/ Before the Sundering, the Time of Awakening /
Misharna, Outside the City of Gol
She was so tired, her body burning through the thin, filmy gauze, and that was when she realized she was awake so soon after the attack. She sat up with a panic, tearing off the sheet covering her, while trying to clear her thoughts after the galu-thorshek had hit nearby, between Gol and the desert. She felt the ash hit her skin, the glass burning her where it fell, her breathing hurt as she gulped in air, and she could barely think coherently. Looking to the sky, she saw dark clouds of ash fill the sky. The insurgent group, the rebels who wished to overthrow Surak's teachings of Logic, of reformation, they had done this atrocity.
Wait...
Why was she in Gol? She had been traveling with the Surakites through the desert...
Had they really come so far as the city of Gol? They had only so much water when they had left the last city, had she passed out before they had arrived? She remembers now, of seeing the insurgent named T'Mir meeting with the man in the strange garb.
\\\
She had been hunting, when she had stumbled across the well hidden fire in the cave, the light just barely flickering out from the depths. She had snuck closer, thankfully the cover of darkness had concealed her approach, and she had her Lirpa ready. Peeking in, she can hear voices talking. She tries to get closer to the source of the voices, inching further into the cave and daring to peek out from behind a rock formation. She nearly gasps when she sees the robe of a monk, but breathes in, as she realizes the monks back is to her, and many bags and weapons obscure where she is. Then she saw the ak'spra sitting with another further away, near the fire, a man cloaked in black garb with his hood drawn down.
He was pale, more so than any Misharnan in this day, as the Suns blazed hot on the sand, and reflected in their skin. No, this man stood out in many ways, beyond he black cloak that hid his framing, the pale-blue eyes framed by graying hair, and a scar not from any weapon made on their mother world. Perhaps his ears were the strangest thing about him, as instead of the normal point, they were deformed into rounded ends, perhaps meaning this man was a mutation of the genome, if the atomic wars were any indication of such a chance happening.
"Find it, and all will be yours," she hears a man say, with a strange accent, "Gather as many people to use as labor as you need, by the time we are done, that city will be nothing but a memory, a footnote in history of a watchmen's failure." At that a woman laughs, and she glances inside, to see T'Mir, Gratan Ha'su, or so she calls herself. The rebellious leader of the 'Accolytes of Raal' herself, a splinter group of radicals formed from reject Masters of Gol and Adepts of Seleya, who failed to control their ka-ta-pak, and embraced people like N'Sek, T'Mir's lover, who 'once lived' the teachings of the te-Vikram. Most were sure it was a ruse to sway people to her rule and out of Surak's teachings, as no man of the te-Vikram would bow to the matriarchy.
"Very well, outsider, I shall do as you ask," she says, as the girl sees her shadow cast with a smile against the cave wall, "You will have your greatest desire fulfilled, and I will get my kingdom and seat among the honored dead; if I find the entrance as you say." She sees T'Mir wave a hand, and a servant carrying a map approaches her. "N'Sek has explored the womb for many years among the te-Vikram, and had mapped most of the forbidden areas," T'Mir continues, handling the scroll, "Through much blood and sweat, he inked this single map, and lost his voice to the harsh desert winds; if this place is where you believe it to be, my beloved may yet be blessed by the sweet waters, and have his voice returned to him."
"Perhaps, but only once you deliver me my prize, dear girl," the black, cloaked man says, "For you will be unable to truly unlock its potential without it." T'Mir absently nods, studying the map in detail, before rolling it up and returning it to its ceremonial case it had been stored in.
"True, I am an honorable warrior, not a coward or manipulator, so you will get your trinket," she replies, "After, of course, we take it to unlock Vorta Vor's gates." She gives the case to the servant, and then orders him to replace it to its bag. She nearly squeaks out in panic, as the man comes near here, just within arms length, and places the case carelessly into the bag, not even bothering to hide it. She had sworn his eyes flickered in her direction, before they resume their blank gaze, and he returns to his mistress.
