The Black Sun

“Look at this…

(it’s ashes.)

We could have built a new Krypton 

in this squalor. 

But you chose 

The Humans 

over Us. 

I exist, only to protect Krypton. 

That is The Sole Purpose 

for which I was born. 

And every action I take, 

no matter HOW Violent, or how CRUEL...

is for The Greater Good...

of My People. 

And now... 

...I have no People. 

My Soul... 

...that is what you have 

taken from me. 

I'm going to make Them suffer, Kal. 

These Humans you've adopted —

I will take them 

ALL from you... 

…ONE by ONE.

— Zod.

“Kalsched describes a split between the vulnerable and shamefully hidden remainder the "whole Self," often portrayed as a child or animal, and "a powerful, benevolent or malevolent great being" who protects the innocent being. 

What seems counterintuitive in his description is that this "protector" should show itself also as a malevolent force in the psyche, one that often persecutes the personal spirit and shows itself to the dream ego as a daemonic and terrifying force. 

He notes that most "contemporary writers tend to see this attacking figure as an internalized version of the actual perception of the trauma.”

However, for Kalsched, this is only half correct since "the internal figure is often EVEN MORE SADISTIC and brutal than the actual `outer world perpetrator."' 

For Kalsched, this indicates that we are dealing with something that is contributed from The Psyche, a psychological factor and "an archetypal traumatogenic agency within The Psyche itself."" It is strange to think of such a brutal force as a "protector." 

Kalsched explains that the intention of this daemonic force is to prevent at all costs the reexperiencing of the horror, the genesis of the traumatogenic organization. 

The daemons of the inner world, like the temple lions at the entrance of sacred spaces, serve to keep away The Unprepared. 

They will "disperse fragments (dissociation) or encapsulate it and sooth it with fantasy (schizoid withdrawal) or numb it with intoxicating substances (addictions) or persecute it to keep it from Hoping for Life in This World (depression)."" 

Hope would open The Soul, leaving it vulnerable to what is imagined as an even more painful experience than that which the "protective daemon" enforces on the wounded "personal spirit." 

It is often the case, however, that The Cure is worse than The "Illness," even if this cannot be seen from within the experience of the overwhelming threat that continues in the wake of trauma. The fact that The Ego does not notice the problematic character of The Cure sets the stage for the fact that "the primitive defense does not learn anything about realistic danger.... Each new life opportunity is mistakenly seen as a dangerous threat of re-traumatization and is therefore attacked. In this way, the archaic defenses become Anti-Life Forces which Freud understandably thought of as part of The Death Instinct."

This is not surprising since the "self-care system" will "go to any length to protect The Self" in spite of the continual masochistic suffering involved, "even to the point of killing the host personality in which this personal spirit is housed 

As a result, what was intended to be a defence against further trauma now becomes itself destructive in a variety of ways: "The person survives but cannot live creatively."" 

Such consequences also manifest themselves in the ravages of depression and melancholic affect "engineered by our self-care system..""

Smoke.

Superman :

If I don't stop that machine over The Indian Ocean, the gravity field will continue to expand. 

Lois :

If that thing is making Earth more like Krypton, won't you be weaker around it? 

Superman :

Maybe. I'm not about to let that 

stop me from trying. 

You might want to step back a little bit. 

Maybe a little bit more.

PARIS: 

Who could do this to The Borg? 


(They cruise through the debris field.) 


JANEWAY: 

Someone more powerful than The Borg? 

It's hard to imagine. 


KIM: 

But they did it. Fifteen Cubes! 

We might've just found our ticket through Borg space. An Ally. 


CHAKOTAY: 

Let's not jump to conclusions.

Scan the vicinity for other vessels. 


TUVOK: 

There are none. 


KIM: 

Hold on. I'm picking up 

some sort of bio-readings. 

They're coming from the outer hull 

of one of the Borg ships. 


JANEWAY: 

Let's see it. Magnify, Mister Kim. 


KIM: 

It's definitely organic, but our sensors can't penetrate its surface. 


JANEWAY: 

Send a standard greeting. 


TUVOK: 

No response. 


CHAKOTAY: 

This could be a space-dwelling organism or a biological weapon. 


JANEWAY: 

I'd like to know what kind of weapon 

could destroy the Borg. 

Can we beam it away from the ship? 


