word.  Though she did look a bit too tight for what he was used to--and certainly, B'Elanna had never needed any help there--she looked damned nice.

    Besides, if he had to wear that silly headdress with clinking beads annoyingly tricking his ear, she could bear with a tight dress for a couple hours.  He would happily remove both later on.

    Pulling out the scarf she saved for "formal" occasions, B'Elanna wrapped it around her curls, tying it on one side of her head and draping it over the back to tuck the other side.  Sashana'i appeared directly afterwards to pin a few rows of beads into that sheer cloth.

    "Ornaments should yet be procured for your ears," she commented.

    B'Elanna glanced her way, but decided she was done arguing for the night.  Looking Tom over with a small smile, she shrugged.  "Are you ready?"

    Nodding, he was suddenly returned to the reason they had gone through so much trouble in the first place.  With a deep breath, he pushed himself to stand and took the mere two steps across the room to take her hands.  Staring down into her dark eyes, he could see every ounce of expectation and hesitation swirling in her mind, already busy with worlds worth of concern.

    "Are you certain you want this?"  he asked her seriously.

    She nodded.  "Va'oll?"

    He nodded.  "Ka.  I am."

    Their hands were yet clasped a bit tightly; their eyes were stubbornly set on the other's.

    B'Elanna released one of those hands to take up the skirt of the dress that felt far too formal for such a private evening among friends.  Though everyone else looked very nice--including Tom in his long fitted blue coat and an embroidered robe Bala had leant him--she couldn't help but feel they were overdoing it. 

    Tom gestured for their friends to lead them; once they were gone, he placed both his hands on B'Elanna's cheeks, tipping her head up.  Leaning down, he pressed his lips to hers, felt her mouth part easily upon contact. 

    Slowly, he took in her taste, letting his fingers float down to her exposed shoulders.  She drew a deep breath, purring softly.  Parting, he met her eyes, gently squeezed the muscles under his fingers.  He knew that at such a proximity and by that time of day, she probably could only see a big blur, but he knew she could at least feel his closeness, likely knew what he would say.

    But instead of speaking, he simply took her hand again.  She gave his fingers a gentle embrace.

    "Monr kraja tsa ye'o hza'oprisa; kra ne'o mahyull urr Desal tsa mechriva."

    So, in that ceremonial clothing, dressed and ornamented more properly then any Desalian might have been in those times, they braced a breath and knelt before their elders and the audience of those closest to them.  Lit in the crackling firelight and warm sconce light, they drew their eyes up to those older ones, which smiled back.

    "Ka tsa'o manr llitsa," they responded softly, in unison, glancing to each other.  "Hza tsa'o kraja al."

    Sashana'i held Aratra's hand, holding her own breath as they watched the elders of Azlre gladly perform the ritual kraja ceremony for the children's sakes.  They believed that Tom and B'Elanna had come to their decision cautiously and sincerely, had chosen of their own will.

    Bala and Bakali gently touched the recipients' temples, searching for the correct places to begin.  They then traced the lines, finding the correct nerves and memorizing them, upon the left temple first, and then the right.  Finally, the elders took up the kraja tools.

    "The circle of birth," Bala said quietly,  "of the mother's womb and her waters released unto the new spirit set forth into life..."

    I did this.

    Watching her friends, hesitating slightly, remove their scarves and turn their heads to accept the markings, Sashana'i trained herself into stillness.  They were made as such by me, to Be'i and Toma.  As Dalra spoke, so correctly, I did so with a broken tongue...

    The others in the room seemed pleased at it, glad to see them take their proper places among their people, proud to see Be'i and Toma accept their citizenship fully.  Even Dalra was reconciled, not that Sashana'i had expected otherwise from him.  Certainly, he would have more right afterwards to correct them, Sashana'i knew with some amusement--and some satisfaction.

    Yet seeing B'Elanna's deeply lit eyes close as the marks were carefully plotted, as Bakali seemed to need to decide how to navigate the edge of B'Elanna's temple ridge, the grin slowly faded. 

    "...trailing out upon the land as does the seed, which born, springs forth into the air..."

    Hope was denied by me and now through my influence their nature of birth shall be dissolved as well.  How might they ever return to their own when they have become Desalian?  How shall I be cursed when my selfishness has denied them their origins unto eternity?

    The elders began to draw the dotted lines, the first across the bottom of each temple, running along the cheekbone, symbolizing the child's bond with the earth it lived upon.  In succession, each line angled higher, denoting the child's growing spiritual awareness.

    It had been a good decision, Sashana'i knew, sustaining their lives, though she was not a scholar and had used her grandfather's powerful last memories to aid her in the act.  Not even bearing the title and training of a novitiate, however, and not having the two's permission, it would have been seen as an unnatural act worthy of severe rebuke, had anyone but Aratra discovered her actions and the scholarship still been a division of their government.  There had always been firmly adhered-to rules about Desal's use of their learned telepathy.

    It was necessary.

    B'Elanna had said such words before, Sashana'i knew--and knew she shouldn't know.

    Yet it had indeed been necessary in her eyes--and she would not have changed her fateful decision if she could.  More than that, too, she had indeed taught them the ways of Desal, supported and encouraged them as she also allowed their passions and temperaments to inspire her and those around her.  To her shame, Padan understood her all too well.  In their slow recovery and adjustment, they had needed support and guidance--and Desal certainly needed to witness hope again.  The results were precisely what Sashana'i had designed.

    Upon meeting them in Dalra's overhang on Uillar, sensing their passion for life alone, she had felt her own hope resurrect itself from within her desperate spirit, from behind her scarred facade.

    I assisted in their being influenced--and in their power to influence.  Yet for their painful former lives, made petty in the sear of Uillar, what would be the crime in their never returning to that place of violence and isolation?  And the temporal variance caused by the Barrier, which would be worse?  Unawareness of time's speed here, or knowing the impossibility of returning, thus frustration?

    The last beaded lines were drawn nearly upright--not quite vertically, as one still within their body would never be completely of spirit; the reed of life was yet able to be bent by the wind of fate.

    "...until the day we shall meet our beloved ancestors, we shall yet retain closeness, taking their blessed guidance into our spirits and to the earth, our own, our home, in this gift of Bihla and Sa'alli."

    Desal, their destiny.  My debt to the ancestors shall be great, Sashana'i concluded as the final tracings were neatly filled.  They shall never have resolved that which they left behind, their comrades, their families, and their beings.  In their own spirits, they may indeed find peace as Desalians.  Yet those left behind shall never be completed in them, nor shall their needs be met.  There shall not be balance without completion of the original path....

    This made her mind turn in a completely different direction.  An interesting matter within their memories, a curiosity that perhaps she might recall again....

    And yet, she could not bring herself to tell them about the Barrier, nor of anything she knew or had suddenly conjured.  At that point, with little to do about it, there would only be another terrible loss of hope that Sashana'i--and through her, Aratra--had allowed.  They had watched this on Uillar, B'Elanna and Tom's gradual release of faith for their desperate need to survive--and after, their need to make something of the life they had won in surviving.  At the same time, however, they had also witnessed the two's happiness and growth since coming to Azlre, their reclamation of desire and stronger sense of self following their feelings of acceptance, belonging and love.  Knowing them as intimately as she did, Sashana'i knew precisely how important those things were to them.  It had all been worth the sin, as well, as Desal was at last resolved to be free. 

    "Toma, Be'i, Allanois alya'o Ceziat'o.  Zhalla'evrrla ostull."

    My original plan must continue, she resolved, allowing herself a smile when she saw her friends return their headscarves to their proper positions then regard each other, curiously at first.  When they stood, they thanked Bala and Bakali for the gift they had requested.

    They did look proper and attractive--but that was her Desalian eye interpreting the change.

    Still, it took little for Sashana'i to accept their choice.  While her realized debt was increased by the journey her sworn siblings only slightly understood but had chosen to take, she no longer feared it.  Apparently, fate had blessed their way and her way of bringing them into the fold of Desal.  It was meant.

    Because of her, it had become meant, and she would continue to ensure that.

    So, to begin that journey with them, Sashana'i was the first to move to her feet, embrace B'Elanna and then Tom, and welcome them as Desalians.

    "Blessed way, my siblings," she smiled, embracing them in her softly robed arms.
 

---

    "Sashana'i said we would feel it," B'Elanna mused aloud, wondering at the look of it on Tom, still deciding if she liked it. 

    It was...interesting.

    After perhaps a bit too much wine and more food than their stomachs were accustomed to, they had finally bid good evening to their friends and taken themselves upstairs.  As she had expected, Tom gladly took the pains of unlacing her from the gown, baring her skin with not a few kisses and his gentlest touches.  She returned the favor, un-layering him piece by piece with expert hands. 

    Looking up to receive a fuller kiss from her mate, however, her eyes diverted to the new distraction there, having already almost forgotten about it.  He did the same.  Laughing quietly, they settled on retiring for the time being, letting the meal and the wine digest more peacefully. 

    Lying on their sides, they stared at each other for some time, making themselves used to the look of it, not to mention what else had come with the outward qualities.

    "Not like a sensation as much as...  Well, I know what you mean," he said several moments later.

    "It's like...tseb n'rril..."  She paused, searching for words in two languages.  "Like it's connecting with..."  She shook her head.

    "Something or whatever?" he said, grinning slightly.

    "Ka."  She regarded him again.  "Does it look strange on me?"

    "I think you look great in blue."

    "Tom..."

    He shook his head of his grin.  "It looks fine.  Different, but you're still you.  It's not strange, just...mir elld."

    "Do you think it will change us, though?"

    "You were there when they told us about the neurological effects."

    "I didn't mean that--not really.  I was thinking about who we are."

    "I believe them when they say our spirits will remain unchanged.  I think we'll keep changing as we choose to."

    "Will we?" she asked.  "I don't know about that, Tom.  I think they meant more when they said we'd have to decide what we represent--who we are."

    "I think we have made that decision," Tom said.  "Since Bala and Bakali permitted us to start doing something progressive here, we haven't fought very much about anything."

    "What if things stop going on our side?" she asked.

    Tom shrugged, grinned.  "Then we begin meditating with our elders and take the kraja."

    B'Elanna laughed.  "I guess so.  Maybe I just didn't expect we would...feel this, you know?"

    "Yes.  I know."

    Tentatively, he reached out and, almost pulling back, he placed his fingers on her temple, tracing the delicate pattern there.  She breathed deeply at the touch, and even he felt...  He didn't know what to call it at first.  Maybe it was just the strangeness...or more, an odd presence, a sixth sense...

    The threshold of her soul, he realized, feeling his chest and gut tighten, his pulse speed.  I'm on the edge of what they'd call her spirit.  So close...

    Feeling his touch bring alive a line of nerves that radiated throughout her, B'Elanna reached out and placed her own fingers on Tom's markings.

    They shivered; their gazes locked.  If they tried, they could not have broken the contact.

    "But I don't think it's so bad," he finally whispered, feeling the room around them fade to them alone.  Suddenly, he found he couldn't speak.  He didn't try.

    Her eyes reflected the same focus, and for all their trying to blink off the effect, the room continued to blur away.  They were not trained so far in Desalian ways and were not bonded.  Their physiology was different.  Yet they knew somehow that in their contacts they were creating an uncanny awareness between them, like when they meditated with Bala and Bakali.  Something had been created there that night.

    But it was incomplete.  It held nothing but a sensation of connection.  For whatever reason, the nerves that had been touched with the kraja tools were very alive indeed, though they lacked what it required to take that a step further.

    Oddly, it wasn't terribly frustrating, only...

    The reaction continued to quiver through B'Elanna as Tom adjusted his touch, stroking the indigo marks so gently she only felt the sensation increase.  Now it was a warm, comforting feeling, and she grew both pleasantly tired and desirous of bringing him as close as he could be, not necessarily for intimacy, but some new instinct their connection welled in her, that made her need more, as much as she could have.  She barely could say what that was, however.

    More, she knew Tom was feeling the same thing.

    They moved mutually closer, pressing easily to each other, kissing gently, the touch uninterrupted.  Their breath and contact deepened, and soft moans grew from their throats as their bodies warmed together.  They were sharing...

    The world around them drifted away and they slowed themselves unwittingly.  Despite their unfinished discovery, the fading conscious world around them won over any further action and moved them into another realm they did not resist. 

    Within but a minute, they were asleep.
 

---

    "Be'i and Toma of the Allanois House," said Miztri, a satisfied grin upon her lips when she saw the Sureshan underground leaders immediately lower to a knee.

    "My thanks, Miztri," Tom said, suppressing a laugh with a cough.

    "Our greatest honor," said one of the Sureshan, "is to be among this house of like-minded souls.  I am Medrove, Suresha's chosen first speaker, and we offer ourselves, as ever, to our mutual assistance."

    B'Elanna bowed briefly to the three darkly cloaked, bronze-skinned men and one woman that had come then remembered to touch her temple.  "Good visitors, please be welcome and make yourself upright and we shall begin this sun with the supplies you have procured."

    "We will respectfully follow your guide, Be'i of Azlre."

    "My thanks," she replied, gesturing them to follow as Tom started them off to the main bay of communications.

    Though the greeting itself had become easier with practice and guests who did not startle at their appearances, those introductions were still awkward for B'Elanna.  She didn't like the bowing routine, which had increased considerably with the publication of their Desalian rank.  She knew damn well she hadn't earned them practically lying at her feet--even if her sarcastic side appreciated it. 

    "I would like to also meet your siblings," said Medrove, maneuvering himself to walk beside her.

    B'Elanna pursed her lips and glanced up to him.  "There shall be introductions as the time permits," she replied.  "At present our work remains--as do Sashana'i and Aratra.  I would suggest we tend to ours first."

    The man blinked at the young woman's manner.  "You have a rather determined manner for a Desalian."

    Tom looked back at them.  "Precisely when was your last meeting with a Desalian resistance, good Medrove?"

    B'Elanna snorted under her breath as she sped their pace. 

    Medrove understood the humor, too, and allowed himself a chortle at that irony.  "I think we might have much to learn in each other," he said, "such as the repairs you have made upon these ships."

    "We would learn from watching and listening," Tom said.  "Would it please you to see our other work while Be'i cares for the power inputs?"  Upon their acknowledgment, he grinned at her.  "Does this find agreement with my dear lady Be'i?"

    "It pleases," she replied wisely, not mistaking for a moment his bloated manners.  With a tender stroke of his temple, however, a seductive blink, she managed her playful revenge.  "I shall await you at the cargo, my blessed mate."

    He screwed up his smile for her benefit--silently thanking Aratra for getting him in the habit of wearing a full coat even on the warmer days--then gestured to the Sureshan to lead the way.

    After they faded off into the far rows of Dviglar, she allowed herself that laugh.  Tom would definitely get her for that one--and she was anxious to see how he would.  Certainly, their lovemaking since taking the kraja had become...intriguing.

    For the mean time, though, she did want to start on those subspace inverters sooner rather than later.  It was finally possible with Tridl's deuterium and plasma.  She was relieved that Tom was willing to hold the "delegates" at bay for the while--and that they were letting him do so.

    For it all, her smile remained fresh as she made her way back through the path to where they'd beamed the various canisters.  Still feeling the touch she'd given him as well as he likely was, she finally decided that she liked how the fine indigo marks looked on him.

    And maybe she could get used to the bows.
 

---

    "It is wisely said that a telling is unlike experience.  This is plain.

    "It was also deemed wise among many, as we have learned, not to seek too much of the latter, as it would arrive of its own volition."
 

---

    How the past year had changed her. 

    She knew with great pleasure that she had always been a gentle girl, a good Desalian in her patience and generosity, taught well by her parents.  Re'ad and Faji of Azlre were respected weavers in the square, who gave their only child all their love and their sense of right action and spiritual sense.  Her mate I'efa had loved her for all the qualities she gained through them.  He told her this, wished to bond with her, to share her gentleness, morality and simplicity, and to create a family between their empty houses.

    Her parents had been among the ancestors many years.  Sold to Desal's spiritual benefactors, she saw them again only to escort their remains to the public pyre.  I'efa, too, went to service in order to afford the life he wished his lover to have.  Like the good mate she was, she promised to pray for his good spirit and let him go.

    They were to be bonded when he returned. Apparently, it was not meant to be.

    She might even have gone with him into service had she not been with child.  His child, whom she bore within a slip of her life and nursed nearly three years; she had little to give her otherwise.  She, meanwhile, grew gaunt and sickly, lived on the spare supplements Bakali pressed her to take.  Though the supplements could have been seen as a selfish indulgence, remaining among the living for her child was acceptable, so she did not complain for long.

    It was when she could not give any more of her breast to the child that the bloodied ones had come to Azlre, among the throng of haggard Uillaran survivors.  It was then that her world began to change, beginning with the day she hurried to her clinic duties only to witness Sashana'i of Cezia, regent heiress of Allanois, demand the lives of her friends, her adopted siblings, from their prudent elder Bakali.  Before that day, she had never known one of her own to be so forthright and handle fate so proudly.  Among others, it was whispered that perhaps it was simply a regent's right, which Sashana'i and Aratra inherited.  She could sense it was more than that, but said nothing of it.  The affairs of regents, after all, were certainly not hers--or so she thought.

    She had been content for lack of any promise but for life and showing her daughter right direction.  She had watched the two outsiders and her regents from a safe distance, even when she assisted them.  At the time, she thought it a good thing for her child to know of such intelligence and breeding, progress within an otherwise humble life.  Yet they had challenged the remainder of her seeming ease while giving practical easement.  In their very ways, they questioned all she had known, believed and practiced without thought.

    Perhaps that was the matter of it--belief without thought, which she realized painfully the evening the adopted Allanois publicly upset her people's current practice for the uselessness it would prove for Desalia's future.  Before the clinic in the square, to all who could hear, they exposed the Unar for all the evil they were--and called out Desal's permitting that evil.  To add to that, their own regent promptly announced her full agreement and made her people's right to war an edict.

    Certainly, little else might have shocked the young mother as roundly.  It struck her far more than I'efa's death did.

    When she looked upon her child that evening, watched her sleeping in her tiny cot, she found spirit stir in a way it never had.  Only days before, she had blessed I'efa's journey to the ancestors with all sincerity.  Though she had felt proper sorrow for missing him, she had accepted the cause of it as she had her parents' passings, and then accepted that she had not been meant to be bonded to the man she loved. 

    After the horrible destruction of the Trisjorr district, then witnessing the passion in the square, however, and then looking at her beloved child--all she had left, the last of her humble family--she knew that Unar was not Desal's benefactor.

    They would take her child and rape her as swiftly and unfeelingly as they had any other.

    She had almost allowed that to happen, and she felt shame like she had never experienced, shame for a sin she never thought herself capable of committing.  Be'i's accusation had exposed her, too:  She too had almost been as those corrupt leaders, had almost led her own child into a designed desolation.

    She remembered the words spoken in that first ship they took to repairing:

    "So, Toma, now we have come to reclaim Desal and Irllae.  How shall we proceed?  We bear nothing."

    "Not necessarily nothing," he replied. 

    "But they have a point," said his mate, frowning.  "We are going to need far more to fight them on their own ground."

    A bright smile grew on the fair man's face.  Kicking back to lean against a bulkhead, he looked at his friends again.  "I think we have all we need and more for that--on their own ground."

    The woman stared at his expression, almost backing up a bit, but then looked interested.  "Okay, what?"

    "We need to spit on them--in their own house."

    Realizing something within his words, her smile gradually matched his.

    "We need to be like the vermin--mice--crawling in their woodwork and eating at them from the bottom up.  The Bajoran resistance did it somewhat--and we can do more, because they're definitely not expecting it."

    It was a good thought--an easy concept for everyone to understand.  Sashana'i and Aratra were outwardly glad to see they'd come up with a way to pick at their enemy without violence, to give the resistance time and information.  Even Dalra of Maha'aje approved of the idea.

    "Let us plan how to nibble their bread, then," said the last of the Allanois.

    And so they did, and meanwhile they planned and prepared with many who had agreed to fight the Unar.

    Seeing many others go to that clever duty, she too volunteered.  They at first did not accept her, but she informed them she truly wished it, would sacrifice a half year with her child in order to bring about change.  She added that with more food, Unar would find her pleasing and accept her into their household.

    They agreed--but only on the condition that she would do only as much as needed.  No more.  She agreed.

    Almost a half year later, she kissed the floor of an Unar household as an official dragged one of her people past.  The drask was to be "reassigned," apparently.  Placing her fingers to her smooth, exposed skin, she blinked a silent prayer for the young man and hurried to prepare Onruk's wine.

    Onruk had come to prefer that she serve him.  In her months within his household, she had quickly come to master her arts.  She knew precisely how to carry his chalice to his place, exactly how far to fill his glass, where to look and what expression to display as he tasted it.

    The taking of tisaluo wine was--she learned--a precursor to their afternoon meditation.  Considering how much wine he took, she could see why he would remain with stillness and contemplation.  She served him in good health, filling the chalice to the correct point while he finished his business for the day.  To this, she listened intently while yet maintaining her pleasantly ignorant face.  That too, she had learned well.  When he drew a particular breath, she bent to refresh his cup.

    His grey eyes searched her in her work.  "Tell me Cashul," he said quietly,  "what was your name at birth."

    She paused only for a moment to think.  Onruk sometimes became bored with the reports and engaged her in smalltalk.  Only half of the time she answered truthfully, but that time, she decided to give him her true name.  "Cali, good commander."

    He leaned on a single finger, his elbow on the arm of his desk chair.  He peered over her thin sarong-wrapped body, her dark hair, straight and not errant in a single strand, was braided so tightly it shone, masking somewhat her fair, plain face and light blue eyes.  She was cursed by the markings upon her temples, being Desalian.  Were they removed, she would be a completely handsome drask.

    "Cali.  What meaning has that among your species?"

    "Pleasing girl-child, good commander."

    "Do you believe your namers were correct?"

    Again, she paused only as long as it took to formulate an answer he would like.  "I would be unable to judge, as it would require my commenting on my own nature, which is not the way of humility and selflessness.  I should not wish to accept that poison, however.  I beg your correction were I to seem the same."

    Onruk was of course pleased with her response.  In his occasional prods, Onruk had found that she was excellently initiated into the way the Unar wished to see their drasks.  It had taken much time and effort to make them need to sell themselves to service; more to train them properly and create a way of things that would be followed.  Idly, the commander wished all his drasks could behave with such advancement as that one did.  This in turn spawned an idea.

    "You have been isolated, Cashul, to keep you pure.  Servers must bear a particular cleansing, as you know.  Still...I would like to see your way given to others.  You will commit yourself to the training of other drasks in this house."

    "Yes, good commander."  Her face went unchanged.

    "You do not see any joy in this advancement?"  he queried.

    "Any work performed to the standards laid out by our benefactors would bring joy and completion, good commander."

    Onruk could hardly bear his calm.  The woman was bewitching him, possibly corrupting him with every word.  Her humility and precision, her soft voice, slightest smile and fair and downturned eyes...  She was even beginning to speak Unar with great proficiency.  He would have to dip again from the well from which she came, when he had the funds, if only to see if she was not truly unique.  For the present, however, he did need to test the boundaries of that one.  It would be interesting to see exactly how far she had been indoctrinated.

    "You will serve me wine and your body in my chambers this evening, Cashul."

    "Yes, good commander."

    "Leave."

    She did, properly, unemotionally, just as she told herself to, over and over, not flinching, not crying or fearing...  She turned to return the decanter to the kitchen for proper cleansing.

    It was truth, the fact that life as a bound drask in an Unar household was an easier life.  Their health, much required among the fastidious Unar, was seen to.  Were they a particularly pleasing drask, their safety would also be a concern.  Though the women's clothes were more like shoulderless dressing gowns, they did have it and it was clean and new.  There was also sufficient food and water.

    Many drasks who survived the purchased year returned to service, were eagerly traded for currency or simply remained in a household when it was desired.  As those drasks knew nothing of the past year's developments, Cali could understand this. 

    The Allanois all had spoken truth.  Unar knew precisely their own intentions for Desal, among others.  What chilled Cali the most was realizing how well their scheme, worthy of a feast of Prihar, had trapped her beloved people.  How well the Unar had indeed trained their submission, taking advantage of Desal's guilt and spiritual wishes!  Again, she felt the shame that she too had allowed it once.  She had almost committed her child to such nothingness, kneeling upong the stones and touching her little neck as those beasts passed her by.  The others within the household had been her child, once....

    The others of the household.  She was to be trusted with them.

    The tiniest smile escaped her.  Thankfully, it was unseen as she slipped into the kitchen.

    Unfortunately the evening had to come first.  For the first time, she did not mind it as much.  With her usual prayers flowing through her, the knowing bond with her ancestors and her purpose purifying her and repelling Onruk's spiritual stench, Cali did precisely as he asked.

    The next morning, she awoke without an indicator, powdered herself, dressed and left her closet as she always did.  She did not dare leave any other way, nor did she dare vomit, scream, cry or wish for death for the repellent recollection still spinning through her nauseated spirit.

    Rather, her purpose somewhat distracted those impulses.

    Objectives for her day posted on a small monitor outside her door.  Often, each day was the same, though they were all to read it.  Sometimes, there were exceptions.  That day was an exception, as she had hoped.  Minutes after reading her orders, she wrapped herself in the proper coat and--after kneeling for the passage of several officers and taking their steps to her neck--Cali set off through the west exit for the laundry.

    It was not a busy walk.  Unar streets were generally not crowded, its people more inclined to go only where they were required to go.  Women of Unar remained in seclusion since the Plodischik sect overthrew the old order shortly before Unar incursions began in Irllae, so had said the elders when they advised her.  Only when she arrived that Onruk's household did Cali see that it indeed was true.  Children, too, remained away from "Gozhor's breath," as it was said, leaving the streets rather dead to life but for the occasional officer en route to another's home.  The dearth showed the effort Unar made with their cities, to make them as clean as their bodies should be.  The architecture was light grey and straight-lined, with no particular decoration, courtyards or even trees.

    She was glad there was little distraction there, actually.  She made her way around the alley to the steel structure of the laundry in little time.

    Her contact was called Aprrahol by the Unar.  He was approximately thirty-five, slightly greyed and plain in appearance and seemed a well enough trained and humble man.  He gave her a plain stare in greeting, did not touch her personally as he removed her coat and set it aside to be washed.

    His service at the laundry had taught him all the proper procedures in the treatment of a drichka server assigned to train those under his eye--mainly clothing deliverers.  This one, quite a perfect seeming drichka, had special orders directly from Commander Onruk and so he was doubly careful, even as he peered askance at her.

    For her part, Cali gave him nothing but a standard Unar greeting and followed him to the corridor that led to a series of staircases.  As they began to descend, however, her escort remained near, seemingly lest she fall down the sharp declines.  A hiss of steam echoed below and he held an arm behind her.  In the corner of her eye, she saw him glance behind them then to her.

    "Allanois," he said quietly, to her ear alone.

    Cali did not look at him.

    "There are no listening devices here and the steam shall carry away any errant ears which are likely not here," he told her.  "Unar think nothing of their drasks' minds, but what they desire to believe."

    "Which would be their undoing, should this be truth," she finally said.

    "I have served five households in my tenure," he told her.  "I am Aprra of Ci'avas, Ivlisa, and the way is known to me.  Upon my spirit, good lady, I do not deceive you."

    She drew a deep breath of the steamy air, glanced up again.  "I am called Cali of Azlre, Cezia."

    He looked up the steps as they rounded another turn then slowed their descent.  "Allanois," he repeated.

    "Bear among you spirits who doubt Desal's contrition should be continued?" she asked.

    "It would be said that contrition is yet required, our spirits in need of humility and patience--and yet the poison of Unar is well taught in this place.  There shall always be some discomfort in the extent of discipline and demand upon our way."

    She blinked away her vision of I'efa.  "Particularly by Unar, who bear no right to serve us our redemption."

    "Allanois," he said yet again, managing to not sound too pressing.  "Please good lady, this manner of talk since your arrival must be understood or quelled.  You have whispered to others of the houses of our blessed regency--yes, it has been brought to me.  It circles through the air like a whirl in a canyon.  Yet the inappropriate curiosity may well be a danger to those here."

    Cali's eyes remained on the steps.  "Sashana'i of Allanois," she stated, "descendant of Yusi, lives, and she, beside her bondmate, has claimed Desal as her spirit's responsibility.  We are therefore absolved for any resistance to Unar to free Irllae from the bonds of Unar.  It is agreed by our elders and by the prichava of Cezia that Unar have manipulated our beliefs and work to slowly erase our spirits' tradition and truth.  As was their approach upon Desal, their method was intended as gradual, as not to be noticed.  Yet the plan has been exposed; it shall boast only failure, now."

    She had practiced the paragraph several times in her walk to the laundry, yet she had to force her voice not to tremble as she said it.

    Aprra felt a quiver meet her quick and quiet words.  For all his surprise, it took much of his control not to respond immediately. 

    "I seek to inform those of Desal of what shall be," Cali added,  "and it shall be brought among us, Aprra.  I have been sent to both teach and warn as well as spy, as have been many others implanted into service.  We all shall warn you of the impending danger as we teach our responsibility to our children--all children of Desal--as the poor regency was for us.  Their mistake shall not be repeated.  Rather, we shall learn from it and sacrifice our own spirits if necessary in order to cleanse their way unto the future of Desalia.  This fate may be, should our prayers be truth.  They shall be made truth.  It time for the sun's rising upon our blessed people has come."

    "By my spirit," Aprra breathed, having never heard such ambition for Desal and yet sense.  It was both thrilling and frightening, and more than tempting.  Not even he had considered the idea in his years, and yet hearing it, he wished he had.

    "By all our spirits, good man.  Are those in your guidance learned in our finer handwriting?"

    "I would believe they bear knowledge."

    "I have procured a stylus.  I shall require material to write upon."  She looked up him, offering a slim smile.  "Shall we teach our good citizens, good man?"

    He let go his breath in a half-laugh, then, shook his head as he considered the thin, plain woman beside him.  Aprra had been under the service of the Unar since his twenty-fifth year to provide medicine and food for his family, which had given him quite a bit of perspective on the Desalian condition--and a selfish wish to survive, if but for his family.  The last time he saw them, two of his brothers had been sold--for no return income--to pay for an "incursion" of debt.

    He had seen their gaunt faces all too well and felt the sickness of his homeworld, the latest in a near constant growth of plague influenza, common in that world's wet, temperate cities.  He had sold himself to service again to bring some ease to that, though he knew he would not ease them sufficiently enough that they would not suffer.  Yet he had accepted that, knowing there was little more to be done.

    But just then, looking to that drichka's stare, so alive and certain he felt her energy enliven him.  Her spirit truly spoke through her eyes as she promised Desal's return.  If that spare lady could speak with such strength on behalf of their regency, once all but passed on to the stars...

    So, Aprra smiled back, albeit briefly.  "We shall, good lady."

    She returned his expression, bowing her thanks.

    "Yet it should be asked," he said wisely,  "why you would threaten your own spirit for this--the skirting of Prihar is a thing no Desalian desires, in spite of their regent's sacrifice."

    "I, good man, have borne a child of Desal.  For her, I shall give all belonging to me, as nothing more can be claimed by me."

    It did not explain her completely, but he accepted it for the moment.  "I should think your daughter is very pretty."

    Cali's eyes lit with a blink.  "I say without conceit she is, if for only that she shows the brightness and joy of our pure, white sun of Cezia.  She has been the only truth in my life.  Without her, I am not fully a person."

    "Who cares for her at this time?"

    "My dear friends Miztri and Dalra of Maha'aje, survivors of Uillar.  They left it in the company of Sashana'i and Aratra of Allanois."

