Paths and Prophecy

[Dr Telano 0]

“Blessings on the new Kai!”

The voices were happy and jubilant and surrounded him, filling him with warmth and comfort. He looked around the room at the faces of all the Vedics who had just completed their voting process and elected him to lead them into a new era. Kai Wynn had died under mysterious circumstances. Few really knew what had happened, but it did not matter. A new Kai had been chosen to lead Bajor into a new and prosperous future.

Kai Telano, would usher in a new age of Bajor, an age of peace, prosperity and hope. It was everything he had ever dreamed of..

“This is not your path”

The voice pierced the din of happy well-wishers and brought total silence as it pierced Ren’s heart as well. He turned to see a new figure stepping thru a nearby doorway.

“Opaka…” Ren whispered in reverence mixed with fear and trepidation. “I.. I don’t understand..”

Kai Opaka stepped forward and smiled “You DO understand, this is NOT your path, you have chosen another.”

Ren began to disagree but before he could he looked down to see he was no longer wearing the robes he had been adorned with, instead he was wearing the dingy tattered clothing he had worn as a member of the resistance. He also noticed his hands, which were bathed in blood.

“NO! NOOOOOOOO!” Ren dropped to his knees with a blood curdling yell. “Oh by the Prophets no.. this was not the path I choose.. Please help me!”

He looked back up but instead of the friendly face of Kai Opaka he was confronted with a face that had tormented him all these years. A nameless Cardassian soldier, staring at him with pained eyes as a disruptor blast smoldered in his chest. A disrupter blast Ren had shot. The first person Ren had ever killed. The first of many, the first of far too many for him to ever forget.

“You did choose this path, you choose it when you killed me.”

Ren lowered his head to the ground, tears streaming down his face. “Prophets no.. not this.. please.”

“You have walked this path for some time now, it is the path you have chosen.”

Ren looked up again and released a plaintive sob at the sight of a wide field of bodies. All dead, all killed by his hand.

Ren lowered his head to the ground again as guilt and shame washed over him. So many dead, so many killed by this so called man of peace. He had betrayed everything he was brought up to be. All his hopes and dreams shattered. The path he had chosen was death and murder.

“NO! This is not your path.”

Ren looked up at the familiar voice and saw that the field of corpses were gone, replaced by an array of smiling familiar faces. The closest belonged to Hayden Dacotah.

“Hayden?”

The nearby woman smiled and helped Ren to his feet. “You save so many more lives than you have taken. You bring life. THAT is your path.”

Ren looked down again and saw that his ragged garb had been replaced once again, this time with his Starfleet Uniform.

“This is your path.” BJ Honeycutt said as he stepped from the crowd, gesturing back at the sea of smiling faces, all people he had saved or helped in some way with his medicine.

Ruca Netani appeared out of the crowd “Focus on the Lives, not the deaths. Accept the path that you have chosen.”

 

 

 

Ren let out a soft gasp as he removed his hands from the carved wood of the Orb’s box. Before him the orb sparkled and hummed as it spun slowly in it’s finely crafted case. He closed the doors to the case and stood slowly, tears slowly running down his cheeks.

“Did the Prophets grant you what you wanted Ren?”

Ren turned and noted that Vedic Marna had returned, as if she had known when he would be done with his Orb Experience.

“No, not what I wanted.. but what I needed.” Ren said softly.

“Such is often the way of the Prophets Ren.”

Ren nodded and smiled. The Orb had given him clarity that he desperately needed. The path he had chosen WAS the correct one, and the good he had done these past years far outweighed the necessary evils.

“It’s been wonderful having you at the Monastery this past week Ren, but I feel your visit is coming to an end.”

Ren took her hands in his and smiled “Yes, I am needed elsewhere. I have to Rendezvous with the Arcadia before it leaves P’jem.”

Marna smiled and walked with Ren back to the room he had used during his stay. “I am glad you choose to come home to us instead of visiting the Vulcans on P’jem Ren.”

“As am I, though I respect the Vulcans, I doubt they could have helped me as much as my stay here has.”

“It has truly helped then?”

“Yes.. I am still absorbing what I saw in the vision, but it has brought me clarity. It has reaffirmed my faith in the path I choose all those years ago when I left you.”

“You did the right thing.” Marna said “I’ve never understood why it’s been so hard for you to accept that. It’s always been apparent to me.”

Ren shook his head “We don’t always see our own lives as clearly as we see those we seek to help, but I understand and accept it now. I’m no Vedic, but I am a Doctor, and it’s what I am meant to be.”

The old woman nodded and smiled “Yes, now that we have that cleared up, I have this nagging pain in my back that I’ve been meaning to speak with you about..”

The two of them laughed as they continued down the hallway. Ren was happy he had returned to Bajor, but was anxious to return to the Arcadia and resume the path that he had chosen.