The Last Iteration: All This Has Happened Before … Chapter 7
The Last Iteration: All This Has Happened Before …
Chapter 7: Offerings to the Qap’vah Qun
Chakotay wiped the sweat from his ridged brow as he looked up from the food samples he was scanning, and wished that he really were a Klingon. Even this late in day, with the sun falling rapidly towards the horizon, the air was still heat-laden and humid. Across the field, Torres looked cool and comfortable as she helped Ayala carry sacks of yub’naH fruit from the orchard to the storehouse just outside the abandoned village in the Ketha Lowlands. Once in the storehouse, Voyager could transport the food without having to worry about prying eyes.
Getting to Qo’NoS had been an undertaking as they struggled to maintain the warp field. The anomaly’s transphasic resonance traces contaminating the hull, kept destabilizing the field whenever the ship tried to go above warp five. But there had been much jubilation when they’d limped in-system three weeks ago and found that not only did Praxis have the same composition as the moon in their universe, but there were also Klingons present on Qo’NoS. However, that joy was short-lived as it was just as obvious that something cataclysmic had happened to the Klingons approximately five thousand years ago.
Voyager had found ancient satellites and spacecraft on the nearest moons and a neighbouring planet. They’d also found evidence of mass destruction of fairly advanced cities all around the Klingon homeworld’s dominant super-continent. Some of the ruins were radioactive, indicating that nuclear and energy weapons had been used, while others showed impact craters consistent with the use of mass drivers to bombard the planet.
However, the tenacious Klingons had survived and thrived, and though they were still largely agrarian, they were starting to relearn some of their lost technology. A few of the northern cities already had electricity and the consensus was that within a decade or two, they would crack the secret of the internal combustion engine.
He could see the relief in B’Elanna’s eyes at the confirmation of the Klingons’ survival. Despite her discomfort with her mixed parentage, Chakotay knew that her Klingon heritage was still very important to her. And like her, he hoped that humans and Earth had also survived in this universe.
The first two weeks in-system had been spent mining Praxis and completing repairs to Voyager. It was only in the last week that they’d beamed down to this abandoned village to gather food from its fields and orchards, and the nearby forest.
“Heads up, sir,” Crewman Moira Jarvis said quietly as she handed him a bat’leth. The tall, blonde security woman was barely recognisable beneath her Klingon disguise.
Chakotay followed her gaze towards the forest on the edge of the village’s communal farm. They didn’t know why the village had been deserted; only that it had been abandoned within the last decade.
About fifty Klingon warriors rode out of the forest, most astride hulking sarqHs, large horse-like animals. But, while some of the warriors had carcases of targs and other wild game tied to carry sticks hanging off the backs of their mounts, it was obvious that hunting had been a secondary activity.
In a large cage on a cart pulled by a team of sarqHs were about two dozen frightened children ranging from toddler age to approximately five or six years old. On a forced march behind the cart was a dirty, ragged line of older children between thirteen to sixteen standard years of age-four boys and three girls.
“Everyone, we have company-keep working, but stay alert,” he muttered, sliding the tricorder into a sack of root vegetables. Everyone wore their communicators on the inside of their clothing and had been given sub-dermal locators for extra security, in case they needed an emergency beam out.
B’Elanna and Ayala moved to stand beside him as three male warriors and two females approached. B’Elanna stepped out in front, her hand on the hilt of the dagger that hung from her waist.
“Who are you to trespass on our lands?” she challenged with a low growl.
“I am Gar, son of Jerok, First Warrior of the House of Baroth,” the lead warrior roared, glaring down at her. “The Warriors of Baroth go where they will, woman.”
“Not on our lands they don’t,” she said, standing her ground.
Gar and the other warriors roared with laughter. “These lands are plague lands of the accursed Rompir,” he said.
“The House of Rompir is no more,” B’Elanna returned imperiously. “These are Moh’Kai lands now. I am B’Elanna, daughter of Miral of the House of Moh’Kai.”
Gar chuckled softly. “Well met, daughter of Moh’Kai,” he said. “You’re lucky our bellies are full and we have no need for any more sacrifices to the Qap’vah Qun, woman.”
B’Elanna’s eyes widened and she stiffened visibly as the warriors laughed again and then spurred their steeds onwards. Chakotay heard one woman spit the word “farmers” as if it were an epithet.
“If you travel two days east, you will find more lands to add to Moh’Kai holdings,” the woman laughed as she rode past.