    "Uillar?"  Aprra straightened.  "So it was to that land of poisoned fire the Allanois were taken.  And yet they withstood and returned with purpose and purified spirits prepared to reclaim their realms?"

    "Ka, and with the assistance of Be'i and Toma, they have continued their path with equal resolve," Cali confirmed.

    "Be'i and Toma?"

    "I have not mentioned them?"  Cali's brow drew upwards.  She thought quickly how to define the complex couple--then how to inspire as they had inspired her.  It was not difficult to formulate her way, however, and in a fashion that would find Aprra's and the others' ears well.  "Their story shall be told as well."
 

---

    Ten suns later, Aprra put the coat back onto Cali's shoulders, staring at the smooth line of her shoulder before covering it.  "I suspect we shall not meet again, good lady."

    "I suspect this as well, good man," she said softly, smiling at the feel of his warm breath on her skin.  She would indeed remember it with fondness.

    Had she thought to try, she might not have resisted him, even while they knew that wisdom had not guided them that moon.  The Unar would prefer their prize drichka server remain as "pure" as possible.  Of course, she had ceased respecting Unar policies some time before.

    Rather, she had missed the simple and natural sensuality I'efa had given her during their time together.  She had certainly never felt that when the Unar used her so brutally at her consent.  For his part, Aprra, who had been supportive of and helpful with her purposes there, had only known brief trysts.  He had worked diligently throughout his life.  He both made her admire and sympathize with him.

    They had spoken of these things in the long evenings without duty, when all the others had taken their retirement.  He had first come to her cubicle, asking if she was well in her arrangements.  Like any full-minded Desalians, they took to talk, sharing several hours in each other's histories.

    Each sun was filled with her "training" of the others, who were at first wary, yet eventually accepted and became even more curious of that development among their people.  Cali gladly wove the stories for them, reassuring the safety of their spirits at every turn.  With each day, she implanted her hopes into them and the plans of the resistance.  In her later prayers, she thanked all her ancestors that they had begun to hear her with less and less complaint.

    She and Aprra met again for more of their own stories, after the others had retired.  Those tellings gradually moved into the present, where he mourned her loss of innocence with true tears for her.  She dried them gently, assuring him they would never have her spirit, that though she had felt humiliation in their terrible manner of copulation, hers was yet a body that would heal.  She was embarrassed, but not ashamed of herself.

    She did miss the joy of true intimacy, however.  Staring deeply at her, he admitted the same and smiled when she did.

    The evening before she was to leave, she was reminded of it once again in Aprra's arms, a slow, sweet indulgence needed by both.  They touched, kissed and moved together, smiling gently into each other's eyes, treasuring the pleasure they knew would not be theirs again soon.

    The next morning, the drichka called Cashul scrubbed with the powders while her clothing was properly cleansed.

    She left at the precise time she had left the household, one Unar week previous--but not without ducking into a corner to bestow one last kiss to Aprra's willing lips.

    "My thanks, Aprra," she whispered.

    "And mine, Cali."

    He caressed her temple.  She returned the gesture and kissed him one last time.

    Only hours later, Aprra was at the dock to receive the newest workers, recently purchased and renamed.  Holding the manifest in his hand, he read off their names and memorized their faces with each humble, responding nod.  That complete, he led the small group inside for cleansing. 

    As he adjusted the stalls, he glanced back and said quietly,  "Is there much heat in the sun?"

    All within the group grinned thinly, withholding more with a bit of practice.  "There is," said one,  "and it shines much as Allanois silver did, in rallkle past...my friend."

    Aprra nodded and briefly touched his temple.  "I greet you in our desired peace, friends," he replied and activated the bath.
 

---

    He had been watching her since her return.

    This was not good.

    The others had arrived, she had heard in the whispers through the house, and so she knew her time there was almost at an end.  Whether by Onruk's curious displeasure with her or through the resistance's mysterious method, she would be rid of that place soon.  A part of her breathed with unashamed relief, another worried for those who remained.

    Yet her work was done.  She could leave with the comfort she had done all she could, far more than she promised.  She yet thought about who would be Onruk's next favorite, what he might do to her that he would not do to his mate...  Of course, they would never do such things to their mates.  Unar mates were paid visitation only when conception was desired.

    Little wonder their men sought out whores, she thought.  Unar culture had made it so, just as Desal had made its own victimization with Unar's assistance.

    Cali sighed away such thoughts, however, and moved along with her normal duties, returned to her since her "success" at the laundry.  She was not praised for this task, nor did she expect it.  The fact that she still lived and was a drichka server told her they appreciated her work. 

    Yet he was displeased, suspicious.  She felt it.

    Indeed, their laundry servers were far more efficient, she noted with some certain satisfaction as she returned their unobtrusive looks.  Matters were as difficult as ever just then, yet soon their freedom would be assured.  Her eyes on the floor as she moved to the kitchen for Onruk's afternoon wine, she kept her face perfectly neutral as she dreamed of Haviki taking the scholarship someday--in proper fashion, in the silag with gold and white robes and beads in her hair, praying for her spirit at the foot of the ancestors.

    It was what sent Cali there and sustained her in that terrible house.

    It was what made her stay kneeling as one of the servers were taken past, crying, begging, trying desperately to loosen the collar they were clutching.

    Cali's hands shook under the tray, but she remained in place.  She prayed for the lady's spirit, knew her as Etsenri.  She had been new, a girl from Aprra's homeworld, Ivlisa.  Etsenri was young, however, and would likely be sent to a labor camp.  Though not a desirable transfer, it was better than what other things she knew Unar were capable of.

    How did Unar develop such corruption? she wondered, surprisingly for the first time as she paced up the sloped corridor to Onruk's office.  Certainly, they were once a well-minded people.  Would any redemption be possible?  For as great as ignorance and complacency is, Desal never sought the injury of others...  How does a person, much less a people, *choose* to do harm without provocation?

    She was confident she would never understand, which was both troubling and relieving.

    As she entered, silent upon the rough stone floor, she saw the form of Onruk in the corner of her eye.  He was staring at her.

    He was once a small boy, she mused.  Was he loved?  Did he play?  Did he ever dream for things aside from his people's desires?

    It did not matter, however.  Onruk was a man there, and he had just minutes before sent young Etsenri away without pay or promise.  He certainly would not feel remorse for his decision.  Nor would he ever care to recognize her pain.

    "You have corrupted yourself," said Onruk, low and regretful.

    Cali barely paused in her work, forced herself not to react.  The high commander liked to generalize about Desalian filth.

    "For your work in the laundry," he continued, "you have been among the impure and should be cleansed.  I have decided that your filth will be extricated completely."

    Cali did pause that time--froze, in fact.

    He noticed that.  "You would resist this?"

    "I would wish to know what you intend."

    "Why should you wish that, if you are compliant?" he asked, truly interested.

    Suddenly, her promise to Be'i and Toma rang through her ears--and for the first time, she obeyed it.  "Desalian filth includes identity among those of my birth, which is the limit to my compliance."

    This was certainly not pleasing to the Commander, who moved steadily towards her.  "You do not give yourself completely?"

    "I give all of myself to the point of my identity as a drask," she said, reigning every nerve of patience she possessed, "as I would not be anything, not even bear life, without that which made me what I am--even a drichka."

    "I see," Onruk said.  He eyed the beautiful drask, could see her trembling deep within herself.  He had indeed touched the core of her being--there was nothing beyond it. 

    There, he knew, was the last kernel his people needed to tap in those creatures--their spiritual core.  He knew well that drask, no matter how perfect, would stay upon something.  He had hoped for otherwise, but his comrades had been correct about that one after all.  They knew in their impartial minds that she was a trap to his better sense.  Now, he could see it, too.

    As she finished the wine pouring and set the decanter into its proper place, he watched her face return to normal and her body relax.

    "Put yourself against the wall, Cashul.  I would have you now."

    Cali paused only slightly, but did as asked.

    Onruk followed her.  "Do you want this?"

    Cali bit down on her cheek.  "I would have what pleases you, and that would be a gift unto me."

    "Save your spirit?"

    She drew a breath.  For all she had pretended, she could not make that one lie cross her teeth; she could not betray her nature that grievously.  Her mind could not even formulate it, even if she wanted to.  That was the one step she could not take--and fate could bring what it may because of that.

    For that matter, he was already displeased with her.

    So, she was softly honest.  "Yes, good Commander."

    Without warning, his hand shot out and grabbed her thin, pale arm, ripping her around to face him.

    Cali's breath stopped as his light grey eyes glowered into his.  She thought to run, to faint, to cry, to scream, to...

    Onruk's bruising grip tightened further, until she blinked.

    "You do feel more than you would ever tell me," he snarled.

    "I live and breathe in this corrupt body, Commander," she managed through short breaths.  "I am imperfect and shall always be.  Your purity, great as it may be, may never be my own, nor my humble spirit."

    "Upon my command!"  he snapped.  "Your spirit and body belong to me, drask."  As his hand rose, he called for his assistant.

    Cali felt her tears betraying the glassy stare she had held for too long as his yell still echoed in her ears, saw his hand coming towards her.  I am passed--oh my Haviki, I am in sorrow for your loss of me, though I pass with truth in my spirit...

    Through the corridors of the lower level down to the front hall, the screams echoed, bringing every server there to at least some pause, whether within or outside the shell of their being.  The sounds of punishment and correction were common.  However, they also knew who served Onruk's tisaluo:  Cali of Azlre, the one who had come as though from the very ancestors, whispering words of blessing and redemption.  Yet having never heard that voice of hope any louder than a whisper, her screams, released fully for their ears--forcing them to listen--shook their eardrums and chilled their very spirits.

    Then she was seen stumbling into the hall, thrown down and then brought forth as a young officer dragging her bleeding and crying down the slope to the great corridor like any other.  Her fine drichka sarong was torn; her body was purpled with impacts.  Her hair, once glossy in its braid, had sprung loose and wild around her trembling frame.  Held by her thin neck, she struggled to keep her feet under her, but lost her footing with each long step.  Her braid-waved hair swept the ground each time and she didn't try to pick it up.

    "You may beat and rape me, yet you may never take my kraja!" she gasped desperately.  "Never my truth and my spirit!"

    In her horror and pain, Cali saw her fellow citizens on the floor through her swollen eyes.  She was passed, she knew, passed onto the realm where Unar would never touch her.  For her words, they would have her body's end.  Her strength leaving quickly, she knew her work was most certainly ceased...

    The others still lived.  Those there yet would be there, for their future...

    "You may take all but my spirit!"  she rasped, crying for her next breath.  "All...but my being!  I pass unto...my blessed ancestors, never into...your nothingness!"  Her lungs crushing at the force she employed, her head dropped.

    In that one outward resistance, those in the hall knew well her purpose still lived.  Unar had tried, but failed, to grasp her being.

    She resisted outright--resisted Unar for the sake of her eternal spirit and for all those who heard.  They would remember her like that.

    Each drask brought the steps of the Unar to their necks.  Not a few forced themselves not to look after the scene.

    At the edge of the hall near the door that would take the unconscious drask to transport, another server glanced around with his eyes alone, still kneeling on the floor.  As soon as the officer and the woman had passed completely, he pulled a small tube from his trouser pocket.  Unobtrusively, he put the tube to his lips and shot a foreign object from it with a quick exhale.

    It buried itself in Cali of Azlre's leg.

    He then took out his cloths to clean the bloody trail the drask had left in her departure.
 

---

    Grabbing the skirt of her gown in her fist, Be'i of Azlre sprinted from the market upon first word of the news.  Her mate, Toma, was close behind, his robe snapping in the firm, warm breeze.  They skirted around the still and slower people, all preparing for the Rritskara Tsaborr festivities only just beginning, festivities they had been helping prepare for while cursing Tridl under their breath for breaking their deadline and endangering their friend.

    Tridl, however, had sent the receiving trader to Cezia with his charge and with instructions to speak to the two.  He hadn't finished his sentence when they dashed away.  Barely paying attention to the stares and questions from friends they passed, they made it from the bazaar to the square in less than ten minutes.

    She didn't even think to lose her breath after she burst into the doors and skipped to a stop on the smooth floors of the inner clinic.

    Bakali greeted her with a quick nod.  "Be'i, send Toma for the pah'nad tray from the replicator.  It shall be required for her care."

    B'Elanna took the required second to snap into that thought before looking behind her.  But Tom had already heard and turned back for the square.

    Her long coat and robe set aside and an apron tied over her fine gown, the elder bent over the bloodied young woman and continued to laser stitch the wounds that had been left open for what seemed like days. 

    They looked all too familiar to B'Elanna.

    "Our good Kedra had been able to inject the homing apparatus into her leg upon her reassignment," Bakali explained, placing her wrinkled hand on Cali's dark, tangled hair as she considered the next wound.  "The Antral trader paid ninety kibo for the whore, he has said."

    "He shall be paid twice that, for Cali," B'Elanna said, moving to the table.

    If she had ever forgotten she was angry with Unar, how her gentle friend looked just then, knotted with bruises, her slinky sarong torn and stained upon her thin frame, was a brutal reminder.  She recalled as well the vast pain and illness at Uillar, the humiliation Sashana'i had had to bear to save them, the cold of every dead child and adult they had pulled from the Trisjorr district, every passing ceremony she had politely attended and for those pitiful laborers tossed back from their year's service like garbage to be disposed of. She even remembered her own waking upon that table, the pain Hychar had beaten into her.

    Now Cali, so sweet yet so determined to assist, had joined those memories.

    She recalled her cold desire for retribution with a clarity that actually shocked her.  It had been more than a year since she had last felt it so strongly, felt that buried rage.  But then, she knew she couldn't be angry every day.  If she had learned anything there, it was that her energy was better used elsewhere until her need for vindication could be directed.  She still felt it, though.

    "How may I assist?" she asked her elder.

    Bakali looked up, managed a small smile to try to soften the young woman's steeled expression.  "Cali shall persevere, Child.  The other laser scalpel may be employed to remove that clever apparatus sent to her."

    B'Elanna tried to return the grin without much success.  "The 'pea shooter' had been Tom's idea," she said and reached back to tie her cursorily wrapped scarves in a knot.  Finding the spare scalpel, she returned to remove the beacon.  She and Tom had constructed it late one night, giving it to Sashana'i to plant with one of the new agents going to Commander Onruk's household.  Some strange instinct told them it would be needed.  She was glad they'd listened to it.

    Leaning down to her work, she growled to feel her hands shaking.  She pulled a deep breath and tried again, staring at the small wound in Cali's terribly pale leg.  But then she glanced to a nearby trail of dried blood on her shin...

    "Damnit," she muttered.

    Bakali finished healing another laceration and put her own instrument aside.  Moving around the table, she smiled wistfully to see B'Elanna turn her face away.  Bakali knew B'Elanna did not like to give certain emotions an audience, but Bakali also knew she was the elder of them and had enough determination of her own to not give the young woman her moment.  Placing her warm dry hand on one of B'Elanna's crossed arms, Bakali turned her easily and eased her within her embrace.

    "Gye, my child, indulge me," she whispered soothingly.  "Your conscience had been distressed too long for our Cali."

    B'Elanna willingly gave up.  Pulling her arms apart, she accepted the old woman's embrace and allowed herself to sigh as she closed her eyes.  "I'm sorry.  I have thought a while about her coming back safely.  I never used to be like this...not as this."

    Bakali giggled.  "Must you always be reminded?"

    "No," B'Elanna grinned.  "I know it is different now.  I know I'm not the same person I was before."

    Bakali pulled back enough to do just that, regard at arm's distance the petite, brown-haired girl, her dark eyes, full, red mouth and markings slightly teal upon her fair olive skin; dressed just so for the day in her scarves and blue gown.  Sashana'i had even given her a bead chain to wear around her slim waist.  "I should think you look different, ka," the elder smiled, "yet your eyes still shine into your intent spirit as it ever has.  Your smile yet warms the room when you wish it and shows your gentleness, which you yet attempt too stubbornly to mask."

    Nodding to Cali, B'Elanna said,  "There won't be time for gentleness, soon."

    "There is always a time for gentleness, Be'i, and for love, tradition and oneness.  Rather, these things must not be forgotten when we must act otherwise.  This was your greatest mistake in your former world, Child, a lesson you have learned well among us.  You must never feel shame for your care.  So now, we must give love and gentleness to Cali, who shall be well, do know."

    "You know what they have done to her, Bakali," B'Elanna countered.  "She has that to recover from with everything else.  I have done little in comparison--living in comfort here, even being so happy and busy in my work, with Tom, with you and Bala.  She did what I never could."

    The elder nodded solemnly.  "Ka.  It is but her body, however, which shall be ill used in life, as we are designed for use.  --Not designed for rape, Be'i.  This is known.  Yet these risks were well known when she asked for her duty and committed herself to it."

    "That doesn't mean I have to like it or feel all right that I wasn't in her place."

    Bakali touched her temple gently.  B'Elanna's eyes drew up to meet hers.  "Acceptance and passivity, Child," the elder stated, "is not equal to the misguided notion of our enjoying our fate.  Rather, we endeavored to regain our spiritual heath and left life's turns to fate--as you have, too.  Do you forget your own life's trials and terrors so easily?  Your selflessness is good spirited, child, yet too great a demand is placed upon yourself--and too much of Desal's acceptance is used as a base of comparison.  This impossibility which scorns you much be released."

    B'Elanna immediately looked down.  Something about the woman's gentle correction had worked well on her somehow.  "You know me too well."

    Pleased, Bakali patted B'Elanna's cheek.

    "Bakali," Cali whispered.

    Both women moved back to the head of the table, where two swollen eyes had opened and began to focus.  Bakali laughed with the simple joy of Cali's consciousness and took her scanner back into her hand.  "Rest, good lady.  Your wellness shall increase when we have completed with you."

    Cali closed her mouth to wet it then breathed again.  She felt the bruises in her lungs, but ignored it for the sheer wonder she felt just then.  It was a blessed dream, seeing the familiar ceiling above her and Bakali's sweet, old face, her sparkling hazel eyes, her pretty smile.

    "Haviki?" she asked.

    "Your dear child remains with Miztri and Dalra among the tsaborr festivities, good Cali," the elder told her,  "and shall please you well with her goodness.  --We shall yes, good lady, heal your outer wounds before bringing her, ka?"

    "Ka.  This would be preferred."

    B'Elanna took her hand and rubbed it.  "You may not know the gratitude we feel for your arrival home, to Azlre," she said in Desalian, smiling down to her friend.

    Cali's eyes diverted to the other woman above her.  Examining her curiously, her small smile grew through a sigh.  "It was thought for a moment," she whispered,  "that I had not been brought among the blessed spirits.  Yet it is believed I have to see Be'i so properly of Desal--and with such perfection in your speech, I would not have known you but for your dear face.  My sweet friend, you have become truly of our own?"

    B'Elanna laughed quietly.  "Ka, it is truth."

    "As Toma?"

    "Ka.  His handsomeness is greatly improved, you would think."

    "I should believe this," Cali smiled and squeezed B'Elanna's fingers. 

    "Yes, Cali?"

    "I bear information for you--much which shall used well in our resistance.  A great deal is lies within me; it shall be written immediately should you--"

    "Vaa, there lies a far better time for that," B'Elanna said, caressing the knots in her friend's hair as Bakali pulled another tray to the bedside.  Hearing the door, she smiled to see Tom coming with the medicines Bakali had ordered.  "Look who has brought himself."

    Tom's face immediately brightened to see Cali's open eyes--not to mention B'Elanna's obvious relief.  "Zh'vi," he said, setting the items down on Bakali's table--"Should more be required, please ask"--and then bending over to look at the patient.  "We see you well, finally home, good lady," he said.

    "My thanks, good man," Cali happily sighed, eyeing his temples, scarves and fine holiday clothes.  It was very good to be with her people again, more so with those pleasant surprises.  "All I was sent to perform has been completed, you should know."

    "Tell us later," Tom said gently.  "On this sun and for at least several more, you should heal and make Haviki spoiled again."

    "If Miztri hasn't done so well enough," B'Elanna grinned aside to him.

    "Gye, yet I must--"

    "Cali, you are unwell," B'Elanna said, training her relief into firmness without much effort.  "None shall be assisted among us, not even your daughter, should your healing be disturbed.  Our elder agrees?"

    Bakali nodded to the young woman as she continued to prepare the instruments and medications she would need to use.  In addition to the beating she had suffered, Cali had many of the common injuries endured by any pleasing female in an Unar household--which were treated poorly, she noticed.  "It shall require but a few hours to administer your immediate treatment," she said.  "I should think your memory would not be affected in the interim.  Be'i and Toma speak wisely."

    "Only for that we never bore the same practice," Tom quipped.

    Cali heard it, and didn't mind.  Pulling B'Elanna's hand to her chest, she looked at them both.  "My most grateful thanks, for procuring my freedom."

    "You would thank Sashana'i for that," Tom told her.  "She made most of the arrangements with Tridl Himad."

    "No," Cali whispered and met B'Elanna's eyes.  "For it all, my friends.  Bear you any conception of what you have done among us?  How our beings have been changed?  Our spirits freed?"

    B'Elanna shook her head.  "Your freedom belongs to you alone.  Toma and I would have acted regardless--"

    "Be'i, you and Toma have been our inspiration.  You have saved us.  --Please, my good Bakali, allow me this moment, for I must speak.  I have borne my thoughts through so many dark suns."

    The elder lady gave her a look then a small smile.  "You are weakened, yet do as it pleases, Child.  I shall wait."

    Cali returned her attention to B'Elanna.  "Your words, this cause, Be'i and Toma, has lit a fire in my once barren spirit.  It may not be stopped--and with the blessing of fate, it shall not be stopped, the fire lit in me or the others I have brought this light to.  It brings fear, yet it brings hope, and I shall not be placed into the darkness again.  I thank you for this--for I have seen how destitute our people might have become.

    "I was beaten for refusing to relinquish my spirit."  Cali nodded to Bakali's returned attention.  "Ka, my elder, everything had been done for Onruk by me, yet would not give my spirit, nor my identity among Desal.  He claimed it and I refused him humbly.  For this, I was bloodied and reassigned."

    B'Elanna's lips pressed hard together, opening again with a puff of a growl.  "Beast."

    "Yet it was proof of your claims, Be'i.  This is what Unar desire.  They do wish our spirits to be of their making.  This was a curiosity of mine, good friends.  To know its truth gives me more resolve than ever."

    Tom coughed a laugh.  "For you alone I should think they would be defeated."

    "Indeed, upon that thought, I shall spend my convalescence writing each detail of his wickedness and open tongue.  --Ka, a great deal of him and Unar was learned.  My friends, I shall also bear my words in open council to strengthen our way among those undecided.  Should I be required to fight, as well, to sacrifice myself to this completely--for that hope, I shall give my very being.  Ka, Toma, Unar shall never bear our spirits, or our children's.  Prihar is of Desal's conscience.  Unar are not."

    For those assured words, Tom's brow rose, as did his eyes to meet B'Elanna's over the bed.  They accepted that change in her with a blink, a nod.  Looking to Cali again, he offered her a genuine smile.  "Our thanks to you," he said,  "for doing what we cannot."

    "Your bravery and honor was shown without exception," B'Elanna added.

    "The sins of my predecessors have been redeemed," she told them, her blinks growing slower, her hoarse voice fading into a quiet satisfaction.  "I have done...what I could."

    "More than that," B'Elanna told her, watching her eyelids flutter.

    Cali saw B'Elanna's concern reappear and acknowledged that with another blink.  "Bakali, I would take sleep soon, I should believe."

    "Ka, Child," Bakali told her softly, administering the first anesthetic.  "Allow this to be.  Another time for the other matters shall await you."

    Cali looked up into her friends once more, feeling her quickened heart calm, and not only for Bakali's injection.  Only to see the ones who had brought her so alive as true Desalians was a blessing in her mind.  As she had gone, they had come. 

    There was a pleasing balance in that, she thought.

    "I should...wish to see my child," she whispered,  "when proper."

    "You shall," B'Elanna whispered, caressing Cali's hair again as her eyes slowly closed.

    They straightened as Bakali began her work, staring at each other again.  Their relief, a part of another job completed, hung in their gazes. 

    Placing her hand on the laser scalpel she'd put down before, B'Elanna took a breath.  "Tom, when we're finished here," she said, reverting to her native tongue, "I want to find Tridl's agent again, before he leaves.  I want to push the leaders' meeting up, if possible, before the rains.  It's time to make this happen."

    "Stage two it is, then," he said, feeling a small, sure smile creep to his lips. 
 

---

    "Sometimes, it was not about fighting at all," Tom said from his flour board on their one planned day off. 

    With the Tsi'omad dinner that evening, they knew well it would be a waste of time to go to Dviglar, so they remained to help the elders twist and stuff the bread they always brought to the tables.

    Their work remained a topic.  With Cali recuperating and the Irllae underground meeting in but another third moon, they had yet to organize their own base, departments, leaders, agents and captains.  For all their repairs and training at Dviglar, it had been a last minute thought.  The six there--Aratra, Sashana'i, Tom, B'Elanna, Dalra and Miztri--had always been looked to as leaders in their own right.  Yet their precise positions had not even been settled.

    Several nights ago, B'Elanna laughed about it when they realized their omission.  "Some Starfleet officers we must have been!" she said.  "We are in charge of this operation and we haven't even given assignments beyond repair duty!"

    "Well, you can't blame me.  I only had a field commission," Tom replied lightly.

    Nevertheless, the week after Cali was returned to Azlre, they invited their friends by for a little "briefing session."  But not five minutes into it, they'd already hit a snag trying to dole out the captaincy of the Merraj.

    "With a good ship and knowing how to fly it well, there were times we needed only disable the other ship.  Killing is not always a necessity."

    Dalra narrowed his eyes at that.  "Yet Unar may well destroy themselves for that disgrace."

    "That would be their choice," B'Elanna said.

    "Made by our disgracing them."

    Miztri sighed.  "My bondmate shall obviously not take the field.  --My spirit, this is not peace we are speaking on, but the effort which must be made for a future peace."

    "Yes, good Miztri.  Yet the concern of many remains, that this blessed wish could become a poison to our people and our future."

    "At times, good man," Sashana'i pointed out,  "one must take a little poison to cure the ailment."

    "With no guarantee that the disease shall be eradicated--nor assurance it would not perpetuate upon survival."  Seeing Sashana'i's eyes darken at that, Dalra looked back to B'Elanna.  "Leading Unar to their own destruction is yet destruction of them."

    "It's still their choice in the end," Tom said more firmly.  With a sigh, he continued,  "Plus, having a ship with a few tricks up its sleeve can be good--and can avoid much of that violence you so fear, Dalra."

    "How is this?"  Aratra asked, unstopped in his kneading below his grin.  He already knew, of course.  But it would not hurt for their elder friends to know of it.

    "In the Maquis," B'Elanna said, thoughtful to recall a time that had become so strangely distant to her,  "we did many things I know you would not approve of.  But we also used to divert ships by leaving false ion trails, sent ships on auto pilot to divert them, holo-projected ship readings and shadows--sometimes we even projected a ship itself so we could slip around them."  She grinned at Tom.  "And sometimes, even an overconfident pilot could do some good."

    Tom laughed.  "As long as the engineer was able to keep up."

    "Though they would be destroyed in the end by you," Dalra maintained.  He did not need to be reminded of how they were when he first met them.  "You would take on that rebellion you spoke of never finishing."

    "We would know better because of that time, Dalra," B'Elanna said.  "Yes, we did destroy them if we needed to.  We did what damage we could to keep ourselves alive and to protect what colonies we could--what was necessary.  At the time, I had no problem with it."

    "And here?"  Dalra asked, a bit alarmed at her quiet words.  "Shall such brutality be used?"

    "We won't require the same methods here," she said honestly, "but I will tell you Dalra--and it shouldn't be a surprise--the Unar in my eyes are no better than the Cardassians, if not far worse.  And if it does become necessary, I will treat them the same.  I bear no fear of sending them to whatever eternity they believe in as they have sent countless Desalians with far more suffering than a phaser blast will serve."

    "Agreed," Tom said.  "I have no fear of fighting them on any level.  Maybe I'll do it with more perspective now, but if it becomes necessary, we will use whatever we can."

    "Then you would become no better than Unar."

    "I would always know that our aim is to free people, not enslave them and wipe out their identity," Tom returned.

    "Which is more than what the Cardassians were doing at Bajor--or the Federation in the colonies," B'Elanna noted.  "There, it was just politics and power.  Nobody really cared about the beliefs at work, as long as they got what they wanted."

    Tom stopped the breath Dalra took with his hand, flour-covered but steady in the air between them.  "You have to understand again that things there were very different.  There were two large bureaucracies pitted against each other, each very powerful and having already fought a very long and bloody war.  The Federation wanted to avoid that at all costs--and the colonies suffered for it when the Cardassians broke the treaty and attacked them anyway, probably trying to get them to go along with Federation's offer to leave the region.  The Maquis had to be forceful if it was going to anything to defend those peoples.  At the same time, there were a lot of politics and underhanded policies at work, on everyone's side.  It's a long story that's hard to explain, but to put it simply, everyone wanted peace, but everyone wanted it either on their terms or thinking their terms were better."

    "It is little surprise these peoples remained at war," Aratra observed.

    "The point is that the fight here is different," Tom told him.  "This isn't about politics and bad treaties.  It's about the Unar's good timing in Irllae and using your beliefs to work against you, which is what we will use against them in return.  When the Unar figure out what we're doing, though, that will change, and there will be violence.  --War isn't supposed to be easy or clean, Dalra.  That's why we agree to sacrifice our spirits at least a little."

    "Toma speaks truth," Miztri said.  "Dalra, my spirit, discontent and impure action to some small degree must be accepted in order to cleanse the way.  It is not for ourselves we fight, after all."

    Wiping her hands on a towel, B'Elanna leaned over and grabbed a datapad she and Tom had devised of salvaged monitor parts from a junked ship.  To their surprise, pre-occupation Desalians had only used them for long-term data and histories, but memorized their everyday data and literature as a rule, committing the information in a detailed log once or twice each day.  She and Tom had begun to practice the same skills, but still needed the visual reminders.  Squinting down to the screen, tapping some information into it, she gave Dalra a nod.  "Fine--someone else will take the Merraj.  Would you prefer communications?"

    The older man smiled.  "I would.  It is work I know I could be well with."

    "Even if it means tracking the Unar and telling us where they are?"  He sighed, nodded.  But B'Elanna nailed him with her gaze, forcing him not to turn away.  "I do not want you there if you would be hesitant about it, Dalra.  There is no shame in saying no, but thousands of people will depend on you for your information--all of Desal and our Allies will when this war grows thick.  Running the communications center will not be simple or a position for the complacent.  I want to depend on you and know I can, but I still need to hear you promise that you will perform your duty fully."

    Dalra paused at B'Elanna's typically strong words.  Since the beginning of the change among his people, he indeed had been cautious, but supportive, had helped in all the work, even if some of the "upgrades" had concerned him--namely, weapons development. 

    Like at Uillar, those willful children were playing a dangerous game and wrapping him up in it...though he could not say they needed to prod him too sharply into action.  They had indeed survived Hychar, possibly the most wicked man Dalra had the misfortune of meeting.  They had survived with determination and pride, and they had come away improved in manner and spirit as a result.  Similar stubbornness had made life on Cezia better for all.

    Now they wished to free all of Desal.  In this, he did believe they were acting both selfishly and selflessly.