KIM: 

I can't get a lock on it. 


CHAKOTAY: 

Tractor beam? 


TUVOK: 

No effect. 


KIM: 

Whatever that thing is, it's 

impervious to our technology. 


JANEWAY: 

Tuvok, are you reading 

an atmosphere in the Cube? 


TUVOK: 

Affirmative. 


JANEWAY: 

Commander Chakotay, I want you to take an away team inside. 

Try to get a short range scan of the biomass. 


TUVOK: 

There are still Borg lifesigns, 

but they're unstable. 


JANEWAY: 

We'll keep an open comlink and an active Transporter lock. 

We'll pull you out of there at the first sign of trouble. 


CHAKOTAY: 

Tuvok, Harry, you're with me.

[Borg Cube]

(The metal creaks, and sparks fly. The away team are armed with phaser rifles.) 


CHAKOTAY: 

This way. 
(A pair of Borg are trying to make repairs.) 


TUVOK: 

Lower your phasers. 

If we don't appear threatening, 

they should ignore us. 


KIM: 

Looks like they're a little preoccupied. 


CHAKOTAY: 

The alien bio-readings are getting stronger. We're close. 


KIM: 

Commander. 


(Kim has found Kes' pile of Borg.) 


TUVOK: 

Curious. 


CHAKOTAY: 

That's not the word I had in mind. 


TUVOK: 

Those bodies are reminiscent 

of one of the premonitions 

Kes described. 


KIM: 

Didn't Kes say we were 

all going to die? 


CHAKOTAY: 

Let's keep moving. 


(They reach their goal.) 


CHAKOTAY: 

It looks like the bio-mass dissolved right through The Borg hull. 


TUVOK: 

This Borg is attempting 

to assimilate it. 


KIM: 

Doesn't look like he's 

having much luck. 


CHAKOTAY: 

There's a chamber beyond this opening. Forty meters wide, high concentrations of antimatter particles. It looks like a warp propulsion system of some kind. 


KIM: 

It's A Ship? 


TUVOK: 

Starfleet has encountered species 

that use organic-based vessels. 

The Breen, for example. 


CHAKOTAY: 

There doesn't seem to be 

anybody on board. 

Chakotay to Voyager. 


JANEWAY [OC]: 

Go ahead, Commander. 


CHAKOTAY: 

Captain, we've found 

an entrance to the biomass. 

We think it may be 

a ship of some kind. 

Permission to go inside.

 
JANEWAY [OC]: 

Granted. 


CHAKOTAY: 

Harry, that's a Borg distribution node. 

See if you can download their tactical database. 

It might contain a record of what happened here. 


KIM: 

Aye, sir. 


CHAKOTAY: 

Tuvok.

[Alien Bioship]

(Lots of curves in stark contrast to the Borg angles.) 


CHAKOTAY: 

They seem to be organic conduits. 

They're carrying electrodynamic fluid. 


TUVOK: 

Maybe an energy source. 


CHAKOTAY: 

Maybe. This looks like a binary matrix, 

but it's laced with neuropeptides. 

Could be their version 

of a computer core. 


(Kim hears some clanging sounds and goes to investigate, then returns to his work.) 


TUVOK: 

This damage was caused 

by a Borg disrupter beam. 

The wall appears to 

be regenerating itself. 

Commander! 


(Tuvok discovers a Borg being absorbed by the wall. Kim finishes the download, then a Borg walks past him. More clanging for Kim to investigate. On Voyager, Kes has a vision of Kim screaming.)

[Sickbay]

(Kes drops the tray she is carrying.) 


EMH: 

Kes? 


KES: 

Harry's in danger. 


EMH: 

What are you 
—

KES: 

Get them out of there. 


EMH: 

Sickbay to Janeway.

[Alien Bioship]

KIM [OC]: 

Commander!

[Borg Cube]

KIM: 

There's someone in here with us 

and it's not The Borg. 

I can't localise it but it's 

within twenty metres. 


TUVOK: 

Perhaps The Pilot has returned. 


JANEWAY [OC]: 

Voyager to away team. 


CHAKOTAY: 

Go ahead.

[Bridge]

JANEWAY: 

Stand by for transport. 

We're getting you out of there. 


CHAKOTAY [OC]: 

Good idea. 


