Severed: A log of Drogan Aklar

Posted on Sat Apr 26th, 2025 @ 6:51pm by Ensign Riya Aklar

3,420 words; about a 17 minute read

“Severed: A log of Drogan Aklar”
Professor Drogan Aklar, Lt. Cmdr., ret.
USS Bonhomme Richard-B
SD: 78285.1 (April 15, 2401)

“I alone am the answer.
I alone will make wrongs right.
But in order to root out the cancer,
It’s got to be kept from the sunlight.

I’m allied to the winter.
But don’t you get clever.
Don’t you get clever.
I’m allied to the landslide.
Gonna leave you all severed.
Gonna leave you all severed.”

- The Decemberists, “Severed”


“If you’re not Sattaro Taeno, then why are you wearing her face?” Drogan asked, his voice charged with emotion. His emotion, Volen’s emotion.

He was staring at the face of Volen Aklar’s daughter, pristine, beautiful, unreadable, a meter in front of him. She couldn’t be here. They knew it, all of Aklar’s hosts knew it. Phaele hoped, Berin dismissed. Drogan searched for an explanation. There were few.

Drogan remembered sitting in his quarters on the Potemkin and receiving the message from Captain Benevides informing him that Sattaro had died. Deep inside the Aklar symbiote, they remembered the message saying she had died evacuating Romulus as part of a Federation response team. But Drogan knew that had changed at some point, his awareness of time helping him to know that something moved those events. No longer did those people die during the Hobus Stellar Event. Rather, in his current understanding of history, Sattaro died during the bombing of Mars. She was in temporary command of the deRuyter while it was stationed at Mars. The ship was lost with all hands when the Utopia Planitia yards had been destroyed as Sattaro was overseeing the installation of a new sensor array. History shifted, but the result was the same either way.

“Sir,” she intoned with slightly more menace than she probably intended. “I am on duty and do not have time for whatever game this is. I am not Sattaro Taeno.” She made to move away, turning to advance down the corridor.

Drogan reached out to grab her arm. “I’m sorry, I just have one more question.”

She recoiled and advanced on him. “Sir, if you do not leave me alone I will be calling ship security to have you taken to the brig.” Her face was very near to his.

It wasn’t her voice, it wasn’t her posture, it wasn’t her tone. Volen was working like a machine at the back of his mind, balancing the trauma of seeing his daughter alive again but not herself with his security training. Drogan was trying to hold his own pieces together.

“Again, I’m sorry, I’m not normally this insistent. It’s just that you bear an uncommonly similar appearance to a former host’s daughter.” He smiled to try and break the mood. The woman in front of him stepped back. She was still annoyed, mad even. But they were processing the information before speaking.

But in the seconds that elapsed, Drogan’s eyes noticed something. As she drew back, his eyes again passed over her spots. And he saw something odd. They weren’t spots. Oh, they were swirls and patterns but they lacked the distinctive patterning, the definition of Trill spots. As she moved further away, he realized the spots were uniform. Across both sides of her neck, the same swirl pattern. His eyes were moving rapidly now.

Volen’s mind finally picked up on this information. Whatever technology is being used to create this face has trouble with the fractal patterning of our spots.

Suddenly, the entire demeanor of the being in front of him changed. It wasn’t annoyed, put upon or nervous. It was resigned and it saw where Aklar was looking.

“The damned spots,” They said in a flat, imperious tone. “Takes too much concentration.”

“Who are you?” Drogan demanded. He instinctively reached for his tricorder, only to realize he didn’t wear one like he did when he was in the fleet. “And why are you impersonating my dead daughter?”

For a second, the figure in front of him cocked its head. It didn’t know Sattaro wasn’t alive. The being broke into a run. At first it did so on two legs. And suddenly, those legs grew to take longer strides. Drogan gave chase, though he was admittedly out of shape for chasing whatever this was. He also felt Volen in here, through Aklar he was manipulating Drogan’s bodily functions, pumping adrenaline into his system, blocking pain receptors.

“STOP!” He cried, trying to rouse someone. Although he knew the design of the cabins meant it would be hard for someone to hear him. He slapped at this combadge. “Aklar to security,” he huffed and puffed. “Unidentified being on Deck 9. Impersonating deceased officer Sattaro Taeno.”

