• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Stop it!” Tharia cried. “I command you to stop!”

“You don’t give me orders, Tharia,” Chakotay said.

“Not you!”

The Earther captain’s face fell. “He’s lost control of it.”

If you will not do what needs to be done, I will do it instead.

Tharia screamed. “No! You will obey me! You’re mine to command!”

“Chakotay,” the other Earther said in a tone that sounded like a warning.

“Dammit, Tharia, stop doing this,” Chakotay said.

“I’m not doing anything,” Tharia said, running to the back of the room. He threw open a cabinet that was lodged under the computer console to reveal the gift. It still glowed green. “You have to stop doing this!”

…

“Why won’t you obey me?”

…

It took Tharia a moment to realize the truth—the gift had gone silent. Whether he had lost control or not didn’t matter. It had been taken away from him.

Just as Athmin, Ushra, and Shers were taken away from him.

Just as his life was taken away from him.

“Step away from it, Tharia.”

The building shook again, but this time it wasn’t just from thunder outside—it was from lightning inside. A bolt smashed through the ceiling and struck the floor not two meters from where Tharia stood.

The noise from the accompanying thunder was deafening. Tharia could feel the increase in EM activity in his antennae. The noise from both filled his very being.

He looked over at the Earther captain, who had stumbled to the floor.

Then he looked over at the other three—the ones with Chakotay were fellow Maquis, probably. One of them—the Earther he didn’t know—was on the ground, a wound in his head. The Vulcan had maintained his footing.

Chakotay was struggling to get up.

Rain started to pour in through the hole the lightning had made in the ceiling.

Tharia stared at Chakotay. His captain. His friend. His comrade.

His recruiter. The one who had convinced him to join his cell.

The one who told him he could get his revenge on the Cardassians by joining the Maquis.

If it hadn’t been for the Maquis, this would never have happened.

The Cardassians attacked Beaulieu’s World because of the growing threat from the Maquis.

Athmin, Ushra, and Shers died because of the Maquis.

Tharia found the artifact because of the Maquis.

Because of Chakotay.

“Because of you!” he cried, and fired his phaser at his erstwhile captain.

He fired again. And screamed again. And fired again. And kept firing and screaming. He had no idea if he hit anything or anyone, he just kept firing.

It all made sense now. There was only one way to make everything right. Only one way to end all the pain, all the suffering, all the death.

For the first time, he realized the truth—the real truth. Everyone didn’t need to die to avenge his mates. He didn’t need to join the Maquis.

For the last time, he fired his phaser.

But this time, he had it pointed at his own chest.

Still, he kept screaming for as long as he could.

He no longer felt the rain on his chest, even though he felt the pain of the phaser hit. His antennae and ears had both fallen silent. He could no longer hear his own screams.

The one thing he could feel was his sense that at last—after doing so many things wrong—he had done the right thing.

I should have died with them was his final thought before he found he could no longer see, either.

And in his mind, he could hear screams, but they were not his own….

DeSoto stood upright and straightened his uniform. Well, this has been something less than a howling success. While he had been grateful for the arrival of Tuvok, Hudson, and the other one—since ch’Ren seemed likely to shoot DeSoto—things deteriorated pretty quickly.

He looked across the room to see rain pounding in from a hole in the ceiling. Ch’Ren, Hudson, and the third Maquis were all on the ground, getting progressively wetter. The Andorian looked dead. Hudson had a gash on his head that probably had rendered him senseless, and the other Maquis looked like he’d taken a phaser hit as well. Both humans’ chests were rising and falling, at least.

That left