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Koh
Sam Hayashi, Stardate and location...unknown.
The last thing I remember is being attacked by the koh, an ancient demon inhabiting the faceless corpse of the last Sun Queen of Yamatai. Matan brought me to Himiko. I tried to kill her. ...I failed. Now she's trying to take me over, turn me into her next vessel, the new Sun Queen. I have to fight her, but I'm not sure how long I can hold out.
God, please give me strength! Please let Carlin and the others find me!
During one of her parent's stints of attempted juvenile rehabilitation, Sam had been subjected to visits from a Vulcan councilor who tried (with little success) to teach her various meditation techniques. Among them had been something he called "the landscape of the mind"—a place where the soul and consciousness could find private retreat and rest from all distractions at the core of one's being. The councilor had claimed that everyone had a landscape of the mind, and that many were vast and colorful, filled with memories, thoughts, and fantasies that the mind could contemplate for hours. Sam's landscape, however, was a room: plain, white, featureless, unfurnished, and empty. To be clear, it was not empty because she was dull-witted or had nothing with which to fill this meditative, internal space. It was empty because she simply never used it. Sam wasn't exactly the contemplative type.
Sam found herself there now, in the white, empty room. For a moment, she sat there, wrinkling her nose and wondering how she'd come to be there. Then the answer came to her...literally.
Dark clouds and lightning heralded its approach, taking up a whole wall of the room. Then, she appeared, the Sun Queen Himiko. She did not look the way Sam had seen her last, but instead appeared as her statues and murals had depicted her: a beautiful, regal, and tall woman in the prime of her life, clad in a kimono of vibrant red and white silk with her jet black hair worked into an elaborate royal headdress around a golden crown. The queen's dark almond eyes fixed on Sam, glaring down at her from a painted face.
Sam straightened and stood. Though she was pretty sure she'd been lounging in the buff a moment ago, when she stood she found herself in full uniform. Her red jacket was spotless and her silver rank pins were prominent—if a little oversized. "I'm Lieutenant Samantha Hayashi of the starship Nautilus, representing the United Federation of Planets," she said formally. Her eyes narrowed and a phaser suddenly appeared on her hip. "This is my mind, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
Himiko gave her a piercing gaze. Suddenly Sam was reliving a memory. She was twelve again, clinging to the seat of a jostling Type 15 shuttlepod, shielding her eyes from falling sparks with one hand. She was crying—bawling, more like. Tears ran down her cheeks because she was terrified about riding out her first ion storm...because she was lost and no one knew where she was...because she had run away and missed her parents, but was convinced they hated her...because she was hurt and confused and did not know why...
The memory faded then and Sam found herself back in the white room, facing Himiko. The Sun Queen seemed taller, until Sam realized that it was instead her own height that had changed. She was a full fifteen centimeters shorter than she'd been a moment before. She was the same height she'd been at age twelve. Her uniform was gone, replaced with the pink and white tunic she'd worn then, complete with skirt and booties. Her hair hung down in pig-tails and her eyes were still puffy and red from crying. Himiko gazed down at her. She said nothing, but to Sam the implication was clear.
"This is how you see me? This is who I am to you?" She wiped her eyes with a pigtail (God, I miss those pigtails! she thought. So unattractive and unfashionable, but darn useful). "Fine...but turnabout's fair play. This is who you are to me!"
She concentrated on the first glimpse she'd had of the ancient queen: an ancient corpse rising naked and faceless from its grave. A horrid decaying thing, screaming and insensible. She focused all her mind on them image, then opened her eyes (or at least, the Sam Hayashi in the white room opened her eyes—she seemed to have lost touch with what her actual body was doing). Himiko appeared that way now, her fine robes and royal trappings gone, as was her face. She screamed as pieces of her flesh pealed away, then the entire form disintegrated and vanished like smoke, leaving behind a crackling being of pure energy, coalesced around the blazing heart of the Star of Yamatai. The koh moved toward Sam, menacing her with its very strangeness, but suddenly she was a child no longer. She was back in her Starfleet uniform, holding a phaser in her hand.
"I'm a Starfleet officer!" she shouted at Himiko. "We've met beings like you before. Non-corporeal beings of energy who prey on those of us with material bodies. I know what you are, koh!"
