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A dark sky…an empty landscape…rolling thunder.
C’Mal repeated the words just spoken by Sylvie Brumaire: “We will return you to your approximate origin in space and time.”
“Approximate origin, my ass,” said Sovak, peering into the darkness. She tapped her communicator. “Sovak to the Talon, respond please.”
C’Mal crouched on her felinid haunches and examined the land beneath their feet, rapping the tips of her claws against it. “Basalt,” she said.
“Sovak to anyone in range of my signal,” the Romulan tried again, “respond please.”
Discouraged, C’Mal growled and yelled into the sky, “Sylvie, you want to explain where the hell you just dumped us?”
The continuous thunder grew nearer.
“All right…,” C’Mal sighed. “Bye.” She began to walk away.
“Wha—where are you going?” Sovak demanded.
“You offered me a job on the Talon, a ship with which I’m intimately familiar, or at least I was in the mirror universe. But where is the Talon? No Talon…means no job.”
“So…you’re just going to walk away?”
“I told you I don’t want to be around you,” C’Mal reminded her.
Sovak objected: “Except when you say ‘you,’ you really mean her, not me. I’m not the ‘you’ you don’t like. I never was. That ‘you’ lived in the mirror universe, which doesn’t exist now, and thanks to us never did. So don’t talk to me like you mean I’m her because I’m not. I’m me.”
“No, I was talking about you,” replied C’Mal.
“Oh.”
Sovak watched C’Mal march into the darkness and disappear. She was forced to accept that this was not her C’Mal. Not the other mother of her son. Not the patient and loving caretaker who nursed her through the darkest time of her life. Just a stranger who reminded her of someone she once loved.
Lightning lit distant jagged peaks and graphite-colored clouds. The sky was occluded, so the stars couldn’t tell her what planet this was, or what year. She began walking. The desolation almost made her miss twenty-first century Los Angeles.
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Rain began to fall on her. “Sure,” she shouted heavenward, “why not? Everyone else does.” The rain strengthened, coming in sheets, and the ground flooded with coursing water. There seemed to be no higher elevation nearby to escape the sudden rising surge. Sovak, expecting the worst, secured her comm badge and phaser inside the water-tight pockets of her jacket. Rushing, roaring water reached her waist and lifted her from her feet. She tried to let it carry her along with minimum struggle. A sudden, hard collision with an unexpected obstacle left her dazed and trying to grasp at whatever it was. Swallowing water, she tried to right herself, but failed, flailing and gasping.
A hand tugged at her jacket and pulled her up above the water. Wedged in the branches of a massive tree, she rested, recovering her senses. The water raced past below her. She became aware that someone was perched just above her.
She heard C’Mal’s voice. “Looks like you owe me one.”
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Sovak awoke in daylight still hanging limply from the tree like a rag doll. She was parched. A tiny bluish-white sun hung high in the sky. Below her, she was amazed to see an endless field of quivering tissue-thin flowers, each about ten centimeters in diameter. She realized that tiny winged insects were devouring them. The air became saturated with oxygen. Soon almost nothing of the flowers remained, and the insects also disappeared.
It seemed C’Mal had departed. Despite being dazed and potentially concussed, Sovak remembered the Ferasan describing the distant lights of an outpost that she, with her less-capable Vulcanoid eyes, could not see. C’Mal had undoubtedly headed in that direction, whichever way that was.
Sovak lowered herself from the solitary tree, which appeared like nothing so much as a desperate hand reaching into the sky. A silty layer of muck now covered the ground. Looking up, she noticed a sensor array and line-of-sight transmitter—Federation technology—affixed to the tall trunk of the tree, and aimed at some distant uplifted hogback formation.
Peering around in every direction, she took her bearings. Seeing that she was alone, she proceeded toward the direction indicated by the transmitter.
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Counter adversity with bravery, the Klingon motto goes.
K’tavigh reminded himself of this as his day changed from bad to worse. First, Moleg had reported that the nuclear battery which powered their picker guns and other mining equipment was “megh'an,” or kaput. Then, the proximity alert began to chime. Someone was approaching the camp.