She was nearly in a state of euphoric panic, if what they had said was true. Vorta Vor! If she could get that map, then the Surakites could end this war faster, distributing the cool and healing waters to all, ending the pain and suffering of Misharna all together. She snakes her hand, after checking to see the others were gazing elsewhere, through the rock formation, and reaches to grab the ornate casing. She nearly threads her fingers around it, before it tips under her grasp and clatters to the floor. Freezing in panic, she goes to remove her hand from view, when a strong grasp holds her wrist in place. She covers her mouth in shock, and tries to bite back the cry building in her throat.
"What was that, Mestral?" T'Mir asks her servant, "Did you carelessly drop your weapon again?"
"No, mistress, the map casing broke open, I am merely going to replace the lid," a male voice, Mestral, replies, "I must learn to not be so worthless to you, my mistress." She merely harrumphs at this, and returns to her conversation with the other man. Then, the girl feels a pad of paper being forced into her robes sleeve, and being let go, after closing her palm to secure it, and pushing it back through the hole. T'Aminu knows better than to question this, and she quickly gets up, and doesn't stop running from the cave that night, not until she collapses onto the desert floor, miles away, towards where the Surakites were. Then she sees the world go green, as the galu-thorshek, the atomic bomb, hits the nearby ground.
/
The Surakites...
Rhea...
How long... was she dead? N- no, it was impossible, but the funeral gauze-
NO!
She was alive, and she was currently in the middle of the street, being stared at by a group of people. Looking down, she quickly runs down an alleyway and sets her robes properly. She feels something in the fold of her sleeve, and finds a long, rolled up scroll. Thinking back, she realizes with daunting trepidation, that this was what she thought this was.
T'Aminu, the youngest Daughter of Tavin and T'Amar, was currently holding the single map to the key to Vorta Vor itself. And she was a target.
\\\ Some Months Later, the Womb of Fire \\\
She graciously sips at another pack of water, taking in just enough, so as not to drain her reserves. Wiping away her brow, which had started to bulge, probably due to her exposure to the mutagenic properties of the radiation. She had long since reconciled with her family at least, and confirmed she was not dead, before setting out to find Vorta Vor, against her family's wishes, and those who thought her crazy with Plak tow. She had been insulted by that, but had trudged on, unable to be stopped by anyone, and had successfully made it through the te'Vikram's territory by sticking to the forbidden paths.
She had followed the map, digging at all the possible locations marked on the fragile piece of paper. This was the last spot, there was no cave nearby, only stone, rocks, and sand. She would give up after this, if she could not find it here, she could not find it anywhere. She would wander into the desert, and die of thirst or be consumed by the winds and the true Gratan. She had begun to dig, and continue until nightfall, when she began to cry in defeat, finding nothing here either.
"No!" she cried out, "I can't have lost it, I cannot have been tricked, those men and women should not have died for nothing!" She kicks at sand and stone, until she stands against the cliff face of stone, reaching impossibly upwards. Kicking a small stone at the base, she nearly swears as her foot collides with an immovable object. Falling to the ground she merely bites back tears, as the suns set and darkness falls, bringing with it chilling winds. She feels the biting sand shift around her, before collapsing face first into the ground, her head resting on the stone, and tears falling free. "How- how could I have failed them all?" she mutters to herself, "Take me away... Rhea, let me feel your cold embrace..." As she sees the stone, wet with tears, she notices the wet sand being disturbed, drawn down through some unseen crevice, replaced with fresh sand brought by the biting winds.
Renewed with fresh vigor, she quickly digs, revealing the simple stone to be massive. She digs for an hour before any progress is made, and she is finally able to move the massive stone. Shifting it away, she tries not to be caught by the swirling sand, as it drains into the large crevice, no longer stopped up by the stone seal. Finally she manages to take the courage and slides into the room down the accumulating pile of sand, and is marveled by the bioluminescence lighting the great room. Pillars covered in moss and lichen, glowing, even above the ceiling, and bringing soft light to her darkened world. Jumping for joy, she cries out in success, seeing such a beautiful sight, meant water was nearby.
