Morning Services

The Bajoran temple was dimly lit by candlelight in the early morning services. Kai Bennya burned incense as the acolytes and humble followers had gathered. She prayed in soft tones, gently chanting before the Orb of Serenity. Her eyes combed the crowd for the human acolyte, Hyland.

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Her eyes combed the crowd for the human acolyte, Hyland.

Denisse is present, almost buried in the crowd. Being so short, she can be difficult to spot when many are present... she gets swallowed up almost.

She's in her best robes, freshly laundered and neatly pressed. Her hair is combed carefully this morning. Her eyes are closed and she is lost deep in meditation. It's uncertain how long she's been there, silent, unnoticed by all.

Bennya's two male companions, dressed in crisp Ranjen's robes, draw Hyland out of the crowd and slip burning sticks of incense into her hands.
"Won't you join in? You won't be able to see the orb revealed from back there, says the taller, darker skinned Ranjen.
"Feel it perhaps, but you must see it," says the shorter Ranjen.
Bennya raises her voice dramatically.
"Oh Prophets, reveal yourself to us on this auspicious day, fill us with serenity, fill us with awe, and reveal the absolute truth in awe. We ask now for your blessings and to be filled with your everlasting light!"
Bennya opens the latch on the case holding the mighty orb, which glows a faint hue of blue.
Hyland notices the station has disappeared from around her, taking to her to a distant garden on earth. Could the Prophets be speaking to her?

In the misty vision of her mind, a woman resembling her mother appears to Hyland.
"You are Hyland. Clarity of mind is revealed in you. You have the strength to see past the illusory world. You are surrounded by deceivers. When the smoke settles, you will remain."
She holds Denisse's ear in her palm.
"Do not believe your eyes. The waking world is a dream."

Denisse is speechless, in awe, not sure what to say. Her mouth is hanging open slightly as she watches everything unfold.

She'd like to speak... she has a million questions of her Gods, but because there's so much she wants to know, she can't decide what of it to ask first... so all of it goes unasked or unspoken.

"I... you..."

She has the vague idea to bow down, but is so stricken she can't even manage that.

"You're frightened now, perhaps. The deceivers will be punished. You will remain. You will prevail."
The woman in her vision cups her face tenderly, maternally.
"Do not be afraid. We will guide you."

While Denisse is held in a trance-like state before the Orb of the Serenity, the Orb of Serenity has become anything but serene. It has begun to omit sharp bolts of blue energy, which shoot out into the crowd, barely avoiding the devotees, who cower and scatter. Bennya's Ranjen's have moved to shield her from the terrifying display. Some Bajorans have fled, but Denisse remains standing, unmoved, clearly elsewhere.
The orb sends out bolts into the bulkhead of the station, which causes the whole station's lights to flicker, and the station quivers in response. It is clear that this is no ordinary orb.
The shaking of the station removes Denisse from her reverie.

Denisse comes to, a bit out of it, with "I will follow where you lead." on her lips. She looks around. The shaking and energy has stopped and she has no clue why the room has been partially cleared. She wasn't aware of the energy bolts or the shaking.

She looks a bit blank, not quite sure what to do after an Orb Experience. Never in her life did she ever expect to be near an Orb, let alone have an Experience. She starts looking around, a bit frantic, for a higher member of the clergy to tell her what to do.

The clergy has scattered. Kai Bennya is nowhere to be found. An injured elderly Bajoran woman paws at Denisse's ankle. She has energy burns on her shoulder and leg.
"Help me...! The orb spared you!"

Denisse reaches down to pick the woman up. She helps her limp out of the temple and over to a small access point beside the house of worship. She's about to hit the console, shouting "Medical Emergency!" when she looks around her. All is darkness, chaos, destruction.

What has happened? Was this me? What have I done? she wonders. Oh, dear Prophets, spare us!

She scans the crowd and yells out for some kind of medical assistance. There seem to be a few first responders, but they're all busy with other people. There are clearly more injuries than can be treated with the amount of medics present. She assumes more on are their way, but the woman's injuries look severe. Looking down at the woman, she decides to take matters into her own hands.

I hope this works...she thinks.

She lifts up the woman into her strong arms. Tapping the panel with an elbow, she shouts "Medical emergency! 2 to beam directly to sick bay!"

[Taking it to the Infirmary]

On her way to the temple, T'Pren had braided her hair out of her face, exposing her pointed ears. It was probably quite a sight to see someone expertly doing their hair at a full sprint with science equipment packed all over her uniform. Or it would have been, had the whole station not been in darkness and chaos.

Before she could even get into the temple to get at the Orb, she had to set her things down and help haul injured Bajorans a safe distance away, but the moment a path was cleared and the room holding the Orb was empty, she snatched up her scanners and took a few deliberate steps inside, double checking the radiation levels as she went and making sure her field was going to hold long enough for her to get closer.

"Hello there, Orb. I come in peace."

T'Pren cleared her mind of everything but science and respect and moved ever so slowly closer.

"Okay, Pren, let's not die our first day on duty. Deal? Deal."

The Orb whirrs softly, crackling and arcing as T'Pren approaches it. It glows invitingly, beckoning her to touch it.

Lt. Inabnet's tricorder scans indicate the sub space anomaly is connected to a multidimensional rift.

Lieutenant Inabnet stopped a few feet away from the mysterious glowing globe, frowning at it in thought and glancing between it, her readings, and what she remembered about the Bajorans Orbs from her previous research. She could have been a lot more certain of how this one differed from the others if only she could pull it up on her PADD. But her Vulcan memory would have to do.

Also she wanted to touch it. She wanted to touch it real, real bad.

