Title: Star Trek-Infinity: Leading Through Darkness(MISC) 
Author: Charles Rando (trando@worldnet.att.net) 
Series: MISC 
Rating: [PG] 
Part: NEW 2/2 
Disclaimer: Paramount owns the characters in The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, and Peter David owns the Selelvian race (see his book, Strike Zone). I'd like to think that the characters I've invented and the story are mine. :-) 
Summary: As Lieutenant Remley continues his story, the rescue attempt of Ensign Libby runs afoul... and the entire shuttle crew is placed in horrible danger! 

"He attempted to prevent me from assuming this body," Hiller replied, but his voice was deeper, more methodical. He stretched out his arms and energy flashed angrily between his fingers. "I do hope that you learn from his mistake."
Before McCue could replied, however, Barnett had already raised his phaser. "Get down, sir!" he called to McCue before firing a shot right into Hiller's chest.
When Barnett stopped firing five seconds later, Hiller still stood... completely unfazed by the phaser blast. "I can see that you have not. How very sad," Hiller replied slowly. He lifted his arm, and the energy flashing between his fingers burst outwards in Barnett's direction. Barnett went flying through the air and crumpled against the wall of the cave with such a force that McCue could hear the man's neck snap from where he stood. "I tire of these games," Hiller then said to McCue in that reverberating voice. "I would suggest that you not attempt to intervene, Lieutenant McCue."
McCue blinked. In his head, he went over everything that had happened in hopes of forming some conclusion. Something had taken Hiller's body, Kilman had tried to save Hiller and had been rebuffed by... whatever it was... just as Barnett had been. And apparently, since the being inside Hiller knew McCue's name, it knew everything that Hiller did. Which left McCue at a serious advantage. "Who are you?" he asked, putting down his phaser to avoid appearing as a threat.
"The Bajorans would call me Korgmosis," Hiller replied, watching McCue closely. "They would also call me a pagh wraith, a 'false God', if you like. Millennia ago, my people and I were banished from the 'Celestial Temple'... the wormhole that you discovered a few of your years ago. Since then, my people have seeked to escape the various forms of imprisonment imposed upon us and retake what is rightfully ours."
McCue glanced at the bodies of Kilman and Barnett. "What did you do to them?"
"I ended their corporeal existence," Hiller said simply. "They threatened my mission, and they were dealt with accordingly."
"But how?" McCue asked. As Hiller talked, McCue's hand slowly reached down to a communications device on his hip. McCue tried his best not to think about contacting the ship, calling for help... if this being was telepathic as well... although for the moment it seemed more preoccupied with its own self.
Hiller's eyes met McCue's and flashed red for the briefest of seconds. "I possess power beyond your wildest imagination. I will use this power, and this body, to commandeer your ship for my battle against those who oppress us."
McCue's mind flashed an idea, and his hand stopped moving towards the communications device. "That may not be necessary," he said. If he could prevent the loss of any more life, he'd try it. "We've been searching for a method to access the Bajoran wormhole since it was discovered three years ago. Unfortunately, whenever our ships approach, the wormhole seems to close in on itself. A stable wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant would help us consolidate our position in that section of the galaxy... we could work together, and that way all of us would get what we wanted. I assume that the beings who currently reside in the wormhole are most likely responsible for keeping us out?"
"That is correct. However, I know of your people through this one," the being in Hiller told McCue. "I know that you are a deceptive people, bent on total and complete control. You compete with each other for that control... and thus, you are not trust-worthy. Do you attempt to convince me differently?"
"I do," McCue replied. "If you know everything that Hiller knows, then you know me. You can trust me to keep my side of this bargain, and to make sure Imperial Command keeps their side as well. By joining forces, we can insure that your people retake control of the wormhole. And if we were to help you retake the wormhole, I would think that you would want to repay us in some way... perhaps by allowing us passage to the Gamma Quadrant?"