Trudging deeper into the barren room, through sand and moss, she finds a mass of plant matter on the center of a thick slab of stone connecting to the back wall, with two dark openings, possibly drains, leading beyond the wall and to her goal. Figuring the stone slab was of some importance in her quest, she hastily rips off the lichen and moss, long overgrown, on it, and is startled into fear by what lay beneath. An statue, adorned in a golden mask of odd design and laying on it's back, lay on the slab, though it's picture was anything but Misharnan. It had six eyes, and it's length and height were greater than any Man or Woman T'Aminu had ever seen. The eyes of the mask, they glistened like jewels in the darkness, contrary to the onyx stone having been used to construct the slab, now what she was fearing was actually a tomb for whatever monster lay inside. In it's hands it seemed to clutch a gem of massive proportions, the size of a heart, and nearly just as sickening to look at.
Then she saw the inscription on the sarcophagus, lined around the gem, and she begins to brush away the dust and residue, hoping to see what it says. "The dreams of men are true and shallow, the dreams of women filled through shame, the ones who misuse this treasure, will take my name in vain," she recites, "My name is Kanda, Herald of J'iak, and I sought to fill me dreams, take the Heart, and your dream will be fulfilled, or look deeper and find the true treasure, within your heart." To say T'Aminu was puzzled by these words, would be an understatement, but deciding quickly, she goes to grab the heart, only to accidentally slip as she tries to reach it, pushing the gem deeper into the slab of stone, with a satisfying 'click'. Then the slab of stone began to move upwards, as T'Aminu falls to the ground.
Getting up, she looks on in wonder at the inside of the vessel finding, not a body, but stairs leading down and past the wall, with equal lighting rivaling the lichen shining outwards. Walking down through the spiraling staircase, T'Aminu finally reaches fresh, cool air, and looks out through a grand jungle, through forests and trees not see since the early days of their planet, before their sun swelled and stripped away its beauty. 'This is it,' she thinks, 'Vorta Vor lives, it's true- is that an A'kweth?' Looking through the jungles, she sees the massive form of the underground dweller pass through the vast jungle, before lumbering on through another cavernous tunnel.
How many had ever seen an A'kweth, except in myth, T'Aminu did not know, but she was glad she had followed this map to it's end, for it had led her to the right place. Finding a spring, and drinking from it's water, she immediately swells in bliss, as cool, yet slightly bitter water, passes down her parched throat. With the days events finally catching up to her, T'Aminu swoons, and falls to the ground, unconscious.
\\
When next she wakes, she feels the snuggling of a wet nose against her cheek, and a tongue licking her awake. Bolting upright, she sees the young Sehlat cub at her side, a vibrant, moss-green and fletched brown coating, a color no doubt long since gone from its cousins above ground. Wagging its long tail, also unusual, the cub barks at her, before tugging her arm and jumping around. Having no time to play, and fearful for her life that such a young beast was here, no doubt its mother was nearby. Shooing it away, and only slightly cowed by her actions, she tries to dissuade its affections by leaving, going deeper into the forest, where she had seen a small temple on her way in, near a wellspring of water.
Trudging for what seems like hours, she finds herself at the base of a grand Temple, where a stone figure sits. Ascending the steps of the ancient, monolithic temple, T'Aminu gazes in wonder at the vast beauty of the many pools, some higher than others and eternally feeding each other with fresh water, never silent, but a bubbling laughter. She finally approaches the figure, and sees, not stone, but grey silks and garb, an unusually rare color for ones born of Misharna, who mostly made tan cloaks to travel in the desert unseen. Like the sarcophagus above, this too had an ornate mask, made of fine, white material she had never seen in her life before, and the eyes, they too seemed to flash with life, like blue jewels.
