Queen’s Knight, Part 3: What They Don’t Know...

Posted on Mon Apr 26th, 2021 @ 9:57pm by Lieutenant Frederick Carlow

Mission: Heroes of the Hov'hurgh
Location: Admiral’s Ready Room, USS Infinite Diversity
Timeline: 2409

There was another twitch of her eyebrow and the light-eyed Vulcan woman said, “Your mind works in such strange ways, Frederick. It is most acceptable that your experiments did not affect that part of your personality. It is quite integral to who you are. I will be wearing my emerald green robes.”

The admiral finished her tea and set the mug to the side, then leveled her gaze at Carlow again. “What is going to happen is going to be disconcerting and you have little time to recover from it before the dinner. I will not leave your side and when it is over, you will have the knowledge that you require to carry out your mission. I require your permission before I do this, Frederick. It is an invasive thing and I refuse to enter someone’s mind without consent unless absolutely necessary.” T’Vyn had been through telepathic and psionic invasion and torture. It was something that she had never forgotten and the renown ambassador spoke openly against it during diplomatic endeavors with telepathic races.

The smile on his face was more than genuine. Her asking for his permission was greatly appreciated. “Half of what you’re talking about I have always wanted to experiment with. With you of course. Not like I have found any other psy I trust quite that much, and as you said the other half is much more of a necessity for the mission.” The very idea of transferring skills from one person to another in this way really had fascinated him for a long time. It seemed to have so many uses both temporarily and permanently. For example in his mind someone could be taught a martial practice and gain muscle memories, or languages could be taught as well.

Not knowing just how long he was going to still be chatting for and just in case there was no chance at another snack or meal, Fred stood up and walked over to the replicator once again. “Would you like something this time?” Somewhat asking to see if she could help him decide on something for himself.

“I would suggest refraining from anything more than you have already eaten,” T’Vyn warned, standing from her chair. “The process that you will be going through, will be draining and sometimes causes physical reactions. The less on your stomach, the better. I will have prepared a replenishing repast by the time that you awaken.”

“Ready when you are T’Vyn.” Although he was more than ready for what was to come he had to admit to being a bit unnerved. Not by what was to come, more by what had happened. How had he not realized it? Maybe he just pushed it out of his mind.

"Sit, Frederick. You do not wish to be standing for this," T'Vyn instructed, motioning towards the long couch against one of the bulkheads as she pulled a chair up in front of it.

He did just that, sitting back down while his mind pondered whether or not he should be in a sick bay hooked up to fancy monitors and a doctor at hand, a battery of medications already set in hyposprays, such as stimulants, tranquilizers and so on. Just then a feeling hit him much like cresting the top of a roller-coaster. Trying to guess just how bad the drop was going to be.

Once he was settled, the light-eyed Vulcan woman placed her hands on Carlow's face, the tips of her slender fingers pressing to his temples, jaw and chin. As she looked into his eyes, she began intoning, her voice dropping to an almost eerie whispered echo, "My mind, to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts."

The skilled telepath gently, but easily, pressed into her fellow scientist's mind, an image of herself forming up in his open psyche. An image that was draped in grey, flowing robes and was surrounded by a crackling blue energy that appeared to keep her shielded from the emotional storm to come. ~You are safe, my friend. I am here to restore your mind. Give back what was taken from you. That will require a journey through pathways that may dredge up old memories, long forgotten. Once that is accomplished, I will pass on knowledge that you will require. Are you prepared?~ she asked, and there was a sense that she was trying to allow him a moment to become accustomed to the powerful mental intrusion before pressing on.

So there he was on the apex looking down. It had always seemed hard to argue with the tone of her voice on a normal basis. Now it took on an even more alluring feel. Something between a siren and a user of The Voice from “Dune”.

There was a bright flash in Frederick Carlow’s mind. His life began to rush out in a stream before him. Not his whole life. The key moments in his life. The ones that could have stood out to tell him he was different.

There he was as a very young child, maybe a toddler, staring into a mirror and looking into his own eyes. He saw swirls of colors including slivers that looked like pieces of mirrors.They would sometimes make his eyes appear slightly different in color depending on the outfit he was wearing. In retrospect this made him wonder just how far back into his life Dehner’s hand had reached to groom him to be her champion.

The next flash took him to a playground at his new home at an apartment complex in Orlando, Florida. One of the kids had asked him who won the battle between The North and The South. When he answered then it was in grave detail even pointing out that even though The South had better Generals and tactics, they were no match for the north's industrial might. Driven under by the sheer weight of cannon fire. This was one of the first moments that alienated him from kids his age.