"Why do you propose such an alliance?" Hiller asked after a moment of contemplation.
"Because by working together, we can easier obtain our goals without any more loss of life," McCue replied simply and honestly. "Tell me what you need, tell me how you plan to take back the wormhole, and I will convince my Captain to help you."
The pagh wraith fell silent again, obviously attempting to read McCue's mind in a search for any sense of deception. In the end, however, it found it could not. There was something about this human... some natural defense against mental powers. That could prove useful information... and also dangerous. In the end, the pagh wraith agreed. Why waste your own energy on a goal when others are willing to do it for you? "The beings in the wormhole can be destroyed by chroniton particles," Hiller explained. "If we fire a strong enough chroniton burst into the wormhole, we will kill them all."
"What happens if the burst isn't strong enough?" McCue asked. He was on to something, he could feel it.
"Low levels of chroniton radiation would only cause them to flee... it would not destroy them," the pagh wraith explained. "My people demand vengeance, which is why they have sent me. They know I will do whatever it takes to accomplish my mission."
McCue nodded. "Then I'll contact my ship and talk to my Captain. I'll convince him of your sincerity, and the benefits of forming an alliance with you. I will contact you once everything has been prepared."
"Agreed," Hiller replied, and then held up a hand. "A small token of my gratitude to you." There was a flash of energy, and the four Bajoran terrorists McCue and his team had chased into the caves appeared in front of McCue. McCue recovered from the shock of their arrival before they did, and he quickly trained his phaser on the group.
"Kynten, what happened to us?" one of the Bajorans asked softly, the fear evident in the young man's voice.
The woman he had addressed turned to face Hiller. "Our enemies have made a deal with the devil," she realized. "May the Prophets forgive them."
McCue tapped his communicator and signaled for beam up... he had lost his away team, although he had captured the resistance fighters with a little bit of help. Now all that remained was saving Hiller... and he knew just how to do that. As he felt the transporter beam lock on to his body and the other Bajorans, McCue practiced what he would tell his Captain... and wondered if Rando would go along with his plan.
McCue continued his story. "We beamed P.W. and his 'host' onto the Infinity, placing them inside a closed off area that we slowly filled with chroniton radiation. P.W. fled into the ship's computer to escape, but we were able to keep him in check using radiation bursts. We essentially caged him inside the computer."
"My God," Bayreuther commented from her place by Libby's side. "How could you do that to the poor thing?"
"Ms. Bayreuther, P.W. was anything but helpless. While inside Ensign Hiller, he killed two good security officers, and would have killed more if he'd had the opportunity. We would have returned him to the Fire Caves, but Imperial Command wanted us to study his powers... see if we could use them somehow. We discovered that P.W. had the ability to access other universes... and so we brought you to us that very first time for observation."
"The future Trill," Remley remembered, "that wasn't the future at all."
"Exactly," McCue agreed. "We brought you into our universe, had P.W. fool your sensors so you would think you were in the future. We didn't know you had a Prophet on your ship, but life in the corporeal world had become familiar to P.W. He was able to detect your Prophet and insure that he wouldn't be able to detect P.W.'s influence. We had the perfect chance to observe you... download your computer files from a safe distance... and then you found Trill. We didn't want you to investigate the planet too closely for fear that you might discover where and when you were... so we had P.W. created the illusion of a 'Romulan Warbird.'" McCue stumbled over the words, which was understandable: in his universe, the Romulans had been defeated after first contact and the entire empire had been cleansed. "You left knowing nothing about us, while we gained a tremendous amount of information about you."
"Wait, hold on just a second here... what about Trill? Why didn't you want them to investigate it too closely?" Reynd demanded. The Trill was upset, and Remley knew he had good reason to be.
"About five years ago, the people of Trill staged a rebellion against the empire. Using their superior knowledge as a joined species, they were able to beat us at every turn. It was decided that... that the population of Trill had to be exterminated for the safety of the Empire," McCue explained sadly. He obviously didn't agree with his government's actions any more now than he had then.