However, as the children passed, there was such fear in the eyes of the younger ones and hatred in the eyes of the teenagers that Chakotay felt a chill down his back.
“Help us, Great Lady,” a girl, no more than thirteen years old, whispered desperately.
A startled Chakotay started forward, but B’Elanna caught his wrist in an iron grip, holding him back. They stood watching the group as they passed through the village before turning towards the river and disappearing from sight.
“B’Elanna?” Chakotay said trying to keep the anger from his voice. “They need our help-she asked you for help.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Torres bit out, jaw clenched with fury. “You don’t even have any idea of what the hell that was, Chakotay!”
“What do you mean, B’Elanna?” Ayala asked in concern.
Instead of answering him, she called out, “Torres to Voyager.”
“We’re listening, B’Elanna,” Janeway replied quietly.
“Captain, can you track those warriors?”
“We’re doing so right now. They’re headed towards the footbridge, but as soon as they left the village, their pace slowed considerably.”
“Good, the children are slowing them down,” Torres said. “That wasn’t a normal hunting party, Chakotay. The children’s village has probably been burnt to the ground and their parents-all the adults-slaughtered. That’s what the insult meant when they gave us directions to other lands to add to Moh’Kai holdings. And in the past, Klingons went to war over three things-honour, territory and resources … and religious reasons.”
“I didn’t think there was a Klingon religion,” Ayala said.
“There isn’t now,” she said grimly. “As the legend goes, the first Klingon, Kotar, killed our gods. But, before Kahless united the Empire, there were older cults centred on the QuprIp’vagh Qun-the Elder Gods. They pronounce it differently here-but the point is that they had some pretty brutal practices. The very young children … they’re lucky; they’re still young enough to be indoctrinated into their places as slaves and foot soldiers for the House of Baroth. Children older than five or six would already be too proud-too apt to stick a knife in the back of their master. The warriors would have slaughtered any children between seven and thirteen, and babies younger than three.”
They stared at her, horror-stricken. “What about the older children?” Chakotay asked. “Wouldn’t they be even more dangerous than a bunch of seven or eight-year-olds?”
“They would be if they lived long enough to become a threat; they’re sacrifices, Chakotay,” B’Elanna replied in the painful, horrified silence. “The ones that survive the march will be deemed to have strong warrior hearts, worthy sacrifices for the gods. Depending on how brutal this particular cult is-executions can be swift and clean, or long and torturous.”
“We can’t just leave them to be killed,” Ayala croaked. “You heard that child. She was begging us for help.”
B’Elanna answered grimly. “I know,” she said. “But we have to think this through. If we rescue them, we can’t leave them here, yet we can’t take them with us either.”
“What do you mean, B’Elanna?” Janeway asked.
“I mean, we have to think this through very carefully-they have no parents, Captain,” she replied. “Without family, without a village, they’ll be dead within a week. Unless we find somewhere isolated and secure where they can survive, they’re simply a bunch of children all alone. It will make them targets no matter where on this planet we put them.”
“And the only places isolated enough are very hostile or still radioactive,” Chakotay said softly in disappointment.
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Lorsel’s belly hurt and her head ached, but she barely noticed it. She watched on the guard as he grumblingly made his way to the cook-fires to gorge himself before grudgingly bringing them a meagre meal of water and dried meat. The babies were lucky; their guards would keep them well fed and healthy. The House of Borath wanted strong slaves.
The gods were surely smiling on her, for Rork was one of the more discontented warriors … resentful of being left alone to guard the “useless whelps” as he called Lorsel and her fellow sacrifices.
“Moag,” she called. Her brother’s best friend lifted his gaze to her; Kemboth had fought most bravely defending their mother, but in the end he’d fallen under Gar’s sword.
“What is it, Lorsel?” he replied softly.
“Do you remember what Old T’Lurak told me on the celebration of my first womanly blooding?” she whispered excitedly.
“Yes,” he replied slowly in confusion.
“It is time to make our escape, my Warbrother,” she said, invoking the bond she and Kemboth had shared with him since they were infants. “We have just met the Great Lady upon the Road.”
“What?” he nearly shouted.
“What are you talking about?” Durok asked.
“Did you not see the hilt of her knife, Moag?” Lorsel asked.
“No,” he replied. “I had other things on my mind-like assessing if there was any place to hide if we got away. But I doubt those weaklings would have the backbone to fight for anything, much less us.”