    Even so, they were yet like small tempest storms, which cropped at nature's whim yet brought life-giving rain.  They had shown how the fight could yet be achieved without spiritual darkness, but the act itself was more than discomforting to him.  Dalra could not take that great a risk within his spirit, though assisting people to remain in contact and to preserve their safety was something he knew he had experience with and liked to do.  Eleven years on Uillar had definitely proven that.  He could manage leading them to violence in the balance.

    "In assisting your communications," he said,  "my responsibility to our resistance would be obeyed without diversion, Be'i; I would act as you would instruct me."

    B'Elanna nodded.  "Then you will be in charge.  Cali will be your first assistant.  I will teach you the rest of what you need to know starting at sunrise."

    Miztri took a quick breath.  "My friend," she said and straightened to meet B'Elanna's dark stare,  "I shall take the Merraj."  In the corner of her eye, she saw Dalra close his eyes.  She steeled her breath and continued,  "I would wish to be clever more than act upon necessity.  Yet all that is needed to be done would be done, should that necessity arrive."

    Tom grinned wistfully at that, knowing what discontent the woman was putting upon her bondmate.  Still, Dalra had always understood that Miztri was different that way, had long accepted her need to act and now would have to again.  For that and more, Tom felt indebted; he made a mental note to do something for them.  For all the trouble he and B'Elanna had brought between them--whether or not they'd ever been blamed for that--he knew he owed them a lot.

    "We start training tomorrow, then, too," Tom finally said, "and find you a fitting co-captain.  You need to know all the maneuvers--and if we're lucky, we should be able to take a ship out for practice someday soon.  For a holo-simulator, you would have no idea what I would do."

    B'Elanna grinned at that latest slip of phrasing and tapped another bit into her "plan" log.  "Maybe we can work out a stable holo-matrix with some of the scrap replication parts."

    Tom grinned.  "Have I told you recently how incredible you are?"

    "You might have, but you can keep saying it," she joked.

    Tom squeezed her knee.  Looking at Miztri, he gave another nod.  "We'll start on the maneuvers and calculations first--you and whoever else we have in the class."

    "What you believe is wise, I shall trust," she agreed.

    Tom and B'Elanna returned their attention to Aratra and Sashana'i.  There, Dalra gave them a hard stare.  "Not our regents as well," he breathed. 

    Sashana'i raised her chin.  "Desal shall become accustomed to working regents once more.  It is meant--and shall be, as we cannot in good conscience send others to fight and remain static here."

    "My dear friend," Aratra continued before Dalra could reply, "should it be meant that the regency must pass to another family, then it shall be.  This is for the spirits to bless and fate to choose.  Yet the last of the Allanois shall not be remembered as preferring self preservation to serving beside their citizens in our most difficult era.  We shall fight, Dalra." 

    Unable to argue with them, Dalra gave his slow assent.  Sashana'i bowed her head respectfully in return, and then looked at her siblings.  "Yet I should believe Aratra would claim the prime captaincy," she said.

    Aratra rubbed her back.  "This was always your preference, my spirit."

    B'Elanna laughed and tapped the PADD again.  "The Korchau?" she asked Tom, who nodded.  "Okay, Aratra, that will be yours."

    "It would be my preference to remain with the engines, as I would bear more use there," Sashana'i added.  "A co-captain should be procured."

    "That should not be a problem," B'Elanna nodded.  "Tomorrow, we can go through our list again with everyone there.  Tom and I will need nominations to fill the other nineteen ships we have in repair now and more for the rebuilds following those.  I think Gihetra and J'vishi would both be good suggestions to start.  They've both said they wanted to."

    "Ka, they have," Miztri said.  "I should believe that many of Uillar would wish it.  They have both shown excellent promise, as has Sollve'a."

    "Definitely Sollve'a," Tom nodded, "and Nivilla."

    "And what of yourselves?" Dalra asked.  "Shall you take nothing of your own?"

    Tom grinned.  "Sashana'i wanted us to have the Azallis, so we've taken that one."

    Dalra was surprised.  "Yusi of Allanois' ship?"

    "There was little difficulty in convincing them," Aratra laughed.  "The ship has long intrigued them, and it has been lovingly tended by them."

    B'Elanna shrugged.  "It does have some great capabilities.  We never did have the heart to take it apart."

    "It befits," Sashana'i nodded and got back to their humbler work.  They had been talking so much, the bread had begun to rise again.  Bala would likely have the coal plates outside ready soon, so she rubbed the roller with the canvas to dry it before pulling her stack of bread sheets back before her.  Looking over, she spied B'Elanna, who was concertedly typing into the PADD again.

    How much like Toma's early memory of her does she look just now, she thought, smiling at it, but then stifling her diversion.  They still had the rolls to complete, after all, and to make that point, Sashana'i plucked a button of dough and threw it at her friend, laughing to see it stick to her cheek.  The others laughed, too, breaking the serious conversation with the ease that they had earned as friends.

    B'Elanna shook her head and peeled the glob off.  "Snotty little brat," she smirked and popped the dough in her mouth, put the PADD aside.  Their work could wait another day, after all.  They had that bread portion to prepare in the mean time, which she did gladly.  She had always looked forward to Tsi'omad community dinners, though she still didn't join in with the usual music and dancing.  Nor had she ever told stories of her past, except that one night.  Tom didn't either.

    The food and community, the chatting and visiting and the healthy fire were what she and Tom really enjoyed.  It was a memory of comfort from Uillar that had become a simple pleasure on Cezia, much like many things had in her life.

    So, taking up the segments that Tom had started to roll again, she easily twisted them into coils and then stuck to on a small rectangle of dough, tucking the corners down and setting them aside on a stone.  As her mind easily cleared to the simple work, she smiled to the tune that Miztri had begun to hum to pass the time and Dalra joined in accompaniment. 

    She knew the words well by then, a story of birds navigating the lake to feed upon the life swimming in it--an erotic poem when interpreted correctly.  She and Tom had heard it many times before they realized exactly what it was about.  Realizing the exact nature of it left them grinning for hours.

    Almost against her will, B'Elanna found herself humming too.  At least she had the comfort of hearing Tom unable to resist as well, albeit under his breath.

    Shrugging to herself, she pulled off another string of dough.
 

---

    As she and Aratra sat to watch the square that sunset, Sashana'i accepted the greetings and wishes of good fortune with all the formality her position afforded her.  Teeming with citizens of Azlre and Sacezia both, from the simplest herders to the many weavers and laborers and even soon to be resistance fighters of their humble city, she bowed with great honor to those people, touched the faces of the many thin, dusty children who gathered to greet her before moving on to their evening meals.

    Since that dramatic evening in the square, more people than ever made the effort to greet their regents personally rather than bow in passing, making the words to bless her and Aratra's way and presence, rather than the equally respectful acknowledgment of family alone.  Upon her arrival in Azlre and without her asking, they had resurrected the old way with regents with an ease that showed their need of strong leadership all too clearly.  The more she and Aratra claimed and requested, the more they responded, the greater those displays of affection grew.  It made her love her race all the more, blessings and failings together.

    It was for them she had done all that she had, whether by her own doing or through others.

    Much had been done, and yet it was only a precursor.

    We have given the city good replication service and sanitation, she knew, and yet so much more is needed.  We yet live in the hollows of our true ways and our poverty must never be considered true health.  I shall not rest until it is all restored, now that I see what a little good may produce.

    She was anxious for Cali's story that evening.  Her friend had promised to tell all of her experience in the house of Onruk.  It would be a good thing for her people to know, Sashana'i believed, particularly as it would come from Cali's very changed perspective on Desalian contrition.

    There were so many things to remember and to press onto them.  That would have to wait, however.  Their lives would soon grow uncertain again for the war to come.  Power, though much improved, was rationed so carefully that even the replicators might run for ten revolutions without their needing to refresh their supply.  The children, the ill and the very poor enjoyed the great bulk of its benefits.  Not a single citizen--not even outworlders living in their city--complained.

    She continued to watch those people of Azlre, preparing for their meals, so simple in their routine, so relatively comfortable.  With some progress, health and activity, Azlre had become possibly the finest city in all of what remained of Desal.  It was difficult to consider what remained around them.  Between the two cities of Cezia, there were only about two hundred eighty thousand people. 

    Desal, they had learned from recovered Unar reports, amounted surprisingly to around five billion people, encompassing Desalia-Four, five colony planets, several moons, outer planets and countless Unar, Antral and Sureshan households and labor camps.  Even with the high mortality rate among Desalians, the Unar population was less than that.  When she thought of it, she shuddered at the enormity of what she had so wished for, hoped for, had finally taken on.

    I have claimed myself regent, symbolic guide, in ignorance of the size of my ultimate responsibility.  They on Cezia alone have shown their extreme hunger for such inspiration--or they certainly needed my word to accept their desire for resurrection.  Yet I bear not the experience of even a regional summit.  Shall the remainder of my people be as open to me?  No, they shall.  It is the way to look to the regent as the symbol of unified desire and loyalty....  Oh my tola, what have you had of me?

    She had tried to understate it with her lesser work at Dviglar; Aratra had too--and gladly.  She had designed, in fact, that Be'i and Toma become the more progressive leaders in their movement simply because she lacked the personal experience and rhetoric for the fight.  She and Aratra could assure outsiders and rally Desal with their name and heredity, but she knew she could not show the force and wit that her siblings would.

    What shall I do with them, with my dear siblings, when all is done?  What shall become of them when my purpose is completed?

    Still, Be'i and Toma seemed to have little difficulty taking on their varied responsibilities, particularly after accepting the kraja and adjusting to the resulting effects.  Rather, they were natural leaders and good teachers, easy to follow in both respects.  They were uncomfortable with the high respect their positions afforded them, however, and even their excess of work and dedication did not convince them to accept the privileges of their rank.  Knowing their full lives as she did, she understood. 

    At least her siblings had assumed their proper postures when needed, though everyone knew it would ultimately rest on the regents alone.

    And then what shall I and Aratra do with it?

    Seeing the face of yet another approaching child, Sashana'i pulled a smile consciously to her lips and greeted the boy.
 

---

    "Hevrra," Tom breathed.  He could find no other word when his eyes fell over the preliminary report little Haviki had been sent up with before her bedtime.

    Cali had recalled even more than they expected she would.

    B'Elanna, sitting by the open window to brush her hair, looked over.  "What?"

    Tom shook his head numbly.  "If this is accurate and we get our ships working in decent order...B'Elanna, we can do some serious damage.  They have gyakl.  Nothing."

    B'Elanna put her brush aside.  Closing the window to a crack, she crawled onto the bunk with him, hiking up her gown as she turned to get up against the wall.  She then curled up at his side under the light to look down at the characters on the small PADD. 

    "Increase the display font?" she asked.  He complied with a tap and she began to read.  Her brow flicked upwards.  "What arrogant bastards."

    "Their tactical perimeters are set up according to the sect domination with neutral space they actually obey," he explained and scrolled down so she could see the maps he'd first reacted to.  "Incredible."

    B'Elanna shook her head as she squinted through the details.  "For a race bound by cleanliness, they've got the sloppiest fleet configuration I've ever seen."

    "Probably because they just don't expect anyone to fight them now outside a sect scourge.  Even the the Kramesi, Dajidians, the Zagrahan and the others--they never even had the technology in the first place.  Forget about the Far Barrier races.  But it looks like the only problem with underground ships doing anything before was that the Unar picked them up only at random."

    "The punishment was enough to scare them all," B'Elanna noted.

    "With a good sensor array and some signal disbursement, that won't be a problem."

    "It'll be an advantage.  We should still be careful."

    "Ye zal.  We won't be able to afford losing many ships in this one."

    "Now if we might convince our neighborly 'friends' of that."

    Tom grinned.  "Too bad you won't let me waste a perfectly good nido'ev pie."

    She snickered and read the next page as he scrolled it down.  Descriptions of household details followed the tactical information.

    Skimming through, B'Elanna recalled earlier assumptions that Unar had a rather bureaucratic setup, which degraded after the military joined purposes with their religious council--and more so after the war, like Dalra had often pointed out.  Sixty years after overtaking the region, "presents" went along the same lines as uprightness in their society--it was highly commercial, highly dependent on appearance of control.  Losing face there was a disgrace that people could not recover from easily, if at all.  It was frighteningly Klingon in that respect, B'Elanna thought, though she understood the Unar all the more for it.

    Little wonder Hychar gave up his escape route just to come after me, she realized.

    She wondered if there were very many like Hychar, so bent on the destruction of a myth that might injure their appearance that they could bring on their own destruction for it.  Dalra said they would--and B'Elanna knew too well the Klingon tradition of self-destruct before capture.  It was an interesting thought with their predicament there, though a disturbing one.

    "Tom," she said, reading and thinking at the same time.

    "Hmm?"

    "We are going to fight again soon," she said quietly.

    "I know."

    "It's been a while--for both of us."

    He drew a deep breath, rested his cheek against her hair.

    "I know I want this.  We have wanted this a long time.  But...I liked not fighting.  I got used to it.  As much as I want to make every guilty Unar pay their own retribution for what they've done here, I don't want to go back to how I used to be."

    "I don't either," Tom sighed.  "I guess we have something to hope for, then, don't we?  Not having to fight again."  Scrolling down another page, he let his eyes drift over a list of Unar ships.

    "What about now?"

    He looked down to her, hearing her genuine concern.  Her face showed it, too; her dark eyes stared longingly into his, wanting an answer.

    Putting the PADD aside, he took her fingers from his chest and gave them a tug.  "Ab," he whispered, nodding towards the floor flap.
 

---

    It frustrates and still it bears use...

    From where they knelt in the center room above the clinic, they saw the shapes and colors around them fade to white as they rose quickly beyond it all.  The newer couple were accustomed to this part of the meditation, but they were too intent, too troubled at the moment to appreciate that first transition into the shared conscience with their elders.

    It gives strength, yet as are all things, there must be balance, Children, in order for peace to possible.  The very downfall of Desal was brought on by imbalance.

    But when you are living in the heat of battle, how do you not become overly accustomed to it?

    That is a mark of maturity.  You bear this capacity.  You are called children more as an endearment, it is believed, as your maturity among us has been achieved beneath our warming suns.

    She looked out to a star field of Cardassian ships, felt the darkened, ailing Maquis ship buckling in the throes of the battle.  A passive observer, she knew she could do nothing.  It was but memory, and yet she felt the heat, saw herself screaming and punching at controls that flickered and sparked, damned should she let them kill her.  He looked and jerked to go to the conn, manned by himself in a far worse condition.

    It is not this which is cursed, the elder told them, her youthful spirit's soft hands on their shoulders as they watched the memory play out before them.  This is survival, which, though selfish in some respects, is natural.  Her bondmate pointed behind them and they turned into another place on the hissing ship.

    She was screaming still in the blackened corridor, smacking the wall and cursing a dark man, her face coiled with fury.  The other argued and she struck him, sending a spray of blood from his mouth.  Far away, he drank from a flask and got on with his repairs in a corner alone.  He looked at the violence, but turned back, ignoring it.  Watching themselves, they flinched, but could not turn away.  This was who they had been.

    Youth is long and painful among your kind, a time of testing and failures, and traps for weaknesses.  The stages of your life are undetermined and thus one among your birth may spend a lifetime in childhood.  You yet bear the capacity to learn, to grow, to release the bitterness you acquire.

    And repeat our mistakes. 

    Unconsciously.  It is why we travel here, so that your unconscious mind is made more aware, and you see your spirits' truth.

    They wanted to leave that place, did not want to see themselves like that.  It's the past, long gone.  We don't belong to that anymore.

    You must, should you lead this fight faithfully.  For necessity, that which you gladly left behind must be brought forth once more.  This, Children, is truth.  You must see what you know is truth here, in sight and deep within.

    The memories of themselves showed only their hard faces, blank for inability to feel beyond the primal or immature, frightened of more, angry at all but especially at themselves for having allowed it so stupidly.  And bitter to those who took them there, they blamed them outwardly while knowing...truth, very deep, far away.  But how do we not go back to it if it's always lurking inside us?

    You may be of Desal now, yet this shall always be a part of you.  Always.  There is no avoiding your birth and upbringing.  Rather, you should use it, learn your errors--and that which was not your doing--and allow your growth from them.  Release your pain and anger, cease to blame and to expect the impossible from yourselves and open your clear eyes to your spirits.  Do not fear--they are pure, despite what others may ignorantly say.  You would not be here were they not.  We trusted your goodness and were correct.  Trust our spirits now. 

    You are trustworthy.  --We're not always so sure about ourselves...and maybe sometimes we don't trust anything.

    The bondmates touched them, caressed their hair; their young faces shone with adoration.  This must be learned, and to love yourselves, else all you have done in the lives you were blessed with shall have been in vain.  Even your learning here, noble as you have become, shall be meaningless without acceptance and balance of your true natures.  It shall merely require time and awareness.  You are good, even in guilt, even in insecurity and particularly in imperfection.

    They turned and saw themselves alone.  She had sent the other away bleeding; no other approached him.  He had disappeared soon after to a place far lonelier than even there--by choice, for he did not wish to see himself as anything better than what he felt he deserved, death being too good for the failure, wanting, yet sabotaging and bitter for his own choice.  She had railed upon him as any other and moved on, claiming friends only to remain within a shell, cursing the world to secretly curse herself then deny it, walking away and away, yet wanting, dreaming...spinning in those contradictions...alone.

    The fight became all of yourselves.  This stemmed from you alone to give you the same.  Yet you bore too much youth to know there was more to this fighting than what you saw before you.  You bore too much pain to recognize how you perpetuated it in your own defenses.

    In the smooth lines of another ship, their uniforms straight and clean, their faces much improved, she hunched over a panel, cool and purely efficient.  Somewhere away, he tapped calculations and diagnostics, bored but busy.  They left those stations.  She fidgeted and finally decided to make herself public with an aura of belonging, knowing better each time she had enough static time to think.  He went out immediately and called all the shots in whatever diversion he chose, calling on and keeping up the game, any game, so not to think.  Each was a stray spirit, with others close but apart from them.  Alone not in body but in spirit, for fear of appearing as they knew they were, fighting the truth which remained.  The view shifted to the hot ground of Uillar, where in the line he picked her up and kept them going, where she steered him around a carefully watching guard, catching up with their friends.  Their eyes found each other's.

    You grew, yet by nature and experience.  Within yourselves, however, you are yet children, seeking, wanting, desiring.

    They looked at each other, seeing what they had always known before.  Yet now we do know there is more.  That other life's failings are a thing to be avoided, even if we have to use it.

    Not to be avoided.  The antecedents must be learned.  The Uillaran sun faded back to the Maquis ship.  Reappearing in her elder form, she moved to comfort the bitter young woman in the corridor, who stiffened at first but allowed the embrace.  Your conscience would not allow a poison.  Bear trust in your instincts--not your minds, but your spirits.  You have grown to know the difference.  You need only listen and not feel fear of your truth.  The elder man likewise went to the inebriated pilot on the floor and covered him with his discarded coat, stroked back his mussed hair.  The young man looked up in numb disbelief then grasped the hand.

    They watched themselves accept the kindness, knowing they saw a projection of their hurting selves respond to the acceptance and welcome the chance to accept their possible liberation.  They understood; they saw it clearly, transfixed.  They wanted it.  I want this.  I do want this. 

    Take what is known and what has been learned in your times of pain; use it now for all the good that is within you and all the maturity and self-awareness you have been blessed with.  This is all you can do in life--learn and employ that wisdom.

    They watched their bitter forms fade into themselves truly as children, tear-streaked, clutching, crying upon the shoulders of the gentle elders who comforted without letting go or trying to placate.  They felt their hearts sink, feeling it...knowing it as truth.  Truth.

    The elders looked back to the witnessing couple as they continued to embrace the youths.  We shall return to this path and its sources upon next sunset, children, should it please.

    They breathed, swallowed, nodded slowly, still staring longingly at their projections...themselves.  Okay.

    The dark ship they stood in faded away to the plain of light.
 

---

    "Rrebna, more speed must be practiced!"  B'Elanna said tersely, watching him so carefully replace the instrument that she nearly swatted his hands away without thinking.  "You know how to do this!"

    "Is this incorrect?"

    "It is should ten Unar ships be preparing to blast your humble spirit to the ancestors and the remainder of your crew with it."

    B'Elanna took up the panel in her hands and displayed it to all who had attended her lesson.  Grabbing at her own waist kit, she whipped out a laser and pulled the old panel off and replaced, reconnected, sealed and reinitialized the small grid in less than a minute.

    "That is how this must be done," she said evenly.  "With precision and speed, unless you would rather disassemble hulls at a labor camp while Unar use your mate as target practice of one sort or another."

    That image was enough, but she softly added,  "I wish not to light your pyre too quickly."
 

---

    "Just do it," Tom said, giving Miztri his hand.  "Look, we have no other way at this point to get past what you already know."

    The older woman sighed and placed her finger into Tom's palm then reached up to touch his temple.  "Concentrate carefully on what you wish to show me."

    Having already consulted Bala on his dilemma, Tom already knew what he needed to do.  Closing his eyes for an added kick into his memory, he pulled up exactly what the woman--and in turn, the other trainees there--needed to know:  Every simulation he had ever run, every escape from the Kazon--which weren't the best but were the most recent memories he had.  There were a few field maneuvers he remembered, too--namely, a few tricky runs he'd pulled during his short time with the Maquis.

    They would need to know more than everything he knew.  Undoubtedly, they needed experience, too, but just then, it was the only way to give them an edge.

    If *anyone* ever told me then that I'd be doing this now...

    Concentrate, Child, for I do not possess the ease of this as do our good elders, came Miztri's firm thoughts into his mind.

    Forcing himself not to feel too much shock at hearing the older lady's voice in his head, he did as asked--starting with the Kazon.

    Miztri's eyes flew open.
 

---

    "This is meant."

    "I cannot!"  Sashana'i felt herself color like the evening sun before the large congregation in the row at Dviglar--many of them in equal shock as she for the outrageous proposition set forth by the regents' sibling.  "I understand you must teach by example, yet...Be'i, you must not ask me."

    "You must, Sashana'i," B'Elanna insisted.  "Imagine me as Unar--as Maghet.  You bear memory of our friend Maghet."

    Sashana'i swallowed.  She remembered Maghet all too well.  But though the last memory of the beast brought her guilt and anger to the fore again, and brought forth her friends' memories of hatred, too, bearing a memory and using it were two very different things.

    B'Elanna exhaled a slow breath.  Having gotten herself ready for some sparring, she then had to remind herself not to become too carried away, especially in front of that contingent of Cezians, whom she was trying to convince that personal violence in defense was not a sin.  It was hard enough trying to explain it logically in their language as it was.

    "Sashana'i, should your life be in danger, the ability to protect yourself is required--as is known well, I would think."  She looked out at their wide-eyed but unmoving audience.  "This is equal for everyone.  Should you be unable to run, you must preserve your life.  The Unar shall simply take your lives when they believe they can--which they have.  There shall be no resistance without an adequate defense, particularly should it be taken to the ground, where they would be within physical reach."

    "This is understood," Sashana'i said, "and I would watch you carefully.  Yet to practice upon my own sister cannot be just yet."

    "I suppose a simulator shall be required," B'Elanna sighed.  She hadn't expected Sashana'i to spar with her, even if she'd hoped she might for example's sake.  Arguing over her hair or her dress was one thing--combat, she knew well, was entirely frightening to a girl who sold her body more peacefully than she had sent Hychar and Maghet to their respective hell--or at least Sashana'i never spoke of it.  Instead, B'Elanna had noticed a certain paleness come over her when Uillar and the scourge were mentioned.  B'Elanna understood the expression--guilt for the necessary--and didn't push it.

    "Just now," B'Elanna continued, aiming her stare out to the others again, "it must be remembered that you are leaders on your ships.  Not only do you protect yourselves, but you take yourselves from Unar to help another crew close by.  These are all your people, and death cannot be accepted when lives remain within your power to protect.  There shall be another time for that philoso--"

    "B'Elanna," Tom said blankly; when she turned, he threw his fist directly towards her face.

    B'Elanna's arm came up immediately.  Nice to know I haven't lost it, she grinned to herself as she deflected the blow and twisted his arm around for the advantage he easily gave her.  "Thanks," she breathed into his ear from behind.

    "Just don't go for the ribs," Tom warned, grinning at the shocked reactions around them.

    He just hoped they'd watch carefully--and to that point, he turned sharply out of her grip to reclaim the advantage.
 

---

    "You all will be present at this meeting," Tom said to the intimate group of "officers" they had gathered on that warm day in the new communication center, which had been unveiled only a week before and configured to each of the ships they were working on.  Relaxing into his native language, he likewise leaned back against a panel, his elbows on either side of a relay display that was not yet operational.  "We realize you have never been involved in anything like this before."

    "There have been accounts of peaceful meetings, long before Unar," said Sollve'a.

    Aratra nodded.  "They were ones of the day of rich trade."

    "Well, forget about them," B'Elanna said bluntly; then she retracted, "--at least for now.  There's something we all have noticed with these peoples, is that they will see if they can get the upper hand over our intentions.  They see us as weak-willed and pacifistic.  They will want to fight now--we must remain firm and give them good reasons to stay at bay."

    "I have asked Be'i and Toma to conduct the preliminary arrangements," Sashana'i told them.  "Yet we should indeed use care when working with them afterwards.  Even in success, the Koba and Brijan would use suspicion as their first instinct--Antral, overconfidence.  This is their nature, yet this can be untoward to our goals."

    "It can rush something we need to wait on," Tom agreed,  "like we learned when the Antral decided to have their way at Mahor.  We have to reinforce our patience on them.  We'll only have a few months in this ruse--but one idiot can ruin everything too soon."

    J'vishi smiled at that.  "You have become quite Desalian, my friends, as you choose to wait for Unar."

    Tom chuckled.  "We haven't cursed you yet, have we?"

    "Only occasionally," Dalra replied with a grin.

    "Well, at the time, you deserved it," B'Elanna returned, her own mouth upturned.  She looked at the others again.  "Tom and I will be taking the initial flights to inform the other colonies of Desal," B'Elanna told them,  "as will Miztri, Latsari and Bolmra, since they have family elsewhere.  As soon as the Azallis is complete, we'll be going."

    "But if the Koba or the Antral or Brijan start fighting now or rousing their suspicions," Tom said,  "we won't be able to do that--nor get the word out to the remaining peoples in Irllae.  As you know, there's more than our six.  To have as many peoples as possible working with us will be important."

    "I bear curiosity," Latsari said, feeling their cautionary words stir her breath,  "when this fight is to begin."

    Tom shrugged.  "When it feels right, when we think we're strong enough--or if we have to.  Sashana'i, Aratra, B'Elanna and I agree that we should collect as much data and supplies as we can.  We might not get that chance later.  For that matter, you all still have a great deal to learn."

    B'Elanna met all the eyes in that room with that.  "Trust me, my friends, when the fight does begin, you'll wish it never had, more than even tradition had ever warned you."

    "You might even think about the simplicity of being a drask again," Tom added.

    "I doubt this greatly," Cali responded.  "I would never again desire the dress of a drichka server upon this body."

    "True," B'Elanna conceded, though only to a point.  "You have been very brave and selfless, Cali, but you haven't been in a protracted battle, either.  That kind of stress and exhaustion is different.  Thoughts you never had before can overcome you.  Some people become addicted to the strain after time."

    "That stress can bring out every temptation to weakness," Tom continued.  "If you go into the field and become locked in a fight, you will feel it.  You have to prepare yourselves and your crews for this."

    The group in the room nodded soberly.  The two showed no more passion than in their daily manners.  However, their friends also knew the ashna'o did not make professions lightly.

    "But in the end, it is worth it," B'Elanna added, "should you always remember why you do it."

    Taking her next breath, she reminded herself of the same.
 

---

    She walked the half circle that she could around the small, bulb-shaped warp generator, wiping at the stain of soot on her brow, even as she wondered why she bothered.  They were all dirty with several hours remaining in their diagnostics.

    Skipping a step over Aratra's legs, which were sticking out of an open panel, she went to her console.  "Miztri?"

    "Be'i ka.  Ibrras pola'it zha."

    B'Elanna nodded quickly, looked over to Tom.  "Bring the primary reactors online."

    "You got it, Chief."  He grinned at her and the readouts scrolling upwards.  Translating the numerical symbols in his mind, he nodded.  "Bringing the drive online.  Primary reactors working up to kleti'ibrapol and increasing at a rate of kli'avebol ov fis.  N'cholost a zha magra'es ticiar pa'al."

    "Zha," she said with a happy sigh.  The Desalian version of a warp core, squat in comparison to ones she'd worked on in the Federation, began to take on a glow she'd once considered a home of sorts.  It was almost surreal, the welcome she felt, especially when she recalled how long it'd been.  Even the energy it minutely distributed throughout the little engine room thrummed in her heart.  A beep from her console snapped her back to the readings, though. 

    It was just a field dispersion spike.  Nothing unusual--particularly in an engine that old.  "I'd like to see if we might get it up to ytakave mihin magretchi al," she said as she manually reconfigured the intake relays.  "Miztri al mehirr bi'ullu skratci o'a is?"

    "Ka.  Ytavebol rapoliv fis."

    "Toma i'isra cholost magriv anos al a'o."

    "Ye'a zal, Chief."  Looking up again, he gave her a wink.

    She giggled and shook her head, tapping in the next line of commands on the panel.  "Bi'ulle vro'a ye'a."
 

---

    Bala joined Tom on the step to share the view of the sunrise.  When they awoke at the same time and there was cheese and fruit enough in the pantry that they did not have to go to the market, they often found themselves waiting for the bread cart together.  If it did not come in enough time, they would venture off to find it.  Rahna liked to stop and chat, they knew.

    Of course, they liked to chat with him sometimes, too.

    Tom offered the old man a small grin of greeting.  Bala returned it, touching his temple lightly.  Tom's habit was not strong, yet, which among others might be considered rude.  Still, he would gain it when he was ready.  Bala was in no great hurry to see the boy change for appearance's sake.  He had undergone enough for the present and continued healing in spirit, as did his mate. 

    The gold on the horizon could not be seen from there.  The dusky buildings hid the view, which both men knew was quite lovely when seen from the fields.  They yet did not move to it, but enjoyed the cool, misty air and the squalls of birds high above, en route to the grasses, most likely.  There was nothing for them to eat in the city.

    Aratra walked across the square with his usual quick pace, straightening his headdress even as he loosened it, bowing in his usual manner once arriving.  They greeted each other in kind, and he joined them to watch the sunrise.  Crouched on the ground, the regent fiddled with his scarves until they were right.  Tom grinned.  Even he hadn't had as much trouble with it as Aratra did--and he didn't even like wearing them.

    To the north, the sound of thrusters echoed through the buildings, a low rumble that never failed to pique Tom's nerves.  That was the Iaskeb ship they had planned to upgrade, he knew.  The next few ships to sneak into Cezian space, upgraded already for stealth, would carry those arriving for the meeting.

    But that was later.

    The gold turned white and the sky slowly warmed to azure above them.  The sun would grow hot that day.  Heralded by creaking solar mechanisms and copper bells hung from the handles and clanging their walking page melody, Rahna appeared with his bread cart.  All three men waited patiently for him to serve another group before standing to greet him.

    Two floors above in the filtered dawn, B'Elanna climbed down the ladder.  As always, she was careful.  She still tended to lose her balance when she was tired.  Safely to the stone floor behind the hearth, she went straight to where Bakali was.  "Blessed sun, my nali," she said quietly, using the traditional greeting as casually as she took the morning floorcloth from the chest.

    "The sun blesses us both, my child," Bakali smiled and pulled a stack of napkins from the shelf.  "New ones should be sewn soon," she sighed, seeing tatters beginning to grow too large for her preference.  "Better these be taken to the empty pile than worn past usefulness."

