Guardians - The Two Towers

Posted on Sat Sep 12th, 2026 @ 2:23am by Captain Marie Batel & Patin

875 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Beholder
Location: Celestial Temple / Bajor
Timeline: 25000 Years ago Give or take

The volcano continued to rumble, each aftershock rolling beneath B'hala with enough force to make the ground tremble beneath their feet. The Architect's parchment table shuddered again, and one of the scrolls that had fallen to the ground shifted slightly across the stone.

Patin crouched and picked up the nearest scroll, brushing a little dust from its surface before carefully unfurling it. The animal skin parchment resisted at first, stiff with age even in this moment of the past, then opened beneath her hands.

Marie stepped closer, but Patin barely seemed to notice. The parchment was covered in the sort of careful lines one would come to expect from an architect's work, streets, courtyards, towers, walls, terraces, and the surrounding landscape all rendered with extraordinary precision. At first glance it was just a map of B'hala.

Then Patin looked closer, past the buildings. She traced the outer lines with one finger, following the mountains, the valleys, the rivers, the placement of the towers. The buildings were almost a distraction. Beneath them was something else, a pattern hidden in plain sight.

She straightened and carried the parchment toward the entrance of the tent and stepped outside. The ancient night sky stretched above B'hala, clear and impossibly bright. Thousands of stars burned above the city, undisturbed by the rumbling earth beneath them. She held the parchment up toward the sky.

Then she lowered it, and looked up again. Patin moved the parchment slightly to one side, then back again, comparing the lines on the page with the stars overhead. For a long moment she said nothing. “You know, as a young girl,” she finally said, loud enough for Marie to hear, “I can't tell you how many times I've looked up at the night sky.”

Her voice had lost its usual edge. She sounded younger somehow, as though the girl hiding from Cardassians beneath ruined stone was standing beside her again. “Some nights it was the only peace I ever got.” She lowered the parchment and turned toward Marie. Then she casually handed it over. “Tell me... What do you see?”

Marie looked at the stars, taking in their constellations still unfamiliar to her eyes. It looked like a regular night sky on a regular planet - until she cast her eyes back down at the parchment.

"There's a correlation - between the brightest stars, and the points of interest on this plan. The Egyptians had the same thing - the time period would almost be about the same as well." Her voice drifted off as she took in Patin's expression. "There's more than that isn't there?"

Patin raised her left hand and formed an L with her thumb and forefinger, using it as a crude frame against the night sky. Her eyes moved between the parchment and the stars as she adjusted the angle by fractions, aligning familiar points of light with the places marked on the ancient map. “There.”

At the tip of her thumb was a bright blue speck, faintly pulsing against the darkness.  “That blue dot there? That's the Celestial Temple.” She shifted her hand slightly. “The yellow one at your middle finger is Cardassia's sun.”

Her hand moved again, stopping beside the blue point. “And that one...” Patin's voice changed. The starlight was red. It sat only a knuckle's width from the blue light, bright enough to stand out despite the vastness of the sky. Unlike the others, it seemed almost too vivid, its color carrying through the darkness with an intensity that made it difficult to ignore. "That shouldn't exist.”

"Shouldn't in that timeframe or... shouldn't ever?" Marie probed, looking at the red star. "It's a red gas giant... or it's not a star at all. Hard to tell." She reverted back to her old ways, forgetting they could just go and check said red star out if they so chose to do so.

Patin kept her eyes on the red light. “If memory serves, it never existed. But if you're asking whether it should exist at all...” She lowered her hand slowly. “That's the problem. I've looked at the Bajoran sky more times than I can count, and there has never been...”

“Give me that.” The Architect's voice came from behind them.

Both women turned as the old man emerged from the tent, his expression sour and his hair disheveled. He marched toward them with surprising purpose, reached for the parchment in Marie's hands, and took it without waiting for permission. His eyes scanned the markings.

He frowned and then he peered up at the stars. “Sisters,” he muttered. He turned the parchment sideways, studied it again, then gave a dissatisfied grunt as though the map had offended him. “Unruly moving, sisters,” he repeated, quieter this time.

Patin watched him retreat toward the tent, the parchment tucked firmly beneath his arm. “Well, that's helpful.”

The ground rumbled again. This time the tremor was stronger as dust shook loose from the nearby stonework, and somewhere beyond the city a deep crack rolled through the . Patin glanced toward the volcano, then back toward the Architect and finally at the red dot in the sky and her expression shifted. “Come on.” She reached out, grabbed Marie by the hand. “Let's find out.”



TBC

 

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