“If you allow.”, Nestira started she turned to River, but didn’t get further than that. A scream too low for ears, more felt than hard, passed through her and her companions, and shook the earth beneath them. Nestira’s head snapped towards the sky, where the clouds lit up like a third sun, burning in a hash white, almost blinding light.

“What is that?”, asked Edwardson, mesmerized by the display as a ring of fire rippled outward, growing impossibly wide, consuming the skies before shattering.

“Take cover!”, Renn yelled, grabbing Rixx by the arm, half guiding and half pushing them both into the still open side entrance. The others followed, running and stumbling. Well, not all of them. The young man who should have warned them about what was waiting for them outside made a run for it, and Edwardson followed, ignoring Renn’s order to take cover, and River’s scream for him to come back. 

The other officers and there civilian entourage made it inside just in time before the shockwave hit. Edwardson did not. 

But of course that wasn’t on Rixx mind.

Six months ago Rixx might have been entirely offended at being accosted by a transient. But that was before he was attacked by a creature on Aenella IV, contracted an infection that affected his nerves and delayed healing. That made the seventh time that a transient life form saved his extended, amazing, yet paltry life. He was heavily rethinking his opinions on transient species.

The building shook. Dust and debris shook down from the rafters and instinctively most of the party covered their head and neck area, Rixx included. The last thing anyone needed was a traumatic head injury.

“What was that!”, Alcyone screamed over the sound of metal girders groaning, her voice high-pitched and scared. Because scared was the right thing to be when the sky above you exploded.

Rixx looked at her for a moment, a clear silent question: Do you really want to know?

He waited until he received an expression that he assumed was a yes, and as the shockwave passed, he closed his eyes. He let his consciousness expand, touching the thoughts and threads of the lifeforms ahead.  Stretching, searching, not looking for thoughts but impressions.

And when he opened his eyes he fixed his gaze on Alcyone with an answer.

“It was an attack.”

Not directly, but did it matter? There were elements at play that wanted this destruction, and forced it. Even if the actual shockwave was from a secondary source.

For a moment Rixx looked at Nesstire. He expected her to be finding details, so she could understand the source, track back what went wrong and why. Meanwhile Rixx was content to know the bigger picture, willing to skip over the details. It’s what made him such a good power behind a mercantile throne for so many years – and yet what caused him to disconnect and finally disassociate from everyone and everything until he was a miserable, hollow little soul. Hollow until he met her.

Maybe her way had some merit.

“An attack?”, River asked incredulously. “On what, the weather control grid? On…Risa?”

It didn’t sound right.

And yet it was what, deep down, they all feared to be true. What they had felt to be true ever since the silence of the Blackout had settled over them. 

“There’s still people alive in here.” Rixx stated, not offering how he knew that. But most of the Starfleet officers had tricorders, and life signs were one of their favorite things to find.

He chanced a glance towards Nestira. ~Bad people. People who don’t want to see us. Be careful~