Hold the Beholder

Posted on Wed Mar 4th, 2026 @ 9:21am by Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Lieutenant JG Rowan Hale & Lieutenant JG Olivia Voight & Lieutenant JG T'Lar

1,337 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Beholder
Location: Corridors.

Captain Kaylen Rhenora couldn't sleep. Her mind refused to calm and quieten despite her usual techniques. She'd meditated, used breathwork, paced, read, and had given up and was padding through the hallway in her pajamas to sickbay to get a sedative.

The halls were quiet, until shouting couls be heard up again. Shouting snd footsteps.

"Stop! Security to Deck 4!"

Rhenora's stride quickened, she had no weapon, and wasn't even in uniform.

Another corner and she came face to face with Captain Batel, who appeared to be terrified. Rhenora shifted into the other womam's path, blocking her escape with a calm presence.

"Easy Marie, no-one's going to hurt you here" she said in a soothing voice.

Footsteps clammered around the corner. A security detail with phasers raised. A flick of the wrist from Kaylen and they lowered their weapons.

"We're going to walk back to sickbay, I'm sure you'd love a coffee, have they let you have one yet?" Rhenora placed her hands on Batel's shaking ones and held them firmly. "We're gonna do this together. Whatever happens, you and I will do this together. "

Batel nodded, shaking but allowed herself to sag against the Bajoran Captain.

"Sickbay, I have Marie. We're heading back there now. I recommend you have one of our counsellors waiting" Rhenora said calmly through the com system.

Rowan entered Sickbay at a measured pace, responding to the security alert and the spike in Batel’s vitals. His attention fixed on her immediately as Captain Kaylen guided her back inside.

“Respiration elevated. Pupillary dilation. Sympathetic surge active,” he observed quietly.

His gaze lifted to Batel’s.

“Captain,” he said evenly. “You left under observation.” There was no reprimand in it. Just acknowledgment.

He stepped closer, tricorder activating with a soft hum.

“Cardiac rate elevated. No neural cascade. No harmonic resurgence.”

A fractional pause.

“This does not appear to be structural.”

His eyes met hers.

“Tell me what prompted you to run.”

The Sickbay doors parted again as Lieutenant T’Lar entered. Without shifting his stance, Rowan continued calmly,

“Lieutenant T’Lar, I believe the Captain may benefit from your presence.”

"Of course, Doctor," T'Lar replied.

Only then did he glance briefly to Kaylen.

“Thank you for bringing her back.”

He extended a steady hand toward the nearest biobed.

“Let’s sit.”

"Captain Batel, I am Counselor T'Lar. Do you remember we spoke earlier?" T'Lar asked gently.

Batel’s breathing remained uneven, but her eyes were clear.

“Yes,” she said hoarsely. “You mentioned Spock.”

A faint swallow.

“I remember you.”

Her gaze drifted past them for a second.

“They’re stirring,” she said quietly.

She didn't sound hysterical. Just certain.

“I can feel it.”

Her jaw tightened.

“They think I’m still theirs.”

A beat.

“I can’t do it again.”


T'Lar gave as compassionate a look as a Vulcan could muster.

"Nobody here is going to force you to do anything that you do not want to do Captain. If you cannot or will not serve as the Beholder again no one here can hold it against you. You are a person with agency and you have the right to make that decision."

Rhenora sat on the biobed next to Batel, offering suppprt by presence, all hope of sleep forgotten.

Batel's blue grey eyes met T'Lars. "I don't have the right to unleash these demons on the galaxy to save my own skin."

Rhenora squeezed her hand. "We have a plan. Stage one is in place, we're at high warp towards Vadia 9 to enact stage 2 so you can live out your days as you choose." She looked towards Rowan and Olivia to see how Marie was doing medically.

Rowan watched the faint tremor in Batel's hands, the way she was forcing her breathing to stay even.

“There’s nothing acting on you right now,” he said calmly. “I’m not seeing any sign that the well is reaching for you. Nothing pulling at you.”

A small pause.

“What you’re feeling is fear,” he said, lowering the tricorder. “Reasonable, given everything you’ve endured.”

"I can feel it, like I felt it before, back on the Enterprise" Batel replied earnestly. "I didn't understand what it mean back then, but I remember the feeling, it's the same feeling. Just a knot in my gut that won't go away"

"Begging your pardon, Counselor," came a voice familiar to T'Lar from nearby, "But what about the litany?"

T'Lar looked up to see Crewman Lockyear of the Ship's Security department. She gave a rare smile of encouragement.

"An excellent suggestion, Crewman," she said, turning to Batel.

"Captain, are you familiar with the 20th century Earth literary classic Dune?"

"No, I don't think so" Batel admitted, still looking down at her knees. The gnaw in her gut incrementally increased.


"Well, Captain," T'Lar explained, "In that book the author introduced something known as The Litany Against Fear which, when used as a mantra, has been found to have a significant calming effect. I myself use it as part of my meditative practice when confronted with frightening situations. The litany teaches that we must not fear for fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death which brings total obliteration. We must face our fear; permit it to pass over us and through us. When it has gone past we shall turn with our inner eye to see it's path. And where the fear has gone there will be nothing, only we shall remain."

Batel looked up again, seeing the truth in T'Lar's expression.
"Thank you counsellor, I do acknowledge that there's some fear, but this pull, this feeling, the Vezda are tied to me somehow. I don't like it but it's there, and it's getting stronger the closer we get. They're regrouping, planning their next move, and this time I might not be able to stop them"


"One cannot discount the possibility of some sort of psychic entanglement, perhaps on a quantum level, that Doctor Hale's instrument's are incapable of detecting." T'Lar observed,"In my experience, the human 'gut instinct' can often be attributed to a myriad of subconscious cues acting just outside of the individual's conscious awareness. In light of the Captain's attestations, it would be illogical to dismiss her feelings as nothing more than fear. It may in fact be a form of prescience, giving her insight into their intentions."

"It happened before, and it's happening again" Batel said simply, looking at them all as they stood around her. "Yes there is fear, but the pull is real, I don't know why and I don't know how, but we need to get to Vadia 9 quickly. They're up to something..."

Rowan didn’t react to the suggestion about his instruments. He watched Batel instead.

“The last time this happened, there were measurable changes,” he said evenly. “Right now, I’m not seeing those same patterns.”

His gaze shifted briefly to the monitor, then back to her.

“That doesn’t mean you’re wrong. It means we don’t have proof yet.”

He lowered the tricorder slightly.

“If something is building, we’ll see it.” He said, his tone remaining steady, "Fear and intuition can feel the same.”

He softened his voice slightly. “We separate them by watching what changes.”

Marie nodded, understanding that science didnt always equal feeling, even in this advanced time. "I'm sorry I bolted, I just felt the need to run, to avoid the pull." She admitted, a little ashamed.

"An instinctive fight versus flight response, Captain. Understandable under the circumstances," commented T'Lar.

"It's hard sometimes, balancing instinct and reason. With the Vezda it wad all instinct, powerful and raw all at the same time. Add reason and it's damn scary." Batel admitted. "The thought of feeling that again, is unnerving"

"I'm sorry for wasting everyone's time" she finished after a few moments nodding towards all of them, then swinging herself up on the biobed. With the adrenaline gone she felt drained and exhausted. Time to try and get some sleep.

 

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