2063
It was nightfall, and the skies were dark and dangerous. Winter was coming, and people huddled under blankets and in abandoned automobiles and around fires burning in garbage cans. An old woman in a tattered dress, a soiled towel wrapped around her head for warmth went from group to group, begging for food. No one gave her any. In the aftermath of the third world war, it was every man for himself.
Hostilities were dying, or at least as far as the inhabitants of the Staten Island greenbelt were concerned they were. It had been days since they had seen a plane overhead, or heard the harsh footsteps of troops rehearsing manoeuvres nearby. Their radios had been silent for days. For all they knew, the East and the West had finally managed to kill each other off, leaving them to live out the rest of their lives alone. In fact, that was what a lot of them thought had happened.
"The world has finally ended!" an old man, who had been drinking the last drops from cans and bottles he had scavenged from the surrounding wreckage yelled with a slur after three days of radio silence. Some people looked at him with worry, while others ignored him. Nobody spoke.
The sun had finally set when a crunching noise came from the distance. This was never a good sign. People began to hide—running into the forest, ducking in the seats of their cars, lying still under their blankets. There wasn't time to extinguish the fires.
Everyone froze as a voice came out of the woods. It was in a foreign language that no one could identify. A different voice came out, in the same language, this time a woman. She seemed to be arguing with the man. They came closer.
As they stepped into the clearing, a gasp rang out from beneath a blanket. There was something wrong with then. Their faces were too angular, their ears were sharp and pointed and their skin was a ghastly olive colour. The victims of radiation from recent bombings? But their features were so smooth.
"Come out, we mean you no harm," the woman spoke out, in heavily accented English, moving forward to warm her hands over the garbage can.
"They will not come out," the man argued slowly, in equally broken language, "But at least they are not attacking us like the last group."
There was a rustle, but the humans stayed hidden.
Pulling her hands away from the fire and flexing them, the woman opened up the man's backpack.
"We shall set up, then," she said.
She pulled out a large, rectangular object and pressed a switch.
"Come out and warm up if you like," she went on, "This heater generates enough heat for a thousand people."
"They will not come out, they are too afraid," the man argued. The woman gave him a sharp glare.
"Come out," she tried one more time, "You can see we have nothing but camping gear."
There was a sound, and then a teenage boy and what looked like his father came out from beneath a tarp. A few more people joined them.
"See," the woman said, "They just needed to know we would not harm them."
The man didn't say anything.
"Who are you?" the boy asked, looking at their faces quizzically, gaping.
"I am T'Pai, and that is my husband Savek," the woman answered.
"Radiation exposure?" the father asked with a bit more tact.
"That too," T'Pai replied dryly.
"People have been trying to kill us ever since we got here," Savek tried to explain, "They do not like outsiders."
"That happens," the father spat.
Slowly, people emerged from their hiding spots and resumed their business, occasionally stopping to warm themselves by the heater and catch a glance of T'Pai and Savek's faces.
They camped three days with the humans before they heard planes overhead.
"They're bombers!" they heard a man yell, "Everyone to the shelter!"
Another man came up behind T'Pai and Savek.
"The shelter's that way, in an old bank vault. It's crowded, but it's got us through three strikes."
The two Vulcans ran in the direction he pointed
As soon as the stream of people stopped, the door was closed. An instant afterwards, they heard the ghastly boom of explosions, ringing through the vault and heating up the walls. For what seemed like hours, they waited, covering their ears. Finally, the noise stopped, and once the door had cooled down, it was opened.
People gasped as they emerged. The landscape was completely blackened, flat and rolling for as far as the eye could see. Steam was rising from it.
"I guess we walk," someone said, and slowly a line assembled. They trudged until they found the water, and then they trudged until the found a forest. But they never saw another plane or boat or other human being again for as long as any of them lived.
All of Earth's history was lost.
2214 (55th year of the Reign of Sarek)
"The life of a lady-in-waiting is to serve the King and his court."
Amanda Grayson tried to avoid dozing off as the woman read from a book in front of her. She had been awake since five in the morning when she had gone outside to relieve herself and had seen the woman standing outside.
After going behind the house to squat where the woman couldn't see her, she had come back and stared at her curiously. She was Vulcan, and was wearing a beautiful dress, finer than anything Amanda had ever seen. Behind her was a horse-drawn carriage, with a man in the front tending the horses, and another sitting in the back, waiting. The fact that Amanda rarely saw horses or Vulcans or strangers at all made her all the more interested.
"Hello," the woman said loudly as soon as she noticed Amanda, "Do you live over there?"
Amanda nodded, trembling slightly at the attention. The woman looked at her harshly, inspecting her.
"Would you like an apple?" she asked after coming to what must have been a positive conclusion.
Amanda's family mostly ate bread. She nodded vigorously. The woman produced an apple from her bag.
"Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" the woman went on, "We will just need to go to my carriage."
Amanda nodded again, her mouth full of apple, wanting to see the horses up close. They walked over, and the woman let her pat their noses as she yelled to the man in the carriage for a book.
"Yes, Mrs. Talbek," he answered in a high, boyish voice.
The book turned out to contain logic puzzles, and Amanda solved them quickly, while eating.
"Very good," Mrs. Talbek said, sounding pleased, "Now can you tell me the history of the royal family?"
Seeing Amanda eying her bag hungrily, she reluctantly put in her hand and pulled out an orange. Peeling it, Amanda tried to answer. She knew that Sarek was the king, but other than that, her knowledge was patchy. She had never been to school.
"Never mind," the woman snapped, "I am sure you are a quick learner."
Amanda nodded again.
"How old are you?" the woman went on.
"Twelve," Amanda answered.
"And do you have any health problems in your family?"
Amanda shook her head.
"Good," the woman said again, mysteriously, and motioned her to go, "You will hear from me again later."
That afternoon, Amanda overheard the woman talking to her father.
"I am looking for young women to serve the King," the woman said, "Your daughter seems ideal."
Her father's eyes closed as he considered the possibility.
"I am sorry," he said slowly, "But Amanda is our oldest daughter and we depend on her to work the farm and care for her siblings."
Mrs. Talbek seemed to be expecting this answer.
"I understand completely," she stated warmly, "And although I am sure that you would consider sending Amanda to serve the king an honour and a worthwhile sacrifice, we would be willing to compensate you, given your situation."
And with this, the woman brought out ten golden coins, ten lens. Amanda gasped. She had never seen that much money at once before.
She saw her father falter.
Soon, the woman was counting out money over the kitchen table, and soon Amanda was in the back of her carriage.