“At ready,” he ordered, unholstering his disruptor. Nal, his mate, remained beside him, her hand resting on the handle of a serrated kut’luch. Moleg and Vaq withdrew to either side of the main tent’s entrance, fighting knives at ready.
They waited…and nothing happened. K’tavigh groaned and motioned for the others to follow. They emerged into the light of day and checked the camp perimeter, only to find nothing unexpected.
Returning to the main tent, they stood grumbling as Moleg checked the proximity alarm.
“Piece of garbage,” he said.
“nuqneH.”
They turned, weapons drawn, to find C’Mal at the work table, siitting on a tall stool, looking quite at ease. Her eyes, framed by the forking stripes on her face, reflected the daylight back at them, glowing an eerie yellow-green.
K’Tavigh demanded, “Who are you? How did you get in here?”
“I’m a Caitian, and…,” she pointed to the ventilation opening far above them with a sharp-clawed digit, “I’m a Caitian.”
“What do you want?” asked Nal.
C’Mal replied, “To rule the galaxy, and to bend it to my will. But, for now, I’ll settle for a cup of bloodwine.”
The Klingons chuckled.
“We drank all the bloodwine weeks ago,” admitted K’tavigh. “I can only offer you a cup of water.”
“Water?” C’Mal stood before them, her hand conspicuously near her holstered phaser. “That’s disgusting.”
“It’s the best we can do for now,” said K’tavigh. He directed a barely audible command at Moleg, who brought C’Mal a cup of water. Moleg seemed transfixed by her as she drank greedily.
“Actually, there is something else I want,” she said, tossing the cup back to Moleg. “Passage off this shit hill of a planet.”
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Sovak increased her pace as the science outpost came into view. The camp consisted of three joined cargo pods. She saw no humanoids, but there were fresh footprints in the squelchy mud. A canteen rested on a nearby table-bench. Dehydrated and weak, she sniffed the liquid inside and drank. Federation usually meant Human, and Human microbes generally couldn’t hurt her.
“Hey!” she finally called out. “Anyone home?”
Everything was quiet. The air was still. She approached the cargo pods and found the doors locked. She beat on the door with the butt of the canteen three times.
A male voice spoke over the intercom: “Identify yourself.”
“I am Sovak T’Lon, former captain of the Federation starship U.S.S. Churchill, registration NCC-2820.”
“You’re a Starfleet captain?” The voice was doubtful.
“Retired,” she said.
“Vulcan?” he asked.
“Live long and prosper,” she answered offhandedly. It was not entirely true…but not completely untrue either.
“How do I know,” he asked accusingly, “that you’re not with the Klingons?”
Sovak’s impatience was on full display. “Let me guess your rank. Lieutenant? Junior grade. Freshly promoted…less than a year? Feel free to keep the door locked, because I can’t wait to tell this story to your superior officer when I get back.”
The door slid open. A man wearing the pips of a junior-grade lieutenant emerged, the phaser in his hand pointed at the ground.
“You have to understand,” he said, “the Klingons have been intimidating us for weeks now. Our transport away from this world has been delayed. We were almost washed away by the storm last night. We’re…in a bad place, philosophically and geographically.”
The man was sporting a half-grown mustache that only emphasized his youth. From inside the darkened pod, Sovak perceived several others timidly staring out at her. The man began to shift nervously from foot to foot.
“How—how do I know I can trust you?” he asked desperately.
Sovak pointed at herself indignantly and spoke as if her teeth were glued shut. “I graduated the top of my class at the Academy. I was promoted to captain of the Federation starship Churchill in record time. Now I captain my own vessel, the starship Talon. I just prevented the creation of the most dangerous object in all of existence, the sentient time portal known as the Guardian of Forever. I was instrumental in destroying the entire history of the mirror universe, thereby ensuring the future of our universe.” She grabbed the lieutenant by his shoulders and shook him. “Can you trust me? Can you trust me?” Sovak then seemed to instantly deflate. She whimpered, “Do you have anything to eat in there? I’m starving.”
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“It’s…beautiful,” C’Mal sighed, eyeing the meter-wide container of raw dilithium crystals. The bulky mass glowed with an ethereal blue light.
