Dreams rolled across the crews and the systems population like a wave.

On board one of the pilgrim barges in orbit, a Tiryn farmer staggered awake with his hands clawing at his throat. In the darkness of his cabin he saw the spire, faceless shapes moved between the pillars.

On Caelari prime, a novice in the capital city of Varanesh jolted upright in his bed. The morning had not yet begun but he heard the awakening bells in his head like thunder.

On Orran, within one of the workers hostels, Envoy Jash’s sister screamed. Waking everyone in the bunkroom. She felt stone under her knees and someone’s hand on her back forcing her downwards.

On the IKS Y’tem, Tal’kor jolted awake in his rack, hand on a blade that he did not hold. The last image he saw stuck, people on their knees and he held a sense of satisfaction that was not his own.

On the USS San Clemente, Sora Venn sat upright, her heart pounding. She knew the empathetic shock was not her own. She felt it rolling through the system, skimming peoples minds as it went. “Okay,” she said, “now we’re talking,”

Dr. Reyna Palor arrived in sickbay a little before the start of Alpha Shift. There was already a list of reports on the main screen in her office from the night before.

“Sleep disturbances,” she read aloud, “night terrors, panic attacks.” She blew out her cheeks and then sighed toward Sora Venn, already sat with a cup of something steaming.

“you said we needed more data on the Resonance Fatigue,” Sora said mildly.

“I’d have preferred something other than mass insomnia” Paldor replied, “have you noticed any pattens?”

Sora ran a finger down the list on her PADD, “nothing really stands out, pilgrims on the convoy, workers on Orran, And….” She hesitated.

Paldor looked toward her, “and?” she prompted.

“Tal’kor,” Sora said,

Paldor blinked, “The Klingon first officer? He, reported a nightmare?”

“he’s on the list,” Sora replied. “it says here that he woke to find his hand reaching for a blade.”

“I’d have thought that was normal for a Klingon” Paldor said looking puzzled.

“It says,” Sora continued, “he didn’t feel the satisfaction of a Klingon Warrior.”

The main doors in the sickbay hissed open and revealed Cdr. Traven. He’d got a PADD in his hand as he strode over to the main office. He was shortly followed by his first officer, T’Lenar.

“Doctor,” he said, “Counsellor. I’m told we had a busy night.”

Paldor nodded, “No injuries reported Captain, but they all reportedly dreamed the same dream, but….”

“but,” Sora took over “they all dreamed it from different perspectives.”

T’Lenar raised an eyebrow, “Consistency suggests a single stimulus.”

“I felt it too, and not just while asleep,” Sora replied.

Paldor placed her PADD on the desk, “I could prescribe sedatives, but I’d rather not sedate the entire system without understanding what is going on.”

“Even sedated people dream,” Sora added, “sometimes worse.”

“Saell and Trang have already been comparing Spire resonance measurements with reported dream times,” T’Lenar said. “Initial indications suggest a spike during those times.”

Traven folded his arms. “ok, we need more data on this. Doctor, can you create a survey and ensure we get it out across the system. We need to know how far this wave went.”

“And the Klingons?” Sora asked.

“I’ll speak with Captain L’rena,” Traven said. “If her crew are dreaming things that aren’t theirs, she’ll want to hit something. Lets make sure it’s not us.”

On the Y’tem, hitting something had certainly been Tal’kor’s first instinct.

“it wasn’t a nightmare,” he growled toward his commanding officer. “We do not have nightmares, we have visions.”

“Your vision involved a forced prayer.” L’rena replied. “You can call it whatever you like, as long as you admit it was not yours.”

He gave a low growl and grit his teeth, “it was…. Not mine.”

“good,” she said.

“Starfleet report similar…. Dreams, amongst their crew and also amongst the populace,” she said.

Tal’kor scowled, “we knew this thing played with minds but to climb into a warriors mind and implant visions is…. Dishonourable!”

“yes, but we asked it to communicate, we cannot attack when it does. We must listen to understand.” She said like a huntress talking about her prey.

Tal’kor stared at the console on the wall displaying the information from the night. He was angry, he wanted to fight, but how could he fight an old rock.

“Captain Traven has asked for volunteers to…. Have their dreams monitored. If Starfleet want someone to walk into this things mouth, the Klingon Empire will lead them” L’rena said proudly.

Tal’kor shot her a look, “you?” he said.

“No not me, not yet” She replied, “I would prefer someone who’s mind we can lose.” She continued grinning.

Tal’kor snorted a reply. “Trang then, who needs a scientist on a warship anyway!”

“No, Trang is too valuable” she continued, “I was thinking you, old friend”

Tal’kor stared at his captain for a moment before bursting into laughter. “If it tries to bend my will, I will bite it!”

“Good!” L’rena said laughing and slapped her first officer on the back.

Varanesh was much quitter that morning, as if all the city were having a lie in. High Luminary Serad watched the pilgrims arrive a little slower than usual through the large window overlooking the courtyard below, the early morning light glinting from the shimmering stone. Cantor Ilyne was sat at her table with a cup of something long gone cold, surrounded by reports.

