Foreshadow Pt2

Posted on Wed Apr 29th, 2026 @ 1:41am by Patin & Captain Marie Batel

1,756 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Beholder
Location: Celestial Temple

Patin glanced at Marie, that crooked edge finding its way back into her expression, a hint of something brighter cutting through the heaviness. “I could tell you,” she said, lifting her glass in a small, idle gesture, “but it’d be better if you saw it.” Her gaze shifted outward, past the room, past the moment, toward something already waiting. “Lot of explosions that day,” she added, a faint grin tugging at her mouth now. “Though those were just the punctuation marks. The real story sits underneath all that noise.”

The scene shifted, showing a group of starving Bajorans, painfully thin and packing explosives into backpacks. An alien race had invaded their peaceful world, killing their people, stealing their food, enslaving their friends. Small bands of fighters gathered underground and in the mountains, fighting for the freedom of their people, they were the Resistance.

Two young women could be seen, barely teenagers, planning to blow up a local prison and free their friends.

The scene paused, then shifted forward many years to a peaceful Bajor, Patin and Noz reunited after someone began killing their resistance cell mates. Snow, more explosions, someone Patin called MeatSack aka Remal, and an alien with distinctly grey features they called Aki.

Forward again in time, a fear battle raged by a cottage secluded near a beach, Bajorans fighting Bajorans. In the front yard, a heavily pregnant Nozzie fought with a man, blue energy streaming from her body whilst absorbing red energy. A classic good vs evil. Patin could be seen emerging from the forest, clearly injured.

Then they are in the shambles.of the cottage, front door blown off, Nozzie trying to bring life into the world as her own faded. Patin argues with the Prophets to allow a swap of life. The moments fade as though swept away on the breeze.

"That's one hell of a story" Marie breathed.

Patin didn’t answer right away. The echoes of it still hung in the air, not as images anymore, but as weight. Smoke without fire. Memory without distance. Her gaze stayed fixed on the space where it had all just been, like if she looked away too soon it might rewrite itself into something easier to carry.

Her throat worked once, subtle, controlled, though the tension in it gave her away. “It was a choice,” she said at last, voice quieter than before, stripped of its usual edge. Honest in a way she didn’t offer lightly. “Apparently one I’d make… eighty-seven times out of a hundred.”

A faint breath left her, something caught between acceptance and something that never quite settled into peace. Her fingers shifted against the glass, not lifting it this time, just holding onto it like it anchored her to the present. “For me,” Patin continued, eyes still forward, “it was life.” A pause, small but heavy. “It was pretty much all that I had.”

Only then did she glance sideways at Marie, just briefly, as if checking whether that made sense outside of her own head. Then her gaze returned to the space where the story had lived. "Besides, I'm sure your story is just as Bad Ass, right?"

Marie paused for a moment, still feeling the raw emotion from Patin's journey through life and now this strange place where said afterlife seemed to continue. She drew a breath, feeling far more vulnerable that she had any right to. "I wouldn't go as far as badass..." She started.

The scene shifted to a cabin, two bodies clearly in the middle of a passionate encounter. Marie's dark hair cascading down her naked back as they fought to forget the burdens of command.

"Well I guess it started with Chris, as friends with benefits" She narrated, blushing deeply even though there was nothing to be embarrassed about.

It changed to the Enterprise, the two of them sharing a dinner, interrupted of course, the struggle of balancing command and a personal life. They took a pause, reconnected, and as always, tried again.

The Cayuga appeared and orbited a planet - and the current Marie cringed. This part was going to suck. She saw herself on the planet, bantering with Chris over the comm and finally feeling as though all the pieces of the puzzle were finally starting to fall into place. At least she had at the time. A dark shadow loomed and a shuttle fell from the sky. Gorn swarmed, invading the planet, attacking her people and the colonists and cutting off their escape. She had no idea the Cayuga had been blown to pieces at that time. She saw herself pinned, and the eggs injected into her body as she fought to free herself.

The rescue, the treatment Spock and Christine had discovered, each a chapter in a larger story that she understood now was a great orchestration from these beings known as the Prophets.

Her reaction to the Vezda, the first indicator that there was something more going on, and then Skygowan. The lure of destiny too much to ignore, even ahead of a hefty promotion.

