Episode 79. The Spark of Agnes' Power

Ever since the squad returned, sickbay has been on a war footing.

Tarsi joins the nurses, helping them treat the surviving Vulcans as well as President Macron.

After a moment, she approaches my bed with another Vulcan woman, while Angie still keeps watch at my side.

T'Met observes me for a long moment.

Unhurriedly, she places her fingers on my face with almost surgical precision.

Then she closes her eyes.

The seconds stretch.

The silence grows heavy.

Suddenly—

I am hurled into a blinding darkness, vast and infinite.

A total paradox: I see nothing, and yet everything dazzles me.

I walk.

Or at least... I feel as though I'm moving forward.

Around me, a dense, motionless mist with neither smell nor texture.

I feel neither ground beneath my feet nor air against my skin.

As if my body no longer truly exists.

There is not a soul.

None...

Except for a koala sitting quietly beside me.

I stop dead.

The koala does not move.

It looks at me.

Calm.

Impassive.

The animal does not move.

Its gaze, calm and unfathomable, invites me to look into the distance.

In this endless darkness, a white glow appears.

A silhouette slowly detaches from it, moving toward me through the mist.

The man looks human, dressed like some sixteenth-century oligarch-priest.

His clothes are heavy, ornate, almost theatrical.

He speaks, but I have no idea who he's talking to.

I turn toward the koala.

The koala remains silent.

The stranger comes closer still.

He stares at me with a haughty air, then begins circling me, slowly, tirelessly, like a bird of prey circling above its victim.

Suddenly, a few steps away from us, another figure appears as if by magic.

He looks like a Vulcan.

He wears a simple blue sweatshirt with the Starfleet emblem embroidered on the chest.

Sitting on a chair, he holds a strange instrument, halfway between a zither and a lute.

His fingers begin playing a deep, hypnotic melody.

The rhythm of the music follows the oligarch-priest's dance steps as he begins chanting my name.

José Feliciano, Ewan McGregor, Jacek Koman - El Tango De Roxanne

Behind him, a symphony orchestra bursts forth with a solemn crash.

All the musicians wear Starfleet badges.

The music swells.

It surges through my body, crushing me, overwhelming me.

I am paralyzed.

An invisible force grips me, prevents me from moving.

And without being able to fight it, I begin to sing.

The figure stops circling.

He looks me straight in the eyes.

The orchestra abruptly falls silent.

The Vulcan begins a solo, his fingers gliding over the zither strings.

Images burst into the air around us.

The USS Mercator, trapped in the atomic mushroom cloud above Brussels.

The battle in Earth orbit against the Aragthonian ship.

Memories I've lived through...

And others I never lived.

The Tholians invading NATO bunkers.

The destruction of the starbase.

The Enterprise and the Schak'Irra crashing together beneath the Golden Gate, in a devastated San Francisco.

I see myself on the bridge, Angie's hand clasped in mine.

Flames surround us.

We die.

One after another.

Angie... Tarsi... Eric... Emilie... Charlene... Manu... Eros... Robert...

Others too... faces I've never seen before.

I cannot look away.

The images are unbearable.

The music resumes, faster, more violent.

The religious oligarch snaps his heels and fingers, setting the rhythm like a matador taunting his prey.

He raises his arms.

Before us, two groups emerge from the depths.

On the left, Russian soldiers, frozen at attention.

On the right, NATO forces, just as motionless.

The orchestra explodes in a deafening roar.

Then, brutally...

Silence.

I collapse.

There is no more music.

No more visions.

No more voices.

I lift my head.

The Vulcan has disappeared.

The koala too.

The orchestra, the soldiers, the choirs... everything is gone.

Only the stranger remains.

Standing before me.

He simply holds out his hand.

Q gives me a demonstration and disappears in a flash of white light, leaving me alone in absolute darkness with an avalanche of unanswered questions...