"The radiation bomb... that caused joined Trill to reject their symbiants," Remley continued for McCue. "And then, within a few days, the radiation exposure had killed all life on the planet."
"If you had beamed to the surface, you would have seen that the destruction of Trill had taken place much earlier than you had suspected," McCue went on. "Which is why we had to fool you... to lead you away. We were forced to break quarantine and follow you to Trill. Because of our actions, not only did we gain information about you... but Sonja developed her tumorous growth that would eventually result in the terrifying abilities she has now. Everything changed as a result of that mission... right up to our confrontation with you a year ago."
Reynd hadn't said a word since McCue had explained to him what had happened to the Trill homeworld in his universe, but now he spoke up. "All right, this is a fascinating discussion, but it still doesn't explain why we've lost control of the ship's computer! Without control we're going to be stuck here!"
Remley shook his head. "I think I can explain this... we thought we'd destroyed P.W. before when we fought the other ship... somehow he survived. And now he's lose in our shuttle's computer... with no chroniton field to control him. Which means that this shuttle is completely under his control, and we're just along for the ride."
"An accurate assessment, Mr. Remley," P.W.'s voice boomed through the shuttle's comm. system. "A pity that your counterpart in this universe was not as... observant as you are. He was a simple minded brute, to be honest, and I had tremendous fun torturing him once I was no longer in the ship's computer." He let out a sound that sounded like a combination of a sigh and a grunt. "I just thought I'd inform you all that I have gained complete and total control over this ship's functions. I control life support, shields, weapons... even transporters. Which means I can now repay an old debt." No sooner had the words left the shuttle's speakers when McCue began to dissolve in a shimmer of transporter energy. Johnson attempted to quickly access the transporter controls and received a slight shock for his troubles. Seconds later, McCue had faded into nothingness.
"Revenge IS a dish best served cold, as you humans say. And now, without further ado...." The shuttle's engines began to power up, and slowly the craft began to move in space.
"Evan," Johnson began quietly, still shocked after what had happened to McCue. He showed Remley the flight path P.W. had set the shuttle on. "We're heading right for the Bajoran wormhole."
"I don't suppose we're going back home?" Reynd asked.
Remley shook his head and quickly checked the tactical systems. "P.W. isn't planning on taking us back home. He's modified the shuttle's deflector dish to emit chroniton radiation. He's going to attack the wormhole... and kill the wormhole aliens."
A silence fell over the humanoid residents of the shuttle... but in the background, if one listened closely enough, one could hear a very soft chuckle.
"By the Celestial Temple!" J.W. proclaimed, but not loudly enough to attract attention. "I should have gone with you! If I was in the computer, I would have been able to stop him!"
"J.W., you didn't even know we were going," Remley replied. "Captain Rando only brought Chris, me and Neddek in on it... even Trina didn't know where Paul had run off to. We didn't want word of this mission to get around for... obvious reasons."
"You didn't want to get anyone's hopes up," Marit concluded. "Not to mention the very notion of using the Bajoran wormhole to cross universes is classified."
"Exactly," Remley said with a nod. "The only reason I'm telling either one of you what happened is because... well, J.W.'s a wormhole alien so he already knows about using the Bajoran wormhole to move between galaxies. And Kynten... well, I trust that you won't tell anyone what happened before the Captain makes his report."
"I promise," Marit told him. "But what happened next? What was wrong with Jeff? What happened to McCue?"
Remley sighed. "Poor Paul... there was nothing we could do for him. Every time we tried to access the transporter systems, P.W. would punish us somehow. Eventually we had to give up trying to save him... if we even could have in the first place. There wasn't much we could do at all...."
"I assume that P.W. was not successful," J.W. began. "After all, as far as I can tell, there have been no dramatic changes in the Celestial Temple."
