The Brave and the Bold Book Two - Keith R. A. DeCandido [3]
—and a black box with a greenish hue.
His mind was free of the images, but the voice remained. You see what you can do if you wield me. All that is required is—
“No!” Tharia raised his phaser to its highest setting and fired again, this time directly at the box.
The box seemed to simply absorb the phaser beam. The weapon had no effect on it.
Think what you can do with my capabilities. Think of the glory you can bring to the Maquis.
“I care nothing for glory! If you’ve seen into my mind you know that. I simply want—I want—to see the Cardassians—to get them—”
You want revenge.
Tears started to flow down Tharia’s cheek. “Yes, damn you! I want revenge! I want them all destroyed! I want their heads ripped from their bodies!”
You want them to feel what you felt when you saw your mates’bodies in the wreckage of your home.
More images entered Tharia’s mind, but they were not from the box. They were his own memories, suppressed for all these months when he refused to think about what had happened.
Athmin, impaled on a structural beam. Ushra, her head caved in by the ceiling. Shers, ripped to pieces by fragments from the Cardassians’ explosive device.
Tharia fell to his knees. Pain shot through his legs as his knees collided with the hard ground, but he barely noticed. “I should have died with them,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
But you didn’t. As I said, I don’t grant wishes. What I can do is make sure that those responsible pay for what they did to you.
He looked at the black box that sat on the ground, blurred by the months of repressed tears that now poured from his eyes. “Yes,” he said in a whisper so quiet that Tharia himself could barely hear his own voice over the wind. “Yes, they must pay. All of them.”
And they will. All you have to do is pick me up.
Tharia could not make his legs move properly, but somehow, he managed to crawl over to where the box sat, ignoring the pain of the superheated ground around it.
It was cool to the touch, which was impossible. He had been firing on it with a phaser at full, and the box had been absorbing the blast. He should have gotten third-degree burns just touching it. Yet he was able to cradle the box in his arms.
Everything you desire will be yours.
The moment he touched the box, Tharia noticed that the air around him got warmer. The chill that permeated the atmosphere was gone in an instant. It was now as warm on this despicable gray planet as it was on the most pleasant day back home on Beaulieu’s.
“What did you do?” he asked quietly, wiping a tear from his cheek with his right hand as he cradled the box under his left.
Fulfilled a simple desire in order to show my ability to do so: I raised the temperature to one comfortable for you.
Tharia stood up. “Thank you.”
It is the first of many desires I will fulfill for you.
It was another hour before Tharia finally made it back to the cave. B’Elanna and Gerron sat in the same spot, but this time they were on either side of a pile of rocks that had been heated by phaser fire. Still, even with that, it was cooler in the cave than it had become outside thanks to Tharia’s new possession.
B’Elanna stood up quickly and barked, “Where the hell have you been?”
“I told you,” Tharia said in a quiet, almost subdued voice. He had wiped his face dry, and carried the box—the tool—the weapon—under his left arm. “I went out to search for food.”
“And you put it in that box?” B’Elanna asked snidely.
“No. This place doesn’t seem to have any native animal life, and the plants are all poisonous.”
“Figures,” Gerron muttered.
B’Elanna sighed. “Well, it doesn’t matter—Chakotay’s in orbit, and he’ll be landing inside of fifteen minutes.”
Nodding, Tharia said, “Good.”
There was a momentary pause. “So what is in the box?” B’Elanna finally asked.
“I’ll tell you all about it when Chakotay arrives,” he said.
B’Elanna stood in front of the Andorian. Tharia