"Approach, dear child of the Mother," a voice speaks from the mask, and T'Aminu nearly stumbles back in fear and surprise. With a gentle sound T'Aminu recognizes as soft laughter, not statue, but woman stands from the throne in the temple. "I am called T'Priah, I and my sisters once watched over this place, this paradise, once called Hamlan or now Vorta Vor, as you so say within your mind," She speaks, "I, Reah, Ny'one, Natara, and others, once blessed those who came here with a view of the sacred Ko N'ya, and the fulfillment of their wish-" If eyes could be this expressive, as T'Priah's seemed to, T'Aminu would be struck down for feeling terror at the sight of fear and confusion that seemed to cross them now. "Show yourself, demon!" she calls out, "You have used this girl long enough, now face me and pay for the sins of your error, oh man not of this land!"
Clapping is heard echoing across the courtyard, as the very air seems to still and cool, drowning out the songs coming from the springs. "Very well, little liar, I will show myself to you, false goddess," a mans rich, deep voice says, tinged with laughter, "Once that loon failed me, upon loosing that accursed map, I found you, barely alive and dying in the desert sands, dear girl, so I took you to the City of Gol, in secret, where they put you to rest... it appears that wasn't permanent though." Walking up the stairs and into view, the man, now visible to T'Aminu, who haunted her dreams with his icy, blue eyes, and shaggy gray hair, was looking straight at herm not accost of his robe, and dressed in the ridiculous colors of black and red, in a jacket unfit for the deserts of Misharna, though the blade at his belt spoke otherwise. "I am the last good man of Terran Empire, a child of your brother Zeus, and inheritor of true power," he says, "Bow to me child of lies and False Goddess, for I have come to take the power that has slipped out of my grasp before in my own world, and I make it mine in this one!"
"No man of this world, or another, may take this power, no child of other gods, even one proclaimed to be of Zeus, could do it either," she responds coldly, "You are the one who proclaims himself to be a God, yet you have no power to back it up, little child; I will squash you like a bug." Raising her hand, bangles ringing on her wrists, a ethereal hand seems to grab the man, before a dark void opens above him, releasing fire from its maw.
"You think I came unprepared, Devil?" he retorts, "I was delivered from death by my saviors and shown the truth of my existence, to be used as their herald and their weapon, to take back power lost to them millennia ago, coveted now by these primitive goblins and other unworthy beasts." Pulling an unusual from his jacket, the man goes to point it at T'Priah and manages to shoot the woman in her side, as T'Priah equally surprises the man by sending him crashing into one of the springs with the Ethereal hand, to drown in their currents.
"T'Priah, Goddess!" T'Aminu cries, rushing to her side, and seeing the bleeding wound, tries to stop it with a piece of her own robe. Crying out in pain, dropping the scrap of rag, she looks at her hands, now covered in blisters and raw, as the rag too seems to dissolve in the black blood.
"Do not worry child," T'Priah whispers, "I am stronger in death than that man, now come here so I may share the last secret of my temple, of the jewel this greedy man desires for power." T'Aminu takes her hand and places it on her temple, crying. At this point, the Terran man manages to leave the pool of water, now thoroughly drenched and without his staff weapon. he takes off his outer jacket, and stomps with fire in his eyes, towards the hurt Goddess and the weeping child.
"You will not stop me, False Goddess, for once I retain the gem's power, not even my saviors will stop me in my vengeance," he seethes, "I, James O'Brien the Betrayed, swear to take back my timeline from that traitor Leeta!" He is at the bottom of the stairs when T'Aminu has heard the last of T'Priah's whispered words, and setting down the dying god gently, she gets up and looks coldly into the man's eyes before darting into the temple.
\\
Once inside James couldn't see, for there was no light inside the stone monolith, until he reached an inner chamber where torches lined the wall. "What hope could you have girl, when even your False God could not defeat me?" James says aloud, "I will remove you pest, then take what is rightfully mine!" Walking through the various columns, he sees the T'Aminu on the far side, kneeling in front of an altar of stone. Confident he grabs a nearby golden idol, he quickly hastens his pace, and is almost instantly upon her. "Say your last words, and take your last breath," he says, readying to kill her. "Make peace, and die!"
