Chapter 50

Tasha felt like she was walking in slow motion, as she was marched to the center of a grassy clearing by firm hands. She turned her head in time to see Picard. He was standing by himself just watching her. He looked as though he wanted to say something, but at the same time, they both knew that the time for discussion was over. Things were either going to end the way Picard wanted them to, or they weren't. He was no longer in control of her life, or anything else, judging by his bemused expression. She broke eye contact with Picard, wondering if it would be for the last time.

Suddenly, a tall figure stepped in front of her. "Don't do it...you'll be sentencing this galaxy to death, or worse," Walker Keel shouted, grabbing for her arm. Happy for the distraction, she snagged his wrist and pulled him toward her, punching him in the face. As he staggered backward, she kicked his leg out from under him, and he crashed to the ground clutching his damaged knee. As Riker and Geordi pushed her forward, she hardly glanced at the man still shouting at her from his prone position in the grass.

Caine wasn't going as easily as she was, and frankly, he seemed surprised at this turn of events. Knowing Caine, he'd been calling the shots out here. Until now. He occasionally struggled, but the Remans were strong enough to hold him, particularly with help from their viral overlords. Finally, they stopped, and glanced around quickly, she saw that the crowd of people and aliens had joined hands in a large circle. She and Caine were apparently the center of attention. Picard, T'Sara, and Keel sat cross-legged and under guard just inside the circle. It was all so bizarre that she didn't blink when the air over their heads began to glow with green haze.

She and Caine glared at each other in silence with open hatred. Riker had already removed Caine's prosthetic eye, leaving the more familiar scarred upper half of his face. Meanwhile, a Reman began stripping Caine's weapons and tossing them to his fellow guard. Yar knew Caine better than anyone else here and knew that they wouldn't find them all. She didn't care. As long as she could get him to give her the information she needed, she couldn't ask for much else.

Finally, the Remans seemed satisfied that he was weaponless, and they gave him one last shove toward Yar, before backing away. Riker put a friendly hand on Tasha's shoulder and bent down. "Your time has come. You must carry out your prophecy." He slapped a sharp knife into the palm of her hand before gesturing to Geordi, and they both walked away to join hands in what now resembled an eerie prayer circle.

"Couldn't stay away, huh, Tash?" Caine spat, beginning to circle her. "You know that knife isn't going to do anything but tickle me. This alien virus, whatever it is, isn't the brightest. It thinks you can kill me and somehow it will get its way? First of all, you can't kill me...second of all, where's the connection? Why is it so interested in you, or me for that matter?"

"I didn't come to strategize with you, Caine," said Yar, slowly tracking his movements with her eyes. She could see that where she had wounded him, first by stabbing him in the eye, and then by shooting him were beginning to heal already. What kind of drugs was he pumping into himself?

"But...you didn't come to kill me either, did you? You want answers...and I have them."

"Where's Ishara?" she blurted out, crouching down into a fighting stance. She kept the knife loosely in her fist, the blade pointed at the ground.

Caine laughed. "Why are you asking that question? You saw her dead body...you knew she crossed me one too many times, Natasha."

"Then who was in that holo you left for me? I know it was her. Maybe the dead girl I saw that night wasn't her."

"She wasn't? My second in command told me you took the body. What did you do with it, Tasha?"

Tasha's leg wound began to bleed again, and she held her side as a wave of nausea rolled through her insides. Sweat dripped down into her eyes, and she wiped it away. The flood of memories, more than the humidity, threatened to drown her. "I buried her," she admitted.

"Did you look at her face, though, Tasha? Were you sure it was her before you put her in the ground? You're not are you?"

"Who was in the holo?" Yar shouted at him. She didn't want to remember, didn't want to really think of that night.

He merely grinned and shrugged. She advanced on him quickly, but he kicked her away. Furious, she pursued him lower to the ground, spun and did a leg sweep. He didn't fall but couldn't maintain his balance, and she dove for him, grabbing his shoulder and bringing the butt of the knife handle directly into his left temple. He fell to the ground, but then kicked upward, catching her on the chin. She lost knife as she fell backward and rolled when she hit the ground. Caine was already on his feet, and running quickly, reaching down to sweep up the knife.

He watched as Yar got to her feet, and laughed. "We don't need weapons to settle this, Tasha, come on..." He threw the knife without looking, and it left his hand so quickly that it was a blur as it whirled through the air. It landed with a grotesque sound, lodging itself into the chest of one of the Reman guards. The Reman looked down in surprise at the protruding knife, which abruptly dissolved into a puff of green dust.

Yar found her attention caught for more than a second, and it was a mistake. By the time she turned her gaze back to where Caine had been standing, she found, he had closed the distance and began raining punches down on her. She blocked the most ferocious ones, and backpedaled, now on the defensive, and not where she wanted to be. Stepping to the side, she ducked and kicked him in the back of his knee. His stance crumpled, but he wrapped his arm around her torso and pulled her down with him. She landed with intention, her right elbow pressing onto his windpipe. As his face began to turn purple, she shouted, "Tell me the truth!"