“Everyone dreamed it,” Ilyene said. “Not just the Priests and pilgrims, everyone. According to Jash the workers on Orran had the same dream.”

Serad closed her eyes, searching her faith for an explanation. “Our scriptures do speak of shared visions, but nothing on this scale.”

“Perhaps parts of the scriptures have been lost through time,” Ilyene replied.

Serad, concerned at the thought of parts of their faith being ‘missing’, remained quiet for a moment.

A nervous looking acolyte appeared in the doorway. “Honoured Luminary, I’m sorry but… the Starfleet counsellor and science officer have arrived, also the Klingon Science officer and the…. Larger one with the eyebrows.”

“Tal’kor,” Ilyene helped

“yes,” replied the acolyte.

Serad turned from the window and brushed down her robes. “Thank you, we will meet with them now.”

They net in a narrow study chamber, it was lined with scrolls and books on every wall. The Captains of both the Starfleet and Klingon vessels were dialled in on a temporary viewscreen set up by the Starfleet engineers.

Saell began by tapping a command, projecting a visual representation of the data they’d collected overnight. “Overnight, the Prime Spires subspace band rose seven percent, this is within the usual variance we have recorded. However, at the same time we detected a similar rise at Orran and Tiryn.”

“in the past, they have followed one another. A call and a response.” Trang continued.

“at that moment, everyone dreamed together” Saell said.

Ilyene listened quietly while they spoke, Serad nodded while they spoke. “We are blessed that the spire would join us together in this way.”

Sora stepped forward, “the Spire is like a bowl, it’s collected what you have given it for centuries and last night it spilled over.”

Traven nodded in agreement on the screen. “High Luminary, we have two problems. One, Protecting from repeated psychic shock, and two, deciding to damp it down completely or use it to understand what is in the ‘bowl’.”

“That is not a decision for you to make,” Serad responded, looking uncomfortable for the first time in front of their visitors. “This is our faith, the Spires give life.”

“we agree, High Luminary” Traven said at once.

“If we silence your dreams we will cut ourselves off from the truth,” L’rena said. “Klingons do not shut ourselves off because we don’t not like the view.”

“We’d like to propose something,” Sora interjected, the Caelarians turned toward her as she spoke. “We’d like to monitor a select few volunteers, Saell and Trang will monitor the readings but I will go into the dreams with them. As a Betazoid, I have the ability to…. Understand others minds.”

“You plan to walk the dreams on purpose” Ilyene replied, clearly not being comfortable with someone observing their faith from within.

“Yes,” Sora replied simply.

Serad looked to Ilyene. “would our people volunteer?”

“Some” she replied, “but should they? We have some who would line up, Jash has already asked to include volunteers from Orran.”

Serad sighed and tilted her head, “of course he has.”

We won’t expect you to volunteer people without us” L’rena said, “Tal’kor will undertake this quest.”

On hearing this he stood proudly, though, still not entirely comfortable with the idea of some old rocks prodding around in his head.

They chose the eastern cloister to gather the volunteers. Plus when Sora entered the area the empathic vibrations were enough to make her teeth vibrate.

There were nine volunteers in total, they lay in the centre of the room. Three priests, including Ilyene, Jash and one other from Orran, two pilgrims from the convoy, Tal’kor and a young pale acolyte.

Serad stood at one end of the room, “You may leave at any time,” she said the gathered. “The radiance does not demand you to stay.”

Monitors flanked the room, both Klingon and Starfleet, details the vitals of each volunteer and the data observed from the spire. Sora moved around the circle, touching each volunteer’s temple as she passed them.

“I’ll be with you all,” she said. “If it gets to much, focus on my voice.”

T’Lenar had joined the away team to oversee the experiment. Though, she watched from a corner, her hands clasped behind her. “Resonance peak due in three minutes,” she announced.

The distant bells continued to ring, but now had aligned.

“Ok everyone,” Sora said laying herself down in the centre of the circle. “On the toll of the next well we close our eyes as one.”

The bell tolled and nine sets of eyes closed. Sora took a deep breath and dropped the barriers in her mind. The cloisters disappeared and she stood in the Hall that she had seen in her dreams.

Giant stone columns stretched up to a high ceiling, lines within the columns and floors shone brightly. Around her, the others appeared surrounded by a soft glow.

“This is not my memory,” Sora heard Tal’kor growl. “But I am here.”

Across the hall Sora could see shapes moving, too tall and too thin for Caelarians. Their faces smooth and empty. But she could feel their attention weighing down on her.

She tried to reach out to them telepathically but got no response. One of them raised a hand, it seemed to call shadows forward which poured over the kneeing Caelari to their front. The lines on the floor growing brighter as they did so.

An emotional echo crashed into Sora, she felt terror, confusion and humiliation. “Enough,” she said out loud. “We’ve seen it, enough.”

The dream changed, it was the same hall, same pillars but a different species was on their knees. They were not Caelari, they had broad shoulders and scales. The overseers were unchanged. The vision then shifted back to the Caelari.