Remley looked up in the direction of J.W.'s voice. "Do you want me to tell the story or not?"
After a second, J.W. replied, "Go right ahead, Remley."
"Thank you," Remley said with a grin. "So anyway, there we were, sitting in a shuttlecraft commandeered by a vengeful pagh wraith. We'd rescued Jeff, but now we had to come up with a way of rescuing ourselves... and that wasn't easy considering P.W. could hear everything we said...."
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"I control the deflector lock outs, so your plan is not feasible."
Johnson sighed in resignation. "Must he do that?" he demanded.
"I am just trying to be helpful," P.W. replied in a tone of voice that suggested anything but helpfulness. The laugh that followed reiterated that tone.
"We can't come up with a plan to stop this pagh wraith if he can overhear everything we're plotting!" Reynd complained. "For want of a telepath!"
"All we can do is wait... see if an opportunity presents itself," Remley told them. "That's all we can do."
"The most intelligent suggestion I've heard," P.W.'s voice replied. "The humans in this universe claim that patience is a waste of time, but I disagree. After all, if not for patience, I would not be where I am presently, about to reclaim our rightful home."
"Not to mention it's tough to come up with a plan if he keeps talking about himself!" Reynd spoke up again.
Remley shook his head, stood and walked over to Bayreuther's side. The tiny woman was still keeping a close eye on Libby, who had not yet regained consciousness. "How's he doing?" Remley asked.
"I'm not a doctor," Bayreuther snapped, her aggravation clearly showing. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself. "I don't know, Evan... I don't know what they did to him so he won't wake up. We have to get him to Doctor Calabretta... or Bashir... someone has to figure out what's wrong with him!"
"I believe your Ensign Libby had become so used to sharing his body that after I left, he simply went into shock," P.W. said. "A shame your bodies are so fragile, but we did work quite well as a team."
Bayreuther was quiet. Finally she got out, "What do you mean?"
Remley place a hand on her shoulder. "He's just messing with your mind, Rebecca, don't listen to him."
"On the contrary, Ms. Bayreuther... and yes, I know who you are. I know everything that Libby there knows... I am not 'messing with your mind.' I owe my survival to that corporeal body next to you... I surely would have been destroyed if not for his assistance," P.W. explained. 
Rebecca sat up more, her eyes burning a hole in the general direction of P.W.'s voice. "I don't know what you're talking about... and I don't believe it."
P.W. laughed, a harsh sound. "You either know what I'm talking about and thus you've decided whether you believe me or not... or else you don't know what I'm talking about, and therefore you can not decide if you should believe me. What you've said makes no sense. But in the off-chance that you don't understand what I am attempting to communicate to you, allow me to explain. You see, the chroniton torpedo your ship fired at my ship did not destroy me... it freed me. It overloaded the controlling mechanism established by your counterparts, and I was able to flee from the ship's computer. I hid from the people on that ship, looking for a new corporeal form to possess... someone I could control. Soon enough, I found Mr. Libby, accidentally sent to us by your ship. His mind was more malleable than those of the people from this universe... I knew that I could control him completely. So I inhabited his body... he tried to fight me, but of course he wasn't strong enough. Using him as a vessel, I established control of their ship and there was nothing they could do to stop me. As they had imprisoned me... tortured me with pain induced by low levels of chroniton radiation... I did the same to them. But I still could not trust them... I could not attempt to retake control of their ship's computer without leaving my corporeal form and being trapped there again. And so when your shuttle crossed over, we saw the perfect opportunity. I would be delivered to you, where I would commandeer your shuttle and use it for my purposes, and they would be free of me forever."
"Which is why they took off like a bat out of hell after they'd beamed Jeff to the surface," Remley said. "They didn't want McCue back... they wanted you gone."
"Can you blame them?" P.W. asked with a hint of smugness. "Now if you'll excuse me, my destiny awaits... as does my revenge."