“And, it goes without saying, quite valuable,” said K’tavigh. “The purest vein of dilithium I’ve ever seen. The negative energy field lines produced by this planet result in dilithium deposits in the lower mantle. Then the cyclical resurfacing events bring the dilithium to the surface in diatremes of olivine. That makes for easy pickings, as long as the Federation doesn’t find you.”
“The Federation?” said C’Mal. “I’ve heard of them. Why are they in charge?”
“Because,” he explained slowly, “they’re the Federation. They control most of this quadrant of the galaxy, and make life difficult for small business people like ourselves. Of course, now we can’t extract anything, since our nuclear battery has died.”
C’Mal weighed a chunk of dilithium in her hand. “So, you want me to, ah, ‘borrow’ the nuclear battery from the Federation outpost so you can then finish extracting the vein of dilithium. And in exchange, you’ll give me a ride off this planet and back to what passes for civilization.”
“That’s right,” agreed K’tavigh. “Our transport is on the way, even as we speak.”
Moleg interjected, “Time is short. According to the Federation scientists, the planetary resurfacing event is due to start soon.”
“And once the resurfacing event starts,” K’tavigh said, “ain’t nobody doin’ no mining.”
C’Mal considered, then asked, “Why haven’t you taken the Humans’ battery for yourself already?”
“We have a reputation to protect,” Nal explained unconvincingly. “We kill the humans, the Federation starts asking questions.”
C’Mal noticed the Klingons had already given her some Human food—a protein bar—so theft did not seem to be a problem for them. But she saw no other means to escape this world, which would soon be flooded with volcanic extrusion.
“I’ll do it,” she said. “But I want the agreement in writing.”
“Don’t you trust me?” K’tavigh smiled.
“Hell no,” C’Mal said. “And I want it signed in blood, the old fashioned way.”
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The inexperienced and apprehensive Starfleet officer in charge of the expedition was Lieutenant Monty Jaynes, attached to the survey vessel U.S.S. Anaximander. Ensign Krili Erbiat was the lead science officer. Three young student researchers, all Human, completed the team.
Erbiat, a frighteningly thin Andorian female, described to Sovak how the planet was building toward a major subduction event, followed by resurfacing. The shell of the planet would crack, broken by energetic magma plumes carrying xenoliths from the mantle.
“This will occur when the magnetic field lines coalesce,” she explained. “But the relationship between the planet’s dynamo and its field lines is too complex to predict for certain. All that to say, we need to leave this frickin’ planet as soon as possible.”
Sovak explained that she was also marooned and was in as much jeopardy as they were.
“Why haven’t you called for emergency pickup?” asked Sovak.
Jaynes answered, “We can’t. This planet is a natural source of subspace noise. Long range communication is impossible from anywhere near this world.”
“So what exactly was your plan?” she asked, incredulous.
Jaynes led the group to the equipment storage pod, where he pointed to six large missiles secured on an antigravity pallet.
“We use these launchers to carry survey satellites into orbit as needed. Ordinarily, to recall the Anaximander, we’d send a missile carrying a subspace transmitter into interplanetary space so it can relay our message.”
Sovak stepped closer. It was evident that the missiles had been tampered with: access panels had been pried open, and loose connectors were trailing from the gap.
“The Klingons stole all the guidance computers,” Jaynes said. “We tried to jerry rig one, but the missile blew up on launch and nearly killed us.”
“What are Klingons doing here?” asked Sovak. “And how many are there?”
“There’s only a few. Probably mining some valuable elements from the shadow periodic table. Dinatrium. Dilithium. Dikalium. They’d have some explaining to do if they were apprehended by the Federation. At the very least they’d be permanently deported to Klingon space.”
Sovak kneeled by one of the missiles, opened the access panel, and peered inside. The connectors had been roughly severed with a knife blade.
“S.O.S.…,” she whispered.
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C’Mal was sitting on an outcrop above the Klingon camp in the sun. She was still rehydrating and consuming protein bars. Moleg joined her, sitting next to her.
“Kitty…,”
“Name’s not kitty,” she interrupted.
“…how did you arrive here?”
“I’d rather not say,” she replied. “You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
“You…attract me.” Moleg had a ravenous look in his eyes.
C’Mal smiled, reached to caress his face, then clamped her claws tightly into either side of his neck. The passion drained from him.
