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Fear the Demons
USS Nautilus, Shuttle One Crew, Sam Hayashi's Log, Day Two, Stardate...late afternoon some time...I don't know!
Things on this planet just can't seem to get any better, can they? I finally escape from a Solarii prison and meet back up with my best friend only to find that - surprise! It's all a Solarii trap. We walk up to this old Japanese Monastery looking for a way out and I get shot and stunned by good ol' Brother John of the Creepy Scavenger Society of Yamatai. Lovely.
Now I've woken up in a prison, again. At least this time it doesn't seem like I've gone very far. I think I'm still in the monastery. It doesn't seem to be a Solarii prison either. Of course that just raises the question: whose prison is it, and - more importantly - how do I get myself and my injured Trill friend out?
The first thing Sam was aware of was the stench of rotting meat burning at her nostrils. She moved to shield her nose and then realized that something was wrong. Something was keeping her from moving her arms, holding them straight over her head. Her wrists and shoulders ached and she could not feel anything beneath her feet. That's because I'm off the ground, hanging by my writsts, she realized.
Her eyes snapped open. She remembered being shot by the Solarii, stunned. This didn't look like a Solarii prison, though. The room was partially collapsed in one corner, but it was otherwise built of sturdy stone masonry with a heavy, decorated bronze door providing the only way in or out. There wasn't a scavenged part to be seen. The bodies are a distinctively Solarii touch, though, she thought. There were more than a dozen of them lying around the room or hanging suspended from the ceiling - all sporting nasty gashes and cuts. Judging from the smell, some of them had been there a while. She took a closer look at one of them and squirmed. Then again, maybe the bodies are too Solarii! She recognized the one hanging next to her as one of the men who'd been present when Rejes died: the Acamarian Matan had called Shu-zo. Looking around she realized that all of the corpses were Solarii. They were all males of various spacefaring races, raggedly dressed, some with their crude weapons still lying beside them. She even saw a Jem'Hadar rifle or two.
Sam had no idea who could do this to the Solarii, but she was pretty sure she didn't want to stick around to find out! I have to get out of here, she thought, wriggling her bound wrists. But first, I need to get down! She glanced up. She was suspended by the rope binding her wrists, which had been passed through an iron hook hanging from a sturdy ceiling beam. It wasn't the most secure way she'd been trussed up since the shuttle crash two days ago, but with her feet dangling half a meter off the floor, it was good enough. She strained her neck looking around for anything she could use to help get herself down.
She saw her bow. The ornate yumi was propped up in a corner by itself, with its quiver and arrows arranged neatly beside it. Someone had even gone to the trouble of unstringing it to ensure proper storage for the longevity of the bow. It was an odd contrast to the heaps into which everything else had been piled, but of course the bow was too far away for her to reach, so it was merely a curiosity for now.
She looked the other way and her eye caught on a patch of blue - a science officer's uniform. It was Carlin! She was lying face-down on the floor, blood matted in her hair. "Carlin!" Sam shouted, but her friend remained still. Sam twisted her wrists against her bonds. "Carlin, come on! Wake up!" She refused to believe her friend was dead. Not Carlin! "Come on, Carlin, please!" she urged. God, don't let her be dead!
Carlin moaned and stirred, then went still again. It was enough for Sam, though. She knew her friend was alive. Badly hurt, but alive, she thought. Which means I have to get down to her! Unfortunately, all the discovery did was give her motivation, not a means. She was no closer to freeing herself than she had been when she regained consciousness.
Sam tugged at her bonds again, but all that did was set her swinging. The swinging gave her an idea, though. She flexed her body, swinging higher and higher until she was able to hook her legs over the ceiling beam. Once she was able to do that, she transferred her weight to her legs, taking it off of her wrists and the hook. From there, it was a simple matter of pulling her bonds clear of the hook and then she was free. She dropped to the floor, rolling to soften the impact, and moved to help her friend.
She rolled Carlin over. The smaller woman was still breathing and the bleeding from her head wound seemed to have stopped. Her eyelids fluttered. It's a start, Sam thought. She needed more information, though, if she was to have any chance of helping her friend.
She grabbed a crude knife from the body of the nearest Solarii and used it to saw through her bonds. Then, she pulled out Carlin's medical tricorder and ran a scan. Most of it was fairly unintelligible to Sam, but what it did tell her was that she had a severe concussion and maybe internal bleeding. It looked bad. Like I needed a tricorder to tell me that! What she needed was answers, solutions, and the only thing they'd learned in Ground Survival about severe head injuries was to stabilize the patient and get medical assistance. Well there are only two people I know of on this rock with medical training: one is locked in a Solarii cage, completely out of touch, and the other is right here in front of me. She bit her lip. I guess it's gonna have to be, "Physician, heal thyself"...with a little help from a friend.
She took Carlin's head gently in her hands. "Carlin, Carlin!" she said. The Trill's eyes opened and focused on her. "You've got a severe concussion and internal bleeding." She showed her the tricorder readout. Carlin's eyes swam for a moment, focusing on the tricorder, then blinking. For a moment, Sam was afraid she'd lose her. "Stay with me, Carlin! I've got your medkit right here, but I don't know how to treat you."
"Stabilize...wait for medical assistance..." she whispered.