“They are not weak, Warbrother,” she replied. “They have more strength than you would imagine.”
“I saw the knife, Lorsel,” quiet Juroth, Durok’s brother, said. “It had a blood red star set into a golden shield.”
“Yes!” Lorsel said happily, finding it difficult to keep her voice down.
Moag’s eyes bulged. “Are you sure?” he demanded.
“Quite sure,” Juroth replied. Although Juroth was the eldest of them all, much to his father’s everlasting ire, he’d shown no interest in becoming a warrior. “You have not answered Durok’s question; what are you talking about, Lorsel?”
“The Old One told me that one day, in my time greatest despair, I would meet a Great Lady upon the Road to the Stars, and if I was brave and proved my worth, I would be allowed to tend my Lady’s daughter in the High House among the Stars. And she said I would know my Lady by the bloodstar in the heart of her golden shield.
“If we escape and return to that village,” Lorsel continued earnestly, “I know my Lady will take us all into her service if we pledge our honour to her and her House among the Stars.”
“It was just an old, abandoned village,” Durok scoffed. “You heard how the warriors-they’re nothing but scavengers!”
“Scavengers don’t have knives like that, little brother,” Juroth said thoughtfully. “Nor bat’leths or mek’leths or yan like that. These many years I have apprenticed our weapons master, I’ve been a good student. And I know that my old master would have wept unashamedly had he crafted even the least among those weapons.”
“Do you really think that she will take us all?” Kehlan asked anxiously. “The Lady was your destiny, Lorsel. What if my mother didn’t believe in taking me to have my Path divined?”
“Then you meet Destiny blind-like a man would,” M’Renna replied. “Would you not rather fight for the chance that this Lady will take us to her Star House? Or would you rather go meekly to the slaughter like frightened tI’qa vIghro?”
“I am no animal to be led to the slaughter,” Durok said hotly.
“Rork has been eyeing me,” M’Renna said with a hard, calculating look. “He is too low to catch the attention of any of the women and he’s frustrated. I’ll get him to kneel beside me … goad him into trying to take my honour. Moag, you and Juroth can jump him then. And by the gods, do it quietly! Now lie down and pretend you’re all sleeping.”
They did as she instructed as best they could with all their hands bound together. After a few minutes, Rork returned with a waterskin. Through slitted eyes, Lorsel watched the surreal tableau unfold before her.
M’Renna blatantly opened her legs and growled deep in her throat as he threw the waterskin to her. He stopped, staring down at her. A familiar pungency assailed Lorsel’s senses-M’Renna’s womanly arousal. She prayed that the boys would keep their wits about them.
She needn’t have worried. The moment Rork dropped to his knees, so intent on getting his greasy hands beneath M’Renna’s tunic, Moag struck swiftly like a kos’karii serpent coiling around the soul of the dishonoured dead. In one blinding move he had drawn Rork’s knife and was plunging it into his neck as Juroth snapped the warrior’s head back.
Rork didn’t even have a chance to scream before the boys tossed his body aside and cut their friends’ bonds.
“His blood is all over me,” M’Renna said in disgust. “And my scent will be easy for the grint hounds to follow.”
“No more than the rest of us,” Juroth assured her. “It will wash off in the river, but we must get as far away from here as possible before they realise we’re gone.”
They raced for the river and dove in. Halfway across, Lorsel realised that Torsk still stood shivering on the bank.
“What’s wrong with you?” Juroth demanded angrily. “Get in!”
“I can’t swim,” the younger boy admitted shamefacedly. “I thought we would take the bridge.”
“There’s no time,” Juroth said. “Going straight across cuts our journey time in half!” As Juroth pleaded with Torsk, Lorsel put all her effort into fighting the current. At last, strong arms gripped her, dragging her out of the water just as she felt her strength begin to wane. She smiled gratefully into Moag’s eyes.
As she returned her gaze to the dark water, she could just make out two heads bobbing along with the current. Juroth was carrying Torsk on his back. Lorsel felt a flash of admiration for Juroth’s strength and loyalty, but there was also anger for Torsk’s cowardice.
Twice they disappeared beneath the surface, and twice they reappeared a little further downstream. Finally, Lorsel helped Durok pull his friend, coughing and shivering out of the water, while Moag and M’Renna helped Juroth onto the bank. After a few moments trying to catch his breath, Juroth urged them onward, up the embankment towards village.
Across the water, the hounds were already baying for blood.
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To Chapter 8