Star Trek: Lineage Ch. 06

Kara shrieked in pain, but Suvak struck again, striking Kara in the chest with her palm and sending her hurdling into the stone wall. The impact knocked the air from Kara's lungs, and she felt a horrible pain in her chest. She tried to breathe, but could not get her lungs to work.

"Now for you, harlot," Suvak growled down at Sahar. Her eyes widened and she tried to crawl away, but Suvak pinned her to the ground. "I shall visit upon you the humiliation you have brought me," Suvak hissed into Sahar's ear as she pushed her victim's robe up past her ass.

"No!" Sahar screamed pitifully. "Please, Master, I had no choice!"

"You had a choice: me, or death! And you chose poorly!" Suvak yelled, untying her own robe. Sahar felt something push against her anus, and began to cry in shame and fear. Sahar looked towards the door and saw Kara, hopelessly trying to breathe. She turned her head to see Casana twitching on the bed, coughing blood. Sahar gritted her teeth and shut her eyes, awaiting the pain of her impending rape.

Then, a powerful, deafening cry split the air. "Brother!" screamed a voice from the doorway, and Sahar opened her eyes to look. In the doorway stood a woman, clad in simple steel armor from the neck down. The metal was bare and unpolished, like that used for training new recruits. Her hands and feet were bare, with exception of simple gold bangles on her wrists and ankles.

"Stay out of this!" Suvak yelled at the woman, her face turning red.

"I will not! This has gone on long enough! These people are not your playthings," she yelled back. Her light brown hair fell around her shoulders, framing her pale face and soft blue eyes.

"Leave me," Suvak growled at her. Without responding, the woman crossed the room in only a few steps. Grabbing Suvak by the back of the neck, she pulled her off of Sahar and hurled her into the wall. The stone cracked under the impact, shaking the building to its foundation. The woman again crossed the room in only a few steps, raising one leg as she closed the gap.

As Suvak got to her feet, the woman's boot landed powerfully on Suvak's chest, sending her back into the wall, cracking it further. The woman drew her fist back, but as she punched, Suvak caught the hand in her fist. The Vulcan stood, head-butting the woman and sending her back a few steps.

Suvak reached for a sword hanging from the wall, bringing it down towards the woman with both hands. As the blade came down, a large bronze shield grew from the woman's left arm. She raised it above her head, falling to one knee and blocking the sword. At the same time, a spear materialized in her other hand as it shot forward. The woman buried the spear in Suvak's chest, striking the wall behind her.

A small purple flower fell silently to the grass.

Sahar's hand pulled back from the stone reflexively and she looked around, eyes wide. She saw Casana a few meters away, in her Starfleet uniform, a small purple flower at her feet. Beyond her, Kara was standing at the entrance to the city. Both of them were staring at her in shock and confusion. Sahar heard the humming of a tricorder behind her, and spun her head around to see Suvak, tricorder in hand, staring at her.

"What the fuck," Sahar muttered.

******

City Gate, 0630 hours local

"Did you all just...?" Casana asked softly.

"Yeah," Kara whispered in response.

"Interesting," Suvak said calmly.

"Is everyone okay?" Sahar blurted out.

"Uhh, yeah," Casana said as she felt her sides.

"I can breathe, so I think so," Kara mumbled.

"I am uninjured," Suvak said, looking down at her tricorder. "It is 0630 hours local, on the second day on the surface."

"What?" Sahar said, turning to face her. She walked over and looked at the tricorder. "Fuck, it is."

"Okay, what the hell just happened? Did we imagine that?" Casana cried.

"I don't think so," Kara said, her mouth gaping open as she looked through the gate into the city. "Take a look at this."

"Holy crap," Casana gasped. The city lay in ruins. Most of the buildings were collapsed and overgrown with vegetation. The palace was mostly intact, but the stone was cracked and faded, worn away by time. Even the walls were in ruins, covered with vines and missing whole sections.

They slowly walked down the street towards the palace, stepping over chunks of stone littering the roadway. The carvings on the streets had been worn down by time, and were now almost unrecognizable. In the distance, on the far side of the palace, stood the enormous metal statue of the woman from the palace, gleaming in the morning sun as though it were brand new. But instead of standing, the woman was on one knee, her spear thrusting forward, the shield raised above her head in protection.