"Yeah, I thought of that," said Sam. "The problem is that you are the only medical assistance we're likely to get. I need you to talk me through this - give me a sign, something." She opened the medkit amd moved it where Carlin could see it. "What do I use?"
Carlin lifted one hand and moved it toward the medkit, but it stopped short. Her head started to lull to one side. Sam caught it. "Cortical...stimulator...," she muttered. "Increase...brain activity..."
Sam had heard of that device, at least. She rifled through the medkit till she found a small roughly-rectangular device. She held it up for Carlin. "This?"
The Trill stared at it. Her lips moved, but she said nothing.
"Come on, Carlin, give me something to work with," Sam pleaded. "A blink: one blink yes, two blinks no - something like that."
Carlin blinked once slowly.
"Good enough." Sam attached the device to her friend's forehead, then pulled up its controls in her tricorder. The array of menus and controls baffled her. Why can't it have a simple on/off switch? Maybe a "Save injured Trill" button?
Carlin seemed to sense her confusion: either that or she started reciting the instructions automatically. "First menu...third setting...slider all the way...to the left...then activate once...finishes charging..."
"And how will I know when it's finished charging?" Sam asked as she worked through Carlin's instructions. Just then, the little device emitted a small whine followed by a ready tone. "Oh, well, I guess there's that." She took a deep breath, her finger hovering over the final button. "Okay, here goes nothing..."
She pressed the button. Carlin jerked. Her eyes squeezed shut, then blinked back open, focusing and moving more rapidly than before. "Ow...," she said. "Never do that again."
Sam held up her hands. "I'm just following directions!" She paused. "Is that it?"
Carlin started the shake her head, but stopped abruptly, one hand going to her blood-matted hair. "No," she said. "That was just to get me thinking clearly...We still have to stop the bleeding..." Her other hand rummaged through the medkit till her fingers closed on a thick cylindrical device. "Vascular regenerator...third setting...pass it slowly from the right temple toward the back of the skull as far as you can."
Sam took the device from her friend and fumbled with the settings. She moved it toward Carlin's head and prepared to activate it.
Carlin's hand brushed her wrist, guiding her to the left. "The patient's right side...not yours," she corrected.
Sam nodded and activated the device, slowly passing it over her friend's head as she'd instructed.
"Run another scan," Carlin said when she'd finished. Sam passed the medical tricorder over the injury then handed it back to Carlin. "Good job," her friend said. "The internal bleeding's stopped. There's still some surface injury and tissue bruising, but nothing too serious...nothing life-threatening anyway." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Ah, better give me an analgesic...flupirtine should work, 20 ccs. Probably a little cordazine, too, to be safe: two ccs..." She tried to push herself up and immediately closed her eyes and laid back down. "Um, vertazine, too, definitely...ten ccs."
Sam ran the tricorder over the array of vials in the medkit, scanning the names it pulled up. She picked out three of them, wracking her brain for the correct dosages, and set the hypospray: injecting Carlin with them one after another. When she was finished, Carlin's eyes opened and a slight smile crossed her face. "Much better," she said. "Congratulations, Doctor Hayashi, I think the patient is going to be fine." She sat up, then blinked. "Say, how much cordazine did you give me?"
Sam checked the hypospray. It had been the last thing she'd injected. "Um...five ccs?" she answered sheepishly.
"Five?" Carlin checked the hypospray herself. Her free hand wandered up to her ponytail. "Well, that explains the excess energy, I guess. Good thing Trill have a robust metabolism, though. If you'd given a human that much, they'd become delusional." She handed the hypospray back and looked around. "Then again, maybe I am delusional..."
"If you're seeing a room full of dead Solarii, I'm afraid not," said Sam.
"I was afraid you would say something like that," said Carlin. She frowned and began collecting her medkit.
"Any idea what happened?" asked Sam. "The last thing I remember I was walking up to the door of the monastery when somebody shot me and the lights went out."
Carlin closed her eyes and rubbed her head. "After that, a bunch of Solarii came out of hiding and started shooting at me. I ducked, but slipped and hit my head." She hesitated. "I don't remember anything very clearly after that..."
"But you do remember something unclearly?"
Carlin let her hand linger on her hair as she adjusted her medkit's shoulder strap. "I do remember something," she said. "There was shouting, and shooting. Someone said the Oni were there, and then these things in dark armor just cut down the Solarii with swords. I don't remember anything after that."
"So a bunch of sword-wielding Japanese demons killed them all, mistook us for dead, and took us here...but why?"
"I don't know," said Carlin. "But I do know they didn't get all the Solarii. There was a human called 'Brother John' at the monastery ambush, and I don't see his body here. About half of these bodies are too old to belong to his companions either."
"Okay, so half of them...it still doesn't explain this. What do they want with us, and why did they set aside my bow?" She went over to the yumi and ran her fingers along the engraved patterns. Carlin simply shrugged.
Then, they heard heavy footfalls outside, coming down the hall. A metallic grinding sound approached as well, following the footfalls. It suddenly occurred to Sam that it might not be the best idea to find out what their new captors had in mind for a room full of Solarii bodies, plus two Starfleet officers. She grabbed the bow and the arrows. Carlin grabbed a Jem'Hadar rifle and flipped open her tricorder. She pointed toward the pile of debris in the corner. "There's a structural weakness over there. We may be able to use it to escape."