    "I shall bring chips from the storage for payment."

    "My thanks."

    Turning, Bakali noticed the girl wore her green knee-gown and brown patterned leggings again.  It would likely be another day in engines, as that clothing did not show its grime as easily.  B'Elanna had been wearing that peculiar combination more often over the past year.  Bakali noted to herself to see about procuring more choices for the girl when next at the bazaar.  She knew her charge would not replicate them.  She was understandably obstinate about conserving power.  Among other things, Bakali grinned to herself.

    More, she had stack braided the sides of her hair and pinned the length against her nape, an old Desalian fashion when added to several more ficha.  B'Elanna did not often bother with braids unless she was planning to be head first in one system or another.  It would be a busy day.

    B'Elanna smoothed the floorcloth upon the flagstoned floor, admiring briefly the dotted, curving patterns in the faded weave.  She knew that the cloth was almost fifty years old, made by Bakali's girlhood friend Ye'alli before she and her bondmate succumbed to influenza, which had swept through Azlre one unusually hot year.  Bakali treasured that cloth.  B'Elanna could understand why.  The passed lady was both dear among Bakali's oft-shared memories and very talented.

    The kettle steamed behind them, and Rahna's greeting echoed up into the small front window.  Bakali kneeled beside B'Elanna, who glanced up, offering a small grin.  The elder touched her temple affectionately then began setting the cloth with the tattered napkins she had folded.  She wondered how she and Bala had lived so long alone without missing so much.

    It was the life of the humble, she answered herself, as much as the change had been a blessing.  She did adore those children so.

    The men came in as they always did, pulling their simple purchases from their canvas satchels.  Before taking his share to the mantel, Tom crouched down behind B'Elanna to nibble a kiss on her neck.  As she smiled, he slipped a yamek fruit into her hand.

    "Zha'i brrle, mes'va."
 

---

    "Sixty-four years.  Unar claimed occupation of Desal those many rallkle, and yet the dearth had been longer for the leaders who brought themselves to Cezia Prime but two suns past the start of Rallesh--Desal's first month, as you may name it, of our world's revolution around our pure sun.  Symbolically, some among the arriving contingent knew, this was a time among Desal of the pause preceding regeneration, a time of spiritual contemplation and civic remembrance.  At Azlre, it was as well the hot sun before the rains.

    "At the time of the gathering, all were applicable."
 

---

    As he had since earning that trap of a ship in his people's disgrace, Novren Pridalar touched down on the closest corner of the Jirra gate landing pad on that refugee world's second city, popped the hatch, grabbed his gear and gestured to his crew to start refueling his ship with what little power they had stolen to make the journey in the first place.

    "That would be unnecessary," said a young Desalian man as he entered the Antral's craft and bowed deeply.  "Our citizens shall care for your ship and perform the required modifications."

    Although Novren held no particular love for his ship, he didn't hide his annoyance to see three more Desalians had come aboard with their equipment and without his permission.  "What modifications are those?" he demanded.  "I brought myself and my people here without injury, did I not?"

    A fair young woman with holes in her scarves slipped in and pulled a palm-sized electronic pad from her pocket.  She handed it to the Antral.  "I greet you in our mutual peace, good captain," she said, perfectly mannered but with an expression that Novren had only heard about in the Desalians of Cezia--she looked him directly in the eyes and almost seemed amused to explain herself.  "I am called Latsari of Llatso'a, bondmate to Bolmra and primary assistant to Be'i of Azlre.  These systems are what were scanned by us as requiring immediate attention.  Our modifications are a gift, unless refusal would be preferred.  Should you accept, however, you can be taught what you shall require to maintain equal status with the systems Desal's ships shall bear."

    Looking at the list, Novren bit the inside of his cheek.  "You may proceed," he muttered and flicked his fingers to his friends.  As he stepped into the hot Azlrean air, he unbuttoned his coat and looked around to see the crafts that had come with him receiving the same treatment.  That mitigated the embarrassment.

    Whether or not the Desalians' intrusion was unwelcome, however, no contingent could be very angry at those poor people.  It was generally agreed that Desalia had paid the price for its laziness and passivity in tenfold.  They all but welcomed the Unar to trample their people and lands, lay waste to their recourses and women and subject them all to sub-person status.

    Even the Antral and Brija fared better in that respect, though they too enjoyed no workable technology but what they could steal or what was so "generously" doled out to them.  Their women were never subjected to the status of whores because of the Unar's curious physical reaction to them, and they were at least given the right to earn their way outside of household service and labor camps.  Even so, they had no history or records but what they could remember, no true freedom to speak of aside from what was inside them and no hope for recovery but what their pride could demand.

    For three generations, their pride had been in vain.

    They waited, pretending enough of a seeming servitude that they were instead assigned to sell Desalians--sickeningly passive and accepting for some insane concept of contrition--to those beasts.  For Desalia's inaction three generations before, this might have been seen as a payback.  However, such revenge left no satisfaction.

    Had they been any more populous, any stronger initially, the Antral and others might have been able to fight back.  Yet their people had been so dependent on Desalian resources and technology that when the Unar swept dominion over their remaining neighbors, took over all of Irllae's free space, and then when Desal finally fell, any hope of effective resistance fell with that.

    For that matter, Antral, Brija, Suresh and Iaskeb were all much closer neighbors to Unar--and rebellious as a trait.  Thus, they were more carefully watched.  The Koba, close neighbors to Desalian space, were xenophobes invaded by Unar.  To that day, Koba preferred to work in the shadows--changed and angered exceedingly by the Unar, yet quiet and sly.  So the Irllae underground became known for its ability to bribe, for its stolen replicators, medicine and rations--and sometimes stolen drasks.  But it did very little otherwise.  If anything, it held the stalemate.

    Meanwhile, Desalia rotted alive.

    But then there was a stirring within Desal, which began with the trade of several unusually healthy Desalians to a six-month service at the Unar stronghold on Antral.  To those traders, they began to whisper words that lit a fire throughout the stagnant underground.

    Desalia would rise, they promised.

    That alone was enough to gather agents willing to go to Cezia.

    Small and insignificant to even the Unar, Cezia was said by those Desalian agents to be a new secret base for their resistance, overseen by Azlre's elders, blessed by Cezia's spiritual protector and, most importantly, publicly decreed by the young regents, who had reinstated themselves to power--a true, progressive power, spiritually sound.

    Indeed, it had been rumored that since the purging of Uillar, the refugee city of Azlre at Cezia had taken on some rather ambitious Desalians.  The exact nature of this change was conjecture for some time.  Some had said that there were outsiders of Irllae among them--though in the end, this was disproved.  Simply, a hardy group of Uillaran drasks had become mechanically proficient during their incarceration and lived to apply it elsewhere, and the camp had in fact gained some rather resourceful laborers.

    One report at a time, they learned its truth:  Desal truly did have skilled workers among them, primarily in the form of two mutilated, non-native Desalians called Toma and Be'i, those supposed outsiders.  Mysterious, bad-tempered, strangely-spoken and technically adept, they indeed aroused suspicion.  Those close to them protected them and named them Desalian--though still foreign.

    As finally confessed by the blood regent, Sashana'i, to Novren's agent, Tridl Himad, the two were of Gahahol, a distant and classified Unar base created for technological development.  After the Wichut Sect scourge, which brought down that base, the two prodigiously trained youths had been sold to several labor camps, dismissed often for their unappealing facades and unacceptable attitudes.  Finally being thrust onto Uillar to die, they were adopted by the Allanois and taught the Desalian ways their birth parents could not impress upon them.

    Though an incredible story, it had to be truth.  Desalians as rule, after all, did not lie.  They retained stillness rather than betray the air, as an old saying went.

    It was also a sad story that the two preferred not to recall, the regent had said with deep regret.  Discovering their Desalian roots had been an enriching but painful process for the two--who had experienced pain enough in their young lives.  But in that revelation, it seemed that they also had found purpose--and shared it and all their knowledge with their people.  With that and the regents' new policies, the resistance had finally become viable.

    The Irllae underground could not have been more pleased.

    "I greet you in our mutual peace, good neighbors," said a young Desalian man with a long, mended coat and rich brown skin.  "I am Yorlla, student to Be'i and Toma.  I shall take you to Trisjorr.  There, fresh water and food shall be served to you, should it please, and there, the meeting shall start."

    Just a year and a quarter past, Trisjorr had been annihilated by a random Unar patrol ship.  The relatively impoverished district and some surrounding facades had been left as rubble, it was said.  But that was not what met the representatives when they were led through Azlre's bazaar and through the narrow streets to that designated meeting place.

    Some of the rubble remained, but that vast open space instead housed an enormous stone park, softened with daknal vines growing over the white building stones and semi-succulents burrowed in pebbled corners.  The stumps of one former foundation now served as seats for those who gathered there and tables for simple refreshments.  Through those makeshift paths, the visitors were brought, their chosen leaders receiving the greetings of the Desalians there.  They came to a center of sorts--a circle of rubble foundation with the remains of an ornate mosaic floor inside of it, presumably the ground floor of the building that once stood there. 

    At one end sat a group of Desalians, as humble and casually placed as the rest, but obviously bearing some rank by the manner in which they held themselves.  Two elders, draped in heavy white robes and scarves, were elegantly seated on the stub of one broken wall, each with their feet tucked under a hip and curiously wise expressions.  A well-ornamented, middle-aged woman--the prichava, presumably--stood beside them with her hands folded on her ribs; a stolid, greyed man held the ground just behind her shoulder.  On the other side of the elders stood a short, round-eyed woman with intricately braided hair and scarves, and embroidery on her coat skirt and sleeves.  On her arm stood a well-postured man a hand taller than the woman with bronze-colored hair and a slight grin beneath his relatively simple headdress and well-stitched beige coat.

    The regents, they learned upon introduction, Sashana'i and Aratra of Allanois. 

    "Our gratitude for your bringing yourselves in the face of such danger to you and your crews," Aratra said as he bowed to them.  "In this time of our people's rejoining, let us know that regardless of what words may pass beneath this sun, we should yet be a unified force for the resurrection of our true way."

    "Regardless?" smiled Novren, who had lead the others in.  "Do you foresee trouble, Aratra of Allanois?"

    He grinned back.  "I never spoke of trouble.  Do you foresee it?"

    The elders shared a glance, though they managed no other expression for the wry child.

    Four more entered from the side, a straight-backed pair chatting with a lady and a small girl, then striding across the center of the court.  The woman's lightweight cloak hood was pulled like a deep eave over her brokenly scarred forehead.  Her dark eyes did not waver when they pointed their way.  The man's narrower stare observed the guests with an indifferent air, and yet it had an undeniable sharpness, too.  The man was about as tall as a typical Antral.

    They bowed formally, as the others had done before.  As he straightened, he tucked the end of his headdress behind his ear.

    "Our greetings and apology for our lateness," Tom said.  "I am called Toma; my mate, Be'i."

    "We greet you," Novren said, gesturing to the others.  "Syl Medrove of Suresha, with whom I believe you are well acquainted; Eneprae of Brija; Vabrinir of Koba..."

    Tom nodded deeply to the third, felt B'Elanna's hand twitch in his.

    "...Acilg of Iaskeb.  And I am Novren Pridalar of Antral."

    "Our fair greetings to you all," B'Elanna said, giving a nod as well to the "lieutenants" who flanked them but needed no introduction.  Being uninvolved in the actual dealings, they remained properly aside.  "Shall our respective places be taken, then, as we begin?"

    Novren was pleasantly surprised.  "You are rather quick."

    "Why should otherwise be assumed?"  Tom asked, leading B'Elanna back to a foundation stone where they could sit.

    Sashana'i crushed her smile as best she could.  "Good neighbors, in light of my lack of technical expertise, I have reviewed these dealings and desire them to be conducted by Be'i and Toma, who as my siblings bear full right to barter.  I, my bondmate, our good elder-parents and prichava shall hear their words as our own."

    "But how could they have gained such ability and knowledge to build this fight we desire?" Eneprae quietly demanded, her eyes pinned on the two would-be Desalian resistance fighters.

    "Knowledge and technology banned to us were given them in their training," Aratra answered simply.  "This is known, good lady, and accepted.  I see no need to have to explain it to you again."  Grudgingly, the Brijan woman gave a shrug and silenced herself.

    Speeding them back on track, Medrove looked at the other captain.  "You will be much impressed by their directness, Novren.  Their plans are excellent.  I am very confident in them."

    Novren lowered himself against a nearby stone, hiking up a boot so to rest his arm upon his knee.  His knuckle rubbed with seeming thoughtfulness across his pale brown jaw specks.  "So, you would not find peace in your ever-beloved Desalian passivity."

    "Your sarcasm is unnecessary,"  B'Elanna replied.  "Desalian ways bear purpose and practicality in fair times."

    "But obviously neither in bad."

    "The past is that, Novren," Tom told him, etched with firmness as he caught on to the other man's tone.  Fair for an Antral, the grey and berry-haired man sat in a deceivingly relaxed position, a small phaser noticeably holstered on his thigh.  Do I know the type--or I did, he smirked to himself, cocking his head to continue. 

    "Your attempt to sway Desalian guilt would be ineffective here, good man.  No guilt remains to be had of us.  Should you feel your people continue to require retribution for your inability to fend off the Unar yourselves, then we shall discuss it past our present work, when we have assisted you in attaining your freedom, and you in ours."

    "Thus at present," B'Elanna said, her own mouth curled slightly at the corner for Tom's slice into Novren's pride, "we shall tend to our business and not our long bruised feelings."

    Novren shared a look with Medrove, who shrugged away the manners he already was accustomed to.  Novren pulled his chin up to remember Tridl's reports of how difficult the two could be.  He had put it aside as the trader's usual excuse making, but now he saw its truth.  "I have heard your histories, Toma and Be'i, and yet I still wonder where such passion and arrogance in a Desalian might have been etched."

    "That would not be your concern," Tom replied, purposefully cool.  "What shall be discussed is how we are to proceed with Unar."

    Acilg nodded.  "It was known you were displeased with the occurrences at Mahor."

    "The risk was too great," Tom acknowledged.

    Novren blew a laugh.  "It was a perfect opportunity--"

    "To see our many agents sacrificed and our resistance made useless," B'Elanna cut in.  "How by the spit of Prihar are we to oust Unar when no reliable information against them is brought to us?  How might we fight effectively when Unar's houses are strong and their sects are not in a cleansing?  Information from Mahor is required to know how we might pry their fingers from our nether territories.  They have become errant in their complacency, ka, yet this bears no guarantee they would fall easily once we have roused them. "

    "They will not fall at all if we do nothing," Novren countered.

    "We intend to act," Tom told him,  "yet not until we bear ships able to defend what we attempt to win.  Unar are sloppy yet bear resources and capabilities not to be ignored--our capabilities and resources, Novren, stolen from our peoples long past.  You have received our communications on their strengths as well as their weaknesses.  You cannot argue it."

    Acilg was the first to agree.  "They have remained in power for a reason," she said.

    "Thus our stealth must be our better guide," Tom concluded.  "They must be weakened from the inside before the exterior is taken on--which is what has been begun."  Tom glanced a grin at Cali, who nearby had straightened proudly at the mention.  "Their well is corrupted--the word has been spread through nearly ninety percent of Unar households, with the remainder in the works."

    The Koba leader grinned.  "Yes, even our women are poised with intent in mind and await only a signal to act."  Vabrinir, ostentatiously more respectful, nodded as he addressed them.  "Unlike your people, however, our women will gladly snuff the lives of those beasts."

    "Should that be their choice," B'Elanna said.  "Yet it should wait until our ships are prepared to bear the brunt of that decision."

    "And when will that be?" Novren asked.

    B'Elanna met his eyes without blinking.  "With adequate trades on your part, we shall complete our small fleet in two du'ave.  Very soon, we shall take ourselves to the other colonies of Desal with the word of our resistance, to strengthen the suggestion we have heard your own have already implanted among some.  --A worker deposited here informed Sashana'i of this."

    Acilg licked her lips.  "I admit to my weakness for their knowledge," she said.  "I would hope this did not inconvenience or dishonor your purposes."

    "On the contrary," B'Elanna answered,  "you have saved some time.  We bear gratitude for this.  However," she gave Novren another look,  "reckless endangerment is the suicide of a fool."

    Novren did not respond but with a small grin, letting his hand rest on his well-armed thigh.

    Tom noticed it--and the sudden tensing of his elders and Lledri nearby.  He had to stifle a snort for the maneuver, though.  That phaser probably wouldn't cut blanket scraps. 

    "Those weapon holsters itch, do they not?"  he observed, raising his brow nonchalantly when Novren returned his attention unmoved.  "I should believe it would be tempting to rub that hard spot for lack of any other firmness below your skull."

    The Antral's hand balled into a fist.  "Who insults whom now?"  Novren demanded, his bright blue eyes flashing white in the sun.  "You would play as many games as the Unar!"

    "I believe we have all learned their lesson well," Tom replied pointedly.  "Should you have brought yourself here believing my mate and I were unaware of your agents' tests for us, know your error now.  Their attempts to sway us and procure any change in Desalian policy but what would be agreed upon by our own council, all of it you may consider a misguided venture."

    "It is our wish to work together," Sashana'i intercepted, holding her trembling fingers beneath her robe while meeting the stare of the Antral.  His weapon had unnerved as easily as it had the elders.  "Yet I shall not endanger my people's spiritual welfare for merely the sake of Unar defeat.  This has not changed.  We shall fight, willing to give our lives.  Yet brutality, deception and feelings of superiority, ways of Unar we have resisted, shall not be ours.  We would not welcome it in you, either.  Toma has brought to this sun your natural selfishness--yet I would beg, good man, you think on a higher purpose in this matter."

    "We do not spite your feelings," Tom added.  "Be'i and I have felt it ourselves, the humiliation and the bitterness, the need for vindication.  Much was required to keep us from the fight.  However, the fight concerns far more than our small circle, as is known."  Turning slightly, he nodded towards little Haviki, who sat upon her mother's lap with rapt attention--and a coy smile for her yeshalla.

    Novren and the others did agree to that.  "Indeed," Medrove said quietly,  "we have children on all our worlds whom we would wish to see freed and fed."

    "Much time has been spent with desire," B'Elanna said and pulled out a small PADD from her cloak pocket.  "Shall we not waste the chance we have earned for ourselves, then?  More than sixty years have passed us.  What shall two or three du'ave matter should we find ultimate success?"

    "I agree," Acilg said and looked at Novren.  "As I have said before, my friend, we would be better to turn their game upon them--our cleverness would be better than thrusting our heads fully into their fists."

    Novren grudgingly nodded.  "But we will not wait forever," he told Tom.  "Our underground is anxious.  Now that there is a chance that we will bear interplanetary support, we too can begin striking from within the Unar infrastructure."

    "For that purpose," B'Elanna said, standing with a hand from Tom,  "my mate and I have devised a small plan for your inspection.  Considering our talk just now, I believe you might find appreciation in it."  Moving across, she placed the data PADD in the Antral's hand.

    They peered together at the data there--then looked up at her.  "Desalians have conjured this...brilliant ruse?"  Vabrinir breathed then looked over Novren's shoulder to see it again.

    Watching them review it, B'Elanna said more quietly,  "At Uillar, I and my mate were beaten to the edge our lives for simply doing what Commander Hychar knew we would.  And yet, his very being was defeated by my corrupting his face with spittle.  This remembrance brought on what we suggest this sun."

    Acilg understood.  "What of the officers?"

    "Some ores have been collected in our hills," Tom said, giving Dalra nearby a nod.  The older man brought a bag forward and revealed the reprocessed gold within it.  "Officers may be bribed.  I know this from experience, as does any here who have had to buy their way out of Unar quicksand.  For now, this is payment for the supplies we require.  We only request you bribe them well."

    Novren continued to stare at the small screen.  That piece of technology was nice enough--he knew he would like one for himself--but the wicked cunning, the underhanded method of using the agent workers to implant suspicion and sabotage Unar databanks and power grids, a few ships to incite the idea of invasion and border transgressions.  All of it made perfect sense, and though it was pure deception, a Desalian could easily commit to and carry out such a plan.   On the resistance's part, it would be bloodless, with little risk of losing any ships.

    Better, it would work.

    A slow, wide smile grew on the Antral leader's face.  Looking up, he found the plain stares of Toma and Be'i.  "You wish to devise our own sect scourge?"

    "No," Tom said.  "We shall assist them in rousing a scourge by their own means."

    "Not particularly a pure route, this," Bala stated, finally choosing to address the group.  "However, it is known no route to war would bear perfection.  Should we be mice, we would of course behave like them: eat within the thrush of their nest before biting through the rope.  I would remind you your place in this, however--your spirits' remaining purity, your selfless intent.  This indeed is a dangerous task you engage in many manners."

    Tom nodded, knowing the full meaning in his elder's seriousness, also knowing he and B'Elanna had just barely skirted the elders' and Lledri's limits with their plan.  Only necessity had saved his discussion with them.  "The only way an initial advantage would be gained would be through these means, good elders.  Their own degradation must weaken them, allow them to unleash their poison upon themselves.  It shall give us the season required to assure our own positions and capabilities."

    "While we yet remember never to assume it ourselves, their poison, which you know too well," Bakali warned.

    "Your wisdom in this is sincerely accepted, Nali, Tola," Tom responded with a bow.  He had promised them already, but he knew the public acknowledgment wouldn't hurt, either.

    "While they busy themselves," B'Elanna continued,  "we would also occupy ourselves by borrowing from their supply lines."

    Medrove grinned.  "Perhaps borrow a ship or two as well?"

    "Increased tractor power is required," B'Elanna nodded,  "and all your vessels require improved shields.  I and Toma shall teach you to utilize them to their capacity."

    "I would prefer our more innocent workers spared from their assignments first," Aratra said.  They looked at him.  "We would do a disservice to allow the untrained among us to fight battles there.  I am willing to serve in that respect."

    "You shall not, good regent," Lledri argued.  "Your passing would be Sashana'i's, and our regency is required in tact."

    "She speaks truth, Aratra," Bala said.  "Your captaincy is dangerous enough a part in our cause."

    Grudgingly, Aratra acquiesced.  "Yet I would ask that our specifically trained agents remain within Unar walls, along with those who are willing to learn our cause.  The others should of course be 'reassigned,' and as many as possible taken from those lairs when our resistance truly begins.  We shall require that our people are no longer held, particularly when we insult Unar finally."

    "We can arrange that," Novren said.  "Supply your workers and we will see to proper replacements.  As for the clearing of the houses, I would agree.  Our supplier ships may make a routine sweep when the Unar distract themselves enough after they have begun--granted we have the transporter capacity."

    "You shall," Tom stated.

    Eneprae, silent throughout those dealings, finally cleared her throat to catch the two odd Desalians' attentions.  "They will not always believe this ruse we project.  As you have mentioned, it would only allow us a season."

    "Yes," Tom said.  "Yet that is another plan.  When we are discovered, we shall carry through the bulk of our resistance.  Time and advantage is our present purchase.  A true war shall follow, where we would act as we must to procure our goal."

    "You would commit such violence?"  Eneprae queried, peering askance at him, then at his strangely browed woman.

    "Should it be meant, then it shall have to be," he said.  "We but follow the path laid before us."

    "We are willing to sacrifice our spirits for the possibility of freedom," added his mate.  "It is less for ourselves than for our people's future, good lady."

    His tone was somber; her eyes were solid.  But Eneprae understood, and finally she saw the Desalian in that man and in the woman's equal thoughtfulness.  She had suspected them as untrue at first, yet their humble obedience to their elders and acceptance of their unfortunate necessity relieved the Brijan woman's mind...somewhat.  Enough, anyway, if intent alone was sufficient cause to trust.

    "Then, good man, we will truly pray--for all our souls.  And yet, it would be the good fight, yes?  For the future of Irllae and those within it?"

    "Yes, good lady," said Tom with a bow.

    The Brijan woman returned the gesture.  "Then I should like to see more of what you have devised...my friends."

    The leaders, elders and onlookers all shared a look, all of expectancy, relief, resolution and hope.  With the Brijan won over as well, there indeed was little else to do but explain the rest and lay out their plans.  It did not go with complete ease, but it did proceed.

    Finally.
 

---

    He felt his eyes mist.

    Sitting by him, she watched him in a sort of otherworldly haze.

    It truly was otherworldly in those first few moments.  Having expended a good deal of energy transporting the Azallis to the new landing zone, they had taken another couple days checking and rechecking, installing antimatter and reinitializing the warp drive.  That morning, they had walked to the new landing zone on the backstretch of Dviglar, running through ship's procedures one last time with Miztri and Givadra and their crew, and then with Bolmra, Latsari, Plicta and P'llaja'i, their "senior staff" of sorts.  Personally trained and as competent as they could be without any actual experience in space, their final preparations had gone smoothly.

    But when they finally activated the inertial dampers then the planetary thrusters, they stilled with the sensation of being in a functioning ship again.

    It was indescribable.

    A few hours before, they had bid farewell to their elders and their friends.  Parental in their embraces and kisses, Bala and Bakali offered their prayers for safety and quick return.  In nearly three years, after all, Tom and B'Elanna had not left Cezia and had always been with the elders.  The children dutifully promised to be careful--and to bring coneflowers from Llatso'a.

    The silvery grasses of the Azlreian plain blurred below as the Azallis smoothly rose into the upper atmosphere.  With a few taps on the conn he'd put back together by hand, Tom turned the small ship with a grace he didn't think about until after he'd done it; then he readied them for escape velocity.  He blinked to clear his eyes and his mind, but the heaviness within his quickly beating heart remained.  A half-year longer than they'd been on Cezia was the last time he'd been at the controls of a conn.  The last time he flew a ship, he was a different man, a man he wasn't sure if he even knew anymore.

    B'Elanna watched Tom as they entered their final coordinates.  The layout of the central control panel, which sat in the middle of the bridge like a tilted conference table, made it easy to see everything he was doing and vice-versa.  She drew a small breath to look over Bolmra and tell him,  "Bring the impulse engines online."

    The young man nodded, excitedly triple checking every readout he had only practiced on before.  "They are online and working at full capacity, Be'i."

    Reaching over, she gave Tom's thigh a light squeeze.  "Take us up."

    He nodded, his eyes pinned on the hazy atmosphere, already able to see the star field, feel the slight tug of speed in his gut.  Somehow, in all the swirls of thought and plans and feelings, his mind cleared and he felt himself relax.  Even as he thought it was odd how he could do it, his breath slowed and his eyes focused.  Then his lips turned up a bit.

    She grinned, too, to see that old look on him.  In his faded, loose attire, with his markings, he appeared as any other Desalian.  But that expression, that centeredness:  Indeed, it was good to see again--probably as strangely pleasant as it had been for her to get the engines of that ancient ship working.  But then, it was for such different reasons, and she worked with such different intent, a changed perspective--changed everything, really.

    Despite the danger ahead and the suffering bound to happen, they relished the hope, the promise, the fulfillment of a dream, starting with the simple joy of raising a ship from its once intended grave.

    Drawing a cool breath, B'Elanna let her stare drift out to the viewport.  She heard Tom tap a couple more commands; then the engines, system by system, begin to hum with their purpose.  She looked down to her board. Everything was operating just as it should.

    Tom blinked once more.  "Breaking orbit...now."

    As they broke into the black space beyond Cezia, they closed their eyes.
 

---

    "It was said in tellings after how they came to the four other colonies of Desal with words of the Allanois.  The lady and man of the regents' adoption made themselves tall and bright the shadowy Llatso'a, and with their lieutenants' introduction, they made known to all on that plague-ridden world the new health of Cezia.

    "Proud and generous nobles as they must have appeared, they and theirs engaged their audiences utterly in their passion and experience, made them love Desal as perhaps they might not have before, and offered as much of their blessing as they had brought with them.  For the audience's own suffering, far greater in sickness and dread of the sun than Cezia's had ever been, the food of promise and health was distributed widely and well.

    "Indeed, when other ships took themselves from Cezia in the short time following, to Maha'aje and Saha'eten, the response to hope was like crystals in the dank well, shining within the dung of their present being.  Incomplete--as not all, as on Cezia, would believe Desal was cleansed.  Yet the words were well heard.  Desal would make war for freedom and their regents would bear their spirits:  This thing of air became a most precious jewel in most ears, indeed.

    "Traders of Antral and Iaskeb took the news and a group of Cezians to Ivlisa.  There, over that mine-raped world, once lush with flora and art, the news spread like a warm flower over the stagnant pools Unar left at its convenience.  Upon Ivlisa, known for its liberalism when once a colony, far fewer pains were taken to develop that purer species of Desalian belief:  Self-defense of their ways alone grew the seed of resistance.  They sent their gracious and humble thanks to their regents, however, for their blessed spirits--and a good number of bright youths to train on Cezia.

    "Our blessed homeworld, Desalia-Four, however, would need remain within the valley of its people's most desolate moon, a land of too many owls to allow any rodents, whether mouse or hare or burrowing squirrel.  Sadly, the blessing of sunlight and air would be spared upon another sun...many suns.  Too many suns. 

    "Meanwhile, in the nests of Unar, the freer prey partook of the floorboards and nibbled in the shadows, its belly remaining quite empty well past its heavy meal..."
 

---

    The Koba drichka remained in her place, just as she was supposed to.  For six years, the beast had somehow not tired of her, had never been moved to take on his own woman--who probably spurned him for his ineptitude, Iblas often thought.

    She could barely feel his entry anymore, so numbed was she to Tronuk's force within her.  He wrapped her black hair around his fist, adjusting her position as he forced his filth into her long, tawny body.  He no longer needed to command her not to speak.

    So, she remained still and dreamed of all the ways she might kill him, imagined his organs and entrails splayed out in many various ways, whatever her mind could conjure.  She envisioned him screaming in torture and pain.  Where others went mad, her hatred kept her alive, retained her sanity and helped her hope that somehow, someday, she would see her sweet Padan once more, be mother again to their child...if they still lived.

    Only of late, she had been given the hope of having that opportunity, and so her plots of murder twisted into tangible plans.

    "*I beg interruption, Commander Tronuk.*"

    The old Unar grunted, but withdrew without much more complaint, leaving the Koba drask on the slate to address the comm.  "Your input, officer?"

    "*The Metraksb borders have been infiltrated, Commander, and the sect brings complaint upon our territory.*"

    "We have not made these incursions," Tronuk growled.

    "*Our neighbors do not agree.*"

    "Bring our own defenses to the fore and line them up around the Gozhor perimeter.  I will join you presently."

    With a heavy snarl, the old man took to his closet and, minutes later, was dressed and ready to depart for his office.  When he left, he flicked a finger at a laundry drask.  "Clean the whore and return her to her chamber."

    The drask took the footstep to her neck and hurried in to care for Iblas.

    But the Koba whore had already sat up.  Dressing herself, she waved away the regenerator.  "It begins?" she whispered, a bit hoarse but anxious for news.

    The drask activated the hand-held tissue healer anyway.  "Yes, good lady.  The mice eat tidily at the borders, as all the rodents of Irllae do.  We shall take ourselves from this lair soon."

    With a long breath, Iblas straightened with the feeling of her insides healing and the hope returning to her.  "When may I kill that demon?" she asked.  "I would like his blood on my hands when I return to my people."

    The drask blinked at the typical thoughts of violence, but did not address them.  It was a Koba way, after all.  "Should it be wished still, it may be done soon.  I would rather have you spirited away from this house, however, when the signal is received."

    Iblas stared hard at the door.  "We will have both."
 

---

    Aprra of Ci'avas barely contained his grin when the laundry handlers came back that morning with the news.  The sects were rousing themselves for action and Onruk was livid.  In the last sect scourge, Aprra recalled, Onruk had made himself absent many moons defending his properties and territories.

