Episode 79. The Spark of Agnes' Power

Since the squad returned, sickbay personnel have been on a war footing.

Tarsi joins the nurses, helping them settle in and care for 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.

Without hurry, 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 thrown into blinding darkness, vast, infinite.

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

I walk.

Or at least... I feel as if I am moving forward.

Around me, a dense mist, motionless, with no smell and no 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.

Human in appearance, the man is dressed like a 16th-century religious oligarch.

His clothes are heavy, ornate, almost theatrical.

He speaks, but I do not know whom his words are meant for.

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 matches the religious oligarch's dance steps as he begins chanting my name.

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

Behind him, a symphony orchestra erupts in solemn thunder.

All the musicians wear Starfleet badges.

The music swells.

It passes through my body, crushes me, overwhelms 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.

Around us, images burst into the air.

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

The battle in Earth orbit against the Aragthonian ship.

Memories I lived...

And others I never did.

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 do not know.

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 toreador provoking 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 has evaporated.

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...