"Let me see." Sam took the tricorder and analyzed the scan results. "Airflow, just behind that large slab in the middle. That means there's a way outside," she said. "If we move the loose rock on the left side there, we should be able to get out."
An inhuman roar echoed down the corridor and Carlin tugged at her hair. "We need to hurry!"
They scrambled across the body-strewn room and pulled away loose fragments of bricks and mortar to create an opening, then slipped inside. They were just in time, too. A moment later, the bronze door ground open and the heavy footfalls and the metallic scraping sound moved into the chamber. Sam risked a peek back. There was the massive figure of a man standing in the center of the chamber, so tall she couldn't see above his chest without moving out from under the debris they were hiding in - which she didn't dare. He was covered in iron armor made of many rectangular pieces fastened together. Sam recognized the style as Japanese: o-yoroi. For a weapon, he dragged a massive iron-bound club behind him. Sam put a hand over her mouth to keep herself from gasping. It was a kanabo, the preferred weapon of the oni, according to folklore. Or at least, according to what I previously thought of as just folklore...
The figure stopped in the middle of the room and pulled a body down off of one of the hooks. He turned and began to exit, but suddenly stopped and dropped the body. He was facing the empty corner where Sam's yumi had been stored. He must have realized it's missing! she thought.
A moment later, her fears were confirmed when the Oni let out a terrifying roar, hefted his club, and stormed out of the room. She could hear his voice - inhumanly deep - echoing down the corridor. "Shin'nyu-sha ga arimasu!" it shouted. "Sorera o mitsukeru! Sorera o korosu!" Sam's mind translated it automatically: Trespassers! Find them and kill them!
She didn't have to know Japanese to realize this was a bad time to stick around. They needed to get out of here before the Oni decided to come back and search the room. Sam turned and pushed Carlin through the narrow passage under the debris, urging her on. She was already moving through as quickly as she could, though, and soon Sam fell behind, struggling to fit her larger frame in between some of the debris, especially without breaking the bow that was now her only weapon. Carlin reached back and lent her a hand, pulling her out. A moment later, they stood together in the open air, on a broad windswept ledge.
"What was that thing?" Carlin asked.
"I was hoping you would tell me," said Sam. "Did you get any readings on it with your tricorder?"
The science officer shook her head. "Nothing. No lifesigns at all."
Sam shivered. "Don't tell me that!"
"You asked!" said Carlin. "What did you see?"
"An oni."
"I thought we weren't going to resort to the supernatural today," said Carlin.
"Sometimes it's the only explanation."
Carlin shook her head and turned to examine their present surroundings. The visibility was poor on the ledge, as the howling wind whipped dust into their faces, but it was enough to make out humanoid shapes bound to stakes. As Sam and Carlin approached closer, she realized that the shapes were the mummified remains of Jem'Hadar. There were dozens of them, that she could see: some brutally slashed, some run through with spears, some littered with arrows. All were very dead.
"I guess that Vorta you found wasn't kidding about the Oni taking out his whole unit," said Sam.
Carlin nodded. "If this is where they made their attack, then they must have found access to the Monastery from somewhere!"
"And wherever they came from, that's our way out," Sam finished. Sam examined the bodies. Most were turned toward the same direction, down the slight slope that ran along the ledge. It was unlikely they'd died facing that way. More probably, they Oni had tied up the bodies as a warning, and would naturally face them in the direction of the next expected attack, for the best display. That is, if the Oni are like other territorial societies and not, well, like flesh-eating Japanese demons who can take out a platoon of Jem'Hadar without breaking a sweat. She bit her lip. It was a chance they were going to have to take. She pointed down along the ledge. "This way!"
They made their way along the ledge. The windblown sand reduced the monastery to a dark mass on their left and the chasm to a featureless white void to their right. Even Sam staggered occasionally under the force of the gusts. She wondered what kind of weather pattern could create gale-force winds like this. A science officer like Carlin would probably know the technical answer to that. Sam just knew the pilot's answer: A bad weather pattern: unless you're indoors or in orbit.
Fortunately, they didn't have to go far in the wind. A few minutes after they set out, they came across a stone bridge, or at least the shattered remains of one. The middle section of the bridge was missing and most of the span had been reduced to a skeletal framework sticking out over the windswept chasm. On the other side, Sam could see a massive statue of a human woman in a traditional Japanese kimono and the remains of a Dominion ground vehicle.
"This must have been where the Jem'Hadar made their approach to the monastery!" said Carlin, shouting over the wind.
"It was also an old pilgrimage route, judging from the statue," said Sam, pointing to the towering stone statue on the other side. She would have bet good money that the woman it depicted was a Sun Queen, probably Himiko.
"Was," said Carlin. "It's not much of anything right now - certainly not something I want to try and cross!'
"There should be another exit!" said Sam. "The Sun Queen would have had her own way in and out, as would the servants. That's at least two other entrances! The problem is we'll have to go back to the monastery to find them."
"And that's where those...things are," said Carlin, refusing to name the Oni.
"Best be careful, then!" Sam carefully strung her bow and nocked an arrow to it while Carlin checked the charge on their rifle.
