With Faith (Reprise)

[Arisu Lei]

"I saw the Romulan thing coming for a while." Arisu said as she cleaned her sunglasses. "Oh sure there would be hold outs, but they're more like us Terrans than they'd want to admit. Now the Imperium... honestly I thought it would end with Earth blowing up. And not us doing the deed, but like someone else. They pissed off a lot of people. You do know that the Bynars were developing a virus that would have completely plunged Earth into the dark ages like... permanently. No tech would survive in the entire Sol System. I had to... sanction... the computers that held the data, which was also the stored memories of about 200 Bynars, too dangerous to remain. Like I said, I'm not a completely good person, but I'm not evil. I did manage to save the data for them, but it's in a locked core. Not good, not evil. Grey."

[Rebecca Talon]

"I am a woman of extremes. There is either good or bad." Rebecca stared upwards and let out a shuttering breath. "I... I have never said this to anyone. I don't have nightmares from my combat... I don't lay awake at night and fret over the lives I have taken... Oh, they were justified. Always in the name of self-defense or in one's duty as a soldier in war. No, that's not why my conscience is bothered. It is not bothered because I enjoyed it. I... I... well, Bellatrix and I have far more in common than Nicholas and Dominus have. It's probably why I could just abandon Aimee as a child. That does haunt me. Are you a Christian? No, probably not. I was raised Catholic. I don't know if I believe any more, but if there is a God I know I'm going to hell."

[Arisu Lei]

"My father was Catholic..." Arisu said softly. "I wasn't a very good one, spent too much time around mother, she was more... I wouldn't say athiest, she entirely believed in a higher power, but she was more Eastern mysticism." she looked at Becca. "I do know one thing... we're harder on ourselves than God is. The fact that you think you're unworthy makes you worthy because the unworthy would believe themselves saved despite their actions. You, my friend, are very much a Catholic. Guilt and all." she looked at her forearms. "No one knows this, but I used to cut myself each time I killed someone, more to remember the death than anything really self harm related. When I came aboard the Mata Hari with Angel and Olivia years ago, I had to have my scars removed, because I ran out of space on my arms and Starfleet psych thought I was nuts."

[Rebecca Talon]

Rebecca laughed, "We are a pair that much is certain."

[Arisu Lei]

"We were brought together for a reason." Arisu replied. "I think I was only a few years old when Julie graduated from the Academy and I remember seeing you, never saw so much red hair that didn't come out of a bottle or didn't spend its night on a foam head. Kinda stuck with me. Hey I lived in Hawaii, you don't see many natural redheads."

[Rebecca Talon]

"No you don't... But, you don't see it much in New Mexico either. Mom was Irish through and through and the Sandovals were Spanish nobles with a lot of English heritage all the way back to Mary I of England. So, I guess it didn't get muted with browns." She shrugged with a laugh, "I'm not much of a geneticist so I could be way wrong. To that end there isn't a whole lot of Pacific Islanders in New Mexico either so both you and your sister are exotic beauties."

[Arisu Lei]

"I'm pretty sure that's why a kid from the Midwest married my sister. Although more Asians where he grew up than some countries." Ari chuckled. "Y'know as I've been studying the Jase and even some of the Ajem texts, the more I feel like I've always had a connection to the Iljuna, I just never really knew or understood it. Although the dreams and visions and things we sense confused me, probably why I tried to cope by drinking and sleeping with random men, doing more and more dangerous missions, the adrenaline sort of... got addicting. Nick had a term for it, danger junkie. Wasn't completely happy unless I was living on the edge, doing something insane. Walking into a situation with a tight skirt, a phaser and a blade and coming out bloody, bruised and happy... " she sighed heavily. "I feel probably more at peace than I ever have."

[Rebecca Talon]

"That's good. I'd like to think I had a small hand in that."

[Arisu Lei]

"That's why I feel like a 'grey' order would be a good thing... some of us are not so binary, but still a bit more toward the light than the dark." Arisu said as she looked up at the sky. "Dominus will fall before Bellatrix, I feel like if she's anything like you, she'll be stubborn and not accept any defeat so easily. Dominus won't go down without a fight either, but it may be other versions of him that we'll need to deal with. Unless they collectively decide not to continue their invasion here and move on."

[Rebecca Talon]

Rebecca sighed, "I have a feeling the first of the Four Horsemen will be Ian followed by his mother. With Bellatrix out of the picture Dominus will be left to his own devices and he will make mistakes."