2:57 until warp core breach. His eyes were dry as hell. He blinked.

Things were happening in a blink of an eye that no one ever noticed.

As his lids went over his pale blue eyes in a blink, the structure of time itself was torn. Feeling a cold wind blowing against his face and experiencing a sudden dizzyness, Kane gasped for air and opened his eyes again. He was afloat in the middle of space, a universe of stars and dust around him. Desperately gasping for air it took a moment for him until he realized that somehow neither the temperature nor the vacuum killed him. He was a mere ghost, a shadow in the darkness, watching the blazing suns and following the icy comets on their route through the universe.

What had happened? Kane suppossed that the clock had been wrong, and that he was dead, very dead. He kept floating, embedded in eternity. A strong, inner peace emanated in and around him.

Blink

The blackness and the vast space seemed to get thicker; everything took on a quality like syrup. Thin black lines of smoke seemed to drip out of the fabric of space itself, and Kane felt pulled by those dark tendrils that were oozing around him, beckoning, flowing. A strange whispering mixed into the silence; a harsh voice that was not meant too be heard by a human. The sound was too old, too alien; it had a quality of cockroaches being crushed, of towns that burned in fire mixed with the high pitches of people in pain. It nearly was as if those dark tentacles found a way into his soul, as if his body was reacting to the voice that was uttering the most horrific word he ever heard - over and over again. He reached for his ears in order to cover them, protect them, but his hands were bound by solid tentacles of black. Space had just vanished away, and he felt as if he was in a holding cell of some kind. The only light was gray and emanated from the ceiling.

The word hit him, again, and again. The voice turned into a whisper, a cry, a sigh and a moan of a loved one, and each and every time he flinched. It felt as if somenone scratched him with a nail at the inside of his spine - painful and hurting. The word etched itself into his skin and filled every thought, until he thought he was going to die because of it. Slowly, underneath the rasping, unearthly noises, the meaning of it became clearer. When he finally realized that it was just his name, spoken by an unnameable and unknown alien voice, his mouth formed a silent cry. So he was hanging there, amidst the black tentacles, approaching the gates of madness.

Blink

"A name well known, Kane, isn't it? Phonetically at least.". He opened his eyes to see a being in a green, heavy cloak, embroidered with golden and silver threads, blackness oozing out of the void where a head should have been. A trickle of sweat was running from his forehead in his left eye, and the burning sensation helped him to focus, to stay on this side of sanity. Hadn't he been aboard the Asimov a second ago? WHere was he? Was he dreaming? Was it.. "It's not that easy, I fear." the voice whispered. "At least you're not dreaming, which will be proven in time.". For a while Kane just stared at the figure in the cloak, his brain overloaded with questions and confusion. Did this alien rescue him from certain death? Did the explosion happen at all? A sharp, hissing, pulsating noise made him sharply rise his head. The alien laughed. "Rescued?" the inhuman voice said. "Oh, humans. Pathetic. But you are here for a reason, yes.".

The creature came close enough so that Kane could notice the smell of burned flesh and metal. He retched, being unable to stand the stench.

"I AM", the aliens voice suddenly boomed, "SASARATH OF THE STILL". The pressure in the room seemed to increase and Kane again felt unconsciousness approaching. He ´must be dreaming. That's not reality not reality not reality...

"And", the voice added, "we need a scapegoat - you. I am going to let you in to a secret, Kane Daleesh. The Still are a race that doesn't exist. At least close to nobody knows of our existence. So consider yourself honoured.". The rasping laugh again. Kane felt sick and had to throw up. Since he wasn't able to move he spoiled his uniform, gasping for air. The black tentacles that still held him grew smaller arms and seemed to crawl over his torso, cleaning him. He didn't even want to think about that right now and focussed on Sasarath, who had watched the episode without commenting it.

"You haven't heard of resonance bombs, of course. How should you. Let me put it simple, since nobody is going to believe you. If you survive, that is", the voice hissed. The alien began to tell Kane about resonance corridors; like wormholes they opened a gate between two pints in the space-time-continuum, but they only transported energy of a resonating wavelength. They were artificial; at least nobody had found natural resonance corridors yet. They also were very unstable and they didn't exist longer than several seconds.

"Which is enough, I assure you, for what we are doing", Sasarath said. "The Still act behind the curtains. There are races that deserve dying. Planets that deserve to be destroyed. For their potentials, for things they have done, for things they might do. Yet we don't want to be noticed. So what choice do we have?". The smell got intense once more, but Kane's stomach had nothing left. He still coughed.

"That is where resonance bombs come in handy. You wouldn't believe how easily we cross space, and if we have something going terribly wrong somewhere, we're there. But", Sasarath laughed. "neither to help nor to rescue, human."

"The warp-core explosion will set more energy free than is needed to destroy your vessel, much more. We just channel the extra amount through a resonance corridor and bring it to a place of our choice. Resonance bombing. The resonance corridor will break down before it is noticed, and nobody ever knows how these things happen.".

"But they do happen, don't they?". Sasarath laughed, a cruel laugh that caused Kane to become pale. His eyes started to flicker. This wasn't real. This couldn't be real..

Blink

A sharp pain brought him back to consciousness. He looked in horror down at his hand, where a tentacle had cut his palm open. Thick red blood was beginning to form a puddle in his hand, and for some unknown reason he had the feeling that the blackness that held him was sapping his blood.

Finally he found the power to speak. "Why do you need a scapegoat, then?" he asked with a quivering voice. Why him? And more importantly: What for?

"Do you think", Sasarath said nearly softly, "the Romulan Empire wouldn't want to know who destroyed Romulus? We are starting a war here, and since this will be epic, to some extent, we wanted to give you the chance to realize what you have been doing. Or have not been doing, given your inability to stop this warp core breach.". The cloak containing the darkness that called himsels Sasarath turned to leave.

"Wait!", Kane exclaimed. He licked his dry lips, and a black tentacle mimicked the movement of his tongue. It made him feel sick, very sick. "How does one stop a warp core breach, then?" Sasarath, upon hearing it, laughed again - that rasping, maddeing laugh. "You don't, idiot. There normally is no way. There have been sucessful attempts, as you know, but normally.." He came clse again, and again the pressure on Kanes skin seemed to increase greatly. "...BOOM.", Sasarath said and left.

Blink

He was alone, falling through darkness. He felt he was able to move again. He embraced his dizzyness, the swirling mist in his head, the confusion. He was a newborn, mindless, looking at the world without understanding. He grabbed for some kind of reality, anything, but there was nothing.

After an eternity he realized what was about to happen. He realized how subtle and sucessful the idea of resonance bombs was, and how hard it had to be to set them up.

The Still. He had never heard of that race before, yet he knew why - they didn't like to be seen, and he was glad. The meeting with Sasarath had burned a mark in his very soul, and he would never be able to forget it.

He would have to inform somebody. Would anybody believe him?

What proof did he have?

Blink

All of a sudden he was back in Main Engineering again, rapidly loosing his grip on reality, and losing consciousness as well. He fell and injured his hand, cutting his palm.

2:56 until warp core breach.