They headed back the way they'd come, which was thankfully downwind. They found the rubble heap they'd squeezed out through, but neither of them were eager to return there. "Let's keep going," Sam suggested. "We'll probably find another way in further along the ledge." So they did. They continued along the ledge, past scores of mummified Jem'Hadar corpses. Sam tried very hard not to look at them and began muttering a comforting passage of scripture under her breath, as she'd learned it from Iku:
Tatoi watashi wa shi no in no tani o ayumutomo,
Waza wai o osoremasen.
Anata ga watashi to tomoni ora rerukaradesu.
Anata no muchi to, anata no tsue wa watashi o nagusamemasu.
As they walked, Carlin moved closer to Sam to avoid the staked out mummies. She must have noticed Sam's reciting because when the ledge turned and they found themselves momentarily out of the wind, the first thing she said was, "What were you muttering in Japanese?"
Sam blinked. "Oh, uh, Psalm 23."
"That's...that's from the Christian Bible, right?" Carlin frowned. "I didn't think that was a Japanese book. I thought it was from the same Earth culture that produced Shakespeare...English, I think."
"It was actually produced by an ancient Middle Eastern culture, but it's been translated into a lot of different languages. My grandmother learned it in Japanese, and that's how she taught it to me," said Sam. "I recite passages I remember sometimes when I'm really creeped out...you know, like when I'm surrounded by scores of mummified Jem'Hadar staked out by monsters straight out of Japanese mythology." Carlin opened her mouth to respond, but Sam cut her off. "I know, I know! 'There's a scientific explanation,' right? Well maybe the scientific explanation is that there are some things in the universe that defy explanation and exist beyond natural law. If that's the case, I'll take all the divine comfort and assistance I can get, if it's all the same to you!"
Carlin cleared her throat. "Actually, I was just going to say I think I may have found a way in." She pointed to a rubble pile a half dozen meters ahead.
"Oh," said Sam sheepishly. Carlin smirked. Sam tried to ignore it. Just another reminder that I talk too much when I'm nervous, she told herself. She moved forward to the debris. "This looks like damage from weapons fire. The Jem'Hadar must have tried to break in here." A two-meter-high dark crevice in the rock wall seemed to confirm this. Carlin dug out a battered palm beacon and switched it on. Sam let her take the lead. The wall was thick and the crevice was narrow enough that Sam had to turn sideways in order to proceed, but after a minute they were through.
They found themselves in a broad circular chamber with a vaulted ceiling. The light from the palm beacon fell on a trio of statues on the opposite side of the room. Though the one on the right had been decapitated by a blast from an energy weapon, they were all still clearly identifiable. There was a woman in a royal headdress and kimono flanked by two fearsome samurai in full armor. "A Sun Queen and her Stormguard!" Sam gasped. "This is Yamatai!"
She rushed forward. There was an altar of some sort in the center of the room. Not an altar, she realized, a sarcophagus. Judging from the markings and the statues in the room, it could be a Sun Queen's - maybe the first: maybe Himiko's. Curiosity overcame caution and she braced her hands against the lid, pushing it aside a few centimeters. She took the palm beacon from Carlin and shined it inside. A skull with the tarnished remains of a royal headdress lay inside, staring back at her. "You're really here," Sam said, awed. A moment later, the putrid air from inside the sarcophagus hit her. She coughed and wrinkled her nose, stepping back. "And you're really, really dead!"
Carlin flipped open her tricorder and scanned the remains. "The skeleton's definitely human, female. I'd put the age at death at sixty or seventy years at the time of death, assuming no modern medical care. There are some deformations to the facial structure, but if I had to guess ethnicity based on this data I'd say East Asian, maybe Polynesian...definitely could be Japanese." Carlin looked up and met her friend's gaze. "According to these readings, she's been dead over 2,600 years."
"That puts her at the very beginning of the Yayoi period. This must be the very first Sun Queen: Himiko," said Sam. She smiled. "This is incredible!" She couldn't believe she'd actually done it, fulfilled her lifelong dream. "I found Himiko, and Yamatai!" Then, her smile faded. All it cost me was two fine shipmates, two shuttles, and the continuing possibility of death for everyone I dragged into this mess...
"But what is she doing here, over a hundred lightyears from Earth?" asked Carlin, oblivious to Sam's inner thoughts.
Sam shrugged. "Maybe our answer is somewhere in this tomb." She swept the walls with the beam from the palm beacon, revealing a series of murals. "This could be the story of her life. Let's see what it says." She moved to the first mural. "A woman in a kimono, surrounded by smoke and flames..."
"A rocket launch?" asked Carlin. "I hear some early spacecraft produced a lot of flame during takeoff."
"It could be," said Sam, but she was unconvinced. Conventional rocket engines left a lot of blast debris and infrastructure behind that surely would have turned up in the archaeological record by now. Besides, most species tended to stop using them as soon as they invented warp drive - which would have been necessary to make the journey to Yamatai in less than a human lifetime. "It could also be where good ol' Father Matan got the idea for his Fire Ritual," she muttered.
"Human sacrifice? The ritual killing of a sentient being?" The Trill science officer shuddered. "That's horrible!"
"Yeah, and it also doesn't make any sense," said Sam.
"I'm glad you agree," said Carlin. "It shows how far religion has come since those primitive days."