He charged forward, watching the shape of his daughter continue to shift, legs and arms distorting. A shapeshifter. In frustration he threw his jacket forward. Without losing stride, the shape manifested a third limb and knocked the jacket to the floor. But that was all he needed. For a brief second the entire being turned gold. A Founder! Volen said in his mind while Drogan shouted, “Changeling!” The figure exploded into motion then, losing its physical form all together and becoming a ball of self-propelled gold goop.

Drogan slapped his chest again, “Emergency!” He stopped as he looked at the spooling and unspooling ball. They reached a junction, three officer’s quarters and the open hallway Drogan was standing in. Cornered. There was a chirp on the badge, and Drogan pressed it. “Alert, there is a Changeling aboard. Repeat, there is a Change–”

He never heard the sound of the Changeling shifting its shape. As the words left his mouth, he felt a pain he’d never felt before. A searing hot, freezing cold cut deep in his mind. The hurt ran through him. His mind exploded, hot white. He couldn’t think, couldn’t feel. Time froze, it was seconds or hours. White hot pain across his senses.

And then his eyes opened. He looked down to see the Changeling before him. The featureless face of a Founder, clay brown clothing, an arm extended toward him. The arm seemed too long, as if it was growing toward Drogan.

As if it was growing through Drogan.

And then he realized, the Changeling’s arm had shifted into a long, sharp metal knife and was plunged into his midsection. Plunged… into his symbiote pouch.

“You solids are so poorly designed,” it said. “A single synaptic cluster and your whole system is undone.” There was a sickening sound of vacuum as the hand retracted, became a hand again. The Founder regarded it, for a moment, admiring its work.

Drogan’s nerves ignited in pain as it withdrew. He didn’t remember falling but within a blink he was sitting on the floor of the hallway. He couldn’t say words. Couldn’t form anything, his hands moved to his pouch. He tried to call for Volen or Eurid. But suddenly… there was nothing. No voices, no echo. He called on Volen’s memories. There was a flicker. He remembered Volen… but it was passive. Past tense. He couldn’t pull him forward. There was silence where once there were voices. There was nothing where once there was something. He was alone.

“You… severed… the connect…” Drogan was saying words, but the pain still permeated him. “Connect, Aklar. Can’t… can’t hear them.”

The Changeling reverted to the face of Sattaro Taeno, briefly. It sood there, over Aklar’s body, studying him. It slowly changed in color from the yellow-tan of Sattaro to the deep burnished wood of Drogan.

Drogan’s breathing was ragged as he looked up at the being now shaping its face into his. “You better… get the spots… right… this time.” He leaned back against the bulkhead. “Mine… are counterclockwise. Except… for the ones…” His eyes closed. “That aren’t.” Drogan struggled to clench and unclench his right hand. It was taking considerable effort. “At least… finish me off.”

The Changeling turned. “Your species is known to us, Trill. Consider this a mercy. You will die from being separated. I have no need to make this worse for you.”

“Is this death?” He arched his brow. “I really hoped… Phaele would be here…” He could see the blood pooling in his hands. Felt cold, drained, alone. He was looking for reassurance from his former selves, all of whom had been through this. But they weren’t here. He could feel Aklar crawling around, something he was largely inured to while connected. His pouch convulsed. He could feel Aklar loosening its grip, preparing to be free of him.

Drogan watched the Changeling move down the hall. He heard the sounds of commotion. Phasers. The ship had come to a halt. They were going to miss the Fleet.

He breathed more raggedly, his mind falling to Teagan. All that time, all those moments. “Brave heart, Teagen.” He smiled, and flexed his hand, extending two fingers, reaching out in the gesture he and Ceja used to connect with each other. He closed his eyes.

In the moments before blackness, his mind reeled. He still couldn’t feel the hosts. Their impressions were still with him. But they were functionally gone. He was alone. The curse of the Trill, to be joined to more than one and to lose nothing, but to also lose everything.

But the darkness resolved.

