Star Trek Hunter
Episode 27: The Sword of Destiny
Scene 15: Qo'noS luchenmoH.
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27.15
Qo'noS luchenmoH.*
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The klingon guard, l'SaH, had given up trying to return her prisoners to any territory held by the Klingon Imperial Forces. The shielded facility they had escaped from had been completely leveled, along with an entire city around it. The klingons had captured that city, but there must have been close to 100,000 romulans and somewhere around a quarter million hemra living there. Romulan torpedoes had killed everyone in the area - klingon, hemra and romulan alike.

l'SaH had barely gotten her two Star Fleet prisoners out in time. They had insisted on bringing the wounded romulan officer along with them and it had been easier for l'SaH to carry Cireeka than wait for her to hobble along on her broken leg. The klingon guard was well outside her authority and had no doubt she had violated dozens of regulations - all because of a charming, blind human.

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Three weeks of walking had brought them to the edge of a vast forest. Since none of her prisoners were in any condition to climb, l'SaH got up into the trees to gather about a dozen large nuts. The romulan woman, Subcommander Cireeka, had told her these nuts were good food and seemed to relish them. They tasted nasty to l'SaH, but they settled her stomach. The humans could not digest the chicolo nuts and after four days without food, the two men were weak with hunger.

With no chance of finding food anywhere else, l'SaH and Cireeka had decided to move the party deeper into the woods in search of food, water and shelter as well as some refuge from the endless fighting. The two women had to work together to keep the humans alive. Cireeka's burns were healing, but Commander Reginald Barclay wasn't doing so well. Part of the cast on his broken arm had been cut away so that Cireeka could treat his burns, but without food, not enough water and the stress of travel, his body was not healing well and the burn wounds were weeping pus mixed with blood.

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l'SaH had left the two starving humans in Cireeka's care. Those three - one with a broken leg, one with a broken arm and the other one blind - weren't going anywhere without her. But they couldn't go any farther without food either and there was food on the hoof to be found in this forest.

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"Drop the ax, klingon."

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Whatever the indiginous, hooved, horned herbavore was that had not heard l'SaH approach, it had fled as soon as the as yet unseen man had spoken. Neither l'SaH nor her prey had heard him approach.

"It is a mek'leth," she said, holding the curved, sword-like weapon out to her side.

"Drop the mek'leth, klingon."

"I have wounded people. I'm taking care of them."

"And they are why you are still alive, klingon."

"l'SaH. My name is l'SaH."

"Drop the mek'leth, l'SaH. Or I drop you."

l'SaH carefully leaned her weapon againt a tree. "Weapons should not be treated with disrespect," she said.

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The moment she stepped away from it, her weapon was melted by a disruptor blast.

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l'SaH whirled and bared her fangs, growling. "That weapon has been in my family for generations!" She was astonished to see a human in strange clothing pointing a romulan disruptor pistol at her.

"Life should not be treated with disrespect. Generations of my family were murdered by your people, klingon."

l'SaH looked at the man carefully. "You're not human. You're hemra."

"Very similar to humans on the outside. Not so similar on the inside. Don't worry about your weapon, l'SaH. It will do no more evil."

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The hemra guided l'SaH to a trail, making her walk in front of him. For several moments they followed the trail in silence.

"Your name, hemra?"

"I am Di'ig."

"Your family, were they warriors?"

"They were slaves," said Di'ig. "They would never have been allowed to touch a weapon. And if ever they did, they would have pointed those weapons at romulans before challenging a klingon."

"They should not have been harmed," said l'SaH. "Slavery is dishonorable. We come to free slaves, not to kill them."

Di'ig did not respond.

After a few more moments of silence, l'SaH asked, "Were they Shivans?"

Di'ig made a grimly amused noise. "My people are deeply spiritual. Only a few million of us survived the steralization of our homeworld. My ancestors came to this planet to make a new home. They were the chosen people. Chosen by God. Then the romulans came and enslaved us. Some people said God had forsaken us because we were disobedient. Others went looking for a new god. And a new god found them. Shiva the Devourer. And now there's an even newer god - Shiva the Restorer. My family were not only slaves to the romulans, but also to these false gods they had chosen to worship."

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l'SaH did not respond for several moments.

Then: "We killed our gods. They were troublesome."

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Di'ig gave another short, grim laugh.

"Gods. Romulans. Klingons. Gamma waves. We aren't the chosen people. Just self-important lumps of leftover stellar matter. Toys for a mindless universe that gave us birth and will soon enough kill us, never caring, never even knowing that we were ever here."

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*Qo'noS luchenmoH. (thlingn Hol - the Gods)

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