Sam eyed her askance. "Christianity has always opposed human sacrifice," she corrected. "And anyway, what I meant was that it doesn't make much sense for the scene of a fire ritual to be at the beginning of Himiko's life story since - you know - it's kind of more of an ending."
"Oh," said Carlin. Now it was her turn to look sheepish. She touched her hair. "Well, maybe this isn't the beginning of her life. Maybe we're looking at them in the wrong order."
Sam shook her head. "Ancient Japanese was written in vertical columns arranged right to left. As the first mural to the left of the statues: this should be the right order." She moved to the next mural. "The same woman, moving up a mountainside from a ship."
"A journey...or is she fleeing?"
"No, her posture is too relaxed and her face is almost completely tranquil," said Sam. "And see how she has her arms outstretched in front of her? It's the same pose from the relief we saw in the arid canyon. This is depicting a pilgrimage, possibly to this very monastery."
Carlin scrutinized the mural. "Is that ship sailing on waves, or clouds?"
"Maybe both," said Sam. "It could be a primitive metaphor for passage through the nebula. That ship certainly isn't of ancient Japanese design, I can tell you that much. There's no sail or oars, which were the only means of propulsion during that period of Earth's history. And see those outriggers? They look more like airfoils...they could even be primitive warp nacelles."
"Do you think that's how she got to this world?"
Sam shrugged. "It's only a theory, but it is possible." She moved on to the next mural. "The same woman, and another woman, depicted much larger with rays of sunlight coming from her...pouring water into a vessel held by the first woman."
"But why water? And is this other woman a Sun Queen?"
"The depiction is similar."
"But I thought you said Himiko was the first Sun Queen."
"I did," said Sam. "Maybe it's a goddess figure."
"But wasn't the Sun Queen worshiped as a goddess?"
"Exactly," said Sam. "Doesn't make much sense. Let's see the last one." She moved on to the last one. "There she is again, sun rays flowing from her - Queen."
"That doesn't make any sense," said Carlin.
Sam shook her head and looked back over the murals again. "No, we're missing something..." The beam fell on the third mural again. "That's not pouring water, it's transferring something...power!" Her beam swept the murals again. "This isn't the story of her life: it's an ascension ritual! It's how Himiko chose her successor."
"Starting with a fire ritual?" asked Carlin. "But why?"
Before Sam could even think of an answer, they heard voices echoing through the chamber. "Over here!" called a man's voice. "They're in here somewhere. I heard something below!"
"The Guardians will kill them," said a second voice, fearfully. "Let's get out of here before they find us!"
"No, we keep looking," said the first. "You heard Father Matan: he'll skin us alive if we don't bring back the girl before nightfall!"
Sam's eyes went wide. "The Solarii are here!" she whispered. "They're after me, us...we have to get out of here!"
Carlin shook her head, already running a scan with her tricorder. "They're already too close, within ten meters. Turn out the light and hide, quickly!"
Sam switched off the palm beacon and Carlin closed her tricorder. There was only one place in the room that offered any semblance of cover: the sarcophagus. The two women moved behind it, readying their weapons. Already the roving light of palm beacons was seeping into the room from a passageway above the damaged Stormguard statue, where a small section of the ceiling had been blasted away. Carlin offered Sam her phaser, but Sam pushed it back to her. A phaser might give away her position. Fighting in a half-dark room like this, I'd rather have a bow, she thought.
Then, the Solarii were there. The beam of a palm beacon swept the room, followed by another. "Looks clear to me," said the frightened man. "Let's get out of here!"
"I swore I heard something," the first insisted. "They could be hiding. Let me check." Sam heard the rising whine of a weapon powering. That was all the warning she had before a blue blast of energy hit the sarcophagus and shattered it, throwing fragments of stone and bone everywhere. She threw herself backward, shielding her face.
"There she is! Get her!" said the first Solarii. Sam saw him raise his rifle in the half-light.
"Stun setting!" the other warned. "We need her alive for -" He cut off abruptly, looking to his left. He started trying to shove the other Solarii back. "Oh, no! They're here!"
The first man turned and fired at something in the upper passageway - Sam couldn't see what - but the blast apparently had no effect. "Fuck," the Solarii said. Then a massive spiked club swept the passageway where they were standing, crushing both of them and throwing their bodies into the tomb. Sam rolled back behind the shattered remains of the sarcophagus before the owner of the club could come into view. She heard his heavy footfalls and his inhuman roar. She didn't need to see him to know what he was. Fortunately, he didn't stick around. Sam heard heavy footfalls retreating through the upper passageway. A few moments later, the only sound was the hissing of the wind outside.
"What was that thing?" asked Carlin.
"An Oni," said Sam.
"It must be using the polaric radiation to mask its lifesign."
Or maybe they're not alive as we know it to begin with, Sam thought, but didn't say. Instead, at that moment, the smell of two thousand years of decay plus scorched bone hit her. She made a face and stood up quickly, moving away from the ruined sarcophagus and switching on her palm beacon. "I hate tombs," she said.
"And yet you chose archaeology as one of your majors," Carlin said, stepping away from the debris in the center of the room herself. "I bit contradictory."