Just as he was about to throw the rock, she turns to the man and forces something in between the idol and her hands. With a 'crack', the effervescent stone is cleaved in two and the resulting explosion of energy tosses both backwards, T'Aminu into the stone altar, and James flung halfway back to the entrance. Getting up after a few seconds, and wiping the blood from his mouth, James O'Brien begins to curse the girl. "You- y-you- why?" He states, "T-this was my o-only chance, and you ruined it- they can track me now, they won't stop looking for me-" He pauses in his growing hysteria, as T'Aminu sits up slowly, the blood seeming to have stopped on it's own. "H-how, how are you alive?" He stutters out, "You should have at least broke your back on impact, you should have been paralyzed..." He is stricken with horror, and pales when he realizes what has happened. "You absorbed the energy!" He guesses, "It's turned you into some kind of Demi-God- that's my power you have taken!"
"No, ket-cheleb, you grew drunk in your overconfidence, and believed the stone was magic; it was never a device meant to give a person the abilities of the divine," she says, "Power can work both ways, it can either empower a person, or give energy to a device, and guess what this temple is?" James merely looks up, as he notices the temple start to crumble, as larger chunks fall down. "This temple kept Vorta Vor, this paradise, alive, but now it is no more thanks to your greed," she continues, "For the stone you coveted was not the Heart you sought, but it was designed to mimic it, to fool those like you, searching for a weapon and not a wonder."
She starts walking past the defeated man who had slumped to the temple floor, not caring for his life, as the temple fell to pieces around them, and she stoops to his level. "T'Priah was near death, and yet she had the time to meld with me and showed me what to do," she whispers in his ear, "Very brief and dirty, but enough to show me how to trick you, false prophet, and now I leave you to a fitting fate."
"But how, how were you able to survive?" His voice sounds hollow as he asks, as she stands once more, "Tell me that, before I die, how did you survive?" She turns back to look at the broken man, before beginning to leave the crumbling temple once more, calling out as she goes.
"It appears I had the power inside me already, that I have died before today, yet I did not remember it," she says, "Perhaps a mortal mind was not supposed to remember, but now, now I know what I am, a desert blossom among a raging sandstorm, a force for hope in a parched land..."
/
As she sees the cavern collapse around her, dooming all within to death, she reflects on the words of T'Priah:
'You are special, very unique, Desert Flower, born of the violent burning flames, yet still alive," the dying goddess told her, 'I alone awaited your coming, sister, as the chosen child of Misharna you were to inherit our legacy once we passed, but no more is this possible.'
Her memories are disjointed, as pieces, gaps of time hidden in the recesses of her mind, begin to surface because of the goddess' katra.
'I wish to join, you and I, let my mind become one with yours, and guide you on your path, let my memories be not forgotten,' she had said, putting her hands into position and transferring her katra to the young girl, 'T'Aminu, daughter of Gol, open your mind to my memories, and learn from them, use them to advance your desires.'
By now the body had passed, but the spirit spoke in her mind. 'What is it you desire? A home, a family, worshippers, or followers?' It asks, 'Whether it be this world, or another, serve your people and guide them as the Gods had before, before they outgrew us, as they will outgrow you, for even immortality can be passed.'
Yes, here they were, a goddess stuck in the mind of the now biologically immortal. She was young, and inexperienced, yet here a Goddess was telling her she was immortal? Was it a gift, or a curse, for taking on the katra of a god? She did not know, but she was given the chance, to heed the advice of those who came before her. Perhaps this world was too small, perhaps not, but if one madman's search for power brought him before a god, perhaps others of his ilk could follow his trail to her. Perhaps a change of scenery was in order.
/ The Badlands, Some Centuries Ago /
The Devil's Heart, an Orion Slaver's transport vessel, had been captured by freed Vulcan slaves and returned to Vulcan to be abandoned to the harsh desert winds and to be polished by the ever present buffering by sand and wind. In all it was little more than outwards a rusted hulk, but with the help of the Vulcan Space Initiative, T'Aminu, going by the name T'Lir some decade or two after her return to civilization, stood proudly looking at the fruits of her labor. It had flown six times, conducted three separate scientific surveys, and had become the test bed for reverse engineering warp technology, and still she was able to Captain it as her own jewel. With some convincing of the council, she had even got permission to crew the ship with her personal team, and take them out into the stars.
