Between the filter mask and the goggles, Juliette felt as though she was trapped in the helmet again. All desire to explore the outside disappeared as the hot wind scoured her cheeks and she looked up at the silt-filled sky and the churning clouds punctuated with ominous pulses of lightning.
Juliette replayed events in her mind until they tumbled like the clouds. The Vulcans didn't seem angry but were determined to leave her at the monastery. She studied each in turn, hoping to gain some insight, but they might as well have been holograms. Things were so much easier at home, where one could feel when someone was offended, but here, she was like the villain at the end of a passion play who refuses every chance at redemption. Reluctantly, the Matron of the victorious house would exile the villain to a distant island, a desolate moon, or in one case, an oubliette under the ocean. Then the chorus, that emotional compass of every passion opera, would project the villain's terror at the realization they would be forever alone. In The Heretic of Rixx, the villain leaped into an energy core rather than accept their fate.
"Mine wife," Lorot shouted over the wind.
"Yes, Mine husband?" P'nem replied, deadpan as she checked her rifle. The gusts tugged at her cowl.
Lorot stared at the line of black clouds for a long moment before he responded. "I cannot help but question the logic of this decision."
"The decision is my own, mine husband. You and Danek could remain here."
"But then who, mine wife, would protect the storm from you?" His gaze went back to the advancing clouds. "We had best get moving."
Juliette looked toward Danek. His shoulders shifted in a shrug. A blast of wind knocked Juliette off-balance. P'nem caught her by the collar. "Stay close to Danek. He knows the trail."
"I-" Juliette started.
"What?"
She wanted to ask about the monastery, and why they were taking her there. She wanted to apologize for any offense. But the words were tangled. Besides, if she was to be thrown out, she should accept it with dignity.
"I'll stay close."
An escort of saltation bounced alongside as a blistering wind pushed them down the rocky trail. The descent began as a gentle incline down the mesa, then plunged deep into silt-filled gullies. Near the bottom, where the slope leveled, the rocky path was polished smooth by centuries of wind. Danek kept a hold of Juliette's arm as they took careful steps to avoid the slickest spots.
As they trudged through an ankle-deep drift of dust, Juliette decided that when she wrote her own passion opera, the villain would be exiled on Vulcan.
As they topped the second rise, her legs burned. By the fourth, they were quivering and rubbery. Juliette stumbled over a rock and went sprawling. P'nem hauled her up and after a terse examination, gestured for her to stay put. Juliette hunched over with her hands on her knees, panting for air. P'nem returned, leaned close and shouted to be heard over the wind.
"We have not come as far as I expected. It's too far to go back, and we will not reach the ravine before the storm overtakes us. However, there are two fronts so we will wait for the first one to pass and get to the ravine before the second arrives."
Juliette tried to sift P'nem's words from the dust and wind as she fought the mask for each breath of air. Her robe, which had started out a beige, was dyed dull red. P'nem tapped the breather on Juliette's mask and motioned to Danek.
Danek removed the filter from his own mask and cleared it with a few twists. Juliette followed along with her own filter while P'nem and Lorot pinioned a mat to the ground with thin metal rods. Lorot sat on one side of the mat; P'nem on the other. Danek led Juliette to the center of the mat and together they sat down. Shielded from the wind by Danek, she peered over his shoulder.
A boiling wall of dust swallowed the mesa and the trail they had hiked as it blossomed forward, extending up to the clouds. Cyclones of grit jerked in front, stabbing at the ground. It was as if the desert was being torn away to make room for a new world. Juliette couldn't find the words; all she could do was point.
Danek leaned forward. "Do not worry, it is just a storm." But as he looked, his calm shattered into surprise as his gaze dashed back and forth between Juliette and the storm. He started to speak, but his words were lost as the wind slammed into them, pushing him against her.
Danek regained his posture and most of his composure. Juliette looked up after the initial blast of wind. P'nem and Lorot had become hazy shadows in the dust. A tingle rippled down Juliette's neck and along her scalp and arms. Danek yanked her toward the ground as a blinding white flash was followed by an earth-rending roar. She bolted upright before Danek yanked her back down. He pulled her forward and brought his cowl against hers. Static splayed his fine black hair against the fabric.
"Do not leave the mat. It is insulated, and the ion rods should protect us."
She glanced to the side. A half dozen columns of lightning carved glowing trails in the ground as they bucked and arced between twisting whirlwinds of grit. The Lightning and the afterimage it left behind were inseparable.
"Should?" she screamed at Danek as a surge of electricity prickled over her skin. Lightning flicked like tongues along the tops of the rods, the tips glowed brilliant orange before fading back to a sullen red. She clutched Danek's sleeve. A loud crack of thunder swallowed Danek's first attempt to answer.
"-with a high degree of probability."
Juliette huddled down, trembling. During the worst storm on Betazed in over a decade, she had hidden under a mound covers with a pillow clenched tight around her head. Scant help, until she felt Papa's presence, then Matron's as they reached out to comfort her. Even Lara and Kanara. They weathered storms as a family - together. It seemed forever ago - back before contact hurt. But no storm on Betazed could compare to the fury around her, and she was alone with companions that didn't join together for support.
Perhaps it could not hurt to use her awareness to just listen - to feel how calm the Vulcans were, and use it to settle her own frayed nerves. It took several moments, her eyes closed as she huddled into her robe, before she could reach. She discovered Danek's presence was first. His worry burned like the heat from the ion rods. Lorot, however, was calm, and Juliette took comfort in it and in P'nem's intense self control.