"Not really," said Sam. "This just isn't my kind of archaeology expedition. My kind of expedition is to some tropical locale where I can spend the day scraping dirt off of pottery fragments beside a hunky intern - or better yet let the hunky intern do the scraping while I sit back in a air-conditioned tent cataloging pieces and watching the eye candy." She looked at the ruin around her, now augmented by a pair of motionless Solarii bodies lying beneath the opening in the ceiling. "Most importantly, no one dies."
"Agreed," said Carlin. "So how about we get out of here?" She pointed to a pair of bronze doors on one side of the room. "They appear to be sealed from the outside, but I think I can cut through the bars with my phaser." She adjusted the setting on her phaser and drew a careful line down between the doors. Then, while Sam pointed the light at the doors and drew back her bow, Carlin pushed them carefully open. A pair of wooden bars cleanly severed by phaser fire fell to the ground on the other side, but other than that, the hallway beyond seemed empty.
Unfortunately, it also didn't seem to lead anywhere. To the right, the hall continued past several rows of sealed doors before dead-ending. All Carlin's tricorder could read behind them was still air. "These are probably more tombs," Sam said. "We won't find a way out this way."
Heading back the other way, they found themselves trapped against a pile of debris that blocked the hallway. Carlin scanned them with her tricorder. "The passageway's collapsed for at least the next two dozen meters," she said, "but there's something over here..."
Sam peeked over her shoulder. "Airflow, diagonally upward. It could be a staircase. There's only about half a meter of fallen masonry between it and us." She looked up. The debris pile looked pretty solid. It would take a while to dig through by hand, and they didn't have the time. "I say we blast our way out."
"That could destabilize the surrounding debris and worsen the collapse," Carlin pointed out.
"Will we be able to get out in time?"
Carlin shrugged. "Maybe."
"Then it's a chance I'm willing to take," said Sam. "It's better than waiting around for the Oni or the Solarii anyway."
"I'll agree with that!" Carlin unslung her rifle and adjusted the setting to maximum. "Okay, keep the light steady and get ready to run!" She fired. A blue bolt of energy vaporized a section of the debris pile. The blast sent a rumble down the hallway, which continued as more pieces of stone began to fall to seal the gap. Sam and Carlin were already running through it, though. They could see sunlight beyond. A piece of debris hit Sam's shoulder, but she kept going, pushing Carlin ahead of her. A moment later, they were on a set of wooden stairs with the collapsed hallway behind them.
"That was close," said Carlin, breathing hard.
Sam nodded. Before she could say anything, though, a roar echoed from somewhere above them. Sam looked up. There were two flights of stairs above them, leading to two different floors and illuminated by half-shuttered windows on the top floor. The roar seemed to have originated on the floor below. "We have to get to the top floor!" she whispered, taking Carlin's arm in one hand and her bow in the other. They hurried up the stairs and onto the upper floor. Sam took a look out the windows, but she could see nothing below but swirling wind. There's got to be another way out, she told herself.
There didn't seem to be any rooms leading off of the upper corridor, but there were a lot of windows. The hallway stretched around a corner to the left and to the right. Sam picked right, remembering it was the direction of the chasm, and therefore the most likely place to find a way out. As Sam and Carlin crept along, they could hear the sounds of Oni scouring the ruins below: heavy footfalls, crashes, roars, and shouted orders in Japanese. Sam tried not to think about how close they were. They continued on down the corridor till it ended at a large two-story chamber housing a massive bronze bell. Sam was so distracted by worry about the Oni that she didn't realize until she was almost in the room that she was hearing voices from up ahead. One of them was Brother John's.
"Hey, I found a way out down here!" he said. Sam recognized the voice and flattened herself against a wall. She could see figures moving among the columns beneath the giant bell. She counted three of them.
"What about the girl?" asked another Solarii.
"Forget her!" said John. "There's nothing we can do about her. The Guardians have us cut off. We need to clear the monastery so we can beam out."
"Alright, alright! Help me get this grate open," said the other, moving toward something on the floor directly beneath the bell. "The covered bridge is just beyond it. We'll be out of here before the Oni know what happened."
"Yeah, and then Father Matan will either skin us alive or send us right back for the girl," said a third Solarii.
"Father Matan knows better than to tangle with the Oni. He'll have some sort of plan: he didn't get this far by being stupid," said John. "Now, are you going to help us with this grate or what?"
"Fine," said the third man. "Let's do this the quick way then." One of the Solarii unslung a Jem'Hadar rifle and fired it at the floor where the other two were working. The pair of them dove out of the way, but nothing happened. The floor remained intact.
Carlin gasped and Brother John looked up. He was looking right at her. He raised his own rifle, pointing it at Carlin. "Outsiders!" he warned the others.
Sam stepped out and drew her bow, aiming for John's head. Seisha hicchu. "If anybody goes for their gun, he dies," she threatened.
The third Solarii, an Antican, already had his rifle out, though. He shifted his aim to Sam. "If you shoot, you die."
Sam gave a slight shrug. "I'll still shoot, and so will my friend." Carlin nodded, adjusting the setting on her rifle to burst mode.
John let his own rifle fall and raised his hands. "Don't anybody shoot!" he said, then looked straight at Sam. "Instead, let's be friends."
Sam snorted. "Like hell," she said. "You killed my friends, you locked me up, you want to turn me into a human bonfire, and you got me into this mess in the first place." She glared at him. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just let this arrow fly."