The energy crackled and a bright light drew Sam in. Suddenly she saw Yamatai as it had been millennia ago, though she was not sure how she recognized the planet. Everything was different. The plants were all strange and the mountains were much taller. The sea was nowhere to be seen. Yet she did recognize it. She recognized the spire of the mountain on which she and Himiko were in the real world. Beneath it a large complex sprawled. Power lines and highways spread out from it, radiating toward bustling cities many kilometers away. There was no sign of Japanese ruins, no sign of the Solarii or the Dominion. Instead there was a bustling homeworld of an early warp civilization.
She saw the koh, but not as a crackling energy being, or even as a Japanese queen. Instead, she saw a humanoid female, a scientist. During the day, the scientist worked in the compound beneath the mountain, and during the night she climbed to the mountain's summit. That was when it happened. To call it an explosion would have been a gross understatement. The flash was brighter than a million suns, skipping right past the eyes to sear directly at the soul. The wall of flame expanded outward from the flash. Everything it touched burned to ash in an instant. Within the space of half a heartbeat, the flame had enveloped everything in sight, expanding beyond the horizon. The scientist was touched as well. Her body ignited, skin and muscle burning away almost instantly. Bones took only a fraction of a second longer. It all happened too quickly for even pain, but the shock was a pain in itself, a soul-wrenching agony Sam sensed rather than felt.
The cruelest thing about the shock and agony was that they did not end when the flames went out and the body was reduced to a fine black ash. The scientist was still there. Her body was gone, but her consciousness survived as pure energy. Crackling where she had stood - robbed of her form in an instant, condemned to live out her final days as the merest echo of her former self. Sam saw the same thing repeated all over the planet. Where once had been men, women, and children there were now only remnants of energy, cruelly conscious, struggling to find form and stability in a world that now offered them neither. One by one, their energies destabilized and dissipated. Some lasted days, some only minutes. A few managed to maintain form longer by absorbing weaker energies, cannibalizing one another's souls. The scientist moved through this chaos of tormented ghosts, seeking something solid to cling to, like the others. Unlike them, the scientist, the koh found something in the ruins of the compound, a fragment of a crystal used to focus and stabilize the experimental energy her people had discovered. The koh wove its energies through the fragment, becoming more powerful and more stable than the others, and the fragment became the Star of Yamatai.
Still there was danger on the dying planet, and no reason for the koh to stay. It left, finding an intact starship of the now-dead civilization and taking it away into the stars. For more than a decade it searched the heavens, till it found the planet Earth and a native lifeform that could offer it a fuller form. That was when it first found Sam's people. That was when it took the body of the curious young priestess. That was when Himiko became the first Sun Queen. Sam saw her placing the Star on a slim chain around her neck and assuming control of the primitive tribesmen around her.
The memories ended with that and Sam found herself back in the white room, facing Himiko, the first queen. She was not as resplendently dressed as her successors, but there was a strength and a vision in her eyes that could not be denied.
"You're a survivor, I'll give you that," said Sam. "Your whole world was destroyed in a polaric energy accident, and you lived on—even finding corporeal form again. That doesn't make you a hero, though. You stole that form from its rightful owner! That makes you a leech!"
The Sun Queen's eyes flashed and she grew taller. Sam saw her now, generation after generation, human vessel after human vessel working to expand her kingdom and power, showing the people the marvels of technology and her own incredible powers. Lightning, rain, and wind answered her command. Men trembled before her and offered her gifts. Distant lands sent emissaries to curry favor with her. Warriors bowed before her, receiving immortality in exchange for loyalty at the touch of her power. Century after century, her power and wealth grew. She returned to her homeworld several times in the latest century of her reign, bringing the dead world to life again with plants and animals from Earth, even bringing her favorite subjects there to worship her, whisking them away with the wave of a fan that cleverly disguised a transporter's controls.
With the exception of one dark stain—barely a blot in the potentially unlimited span of the koh's life—the reign of the Sun Queen stretched unbroken from century to century, face to face. Sam saw them all now, more than a dozen women who had stood watch over the eons, who had borne the title Sun Queen and the name Himiko, who had been filled with the koh's vast knowledge and power.
Sam saw her own face among them and she recoiled, falling on her back in the white room. The koh stood above her, wearing her finest clothes again, and smiling a predatory smile—but this time she wore Sam's own face. Sam snarled. "No! You do not get to have that face! That is mine!"