"My God," Rebecca murmured, "Jeff was possessed by that thing... for an entire year...." She felt her tears begin to flow again. "I imagined them torturing him right to the point of death... twisting his mind... things that seemed so horrible in themselves... but this... this is even worse than I could have imagined! What hell did Jeff go through this year? My God, Evan, what happened to him?!"
Remley felt his arms move to hold the woman for the second time that day, and his eyes found Libby's face. He tried imagining what Jeff must have gone through, living each day with evil inside of him... completely unable to stop it or fight it.... 
If they got back home, it'd take Jeff a long time to get over everything that'd happened this last year.
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The shuttle approached the coordinates of the wormhole at a quarter impulse before coming to a stop a few dozen kilometers away. The mood inside the shuttle was somber... the moment that Remley had told them to wait for still hadn't come, and time was running out. Johnson was trying one last idea, but from the sound of things, he wasn't having much luck.
"It's no use," the chief operations officer finally concluded. "I can't even start a warp core breach, not from in here at least. And without control of the shuttle's door controls, I can't get outside to access the engines manually." He sighed. "I'm completely out of ideas."
"You did your best, Chris," Remley reassured him. He glanced at the tactical console. "P.W. is powering up the deflector dish."
"There must be something we can do!" Bayreuther exclaimed. "I can't believe we came all this way for nothing!"
"We didn't come for nothing," Reynd reassured her. "We saved Jeff from P.W., in a way at least."
"Reynd's right," Remley agreed. "No matter what happens to us, at least Jeff is free."
"Such a relative term," P.W. interjected, again working his way into the conversation. "He may be free of mind, but he is not free of body. No matter... he made is contribution to our cause, and now we are free to dispose of him."
"Jeff made no contribution to your cause," Bayreuther began slowly, rising to her feet. "You controlled him... anything he did, you forced him to do it!"
"Perhaps," P.W. replied. "Although after a while, I believe he had come to enjoy his new life."
In that instant, Bayreuther snapped. Her eyes quickly darting left and right, she located a phaser before anyone could stop her. In an instant she had fired on the navigational controls, causing the console to explode in a bright shower of sparks and mad energy. She fired again and again, sending disruption after disruption coursing through the computer core. Finally, P.W. lashed out in defense. With the transporter system off-line as well due to Bayreuther's rapid fire, the pagh wraith used its own energy against the former Starfleet officer. Red swirling energy enveloped her, lifting her off her feet and causing her to drop the phaser to the ground. Bayreuther writhed in pain, but not a sound escaped from her mouth. Her eyes were wide with shock until P.W. finally released her, and she fell to the ground. Reynd rushed to her side. And Remley noticed something outside the window.
"We're drifting into the wormhole!" he exclaimed.
And the blue swirling energy wrapped itself around the tiny shuttle and sucked it inside.
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Remley looked around. The instant the shuttle had entered the wormhole, he'd been enveloped in a bright white light. It looked like he was still on the shuttle, but everything was blurred and obscure. Not to mention that Remley noticed he was completely alone. In the back of his head, Remley could swear he heard his heart beating. A steady "thub-thub" sound, which he found somewhat reassuring. Even though he was cut off from his corporeal form, or so it felt, his heartbeat reminded him that he did in fact exist.
"They have returned," one of the wormhole aliens proclaimed. This one had taken the form of Captain Rando.
"And they have brought an evil one with them," another alien stated. That one resembled V'gel.
"It will be dealt with accordingly," the alien-Rando decided.
A third alien came forward, this one in the form of Bayreuther. "They have saved us from the evil of the pagh wraith."
"Rebecca saved us all," Remley told the wormhole aliens. "She sacrificed herself for all of us." He wasn't sure how he knew that... he'd seen her fall from P.W.'s attack, but he hadn't had the chance to check up on her. But somehow he just knew....
"Her sacrifice will not be forgotten," the alien-V'gel promised.
"The memory will exist for all eternity," the alien-Rando agreed.