    In ancient stories, told in Ci'avas when he was a boy, Unar sects were divisors of philosophy; each "region" would come together to discuss and debate those varied beliefs.  At one time, it was peaceful.  After the rise of the merchants, the military and religious leaders, who melded Unar society into a single, authoritarian force, those regions took on space and those debates turned into small, interior wars.  Though not utterly damaging to Unar, it certainly would weaken them for a time.

    The resistance was making good use of that.  Cali had taken her information well to them, and now, in Onruk's house and many others on that Unar colony, they were making use of it.  It was surprisingly easy.

    Aprra smiled to think on her.  He had heard news from new "workers" that she fared well upon her return and continued to work for Desalia's resurrection with the talent and spirits of the Allanois adoptees and their true regents, their close captains and allies in the cause.  Frightening as it was, it was also invigorating, the thought of freedom and life, their pure-spirited continuance after their terrible contrition, their hope.  Cali had borne that hope to him.

    In his guiltiest conscience, he felt a great satisfaction that the monster Onruk was about to step into the trap.

    Perhaps not so guilty, however,  he thought as he followed his workers into the cleaning chambers to scour out that day's washing tubs.

    Meanwhile, he waited but for the signal.  The expectation alone stirred his spirit.

    Soon, he knew.  Soon.
 

---

    The dusky, wet work row lit with a burst from an Unar ship's thrusters, like a torch flash, fading quickly after.  The atmospheric boom echoed as the evening resumed.  As the sorted array of Antral workers peeked up from their troths, they noticed other Unar moving quickly for the hangers.

    This was highly unusual behavior, particularly on that obscure and somewhat quiet labor facility--thus, all the more noticeable.

    "What do you think of that?" said one man as he continued to shift his gloved hands through the murky water.

    The woman by him glanced dully at the view again without stopping her work.  "I do not know."  In her troth, she spotted a bright object and extracted it.

    "Could it be a scourge?"

    "I bear memory of scourges," said a Desalian man as he collected their trays.  "Yet it was recent.  It would be too soon for another."

    "It would, but it is," said a fourth, a young woman passing by to offer drying cloths to them.  "The shift ends now," she told everyone loudly, her eyes meanwhile shifting to see no guards on the row.  "You may return to quarters."

    Along with the others in that detail, the three stood upon the command, but immediately gathered around the shift supplier, flanking her as they left the work row.  "What news, Yasis?"  asked the first man as he snaked his arm around her.

    "We knew before our capture of Desalia's plan to revolt," she whispered as they walked towards the family quarters, trying not to smile--then having to hide her face.  It was too much to suppress.  "I heard the Unar say they are to regroup and reassure their defenses.  They must indeed have begun..."  She looked around again then moved to help the other woman remove her backpack and the toddler in it.  "...begun what Novren Pridalar promised would happen."

    The other woman blinked her attention up from the child she'd settled on her hip.  She too glanced about to see no Unar in the court, but kept her voice near a whisper.  "You believe Desal is throwing them off at last?"

    "Why would a scourge come so soon after the last?  The resistance must have finally made a move."

    "This I cannot believe," said the Desalian man, who had followed them.  "Three generations ago, my grandparents were exiled for the mere invocation of resistance.  Desal has accepted its punishment since."

    The Antral woman's satisfaction could not have been abated.  "Times have apparently changed," she replied, "and you can thank your spirits for that at your own convenience, Gatra."  She did not blink as he turned sharply to return to his housing section.  "Good evening," she smirked as she, her mate and her cousin headed off to their quarters.  They didn't look back.
 

---

    Line Officer Gychak fingered the smooth ornament inside his pocket as he watched High Commander Frouwid pace a slow circle around his desk, barely skirting the amber ray of sun slicing through the window shades.  The older man's thick white hands brushed at his hip pockets then swung back to clasp behind him; he turned and began the pattern again. 

    Clearly, his superior was disgusted.  The incursions along the Wisnnin borders were in complete violation of the most recent agreement among their increasingly argumentative peoples--and their enemy had not yet shown the fortitude to show their faces.  The viruses and anomalies creeping through their databanks were but an annoyance--though a clear symbol that their household accounts were being scanned.

    Not an unusual maneuver, but Gychak knew well his sect could not afford another fight so soon.  Their moneys were too depleted from the last sect shift, in which the Wisnnin lost three star portions of the Gozhor claim--and Gychak lost his home sect, the Kaseht.

    He rubbed the ornament again.  It was for the curse of Gozhor that he had been re-stationed and lost his home privilege--the curse of that woman who had incited Hychar's most primitive, though still common, beliefs, and whom he himself had preserved for his own gain.

    Gychak was not bitter for his new society, however.  Frouwid, once Hychar's enemy, was in truth a better man than reputed.  He did not take too many drasks, too much food, nor did he accept as many gifts as were offered.  Gychak recalled well Hychar's humiliation concerning the return of two drasks shortly before the fall of Uillar, which had likewise been surprising until he met Frouwid.  More, the old commander never made an unnecessary fight.  Too many sects cared too well for power that placement and ostentation brought them, but sometimes were defeated and shamed when they became careless.  In contrast, even when his purse and prestige suffered, Frouwid retained his pride.

    Even so, the last incursion on Wisnnin territory was beginning to peel at the commander's nerves.  They knew also that it was annoying some other sects as well.  But they had still to discover those who were sneakily making their claim, seeing who would assert their defenses first.  Frouwid paced, not for lack of patience but for disgust, that yet another scourge was being sought when several sects had barely recovered from the last one.

    Gychak had put the ornament in his pocket only days before that battle, the last sect scourge, and he had held onto it for the worst of circumstances--a truly empty purse.  In spite of that small security, however, he wondered why he had kept it.  It was not an honorable trophy, it being a bribe, and selling it might have prevented his purchase to the Wisnnin sect. 

    Perhaps it was the ghostly desperation in the drask's face, which had intrigued him as much as it had remained a clear memory.  Gychak had once wagered that Hychar would defeat those proud ones--and in one way, he had won.

    In another way, he knew he had not.  The man would not have come, freezing and bereft, to the barricade, willing to sell what little he had left of himself to save that ugly woman, had he been robbed completely of his control.  For all Hychar had submitted them to, the drask would yet have his will, if not his identity.

    So perhaps it was for that the former guard kept the bribe.  It was a most suitable charm. 

    But Gychak let go of the small gold piece, withdrew his hand from his pocket, when the comm beeped and Frouwid turned to his monitor.  He moved forward, too, naturally wanting to see the latest developments.

    The older man held up his hand to the approach, however, his shoulders rising with a long breath.

    "Arrange our officers," he said grimly.  "We stand at ready to defend ourselves."

    "We have only fifty-three ships fitted for combat," Gychak told him.

    "I realize that," Frouwid replied.  "But we must be ready."  He turned, his silvery eyes hard in the orange light of the den.  "A line of incursions has occurred on the borders of Gozhor, as we suspected.  The perimeter sects are rousing their defenses as we speak, as do the Mestraksb and Edreb.  Prepare our defenses, but give no indication."

    The younger officer nodded once and stepped back.  Only outside and unseen did he feel the sigh within him.  Perhaps he would have to sell his charm after all.  He had no other purse.

    Moving to his station outside Frouwid's office, he called up the new readings at Gozhor and began to replot the Wisnnin configurations.  Stopping a moment, Gychak let his gaze pass over the gently arching pattern of the nebula, which in some circles was still considered the center of Unar damnation.  Hychar had believed so, believed it so utterly that it indeed had brought on his damnation and the downfall of his sect.  He had brought the curse to him, Gychak knew, by torturing the woman who by ironic nature bore the shape of hell upon her skull and with equal vigor paining the man who accompanied her.

    Hychar was a fool in his devotion to those old ways--and so were others like him.

    Shaking away those presently useless and foolishly controversial thoughts, Gychak began to arrange his new sect's defenses, glancing over when a drichka, finishing her chalice collecting, started towards the outer corridor.  "Bring tisaluo, drask."

    "Yes, officer," said the young woman, daring to glance once more at the Unar's screen display before moving backwards from the room.  Turning to the kitchen upon her exit, she pushed down her smile and hurried herself accordingly.
 

---

    B'Elanna laughed aloud when she read the report that came in from Kitiadru.  She shouldn't have been so amused, but she couldn't help but love the irony.  Tom, too, snorted and began typing a return, a clever smirk set upon his lips.

    Nine of the sixteen sects had already galvanized their defenses:  This all because of Miztri's recent maneuver.

    Supposed to be little more than a practice run, she dispersed four ytavrapol of tachyon particles in a displacement wave instead of on the Edreb territory border as she was supposed to.  Naturally, the tachyons dispersed with the wave, spreading violently through the heart of Gozhor. 

    Frantic, she pulled out of the area, speeding back to Cezia to sorrowfully make her report and turn in her command.

    Predictably, Tom and B'Elanna refused her humility.  "Be at ease," Tom told her,  "Be'i and I have made far greater mistakes.  --You might know this all too well."

    Dalra, listening nearby, said warmly to Miztri,  "That you remain among the living bears most importance to us."

    "I would yet return to you, my spirit," Miztri smiled, trying hard to mask both her embarrassment and her fear.

    "Only inconvenience remains, Miztri," B'Elanna told her.  "As Dalra has said, you are safe--and so are we all.  Another attempt shall be made."

    Yet only a few days later, they were informed that the displacement wave had actually increased the spread of the tachyons, causing the corruption of several primary Unar sensor grids and sending the sects into a complete panic. 

    Still laughing, B'Elanna ran out into the sunny row outside communications to find their friend, hugging her as soon as she got there.

    Miztri was bewildered.  "Yet it was an error--it should not have assisted.  It may have caused us great danger, Be'i."

    "This is an error we shall need to commit many more times, should Unar technology be so sensitive to tachyon interference."  Reaching out, she touched the other woman's temple.  "Miztri, much of what you would know in a resistance is learned by accident.  This was a pleasing one--do not take it as a waste.  Take instead what blessings you receive and use them.  It is a lesson I have learned well--and you may know it, too."

    Miztri pressed her friend's hand to her cheek affectionately and smiled.  "Have we truly fluffed the napes of our vicious owls?"

    B'Elanna snickered and led her back to communications to show her.

    The next morning, all the ships that left Cezia were nicely supplied with what tachyons they could produce--and with specific instructions to use them as necessary.  Tom and B'Elanna certainly did.  They counted three more affected sects alone with one wide disbursement.  There was also a few impossibly encrypted false communiqués, which had been sent out just for the Unar to pick up by "chance."

    With another few weeks of developing their ruse, the result was coming together quite nicely.  Communicating with Novren and the others, they were glad to know their own underground plots were starting to take shape.  With the sect war starting, they could start collecting enough resources to store for the meanwhile.

    "Tridl, my friend!"

    The Antral agent stared at the man who had put his arm around his shoulder, seemingly to escort him to his ship.  "Toma of Azlre."

    The man's smile was as crooked as his headscarves.  "In your travels, good man, it is wished you perform a service for my mate and me."

    Tridl glanced over to see that Be'i indeed had approached him as well and was following a few paces behind with crossed arms and a straight face.  He sighed.  "And this would be?"

    "We are understood that your assigned duty is as charter between labor camps and houses, of course.  There are a two born Y'dri and Me'ekra whom I would wish you seek."

    "I was under the impression that their names were Nicoletti and Bendera--which, no, I have not forgotten."

    "Those are another request," B'Elanna said.  "These other two are likewise wished greatly, in debt for kindness and sacrifice."

    "We only wish you make yourself known to those names and look for facades alike to Miztri and Dalra's.  The two are their children, taken when Unar left Cezia thirteen years past."

    "They are likely dead," Tridl dismissed.

    "Then resurrect them," B'Elanna responded.  "Passed or living, we would wish information or their forms--and a result would guarantee exceeding gratitude."

    Slapping a small PADD into his hand, Tom let Tridl go at the edge of the ship field, grinning at the man's slumped shoulders and shuffling feet.  They knew they were demanding and used insults as easily as incentive to steer him.  They knew he dreaded their attention.  Of course, they had also not forgotten his treatment of them when Cali was serving at Onruk's house.

    The grasses stirred around the ring they devised; it was both a perimeter base and dry-dock.  Holding her hood in place, B'Elanna turned into the wind, not minding the dust as she stared proudly out at the ships, set on their landing struts.  They were yet beaten, patched with scrap hull and stained with soot and laser work.  B'Elanna knew, however, that within those resurrected ships were systems she and Tom had redesigned and helped to put in, coax back to life.  The rains soon to come would wash much of the soot away.

    Not three years ago, they along with Sashana'i and Aratra had come to the Dviglar Gorge hunting for parts in a scrap yard.  From nothing but junk and with friends and citizens they trained nearly from scratch, they had rebuilt a small fleet.

    She had wished it, thought about it since the time she had woken in the clinic with tridents in her skull and the stain of Uillar still turning in her lungs and her memory.  Tom had too, and had reassured her needs with his plain desire for vindication while they both recovered.  From there, they had learned patience and care, yet they had never lost their hopes.  For all of that, they had gained far more than they had ever lost.

    For their perseverance, they had truly done well.  With any luck, they would continue to.

    She felt Tom's arm squeeze her around the waist; she smiled and leaned her head against his chest.  They started forward again, heading towards the three-decked, swallow-shaped Tebri'all, which was almost ready for its first flight in over twenty years.  It would be Gihetra's command.  Not surprisingly, he was already inspecting it himself and overseeing the stocking of its cargo.  He was already quite a captain.  They bowed to him with both respect and amusement before boarding the small ship to help finish off its programming.

    At the top of the entry ramp, B'Elanna looked back to the ship ring and smiled.
 

---

    "We'll require a field generator soon," she commented, rolling over in the bed to look up at the PADD she held instead of down.  The pressure on her eyes had been tricky that day, tempting a worse headache were it not for the hyposprays Bakali had given her.  "A decent shield for Dviglar.  When this begins, we might have to defend Azlre, too."

    Tom hummed with the thought, nestled up beside her small, warm body.  Idly, he stroked her belly, letting his hand get caught up in her soft gown before smoothing it out again.  Though reading concertedly, she did smile and purr to his actions.

    "I know where we could pick one up," he said after a minute, watching her eyes, blinking slowly, unfocusing occasionally between scrolls. 

    "Dov?  And where is this secret depot?"

    "Uillar.  --The barricade, B'Elanna.  Tsirrosh?"

    She blinked, furrowed her brow slightly.  "But it was laridium charged....  Though, we could stabilize a geothermal power source of our own, couldn't we?  One concentrated phaser blast and we might drill our own energy now."  On the tail of that thought, she began typing into the PADD.  "I'm not anxious to return to that ball of hell."

    "It would only take a couple hours," he shrugged, trying not to dread his own idea, either,  "and there might yet be scraps there we could use."

    "Tsid ka'e.  We'll go tomorrow, if there are no patrols in the area."  Nodding absently, she paused a moment in her plotting, and then started again.  "Would you tell Dalra at sunrise for me and I'll prepare the Azallis' cargo?"

    "Y'ki," he answered, grinning down as she got back to business.  Watching her work, seeing her hot on a project--not to mention being a part of that--never failed to cheer him, somehow.  Still, when her eyes began to squint too concertedly and her pauses grew longer, he reached up and gently took the PADD away.  Setting it on the bench by the bunk, he brought his hand back to touch her temple, earning her brightened eyes.  "Shall we conclude our work for the day, mes va'i?"

    "Ye'o kev," she replied softly and closed her eyes upon his approach.

    He brushed his lips upon her temple, tasted that skin lightly, drawing a gasp from her upturned mouth.  Soon, his kisses moved from her cheekbone down to her mouth and his fingers lightly circled her breast, tightening her nipple beneath the thin, beige cloth.

    "We might not be able to do this for some time," he whispered against her lips, tasting the corner of her mouth as his hand pressed her breast then slid downward. 

    "We will be occupied," she concurred in a purr, slipping her hand into his dressing robe, running her nails lightly over his firm shoulders as she loosened the cloth.  In fact, she knew, they had already been well occupied with their preparations and flights and training, their communications and planning, more flights and returns to Cezia, to evenings with their elders full with questions and mornings starting the entire process again.

    "I'll miss being inside of you," he breathed, drawing in the scent of her, rapidly growing more noticeable--as was his, he knew.  "It's difficult some days, and I only want to tell everyone to leave so I can have you to myself, right there on the bridge."

    "When I look at you," she whispered,  "and I say nothing, only stare at you and smile just a bit, I'm thinking about it."

    He smiled, feeling himself harden completely at the memory of her watching him from her seat on the Azallis.  No, he had not mistaken that look, only tried not to think of it too much.  They did, after all, have a good deal to do there.

    "And when I smile, just a bit, back at you, I'm remembering how you taste."

    She licked her lips, quivering inside at his sultry tone, thanking whatever might have been responsible for their beginning to share such intimacies with each other.  Nudging her nose on his cheek, she opened her mouth to his next kiss, which remained playful, tasting and nibbling on her full lips. 

    "And I remember how it feels when you do that to me," she murmured, "how you sound when you take me with your tongue."

    "And that little growl of yours, asking for more when I drink you...slowly." 

    His fingers gripped her gown, hiking it up as his hand descended.  She ground her hips in a small circle, inviting him further, and his lips turned up at her returning play.  She rarely tried to rush him, but acted impatient, spurring on his teasing with little growls and attempts to press more effectively against whatever he was doing to her.  She did not fight very hard, though, and always moaned a delicious growl when he gave her a playful bite of warning.

    Uillar strangely came to his mind again as he let his fingers go to play between her legs, which opened unabashedly as she sighed her approval and bent her head back, offering her neck to him.  He went to it without delay, pressing his tongue into her pulse before partaking her sensitive collar.  How he had once dreamed of doing those things to her when they were together in that rotten shack, freezing and ill.  Nature was not the only culprit of how he awoke most mornings.  Though at the time, he would have settled on her mere company. 

    He could not be happy enough that he hadn't had to, but instead had so much more.

    "I'o va mas ye'o," she purred.  "Please, Tom, zhras ye'o."

    "Tsa achi'i ka."

    Shifting himself, he got an arm around her and sat her upright.  In a move, he discarded his robe to the floor.  Just as swiftly, she pulled her gown away.  They drew a collective breath when their eyes met again; then they released it. 

    Deciding simultaneously, their hands returned to each other as their bodies slid together, warm and dry and caressing as their breath sped, their kisses deepened.  Rubbing his erection on her warm, quivering belly, Tom lowered them again to the mattress, burying his strong fingers in her hair, massaging her scalp the way she liked.

    His other hand took hers from his back and he sucked the soft of her fair wrist.  Her fingers straightened, stroking his temple until he growled a little himself.  She purposefully was making him the impatient one, then.

    Hiking one of her legs up, he ran his short nails down the back of her thigh as he moved himself into her, groaning as she sang out her satisfaction.  Her other leg moved around his waist.  He thrust fully into her, grinding hard until she arched back, ready for another.  Her eyes, half-closed, her smile, one of memory and present pleasure, melted into his...

    "Som'dahval.  Mmm, yes, ah, yes..."

    "Do'asli?"

    "Oh, ka, more...as that...as you know how to..." 

    His thumb stroked her markings as he rocked his hips against hers.  She undulated under him in their natural rhythm, humming little gasps and barely trying to catch her quickening breath.  Tom felt lost in it.  "So beautiful," he managed in another gasp, tasting her sweet mouth again, feeling it quiver as he sped his strokes. 

    Her fingers, still caressing his temple, stroked more urgently; her muscles began to tense.  He closed his eyes, nuzzling into her touch, his moans growing loud as he bore himself over and over into her small body.  His head lolled back.  "You...so...zhi'a mas Be'i, mes va'i."

    "Ve'a havra mes..."

    "Somd'vell...ye'a zha'i dvariall.  A'a tsi'al ye...tsi'all vas..."

    "M'ves ye'a tsi'all....  Toma m'ves ye'a. --Ah!"

    There were wrens on the eaves, burrowing and scraping, when B'Elanna's eyes focused on the PADD, lying on the bench beyond their warm bunk.  Tom, spooned behind her, holding her protectively in his dry, warm arms, was breathing softly against her neck.  His hand rested on the flat of her breast, pressed against the mattress.

    "Did you mean that?"  she whispered, only a breath of air in the near silence.

    He drew a long breath, wondering what he might say.  The truth,  he told himself with a smile at that very old habit.  "You wouldn't need to wear that gown, ta'iki....  Yes, I meant it."

    "It's more than the gown," she said, unable to keep herself from grinning at that recent memory, the feeling of that dress pressing her ribs the night they took the kraja.  And she remembered very well the look on Tom's face when he saw her in it...and the feeling they shared after, and had that night, too.

    He wanted the rest, she knew.  A good part of her wanted it, too.

    As for the other part...  "Tom, we would be joined--you would have my memories."

    "And you would have mine."

    "That's not a very good thing to think about, those...feelings coming from me," she said.

    He grinned, kissed her shoulder.  "I could say the same thing about myself."

    "You are not half-Klingon," she stated.  "You know me more than anyone I know, but you cannot understand what goes through me sometimes."  She shook her head.  "I don't want to give that to you, that...force of feeling."

    "What, B'Elanna?" he asked.  "Passion?  Quickness?  That temper you keep reminding me about?  The quality of it might not be the same, but it's nothing I never felt--nor saw within you when we meditated with Bala and Bakali.  And you saw me, as I am and feel."  He gave her an embrace, burrowed a kiss in her thick curls.  "You don't need to answer me now, B'Elanna," he said softly.  "But just know it.  I want to be your husband, to share my life with you completely.  We don't need this, but I would like it."

    She smiled.  "I'll think on it.  --And I don't think it would be terrible, finishing this."  Touching her temple, she rolled onto her back, looking up into his tired but tender eyes.  "It is a part of us now and I do know we will have to complete it--and that is what Dalra was worried about, I think.  He knew we would have to take it completely someday."

    "But he doesn't believe it was a bad thing now."

    "Ye zal."  She touched his cheek, led him down to kiss her.  "I'll give it thought, Tom."

    He blinked slowly in acknowledgment and curled up by her again, pulling her close.  "It's all I ask," he whispered and shared the view with her again, of the PADD, still active, glowing orange in contrast with the glowglobes' light, still bright in the room.

    Reaching over her, Tom tapped them all off before drawing the blanket over them.
 

---

    Looking at the glowing red viewport, B'Elanna felt her heart hammer slightly.  She could not help but be engaged and haunted by it, even if by then she had seen it several times.

    Thirty light years away, a sect scourge was in full swing among the various territories of the Unar.  According to the enthusiastic reports of the Antral and Brijan and the floods of new refugees--former drasks--pouring into Desal, it was turning out to be a fierce one.  Mainly, the scourge was fought for the suspicion so keenly raised among them and the bitterness not yet mended since the last and recent in-fight.  That last one had cleared Uillar, severely downgraded the once strong Kahseht sect, taking Hychar and his cronies with him.  The Kahseht had once been among the most powerful houses on Unar.  The new scourge would hopefully weaken a great many more as the resistance continued its preparations.

    "Coming into the orbit.  What do our scanners say?"

    "There lies no company but our own, Toma," Bolmra reported.  "As each time, they are not to be seen in this territory."

    "We must scan regardless," was Tom's answer to that.  Both a benefit and problem with the Desalians' learning abilities was that they became accustomed to routine easily, relaxed too well sometimes.  "Never not suspect, Bolmra.  There are always exceptions and the unexpected."

    "Toma ka.  You would know well."

    Tom touched a few more controls.  "Take the impulse engines down."

    B'Elanna did so, shutting down a few more systems as they established their position.  "We are prepared," she said, crisp for the business at her fingertips.  "Target the power reactor and transport it into the bottom cargo hold."

    That time, their maneuver was simple and straightforward.  A few weeks ago, the trip was a resurrection of a nightmare that would never fade in them.

    Many from Uillar had been there that first day to begin scavenging the camp they knew all too well.  Having heard the plan, they shared their dread but also the hope that the Unar had indeed not gone back to collect their waste.  Dalra and Miztri, who had been the ones to break into the control center and call for rescue, restated what they remembered had not been taken when the Kaseht Sect abandoned Uillar.

    Even with that expectation, they all paused heavily when, on the main landing pad of the camp, it was time to leave their ship.  B'Elanna looked back to Sashana'i before opening the Azallis' hatch and she was struck by both her and Aratra's look of preparation.  They had asked to come and dismissed the warnings, but obviously, they did not want to feel that horrible planet searing their skin again, either.  And that was merely their distaste for the weather.

    As the exit ground open, B'Elanna gasped at the flood of heat that poured into the ship's hold.  Tears welled in her eyes; she tried not to breathe to save her still scarred lungs.  Somehow, she picked up her old breathing habit like an instinct.  Beside her, Tom hacked his first inhale, winced against the light then calmed a moment after with an effort.

    It was as hot a hell as they remembered--if not more.

    Yet once the initial blast of heat was over, they moved out onto the hard red dirt without any more preamble, trudging across the tarmac to the first generator, which sat just outside the outer barricade.  Arriving, they got to work. 

    They did not but glance into the camp, nor at the shanty, still standing as if not a day had passed.  Tom and B'Elanna studiously avoided looking at the wall where they last saw Susan and Kurt and where she was first beaten, nor at the visible trench of dirt trailing from the shanty to the plant, where Hychar so liked to wait for them, test their resolve...

    Instead, Tom strode to a corner, knelt and popped off the generator cover.  He remembered staring at that same corner for the whole passing of a moon while he waited, prayed in what ways he could then, thought of the likely bitterness that would have followed any loss of his friend, B'Elanna.  --But then he tried not to remember for the mean time.

    Giving it a nod after squinting at its parts, Tom yanked its main coupling so that the rest of their friends and crew could hurry around and gather the nodes.  Though secured deeply in the unforgiving dirt, they extracted them without too much trouble--or perhaps an added dose of determination.  Even Sashana'i, briefly taken by the view of the front wall just outside the barrier, wordlessly got to work on the shield junctures.  B'Elanna moved to help her.  Their eyes meeting as a hot gush of wind and sand threatened their hoods, Sashana'i gladly accepted her friend's more expert hands, though she did not smile her thanks.

    They all coughed up the hard air, sweat profusely for their regained water, groaned as the waves of sun baked their cloaks and exposed skin.

    Despite the Desalian's love of history, none stayed for any wistful remembrance, even though there had been some pleasantness, bondings, joinings, and tellings on those cold nights around the fire.  It was daytime then, and the sun provided no inspiration for rumination.  So they collected what they needed and transported the rest of what their sensors could pick up then left without any ceremony and thanking the spirits they could indeed fly quickly away from that place at will.

    The night of their return to Cezia, Tom held B'Elanna's shuddering body when she awoke gasping, her sunburnt hands covering her pale face. 

    Even so long away, her lungs mostly recovered, her vision cleared, albeit weak, her forehead not so much a battlefield as a tragic curiosity, she confessed she felt as though it were all new again.  She could even feel the fear and fury coupled with the sensation of a studded glove clutched to her neck, feel her lungs and skin burning as they did on the route to the detail.  He embraced her stiffly as she remembered aloud and he recalled his powerlessness and his own pains there, snuggled his face into her hair.

    In the morning, Bala brought them their tea and flatbread, bid they remain in bed another quarter.  They didn't argue.

    When Bakali came to give them their antibiotics, they were asleep again, almost stubbornly so.  The old woman stayed a few minutes, stroking their soft heads, watching them lie, unmoving, knowing better of what was underneath their surfaces.

    From then on, they transported as much as they could from the Uillaran base, the refineries and the equatorial power reactor, which was gratefully easy to disengage remotely.  With all of the modifications already made on Cezia, they had only to replace the relays and install the unit.  With their planet's natural plasma, the reactor could easily power planetary defenses, communications and even a few of the replicators.  With a little work, they could bring stable power to the cities themselves.

    In B'Elanna's opinion, it should have been done a year ago.

    She nodded at her monitor as the transports powered down.  "We have acquired the reactor and the field stabilizer.  P'llaja'i, initiate the second transport and target all nitrium and tritanuim-based equipment you can disengage.  It shall be sorted through later."

    "Yes, Be'i."

    Minutes later, B'Elanna tapped the warp and impulse engines online so they could break orbit and take themselves home again.  She was anxious to get back, to work with Sashana'i on a present for Aratra, to have a few days rest.  The rains were expected any day and she was more anxious still for that luscious bath, even while it meant trudging through mud at Dviglar.  For that matter, Tom liked cleaning that mud off her, she recalled easily, distracting herself--and him--with a small smile his way.  He met her gaze, smiled slightly back.  Enjoying the quiver it afforded them both, she returned to her panel and Tom set them into action.

    Suddenly, Bolmra behind them gasped aloud.  "A ship has been detected, Toma--it is Unar!"

    "Adjusting course," he said immediately and banked the Azallis in the opposite direction.

    "They have seen us," B'Elanna said and jerked a stare at Tom.  "They have readjusted course to follow us."

    "Where lies the Merraj?"  Tom asked as he began calculating a new trajectory into one of the many asteroid fields he and B'Elanna had investigated.

    "The Unar ship is trying to engage talk with us."

    "Hailing us," Tom corrected grimly. 

    "Let us hear it," B'Elanna said.

    The voice that came through was calm and even.  "Unknown drasks, you have pilfered a craft designated nineteen kubak ago to waste.  You will power down your engines and be committed to the forced labor camp at Esebriw, else be destroyed."

    "This is made quite a simple matter," B'Elanna commented, feeling her pulse speed appropriately with the development.  It was dizzying after so much time in safety, though her nerve did return well, readying her body and clearing her mind.  A few slow breaths later, she began to tap into her panel again, assessing the Unar ship.

    Glancing at Tom, she was relieved to see the same.  The color had come back to his face and he was entering parameters into the conn without any discernible trouble or concern.  It was the ghost of a memory, she thought, and for just a moment, she could see him in his old uniform, black and red with pips on his collar and his hair neatly brushed, and his face unscarred and fair.

    The ghost of a memory indeed, for with but a blink she saw the man she knew, telling P'llaja'i exactly how to reconfigure their engines output for the maneuvers he was plotting in perfect Desalian, not even pausing to make the calculations anymore.  His beige kneeshirt was stained, his short hair was mussed, his nose was bent for all the abuse it had taken and the scar on his cheek was darkly shadowed in the bridge lights.  His well-tanned temples boasted fans of indigo markings, delicate imprints she had shared with him. 

    B'Elanna smiled slightly as she looked back to her own work.  She knew her lover far better than the fellow officer, of course, and trusted him utterly to revive his past skills just enough--as she did.

    "There is another ship to join this one," P'llaja'i said, a little shrill and watching their leaders tap quietly on their panels, seemingly unbothered.  She saw Bolmra's eyes widen and Plicta grinding his teeth.  But the captains--perhaps properly--were as wise as elders at their central console.  "It is far, yet it approaches our direction."

    The Unar inflection came again,  "Unknown drasks, we will take you from your ship and commit you to Esebriw.  Prepare for our arrival."

    Bolmra furrowed his brow.  "Were they not to bring on our passing should we not cooperate?"

    "Perhaps they cannot decide which would be worse for us," B'Elanna said archly.

    "Unknown drasks, you are in vio--"

    The voice cut off with a single flick of her finger.  She looked over to the conn.  "Well?  Fight or run?"

    "Contact Miztri and inform her of our situation," Tom said quietly, still thinking.

    "Use the encryption patterns and blanket it in our ion trail," B'Elanna added.