In his mind’s eye, he saw a woman sitting alone. She was seated at a table, on which there was a chessboard. He didn’t so much approach them as they came to him. The woman was a little older than he was. Brunette hair. Andrea. She regarded him. At first she said nothing, but picked up a piece from the board. It was a knight, but it also wasn’t a knight. Its head was shaped like a chroniton particle. She idly made a few moves with it. It circled the board. He could see the other pieces: a King whose head was a Warp core, a Queen in the shape of a cane, a bishop wearing medical blue, another wearing science teal, the rooks both had bald pates, one bifurcated in blue, the other with a ridge of lines down its front. The other knight was off the board.

“Quite the metaphor,” he said.

She looked at him as she lifted the chroniton-headed knight off the board. “It had to happen. You know that. You couldn’t change Tyler’s path and still have Tom. It doesn’t work, there’s no balance.” She held up the piece and regarded it, looking past Drogan.

“Just because I know it, doesn’t make it right.” If this was the afterlife, he was going to have to find the complaints department.

“Don’t worry. It’s not the afterlife.” She smiled, genuinely, and placed the piece to the side. It wasn’t with the felled horse-headed knight piece. It was on its own. “I’m here because you deserve to know.”

“Know what?” He was frustrated by overwrought Earth metaphors at the best of times. This was getting ridiculous.

“You think we were cruel in erasing Tyler. And, yes, it was unfair.” She picked up the horse-headed knight. “Don’t you think I would have wanted to give Thomas this? His brother back? His life? But there’s no formula, no magic hand wave that allows the Thomas you and I knew and the Tyler you knew to coexist.”

She set the horse-headed piece back down where she had gotten it from, on its side, out of play. “When we changed time, when we took away time travel, clues were left to guide you back. Your ability to bury your own personality and take on others meant that we could hide the chroniton info in Aklar, passive memory.” She again picked up the chroniton-headed piece. “I cheated. Or more precisely, I am in the process of cheating. I just left you all at the Guardian. I pushed things just enough for you and James and Teagan and Jayla to remember.”

Drogan narrowed his eyes. “You just… You’re here to make sure I remember the chroniton?” Suddenly, realization. “You’re bending time! You’re making sure past me remembers it by giving it to me now, creating a paradox where I could only know it if I had known at the time.”

“Sure, that’s a close enough approximation.” She pushed a little bit on each of the pieces, lining them up. “I’ve done it before. Jarvin should have died 5 times by now if not for me plucking strings. He’s lucky he was such a good boss.” She absently placed a finger on the rook with the ridge line. “Ask him about the Dyson Sphere sometime. James, Thomas, they’ve all had some experience where I’ve pushed time just a bit, sometimes before they even knew who I was. Because the universe needs them. Because the universe is about to hear the name Potemkin as a rallying cry for the hope that can be.” She held up the chroniton-headed piece and slowly pulled at it, taking off the shape. It revealed a knight piece with a jaguar head. It was covered in spots. Counterclockwise spots.

“So what you’re telling me is that you’ve been here the whole time? Shaping the ‘Tem’s history for some big inflection point. Keeping us out of danger.”

The multi-dimensional space time being known as Andrea O’Donnell rolled her eyes as if she heard the most droll joke. “I thought you were the smart one. You have to know no ship goes through that many bridge modules without some guiding hand keeping the rest of it from blowing up around you.” A genial smile. “Not everything, no. A lot of it is down to the things you all do, did, will do, will have done. You collectively built a timeline of hope, of inspiration. And the galaxy is going to need that. And you all have a part to play in it.” She held the piece in her hand up.

She tossed the now jaguar-headed piece to Drogan. “Forgive yourself, Drogan Enialis. You deserve to. Because…” She paused as he caught the piece, the Trill staring at it expecting it to answer something, anything. “There’s a real possibility, Drogan. Somewhere in time. No matter how remote, now matter how impossible, no matter how improbable…” She placed a hand on the board.

“I can’t replace your time. Can’t fix it for you. And I’m sorry. But be comforted knowing… there’s a somewhere, a time, a place. Where Tom and Tyler are together. They serve aboard a resplendent Akira-class. They have families and friends. Best friends with the Fleet Captain, brothers to a surly Bajoran, mentors to a lovely Doctor,” she paused, “even friends with an annoying Trill.”

“But it’s just a moment. A fraction of time. Perfect, ordinary time. That little time is what we, what I, could give him. Because you all loved him.” She paused, and regarded him more directly. “You didn’t lie to him, Drogan. You just… couldn’t know.”