JANEWAY: 

Energise. 


TORRES: 

I can't get a lock on them. 


JANEWAY: 

What's the problem? 


TORRES: 

It looks like bioelectric interference 

from whatever's coming 

toward them.

[Borg Cube]

CHAKOTAY: 

It's within seven metres. 

Let's get out of here!

[Bridge]

JANEWAY: 

Narrow the confinement beam. 


TORRES: 

No effect. I'm going to try a skeletal lock. 


JANEWAY: 

What? 


TORRES: 

I think I can get a clean lock 

on the minerals in their bone tissue. 

I just came up with it, 

but I think it might work.

[Borg Cube]

CHAKOTAY: 

The lifeform's five metres 

away and closing. 


KIM: 

From where? 


(The alien appears. It is bipedal, but walks like a bird, leaning forward. It turns and slashes Kim with its claws. He screams as they are beamed out.)

[Bridge]

TORRES: 

I've got them. 


JANEWAY: 

A skeletal lock, huh? 

We'll have to add that one 

to the Transporter manual. 


PARIS: 

Captain, the bioship is powering up, 

like it's charging some kind of weapon. 


(Kes is given a view of the alien. She stumbles back into Janeway's arms.) 


JANEWAY: 

Mister Paris, get us out of here. 

Maximum warp. 


(They start to move away, then get hit by an energy weapons. The ship tumbles out of control before Paris manages to crawl back to the helm and initiate warp.) 


PARIS: 

The alien ship is not pursuing. 


JANEWAY: 

Kes? 


KES: 

I could hear its thoughts. 

The Pilot of the bioship was trying to 

communicate with me. 

They're a telepathic species. 

I've been aware of them 

for some time now. 

The premonitions. 

Captain, it's not The Borg that 

we should be worried about, 

it's Them. 


JANEWAY: 

What did it say to you? 


KES: 

It said, “The Weak Will Perish.”

Captain's log, stardate 50984.3. 

It's been twelve hours since our confrontation with the alien lifeform. 

There's no sign that we're being pursued and we've had no further encounters with the Borg. 

I've decided to hold our course. 

The Northwest Passage is only one day away, 

and I won't allow fear to undermine this crew's sense of purpose, 

even if that fear is justified.

[Sickbay]

(Kim is being absorbed, just like the Borg on the bioship.) 


EMH: 

The infection is spreading. 

What began with a few stray cells 

contaminating the chest wound 

is now infusing every system 

in his body. 


JANEWAY: 

It looks like he's being transformed in some way. 


EMH: 

Not exactly. 

The alien cells are consuming 

his body from the inside out. 

In essence, Mister Kim 

is being eaten alive. 


JANEWAY: 

He's still conscious, Doctor. 


EMH: 

I tried giving him a sedative, 

but it was rejected immediately. 

In fact, every treatment I've tried has been neutralised within seconds. 

These are alien cells. 

Each one contains more than a hundred times the DNA 

of a human cell. 

It's the most densely coded lifeform 

I've ever seen. Even I would need 

years to decipher it. 


JANEWAY: 

They have an extraordinary immune response. Anything that penetrates the cell membrane, chemical, biological, technological, it's all instantly destroyed. That's why the Borg can't assimilate them. 


EMH: 

Resistance in this case 

is far from futile. 

Nevertheless, I believe Borg technology holds the key to saving Mister Kim. 


JANEWAY: 

How so? 


EMH: 

I hope to unleash an army of modified Borg nanoprobes into his bloodstream, designed to target and eradicate the infection. 

As you know, I've been analysing the nanoprobes. 

They're efficient little assimilators, one can't help but admire the workmanship. 

But they're no match for the alien cells. 

So I successfully dissected a nanoprobe and managed to access its re-coding mechanism. 

I reprogrammed the probe to emit the same electrochemical signatures as the alien cells. 

That way, the probe can do its work without being detected. Observe. 

The alien cells are completely oblivious to probe until it's too late. 

Unfortunately, I've only 

created a few prototypes. 

I'll need several days to modify enough nanoprobes 

to cure Ensign Kim. 


JANEWAY: 

Does Harry have several days? 


EMH: 

I wish I knew. 


JANEWAY: 

Fight it, Harry. 

That's an order.

[Engineering]

TORRES: 

We've analysed the Borg's tactical database. 