She fired her phaser, but the illusionary weapon had no effect. The koh merely laughed. It taunted Sam by dissolving one wall of the white room so she could see the real world. Sam's body was hanging there, suspended in midair by the unnatural power pouring into it from the screaming corpse of the old queen. Sam's body screamed in unison and her hands stirred, no longer under her mind's control. They motioned to the doors and a blast of wind blew them open. The wind tore through the monastery till it found the Oni, the legendary Stormguard, fighting with the Solarii in the arid canyon. The wind called and the Stormguard retreated, coming toward the Chamber of the Sun to serve their new queen.
Sam saw another figure approaching the Chamber, just starting the steps. She saw the short auburn hair tossed in the wind, the blue uniform stained by blood and dust. Carlin! Please hurry! she urged silently.
The koh sensed it. It's eyes flicked to Carlin and in the real world Sam's finger stretched out, lightning dancing on the tip. Sam realized what was going to happen a second before it did, and she knew she had to stop it.
"No!" She shouted. She tackled the koh. The being was startled by the momentary contact, but instantly transported herself to the other side of the room, leaving Sam lying on the floor, clutching empty air. Sam had expected this however, after the phaser hadn't done anything to the koh. She'd used the attack as a diversion while her real energy was focused on the real world, on moving her finger ever so slightly to the side. A lightning bolt lanced out, but it missed, hitting the stairs a few meters to Carlin's right.
The koh realized what Sam had done a second too late. It stared at her, aghast, and Sam smiled. "What's the matter? Never met anyone who could fight back before? I suppose by this point in your little song and dance you'd already overawed your other victims and probably blown their minds. There was no way they could fight you, a psychic non-corporeal being from a civilization thousands of years more advanced than anything they could imagine! Well, I've got news for you, Your Majesty," said Sam. "My people have come a long way since you amused us with your tricks. We've learned a few tricks of our own. You think you can distract me with memories and pageantry while you take over my body? Two can play at this game. Tell me, your Highness, have you ever felt what it's like to go into an uncontrolled re-entry with nothing but the clothes on your back? Spinning at hypersonic velocities with raw plasma roaring around you as the ground rushes up? Let me share my memories of orbital skydiving with you!"
The koh's eyes widened and its form wavered. Sam struck out in the real world. She could still barely move her hands, but it was enough to let her wield the koh's power for an instant. A whirlwind roared to life in the Chamber, tossing the doors aside and ripping the shutters from their hinges, opening every possible entry point for Carlin and the others. Sam knew she could not last long or hope to win against the koh alone. Already it was rallying, sending bolts of lightning down to cut off Carlin's path, which Sam was barely able to deflect in time to save her friend. Then the koh tried to plunge Sam into another memory and the real battle began...
Author's Note: Having any scene take place entirely within a character's mind is always a bit of a risk. Hopefully this paid off.
My goal here was twofold. The first was to answer the necessary questions about who the koh is, where it came from, how and why it came to Earth, and what the nature and importance of the Star of Yamatai is. Despite Sam's qualms about the possible supernatural nature of the koh, I wanted to give them a natural explanation.
My second goal was to explain why Himiko, who is previously seen to shoot down rescuers with unerring accuracy, should suddenly be such a lousy shot when attempting to kill Carlin. During the climactic approach to the Chamber of the Sun, Lara is saved several times by winds or lightning strikes from Himiko, even as these same forces threaten to kill her, leading some to question whether or not Himiko actually wants Lara to reach the Chamber and kill her, rather than wanting to take a new body. That didn't make much sense to me, so I instead wanted to explain the conflicted nature of Himiko's power usage in the end as a result of the conflict between herself and Sam during the transference. This also has the upshot of making Sam an active participant in the story even at this point.
The Type-15 shuttlepod is a small, boxy, non-warp capable design seen in several episodes of TNG. Sam's interest in orbital skydiving was referenced in chapter 26, though she exaggerates the extreme nature of the sport somewhat. As seen in the beginning of the Voyager episode "Extreme Risk," orbital skydiving involves a lot of protective equipment—and probably also a parachute or some kind of anti-grav device, you know, just so they can have return customers. :)