    For the next several seconds, the bridge was silent, the crew working each at their stations until B'Elanna, seeing the next sensor reading, struck her panel.  "Bolmra!  Send the Merraj and Korchau away!"

    "I have told them!" he protested, shaking his head.  "They do not listen."

    Tom growled, seeing the Unar ship on the sensors quickly closing in.  He knew that day would come--they all had--but now that it had, he almost felt fatigue for all the adrenaline pumping his heart.  "Open an encrypted channel to the Merraj and the Korchau. --Miztri, Aratra, take yourselves from here--put yourselves inside the asteroid field before you are detected."

    "We shall not," Aratra replied over the comm.  "We would face this among each other."

    "Unfortunately," Tom said, "they would then know we are not only a trade ship off course."

    A pause--and B'Elanna filled it.  "Move off, my friends," she said evenly. 

    Her eyes went down to her panel once again, and seeing Tom's single and sober nod, she activated the shields and powered up the weapons array.  "Disruptors and torpedo banks online," she announced calmly.  "Miztri, Aratra, raise your shields and move away."

    "There may--"

    "Do so, Miztri!" Tom snapped.  "I do not wish to lose friends this sun!"

    He released his breath only when they obeyed then readied for the inevitable.  His fingers on his controls, he waited, deciding which route he would take to try to escape.  Oddly, the thoughts came easily even as the proximity sensors bleeped behind them on the then silent bridge.

    B'Elanna looked up.  The Unar ship--the first she had ever seen in person--was a dark grey triangular vehicle, powered on two sub-nacelles on the outer rims of its aft undercarriage.  It approached without fanfare, slowing easily in front of them, as if it had chosen to be there just then.  For their sheer arrogance alone, the idea of simply sinking a torpedo between the eyes of the cruiser was dangerously tempting.  But then, she did not want to start something unnecessarily.  More, she would never waste a good torpedo needlessly--or at least she wouldn't as a Desalian.

    "Have they detected our weapons yet?" Tom asked.

    "It would not seem so," Bolmra said.

    "The Mirraj and Korchau are defended in the rock face," P'llaja'i told them, fighting for her calm with deep breaths.  She had chosen that life, had asked to help Be'i and Toma, having known well their struggles and pure spirits since Uillar.  Most of their crew had known them there, in fact.  Like the others, she wished to share their passion for the freedom of Desal, chose to fight to save them all. 

    She was so frightened, she thought her very spirit would flee her foolish body.

    Suddenly, the Azallis banked when Tom chose escape.  Darting away from the asteroid field, he set the Unar ship into a pursuit as B'Elanna rotated the shields to counter the Unar's frequencies.  With another quick decision, he took them at full impulse back to the dusty red planet they'd only just left.

    The Unar ship fired--P'llaja'i rasped a small cry as the bridge shook slightly.

    Bolmra shook his head.  "We have not been injured."

    "Yet," Tom said and spun the Azallis into a loop around Uillar, forcing the Unar ship to swoop down after them, into the hot upper atmosphere.  A strange little grin found his pressed mouth as he bucked the controls, drove the little ship up sharply.  The Unar cruiser took far longer to respond, it being bulky and badly shaped for atmospheric maneuvering.

    He would remember that.

    The ship did follow soon enough, however, punching its impulse engines to catch up with the smaller, sleeker craft.  They tried to open another channel, but B'Elanna instead reconfigured their comm signal to bounce their hails back at them word for annoying word.

    Finally, they fired again--a long shot, one that meant business.  The Azallis rattled, some systems sparked and the lighting system flicked.  But Tom only cursed their persistence and swung his ship around the third moon of Uillar.  As soon as the Unar were out of sight, he cut the corner of the sphere, pulling them around in the moon's natural gravity, straining the dampers momentarily, to end up tailing the Unar ship. Tom's lip curled up slightly at that success, even if it was an easy one. 

    "Another weapon is being prepared!"  Bolmra announced.

    Tom felt his temples pound; he breathed a lungful of air through his open mouth, his eyes focusing on a point in space beyond the ship.  In the corner of his eye, he saw B'Elanna looking up again, too.  Her chest was moving hard, but she was otherwise...ready.

    "B'Elanna," Tom said.

    She nodded, reached out with one slim finger, let it fall on a key...then fired the torpedo.  As it shot out from the Azallis' bay, she felt a pull in her gut.  It was starting.

    The Azallis had not destroyed anything more than an asteroid.

    The torpedo struck the left nacelle of the Unar ship, taking it completely off guard and bucking it around in the momentum of the blast.  It spun out of control, shimmying and sparking as the plasma in the nacelles collapsed and imploded into the engines.

    Seconds later, the hulking ship seemed to stop momentarily, looked as if it would simply lurk away, drift back to its lair.

    Tom and B'Elanna knew better.  When P'llaja'i took a breath to speak, Tom held up his hand to stop any noise, his stare at the ship unbroken.

    Seconds later, it burst.  From the inside out, the Unar ship exploded in a blinding array of white and blue, sending shards of hull bouncing off the Azallis' shields as the stunned crew watched--and knew.

    Blue faded to white, white dispersed.  Shards of red, coils and chemicals, sizzled in the vacuum then died away; the white spun and shrank, dimming.  Some final sparks lit the debris briefly then faded to bits of grey, tinged with the red glow of nearby Uillar.

    Tom felt himself finally begin to shake; when he spoke, his voice was hoarse.  "P'llaja'i, send out to all Irllae resistance ships and underground bases an encrypted message.  Tell them..." 

    P'llaja'i looked forward to the captain, who sat terribly still for several long moments after the last sparks fizzled away.  "Toma?"

    He took another breath as a couple more chunks of Unar hull bounced off their ship's defenses.  "Tell them the war has begun."
 

    Silence held their journey home.  Tom barely felt himself in his seat, much less there, on that bridge with people taking his orders and B'Elanna at his side.  He could still feel the gentle squeeze she'd given his hand earlier.  She looked far away, too, he noticed in a glance.

    They had just started the fight, a war they'd wanted, planned, worked so hard for, totally believed in.  They'd asked an entire people to put aside their peaceful philosophy for a time so that they could keep their philosophies in the end, beliefs he and B'Elanna had come to respect and even follow to a good degree.

    The fight for that had begun with a nod from him and a tap of her finger.  With that alone, they had committed themselves to Desalia completely, and they would have to follow through.

    What was strange to him was that he felt nothing but that desire, that necessity, and accepted it.

    In another odd moment, Tom wondered what Janeway would have thought about it, about what they'd become, what he'd become in comparison to the cynical, insecure ex-pilot.  Tom Paris grown to adopt an alien culture as his own, make Chief Torres his mate and, with her, take on the fate of not one, but almost forty civilizations.

    Tom shook his head.  Thinking about it like that made his head pound.

    But again, he couldn't say he was sorry for what they'd done.  Their people...  Not all lived as well as those on Cezia--far, far worse in most cases.  Even in the aura of order, there was devastation and incredible suffering.  They had witnessed it when they took the Azallis to the other colonies, and they still had nightmares about how some Desalians had been forced to live, what conditions they had no choice but to accept.  It was little wonder they gave themselves to service so freely--another successful Unar design. Now, that would stop.  It had to.  They would make that fate be truth.

    Sitting on that bridge at the conn, knowing what he'd done, he truly believed it.  He had to.

    Tom banked the Azallis around another group of asteroids, making the final approach into the Cezian system.  Indeed, he didn't regret a moment of the life he'd made there, would not have traded an instant for all the comforts of the Alpha Quadrant, which he'd never earned and were superficial, in truth.  Realizing that, it stopped being strange.  It became a part of his fate, and B'Elanna's, too.

    "It was meant," Bolmra finally whispered, his somber tones loud among the bleeps and the hum of the engines.  "This is now intended, truly."

    "For Desalia," B'Elanna said, looking back at him,  "it must be.  Bala said once that the dark shall press upon us before we are permitted the sun of our purpose.  It is the way of resistance."

    "It is a difficult way," P'llaja'i stated.

    "Yes," Tom said,  "yet at times it is the only way."

    "Then, ka, it must be," Bolmra said, giving B'Elanna a nod.

    She returned the same in thanks.  "We shall persevere," she told them all,  "should our belief and purpose remain true."

    Though I hope this confidence is meant to last, she added to herself, moving her eyes back down to the panel as Tom began to navigate their landing.  A light in the viewport brought her attention back to Cezia, fair green and teal blue with a large cloud mass over the northern hemisphere.

    B'Elanna straightened as Tom began the Azallis' descent.  "Ka, this is worth our struggle," she told the crew and began preparing the ship for their landing.

    Not long after a steady entry into the atmosphere and into the surging troposphere, they touched down, hovered briefly to adjust their landing struts into the docking clamps, shut down their systems and let the engines whirr down to an idle.  Wordlessly, they pulled themselves from their seats.  Following their small crew to the side hatch, their hands again entwined, Tom and B'Elanna watched and sighed as the bulkhead opened, revealing Dviglar.  They drew a deep breath as the musty, wet air flooded into the ship, bathing their dry skin.

    Releasing that breath, they walked out into the warm Azlreian downpour.

    A form, drenched and waiting, had already disembarked from her bondmate's ship and stood by him in the blessing of the torrent.  The water from the sky easily hid her tears, but B'Elanna could tell:  They were tears of both fear and relief. 

    B'Elanna felt it herself, though she did not cry.  Instead, she opened her arms.  Sashana'i crossed the row and flew into her friend's arms, began to weep in earnest, clutching her dripping clothes. 

    "Freedom shall now be ours, good Be'i," she whispered into her ear.

    "Yes," B'Elanna said, feeling the water wash the year's worth of dryness from her skin,  "it shall, Sashana'i."
 

---

    Accursed Uillar had found another victim, Gychak noted as he ran scans on his flickering monitors.  His comrades on the Rywalok had made a full discovery of that system's hatefulness, it seemed.

    The others on his ship concluded it had been a containment breach.  At first, he was inclined to agree.  He gathered all the information and studied it again despite that.  Standard procedure had them record all details from the destruction of a ship, particularly one for a family that had very few ships to spare.  High Commander Frouwid would certainly wish to know what happened.

    They had likely been looking for a place to hide while they conducted repairs during that unpredictable sect scourge.  The result of the Rywalok's efforts had easily inspired the officers around him to quote the curse of Uillar and Hychar's stain outliving him; otherwise, they were satisfied with the obvious conclusion.  Gychak carried no such illusions, and knew they could wait before nestling themselves into the common asteroid fields there.  Their enemies would not follow them out so far so soon.  They had the time for a well-done examination.

    He was glad he did so.  The readings he examined upon further scans were interesting...very interesting.

    "This ship was not destroyed by anything Unar," he said aloud and looked over to his second officer.  "More, the Rywalok did not self-destruct.  I am reading...tricobalt?"  He looked up at the debris before them.  "The Rywalok was not destroyed by anything we are aware of."

    "Then our enemies have developed a new weapon," the second officer said, glaring at the debris as well.  "Which sect had begun these incursions indeed has shown their strength."

    Gychak thought carefully about that then nodded.  "We must take our findings to High Commander Frouwid and regroup."  He turned and gave a nod to his navigator.  "Take us back to our territory," he ordered then looked back to the viewport. 

    Beyond the pool of debris and the black moon, the ominous red glow of Uillar hung in the sky.  It reminded him of the glow of Gozhor's plasma streams just then, in its burning aura and the storms of dust within the atmosphere, so much like the plasma streams in full flare.

    A moment later, the view turned to the more comforting stars and glowing trails of asteroids he once looked upon from that world.

    Unconsciously, his hand fell to his pocket and rubbed his charm.

    Upon their return to his sect's base to report his findings, the flushed and stiff-jawed Commander Frouwid had a report of his own to relay:  A massacre.

    Somehow, after the various sects had left their living houses to fight their local enemies, a fleet of Antral, Brijan, Sureshan, Koba and Iaskeb ships had crept over the Unar homeworlds and transported away over ninety percent of their drasks.  In some unfortunate houses, some of the Koban drichkas had brutally murdered the remaining house commanders before making their escape with the others.  Other drichkas had incapacitated whom they could--mainly with tainted wine. 

    In other quarters, several nearby camps had been liberated with both weapons fire and prisoner resistance--and those who did not fight were spirited away with high-powered transporters.  Where they got them was still conjecture.  But their labor force had been decimated.  Where the drasks got their ships alone was a mystery as well.  The sects, all, were in too great a shock to determine it--much less believe it.

    They had been taken completely by surprise--and now they knew well who had started the "invasions" of the sect territories.  That alone was a humiliation beyond any they had known in centuries--if ever.

    Then, as they were shaking with their shame and fury, a message had arrived from an Antral "leader" called Novren Pridalar:  "By the decree of Irllae, its true rulers and all its people, we hereby declare war against, you, our enslavers, wretched Unar."

    And nothing more.

    Gychak closed his eyes.  Behind his lids he still could see the fiery glow of Uillar.  The disgrace, the impossible arrogance...the power the drasks had taken in claiming their places in Irllae.  It could not be.  Had he ever been cynical about his people's policies, his dissent dissolved with the shot of angry shame he felt in his throat.  That same resistance had destroyed the Rywalok, claimed their right, their control--over Unar.

    Opening his eyes, he found the old, steely stare of Frouwid.  Raising his chin, he said,  "We will fight this curse, Commander."
 

---

    "There is a song of farewells, sung often then..."

---

    "Where would you have learned that?!"  Novren exclaimed over the comm as he struggled to catch up with the Azallis.

    "It merely lies within," Tom answered simply, sparing a wink at B'Elanna before he spun them out of another enemy target range. 

    "With more of this sort of day, you will not make such a fool of me," the other man promised.

    "Should you manage not to make yourself a corpse for it, it might be pleasing to see that sun." 

    "Vyuch!"  Novren laughed.  "I will make you the fool for that boast!"

    Tom entered the new coordinates and took them back around to their original target--two rather persistent Unar crafts.  "I would believe there are other fools to think on at present.  --You shall take the backup ship, Novren.  The lead ship is for me."

    Without delay, Novren's nicely upgraded and stocked ship banked and repositioned itself to take on the second Unar craft.  Immediately, he fired and pulled back to strike again from behind.  In the distance, two more resistance ships were approaching, but Novren seemed determined not to require their assistance.  He thrust at the Unar again almost immediately then cut up and in to dive through the center offensive again, phasers on full.

    They watched the other ship elude the return fire and drag a phaser slice down the second Unar hull, even while Tom both evaded and lined up the lead ship for an equal treatment.  "Novren should've gone to the Academy," he commented aside to B'Elanna.

    Her lips pursed and twisted to the side.  "He's certainly cocky enough to be a Starfleet pilot."

    With a short laugh, Tom pulled them into position.  "Arm all torpedoes and prepare for another volley," he told the crew behind him as he returned his focus to his readouts.  "We send ourselves again.  --Now!"

---

"Trichel me'al tsa moli'avid, co'a hanek ta moszhirr;
O'a rab lla tsa..."

---

    "Evade them!"  Miztri commanded as she strode to another panel and looked over at her co-captain.  "Givadra, prepare a weapon as I project our alternate readings for them."

    Givadra nodded at the young woman behind him, and together they unlocked and set the torpedo he would fire upon his co-captain's word.  During their initial training, it was easily agreed that Miztri would be the primary command and flight controller and he would lead those among engines and tactical systems.  Because of that placement according to the ancient hierarchy, he or Risiydi fired weapons only on Miztri's orders, which in truth was a comfort to him.  He did not desire to initiate such destruction, necessary as it might have been.  "The weapon is active," he reported.

    Miztri nodded and flipped her scarf over her shoulder so she could work.  "Sajrra, bring us up more slowly now, yet continue to attempt turns."  She resisted reaching up for her sweaty brow, but typed quickly from the memories leant to her.  "The false signal of our condition has been generated.  Sajrra, halt us and prepare to take us to first warp speed upon my request."  With another few taps, she projected another reading altogether.

    As they prayed and waited, the Unar ship slowed to look at the projected ships, which seemed to jump into the field from the nearby nebula.  Meanwhile, as it turned away, it likewise turned its engine nook towards the "disabled" Desalian ship.

    Miztri's eyes locked on the dusky cruiser as it put itself into position to take on the "reinforcements."  Such arrogance, Miztri thought as she watched them casually expose their underbelly.  It was amazing to her just then that they felt entitled to so much of it.  She had never realized the extent so well as when she reached down and easily pinpointed their target.  Ironically, she hoped that her bondmate and Toma were correct in his belief that Unar would learn quickly of their mistakes, not always be so foolish.  This would give Miztri less cause to pity them later.

    She did not smile to save her composure, but quietly said,  "Fire, Givadra."

---

"Me'al tsa ka'e gyalche'o, co'a hanek ye'e i'ullma;
O'a rab lla tsa..."

---

    "There lurk four Unar ships in the Y'etarish sector," Dalra stated, staring at the screen as he spoke to the subspace comm,  "approaching Gavllorst at raiskoeta speed."

    "*We shall engage them and hold them back,*" answered Sollve'a.  "*Send for three Antral from Mihor to flank our position.*"

    "I shall also send for the Tebri'all," Cali told him, hurrying around the subspace relay panel to help Dalra with the encryptions.

    "Be well with your spirits, Sollve'a," Dalra told him and began typing instructions for the Antral.

    "*May we all,*" the other man responded then began to prepare his crew, cutting off the comm only in afterthought.

    Only minutes later, when those transmissions were complete, another came in:  "*Fair sunrise, Dviglar!  How fares the weather among you?*"

    Cali and Dalra smiled in unison as the former opened the return comm through the decryptor.  "Joyful sunrise to you, good Toma, and all upon the Azallis," Cali told them first.

    "How is your weather, good man?"  Dalra asked.

    "*Ah, you were asked first,*"  Tom replied cheerfully, even if behind him was the nonstop echo of lasers and coolant and B'Elanna ordering equipment to be brought.  "*For we have drawn our border nicely and have been replaced by Ityacma and his own.  We shall take respite for supplies.*"

    Cali gladly moved to the operations table.  "Then I shall plot a course for you, Toma."

---

"Rrihad llos mihal tsa ras, gy'al monrill ye'e chira;
O'a ll'ar ihr tsul rasv..."

---

    "I am afraid I learn what a gentle spirit I must be," Sashana'i said as she crawled down into the engine core.

    "*Ah, my spirit, Nivilla--*" A blast paused him and shook Sashana'i nearly to her stomach.  "*Nivilla and I have become well versed in your reserved manners.*"

    Sashana'i grinned and kept moving until she was at the sharply whining impulse generator.  Taking out her laser drill, she melted a section of it, detaching the charred node.  It stuck as she pulled it; with a grunt, she yanked it out, threw it aside. 

    "Viche'i," she called back,  "I require the node--immediately!"

    A moment later, a blast shook the Korchau with such force, Sashana'i was certain the entire ship would come down upon her.  Cursing to herself, she waited for the aftershocks to pass, knowing that when she extracted herself from the tube, she would have many more repairs to conduct.  Sleep would not find her or the crew for at least another day, with or without a fight before them.

    Indeed, she wished she were gentler just then and simply could not do what she was doing, could rather obey the pleas of Lledri and her elders and remain merely the influence and safe upon Cezia--all that was required of her, in truth, as regent.

    A moment later, she would not have preferred to be anywhere else.

    Reaching back blindly, the node met her hand.  She smacked it into place and quickly aligned it.  It was a poor job, but it worked for the present.

    "Aratra!  It is done!"

---

"Va'o tsa gywarn gyo'arr, i'a hanek ye'e ti zhras;
O'a ra tsa mirhid llos..."

---

    "For Desal, they are taken to our blessed ancestors, anointed with the joy of eternity." 

    Sashana'i took up the sweep of her robe and walked a circle around the line of corpses, her hand stretched over each, her eyes half-closed with prayer. 

    "They have passed in dignity and grace for my command and their most noble spirits."

    "They have acted in true purity and sacrifice," Aratra joined upon her pause, "the sacrifice we bear still this sun and shall for many suns after."

    "Through my absolution, peace shall be with them in their eternal journey," Sashana'i continued.

    "Zha hevrra," Lledri intoned.  "It is decreed."

    The witnesses all circled as Sashana'i completed her eulogy with a prayer, the Song of Farewells, stepping aside with Aratra once he joined in.  Around the ring drawn in the soil which would be the pyre, those who had come to bless the way of the passed reached out to touch the temple of each one then touched their own with a gentle bow of respect and few words of their own prayer.  Meanwhile, the song echoed around them....

    In the end, the beloved join to celebrate the being; within the body's midnight, our beings stir but in memory, for the light which greets the blessed spirit.

    The corner of Tom's scarves dangled against his neck as he reached out to touch the temple of the corpse.  Unlike the way, he said nothing, only remembered that he knew the man; he had liked him, and also the next he touched.  He felt no energy greet his brief contacts, and so perhaps the spirits indeed had passed to their next residence.

    Free in belonging among all, we shall not be spurned; within my own midnight, there shall be such a peace as this, for that light which greets the spirit.

    B'Elanna heard herself singing the words; she knew their meaning.  She stroked the temple of each she had at least called friend, all of whom had followed the call she had voiced and Desal answered.  If she had ever prayed, she prayed they did have peace, wherever they were.

    In the light of our spirit, eternity opens; not of body, we are like water among the stars, rising like fog made of sunrise on the bay.

    They would do the same for him, Tom knew.  He too would be put on the pyre and blessed--and considering what they did for their livings just then, it was a very possible conclusion.

    If he married B'Elanna in the traditional rite, she would go with him.  Though human and half-Klingon, they were able to meditate and had adjusted to the kraja completely enough to make him believe bonding wouldn't be too different.  Bondmates were linked to such a degree that though they weren't necessarily telepathic, they became dependent upon each other's neural energy.  Tom didn't understand the science, but he knew the implication well enough. 

    Remembering his proposal, he now wondered if he could ask that of her.

    As his fingers traced Pahsara's then Hamani's markings, he glanced down at their faces.  Pale, slightly shrunken, they still looked at peace.  Tom thought that it should bother him more than it did, for he smiled slightly at them, remembering them well, hoping very much their belief was a true one...wanting it to be.

    Never barren, our blessed beings may not be ceased, and for this our truest moment is at midnight, and the dawn opens upon our journeying spirits.

    She remembered the feel of Hamani's energy when once she touched it.  It was no longer there.  Only her pretty face remained, nestled against Pashara's collar.  Thankfully, the blast had been behind her.  Though lifeless, she was more recognizable than some others there.

    They had boldly asked to help, against their family's wishes.  Yet their family was there, happy for their journey and completely forgiving of the resistance which had guided their children.  B'Elanna had apologized to them anyway, for the missing of their physical presence, at least.  She knew she would miss Hanani's wit and sharp talent, her slight, quick body darting around the engine room for Latsari, always with a bright grin and chatty stories at meals.  She had gone as she wished, with dignity and doing all she could for Desalia.

    Now, none of that energy resided there.  B'Elanna knew that it could have been her--or Tom...though not together.  She honestly wondered if she would really touch Tom's cold temple in a peaceful farewell before the fire would put his body to ashes.

    She knew well she wouldn't.

    He took her hand and she let him lead her away, out to the circle that had formed far around the pyre.  When the line of celebrants had ended and the circle was complete, they drew up their coats and knelt upon the soil.

    "Zha hevrra," they all said, a rising sound that faded upon its completion.  Nothing more was heard until the crackling of fire began.

    They closed their eyes, bent their heads.  They were supposed to pray, and perhaps they did.  They were at least still as the others there as the fire started, their finer clothing folded in heavy waves upon the firm savannah floor.  They did not cry, nor contort their faces with mourning.  They only listened as the flames breathed the feeding air.

    It should have troubled them more than it did.  It was the way to release the spirit so to live enriched by it, though.  They had learned that much by necessity of late.

    They would leave at sunrise for the long triangle of space they commonly defended by the Azallis.  They, along with the Korchau and Merraj, were there not only to defend that border of Desalian territory and the space around it, but to wedge the Unar farther in towards the center of Irllae, and then to Gozhor.  Continuing that plan, Bala and Bakali would see them to the clinic step, kiss them and bless their way.  They would return the gesture genuinely.  They would be gone at least a week, fight as needed, make arrangements and receive updates, hurry into repairs and defend Desal as best they could in another hard day.  Then, they would return for supplies and rest.

    Sometime after they returned, they would stand as the pyre burned and turn the circle in steps in celebration for the honored passed, hoping...for many things. 

    As with so many others now, it was their life.

---

"Me'al tsa ka'e gyalche'o, co'a hanek ye'e i'ullma;
O'a rab lla tsa;
Hevrre tsa'o zha ra."
 

---

    The steam shot up into the main of the bridge and Gychak spun to assess what else those very interesting weapons had done to his ship.  "Disengage our weapons!" he told his comrade.  "The phaser array is overloading and will cause a reaction in our main power systems."

    Wrartul paused for but a moment.  "Then we will be defenseless."

    "The drask ship fires only when we show force," Gychak grunted, pulling out relays as he spoke, feeling the steam freezing welts onto his skin as he dug deeper into the spraying hatch.  "They will not attack the defenseless--and we would be killed either way."

    "And our disgrace--"

    "May be amended!  I want to live to see the end of this war, Wrartul!  Disengage the array!"

    It was done, and as Gychak stabilized their primary systems then let out his breath to see the whines on the bridge decrease, he gave his comrade a nod.  "I will help you with your repurchase for this."

    "Yes," Wrartul replied.  "You will."  Ignoring the stare he got in return, he scowled down to his monitor.  "The arrogant drasks want to speak as well," he muttered, but hit the comm anyway, if only for curiosity.

    "*As you may have noted, you have been disabled,*" came a smooth Desalian voice.  "*You shall take yourselves to your home.  Should assistance be required in communicating with your people, a subspace signal shall be sent for you.*"

    Gychak turned at the sound, tilting his head to hear the voice more clearly.  From somewhere...he knew it somehow...

    The Desalian had the gall to sound amused beneath his cool tones, which drew Wrartul's brow cleanly down the bridge of his nose.  "We require nothing of you, drask, but your natural obedience--which we will have again!"

    "*Yet our obedience is well known,*" returned the man glibly,  "*to our Desalian spirits.  You shall not turn us, nor any others, again, had you ever.  Be at peace, Unar craft.*"

    Gychak pulled himself from the floor and rushed over only to see that it was but an audio transmission.  He had certainly recognized that voice, however.  Of all the drasks of Desal he had come across in his lifetime, that one pulled oddly at him, familiar but...more.  The insults the drask had laid upon Wrartul and himself were enough to inspire his prideful scorn.  Yet that was quickly eased by his finely tuned curiosity.

    He clapped Wrartul's shoulder, staring solidly at the comm panel from which the voice had been activated.  "We will repurchase our places, Wrartul," he stated,  "and I will find this drask again someday."

    Looking up to the small viewport, Gychak watched as the small white ship turned gracefully in the space between them and, with a burst in its nacelles, disappeared among the stars.
 

---

    "And thus, what was meant came to be."
 

---

    "Fire!"  B'Elanna ordered and braced herself as soon as the torpedo barreled out of its bay.  On a beat, Tom swung their ship out of the way of the return fire.  He zipped in through the defensive phaser lines for another shot then quickly maneuvered the Azallis into the nearby line of asteroids.  Seeing rocks around them, B'Elanna hit the comm and glared out at the approaching third Unar ship.  "Medrove, I should hope you remain among us!"

    "I am coming about for the third line ship!" the Sureshan responded.  "Take on their reinforcement!"

    B'Elanna did just that, ordering a teaser shot through the edge of the rock line at the second ship's bow.  The Unar ship immediately turned to respond and Tom lined them up for the chase.

    "Jumping to warp," Tom told them and popped the Azallis into a five second burst of power, disappearing from the field.  Immediately, he swung the little ship around.

    "Spatial distortions occurring."

    Tom saw the coordinates.  "Plicta, target the signature and fire on Be'i's command."

    "Targeted."

    B'Elanna's eyes darted down to the panel.  One more...  "Fire!"

    Plasma ripped out of the banks of the Azallis as the Unar ship came out of warp, striking it upon its arrival and nearly tossing them back in the resulting wake.  The Unar craft shimmied and sparked as it worked to regain control of itself--then stopped.

    "They are severely damaged," P'llaja'i informed them and began tracing the Sureshan ship.  "Captain Medrove yet engages the lead ship."

    "We shall accompany him, then."  Tom returned and let his fingers dance upon his panel.  Returning to the system they had been fighting in before, he carefully realigned their coordinates just before slowing.  In the past months, the Unar had begun to learn some of their tricks.

    B'Elanna stared up at the visual again.  Medrove's ship was starting to show its marks.  "Tom, bring the Azallis around.  We shall take their nacelles."

    "That would be expected," he replied.

    "Then land on their bridge!" she retorted.  "A weak spot is required!"

    Tom nodded shortly.  "Plicta, prepare a round of tricobalt torpedoes."

    Without hesitation, the man obeyed, well accustomed to the procedure.  Plicta told himself to pray for their spirits another time--an odd and frightening rationale he never believed he would develop so quickly.  Then again, hot, tired and stiff with adrenaline, he also knew he didn't have the time to debate it, especially with himself.  Instead, with a few commands, he activated the weapons, performed a quick diagnostic, loaded the first into the bay and nodded to B'Elanna.

    "Target their forward banks and fire," B'Elanna said and immediately began diverting systems to face a third ship, quickly on approach.  The Azallis slipped around Medrove's ship in a feint and Plicta fired the torpedo.  B'Elanna barely looked at the result.  She was scanning the next target.

    "Their weapons are disabled!"

    Tom almost thanked P'llaja'i for the news when a shot across the Azallis' stern sent white sparks and coolant spraying across the bridge.  "Plicta!"

    The man fired another torpedo; then Medrove's ship turned and added a few of their own torpedoes to the fray.  Another shot-- "Ready another disruptor spread!"  B'Elanna commanded, jumping from her seat to assess the engine temperatures.  "Latsari!" she yelled to the comm,  "take down the core and activate secondary systems!"

    "*Yes, Be'i!*"

    Tom brought their injured ship around again as Medrove fired yet another volley into the belly of the Unar ship, finally stopping their assault.  "Release it!"  Tom told the man behind him.

    Plicta nodded and fired the spread, instantly incinerating the ship behind them.  "What of the lead cruiser?" he asked, breathless and glaring at the screen.  "It shall follow."

    "Take out their engines so their own may find them drifting," B'Elanna ordered, still typing frantically into the engineering panel, working in synch with Latsari below to stabilize their containment field.  The last blast had bruised their engines badly that time.  "They shall decide what to do with them."

    Plicta nodded grimly and did as ordered, firing a clean shot across the typically vulnerable Unar nacelles and deflector grid.  The ship moved only in the momentum and sizzled orange as Tom turned them away.

    B'Elanna only gave a nod of acknowledgment that the danger had passed, her squinting stare pasted to her monitor.  "Tom, should a place od respite be found as we contact Dalra and Cali?"  Her voice had grown hoarse with smoke and strain.

    "It is needed," he agreed and opened the comm to Medrove.  The man's equally soot stained and tired face grinned back at him.  "We are to take shelter in the Oyal Zi'ihar.  Shall you join us or return to the Ralleve Jihag?"

    "The latter, my friend," Medrove told him.  "We require replenishment--as do you."

    "Yes, yet only when we bear assurance of our route to Cezia."

    "There are no other Unar here just now," the Sureshan shrugged.  "But I will send the Litsvakal should you not leave the Oyal field by a third day."

    "My thanks," Tom said.  "Take yourselves safely."

    "And you."