"She was the only one who could save us," the alien-Bayreuther replied. "She fulfilled her destiny."
And with a flash of white light, the wormhole aliens had disappeared.
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"Evan? You all right?" Johnson asked. "You zoned out there for a few seconds."
"The wormhole aliens popped in to say hello," Remley told him. "I'm not sure, but I think they took P.W. off our hands."
Johnson nodded. "The shuttle's controls... what's left of them... came back under our control when we entered the wormhole. As far as I can tell, P.W.'s gone."
Remley nodded and headed over to Reynd. The Trill was crouched down, running a medical tricorder over Bayreuther's body. Remley didn't say anything as the Trill ran the scan. Finally, Reynd looked up. "She's gone."
The confirmation was no easier for Remley. He took in a deep breath before he could say, "She brought him home. After everything that happened, she brought him home."
"Evan," Johnson called seconds later, breaking Remley's reverie. Johnson was standing near the transporter controls, which had been burnt to a crisp by Bayreuther's rescue attempt. "There's a pattern in the buffer," Johnson told the security chief once he had approached.
A pattern in the buffer? Could it be? "But without the transporter controls, we can't access the buffer," Remley stated.
Johnson shook his head. "Not necessarily. If I can use my tricorder to bypass the controls and send a signal directly into the buffer... believe me, I did this for over a year, I know how it works." He keyed in a few commands into his tricorder... and the transporter came to life. A shape began to appear on the pad, coalescing together slowly... becoming more solid with each passing second... until it formed Paul McCue.
"That... was an experience," was the first thing McCue said.
"What the hell happened?" Remley demanded. "There's no way he could have survived in the buffer for that long!"
"Unless P.W. kept his pattern from degrading," Johnson suggested. "I can only imagine what that must've felt like...."
McCue stretched. "It wasn't an experience I'd like to repeat." He noticed Bayreuther's body lying prone on the floor. "My God, what happened to her?"
"She fought a pagh wraith," Remley explained. "And she won. I'll tell you all about it on the way back. Chris, how long until we can make the jump back to our universe?"
"Warp engines are still online, Evan," Johnson reported after a quick check of his console. "We can do it right now."
Remley nodded. "What about thrusters? How long until you get them back online?"
"Already done, Evan... the connection I've made with the tricorder should last long enough to get us out of the wormhole. From there, we can have someone from DS9 pick us up."
Remley glanced behind him, first at the form of the woman who had sacrificed her life for her friends and the man she loved, and then at that man, who had still not yet awoken after his horrible ordeal. "Let's go home," Remley said simply.
And Johnson activated the warp field....
"Jeff's being sent to the Federation Psychological Facility on Hyrandon Five," Remley said, finishing up his story. "With a little help from the counselors there, he might someday be able to come back to Starfleet. Reynd is taking Rebecca's body back to Earth for burial... and the Captain will be holding services for her tomorrow night."
"So you weren't kidding when you said we'd find out about what happened eventually," Marit remarked, still slightly in shock from the incredible ending. Libby had returned... Bayreuther had not. The pagh wraith had been destroyed... McCue had been saved. No wonder Evan had looked like he'd been to hell and back when he'd first entered the lounge.
Remley sipped from his drink. "It's hard to believe she's gone... she worked so hard to bring Jeff back. Devoted her whole life to it... she was the one that got Chris on my case about my drinking problem... she was an incredible woman."
"A truly amazing story," J.W. commented. "I wish I had been there to experience it in person... instead of cooped up on this poor excuse for a space station."
"Yeah, I've been wondering," Remley started, "what happened to you while we were gone that got you so bothered, J.W.?"
"I'm sure that neither one of you truly wish to hear what happened," J.W. said in that tone of voice of someone dying to talk. 
"Spill it," Marit ordered him. Her response took even Remley by surprise.
"Very well," J.W. began. "It all started when we first arrived at Deep Space Nine...."