They refer to these new aliens 

as Species-8472. 

MeMe

 

Rule #2 : 

Treat Yourself Like Someone 

You are Responsible for Helping.

Mister Six :

I've come a long 

way for You --

The Cosmic Hobo :

Naturally -- Don't expect any Thanks.

Angraecum sesquipedale. Beauty! 

God! Darwin wrote about this one. 

Charles Darwin? 

Evolution-guy? Hello? 

You see that nectary down there? 

Darwin hypothesised a moth 

with a nose 12 inches long 

to pollinate it. 

Everyone thought he was a loon. 

Then, sure enough, they found 

this moth with a 12-inch proboscis. 

"Proboscis" means nose, by the way. 

I know what it means. 

Hey, let's not get off The Subject. 

This isn't a pissing contest. 

The Point is, what's so wonderful is that 

all these flowers have a specific relationship 

with the insect that pollinates it. 

There's a certain orchid looks exactly like a certain insect. 

So The Insect is drawn to This Flower, it's Double, 

its Soul-Mate, and wants nothing more 

than to make Love to it. 

After The Insect flies off, it spots another 

Soul-Mate Flower and makes love to it, 

pollinating it. 

And neither The Flower nor The Insect 

will ever understand The Significance 

of their lovemaking. 

How could they know that because of 

their little dance, The World lives? 

But it does. By simply doing what they're designed to do 

something large and magnificent happens. 

In this sense, They show Us 

How to Live. 

How the only barometer 

You have, is Your Heart. 

How when You spot Your Flower, 

You can't let anything 

get in Your Way. 

ANDREWS:

They may use The Furnace, 

but I want everyone in lockup by 22:00 hours.

We commit This Child and This Man 

to Your keeping, O Lord.

Their bodies have been taken from 

The Shadow of Our Night.

They have been released from all 

Darkness and Pain.

The Child, and The Man 

have gone beyond Our World.

They are 

Forever Eternal

and 

Everlasting

[Barking]

Ashes to Ashes

Dust to Dust

DILLON:

Why?

Why are The Innocent punished?

[ Rotweiler whimpers ] /

[ Ox Caucus Rumbles Deep and Heavily ]

Why The Sacrifice?

Why The Pain?

There aren't any Promises.

Nothing's Certain.

Only that some get Called;

some get Saved.

She won't ever know 

The Hardship and Grief for 

Those of Us, Left Behind.

We commit these bodies to The Void, 

with a Glad Heart --

[Growling]

 

For within each Seed, there is 

The Promise of A Flower.

And within each Death, 

no matter how small – 

There's always a new Life.

A New -- Beginning.

[ RAISES FIST ]

Amen.

PRISONERS : 

Amen.

St. Helena :

I just wanted to say 'Thanks.' 

for what you said at The Funeral.

My friends would have appreciated –

DILLON (jittery, and 

anxious as All-Fuck) :

Yeah, well, 

You Don't wanna 

Know Me, Lady –

I'm a Murderer, and 

Rapist of Women.

St. Helena :

.......Really.

Well, I guess I must 

make you nervous.

DILLON:

Do You Have any Faith, Sister?

St. Helena :

Not much.

 DILLON:

We've got a lot of Faith here.

Enough even for you.

St. Helena :

I thought Women weren't allowed.

 DILLON:

Well, We've never had any before – 

but We tolerate anybody...

Even The Intolerable.

St. Helena :

Thank You.

DILLON: 

That's just a Statement of Principle, 

Nothing Personal.

We've got a good

Place to Wait, here.

And until now... 

No Temptation.

*******

CLEMENS: 

Dillon and The Rest of the alternative people 

embraced religion, as it were, 

about five years ago.

Take two.

St. Helena :

I'm on medication?

CLEMENS: 

Hardly.

St. Helena :

What kind of religion?

CLEMENS: 

Some sort of apocalyptic, 

millenarian Christian 

fundamentalist...

St. Helena :

Right.

CLEMENS:
Exactly. When The Company wanted to 

close The Facility, Dillon and the rest

of the converts wanted to stay.

With Two Minders and 

a medical officer.

And here we are.

St. Helena :

How did you get this 

wonderful assignment?

CLEMENS:

How do you like your new haircut?

St. Helena :

It's OK.