Now it had been decided there was to be an extensive colonization effort, she had prepared long ago to undertake such a trip and was well stocked. And here they were, some time later, after trading with three merchant ships for fuel and resources, at the first spatial anomaly not detected from Vulcan, shown in the ships database as an intense plasma sea, with gravimetric anomalies and intense plasma storms intermittent in the area. Piloting the ship was o e thing, but being allowed to undertake a research effort inside the giant storm, gave T'Lir chills of excitement, barely contained behind the cool mask of the logic of Surak. She had just never expected to have been sent on a suicide errand, ferrying colonists choosing to follow the paths of the ships that had left during the Sundering, and start anew and away from Vulcan teachings of logic. Perhaps she should have stopped taking privately funded expeditions long after she had been burned by one particularly cold Vulcan...
Well, here she was, about to cross a plasma sea to sate the growing hunger for freedom from the imagined oppression caused by the teachings of Surak, and she was going to be disappointed if she didn't see these people through to the end, choice of freedoms and what not. It was too bad that day the storms were to rough, and she found her little gem, pulled into a the depths of the sea, and awaking to a new realm of possibilities.
/ 6 Days after being rejected by the Caretaker /
He hadn't returned them home, but he had sent them to a distant and remote area, a nebula of silence where he had hoped they would die cold and alone. She would be damned if the ranting of a disillusioned space entity kept her from protecting her people, and he had merely kicked her out with her injured and hurt people, and a compliment of the native species he had experimented on and sent with them as test subjects to learn and adapt from their now parent race. Yes, the so called caretaker had used their flesh and sinew to build hybrid monstrosities, impure Misharnan blood and impure Ocampan flesh, could not commingle and pollute his grand mercy.
So here she was, afraid as her people were dying around her, stuck on a course towards home and in the middle of a barren void, all because she called the 'entity' imbecilic for believing he could coddle these Ocampa forever, while he himself was slowly dying an eternal death in this strand of reality.
Then the stars came into view, distinct as a beacon, and then a planet, two, a moon, twin Suns. She could call it home, she could make her people's death comfortable, and then...
Then she would have an eternity of remorse to get over, trying to convince herself eking out a life for her people, was the best alternative to death by lack of knowledge and the impossible dream of ever running home.
/ One Year Later /
In one year the population had exploded, and the small oasis she had stranded them on had become close to nothing but a bare desert. Then the three ships came, blotting out portions of the sun and leaving the young amazed and T'Aminu worried. Then she met them, the kind and caring people, wanderers and travelers with weary eyes and compassionate hearts, an old race that had journeyed the stars in their wanderlust. The Auran, as the children called them though it was not their given names, had seen the plight of her people after detecting the ship's automatic distress beacon, of which not even she had realized had been going off since their landing.
They had much time, and plenty of ways to help them build a sustainable infrastructure, and so began the years of healing. After two years, and the start of a second colony on the second world, much more lush and vibrant, and easily tamed after years of harsh desert dwelling, the people mourned the loss of the Aurans, who left T'Aminu knowing her people could survive, could even thrive...
/ 2123, Centuries Later, the Third Dynasty of V'Tek /
"Excrivion command center, this is the Demon's Heart coming in, I picked up the twins and am heading to Och'ren City port via shuttle pad," a female says over her ships communicator, "Plotting course, and please, tell me if there are any skyshuttles in my route, I- dear Reah..." The two suns light up a massive shadowy thing that glows a bright orange, an unreal color the two suns together did not give off naturally, as it then strikes out like fire from the mouth of a monster, bathing the world in an eerie light.
She prayed, something she had not done in a very long time, as she could only watch as the world turned black in ash and molten rock, glass, and destruction. In one swath the planet was a third consumed, revealing the molten core which bloomed outwards, toward the machines maw, as another beam lashed towards the planet and consumed more matter.