    They had been in that field for nearly a week--a long time to be on a single strike.  During that time, the Azallis, with Medrove's help, had struck down two supply lines and three sensor nets, and disabled five Unar ships.  It had been a good mission.

    But there had been a price, Tom and B'Elanna learned.  After nestling themselves down into an asteroid crater and helping their friends on the bridge settle a bit, they climbed down to engineering.  Latsari and the others there were still harried in their repairs.  B'Elanna immediately removed her filthy coat and rolled up her gown sleeves to assist. 

    After inspecting the other departments of their five-decked ship, Tom likewise retrieved his repair kit and set himself to work on their shield manifold, though he knew it would require a full reinstallation once they returned to Cezia.  The entire section had been reduced to hanging relays, conduits and shards of metal.

    It still was going well.

    In the half-year since they fired upon the Rywalok, the resistance was surprisingly holding their own.  Having taken their positions along strictly organized routes of defense and offense, the resistance's lead ships had held their line.  They had not gained much ground yet between the Desalian colonies and Suresha, and they had lost several ships, but the Unar had gone no farther on the fields after initial detection of their presence.

    Many of the resistance's home planets and a few of the colonies had been stripped of Unar.  With the officers gone to fight the sect scourge, it was relatively simple to banish the remainder--families, mostly, who were simply packed up and beamed down to an outer Unar colony.  Worlds closer to Unar--all around the Gozhor Region, in fact--like the Iaskeb and Antral, still bore Unar-dominated space, however.

    Like most of the outer colonies and lesser-developed worlds, of which there were many, Desalia-Four itself remained in undisturbed occupation.  Well equipped by the Unar with planetary defenses, a strong sensor grid; having plentiful natural resources, it had no supply route and was impenetrable.  The resistance simply chose that battle to come later.

    Besides, they knew well they had their hands full, though Tom agreed with some that it was tempting to go after the home planet.  Symbolically, it would mean a great deal.  The greatest drawback was the potentially great expense of resources, which all in Irllae feared wasting.  So he and B'Elanna maintained the defenses on the ancient Desalian outer bank between Surve'i, Nose'ek and the Pashill and Sha'ot asteroid strings--the inner border of of Desalian space.  He had already memorized them.

    As he pulled a charred phase reactor out of its holdings, he wondered how long they would hold that line before something happened.  He knew from many histories that wars like theirs could go on for years before one side or the other got a break or finally weakened the other. 

    Thankfully, the Desalian crew was somewhat accustomed to the routine, and nature alone proved they would not tire of it easily.  Their patience had transferred as best as could be expected.  With it in full use just then, as they drifted in the Oyal asteroid stream, they got the warp drive stabilized and their shields patched decently enough to cross through to the anterior Sha'ot perimeter and begin their course to Cezia.  After a half day of less pressing repairs during their journey, they gladly put aside their tools to gather in the common room for their meal. 

    Simple but satisfying, they took their usual flatbread, cheese and vegetables--sometimes fish, when they were not too tired to prepare it correctly.  Together, they reclined on the spare, hard pillows, Tom by B'Elanna, Bolmra and Latsari curled up together among the other crew, numbering but thirty overall.  They ate quietly at first, descending into a bit of welcome talk soon after, all of them knowing they would return to work for some time before the second shift could allow themselves some rest.

    "*Toma of Azlre,*" came Cali's pleasant voice just as they had pulled themselves unwillingly from their third of such meals.

    Tom walked over and opened the comm.  "Fair sunrise, Cali--or has the sun risen yet?"

    She laughed.  "*It has, good man," she said.  "*And I bring you news that your path is clear.  Our sensors have picked up a small retreat in the Morshad system.  Our friends the Iaskeb have pushed Unar to the interior border again in a fine debate of skill.*"

    "It would also mean that Unar would regroup," B'Elanna said, but sighed at her pessimism.  "Yet our return is a welcome one.  A shield coil assembly is required and the manifold requires a full rebuild."

    "*Then I may presume we may satisfy our greed for your presence for more than two suns?*" Cali asked, audibly smiling.  "*Our elders shall be thrilled.  Bring yourself in good time, however.  The Korchau, with our good regents, has taken much food from Unar and is in repair."

    Tom jerked his head around.  "What?  How are they?"

    "They are to arrive by next sun, as they bear little more than impulse to steer and the Inaadel to guard them.  Yet Nivilla reports that but two have passed among them.  --Not our regents, good man."

    B'Elanna sighed with relief, and then did so again with the guilt that any life would be more expendable.  Unfortunately, that was indeed the case just then.

    "We shall return as our engines are brought online," she said quietly.

    A Cezian day later and with their satchel straps light on their shoulders, B'Elanna and Tom strode swiftly through the busy streets of Azlre, his hand on her upright back as he steered them around one group or another, and even packs of straying dwellers.  Since the clearing of the Unar houses, all the colonies of Desal had taken on more refugees than ever--and a good many of the ones bound for resistance or technical training came to Azlre on top of the other load.  It was not unwelcome, but it certainly was more crowded in a city that never needed help in that respect.

    They made good speed through the winding streets, however, greeting all who paid them notice through their still dirty faces and tired eyes, though not fully pausing until they were to the square.  B'Elanna sped herself upon seeing Aratra, skipping forward to touch his temple in greeting.

    "We have been told of the Korchau," she said.

    Aratra nodded, smiled uncomfortably.  "We left the field with success, however, good Be'i." 

    Feeling him fumble with her fingers, B'Elanna put her hand on his cheek to meet his stare again.  "It happens, Aratra," she told him, reaching up to push his soiled golden hair from his brow.  "It is terrible, yet it does happen.  That it does not overcome you bears the most importance, yes?"

    "It was a...long incursion, my friends," he said to her and to Tom, who patted his shoulder comfortingly.  "And Sashana'i, seeing the force of her injuries--"

    B'Elanna started at the suggestion and looked beyond to the clinic.  "No."

    "She shall bear wellness," Aratra said then coughed a laugh.  "Clearly as I yet breathe, so does she.  We both fare better than when we brought ourselves home, however."

    B'Elanna half smiled, but with a pat on Aratra's cheek, a look back to Tom, she hurried into the clinic. 

    The regent wasn't hard to find.  She was on the side of the front room, which had been made into a makeshift triage by Bakali with the help of her growing league of trainees.  Seeing her friend awake and all right--what looked like radiation burns were being treated by Fisdra at that moment--B'Elanna moved through to Bakali.

    "Oh my child!"  she sighed and accepted B'Elanna's firm embrace.  "My thanks to the spirits of all our ancestors we are blessed by your return--and until f'hajen, Cali has said."

    "Yes, we are to stay," B'Elanna promised, her voice cracking a bit with a tiredness she was finally beginning to allow.  More, it was good to feel the woman's thin but strong arms, comforting as they always were.  "It pleases to be home," she said, glancing to Sashana'i as one of the assistants finished on her.  "How fares my little sister?"

    "Far fairer than her arrival," Bakali answered and led B'Elanna across the room.  "You must teach my dear child-regent not to run into irradiated compartments.  She did reactivate their shield generator, yet she found harsh injury.  It spoke of carelessness for her place, I would think."

    Sashana'i heard that and smiled with combination of relief to see her friend, guilt and other shadows of the fight that had brought her to that table.  That and what else had been spinning inside her eased, however, to see B'Elanna's predictable smirk.

    "You shall inspire Lledri to chain you to the silag and Dalra curse my tongue to Prihar," B'Elanna admonished, touching Sashana'i's temple.  "Yet not one could say it is something I might not have done in your situation."

    Sashana'i snickered, broken from the spell with B'Elanna's teasing--and the resulting thought of old Lledri chasing after her with a joth rope.  "Yes, Be'i, you have taught an equally stubborn lady too well."

    "Our elder is correct, however.  You and Aratra are required to remain among the living.  A safer remote procedure can be created, which should be good work for me while we await our equipment.  --Yes, the Azallis is in for maintenance, as well.  The Kivosl and Ivitari'ad take our positions for the time."

    Sashana'i took her hand and kissed it.  "It pleases, my sister," she said, willing up her cheer with the news.  "We shall take dinner in the square in two moons and celebrate the Akosa'o which our elders decreed for the arrival of Rykynsa--a true scholar and word painter once buried in secrecy upon Ivlisa.  Now free, he has requested to come and share his words and knowledge with us."

    "Really?"  B'Elanna was genuinely interested.  Bala had spoken of the man.  A historian by trade and a full scholar of proper teaching and training, he and others like him were likely the finest gems in Desal's pocket.

    "We shall enjoy an entire day of it and all the blessings of Akosa'o--which Bakali says rightly is much needed just now, with our way so pressed into duty.  It has been several du'ave since we have enjoyed such a time."  Smiling up to B'Elanna, still holding her hand, Sashana'i nodded once and surely.  "Most certainly, this shall be a fine holiday.  We shall wear our better cloth--and your hair shall be tied like a true lady's."

    B'Elanna laughed and leaned down to kiss Sashana'i's forehead.  "Only should you catch me."
 

---

    Rykynsa of Ivlisa bowed to a knee before his good regents, as properly as he might have in his youth, and with far greater meaning at present.  The young woman, while small in stature and attired with grace rather than grandeur, was handsome in appearance and had a pointed easiness in her formality, a trait that had not faded in the Allanois, he noted.  Beside her stood the man who shared her house, a pleasant and witty gentleman with an excellent sense of curiosity Rykynsa looked forward to appeasing.  Their doings and responsibilities at present combined with such presences, wisely tended for such youth, was certainly a good sign for their people. 

    "My blessed Sashana'i and Aratra, good regents, I greet you in our people's progress and swear my service to you both."

    Sashana'i graciously bent to touch the elder man's temple and bring him back to his feet.  When he stood again, she giggled at his height.  Like Bala and Tom, a healthy youth had given the man a long frame that lasted into his elder years.

    "Your service is most welcome, most blessed, Rykynsa of Desal.  My own of Cezia anticipate greatly your trade and company."  She gestured to her left.  "My honor to introduce my siblings, Be'i and Toma."

    They greeted him with the same formality as Sashana'i, as befitted their rank and privilege, even as adopted.  "I bear anxiousness to hear your words of Desal," B'Elanna said, "of the time before Unar domination."

    Rykynsa nodded with an ancient smile and eyes crinkled by a youth spent in study and meditation.  "Yes, Children.  Corrupt times they may have been, but as many blessings graced us.  Much can be learned of bot and our weakness, as you have made plain, as is now told.  I compliment your learning and your shrewdness.  Not many would have braved their spirits to open Desal's eyes to its true threat.  Yet as Allanois spirits, you would bear your will."

    B'Elanna kept her smile in place.  Like most not of the Uillar camp, the man was ignorant of their origins.  "Merely our conscience, good man."

    Tom diverted him directly.  "The resistance is a correct action in your belief?"

    "Like many others of age, I first feared it," he confessed thoughtfully.  "Yet there is truth in the telling:  Unar are not the owners of our ways, nor may they change our way to their benefit.  This is where contrition becomes accursed, as no growth for our living spirits may be had in that."

    "This is truth," B'Elanna said, taking Tom's arm.  "Would you take refreshment now?  I am certain Treshadi would gladly meet you at the tables, to serve your plate as well as share your ear, being also a word painter among Azlre."

    Rykynsa chuckled, patting B'Elanna's cheek.  "I should think we would make ourselves annoying in our chatter--and thus I might like this, indeed."

    "May I and my bondmate bear the honor of taking you, friend?"  Bala asked.

    With a bow to the regents and their own, Rykynsa joined his fellow elders for the bountiful table.

    B'Elanna smiled after them, but with no more effort than just a pull of her lips.  An eminent word painter, that would be seen, but he was like any other elder on the surface--which wasn't necessarily a bad thing at all.  She had expected more...mystique, somehow.  Then again, she knew she'd likely let her imagination get away with her again.  Most elders had a rather curious way about them and rarely wore their acumen on their sleeve, as it were.  Bakali and Bala were perfect examples of that.  It had taken some time to understood how much knowledge they actually possessed.  So, she shrugged away her first impression and looked at the others.  "Shall we take some food?" 

    The informal holiday may as well have been a spiritual one, with the variety of prettily prepared foods, citizens and guests dressed for the holiday and music that had started not long after first meal.  There were also crafts and games, telling contests of both wit and skill--an even an errant joth herd which brought much amusement to the children, who helped to gather them again.

    For Tom and B'Elanna, Aratra and Sashana'i, it was a well-needed day to recall their home and those within it without the need to go elsewhere, to stroll through the square, visit their friends and participate in some of the activities. 

    Tom had become rather good at ba'akull, a game of wit revived two years past.  It involved quick answers to a dizzying array of odd questions.  He'd won three new blankets offered as prizes at the last Akosa'o, one of which he bestowed on Dalra and Miztri; he gave the other to Haviki, who had asked him to champion her family in that game.

    B'Elanna much preferred to sit back with Sashana'i and Latsari when the men got into the game--often laughing when they blundered and fell to flat points.  The women in particular liked to heckle their men when they began to feel the heat of that competition.  Though good-natured, the game did raise their nerve, and that was pleasant to see outside of a smoky, sparking ship with Unar droning over the comm.

    Of course, Tom always repaid the favor when B'Elanna took to the more studious game of tyimasho: geometric puzzles without props, chess for the brain alone.  B'Elanna had always been a cool competitor in that one, however.  It took a lot to make her stumble, unless Tom playfully quoted decimal units, which called upon her native way of thinking numerically and tripped up her calculations.

    But he didn't do it too often.  In the right mood, she could be far more competitive than he--and showed it.

    From there, they went without much purpose, separating at times for their different interests and conversations.  The music, which in one form or another had been continuous that day, quieted for a while as the evening meal was prepared at the center. 

    Tom joined the men in that duty, still fishing for more ba'akull corners with Aratra and ribbing Dalra nearby him, all in the good cheer that the word painter's arrival had allowed and helped to build upon.  Rykynsa, indeed, had been busy in talk all day, of both stories and histories and knowledge that his fellow Desalians drank as though they were the finest wines their people could procure.  Tom teased him in passing that he might have won at ba'akull would he play as well as he spoke.

    "Ah!  A game much enjoyed in childhood," Rykynsa smiled, leaning up against the time-eaten pillar of the silag facade.  "My wit has grown gradual.  The stories of easy speed are preferred in my elderhood, good Toma."

    Tom laughed.  "Your exceeding humility prevents you from shaming our points," he replied, activating a small flame to light the lamps on the steps of the silag.

    Rykynsa laughed.  "And you would most certainly be worthy of the game," he returned.

    With a casual bow, Tom moved away to continue helping with the remaining torches, a common duty he had taken for granted before he was away so often.  Afterwards, he rejoined B'Elanna, who was still grinning with the glory of her victory earlier that day and hungry for all the mental energy she'd expended.  They took to the meal trays after nearly all the others were gone, collecting some real harisde and sirril, gifts from Ivlisa that were instantly popular among the Azlrelians.

    As they made their way back, Rykynsa was speaking yet again of histories.  The topic that time piqued them more than the others:  The outer plasma fields.  In all of Irllae, it was their greatest available energy source, yet it was notoriously difficult to approach, a fact Tom and B'Elanna remembered from their very first day in the region.  It had all but ripped apart their heavily shielded shuttle; it would easily destroy twice the finest ship in Irllae.

    Day of rest or no, the Barrier was a topic they could definitely learn more about.

    Looking around for a place to sit, however, they noticed pale looks on Sashana'i and Aratra's faces, as well as some of their other close friends.  More than pale, Tom thought--it was almost as if someone had literally drained their blood while they sat and listened to the wise old man tell his tale before the silag.

    "What's with them?" he whispered to B'Elanna, who shook her head and almost moved to go to Sashana'i.

    Then Rykynsa continued.

    "By the spirits, yes, it was a great tragedy for the brave men who had unwittingly sacrificed their physical life but life itself for their science.  Even our own bore no knowledge of it, yet we call it the Barrier for a reason.  Irllae is truly unto itself, in space and in time.  Indeed, even time is unique among us."

    Tom and B'Elanna froze in their steps.

    "How is this, good Rykynsa?" Cali asked holding Haviki in the cradle of her crossed legs, as engaged as the child in their new knowledge.

    "Here, one may travel in life twelve revolutions," answered Rykynsa, "while not a single standard sun among outsiders has passed..."

    They didn't move.  A moment later, they couldn't.

    "The science calls it but an odd anomaly, among so many bred in the stars.  There are technical data which I have not recalled, yet lies in databanks confiscated by Unar.  I have certainty they are yet hidden on Desalia..."

    B'Elanna grabbed Tom's hand, shamefully needing something to steady herself.  He held it as tightly, let out a breath as his own blood vacated him.  He glanced over at their friends, Sashana'i, Aratra and Miztri were all staring at them--Lledri, too, with dread.  Dalra's head was bent; he was staring at the ground, calming himself.

    They knew as well as they now did...

    Sashana'i opened her mouth, wanting to speak.  But she said nothing.

    "Yet this is truth:  They returned to know that nearly three hundred years had passed in Desal.  That which among ancients was called the shield of Prihar certainly did spread its curse upon those wretched travelers..."

    B'Elanna turned suddenly, facing away from any more of it, breathing short, shallow breaths.  "It is impossible," she muttered.

    Tom let out a breath, failing to take another.

    The word painter continued with the tale of the scientists, drifting with a practiced skill into the point of his telling:  Adjustment to times changed--as suddenly for them as other times.  Though of course different and encompassing that time, there was indeed a story to precede the incredible changes they had undergone of late.

    B'Elanna couldn't be there just then, couldn't hear it.  Her head began to thrum; she almost choked in her tight throat.

    She looked up at Tom, but what further words might have come to her dissipated to see her mate looking at the ground, trying to figure it out and not wanting to.  Glancing at her, Tom tugged her hand, jerked his head in the same direction--away.  She stiffly followed where he lead them, out of the warmly lit west square and into a moonlit avenue, wide but empty as the holiday played on behind them.  They were silent as the street but for their cloth sandals shifting on the stones beneath their feet.

    There, he released her hand and she moved to an opposite pillar, gasping lest she scream, but too shocked to actually do so.  Her brain rebelled belief for sheer unwillingness.  She tried to deny it, tried to push it away, to no avail.  It made sense.

    Meanwhile, Tom could barely move once parted from her.  Numbly, he watched her.  B'Elanna, in her pretty gold gown and raisin-printed leggings, her wrap shoes and her hair braided with a scarf and tied back, just like he had come to know her, as she had even come to prefer looking.

    For many minutes, neither knew what to think, though their breathing calmed, their hearts slowed, their blood returned.

    B'Elanna turned around, falling back against the pillar wall.  Her dark, haunted stare rose from the street to find her mate's intent one.  He was in all but birth Desalian there--or at least looked it, even in his silence and waiting and his stance.

    Though painfully reminded of it, she could barely picture those still out there...who had been there all along...

    She would have cried if she thought it would help.  Somehow, her eyes remained dry, even as she found the words, any words, something...

    "Tell me we did not hear that."  Her voice was a pale whisper.  "Tell me I mistranslated him."

    "I wish I could."

    "Do you?"

    He paused, shook his head.  "I don't know."

    She almost felt sick to think about it--their lives there, lived while Voyager sat ignorant and unmoving...as they had once been in another way, but were no longer.  Even so...  "They never left us."

    "They didn't have time to," Tom said, not affecting emotion into his empty voice.  He never had been one to like paradoxes--if he would even call it that.  To him, it was something an earlier incarnation of himself would call typical bad luck.  Maybe it could be called that even then.  But he had always found peace in the fact that they were gone.  "That life, those people.  I barely know them anymore.  I only hoped that they were safe.  We both did."

    "It was easier to think like that," she agreed.

    "It is so long ago."

    "We're different now; we changed from what they ever knew about us, in our minds, our ways, everything.  We took the kraja and let that change us; we took Desal and helped start the war--all in good faith."  She stared up at him.  "We became Desalian, and they have not even had a day."

    "Yes."  A pause.  After he staved off the dread in his chest, he managed to admit, "We were the ones to give them up."

    "All of this time," she continued in a thick throat, replaying each thought as her mind tried to push it away,  "we thought they were gone.  But they're sitting out there.  They possibly don't even know that we are gone, anything that happened to us, what...I..."  She cut off, coughed for the sudden tension in her lungs. 

    On instinct, he neared her.  But he stopped as she caught her breath and settled on the slight distance.

    "It has only been..."  She breathed humorless laugh.  "I'eva tsa, I cannot even count like them anymore.  It has been not rachal a'etak.  Gye, gye'i taum misllav."

    "Ka, bi'ull i'a ka'akle rai rallkle majall al," he confirmed.

    "Dov?" she asked, shaking her head again. 

    "Rlle ka'e.  --Gy'icha tinropde'ita aschi ay."

    "Tsid ka'e, we do not even have a ship that can go near the flesh of the plasma field, even if we do want to go.  Ka?"

    Tom considered that for only a couple seconds.  "Frankly, we couldn't leave, knowing what we have started here.  More, with Nicoletti and Bendera still out there somewhere, if they're still alive...  --And those are just the practical reasons."

    She closed her eyes for a moment.  Unconsciously, her arms crossed against her ribs.  "So then we are completely bound to this place."

    Tom noticed her position.  "It depends how you think of that.  Like you said, these are our people now."

    "I know that," B'Elanna replied.

    "You didn't sound completely sure of that just now," he observed.

    Her eyes narrowed.  "You know damn well I don't give my loyalty to anything easily," she responded,  "and when I do, I don't give it up.  Why would I turn my back on everything I have for a past I would rather not relive on a ship just as trapped--and in a place it doesn't wish to be?"

    He sighed an apology then added,  "But it's still there, isn't it?  Voyager, the thought that we could go back someday, to them, to all that."

    She felt her heart sink again at the thought, that once forsaken time smashing into her again, their faces and voices as clear as they were in their spiritual journeys--and yet, quickly diluting into another face, and then another memory--memories, at least four years old and nicely faded, not her present.  Why it didn't overwhelm her, she didn't know.  Perhaps the shock had dulled her response.

    "We gave up that idea when we were still on Uillar.  And as you said, there is nothing we can do about it now, anyway," she finally reiterated.  "Even if we did want to go back, we couldn't."

    "The question is," Tom said,  "do you want to?  Whether or not it's impossible and despite what we have here, would you want to?"

    She looked at him, paused in it to see the familiar sight before her.  His eyes, his expression, and the way his palms were slightly raised:  All of him asked her, along with the tall, proud presence that was completely familiar to her.   He was so well suited in the burnished robe sewn for him by Cali three years ago, his long tunic and the muslin scarves he'd finally learned to wrap correctly, she could hardly picture the officer anymore, see him in the clothes they had once worn.  Not anymore.

    Somewhere in the distance, a ship rumbled in the atmosphere.  Taking off from Dviglar, her finely tuned ear knew it was an Iaskeb ship--Oetibre delivering their latest supply of ferranide crystals and dilithium.  Their work for tomorrow, she knew. 

    Tom barely blinked at the noise, though he had heard it.

    Somewhere in it all, the other memories still seemed all the more faraway, displaced--in the past, and willingly so after a time.

    She felt her head lighten even as her mind found her answer:  "No."

    It was much simpler than she thought.

    "Knowing they are out there still will be difficult to become accustomed to," she added.  "But no, I do not want to leave, especially now.  Maybe someday we might change our minds...but not now."

    Sighing with relief, Tom finally took the steps across to take her hands.  He gazed down into her searching stare, rubbing his thumbs over her knuckles.  "No matter what is waiting for us out there, it doesn't matter to me--probably less than it should."

    "No," she said softly,  "you are entitled to choose your place."

    "And I have," he confessed.  "There is little left there but a poor reputation I've grown away from and a life with no more purpose than resolving my mistakes and proving my worth on a ship in wait of a miracle.  I like to believe I'm past that.  So, I have little to gain there and everything I care about here.  Right here."  He squeezed her small, slim fingers.  "I don't think I really lived until I came to this place--UIllar, Cezia, our friends and enemies--you--all of it combined."

    "A part of us will always be there," B'Elanna mused.  "Bakali and Bala would say it first."

    "Ka," he admitted quietly.

    "At the same time, I have friends here I have known longer and better than anyone, and I also have never felt more at peace, more..."

    "Belonging," he supplied.

    "Yes."  She felt her lips turn up as his did.  "I never thought I could ever feel it as I do," she said softly.  "I never thought I could handle it as I believe I have.  I've never been as content with anything, or loved a place as I do Azlre.  Ka, we chose this place, maybe for that."

    "Though again, our 'birth,' as Dalra would say, was outside the Barrier."

    "Dalra also knows that children grow and move on," she replied.  "I haven't seen him and Miztri flying back to Maha'aje, though they can now--and that place is readily accessible."  She breathed a soft, ironic laugh as she thought further on it.  "Part of us out there or no, we are honor bound to finish this war and find the others.  And when that happens, our shield output would need to be quintupled at least to manage a single stream."

    "Finally, a way about passivity we can practice," Tom returned lightly.  "I can see why it was so well accepted."

    "And yet," B'Elanna said, "someday, we will have the capability; we'll have to choose.  I don't think it would be as easy as it is now." 

    "Or maybe we won't want to choose," Tom pointed out.  "Personally, right now, I can't see myself wanting it--or I don't see myself thinking this one to death."

    "Yes."  She felt her strange grin again, her brow rising slightly as she realized it.  As much as her mind was spinning with dread only minutes before, it was equally relieved to know how she truly felt, and how he felt, too, even when the choice was still open.  "I don't want to think of it right now, either.  Too many impossibilities at this point and other people to consider in it."

    He thought about that.  "So, when the war is completed and we know what has happened to the others one way or the other, we will decide which place we belong to more and accept it."

    She gave a nod.  "Ka."

    "No matter how long it takes."

    She shrugged.  "We have plenty of time, after all."

    "Zhra'a ka."

    Looking at each other, they knew better of their indifference, which kept their lighter expressions in place as it was assured in the other.  It was indeed ironic, maybe even a little surprising, but they didn't doubt their place.  Their feet remained planted on the stones; their stares did not waver.

    B'Elanna's shoulders finally relaxed.  "Toma..."  She paused, finding her learned tongue again.  "The way between us shall not be changed by this, yes?  Bearing this knowledge, it is natural we would think on it despite our present inclination.  Perhaps should you decide otherwise of your needs..."  She left the rest open to him.

    He released her hands to cup her face, run his fingers tenderly over her markings.  Only then did he realize that he had needed to.

    "My love..."  He smiled, feeling her life beneath his touches, feeling her in him, even if but partially.  "You are my spirit:  Should I truly own one, half is yours.  I am where you would be; I live with you and nothing shall change this.  In a manner, I was freed in you.  I shall not be taken back to what I had been."

    "Nor shall I," she whispered, pressing against him, raising her own fingers to his temple, to share the touch between them.  "I remain in you, as well."  She felt his lips caress her hairline; she breathed his scent, pulled her chin up to kiss his mouth, softly, before releasing it all to his warm embrace.  "I am where I feel belonging and wish to be."

    He sighed a breath, nuzzled his cheek against her soft curls and scarf and whispered into her ear, "So, we shall not be held back any longer?"

    She understood, feeling her smile creasing her eyes, her heart beating inside of her.  "Yes.  No longer." 

    Closing her eyes upon his collar, she felt his grin pressed to her cheek as he hugged her even tighter.

    The music echoed again through the streets of Azlre, and they swayed without thinking to the rhythm of the dominant melody, a song of lovers walking along the river to the sea.  Tom hummed a little bit of it to B'Elanna's ear, kissing her warm skin with a soft sigh.

    After several more minutes there and a change in the song, they finally looked towards the square.  Their hands slid downwards from their embrace to meet again.  They walked slowly back, through the wide street towards the torchlight, until they were within it.

    Sashana'i was waiting for them there, as were Aratra, Dalra, Miztri and their elders.  They had gathered, apparently to look for them.  Each of them showed some anxiety, clasped their hands or fumbled as they spoke and looked around.

    Then Sashana'i saw them.  Turning, she stepped forward, only a few steps as her mouth opened to speak.  The wells of her eyes filled to see them, but she did nothing more but wait for them.

    With a glance to each other, then back to their friends, Tom bowed to a knee, his head and stare turning downward as he brushed his fingers over his temple.  Then he held those fingers out to them, a most proper greeting.  B'Elanna mirrored the gesture, but then held her arms out to Sashana'i.  She pulled up her chin in defiance of the other woman's visible doubts.

    "Ab," she mouthed.

    The other woman released a cry of relief and rushed to B'Elanna, clutching to her tightly upon arrival.  "Be'i, what you bear knowledge of now, it...  I feel such fear for you!"

    "Sashana'i," she sighed.  "We would never leave you, not now particularly.  We had been shocked, yet we are reconciled and certain of where we wish to be."

    "Your own," Sashana'i gasped, "you would wish for them!  It was not your will to part from them."

    "Yet it is now," B'Elanna said into her ear.  "Was it not said by you, Sashana'i?  We are family.  We are with our own--whom we have chosen.  Never mistake that."

    Sashana'i cried, nodded into B'Elanna's shoulder.  "The extent of my thankfulness shall never be known by you.  By my ancestors, I shall always pray the spirits bless you, Be'i and Toma."

    Tom reached over to squeeze their sister's shoulder then gave her a smile when her swollen eyes moved up to meet his.  "They already have."
 

---

    "Ye'i tsa hanu a'a vadri llosch al al tsa va'a."

    "Va'i al tsa, vadri llosch, mes tsa a'ya'o..."

    It continued with acceptance.

    They had agreed to say nothing of their birth, and they requested those of Uillar and the others who knew their origins not to mention it, either.  Having relinquished that part of their childhoods sufficiently enough, it needed not be mentioned again.  Regardless of the fact that the ship they had come from was only a sector away from them, crawling in relative time, they continued their own lives as if indeed they had never known of the Barrier. 

    There was little use in thinking about it, after all.  They couldn't reach them even if they wanted to.

    For that matter, they had their own lives and subsequent duties to attend to.
 

    "They are collected!  Full speed!"

    Tom punched the panel to shoot the smoking, flickering ship off and away towards the asteroid field, trying hard not to cough at the thick air.  He was certain he could lose them in the rock ranges.  In the last few months, the Unar had adapted to their strategies--even copied some of their shield configurations.  Dalra's prediction of Unar jealously adopting technology was proving to be a correct one.

    Tom knew he was a far better pilot, though.

    "Release a series of disruptor bursts into their forward emitters," B'Elanna commanded as her day-worn eyes droned over her readings,  "then follow it with a torpedo in their forward weapons array."

    Plicta did as asked.  "Their shields are weakening."

    "Release a tricobalt torpedo--" B'Elanna responded.

    "They are evading!"  P'llaja'i announced.

    B'Elanna growled.  "Then target the torpedo for their deflector."

    As Plicta prepared it, Tom turned a look to his mate.  "Would you think they are displeased with our borrowing our people back?"

    She pursed her lips into a crooked smirk.  "Perhaps a condolence can be sent when there is less business to tend to."

    "I bear certainty they would appreciate your way of that," he chuckled and added aside,  "But it's the thought that counts."

    B'Elanna snorted.

    A few moments later, she ordered Plicta to fire the torpedo; Tom nodded as its path into an unprotected aft phaser array knocked out power on that side of the Unar ship.  "That has slowed them," he reported as he sailed the Azallis, such as it was, into the familiar confines of the asteroid field.  There, he ducked them around and about the rocks, dizzying their path if only to confuse the signal they would leave behind.

    When one of the recovered "drasks"--a leader among them, they said--found his way to the bridge to meet the captains, Tom finally gave it a rest and stood to greet the slightly greyed but very relieved man.