"The Guardians will kill us all for trespassing, even you. They've killed most of my men already," said John. "We've all got a better chance of getting out alive if we work together."
"And who are these Guardians?" Carlin demanded. "What do they want?"
"Nobody knows where they came from, except Father Matan maybe," said John. "They guard the old places on the islands, the places that were sacred long ago. They kill anyone who goes near them, and once they've killed them they either eat them, or stake them out as a warning to others."
"They sound like lovely neighbors," said Sam. "But in your case, I'd say they're just fitting company."
"They're demons," said another of the Solarii. "Our weapons have no effect on them. They kill and they take at will. The only reason why they haven't killed us all is because Father Matan is careful to keep us out of their areas."
"Usually," John added. "But in this case, he made an exception because he wanted you. Unfortunately, if we don't get out of here fast, his exception may send the Oni on a quest for revenge. They'll kill every living thing on the island, just like they did thirty years ago when the Dominion was here. Your friends won't survive."
Sam was torn between listening and forming a temporary alliance and just shooting him and being done with it right then and there. A roar from somewhere below made up her mind. For now, our first priority has to be getting out of here! We can kill each other later, she thought. "Okay, full points for persuasion to your club-wielding friend downstairs," she said, relaxing her bow. "Let's get the hell out of here!"
John nodded and turned his attention back to the grate. Sam and Carlin entered the chamber cautiously behind him. Everyone still had a weapon ready, but none of them were pointed at each other. Sam examined the grate herself. It was circular with elaborate bronze decoration, and it appeared to be made of iron underneath. "How did that withstand a shot from a Dominion battle rifle?"
"The entire monastery is flooded with polaric ions, and this grate has a particularly high concentration," said Carlin, scanning it. "It's kept the wood from rotting and the metal from corroding over the last two and a half thousand years. It's also apparently made it impervious to Jem'Hadar weaponry."
The Antican growled. "Why would that be, Outsider?"
"Because Jem'Hadar weapons are all based on polaron energy. It's fundamentally similar to polaric energy, though on a completely different level. Anything with a sufficiently high polaric energy charge to it will be able to safely dissipate a polaron burst," Carlin explained. "A phaser might cut it, though."
Sam heard muffled Japanese orders from somewhere behind them, down the corridor. The Oni were getting closer. "I don't think we have the time to cut through it with the phaser. I'm with dog-face over there: the quickest solution is the best." She glanced up at the massive bronze bell. "Polaric energy isn't gonna protect the grate from gravity."
The Antican growled at the dog-reference, then barked a laugh when he understood her idea. "I like the way this one thinks!"
John followed her gaze. "Are you insane?" There were footsteps down the hall, growing closer. John wiped his brow. "Okay, fine! Everybody step back! Let's do this."
"My pleasure," said Sam. She took a step back from the grate and raised her bow, aiming for the rope that held it up. No matter how much polaric radiation it was flooded with, it shouldn't be able to stop an arrow. She fired. The shot did not completely sever the rope, but it did enough. A moment later, the massive bell dropped, crashing through the floor.
A moment after that, two archers covered in dark samurai armor came into sight. "Sorera o korosu!" they shouted, and loosed. An arrow killed one of the Solarii. The second missed Carlin by a couple centimeters.
"Into the hole! Everyone!" John shouted, not that anyone needed the encouragement. The Antican had already leaped through the hole and Sam was helping Carlin down. A moment later, she jumped down herself. She landed on the debris pile beside the bell, slipped and fell over onto her side. John landed beside her, on his feet. For a moment, his rifle was pointed right at her.
Then, there was a tremendous roar from nearby - too near. The bronze doors just a few meters down the hall from them burst open and the huge Oni with the club emerged. "They're here!" the Antican shouted, starting to run. The Oni cut him down with a single swipe of his club, throwing his limp body against the wall. John ran. Carlin helped Sam to her feet and they ran as well.
There was a wooden bridge up ahead, covered and walled in with decorative bronze panels and shuttered windows. Wind whistled through the shutters, blowing a couple of them off even as they ran. Sam could hear heavy footfalls behind them, and she knew they couldn't count on outrunning the Oni to safety, or even count on him stopping his pursuit. She grabbed the rifle from Carlin and pushed the setting selector to maximum. She turned, still backpeddling. The Oni was only four meters away. I may not be able to shoot you, but I can stop you! Sam thought. She fired at the floor in front of it. The boards vanished, vaporized. The Oni stopped short, too heavy to make the leap, and smashed his club down on the bridge in front of him. Sam felt the impact: everyone did. The bridge groaned and shook. The wind tipped it sideways at a slight angle. He must have hit a structural support! Sam realized. We've got to get out of here!
John was there, just a few meters further on. "The interference is clear up here! We can beam out back to the old warbird!" he said, digging out his communicator.
"And then what? You and your cultist buddies have a bonfire starring me? I don't think so!" said Sam, turning on him. "Beam us someplace else!"
John shook his head. "I can't do that."
He moved closer, but Sam pointed her rifle at him. "Then you've just ended this little alliance, friend!" she warned.
Just then, another, more powerful gust slammed into the side of the covered bridge. The slight angle became a full roll, then free-fall. Sam floated helplessly while Carlin, John, and debris from the bridge tumbled about her. Then the Solarii brother shouted an order into his communicator and vanished in a swirl of green energy, leaving the two Starfleet officers to fall alone.