He managed to get his own forearm up under her chin, and she was forced to retreat, scrambling backward through the grass. Caine leaped up and tried to carry his momentum onto her, but she rolled out of the way and he landed face down. Grabbing his wrist and quickly placing him into a joint lock, she leaned into his arm. "Answer me..."

Caine grunted and lifted his chin from the ground. "Let's say that if she were still alive, Ishara would be repaying a debt to me. The one your daddy couldn't make good on."

Out of surprise, she must have released pressure just enough for his forearm to slip, and she lost a solid grip on him. Using his superior strength he tossed her away, and she rolled again.

Kneeling down from a safe distance, she watched as he got to his feet again. "What? What did you say?" she demanded, but her own voice sounded exhausted and weak. Memories of her father had grown so dim over time, that she had nearly forgotten how much he had meant to her in her early years.

"Your dad was a piece of garbage, Tasha. Erik Yar wasn't some paragon politician of the capital city of Turkana. He worked for me, and when he couldn't deliver on what he owed me, I took his city, I took his life, and I took his family...just like I told him I would. You're so much greater than he was, Tasha. And you have me to thank for it. Now, your mother was another story...smart, honorable, everything by the book. I told Erik that marrying a cop would be his downfall, but he wanted the appearance of being legit. He didn't listen to me, And that's why it wasn't enough just to kill Erik. I had to kill your mother too." He grinned. "You know, to make a point..."

Blinded by rage, she rushed him, unconcerned by the searing pain in her side where Ensign Arroyo had nearly taken her life back on the Enterprise. She was quick enough to slip underneath his raised fists and punched him in the throat with all of her strength. He dropped to a knee, gagging with his hands clutching his wounded neck. Aiming for his temple again, she jumped and landed soundly with her knee on the side of his head. He fell slowly, face forward onto the grass. A rush of blood spouted from his nose, his body jerked and then was still. Tasha got to her feet watching Caine's body just lay there. Almost as an afterthought, she reached down to feel the base of his neck for a pulse. Nothing.

Straightening, she turned and walked away. All-around and above her, the air was filled with iridescent green particles. The faces of the virus's hosts were turned upward, eyes closed as if in prayer. Through the haze, she saw the eyes of Captain Picard, looking at her as though he was seeing her for the first time. T'Sara and Walker Keel stared at her too, but she didn't engage with them. She felt nothing at all until she thought of her family. After so many years of wishing for revenge, it hadn't helped anything at all. She was empty. She sank to her knees, wishing for a release from her life.

Suddenly, Picard was on his feet, screaming at her. "Tasha!"

She hardly felt the blade when it pierced the side of her neck, but when it exited, she knew it was over.


T'Sara saw Caine get up, pull a tiny blade from his boot and in three quick strides he was beside Yar. He didn't hesitate to plunge it into the side of her neck and didn't even stop to watch her fall. Instead, he turned and walked in the other direction as though he'd just remembered he had somewhere else to be.

T'Sara didn't even see Walker and Picard hurtle past her to tackle Caine because she was running as fast as she could to reach Tasha. Falling into the grass, she grabbed Tasha's neck tightly to apply pressure. She spoke in Vulcan only, not focusing on her words, but uttering a prayer she had heard as a child at the funeral ceremony for a relative. Her grip on Tasha's neck was so strong that it helped extend the woman's life, if only for a few more seconds. T'Sara closed her eyes and placed her shaking left hand on Tasha's cheekbone. "We are of one mind," she whispered.

Tasha's eyes shifted to hers and then froze, now lifeless.

She sat there with her hand still touching Tasha's face for what seemed like a long time. Then strong hands were pulling her back up to her feet, and she rose to see the faces of Riker, Geordi, the Crushers, Marco and other hosts of the virus. They seemed lost, and their features were ghostly, awash in the green fog. Picard, Keel, and Caine, were being marched away now, and she made no attempt to resist as her own hands were fastened tightly behind her back.


T'Sara awoke hours later. Her away team uniform, already grimy, was stiff with dried blood. It was dark and they had moved further yet into the jungle, but torches placed around the camp allowed her to see. She sat up slowly and then hugged her knees to her chest. She let her forehead drop onto her knee in an attempt to meditate, however, there was no peace. She raised her head to find that Caine was sitting across from her, his hands bound with energy cuffs. His single eye was cold, and yet she could sense his fear. He hadn't expected that Marco and the Remans would imprison him, and he was thinking of his next move.

"Stop trying to read my mind, bitch," he growled.

"Don't talk to her," Picard snapped from the darkness nearby. "Leave us alone."

"Or what, Picard? You're going to unleash your mighty powers on me?"

"All in good time," said Picard, sounding sincere. "It's not just the virus who wants you dead now."

"You didn't have to kill her, Caine," said Walker.

"If you really knew Tasha Yar, you would know how wrong you are about that."


William T. Riker had stayed behind while the others had moved on deeper into the jungle. For some reason, he hadn't been able to leave Yar's body. So he stood there nearby in the grass. The event happened at dusk. He blinked to find that Yar's body had disappeared. There was no trace, not even an indentation in the grass. For some reason, this made him hopeful. "It's not over yet," he said out loud before leaving to find the rest of his people.