    "Be'i and Toma of Azlre," he said, greeting them with a deep bow and a slow gesture around his markings.  "My greatest pleasure to meet you.  I was told by Cali of Azlre that you bore her true Desalian spirit, and I may see it has not dulled with our necessary sacrifice.  My many thanks for your generous efforts.  I was not anticipating spending the remainder of my existence in Mogracho."

    B'Elanna tipped her head.  "Cali spoke to you of us?"

    "I am called Aprra of Ci'avas," he told them.  "We came to know each other during her time at Onruk's household."

    Tom and B'Elanna's gazes turned to each other's as their mouths creased upward in unison.  "Ah, Aprra," Tom intoned, turning a wiser eye to the man that time.  "Some words have preceded you as well."

    B'Elanna grinned when the man's brow rose, but didn't address it but to suggest, "I should believe we might take on replenishments sooner rather than later, yes?"

    "Vaa, I would think it, indeed," Tom returned, enjoying Aprra's reaction for every bit it grew more curious.  Clapping the man's shoulder, he looked down to him.  "Welcome, Aprra.  I bear certainty Desal's second captain of communications would be exceedingly happy to show you the various venues of Azlre.  There, transport to Ivlisa can be arranged, should this be wished, after your...tour."

    B'Elanna laughed and excused herself for engineering.  Tom asked Bolmra to take Aprra to the replicators to supply food for the fifty-six Desalians crammed in their cargo bay.  When they left--Aprra looking back before he disappeared--Tom began encrypting an update to Cali, who had spoken in heart-rendering detail of the pleasure and reassurance the good man had given her during their brief time together.

    She had accepted she would never see him again and claimed she bore nothing that lingered but a fond memory of comfort.  For that, she had honored his memory. 

    Tom and B'Elanna knew better of her.  She was almost as bad as they once were.

    On Cezian soil again, warm and dry well after sunrise, B'Elanna gave Tom a quick kiss and took off for the communication center, bursting into the main room and snatching Cali aside before her presence was even noticed.  She immediately pressed her fingers on her friend's lips, snickering as would a mischievous child.

    "My debt to you, Cali," B'Elanna told her,  "--or I hope you would be happy with our catch this sun.  A particular household drask reassignment has borne a fine reward."

    Cali furrowed her brow, her brain still calculating the readings she had been torn from.  "What has claimed you this sun, good lady?"

    "The question is what you shall claim," B'Elanna returned and led her friend into the sun.

    Cali stopped at the sight of Tom--then a blink later, his walking companion.  Cali's mouth fell open then turned up as tears rose in her eyes.  Darting a look at B'Elanna, almost asking if it was truth, Cali turned again to Aprra, whose hand rose slightly as he returned her gaze.

    "A pleasant sun to you both," B'Elanna said softly, stepping away.

    Cali's fingers drifted distractedly in a circle over her markings; Aprra did the same.

    As the two met, Tom gravitated to B'Elanna's side and, placing his hand on her back, steered them back to the Azallis.
 

    "There was a boy whose gaze was lost in the stars, and he wondered where he might take himself should he grab hold of but one and sail there forever.  Nothing more was wished than this for more than his dream-laden spirit.  Indeed, part of his desire was to be not where he was, too young was he to realize that wherever he went, he took his pained spirit with him."

    B'Elanna smiled, leaning back in Tom's warm embrace, her head burrowed in his thick robe collar as he spoke.  Her half-closed eyes lazily watched Haviki snuggle against Bala's thin lap.  The six year-old looked up to Tom with round yet tiring eyes and curious smile.  From time to time, her small, pink mouth opened into an unwilling yawn.

    "Thus he went amongst the stars, and many, many stars, much betrayal and sadness passed, until it was discovered where his being truly lay.  He had suffered in ignorance of it, in selfishness for it, and he was convinced of his doom.  Yet with true survival, hope and love, his spirit made itself known.  For this, he knew a joy like none other and never wished to take himself again."

    The elders were baby-sitting that evening.  B'Elanna had a feeling this would be common, until Cali could make a more private arrangement in her tiny flat downstairs.

    Not that B'Elanna minded.  Tom's bedtime stories were always worthwhile.

    "It was begun with a small craft...."
 

    "Fifteen nahol of ferranide crystals, twenty containers of photonic plasma, fourteen base units of galacite and a fresh supply of sheet duranium are required.  Should this not be available, then you may contact me at Dviglar tomorrow and we shall make other arrangements.  Toma and I shall begin repairs on your vessel then."

    "Of course, Be'i," said the Antral agent as he finished adding up her list.  "Your debt is three plasma relay rebuilds, however."

    "Of course.  Choose the ships and it shall be done."  Finished with the arrangements, B'Elanna bowed, touched her temple and turned away with Sashana'i.  "Three rebuilds would not even touch those garbage ferries," she whispered as her friend took her arm.

    Sashana'i giggled.  "Yes, they are hideous--yet they bear some functionality."

    "Barely that," B'Elanna smirked and turned them off to find their men, also in arrangements--for foodstuffs--near Padan's former flat.  Spotting them, B'Elanna unconsciously straightened, readying something smart to say to her mate.

    Sashana'i grinned at the habit.  B'Elanna always reclaimed that clever way about herself when she had a good day in the trades.  Releasing her arm, she watched B'Elanna approach and peer over Tom's choices with a quip or two.  A few of their acquaintances gathered to see the couple, greeting them kindly.  Tom and B'Elanna both began chatting with Gihetra and J'vishi, who had recently been bonded, over the table of food supplies. 

    I have underestimated them, Sashana'i thought, smiling wistfully to see them so true in their ways, and yet I am more indebted than ever.

    With a wry observation on Aratra's part, Sashana'i met B'Elanna's eyes, giggled lightly at the usual turn to her lips, the slight roll of her eyes.  B'Elanna and Pedranai jumped in on the discussion; Tom's sharper wit came again to the fore as he held an eglos root before Gihetra as an example.  B'Elanna snorted and laughed aloud, slapping his hip as she admonished him.

    Sashana'i laughed, too.  It is a burden I may live with--as shall they. 

    And they did, already accustomed to giving away their more desired life at Azlre for the war, which heated and paused again and again, a tug of war between a far better equipped and steadily rallying people and a makeshift but determined resistance. 

    Tom and B'Elanna's training of Desal went on, however, as did their deals, their resistance maneuvers, which added burglary, outright sabotage and live ship scavenging to their list of sins later to be excused.  They fought with all the wit and quickness they possessed to gain their edge, which in turn allowed them sufficient respite to prepare for other matters once left to indecision.
 

    The torches were lit upon sunset and the people gathered with their foods, prepared for that evening.  Lledri oversaw Zepra's dressing of the front patio of the silag with a particularity that some of her wry initiates said befit only a prichava.  Others jokingly corrected them as it befitting Lledri herself.

    Far calmer, though catching each other's grins from time to time, were the elders of Azlre.  They set out their ginhra cloth with care as always, inspected and set their kraja tools upon the center stone.  Having once been two of only nine who could perform the ceremony in Azlre, theirs was a common procedure.  Still, they had never prepared the ginhra for any they considered their own and therefore remained longer in their task.

    Were they asked to admit it, one might have said they were likely as expectant as their spirit-children.
 

    "Ouch!"

    "Would you remain still, you would not be pulled."

    "First your bondmate--now you.  Is hair pulling a tradition you have not spoken of yet?  Or has this been created in our honor?"

    "Only for you, Toma, as this special treatment befits you," Aratra laughed and wove the next bead into the braid he'd tied close and tight on his brother's nape. 

    While they had prepared in meditations with Bala and Bakali over the past months, Tom and B'Elanna had also allowed some other preparation to come on their own.  Thankfully, Tom's hair, though thinning naturally, grew well at the nape--an opposite pattern to Desalian men that turned out to be quite convenient.  That afternoon, Aratra had trimmed it close to his scalp save a hint of length at the crown and, at the bottom left, a healthy, curled tail.  One moon past the ceremony, it would be cut off and rewoven with a lock of B'Elanna's hair, then offered to the elders as a thanks for their services.

    Sewing the beads onto the braid was another matter entirely.  Aratra chuckled all the way through Tom's squirming. 

    Soon, though, Tom calmed enough to instead fumble with his embroidered green kneecoat and brightly woven sash--gifts from Bala--and move his toes in his new boots, which were wrapped up to his knees as was proper.  He had first balked at that one, especially when Aratra admitted he preferred his short boots, too.  Still, both men had to admit the whole outfit did look good.

    Looking across at Dalra, who was pressing his long, outer robe on the sheet wood floor of Aratra and Sashana'i's main room with a polished rock, he caught the man's grin.  Dalra in turn raised his brows with intent to say the obvious.  But looking at Tom another moment, his eyes crinkled with a grin.

    "I have not seen you so preoccupied with your hems since the sun which brought you to us, when you considered sharing a blanket with your companion."

    Tom laughed and grabbed his scarves.  "You would recall my better awkwardness now." 

    Bending his leg, he began wrapping and tying the gold cloth around his knee to form his headdress.  Nearby lay the ankle-length top scarf that he would don first; then he put the headdress on top of that.  In a moment's distraction, Tom was glad that wasn't a normal part of the traditional Desalian male dress even more than the boots...even if for that night, he would have worn plumes and toe bells if necessary.

    Dalra saw Tom's face change as he wrapped then braided his scarves with a deft hand, a little more serious than a moment before.  "Perhaps you shall take yourself with less hesitation to her bed this moon," he observed lightly.

    "Who spoke of hesitation?"  Tom returned, his lips twisting upwards.

    It was quite the contrary, in fact, once he let himself think about it.
 

    She knelt on the floor of Miztri and Dalra's flat, calmly holding the edge of a trunk as her gown stays were pulled behind her and finally tied off.  With a plain smile and an assured stare, she had told the young regent to bind the gown more comfortably that time else she would not leave the room and Bakali, Bala and Tom would simply have to come to her. 

    Sashana'i did not doubt her, and so she gave B'Elanna her wish.

    Rising, B'Elanna carefully sat again on a footstool so Sashana'i could braid and pin her hair, scarves and beads properly.  Before her, Miztri kneeled and both women grinned.  With a slip of sibra nectar on her thin finger, Miztri darkened B'Elanna's lips, brightened her cheeks--tapped her nose playfully.  B'Elanna smiled fully then, even as she saw her elder friend blink with a sudden thought.

    "Do I pull too much?" Sashana'i asked, intent on her work.

    She peered up.  "For the first time, no."

    Sashana'i bent to kiss B'Elanna's soft curls then pinned up the braid she'd woven.

    B'Elanna looked down as Miztri pulled her foot forward with one hand, shaking out the ties of her shoe with the other.  Immediately, B'Elanna opened her mouth to say she could do it herself.  Miztri gave her a belabored look.

    "Enough of this stubbornness, Child," she scolded affectionately.  "You yet insist upon exceeding independence."

    It took B'Elanna a moment to remember, but when she did, she laughed and reached forward to touch the older woman's temple.  "How different I must be now."

    "Yes," Miztri answered, "and yet you are the same girl, as Toma is the same young man, Dalra and I hurried from the sun that midday upon Uillar.  The light of your eyes, the spirit I see in them, is the same but for the pain.  Such cuts have healed in your presences."

    "Some," B'Elanna acknowledged.

    "More than some, I should think.  And there remains so much for you to learn, well past this moon."

    B'Elanna let that sink in as Sashana'i draped her long scarves and a few thin braids partially over her forehead then looped the remainder through the crown braid and back, letting the ends of the cloth fold gracefully on the floor as she adjusted the top.  Finally, her earrings were clipped in place, the chain of those beads and jewels pinned up into the scarves.  They were Bakali's, borrowed for the evening.

    Sashana'i handed her a mirror to inspect the work.  Out of habit, B'Elanna hesitated at first, but turned up her reflection without much more trouble.

    The image that greeted her was not surprising.

    She was certainly cleaner and far more elegant than usual, but as she gazed at her reflection, her fair face and all the markings and remnants there, parts of her birth, her past, her present, even the dressings, the beads and scarves, her hair, grown longer of late, she knew, Yes, I am certainly different, and older... Still, she knew Miztri was right: it was still herself she viewed.  For the first time in several years, she found her lips turning up at what she saw.

    "This is truth," she finally responded and looked up to Sashana'i.  "It is beautifully done.  My thanks."

    Sashana'i shivered with joy to hear it.  With a clap of her hands, she hurried to the side table to pick up the full-length, maroon coat she'd had made and subtly embellished at the hems with tiny beads and stitches to compliment the cloth below it, her gift to the bonding.  Bringing it back, spreading the coat open, she slid it onto B'Elanna's waiting arms.  After turning the small bronze clasps at the torso together, B'Elanna pulled the edging of her gown's bodice up a little to reveal that layer beneath the coat's hem.  Miztri meanwhile pulled out the skirt so it fell over the gown and parted at the sides correctly.

    The regent drew a proud smile upon her lips when her adopted sister turned to face them again.  "And now for you to bring yourself to all..."
 

    "...Hanek tsa a'i brre, bras mar'trell ini'ash..."

    So many times, they had witnessed it, yet never expected to see it from the perspective they were that night.  Kneeling in a massive half circle, formed before the silag and filling nearly half the square, their fellow citizens waited to witness the ceremony.  On the patio of the silag, Bala and Bakali stood in their formal clothes and ornaments, his fingers resting in her palm.  Then, softly, building, the soft singing could be heard.

    From opposite sides, the couple was guided in by their siblings, through the rows left by the onlookers, who blessed their way with a softly-voiced,  "Zha hevrra," and "Havra zhal," spoken all in friendship.  Indeed, they knew each person who had spoken, acknowledged them all as one would a friend.

    "...Vyel trell anl chi, a'i yrra eb rab..."

    At the front of the circle, the four young people paused.  Aratra and Sashana'i moved aside with a bow of their heads as their elders approached and their charges finally saw each other.  For several seconds they took in their chosen partner, their formal array, their equal looks of expectation and curiosity, until their attention was diverted.  Bakali smiled at B'Elanna, placing her finger on her palm to bring her onto the patio; Tom was similarly led by Bala.  Once they all had gathered, the elders knelt briefly before their children in respect, greeting and a silent prayer.

    The music's rhythm pulsed as the elders rose again; it continued to thrum as Bakali took B'Elanna around in the circle.  They moved, the elderly leading the youth, a simple lilting step around Tom and Bala; they bowing each time they faced them, making B'Elanna's presence known to all, her part in nature's cycle and that between man and woman--Bihla and Sa'alli as they wandered their different realms yet failed to touch.  After the second turn, Bala took Tom around in the same fashion. 

    Then they stopped.  Tom and B'Elanna were left facing each other, as nature's physical cycles may only be made sacred when meeting the ancestors, who are eternal.

    Tom and B'Elanna's eyes met.  They started breathing again several seconds later.

    I am doing this; I am going to do this with her after this much time... 

    He and I have survived, come so far that I would do this with him... 

    Their gaze parted when their elders then lead them to the diamond-shaped table erected at the foot of the silag, which had been decorated with the finest cloths Lledri could find, creating a one-walled room.  There, spreading the long portions of their clothes and scarves behind them, they kneeled.  When they turned slightly and their eyes found each other's again, Bakali's words, finally spoken, were more like the voice in their journeys, separate from their physical reality but entirely present.

    "Be'i of Azlre, should you desire to combine your being with the man before you, offer your hand as claim to your oneness."

    B'Elanna pulled her hand from the lap of her coat then turned her palm up.  She barely felt inside her body just then, but for the breeze slipping around her hand and her firmly beating heart. Tom's fair blue eyes shone into hers, and her mouth turned slightly up when he released a silent sigh.  His expression was so full that she could feel everything behind it even without the elders' help.

    What will it be like when all of that really *is* within me? she suddenly wondered.

    "Toma of Azlre," Bala said with his usual lilted gentleness,  "should you share the desire of this lady before you and wish to combine your being with hers, place your hand within her own."

    It took no deciding:  Tom reached up and placed his hand upon B'Elanna's.  She was like a magnet, increasingly so as they were enveloped in the ceremony; he might have fallen into her himself for the strength of her dark, searching stare.

    Tom had to think to wet his gaze.  And I will know exactly what lies behind it...and everything else...

    "...Inish alz sholl a'o, shos ach ma'shivarr..."

    "In this place, before your people, Be'i and Toma, you shall claim each other now."

    B'Elanna's lips parted to obey her elders, and she realized it really was beginning.  Her gaze still in Tom's, she suddenly felt such expectation and adoration, it would have scared her to death years ago.  Then again, that was years ago. 

    "I claim you, Toma, in the way of Bihla and Sa'alli," she said, the words feeling a thousand times more real and more sincere than when she'd giggled to practice them with Miztri and Sashana'i days before.  "Before our people, I tell you this moon that I shall take you as my bondmate, your blood into my house, your spirit into my being, and I ask this to be blessed among our own and in the realm of the spirits."

    Tom reminded himself once again to breathe.  "I claim you, Be'i," he responded, "in the way of Bihla and Sa'alli.  Before our people, I accept you this moon and shall take you as my bondmate, my blood into your house, your spirit into my being, and I ask that this be blessed among our own and in the realm of the spirits."

    "...Nicha chirr chamr e, metir ebnis lle..."

    Her smile found her eyes as she allowed Bakali to take her hand.  With the ease of her elderhood and their previous journeys, Bakali found the correct nerve and pressed her center finger to it.  The contact was as easy and familiar as it had ever been.

    You must give all to me now, Be'i,  she said within the younger woman's mind.

    Instinctively, she hesitated, but only for a moment.  She had been prepared well enough to know to relax.  I allow you, Bakali.  Swiftly, she felt her entire life rush forward through her consciousness, even as she sensed the old woman's comforting encouragement.  It was overpowering despite it, the stream of her life, her every moment in a blur, somehow--she couldn't figure out how--washing through her and into Bakali. 

    B'Elanna's eyes closed and she felt her head droop, her eyelids flutter and fall.  It was like a waterfall between her ears, then...

    It is done, Be'i, came Bakali's soothing voice, and she raised her head to find the kind stare of her elder; then she felt her touch disappear.  B'Elanna willed herself to remain straight as she watched Bala take Tom's hand.

    Clear your mind, Toma, and relax.  We have been here before, only not so completely.

    Tom readily gave it, forcing himself not to think as he felt a spin in his head like nothing he had known before, even as a pilot.  Bala's constant assurances and his own efforts weren't enough to keep him straight, nor prevent a heavy sense of finality from filling him as the old man finished collecting his life from his mind.  Tom's head still spun from the speed and mass of content that had just washed through him.

    You shall bear far more to consider in little time, Toma, Bala smiled inside of him before taking his hand away and giving it to Bakali.

    The young couple watched silently as the quiet singing hushed around them, and they became lost in the sight of their elders exchanging their memories, their lives.  Their old faces lit with what they would give to their children.  Completing their trade, the elders, parting hands silently, turned back to them.

    "Look into the eyes of your spirit..."  Bakali and Bala said softly in unison and reclaimed B'Elanna's and Tom's hands.

    Before they could think to think anything, their gazes locked again...

    ...and be bonded with blessing of the spirits.

    "...Shymra anl achra nre, vyel e'a trell zhrave'isb..."

    The elders entered...released onto them...

    A darkly handsome father, his arms upstretched as she laughed down to him....a mother's embrace, a yard of bright toys and a large, fluffy dog came to lick his face....running on the sandy lake beach....sneaking through Starfleet Headquarters...."You're a liar!  He wouldn't!  I hate you!"...."One more try--that's all I'm asking for!"...."Klingon-head!  Are you gonna come and kill me now?"...."You'll never amount to anything if you don't straighten up--and this time, you'll remember what I told you.  Understood?"....sitting on the riverbed watching the birds....looking out the window on a rainy day...

    They forced their heads to remain upright as it slowly filled them, barely seeing each other's eyes, everything beyond that quickly burred away...Rather...

    A PADD of computations below her eyes as she sunbathed....a red-haired girl he watched passing by....packing one suitcase but wanting to send the rest somewhere....reading at a cafe for his astrometrics final--it was too easy....throwing some stupid sculpture she never did like at the closing door.  "Slithering p'tahk!"...."Oh come on, you got to be kidding me!"...."Face it, Torres, you've got nothing else to do with yourself"...."Thomas Eugene Paris, you are hereby stripped of your"....kicking a dent into a wall....falling against a laughing woman....sitting in a dark engine room, crushing her teeth together as she pulled apart the blackened component....leaning hard over a banister, unable to swallow it back but able to taste it...."Leave me the hell alone!"...."Go to hell"....

    Their breath was catching, they felt themselves either blushing or paling.  It was hard to tell with the storm of feeling and memory, memories not their own--and yet now their own--flooding into their consciousness then burrowing deep within, as if they were their own...

    Running for a white door...."Paris to Voyager!  Three to beam up!"...."Apologize?!"....working through the code on a door....bearing her spine before Seska's hard stare...."I'm on it!"...."What do you mean 'no way to redirect it?!'--Get in the tube and *fix* it, Carey!"...."What have they done to you?"....running a brush cursorily through her redone hair, primping a side....taking a deep breath before leaving his quarters....looking at Janeway over a cup of coffee....running his hand over the nose of the Cochrane...."I think I have a solution to our problem"...."Inertial dampers offline!  Hang on!"...."I can take a little pain"...choking on the smoke as he sprinted through it....the feel of the halter tight against her skin....lowering behind her, nipping at her shoulder....waking briefly to see him setting their tea....

    They straightened, though thinking and breathing and knowing they were even there was secondary to their unbroken gaze, focusing within...

    Kneeling on the ginhra cloth....looking at him....looking at her....Looking at...themselves, through each other's eyes....

    "...Pamedre trell, monro sholl, mosyll dakna aj ysham rai..."

    They did not even realize that Bala and Bakali had finished the bonding, had released their hands, or that the music and singing had stopped, not until their hands touched once again, were positioned, their central finger into each other's palm.

    Here, Be'i and Toma, is where you henceforth shall join your spirits, came their elders' voices within them both.  Yet at present, you may ask the blessing of the ancestors.

    What? B'Elanna thought, but the elders were gone--though not without leaving the slight sensation of amusement for her query....

    They drifted...

    A bright light engulfed them, and they knew they were not to be there.  This was not their place, that part of the white plain...within them, far away, all around them.  Like in the meditations, but deeper...beyond...

    Yet they stood among others, countless presences and beings; some appeared to be familiar: friends, grandparents, uncles and peoples lost of time before, even friends of recent, passed unto...

    They knew them all somehow, and felt each presence but briefly among so many others.  So many others...so much life...peaceful, alive yet not living, joyful...beyond...

    They were not to be there.  Not yet.

    We ask your blessing, they blurted in their minds, shocked still at what had greeted them, all the faces, all the presences, welcoming them there but for the moment, minutes, hours...whatever time there was there...there was no time.  They had not imagined it would be so much like what they had been told it would be.

    The faces, so many, all fleeting...  They could not solidify the presences for that they indeed were not a part of that realm.  And knowing that, they suddenly knew that they would soon need to return to their place among the living...

    We ask your blessing, for our union...

    A flurry of energy met their request, and again they tried to believe they were there, much less asking, seeing...feeling their life forces being embraced among that expanse of light, so much closer than the elers' introductions, so much more...palpable.  Not cold or even a breeze, it was not a feeling to be described but as pure awareness of others...separate, but briefly embracing their energy, spirits...and accepting it. 

    It was understood.

    They turned to each other as the other realm faded into its proper place, leaving the two upon its edge, in the pure white plain only between themselves, in perfect clarity.

    Joining hands, they saw each other.  Their temples and hands were marked with kraja.

    They were wearing the same regalia they had donned that evening; their hair and scarves were just as their siblings had dressed them, their facades were healthy and unscarred but bore their present age.  These were now their beings, their spirits' truth.  Though smiling wisely at the change, they felt no lack of amazement that they did not doubt that new and shocking thing, far different from what they had imagined. Rather, they bore nothing but awareness of their new place, ones among all.

    Leaning to each other, they kissed, their arms and the light of their beings and that realm wrapping around each other, washing over and through them, sharing past and future...and present...

    Tom and B'Elanna blinked, breathed suddenly, deeply, fell back into Azlre, the square, their places before the table at the steps of the silag, into their bodies.  Their world sat around them, silent and waiting.

    "We have asked the spirits," B'Elanna breathed, still realizing what had happened even as she spoke,  "We...  The ancestors have been applied to."

    "And we have been accepted," Tom said, coughing a laugh as he too pieced together the experience.  Instinctively, he reached out, touched her.  He needed to touch her, feel her physical presence so closely again.  It was amazing--she was amazing, and she was within him.  There was so much he was feeling...

    "We are bonded."

    A rush of approval rolled over the crowd and the music rose again.  Bala and Bakali smiled proudly as the children offered their hands once more.  Taking them, the elders lifted the kraja pens to their skin for the second time in the past year.  Yet that time, the fine design was of their own making, drawn by the whim of the spirits they had shared and joined, and marked on their left hands.

    B'Elanna watched, still in a daze, as the ink painlessly sunk into her flesh, in the same pattern as Bala was drawing on Tom's.  She thought it should bother her somehow, being marked like that.  At the same time, she knew it was what they had asked for...and then she could feel and see through him the day they asked, feel his eagerness and yet his caution, see her own face when he had looked at her...

    Without having to be asked, both Tom and B'Elanna leaned forward to accept the small Kraja patterns upon their napes...

    She blinked slowly.  His memories nagged at her, and she reminded herself that it would take some time for them to acclimate to the added awareness and their now being equally aware of each other.  Their native physiology would make that adjustment slower, Bakali had warned, and yet, like with their temple kraja, the neurological changes would come upon them soon enough.  That time, however, they fully understood the consequences of their decision.

    More surprising, though, were their similarities, Tom thought, interpreting the design in his hand as best he could while yet another design was imprinted just beside his neck bone.  Like their bonding, it was something they would come to understand more only with time, all the strange parallels of their lives.  His natural curiosity made him want to explore it, though he knew the details would appear of their own volition.  That was the way in the first few weeks after bonding.

    For the mean time, they would simply feel the joy of their union...and in belief--strangely welcome, nearly as overwhelming as the rest. 

    When they reclaimed each other's gazes and smiled at each other, they knew it all over again...

    "Zha hevrra!"

    "...Yrr ag'j a'i zhrre'itsa varrj zha, tam shi'ovarr rrullm mas..."

    He dropped the flap door and spun to face his bondmate, who had likewise turned to have him.  With a single breath, he paused to stare at her in the rich candlelight of their loft, which had been scented and dressed for their evening by their friends and family.  Somehow, none of the memories they had taken on that evening interrupted his appreciation.

    Only she, there and then, was present--and that time, her presence was more intense than ever.

    Once her arms lowered from removing her scarves, she stilled, let his intensity and desire, equal to her own, melt into and through her.  She had to breathe against the feel of him then, the sense of him.  Had they one thing in common...

    He moved to her, his lips finding hers upon arrival, and then her skin as his hands divided her beautiful coat and slid it away.  Her pleasure spun into him, nearly crushing his breath; he growled to find the stays of her gown and halter, needing his mate almost desperately.  Likewise, her fingers ripped at his robe and coat and pressed them away.  Hungrily, she nibbled on his ear, tasted his temple. 

    He yanked loose her ties and openly kissed the fabric down from her skin, which had been sweetened with spiced oils and was hot even to his mouth.

    She laughed a gasp.  She could feel it--her own reaction swirling in him and vice-versa, rising almost impossibly while he tasted, suckled and nibbled, as his hands pressed away her gown to allow him more and he lowered to his knees before her. 

    Almost as soon as the lushly scented air drifted around her legs and her gown and leggings swished to the floor, he grabbed her close to him again, groaning at the assault of feelings that met them both even as he satisfied part of his need.  He tasted her fully, partaking of all she had there for him, driving her almost immediately to orgasm.  She cried out and held onto him as their shared pleasure rocked through and between them both.  Another wave rolled through her body, and she swore she had never dreamed she could feel as much without becoming insane..

    Her knees gladly buckled; falling before him, she attacked his lips, her hands everywhere on him at once, baring him from his scarves to his waist with a sureness and arousal he was doubly excited by. 

    She worked layer by layer, returning his tastes and nibbles until she was pulling away his trousers and the ties on his boots.  Pressing him back so she could remove it all, she partook of him completely and everywhere, purring loudly between gasps in an animal desire to complete their spirits with their bodies, to share each other in every possible way.

    When she had brought him, there on their floor, to cry out in his own right, and when she turned her feral gleam back to him, he sat up with a resilience he'd not yet known and collected her into his embrace.  She clung to him, moved as he did and without thought.  Kissing her openly, sharing their pleasures' taste, he took her up and onto their pallet, softened with fine cloths and a fresh mattress, sachets of herbs and the softest of pillows. 

    It filled and overwhelmed them, those added feelings and scents, their senses already overloaded in each other.  For those moments, minutes, hours, they were no longer anything but each other, encompassing nothing but that tiny space, yet fuller than they had ever been.  There, their skin caressing, sliding, molding together, their breathing labored as they craved and claimed more and more, they touched and devoured, heard and explored, felt and sensed everything. 

    Finally, they turned themselves up onto the pillows and he wove his fingers into hers; she wound her legs around his waist as he entered her with a single thrust.  The song that escaped their throats was a relieved cry, almost a sob as the waves wrapped around their joined spirits and shuddered between their bodies. 

    It was exquisite.  No longer separate, but they were truly one, in taste and smell, in body, in mind, in spirit:  Their nature.

    They would gradually become physically dependent upon each other; their physiologies would gradually become sympathetic, bonding partially in body as their spirits had utterly.  As a result, they would necessarily pass unto the ancestors together someday. 

    They would always know that moment, when they first understood that truth and cried out their thankfulness for it.  That one moment and their continued exaltation would remain with them through eternity.

    The rest was not important.  It was behind, faraway.  It had passed in them as any memory did, allowing them finally the freedom they celebrated there, that night and all their nights after. 

    In that time after, those memories did come, invade and shake them, confuse and overcome them with understanding or remorse, with anger, joy or awe, sexuality and habits, and behaviors.  The sheer weight of it all overcame them when they first explored it; it left them lying in their comfortable bunk staring at each other in shock, unable to speak, uncertain that their voices were their own, unable to unwrap themselves from the memories for the sheer power of the assault. 

    They had been advised that that was the way, but the reality of it was indeed shocking.  When they found their voices again, they were reassured to know their sense of self was still there.  And yet, they were changed, too.

    Gradually, as the newness of their bondmate's memories burrowed into their psyches, they found their bonded conscience more familiar than their former incarnation, strange as that was.  Even when on some days their bondmate's memory surprised their native selves, a breath, some learned concentration or quick meditation eased them--and they would soon realize why it had arisen in the first place, and that it indeed belonged there.  Odd at first, it became quite welcome...those pasts, both distant and recent, woven into one.  It all had purpose in the end, they discovered.  It was the way.

    So, they would move only forward from there and become what fate saw fit.

    Indeed, those memories soon rooted well enough within them, not as much by time but by mature and chosen acceptance, that the vines of their youths finally rooted in their adopted earth and intertwined, gained the strength and security they required so in order to bloom.  In that flowering of awareness and completion, they unwittingly had grown enough away from their initial soil to likewise produce his seed, which when set to flourish in her enriched waters, at last bore their fruit.

    "Re'irr vyacha me'all e'a shivarr chij yrrall, dakna alm a'o fallj llo ishll abllar..."
 

   

---

(continued)
Chapter 7 | WP Main

September, 1999
© D'Alaire M.