CLEMENS:

Now that I've gone out on a limb for you 

with Andrews, damaged my less-than-perfect 

relationship with him, and briefed you 

on the humdrum history of Fury-161 –

Can't you tell me what 

you were looking for?

St. Helena :

Are you attracted to me?

CLEMENS:

In what way?

St. Helena :

In that way.

CLEMENS:

You're very direct.

St. Helena :

I've been Out Here 

a long time.

Lois Falling.

We wanted you to learn what it meant to be human first… 

so that one day, 

when the time was right, 

you could be the bridge 

between Two Peoples. Look. 

You can Save Her, Kal. 

You can Save ALL of Them.

15: Ace Falling

The escape pod whipped around Heaven in descending orbit, little flares of atmosphere skidding off its casing. 

It was skipping on the edges of the air, bouncing across the sky. But in the end, there was only one place it could go. 

It would fall into Heaven's stratosphere and plummet towards the planet. 

If its retros fired, it might make a soft landing. 

Inside the pod there was something strange. 

It was Ace, lying curled, her knees up to her chin. She was quite unharmed. 

Something terrible had happened. Her eyes were wide, the darkness of space reflecting in them. The tiny fires from outside flashed across them every now and then, but they didn't react. 

Something terrible. 

When she was a child, Ace had woken in the night to hear owls, hooting in the distance of Perivale Park. The little girl had listened, scared, for a moment. Then she ran into Audrey's bedroom, hurtling under the covers. That was a dangerous thing to do, because Audrey wasn't always alone. All those bitter excuses and barriers. But that night, the owls had woken Audrey too. She just turned over and cuddled her daughter, and the two of them fell back into sleep. 

Audrey was dead now, in this far future. And who was out there who ever cared for Ace? 

Sabalom no, he never did. The Doctor? Could he care for her? Was it something he was able to do? Or was she just a piece in his games? She didn't want to think about him. 

Jan loved her. He really loved her. His love-making had been so complete, so concerned so full of desperate needing. He was the only person who'd ever needed like she needed. Needed love, needed strength, needed some. one to say everything was always gonna be okay. That was why he was a warrior too, because sometimes you had to keep kicking. 

Something terrible. Ace didn't know what. There was a big piece of her brain that knew something that she didn't want to know. 

She'd seen something that she shouldn't have seen, that she didn't want to see, and the sight was running away down deep inside her. This time, she wasn't going to run after it. This time, never mind fighting it, she'd let it go. There were some things that you shouldn't fight, some times when you just had to curl up and say yes to death. 

She really believed that, as the fires grew darker around the capsule. Not a muscle in her body moved, except her heart, and she'd have stopped that if she could. Just death, quiet death, up here without any fungus, up here away from people. Stupid people, stupid little clowns, and he'd sucked at her breast like a little child, a little boy they could have had together and it would have been okay, a family in the TARDIS, a family, a family —

People came and talked to her in the capsule. The Trickster was in a clown costume, and he had a completely different face. He told her that Jan was one of his, and it had all been a joke, couldn't she see? Ace cramped and twitched until he went away. Christopher came to her and said that he'd been jealous of the living, that he'd sacrificed himself again, and didn't see why Jan couldn't return that. Ace had punched his face in, hitting it and hitting it and hitting it - a clench of the teeth, a shudder and a gasp that stopped her on the edge of insanity - there was just a skull in the black cloak. Just a silly monster. Just a clown.

In the capsule, as it fell, Mother Mary came to her. Or it was Diana, with her owls on her arm. The Huntress told Ace that she was loved, and that this wasn't the end. There was more life yet to come. A man, no matter how loved, couldn't drag down and end the life of a woman warrior. She'd always whispered in her ear, the goddess told Ace. She'd seen her in the Land Under The Hills. The Trickster was just a stupid little boy and she shouldn't listen to him. 

Don't run away, Diana told Ace. You already grabbed the rose once, already took reality instead of fantasy. You're much too important to lose, the steward of Time's Champion. 

But Ace didn't want to be somebody's something. She wanted to be Ace. And at the moment, that wasn't possible, 'cos Jan made her Ace now. 

And Jan was dead. 

So she wanted to be dead too. 

And if death wasn't going to come and see her, madness would look after her for a while.

