"Change is the essential process to all existence."
-Spock "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"
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There...
She ran headlong through the streets of the deserted city, dark hair whipping madly about her face as her breath came in short, explosive pants. They were close now, probably no more than two hundred meters. She could hear the howling of their beasts as they hunted her, could almost feel the pounding of their boots beneath her feet. It took every ounce of willpower she possessed to keep herself from turning to look behind her, searching for the demonic forms that chased her.
Her foot caught on a piece of rubble in the street and she fell, hands spread out to brace herself. The impact, though, still jarred her, the shock racing up her arms and across her chest so painfully she bit her own tongue. Spitting blood into the ash strewn ground beneath her, she pushed herself to her feet and set off again, losing precious seconds as she struggled to regain her momentum.
Her legs felt like they were on fire, muscles straining to keep up the near impossible pace she demanded of them. The air was heavy, thick with falling ash which her overworked lungs desperately tried to breathe to keep her running.
There was a whisper of air moving and she watched in shock as a bladed disc flew past her right cheek, it's serrated edge missing her by inches. Throwing herself to the right, she narrowly avoided the deadly whisper of another blade as it embedded itself in the wall. Crashing into the rubble, she used her own momentum to spin around the corner and continue running. They were getting closer with every second. She couldn't afford to wait any longer.
Still running full tilt, she reached into her coat pocket and yanked out the boxlike communicator. Flicking it on, she screamed at the top of her lungs into it. "Now! Do it now!"
There was a hiss of static for a long second, a second where she prayed to every god she had ever even heard of that the communicator hadn't been broken in the fall. Her prayers, for once in her life, were answered with a resounding yes as the static was replaced by a young male voice. "Skipper, if we do it now, you'll be stuck down there! We'd have to leave the system without you!"
"Tal, I don't care! You have the coordinates, just do it!"
Her boots thudded on the uneven ground as the first voice was replaced by a deeper one, older and filled with the sorrow wisdom brings. "We will return for you. You have my word."
A grin formed on her lips. "Just do it, Kordath. Let me worry about me for now."
The sky split with a screaming noise as the small starship descended through the clouds, it's only functional phase cannon streaking an orange beam at the ground three kilometres behind her. Sneaking a quick glance over her shoulder, she saw the shields on the enemy base fail and collapse as the starship launched a torpedo groundwards. All her hard work on this mission, all her sacrifices, were rewarded as she watched the installation explode in a maelstrom of photonic fire, debris raining everywhere as it died. The starship peeled away as five enemy fighters swerved toward it and began to fire. She lost track of the ships as they entered a low cloudbank and she prayed again for her crew. Let them make it out. Please.
The communicator crackled in her hand and the second voice spoke again, certainty in every word. "We will return for you."
The last thing she heard as the communicator went dead was the sound of the ship going to warp. They were safe.
Unlike her.
Still she ran, the sounds of her pursuers growing louder in the aftermath of the explosion. Dirty black boots pounded across the grey rubble as she pushed herself to her limits, then slowly began to exceed them. She had to find a way to hide from them until her crew came back for her. That was her mission now. Survive.
Two prayers had been answered in a single day, and now the time had come to pay the price. She skidded to a halt at the edge of the chasm, barely saving herself from falling into it's depths. She looked from side to side. Ruined buildings loomed on both her right and her left, cutting off any hope of escape. She spun around just in time to watch her hunters emerge from the smoke, their black armour segmented like reptilian skin, pale skin and dark eyes fading in with the ash clouds. Nightmares, every single one of them. Lifting her hands above her head, she spat the words out at them, the syllables tasting like bile in her throat.
"Looks like you got me."
The last thing she saw as they beat her into unconsciousness was the building on the other side of the chasm, it's ruined structure collapsing from centuries of abandonment.
The deserted remains of Starfleet Academy, San Francisco, Earth.