DREAMS
CHAPTER NULL
Part One
IKS Katai
Orbit of the Genesis Planet
Late 2285
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Torg, of the house of K'Tal, stood proudly as Captain Kruge inspected them. Any reservations he had about his captain's character, he would hold his tongue about now with a certain grim satisfaction. He cared not for some of Kruge's actions, but service to the man who had bested the captain of the
Enterprise was its own reward.
Nodding brusquely, the squad of naval infantry meeting his approval, the Klingon warlord gave his command. "To the Transport Room! Qa'pla!"
They beamed over, they appeared- in a Federation transporter room, disruptor rifles at the ready, looking around for tricks. Inexplicably weak though their enemy's ship might be, this
was the
Enterprise... and their enemy was Kirk.
Torg signaled the squad forward with a word and a gesture. Fully briefed, they strode to the bridge, their disruptors at the ready- alert for treachery. They darted glances at the soothingly red-lit corridors- but there was no sign of Starfleet. Fully briefed, Torg led his men to the bridge. They fanned out. Smoke drifted in the air as he raised his communicator.
"My lord, the ship appears to be deserted."
"How can this be? They're hiding!"
"Yes, sir, but the bridge appears to be run by computer. It is the only thing speaking."
"Speaking? Let me hear!"
Torg obeyed, moving the communicator to a bridge station's speakers. "Nine... Eight... Seven.. Six..." the voice sounded almost sultry, welcoming, even. That had to be his imagination.
He had time to hear his captain scream "GET OUT! GET OUT OF THERE! GET OUT!" Then came the light. Swift as thought, the faces of his son and wife flashed before his eyes-
The
Enterprise's bridge self-destruct erased from the sidereal universe all that made up Torg, of the House of K'tal.
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No Place
No Time
Cries of alarm, dismay. Torg and his warriors abruptly regained consciousness under a dreadful sky of racing clouds and barren moor, overlooking a crimson river he could
smell as well as see.
"This is not the warrior's paradise." Targek's voice sounded hollow, despairing. Dead even by the standards of the slain. "We have died the death of fools!" His friend's rekindled anger and frustration let itself out in a roar to the malevolent skies. Two of his men joined Targek in the scream, two sank to their knees. Torg simply stood, looking around with dazed eyes.
And so he was first to see the woman unsteadily round a great boulder, coming towards them.
"Where are we?" The human had already come close to the knot of Klingons, though she stumbled, disoriented. She was dressed in the old Starfleet uniform, with its short gold skirt. Her appearance was alien, and the smooth brow was the least of it.
Her skin was almost snow-pale, with hair the color of straw and wide eyes with dark,
dark coloration. He'd thought Earthlings all had colored irises, like most other Klingonoids did. But the woman's were great round echoing pits of blackness, seeming to have no irises at all. Her gaze focused on his face, and he looked away from those eyes.
Strange, but unimportant. He answered her question. "I know why
we are here,
Starfleet. We are dead, and this is Hell. But what is an Earthling, ignorant of the rites and the hereafter, doing here?"
"Hmm...
Ah." The woman in yellow seemed to snap into focus. Her smile had a grim, wicked tilt to it, as she regained her composure. Her Klingon, at first slurred, took on a strangely accent-less perfection. "How else? I died with you. I was expecting Fiddler's Green; I must have gotten pulled off course."
She seemed to take the revelation that she was among the dead very casually. His eyes narrowed. There was something
eerie about her. As though she was more at home in this otherworld than to reality.
He frowned. Death had dulled his awareness of his duties and his loyalty to Kluge, but not erased them. "The bridge of the
Enterprise was deserted. We saw no sign of anyone aboard. Were you one of Kirk's?"
Torg knew little about the signs of middle age in humans. But this one had at least as much of the old, stern matron-commander in her as she had the dancing fury of the warrior-maid. Quite a lot of both, in truth. Even so, years fell from her face now. She smiled proudly, at that question.
"Always. From the first to the last."
"Then you are of Earth, and do not belong here. You shall have to make your own way; I have the concerns of my men." Torg shook his head. How could a
human be
here?
In reply, the woman in yellow smirked and stood straighter, prouder. The expression that somehow Klingonized her smooth, alien face. For the briefest fraction of a heartbeat, Torg thought he saw a tiny spark of electric blue in the night-black of her eye. Her expression was- well and truly foreign to him.
"I am very much of Earth. But here we stand. You were with me at the end, and I've brought you this far. For better or for worse, I am your companion on this journey. And you shades of fallen warriors are
mine- mine to travel with, to whatever end awaits us." She grinned eerily, folding her arms.
Perhaps it was the shock of having so abruptly learned all their myths were true. Perhaps it was the smothering spiritual oppression of this great anteroom to Hell. Perhaps it was the echo of her voice, returning to them from the rocks. But none of the six Klingons felt the urge to argue, or to question, those words.
She accompanied him to the edge of the plateau on which they had appeared, there to survey the land. A winding road led across the lowlands, full of uncountable trudging figures, bound for a dock on the edge of the red river.
The vessel moored there appeared no larger than a sporting field. And yet somehow he sensed that entire worlds and races could find room aboard the dark ferry. And that even packing that hull in numbers beyond counting, they would vanish without a trace in its dreadful enormity. His soul knew it for the Barge of the Dead, and he wondered.
All tales claimed that the dishonored dead appeared along the Path of Compulsion and were
forced to cross over. Even now Torg could feel the pull from the sight of the Barge. Fate whispered to him, beckoning his soul on its final journey to damnation and ruin.
The strange Earthling padded up beside him and looked down. Torg could tell the exact moment when her eyes fixed on the Barge. She doubled over at the sight, making a terrible retching sound, only slowly staggering upright. The Klingon expected the woman in yellow to avert her eyes, after that. But she stared forward defiantly, speaking with a hammered-iron voice. "No.
No. Absolutely not. We are
not going anywhere near her."
Sadly he turned to the nameless woman, shaking his head. How could she be made to understand the inevitability of fate for the dishonored? The power that bound him?
"This is the great bend in the river of blood, ending in the Falls of Madness. We can linger here, but not remain- and there is no way that does not lead to the river, nor any crossing save the Barge of the Dead."
"The river leads through the foothills, to better places. I can sense that much. Let's make our way overland, to a place beyond the falls."
"I've never heard of the dead making a vessel of their own, and sailing the river of blood." He felt a shiver of blasphemy, before his spirit rallied. Perhaps... perhaps? And yet- "I do not think the thing can be done."
"Leave that to me." Again the fey smile, again that hint of a spark. A wave of strangeness rolled away from the woman, and touched him. Torg felt an alien sensation, like a hint of song just below the threshold of hearing. It crept across his skin. It whispered of the terrors of the night. Parts of it
hated him. All this he knew.
But for all that, he felt unutterable relief. For all that the odd power she carried might war with his Klingon spirit, it warred harder still against the call of the Barge.