“Klingon anatomy,” she said. “You see, you have four bundles of muscles in front, and two large bundles in back. But between them, there is only a squishy layer of cartilage protecting your carotid arteries. All I have to do is squeeze a little bit, and all that pink stuff you call blood will spray out of you like a fountain. Are you listening to me?”
Moleg nodded earnestly.
“Now I could pin your neck to this rock and ask you to submit, but I don’t think that’s necessary, do you?”
Moleg rasped, “Not necessary.”
C’Mal retracted her claws, leaving puncture wounds in Moleg’s neck. Bloody wounds, but not artery-deep wounds. Moleg rubbed his neck and inserted some space between himself and the Ferasan.
“I think you’ve fought Klingons before,” he said with new respect.
“I’ve fought many Klingons,” she said. “Fought, and killed, many men.”
Moleg nodded, then asked with genuine curiosity, “Who was your first kill?”
“There was a man…who…was supposed to protect me. Instead he raped me. I wrote down every detail so I wouldn’t forget. I kept track of him. I watched him. And, when I was no longer a child, I killed him. And I made sure he knew why he was going to die. After that, I was captured by the Terran Empire, made into a slave, and trained as an assassin. But now I’m free.” She met his eyes. “So you see, I don’t intend to die here, not now that I’ve finally broken the chain that held me back.”
“Kitty,” Moleg said admiringly, “I’m glad you’re on our side.”
“I’m not on anybody’s side, Moleg.”
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The standard Starfleet comm badge had a strong processor and lots of memory, and the test pins could be hard-wired as low-latency output. Sovak planned to use one as a missile guidance system so they could launch a missile into interplanetary space and signal for help. One problem was: they had no guidance system code. They did have a maintenance program which theoretically would test all ranges of sensor inputs and guidance system outputs. Using this, Sovak hoped to generate a simulated guidance system by working backwards from the decompiled code. It was, she admitted, a long shot.
As they waited for the computer to generate the guidance system code, the Academy students who were assisting Sovak had questions.
“Are you the Sovak, the one who captains the Talon?” asked a hippyish, twitchy cadet named Tapp.
Sovak smiled. So the Talon existed in this future. Not everything had changed!
“That’s me,” she said.
“If you rose all the way to the rank of Captain, why did you leave Starfleet?” asked the blue-eyed, frizzy-haired female cadet named Keats.
“Ever hear of the U.S.S. Kali?” asked Sovak.
Wide-eyed, they shook they heads.
“Of course not,” Sovak grumbled, her mood darkening. “Starfleet swept that one under the rug. A rescue mission that went wrong. It ended my Starfleet career. It left me…crippled. Helpless. Trapped in my own body.” She brightened again. “But that’s all behind me.”
A scraggly cadet with ginger hair named Ruehl then spoke: “They say that you went crazy after your mother tried to kill you. That you took out half the Romulan syndicate.”
Sovak sighed.
“Listen, I lost my ship, my crew, my captaincy, my body. Then I lost the love of my life…and then my family. I mean, there’s a certain point where you—you transform like…Jekyll and Hyde…and you become something frightening to everybody else. Something hideous. And then, after ten or fifteen years, even if you find yourself again…that monster is still there.” She stared at nothing in particular. “Still there, watching you.”
The cadets sat frozen.
Sovak forced a laugh and added, “Well, life has its ups and downs, doesn’t it?”
Lieutenant Jaynes approached with inauspicious news: “Someone is approaching the camp. Probably Klingons. We have to lock up the compound.”
The Andorian and the three Human students seemed to freeze in terror.
Sovak brandished her phaser. “We just have to scare them off.”
Jaynes shook his head in disbelief and said, “I hope you’re a good shot.”
“Oh, I’m the best.” Sovak unsealed the door and heaved it aside.
Outside, in the 320K heat, Sovak observed a distant figure approach: a shimmering, jinn-like form which soon became the familiar felinid shape of C’Mal. Sovak smiled, and holstered her phaser. C’Mal also smiled. This was the first time Sovak had witnessed mirror universe C’Mal smile, and that should have been a warning. But Sovak flushed with happiness as she watched the Ferasan slink toward her and wrap herself around her, giving her a lengthy kiss.