Outside of the dream, Saell was monitoring the Resonance readings. They suddenly spiked, “Resonance ten percent about projections, two subjects under neural strain!”

One of the priest’s bodies arched, monitors around the room giving off warnings.

In the dream Sora watched as his form shattered like glass, “Out!” she screamed to the others. “Everyone, out now!”

The hall disappeared from around her and she was back in the eastern cloisters. Blood ran from her nose, she felt hands touch her shoulders.

“Counsellor,” Palor said sharply. “Eyes open.”

Sora blinked, “I’m here.” She replied.

Paldor scanned her with her medical tricorder. “it seems so, but try warning me before you do something like that again.”

“How are they?” Sora asked, gesturing toward the volunteers.

The priest lay flat, Ilyene knelt beside him preying with her hand on his chest.

“His mind went deeper,” Sora continued, “I caught a flash, something old.”

Jash sat bolt upright, “I saw those…. things,” he said. “It felt like I’d be there before, no me but us.”

Trang was reading the data that they sensors had gathered, “we recorded everything, whatever you were seeing it echoed loudly.”

Saell was quite, skipping through the data on her console. She tapped her combadge, “Saell to Captain Traven, we have our patten. The waveform matches that of an incident between Starfleet and an alien species in 2261.”

Traven’s reply was quiet, “Yes, the Vezda, we’ve found the same.”

High Luminary Serad’s head snapped around. “You have a name for them?”

“We do, I’m going to beam down to the planet. It’s best we talk of this in person,” Traven replied.

A little while later, the two vessel’s senior staff were gathered with the representatives of the Caelari.

“We have a name for a species that used telepathic constructs like this in the past,” T’lenar began, “They’re extra dimensional parasites. They were driven off, but their tools remained.”

“We expected a link when we first scanned the Spires but we hadn’t got anything definitive,” Saell continued. “Now we have the data from the ‘dream states’ we can correlate it, in addition, the signatures look to be under duress, subjugation.”

Serad let out a slow breath. “Are you saying that the Spires sit on the bones of a prison?” She asked. “the Radiance is the echo of a scream?”

Sora reached a hand across the table toward Serad, “Your Radiance is what makes you part of that echo,” she said. “Your ancestors took a tool meant to harvest fear and turned it into a place of song. The dreams aren’t a prophecy, they’re memory. The question is what to do with them.”

“Whatever the reasoning for the Shroud dissipating seems to have allowed these trapped memories to be released, in a different manner to what you felt previously” T’Lenar confirmed.

“Memories we face, can heal,” Ilyene said.

Dr Paldor leaned on the table, “But not all minds will be able to weather the dreams night after night.”

Jash cleared his throat, speaking for the first time since arriving. “If you block these dreams without any explanation, people will invent stories. That could be…. Worse.”

Serad looked at all in turn. “Comfort or Truth,” she began, “As if we could separate them.”

“We can look to decrease the intensity of the field,” Traven said. “We can dampen the bowl from sloshing around so violently.”

“and what then do we have of our faith?” Serad asked.

“We are not stopping anything,” Sora said. “Dream vigils will give your people a place to speak of their experiences. Have their visions recorded. Your priests can lead them, those like Ilyene and Jash, having this understanding will allow your faith to strengthen.”

Serad smiled toward Ilyene, “you’ve been wanting this for years,” she said.

“I’ve wanted us to stop pretending that the shadows at the edge of our prayers aren’t there,” Ilyene responded.

Sash nodded in agreement, “our people will see this as a deeper understanding of the Radiance”.

“And the Vezda?” L’rena growled. “do we speak their name, an enemy long vanquished?”

“For now, it must stay between us and the High Clergy.” Traven responded.

Serad nodded in agreement, “we have borne worse…. Apparently.”

It took two days for the Engineering crews to construct the anti-resonance field and have it working adequately.

In orbit, the Mente and the Y’tem hovered quietly together. In her lab Saell fine tuned the field, ensuring that the construction at the spire did its job. On the Y’em, Trang glared at the emitter data from Orran and Tyrin, almost as though he dared it to spike.

In Varanesh, mats were laid again in the eastern cloister. This time not for people getting monitored in their sleep, but for people to speak of their faith. Ilyene sat at the centre with a lantern to her side, Jash stood close by.

The gathered Caelari shared one at a time, they talked of the stone under their knees and the faceless watchers.

Back on the the Y’tem, Tal’kor gripped his dagger as he slept. He dreamed this time of battle with Honour, not shame.

But on the Mente, Sora dreamed again of the hall. This time though, as the faceless figures reached out with smoke she stepped aside. A small child from the barge stood where she had been but the smoke felt thinner, surprised to what it found. She woke suddenly, her heart beating as though it was trying to break free of her chest.

On Orran, Jash’s sister woke from her dream at the same time. Instead of ignoring it, she wrote: We we’re made to bow, and we did so. Now the Radiance belongs to us and we decide the meaning. Some would call this heresy, but for now, these were just her words.