As the maelstrom of sensations rose to a crescendo, Nevara forced herself to focus on the chaotic energy fluctuations of the antimatter core. Imperceptibly, the core began to pulsate in time with her heartbeat, and her breathing got progressively slower and shallower, until it ceased altogether. She saw stars in her visual field. At first she thought it was anoxia, but she felt no panic, no urgency to breathe. Her entire body became transparent, and stars appeared in her hands, her arms, her chest, her legs. Every cell in her body seemed to explode in light as her consciousness expanded to the scale of star clusters, nebulae, galaxies, and simultaneously contracted to the level of molecules, atoms and sub-atomic particles. She was everywhere, and nowhere. She was deep time, stretched across billions of years, and she was the sliding edge of now. Emotions engulfed her - grief, joy, fear, anger, love, sadness, disgust, surprise, wonder, but she was unmoved. Information flooded through her brain, activating subconscious analog and digital analysis routines, but she was uninterested in the conclusions. And all the time she felt the alien presence inside her head, whispering, singing, guiding her as she shifted through multiple dimensions of consciousness. As she started breathing again, the stardust ebbed and flowed through her lungs, and she felt the interconnectedness of matter and antimatter between the core, her body and that of the alien. She saw the fallen ship around her, saw through the walls to the surrounding desert sands, and heard a babble of voices from Dax, his rescue team, and the crews of her ships and nearby scavenger vessels poised like pieces on a chess board. And always the gentle alien voice was whispering directly into her auditory cortex. Then a void opened up and she was falling... ********************** See "White Desert", "White Desert II - White Heat", "White Desert III - Hidden", "White Desert IV - Disappeared", "White Desert V - Dimension Storm", "White Desert VI - Energy Scavengers" and "White Desert VII - Players of the Game". These stories have a habit of growing and growing... I still don't know where this is heading. Rendered in Poser Pro 2014 and Vue Infinite 2014, compositing, post-work and signature in Photoshop CC. I owe a ton of comments... They will happen, eventually! Craig