As Juliette drank in their calm, her anxiety retreated until it was just a spark. Even when a trio of white bolts stabbed at a rod, and it exploded in a shower of sparks, Juliette observed dispassionately, brushing smoking embers off her robes and Danek's sleeve, as he stared at the bent, sparking rod. His calm was worn away, leaving jagged edges of anxiety that tore at her composure. She reached out to share her serenity when the sensation of another presence caught her attention.
This presence wasn't Vulcan; It felt wild - alien, even, but it's hunger and anticipation were as familiar as they were primal. An animal, calm and aware - at home in the torrents of grit and lightning.
Juliette shouted in Danek's ear, "There's something nearby - some kind of animal."
Danek lunged toward Lorot and tugged at his robe. After a quick conference, he turned around to P'nem as Lorot adjusted his rifle; its whine mixed with the wind. P'nem leaned toward Juliette. A thick coating of dust had merged her face, goggles, and breather into a single mask.
"Are you sure there is an animal?"
"I still feel it," Juliette said over the wind. Her throat burned from shouting.
P'nem readied her rifle. "Only sehlat hunt during storms. Which way?"
Juliette wanted to ask what a sehlat was, but there was an urgency to P'nem's words. She closed her eyes and let her mind sift the wind. After a moment, she pointed into the storm.
P'nem sat up, brought the carbine up to her shoulder and fired. The carbine coughed and bucked with each shot. Juliette scrambled across to P'nem, and seized her shoulder as she shouted, "Stop! Don't kill it!"
P'nem's hand flashed. Juliette's world abruptly turned as she was slammed to the mat. P'nem's mouth was close to her ear, her tone calm, even as she pushed Juliette to the ground. "Do not be foolish. If I do not convince it to search for easier prey, it will kill us and eat us. Do you understand?"
Juliette nodded wide-eyed, too stunned to struggle, wondering if P'Nem killed many animals, talking in that flat voice.
"Is it still stalking us?"
Juliette forced her focus slide away from P'nem's dust-covered goggles to feel the desert around them. She nodded.
P'Nem's released her grip. "Show me where."
Juliette clambered to her knees and pointed. P'nem fired another volley. Juliette flinched with each shot. She squinted into the dusty gale, trying to catch a glimpse of the creature, but all she could see were shadows, even as it came closer. It's hunger stabbed at Juliette's belly. She trembled at its certainty of purpose, and with a deep breath, she reached further with her awareness.
She had touched animals before - the songbirds in the garden and even the mutorki that hid among the velvet creeper vines. Once, at a nature preserve, she'd touched an uttabear as it clawed through the carcass of its kill. But this - this was not the hazy cunning of an uttabear. This was a keen, hungry hunter. Watching. Waiting. Through the sehlat's senses, Juliette tasted the ozone in the air and the smooth glide of sand under her paws as she eased between the shadows.
She smelled four. Three were Vulcan, one was - something else, sharp with fear. Their scents increased the hunger in her belly. Yes, they had weapons, but they could not see her as she slid between the bolts of lightning. They were close - just a leap away. She crouched, poised for the one using her weapon. She would pounce on that one first, then kill the others before they could respond. She waited for the right flash of lightning to pounce...now.
Juliette felt light in the wind as the sehlat leaped. Through its eyes, she saw them, clustered on the mat - pale, flickering figures. As she pulled back, she became tangled with the sehlat. Juliette on the mat grabbed the hot barrel of the carbine and shoved it upward toward the Juliette in the air. She heard the sizzle of skin on the hot barrel, her own terrified cry, and, at last, the cough of the carbine. For a moment, she returned to herself; her hands blazed with pain as she looked up at P'nem's dismayed expression before her awareness snapped back to the sehlat.
She landed hard on the sand and rocks and twisted to her feet. Her side ached from the weapon, but that discomfort was nothing compared to the gnawing in her belly. She coiled her legs to spring again.
Juliette felt hot needles in her head as she released her terror into the mind of the sehlat, and she gathered the pain and sent that as well.
Her head was on fire with something dangerous - something terrible. Pain was everywhere, and there was nothing to slash and bite to make it stop!
Juliette received the sehlat's confusion turned terror mixed with her own. She threw it back, over and over until it ricocheted between them, flickering like the lightning between the rods. Juliette could no longer hang on. Her awareness slid away into a blur of sensation - snarling in the desert, spinning and clawing at everything - thrashing on the mat, tearing away P'nem's mask, clawing at her cheek. Her own goggles had slipped down to her chin, and her eyes stung from the dust and grit.
The pain was all over. It came from everywhere. All she could do was get away from it - run as fast as she could and hide from the thing that stalked in the lightning and shadows.
Juliette's connection fell away as the sehlat fled. Through a hazy veil of pain, Juliette's sensations became her own. P'nem had put Juliette's goggles back over her eyes. Juliette's hands throbbed, her palms slick with broken blisters encrusted with sand. P'nem's words seemed far away, her face dirty and etched with red scratches. Juliette wished she could have seen the sehlat and wanted to tell P'nem she was sorry for clawing her. She wanted to tell them all that she hadn't meant to offend, but right now she wanted - needed - was to close her eyes, if only for a bit.