The others watched from inside the transport pod, transfixed.
C’Mal withdrew and stood before Sovak with two phasers aimed at her, one in each hand. Sovak’s was missing.
“You’re so easy,” gloated C’Mal.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking your camp’s generator and battery. The Klingons need it.”
“You trust the Klingons?” asked Sovak.
“You trust the Humans?” demanded C’Mal, spitting.
Sovak challenged her: “I can’t let you, C’Mal.”
“Yeah, about that—”
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Sovak struggled to regain consciousness. She was lying ungainly on a cot, her head throbbing, pins and needles in her extremities. It was dark.
“She shot me, didn’t she?” Sovak moaned.
“And they took our power unit,” she heard Jaynes reply.
All the Humans were huddled around an emergency lamp, the only source of light in the darkened habitat pod.
“You didn’t try to stop them?” Sovak asked.
The frizzy haired girl responded angrily: “They’re Klingons. We’re grad students. What are we supposed to do? Challenge them to a spelling bee?”
“We can’t finish the emergency signal rocket without a power source,” Sovak said, forcing herself to sit upright. Her head was spinning.
“It’s worse than that,” Jaynes said. “The field lines are crossing. It’s already looking bad out there.”
Sovak realized the white noise she was hearing was rain hitting the roof of the pod. The she noticed that Erbiat, the Andorian ensign, was lying in a bunk, cooling packs placed over her body. She was a very pale shade of blue.
“There’s no energy to run her refrigeration suit,” explained Jaynes. “The heat will kill her.”
Sovak massaged her own legs to get feeling back. She said, “We have to…ask the Klingons for a ride.”
Jaynes shut his eyes tightly and rubbed his temples. “Bad plan.”
A comm device came to life, the voice startling everyone: “U.S.S. Anaximander to the geological team on 74 G Aquari 2. Do you read?”
Jaynes rocketed to his feet and exclaimed, “The radio has its own power source.” He read the display. “One-four-six megahertz. It means the Anaximander is in orbit above us. One of our earlier probes must have gotten through after all.” He transmitted, “Lieutenant Jaynes here. You guys arrived in a nick of time. We need immediate pick up.”
“Captain Noor here.” There was an uncomfortable pause. “I’m stating the obvious, but it’s impossible to beam you up even with pattern enhancers. We were hoping to wait out the geomagnetic storm and send down a runabout afterwards.”
Jaynes protested desperately, “We won’t be here if you wait. The planet is on the verge of a catastrophic resurfacing event. We’ve been attacked repeatedly by Klingons and have no power. Our Andorian team member is suffering from heat stress, soon to be heat stroke.”
Another pause. “Understood, Lieutenant Jaynes. We’re sending down an automated runabout now. Be prepared for departure.”
“Thank you, Anaximander.”
Sovak and the Human named Tapp proceeded out into the storm to search the sky for the arrival of the large runabout shuttle. The driving wind was blowing the rain almost horizontally. Distant lightning illuminated the stepped ridges around them, while below they could hear the thrum of overpowering floodwaters sweeping past.
They activated several chemical flares, then braced themselves against the receiver tower which was bolted into the rock at the highest point.
“The water is higher now than it ever has been,” yelled Tapp.
Sovak, wiping the rain from her face, caught sight of the runabout’s distant landing lights low in the sky.
She grabbed Tapp, pointed at the shuttle, and shouted, “Hurry and get the others.”
As Sovak watched the lights in the sky grow nearer and more distinct, the three students gathered around her, wearing backpacks crammed full.
Tapp reported, “Jaynes is getting Erbiat.”
Keats, the Human woman, had caught sight of something in the sky and pointed at it determinedly. Sovak watched as a Klingon bird of prey decloaked above them, launching a fiery torpedo at the advancing runabout. The screaming projectile impacted the shuttle, which, vomiting plasma and flame, appeared to accelerate toward them. The bird of prey disappeared again.
Keats began to scream. Sovak grabbed the three Humans and held them tightly.
The shuttle roared past, singeing them with heat, and struck the earth before tumbling into the rushing waters below, its flames and blue plasma still glowing beneath the surface.
