by Shards
"This flute you play," she said, taking the instrument from him to examine it more closely. "You said that it's from a forgotten race."
"The Kataan," he said. "It's known as a Ressikan flute."
She held it to her lips but did not play it. "The Chalice is a similar relic," she said, handing the flute back to Luc. "As are its residents. Most people assume that Mother's family found this desolate planet and claimed it as their own. But that's not exactly true. In reality, we never left. You see, we are the last of the dying race of Betazoids who once called this planet home. We've been scattered throughout the galaxy for the past century, after the Terran Empire killed any race that exhibited powers they deemed dangerous."
"I had heard legends," Luc said, "about a race of telepaths."
She did not respond.
"So...you can read my mind? I can see how that would help the Chalice earn its reputation."
"Yes," Deanna said as her eyes dropped to the floor. "And no. Our telepathic abilities are dying out as well. According to Mother, the more diluted our lineage becomes through marrying other races, the less we can tap into that power. I cannot access it at all. Which, I think, is the only thing that keeps her from making me take on more personal responsibilities with the Chalice guests. Until the ability is extinct, Mother has found what she believes is the best way to put it to use. To keep us all safe."
"You don't agree?" Luc asked, reading the look on her face.
Deanna considered the question. It was one that had popped up in her mind numerous times over the years. Every time it had, she'd managed to focus on other, more trivial matters. It was easier than coping with the reality. "My father didn't," she said. "He wanted us all to be more active in the resistance against the Alliance. Not that things were much better when the Terran race was in charge. But still, there's a chance for improvement when people like my father are involved. I'm sure you can imagine how knowing what the leaders were thinking could be very useful."
Luc nodded.
"My mother refused," she continued. "She didn't want to put her family at any more risk than she had to."
"What side did you come down on?" Luc pressed.
"I didn't have a side," she explained. "I was too young. My sister-"
"Sister?"
"Kestra." Deanna wasn't sure why she was opening up to this stranger, but it felt right. It was always hard to think of her father, but Deanna rarely let her big sister into her memories. That pain was too intense. "She was old enough to notice the distance growing between my parents. She often joined in their fights, taking my father's side. Like me, she didn't have any telepathic powers, but she was willing to use whatever she could to help in the fight against the Alliance."
"But she was only a child, too?" Luc guessed.
"When my father left, yes," Deanna said.
"Left?" Luc asked. "He just abandoned his family?"
Deanna shrugged. "Abandoned. Forced out. We never knew. One day he was just...gone. Kestra and I didn't know what to believe. Kestra stopped trusting our mother that day. I was just confused. Of course, Mother thought the fight died in Kestra with Father's disappearance. But my sister was simply being silent. Waiting for an opportunity. Once she was old enough, Kestra stowed away on one of our guests' ships. To search for our father."
"Do you know if she found him?" Luc asked.
Deanna shook her head, fighting back the tears. She had never shared this story with anyone. Her mother had forbidden it. "Kestra was discovered as soon as they broke orbit. My mother told me she was executed immediately. Her body was dumped into space. I never had a chance to say good-bye." Deanna pushed past the sadness, forcing a fake smile. "I know. It's the kind of story you hear a lot these days."
"That doesn't make it any less painful," Luc acknowledged. "Thank you for sharing it with me."
Deanna straightened herself up, wiping away her tears in an attempt to be more professional. Or as professional as she could be while wearing a dressing gown. "I'm going to speak to Mother," she said, rising from the bench. "I see no reason we can't sprinkle in music from worlds other than Cardassia and Qo'noS during your musical sets. Every once in a while couldn't hurt."
"I don't know that your mother would agree," Luc said.
Deanna allowed a genuine smile. Luc had only been in residence for a couple of days, and he already had a handle on Lwaxana Troi. Deanna bid him good morning, as they both started down the opposite paths that led to their chambers. Deanna paused to watch him walk off, wondering why she hadn't mentioned anything about tapping into his feelings. She'd been so open about everything else.
In the moment Luc turned the corner, Deanna was struck by another mental link. This one was more powerful than all of the others. It was not an emotion. It was a memory, a picture, really. Jean-Luc Picard had an image of Deanna's sister, Kestra, in his mind.
The sight of the image in Deanna's mind knocked the wind out of her. Her sister looked familiar yet different. She looked much older, her features care-worn. But that was impossible, since she lived only a few hours longer than Deanna's last image of her.