Author's Note: This chapter is obviously based on the first Monastery level of the Tomb Raider game. Some changes were made in order to incorporate two characters and also to shorten up the level to chapter length. I also tried to make the architecture and layout of the monastery a little more straightforward and logical. In the game, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the way rooms are laid out and passing from one to the next often seems to require scrambling through windows, tunnels, or climbing along a cliff face outside. Whatever original design the monastery may have had is obscured behind debris-strewn platforming, which becomes even more confusing when you throw in Lara's second visit to the monastery, which takes her to none of the same places and seems to depict a much larger and more platforming-intensive structure. To resolve this, I came up with a floor plan of my own and added only a few obstacles with which to corral my characters.
Speaking of obstacles, I decided to make one that wasn't in the game: namely the more serious and realistic treatment of Carlin's head injury. In real life, if you get punched in the head (as Lara does in the game) and wake up someplace else several hours later, you have some serious cranial trauma. Logically the same would have applied to Sam at the beginning of chapter 6 but...well, like Carlin said: logic isn't the only way to make decisions!
To make up for the addition of this obstacle, I downplayed the game's obstacle of Solarii mooks running around trying to kill you while you're trying to get out of the monastery. In the game, one of the Solarii does in fact propose a temporary truce between Lara and themselves in order to escape the Oni...but then he immediately changes his mind and Lara has to kill successive waves of Solarii (coming from who-knows-where: this part of the building is supposed to be completely inaccessible once Lara gets in and before she figures out how to drop the bell on the grate - a much more involved process in the game) for the rest of the level until the Oni do finally show up. I liked the idea of the Solarii forming a temporary truce and I saw no reason for them to break it, so I had them form and keep a truce, at least until they were outside of the monastery. To show them breaking the truce, the collapse of the bridge was extended (in the game it takes much less time, becoming a test of platforming and speed...and the cause of the collapse is unclear).
And now: references! The cortical stimulator is the Star Trek equivalent of a defibrilator, except that it works by stimulating neural activity and apparently has less extreme uses. Flupirtine is a real-life pain-killer. Vertazine was used to treat dizziness and a concussion (TNG: "Cause and Effect" and "Parallels"). Cordrazine is a powerful stimulant used in small doses, as overdose can be lethal or cause delusions and paranoia in humans (TOS: "City on the Edge of Forever"). O-yoroi is an old style of samurai armor using small interlocking metal plates. A kanabo is a form of a club, which is associated with oni in Japanese language even today (the phrase "like giving a kanabo to an oni" is equivalent to English's "like adding fuel to the fire"). Based on Google Translate (I don't speak Japanese), the Oni's says, "There are trespassers! Find them! Kill them!" The Oni archers later similarly say, "Kill them!" A kimono is a traditional Japanese robe...but you probably already know that since the word has practically passed into English by now. Ancient Japanese does in fact read right to left as Sam describes, and the murals are laid out in a similar order with similar content (minus the ship that could be a spaceship - in the game, it's a totally normal sailboat) in the game. Sam's remark about hating tombs is from the game (though her commentary about her preferred archaeological work is not) and hearing Lara Croft, the famous Tomb Raider, say it is probably the funniest moment of the game. I had to work it in somewhere! Antican's are a furry canine-like humanoid species that applied for Federation membership in 2364 (TNG: "Lonely Among Us") and were seen in the background in numerous episodes.
The passage of scripture that Sam quotes in Japanese is Psalm 23:4, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." I thought it an appropriate quote, considering all the dead bodies staked out all over this level, and the passage is one commonly used for comfort and courage among Christians. Sam's quotation comes from a Japanese translation available online and does not agree with Google Translate. Again, I don't speak Japanese, so I'm trusting that the non-automated translation was written by humans who actually knew what they were doing. If you have any corrections, though, feel free to message me. Carlin's misconception that the Bible is an English book produced around the time of Shakespeare comes from a popular misconception (captured, embarrassingly, on video) that the King James Version of the Bible is the original, rather than a translation, and was written by King James of England during the 17th Century. It was actually written, as Sam describes, in the Middle East/Palestine area in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic and completed no later than the 2nd Century (though it was not compiled into a single volume until later.
Anyway, there is abundant evidence that the cultural impact and beliefs of Christianity persists into the 23rd century in Star Trek. Uhura identifies a group of religious outcasts living on a parallel Earth where Rome never fell as Christians (based on their religious references; TOS: "Bread and Circuses") and there is a cross in the chapel of the Enterprise in the Original Series episode "Balance of Terror." Its cultural impact stretched at least into the 24th century, with Sisko's father quoting from the Bible and numerous subtler references throughout the show (DS9: "Far Beyond the Stars"). It makes sense that there would still be some practicing Christians among humanity's ranks in 2407. I do not intend to make this story an author tract for or against religion, however: I intend to keep the story neutral on the subject, making equal sense whatever your religious preference. Sam will continue to have a Christian perspective, though (even if, by many standards, she is not a very good Christian - which is fair enough: she's such a snarky troublemaker she's not a very upstanding model of anything, but I love her nonetheless and I hope readers will too) while Carlin will view things from a more agnostic/skeptical perspective.