She had gained much in her time as an immortal, as a Goddess, as a teacher, as a student, as an inventor, an artist, a lady, and a entrepreneur, and then a simple farmer maiden. She had watched the remnant of her family disperse, consumed by the Ocampa people, yet traits still showed in one family, the Royal Family of Och'ren province, whose sole genetics had defied the Ocampa lifespan due to one simple secret. They had the blood of an immortal goddess i their veins, yet even time and death ravaged their lives, never able to become immortal, yet able to live a life far out pacing the twenty or so years an Ocampa could live in this world.
And she had just watched all but the two youngest, cousins, die by this monstrosity. "I will not allow you to harm my people, my kanlar anymore," she says to no one in particular, as light flashes and the maw devours more, "Let T'Aminu of Vulcan be reborn, let the lady of faces die a righteous death, saving her adoptive people from the bosom of Reah." Her course was set, her grip steel, her mind a raging inferno of pain and anguish.
"T'Aminu of Vulcan, your day is not here," a mysterious voice says, "Your sacrifice will be in vain, but not if you stop your course now, and return to your people." Turning to the male voice while grabbing her Lirpa, T'Aminu sees a man in strange metal armor, unlike any seen on Vulcan or any other world.
"I am Mestral i'Phaehhos tr'Raal, your hope for a bright future, T'Aimnu of Gol, Mistress of Faces, Goddess of Land, and Embodiment of Stone," the man says, removing his helmet and revealing a seemingly Vulcan man, "I know your story, and your children's children will as well, but only if you leave your foolish course and return home."
"Home? Home is the planet below, currently being devoured by a monstrous entity burning it away and consuming the molten remains," she replies, "How could you ask me to return to a place I could no longer go?"
"You may yet find love in your heart, young immortal," Mestral says, "Perhaps not now, while wounds are fresh and pain is raw, but your grief will wane, and with it new light may yet bring new love to your darkened and bitter heart." Mestral merely looks over her shoulder, and offers a smile out to the two spies behind T'Aminu. "Hello, little ones, do not be afraid, just look at me," he says, kneeling to the ground, as two children, barely four years old by this planet's standards, smiled and came closer. Looking up to T'Aminu, he quickly activates a transporter, and all four are transported to another ship, one much cleaner and brighter than the remains of the former pirate ship, which had long since lost its luster.
Taking the helm of his ship Mestral quickly inputs commands into his controls, and on screen the Devil's Heart is seen to be caught in some form of tractor beam, and brought to the maw of the machine, as it cooled its weapon once more. "Now watch," he says to the children, as he tosses the ship into the maw, and targets it, shooting three torpedoes and an unusual weapon into it's maw, which then blows up, and the monstrous machine does not light up anymore.
Taking T'Aminu's hand, he guides them to a platform, and has each of them stand in a certain spot. "This was a unique assignment given to me by my superiors, to correct an anomaly that had no place to ever occur," he tells T'Aminu, "You will never speak of this encounter again, or ever indicate my presence, you will not return to the second planet, instead you will retreat to just outside this solar system where a passing ship will take you on as refugee's."
He grabs a device and hands it to her, though she did not know its purpose. "Take this device to their engineers, and request them to build two of the devices within," he commands, "Have them place the devices within their ship's hold, and take these children with you as far as the refugee ship will go, then your future will find you."
Taking each child by the hand, he melds with both, gently lowering them to the platform as he finishes. Standing he looks T'Aminu in the eyes. "They will not remember this night, nor remember much of their lives beyond what you wish to tell them, but the terror of the Planet Killer, hidden deep within their subconscious, will always remain," Mestral tells her, "All is as it should be T'Aminu of Gol, daughter of Tavin and T'Amar, now go in peace, live long, and prosper."
Replicating the Vulcan's gesture, T'Aminu finds herself on a shuttle, alive and well, though bitter at the death of all her people's work. Looking down at the two children sleeping, T'Aminu kneels and begins to beg in her heart for the strength to go on. 'Just let me bring Gr'gol Shivir and Berr Griva hope, give me strength to follow through,' she thinks to herself, 'I will do as he said, and we will survive...'