She sees herself battle the Vezda, step into her power, thrust upon her by the Prophets, and guard for over one hundred years, until little by little they begin to erode her. Chipping incessantly at her edges until she buckles, only to find herself human and aboard the Sunfire.

"The rest... you know" Marie ends, feeling as though all her energy had waned and now left a gaping hole. "But I think I understand now how much these 'Prophets' had to play in the whole thing. "

Patin watched it all without interruption. Where Marie’s story burned differently, less explosive on the surface, more insidious underneath, Patin’s expression shifted in quiet increments. What remained was something more attentive, more respectful. By the time the last of it settled, the silence between them carried a different texture.

Patin let out a low breath, slow, measured, like she’d just come up from deeper water than expected. Her brow lifted slightly, a flicker of genuine surprise threading through her usual composure. “Well,” she said, voice softer, but edged with something unmistakable. “That’s... one hell of a resume.”

There was no sarcasm in it. Not this time. She turned a little more toward Marie, studying her now with a sharper kind of interest, one that came from recognition rather than curiosity. A soldier’s eye. Someone who understood what it meant to be shaped by forces that kept taking and calling it purpose.

“Didn’t go the ‘badass’ route, huh?” Patin added, a faint, crooked smile returning. “Could’ve fooled me.”

Marie shrugged, never having considered her own journey as 'bad ass'. " It is what it is... or was...there's that whole time displacement thing again. I still haven't gotten my head around how much time as passed"

With a small flick of her wrist, the bottle in her hand tipped again, refilling Marie’s glass before she even had to ask. The bourbon settled with a quiet swirl, catching the light like something alive.

“Here,” Patin said, offering it out without ceremony. “You’ve earned another.” She took a slow sip of her own this time, letting the burn sit for a moment before exhaling through her nose. Her gaze drifted... elsewhere.

She accepted, and raised the glass, clinking it against Patins in a sign of mutual respect.

Then, Patin glanced back, something more tentative threading into her tone, curiosity cutting through the respect. “So...” she began, rolling the word slightly as if testing how to ask it. “Filled with light, huh?” A small pause, her brow furrowing just a fraction. “What was... that like?”

Marie let her mind drift back to that time, remembering the fear she felt that she couldn't do this, the odd sensation as millenia old power flowed unbidden through her body - and then the light. What had it felt like? She never had the time to properly reflect, to feel.

"It was as though someone filled every cell with electricity - but it didn't hurt. It was an odd power, like destiny - like I was supposed to be that. But now I look back on it - they made it that way. Bastards" She glared towards the rest of the Temple, her emotions bubbling beneath the surface.

A frown filled Patins face, "Now that's a damn shame." She said simply and without elaboration.

"What do you mean?" Marie asked, confusion evident in her expression.

"I just thought you were made of better stuff. Sure they manipulated the course, but you were the one that walked it. You were the one that suffered. And you were the one that walked into the face of darkness, blasted it with your fancy light powers and stood guard over evil, not them. You give them far more credit than they deserve."

Her voice was loud enough that the temple trembled outward before rebounding. " They're manipulative beings, nothing more." She layered on her sense of perspective like one shuffles cards.

The temple flexed at the words but didn't reply. Yet.

"You had it figured out, you and Nozzie, that's why you advocated for me" Marie looked up from her glass. "You held them to account when they were content to let me die."

Patin huffed a quiet breath, the corner of her mouth tugging upward in a half smile. She tipped her glass slightly, watching the liquid settle before answering. “Sorta like that,” she said, tone easy, though there was weight under it. “Nozz did most of the heavy lifting. She’s better at the whole ‘holding gods accountable’ thing.”

A brief glance upward, deliberate, unapologetic. “But yeah,” she went on, rolling one shoulder as if loosening something that had sat there too long, “when it comes to accountability, even they don’t get to hide forever.”

Her gaze dropped back to Marie, sharper now, more direct. “We all make messes,” she added, voice quieter, more grounded. “I’ve made a few worth remembering. Mistakes too.” she paused, just enough to let that sit. “Difference is... I don’t leave them for someone else to clean up.”

She lifted her glass slightly in a half-toast, something informal, almost dismissive of the weight of it. “And when it matters,” Patin finished, “I show up and do what’s right.”

Marie looked slyly sideways as the Temple all but huffed in reply. It answered her question before she even spoke the words "Do you think they're even listening?"

TBC

 

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