“Oh, fuck,” said Sovak, realizing that the shuttle had taken most of the compound along with it, tearing the pods from their anchors. Jaynes and Erbiat were gone.
Again the bird of prey decloaked and targeted the advancing debris with its spotlights. First the shuttle and then the pods disappeared into a titanic swirling vortex that swallowed as much flood water as the valley could direct into it.
“What the hell is that?” cried Sovak.
Ruehl answered, hyperventilating, “A lava tunnel…the roof must have collapsed.”
The Klingon vessel disappeared once again.
“Will the Anaximander send another shuttle?” Tapp asked Sovak.
Sovak felt like laughing and crying at the same time.
“Which way is the Klingon camp?” she asked.
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C’Mal awoke disoriented, slumped over on a table inside the Klingon tent. Outside, the weather was raging, threatening to bring the structure down. She looked around and saw things missing, including the container of dilithium. Then she remembered the bloodwine that had fortuitously been discovered to celebrate their departure. Her cup of the drugged wine was still half full.
“Cowards,” she snarled. Amazingly, her phaser was still in its holster.
She emerged from the tent, buffeted by the wind and rain, and saw the giant bird of prey slowly moving off, ascending, its ember-colored engines aglow. The Klingons were leaving without her.
She tapped her communicator.
“K’tavigh, you forgot something! K’tavigh!”
When she realized he had no intention of responding, she drew her phaser, aimed at the receding target, and fired a continuous stream. They raised shields.
K’tavigh comm’d: “What are you doing, Kitty?”
“We had a contract!” she said, continuing to fire.
“Kitty, you’ll never break through our shields with that toy.”
“I’m not trying to break through your shields, knucklehead. I trying to ionize—”
Lightning snapped across the sky from several cloud banks, lighting up the intercepting Klingon ship and then continuing to the ground.
C’Mal thought she overheard Nal declare something about “guidance and navigation” as the ship listed to starboard and began to lose altitude. Several seconds later the bird of prey pitched into the deep, raging, black torrent and its lights disappeared.
“The weak die a thousand deaths; the mighty, just one,” the felinid quoted in Klingon.
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Sovak and the three Humans managed to find the abandoned Klingon camp. Rain was still falling in thick sheets from above, while tremors shook the rock beneath their feet.
C’Mal emerged from the tent, phaser drawn and aimed at Sovak.
“Where are the Klingons?” asked the Romulan.
“In the drink,” replied the Ferasan.
Sovak wiped the rain from her eyes, then gestured behind her at the group of Humans.
“We’re out of options,” she said.
C’Mal nodded. “Me too.” The felinid safety-locked her phaser and returned it to her holster. Closing her eyes and listening intently, she turned and peered into the sky. The familiar shape of a Miter-class starship was outlined by the lightning-filled clouds.
“Could that be—?”
“It’s the Talon,” stated Sovak with certainty.
C’Mal watched the corvette-sized ship descend rapidly to their position.
“Well, Brumaire did say ‘approximate,’” she observed.
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The surviving members of the geological expedition stayed to observe the once-every-two-hundred-million-years resurfacing event from distant orbit aboard the U.S.S. Anaximander. The planet was already criss-crossed with glowing stretches of magma when the Talon departed for deep space.
Syron, the Orion captain of the Talon since Sovak’s disappearance, had been tracking the Klingons as part of a Federation bounty program to apprehend illegal dilithium miners. With sensors ineffectual, the Talon had descended planetward to search for the bird of prey they had been tracking—K’tavigh’s bird of prey, now lost. Syron transferred command of the ship back to Sovak, to whom the Ferengi Qwaas had bequeathed the vessel years before.
Sovak considered throwing the mirror universe C’Mal out the airlock. But the delight shown by her son, M’Vek, at the sudden appearance of someone seemingly so close to the mother he had never met made her hesitate. She foresaw that C’Mal would use her son’s fascination against her, but such is life.
At the “welcome home” party, Sovak and C’Mal told them the tale of the Guardian of Forever and the mirror universe, which now only existed as memories. Of course, it all seemed utterly fantastical. But C’Mal's presence was bitter proof.
In any case, 2402 was promising to be an interesting year.