"Logic, Pren. Try to be Vulcan for once in your life and don't just grab blindly at the ball of lightning." She looked quickly up at the Orb. "No offense. I'm sure you're lovely."

"Now let's find out if you are what they say you are. And whether or not you're ill."

And then she noticed the rift.

"Well, that's not good."

So she tapped her comm. "Commander, the Orb is connected to a multidimensional rift. That could be the same one Sisko found...but without access to the database, I can't be sure."

And because she still really wanted to touch it, she glanced around for something to throw at it. For science.

The Orb whirrs, and for a moment, whisks her away to the Cardassian prison camp of her early years. The camp is empty, the dust lit only by soft lantern's glow.
Her father, Adlai, stands before her.
"The Orb punishes the unworthy, and rewards the righteous."

The sudden shift was disorienting enough, but suddenly T'Pren felt fourteen years old -- or maybe she always had been deep down in the Vulcan caverns of her heart -- simultaneously terrified and overjoyed. She could find neither the courage to step toward Adlai nor the will to back away.

"Daddy?" she managed to whisper hoarsely, no longer able to find air to fill her lungs. But something inside of her was still computing, still sticking to facts and logic.

No. You saw the ship blow up. You're a Starfleet lieutenant. Act like one. The Orb. This is The Orb.


Through sheer stubbornness, she dragged in a breath through her mouth and let it slowly out before taking a very good, long look around. Finally, she looked back at her father's rugged, ruddy figure. Despite her logic, tears slid unbidden down her cheeks.

"Who sets the criteria?" she wondered gently, in no way wanting to be seen as unworthy. "Were so many Bajorans found unworthy? Was the station found unworthy?"

"The Orb was handled by bloody fingers," he said, embracing her tenderly, paternally.
"It was the only way to get you to listen."
He wipes her tears, caressing her hair from her face. For a moment, he truly seems like Adlai.
"Do not fear. We have picked a worthy envoy. You will be spared."

Keep it together, Pren, the lieutenant commanded herself from inside, part of her still clinging hard to logic while the rest of her sobbed silently against her father's form. She was certain she must have shrunk several inches because she felt as though she were a young teenager with him so close to her.

Who cares if it's not him? This is as close as you're ever going to get. For the rest of your life, this is it.


She couldn't quite bring herself to hug him back; that was just for Adlai, not for this being. But she did clutch at his shirt with both fists. It was a while before she managed to find her voice again, but what was time to these creatures?

Eventually, she freed one hand to clear her eyes so she could soak up every freckled detail of her auburn-haired human father. His eyes were green like hers, but when she had stolen every moment she could trick her mind into taking, she realized that it wasn't him behind those eyes. Not really.

Her voice thick with emotion, she promised first, "I'm not afraid." But then: "Bloodied from the war? Whose fingers? The Kai's?" No, wait, what did they just say? "...What do you mean 'envoy'?"

"Let me show you," he said softly.
And for a moment, Lt. Inabnet had a vision full of violence; she saw four Bajoran archaeologists gunned down at a dig site by a Cardassian woman and two Cardassian men.
She saw Kai Bennya killed at the monastery, a simple poisoning of her wine. She expired on the scriptures, late at night. Her body had been beamed into space.
Which left the question, who is the current Kai?

It would take something so drastic and dramatic to pull T'Pren's eyes off of her father's image, but she watched dutifully, taking in faces and details as much as possible, just in case she needed to put them to use later.

"Oh," she whispered, shrinking a little toward Adlai's body and the being within it to shelter herself from the carnage. T'Pren hadn't actually met the Kai, but she had seen the woman in question being taken to the Infirmary, which is still impossible if she was already dead.

The lieutenant scrubbed a hand across her face again, a lame and unsuccessful attempt to stem the gentle flow of tears still escaping down her cheeks. After a moment's consideration, she looked up at her fath--at the being from the Orb taking her father's form. "But why attack everyone? Why not strike down the impostor and spare the others?"

"Bajor must be made aware. Subtlety is ignored. Everywhere, there is corruption. The bloody touch of Bajor's oppressors infiltrate all that is good and pure. Now, we have an envoy. The human acolyte. Untouched. Pure."
He reaches down, clasping her hands in his own large hands, releasing them from his shirt.
"You have the knowledge. You have the strength. You have the love of your fathers. Submit to the chasm of the unknown. You will be caught, wherever you fall."

It was with great relief that T'Pren realized they meant someone else for an envoy. She had read about Sisko and was not particularly thrilled at the prospect for having a third culture to which she did not quite belong.

She instinctively held tightly to Adlai's hands but her slanted brows pulled down and knit hard in confusion at the being's advice. It would be just like her to be totally lost in the face of something profound. "I don't...I don't understand."

"You do not have to. Not yet," said the worm hole alien in the guise of Adlai. He brought her head forward and kissed her on the forehead, hurling her back to the waking world.

T'Pren had closed her eyes to accept the kiss, the better to pretend it really was her father, but they flew open again in alarm when she realized what was happening.

"No! Wait! Dad--" She shook her head hard and stood shaking in the middle of the room. If the tears had been tapering out before, they were flowing freely now. Despair gripped her heart, an echo of seeing the ship explode from her shuttle window and knowing what she'd lost. To keep control, she buried herself in her instruments, carefully pulling down the containment field around the Orb and doing everything possible to calm down so that she could contact Commander Rai without her voice trembling. When there was nothing left to distract her, she folded heavily into a pile of legs on the floor and tapped her comm.

"Commander." Maybe everyone would think she'd been breathing in smoke or something. "The Orb is secure. There are impostors among the Bajorans. We need to hold and scan everyone who was injured." But, of course, her Vulcan brain was already putting two and two together. The woman who was murdered must be the Kai. "Commander, the Kai was murdered. This is not the Kai."