Deanna tried to explain it away as her imagination. A fleeting daydream brought about by her thoughts of her sister. The picture was there and gone so quickly that Deanna hardly had time for it to register. But this felt different from a memory. Even a powerful one. It had come to her through an external force, as when her mother entered her mind for private conversation. Certainly, having lived with a number of Betazoids over the years, Deanna was used to unwanted images coming into her head. But that was different. Those images assaulted her mind. This was something that she had pulled from Luc without him knowing. If asked to explain the difference, Deanna knew that she could not, but it was definitely a unique experience.
Once she recovered from the unexpected image, Deanna decided that she had to talk to Luc about her emerging talent. If she was ever going to learn why she could tap into his mind in ways she could not with any other person, she was going to have to share the full truth with him. It was the only way she could determine what these thoughts of Kestra could mean.
She considered talking to her mother first. That would be the logical course of action, since Lwaxana knew more about the Betazoid race than anyone else Deanna knew. But Deanna wasn't functioning logically at the moment. She was running on pure emotion when she decided to follow Luc through the Chalice. It was logic, though, that stopped her from calling out to him when she saw him enter through a door that did not lead to the staff dormitory.
Much of the grounds of the Sacred Chalice was off limits to the patrons, but only a few areas were forbidden to the staff. It was possible that Luc had made a wrong turn, being so new. But there was something suspicious about him making this particular wrong turn at a time when most of the staff were still in bed. Any doubts about it being a mistake were wiped away when Deanna watched him enter the small communications chamber. Only she and her mother knew the pass code required to gain access to the room.
Deanna hurried to the door that had closed behind Luc. She leaned in, listening as she and her sister had done when they were children. Though the guest rooms and private suites in the Chalice were soundproofed for more discreet reasons, the same was not true of this room. It was an unfortunate design flaw of which her mother was still unaware. A viewscreen capable of long-range communications was set just inside the door. It linked with the computers in her mother's office and private suite. Those were the only areas in the Chalice where one could communicate offworld.
Within moments, Deanna was able to hear two voices on the other side of the door. It was always easier to hear her mother in there, as Lwaxana's voice tended to carry. Whomever Luc was contacting understood the need to speak softly, though Deanna could hear the vocal tones of both voices. It was a woman. A very familiar woman.
Paying no heed to the need for concealment, Deanna pounded the code into the keypad, opening the door. Even though she'd had her suspicions of what she would
find, the image on the viewscreen caught her entirely off guard.
"Kestra!" Deanna said with a gasp as she came into the room, making sure that the door shut behind her. Even in the shock of seeing her sister alive, Deanna knew that whatever was going on was something her mother could not know about. At least, not yet.
"Hello, Deanna," Kestra said from the viewscreen. She looked exactly like the flash of an image Deanna had seen earlier. Kestra's blond hair was streaked with premature strands of gray. Her face was far more weathered than the youthful skin of the teen she was when they were last together. A scar ran along her cheek, suggesting that she had seen some hard times since her alleged death. While Deanna took in the appearance of her sister, Kestra seemed to be doing the same to her.
After what seemed like an eternity, Kestra was the first to break the silence. "I know seeing me is...unexpected."
"Unexpected?" Deanna said, louder than she'd intended. "I was told that you were dead."
"I suspected as much," Kestra said, with a nod in Luc's direction. "That was Mother's lie, not mine. I always intended to come back for you. It just took me a bit longer than I'd expected."
"Years," Deanna pointed out to her sister. "It's been years. You couldn't have gotten a message through? Couldn't have let me know you were alive? Kestra, what is going on?"
"Deanna," Luc said, laying a calming hand on her shoulder. "Your sister had some good reasons-"
Deanna turned on him, slapping his hand away. Now she understood what was buried under the emotions she had felt from him earlier. She knew why her mother had been suspicious of him. What he'd been hiding from them since he first came to their doorstep. "She abandoned me," Deanna said to Luc while pointing back to the viewscreen. "Left me alone with Mother. I want an explanation. I'd prefer to hear it from my sister."
"It's okay, Jean-Luc," Kestra said. "Let me talk to her."
Luc stepped off to the side, but he did not leave the room.
"I know this seems crazy," Kestra said, "but I can explain all of it. I thought it best to send Jean-Luc to make contact with you first. To get to know you. Because we need your help."
"You couldn't come yourself?" Deanna asked.
"Mother wouldn't allow it," Kestra said. "I've tried to contact her before, but she refuses to acknowledge that I'm alive. The one time we spoke after I left, she made her position clear. She thinks I put all of you in danger. And that is unforgivable."
"And Father?" Deanna asked. "Have you found him?"
Kestra shook her head. "It's a big universe."
There was a pause in the conversation. Clearly, both sisters had so much they wanted to say. And so much that they knew they couldn't.