The great doors to the palace lay on the floor of the foyer, covered in dust. Vines ran through cracks in the roof, and the dome had collapsed inward. Sahar led the way as they climbed over the rubble and up the stairs. They walked down the long hallway, the tapping of their boots the only sound, the curtains having long since rotted away.

They climbed the first set of stairs together and stopped at the landing. Sahar stepped through the doorway, over the shattered door. The bed was rotted away, as was all of the furniture. But there was a crater in the wall near the door.

"This is where I hit," Kara whispered, running her hands over the cracked stone.

"Look," Sahar said, pointing to the wall. The area she pointed to was crushed, with a deep indentation in the stone. Parts of the wall had fallen away, revealing a storage room on the other side.

Buried in the stone was a single spear.

"What the bloody hell fucking happened?" Kara yelled.

"Suvak, are there any power signatures? Any subspace distortions? Anything at all unusual?" Sahar asked.

"No," she responded, staring at her tricorder. "There is nothing out of the ordinary."

"No, there's something here," Casana whispered. "I can feel it."

"What is it?" asked Kara.

"I don't know. But when I was in here... before, I remember that I felt something. Like something was wrong."

"When?" said Sahar.

"When I was..." She hesitated. "When I was with Kara. Or Irla, or whoever."

"I was someone else. I felt perfectly at ease, like there was nothing wrong at all," Kara said. "Well, until Suvak tried to kill me."

"I did not try to kill you. I believe we were shown something," Suvak explained.

"Shown what?" Sahar asked curiously.

"I believe we were shown a crucial event in this city's history."

"Yeah, but how?" Kara cried.

"Telepathy," Casana said quietly.

"Telepathy?" Sahar repeated.

"Yes. From the moment we first saw the city, our minds were being influenced."

"I remember that I have felt agitated since we beamed down," Suvak added.

"Vulcan's are telepathic, so you may have been affected first. Something altered our perception of reality."

"Why?" Kara asked.

"To show us what happened to the city."

"But the tricorder isn't reading anything unusual," Sahar protested.

"Sensors cannot detect the telepathic messages used by Betazoids. At least, tricorders can't," Casana pointed out.

"Okay, but why?" Kara asked again. "I mean, why show us this? We didn't see what happened to this city. We saw what happened to these people. The city wouldn't have known about what we saw as it happened."

"The city's leaders were killed," Sahar said. "Society must have fallen apart."

"No," Kara objected. "Look around. Nothing has changed. The only difference is the statue. There are no signs of chaos. No evidence of looting, of rioting, not even of a mass exodus. It's like they put up that statue and left."

"Great," Sahar said, throwing up her hands. "So, to recap, we don't know who the people here were, we don't know where they came from, we don't know where they went, and we don't know what happened to them. Do we know anything?"

"Aresh and his sister were not of the same race as Shala, Irla, and Tilan," Suvak observed.

"Oh, so we don't know anything about two races, not one," Casana smiled.

"We know that Aresh lived much longer than his subjects. He told Tilan that he had a deal with her ancestors," Sahar said.

"So, we know that there were two races here, one more powerful than the other," Kara stated. "The weaker ones owed some debt to the stronger, otherwise they would not have pledged their service. They also didn't think that Aresh's people were gods. You don't stage a coup against a god. What else?"

"They didn't collapse after Aresh's death," Casana said.

"We don't know that Aresh was killed," Suvak pointed out. "Though we can assume he was deposed."

"Okay, they didn't collapse after Aresh was deposed," Casana corrected herself. "But they did disappear."

"I don't think they died," Sahar added. "There are no bodies or remains anywhere. Anything else?"

"They loved his sister," Kara said quietly.

"Why did you come to that conclusion?" Suvak asked.

"Because she beat the hell out of that birk. Besides, they built her a bloody statue."

"I know one other thing," Sahar said, flipping open her communicator. "We better get the fuck out outta here. Lieutenant Tehrani to Athena, requesting immediate beam-out."

******

Deck 7, Sahar's Quarters, 0230 hours

Sahar tossed and turned, unable to sleep. She took comfort in Kara's embrace, but it was not enough to calm her. Frustrated, she slid out of bed and walked over to the window. As she stared out at the stars, she heard the woman's voice in her head.

"I will be watching you."