Drogan absorbed it all. “It helps.” He stared at the figure in his hands, tears in his eyes. “I just… He didn’t deserve to be alone.” He looked up at Andrea, her soft eyes. “I’m glad he’s not.” He breathed out, his tears slowing. “Why now?”

“For me, it’s moments after I went into the Guardian to fix time. This is where it starts. Aklar remembers time, the chroniton, because he saw a face from a time that shouldn’t be, her face…” Her demeanor was sad but resolute. “It cascades back. But I’m also here because this is the last play for someone who remembers the chrontion. Something is going to happen and that knowledge won’t be needed anymore.”

“So I’m dead and the next Aklar doesn’t need to –”

“I know you hate Earth metaphors, but you clearly haven’t been tracking this one.”

He looked at her, annoyed. “Just get it over with.”

“Drogan, your game piece hasn’t been captured. I just took it off the board for a while.”

He looked at the piece again, then back to her. “You mean, I’m not… ?”

“It was good to see you. I don’t know when you’ll actually get back, I’m afraid. James and crew are going to heroically save the universe yet again and it’s going to rewrite so much of time that some of the rules will have to adapt. Tell Thomas I said, ‘Hello.’”

The piece flew out of his hand, taking its place on the gameboard. Everything around him turned white… then faded to black.

—

On the deck of the Bonhomme Richard, Drogan drifted into unconsciousness on the cold floor. The Aklar symbiote protruding from his pouch.

The Richard had come to a stop at the call of a Changeling aboard. They immediately locked down the ship and began checks. A security team found Aklar and got him to sickbay. There were no viable Trill aboard, so a tank was prepared for the symbiote. As soon as the ship got underway, they would contact the Symbiosis Commission for direction on who they should bring Aklar to on Earth. The records didn’t indicate that Drogan had chosen a host. Bad luck, he’d called it when asked at his last physical.

The medical team, though, was most perplexed by Drogan. His biological functions were still functioning with little degradation. His life signs were stable, if they were processing pain signals from the severed synaptic connection. But he was unconscious, alive. The shock of the sudden severing of his symbiote, perhaps? Since Trill symbiosis was only known widely for the last 40 years, Federation doctors only knew that most Trill died upon separation. There were outlier cases, sure, but only among those who were joined for brief periods of time. This was unique. He would be transferred to StarFleet medical once the ship resumed course.

Stopping had been the best thing for the Richard. Cutting themselves off from all comms to find the Changeling saved them from the Borg communications that turned the young crews of the other Frontier Day crews. They eventually found the Changeling, attempting to flee with a face informed as much by Drogan as Sattaro. In the days following Frontier Day, they pieced together the Changeling infiltration. They pressed the Founder to find out why it picked Sattaro, but all they would say is that the photo recurred in their database of officers they could easily impersonate with little question. Why they hadn’t picked up on the fact she had been dead for a decade could never quite be ascertained. The Changeling had been finalizing some of the sabotage needed to allow the takeover of Fleet Formation that night. Fortunately, the fight with Aklar had distracted it and kept the crew from engaging in Fleet Formation.

When they resumed course, they found a changed Federation, dealing with the aftershocks of the Battle of Frontier Day. But they had also seen a vision of a past that may have been. A hopeful past, one that said tomorrow could be better, heralded by one ship, Potemkin.

Drogan Enialis had been severed. From Aklar, from his past lives, from the people who were him and weren’t him. From the chroniton, and for a time, from reality. But it was another’s turn, to take on Aklar, to learn about the world and perhaps take their place in time.

=/\= To be concluded =/\=

This log is a sequel to “Some Things Last A Long Time,” a 2014 log in which Drogan first draws the chroniton particle. It also contains elements repurposed from an unfinished log, “Time Makes Fools of Us All,” that has been sitting in my Gmail drafts folder since 2014. Both are bookends to the Tyler Arnet affair. This log is also, improbably, a sequel to - and a retcon of - the log “I Regret to Inform…” from 2012.

This log would not be possible without Arnet’s brilliant work on the Tyler Arnet storyline. This story and its author are in his debt for getting to play in the toy box.

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