"What do you want from me?" Deanna asked, breaking the silence. "I'm assuming you're not here for a simple reunion, or you wouldn't have Luc sneaking around for days before contacting me. No, wait. You didn't contact me. You let me stumble across you." She looked at Luc. "What did you do to me? How did you lead me here? Are you Betazoid, too?"
Luc laughed, throwing up his hands in an exaggerated manner, as if defending himself from her. "Don't look at me," he said. "Talk to your sister."
Kestra shook her head in resignation. "We don't have time for this. The longer we're in contact, the greater jeopardy we're all in."
For the first time, Deanna noticed that her sister was standing on the bridge of a small ship. Shadows of movement behind Kestra suggested she was not alone, but the screen was cut in tight on her, so as not to reveal too much of her surroundings. "Where are you?" Deanna asked.
"Orbiting the planet," Kestra said. "In Jean-Luc's ship. Believe me, I wouldn't have come back here if it wasn't important. You know about Mother's secret files."
"The recordings she keeps as leverage on our guests," Deanna said. Those data streams had always been the worst-kept secret in their family. It was the thing her parents had fought over the most when their father was still alive. Recordings of the most powerful people in the universe in less than powerful positions.
"Not those," Kestra said, shaking her head and allowing a wry smile. "Same ol' Deanna. Never questioning anything more than you need to know."
Deanna couldn't help but think that if her sister was trying to come to her for some kind of help, there were better ways to do it. Putting Deanna down as she did when they were kids wasn't the best way to convince her. Then again, the questions Kestra was providing for Deanna's mind to roll over were certainly making her curious to learn more.
Kestra let out a sigh that could be heard through subspace. "Mother taps into the deepest recesses of the mind of every guest of the Chalice. She's kept a file of all of their secrets since the first day of operations. Assassination attempts. Secret battle plans. Weaknesses to exploit. Strengths to avoid. Years' worth of information on everything she would need to protect herself if anyone started looking into the weird powers these people possessed who seemed to know their guests' innermost desires."
"That sounds like Mother," Deanna allowed.
"Too much like her," Kestra said. "Dad always wanted to get Mother to use that information to help the resistance. She probably has enough stored up to take the Alliance down ten times over. But she would never consider it. Never wanted to risk her people getting hurt."
Deanna didn't see how that was a bad thing. Her mother wanted to protect what was left of the Betazoid race. If anything, it was a noble goal. Several hundred people called the Chalice home. Why should her mother risk all of those lives to go against a government that largely left them alone? If the history Deanna had been taught was correct, it wasn't as if anyone had rushed to the aid of the Betazoids when they were victims of genocide.
"All we're asking is for you to access those files, make copies, and give them to Jean-Luc," Kestra said. "That's it. We'll go off, and you'll never hear from us again. Unless you want to. You know you're welcome to join us."
"That's all, betray Mother?" Deanna said.
"Mother betrayed us!" Kestra said bitterly.
"What are you talking about?" Deanna asked. She could see that her sister was trying to calm herself.
"Mother has been lying to us since birth," Kestra said. "The Betazoid telepathic powers aren't dying out. We both inherited some of her abilities. Or, at least, I know that I have. I'm empathic. With some flashes of telepathic images from time to time. But mostly, I can just read other people's emotions. Jean-Luc thinks you can, too."
"Luc...Jean-Luc...doesn't even know me," Deanna said, with a glance back at the relative stranger.
"But you know Jean-Luc, don't you?" Kestra asked. "At least, you've had a few glimpses into his mind, haven't you?"
Deanna should have been surprised, but her ability to tap into Luc's mind was too much of a coincidence. They had to have set this up in some way. "You've been planting emotions and images in my mind? How?"
"Not planting them," Luc said. His calm tone was almost a whisper compared with Deanna and Kestra's heated dialogue. "Allowing you to experience them." He raised his foot and slipped a small metal device out of the heel of his shoe. "With this." He pressed down on the device, and Deanna was hit by the full force of Luc's uncensored thoughts.
It was the worst sensation she'd ever felt in her life. Luc's conscious and subconscious were entirely open to her. As was the mind of every other person in the Chalice. Love. Hate. Passion. Fear. She felt it all, jumbled together with an orgy of images that she did not want and could not make sense of. It was as if everyone in the compound were screaming into her mind. Even Kestra was coming through over the viewscreen, and Deanna couldn't begin to imagine the distance those feelings were traveling. It was all a blur of colors and moods. The only clear messages came from the person physically nearest her. Everything else was a cacophony.