This is all flowery nonsense, an old English teacher told her. You're not talking to gods and things, and madness won't just pop up and take you. You'll bite your own tongue, and run spirals into yourself, and never talk normally with anybody else again. Madness isn't about gods, it's about shivering outside Centre Point with a cardboard box and a begging cup. 

Well, Christ, then just Death, just let me die. I keep on surfacing for a second, and thinking that I can go on, that everything can be fairly all right. And then I get dragged back under, and every thing's such shit. I can see the next wave coming too, I can feel that I'm about to fall, and I'm never gonna reach land again. This is all there's ever gonna be, lots of pain, special pain, pain made for me. This is hell, isn't it, over Heaven? 

He was right out on the margins, Jan was. This is an obituary. He didn't want to submit, to the government or to death. So death came out to the provinces and took him by force. He never even got to be a hero, never even got to run at something with his sword.

The flames were building around the capsule now. Smoke was roasting off the hull, and colours were blasting across Ace's eyes, still oblivious. 

Another shooting star had bloomed over Heaven. 

Ace knew that, way down there below, somebody was watching it go. Maybe they were happy to see it, thought she was pretty. Maybe they knew it was another death they were watching. Maybe the people watching it were already dead, an army of corpses already shuf- fling towards the towns, ready to grab the living and shove spores into them. Billions of dead beings, the whole ground swelling with death, the air full of white spores. 

Maybe she was falling into that. Good. She'd been to Heaven and hell, without ever having a choice. Straight out of the womb into the grave, and it was only the TARDIS that had mixed it up, shown her everything in between, all in the wrong order. Without time travel, maybe she could just have had a nor- mal life. It wouldn't have been like she'd seen in the Doctor's head that time. She'd have been a chemist, or an actress, or maybe she'd have chucked the whole thing and gone off to travel herself. 'Course she would. 

Those thoughts had taken her out of the despair again. Her eyes had begun to notice the beautiful colours that were blazing past the window. Colours born out of gases being ripped apart. 

That was where most elements came from. Out of supernovae, out of the death of stars. One day, the whole universe would probably end, and then everybody who was left would die. 

Did anything mean anything at all, then? 

Clarity let her exhale, finally, and relax the muscles of her mouth. Ace found that she was tasting blood from where she'd been biting her lip. 

The first gesture of his that she'd seen. Biting his lip at her beauty. 

Ace closed her eyes as the capsule shuddered. She wanted to remember. It was going to be hard, but they'd been up there together, way up there. They'd been great. Like the universe, like everything, it had come to an end. She wanted to know how. 

What goes up 'Must come down!' The Doctor shouted. Ace jumped, 'cos she thought she'd got her dreams under control now. But she'd heard it. She opened her eyes just in time to see a strange cube drop on to her lap. 

Remembering how the muscles worked, hating how the mere act of moving reminded her of him, muscles, moving against her, she reached out and took the cube. 

It was silver and transparent. It was like . . a door, or a crystal ball. She could see things in it. What she wanted to see . or. 

She couldn't stop herself thinking of it now. 

His finger hovered over the button. 

His other hand was scratching his neck. 

He was scratching his neck because he'd been infected, a long time ago. A spore had connected itself to his neck jack, the hole that she'd run a finger around and teased. 

With an effort, he seemed to steady himself, and looked down the telescope. That's when he realized, and, in a second, accepted it. She had been watching the creatures making themselves out of human flesh, like it was a dream. 

'Can't push the button,' he said. He hadn't given them an inch of victory, hadn't let them see any pain at all. 

"I love you,' she said. 

'I love you,' he said. 

And then something terrible happened. 

His body, that beautiful human body, had filled with fungus as the spore in his neck blossomed. His face had gone almost instantly, so there hadn't been any final expression. His head had burst into a bundle of grey nodules. 

And then the door slammed shut in front of Ace, and the escape pod blasted out of the ship on explosive bolts. 

Ace fell, staring, down towards the planet Heaven. 

Ace still fell now, clutching the cube tight to her chest. If she started crying, she thought, she'd never stop. 

But she could cry, and she would. 

And sometime in the future, she'd be able to start living again. There it was, land on the bloody horizon, far away. 

The sky outside the viewport had become blue. 

The shooting star fired its retros, and changed course suddenly, leaving a jagged trail in the skies of Heaven.