Scarran Decimator, near Arnessk
Ahkna entered the cell accompanied by guards. The guards were accompanied by guns. And one of those guns fired. Yondalao was struck in the face and thrown back into the wall by the force of the blast. The atmosphere of peace, already fragile, was shattered. "What is this?" Staleek demanded.
Yondalao, determined to see this through in spite of what Stark knew was a fatal wound, answered. "It is the proper course of action."
Staleek, no longer remotely interested, headed for the exit. "If your kind has a prayer for the dying," he said dismissively, "fill your mind with it now that you may be comforted."
Stark, meanwhile, huddled against a wall, having no desire to be shot. He ought to be attending to the Eidelon. He knew that. But he also knew that a wrong move now could lead to his own death. And Stark had long ago promised himself that he would die free. Somehow. And even discounting that, he had no business attending to the death of someone like Yondalao. Still, he reasoned, Yondalao ought not to be alone. He could at least stay with the man.
"He's passing over," Stark said as he reached the dying man's side. "The secret of peace is lost."
"It's not good," Crichton responded. "Stark, give him last rites."
Stark had been prepared to stay with Yondalao, pray for him. But he wasn't suitable to be carrying the last memories of someone like the Hierarch, someone so undeniably good. Someone on whom the fate of the galaxy, or at least a large portion of it at the moment, might be resting. He was just himself, a former slave who already held pieces of far too many good souls, and a not insubstantial number of bad ones, within himself.
"Oh, I cannot," Stark answered, backing away quickly. "I'm beneath him."
"Astro Boy, you can take his power, protect his gift."
"Oh no, I cannot," Stark repeated. He wasn't ready. Maybe if he could prepar, somehow. If there were time.
Crichton just reached out and grabbed Stark before he could get away from Yondalao. "Stark, you can! You're a Stykera. I've seen you do amazing things. When you pass someone over, you take what they know. Help him help us."
"Quickly," Aeryn joined in. "Before he dies."
"No," Stark insisted, "I cannot!" They didn't understand. They couldn't. He simply wasn't good enough to hold onto to something like this and they couldn't make him do it. Could they? They wouldn't. They knew, knew what his life had been before when he'd been forced to attend deaths like this. But not like this. Those had mostly been Scarrans. And here he was, again surrounded by Scarrans, held captive. Trapped. They were his friends, they wouldn't really force something like that on him. He knew it was important. He knew. But he still couldn't do this and the idea of being forced to do so was perhaps more terrifying than attending to the death itself. Perhaps, perhaps if they just gave him a moment. Perhaps he could do this. For a time. A very, very brief time. Perhaps. But not if they forced him to do it. If they just gave him a moment to prepare. Just a moment. Then maybe, maybe he could do it. But there wasn't going to be time, not to prepare or even to explain the need.
"Aeryn," Crichton snapped, "help me." And she did, helping, along with Skiozu, to drag the still resisting Stark towards Yondalao.
"No, no, no," Stark repeated helplessly. Didn't they understand? They couldn't do this to him. He wasn't ready. He could have been ready, perhaps. If they'd given him just a little more time. Forcing this sort of thing was wrong. It was the sort of thing Scarrans did to their slaves, not the sort of thing friends did to each other. And yet here they were, doing it. Crichton pulled Stark's mask off, pushing his face towards Yondalao.
Stark, naturally, screamed. The entire time. It didn't help. The others held him there, and with his mask off and no time to pull himself together, the light, the energy that the mask kept contained was released. And he was Stykera, this was what came naturally, even if the Stykera wasn't a willing participant. Yondalao's spirit was there, crossing over to wherever it was Eidelon souls went, and the peace-making ability that Yondalao had so desperately wanted to share with his people's descendants on Arnessk passed to Stark. Violently. The force of it, when the energy transfer (Stark had no better way to describe it, after all these years, not that he'd ever really put much thought into it) ended, was enough to send Stark, Crichton, Aeryn, and Sikozu flying backwards.
"My mask," he said desperately, grabbing for it and fitting it back into place. "Don't touch me!" He snarled at the others, batted them away as he pushed himself backward along the floor. He didn't get far. He'd been wrong. This wasn't what Scarrans did to their slaves. This had hurt more.
Aeryn looked down at him. "What have we done?"
"I don't know," Crichton answered, looking down with concern at Stark as well, who continued to lie on the floor and to flinch and slap away any attempted touch. "Something good...or something very bad."
Had he been willing to speak at the moment, or even to look at the others, Stark would have been adamant that this fell into the latter category.
And suddenly all thoughts of the prone Stykera were forgotten. Aeryn's baby needed to be transferred from Rygel as soon as possible and of course, because the universe hated them all, the Scarrans chose that moment to begin filling the chamber with gas. A paralytic embalming agent, Scorpius explained, but while Stark was dimly aware of this, he simply didn't care. He just backed his away onto a bench in a corner and waited. He wasn't sure for what. He didn't care about that either. At the moment, he didn't care about much at all.
[I don't even know why this is taking such a ridiculous amount of time for me. Also, I hate that they did that to Stark in PK Wars. It was just CRUEL. Dialogue and such taken from a transcript of hour 2 of PK Wars. Stark's internal babble, all me. Will the next installment take two months? I HOPE NOT. Someone just poke me with a stick or something, will you?]