Another flash came and he was standing alone in the night. Walking to the store. Suddenly a feeling of dread came over him that he was not alone. That something was waiting to attack him in the wooded area that edged the apartments. The feeling was almost physical. The next day a woman was found murdered in an apartment near that area.

Yet another flash brought him to one of the times he knew his mind had touched someone else's. It was after he had delved into some personal parapsychology study that Fred concluded that touching someone would make it easier to try to influence someone. While Tara lay sleeping beside him in class, he touched her long golden hair. Telling himself that people tend to jump when that happens so it must be a sort of direct channel to the nerves. It had worked and he made her do some things. In the end he felt guilty for what he had done and decided to never do this to a friend again.

His next stop was a day in his martial arts class. A day testing a somewhat simple move, Carlow had almost killed a younger boy. Back then he had viewed it as just a random accident. Now he could see it was something else. Eastern philosophy had a word for it: Dim Mak. Much like T’Vyn’s own touch attacks, he had used his inner light with a physical attack to strike someone directly in a sensitive area of the brain. Again something he felt guilty for, and something that may have held him back.

Then he was sitting at the Hard Rock Cafe having lunch, making sure the would-be astronaut's friends would be ok when he was gone. No one had died in a space accident in years, so why the strange feeling of foreboding then, and how did he know he was never coming home? To this day he hoped that things had gone well for them.

Next, he was on the bridge of his shuttle preparing for the ion drive test. The White Mousie’s shining angel standing before him, speaking in her godlike voice. Had she heard his cries from across the galaxy? Did she know he had tried to reach out to the beyond his entire life?

Delta Vega; the astronaut’s mind had not gone there in a very long time. Standing in the dusty crater where Elizabeth had been pulled into limbo, his heart was filled with dread. It was his greatest failure. No matter what people said, he wished he could have saved her.

Then his hand was in her’s once again and the universe was ready to break apart around them. He remembered one of his Valkyries voices saying he had to let go or the ship would be lost. This time he had other ideas. This time he wouldn’t let her go into that dark place alone and so Frederick Carlow let himself get drug into that wormhole with his angel.

Then there was only darkness. He felt disembodied. After what seemed like a small eternity a light shone on a small circular area. He was sitting in the center. A voice echoed from the darkness. “Welcome back Fred.” He knew the voice well. There was no reason to answer because in many ways the voice was his own.

Speaking from those deeper reaches of his mind he kept buried, “Don’t worry. Your new angel won’t leave you in here long.” The specter stepped out. Almost a shadow itself, with only a pair of red eyes to give it detail at the moment. “In fact if you look up you’ll see the light.”

When Carlow did look up he could feel the light of T’Vyn’s mind. I was like the warmth of the sun on his face. He could feel her pulling him back from the brink. The fact was, he felt like he had nothing left to get back with. Nothing except the one thing he hated using...Rage.

As he screamed out to her, Fred’s mind focused his fear, hate, and disappointment at what had been done to him into a weapon. Boring back through the layers of his mindscape. As he screamed out like a madman, he envisioned a great beam weapon burning from his hands, like a Super Saiyan.

Then came another flash and he was looking into the Vulcan’s serene face. Now she could see, feel, and understand that, at that moment, the lost astronaut's shell had fallen and one of those voices he kept buried spoke out. In a voice filled with his silent fears over the things that had happened to him over the years, Frederick spoke in a crackled whisper. “Just don’t go away like they did.” He paused. It was rare that this normally smiling hatter could be caught speechless. “I don’t know if I could bear it.”

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After some recovery time, Frederick needed to make sure his ducks were all in a row for the trip. He packed light, just a few essentials, but there were a few new additions he felt necessary.

Having asked T’Vyn what she would be wearing to the stately dinner Carlow had decided on a few outfit choices that sparked his imagination. First off, he chose a very new chic white suit. In which Fred made sure where wrist pockets for his type one phasers. Of course he needed something green to match his dining companion.

The first thing he asked the officer running the replicator for, was a set of silver cufflinks with seven small emeralds set into an ivory hand, much like the one on his ninja gi. The next thing was a silver hair clasp with the same design. The next was a bit more complicated. A set of green mirror-tinted John Lennon sunglasses that could be set to amplify light if need be.

Lastly he chose a cane with an emerald dragon head in which concealed a sword and another phaser in the pommel. The cane had come to mind for a few reasons, one of which being that he had heard that Klingons liked extra weapons, and of course the white mousie was going to bring his tricorder to get some pictures of the new allies, and maybe of few of the ship’s entourage.

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Fin