Star Trek - NF - 11 - Restoration

by Restoration(lit)

  He gave a disdainful glance at Olivan's shuttle, which he had used as a Trojan horse to get the drop on his opponent, and started down the hill. Kalinda lagged behind and, to my surprise, she took my hand and looked at me with what appeared to be understand-ing.

  "I'm sorry," she said in a low voice.

  But I don't entirely think that she was. And I know that Si Cwan wasn't.

  And the thing I keep coming back to is that, in many ways, Nik-whatever he was-came across, in the end, as only a child, swept up in events that were more terrifying than he could possi-bly comprehend. There is nothing so sad in this universe as a lost child, I think.

  MOKE

  everything had seemed to happen in slow motion. One mo-ment, his mother was running toward him, but so slowly, as if the ground was moving under her feet, forcing her to keep her dis-tance. And then there was a roar, an explosion from just behind his ear, and suddenly his mother was sailing through the air, like a bird, or an angel. And then she was on the ground, with a hideous black scorch mark across her chest, and an expression on her face that would have been comical if it hadn't been so horrific.

  He cried out to her over and over again, and the man who was holding him was laughing. Laughing at her. Laughing at him.

  And then the laughter began to diminish, drowned out as it was by a steadily increasing pounding. The pounding got louder and louder, and it was the rumbling of thunder. And there was a flash-ing of light behind his eyes. His mother had always taught him to count between the blaze of lightning and the crack of thunder, and in that difference lay the distance between the two. But die thun-der in his head and the explosion of lightning in his eyes was si-multaneous, and the storm was right there in his head.

  He tore his gaze away from his mother and looked up at the man who was holding him. The man, Temo, was laughing con-temptuously, and then he looked at the boy, and was so startled

  that he lost his grip on him. At that moment, Moke could have torn away from him, could have run. But he did not. Instead he turned and faced him, and whatever the man was seeing in his eyes, it was so frightening that the man fell to the ground as if the strength had gone completely out of his legs, the gun in his hand forgotten.

  I must be terrible indeed, thought Moke, as if his mind was out-side his body, and then he added with satisfaction, Good. That's good.

  The people of the town were starting to emerge. They thought that the danger was over. Idiots. Idiots. All of them. There was that old woman, the Maestress, who was always saying bad things about his mother, and there was the Praestor, and the writing man, and the one who took care of people when they died, and all the others, one by one coming out to see what had happened. Or else to see for themselves that his mother was really, truly going... going away...

  Dying... you can say it... your mother is dying...

  He could not see his own eyes, of course, but if he had, he would have seen the blackness that was seething within. Black-ness that was matched by the skies above. The people of the town were pointing, murmuring in confusion and fear. Good. Let them be afraid. Let them know. Let them know what was going to hap-pen, because it was all their fault, all their fault...

  His terrified child-mind cried out, Maaa...1 want to come with you.

  And with perfect clarity, he was certain he heard his mother's voice in his head, with the reply, No, my love... you have to stay here...

  Stay here? With them?

  Them... and this man... Temo... and the other man, Tap-inza. His ma had said that he was responsible for all this, too. They were to blame, everyone in the town was to blame...

  Except Mac. He wouldn't be punished. He had tried to help. He had even saved his mother once. He was not Moke's father, but

  that was okay, he was close, and he deserved not to be pun-ished...

  ... but the others were going to be.

  Until that moment, Moke had had no concept of death. He had just somehow assumed, deep down, as was typical for children, that his mother was always going to be there. But he was not stu-pid. He saw it in her eyes, in the trembling of her body, in the hole in the upper portion of her ruined body... she was going to be leaving him. He imagined that such a journey, such a happen-stance, was a lonely and frightening thing. If that was the case... then he was going to make certain that his mother did not make that journey alone.

  If she was going away... she was going to have company.

  Lots of company.

  The thunderheads rolled in with staggering ferocity. The roiling of the sky matched the fearsome blackness in Moke's eyes, and the wind began to howl with a noise that sounded eerily like it was issuing from a living throat.

  He saw the stunned looks on the faces of Tapinza and the towns-people. They were looking at the unmoving body of his mother, stu-pidly trying to figure out how in the world she was doing all this. One final gesture of contempt for the woman they had tormented for so many years. But, obviously, they didn't realize, hadn't realized, ever...

  But Moke had known. In his subconscious mind, in his inner resources... he had known. Known that whatever power his mother might or might not have had... it paled in comparison to his own. But he had never been willing or desirous of utilizing it because, on some level, he needed to feel that his mother was the powerful one. That she was in charge. That was simply the way of the world, the way things were supposed to be, and Moke didn't want to think that he was more formidable than his mom.

  Except that he was.

  He was not operating on conscious thought. It was purely the unfettered agony of a child who had inhabited the local weather

  patterns and unleashed a storm front of epic proportions. There was a chance that, if left untampered with, the weather might have brought a storm into the region on its own. But Moke was not about to leave matters to chance-oh, no. Because his mother was going away, and he couldn't go with her, and he was going to make sure that when she went wherever she did, all the people who had been cruel to her and hurt her were going to be right there along-side her. And they would have to explain to Kolk'r why they had done the things they had done, and he hoped that Kolk'r would send them to a bad place for a very, very long time, maybe forever. But the first order of business was making sure they were there to be sent, and that, at least, was something Moke could attend to.

  Seconds earlier the skies had been clear, although thick clouds had been on the horizon. Now there was such blackness that it was hard to believe there had ever once been a sun beaming down upon the world, or that the sun would ever come again. The townspeople sensed great disaster at hand, sensed that this storm was unlike any they had ever known. Here there would be no dancing in the streets, no laughter, no heads tilted back in supplication and thanks as big, warm rain droplets cascaded from on high, bringing life and joy to a grateful populace. No, this was a pure elemental display of a child mad with grief. The people did not yet fully understand what was happening, and as was so often the case, that which they did not understand, they feared. However, as it so happened, this was one of those instances where the fear was well placed.

  Moke looked upward, his arms outstretched, as if welcoming the gathering storm. Day had been transformed into night, and on a world that had known only heat for the most part, there was a frightening chill in the air. The townspeople tried to run, but now the winds had come. It battered them, keeping them from getting indoors, battering at them like so many invisible rams. They cried out, they screamed, they protested, but all such noises were carried away by the winds, drowned out by howls like a million damned souls that would soon be adding still more to their number.

  Temo, released from the nearly hypnotic spell of those dark-

  some eyes, shook himself out of his momentary stupor. He looked down, saw the gun that had slipped from his nerveless fingers, and-grabbing it up-aimed it squarely at Moke. But Moke's at-tention whipped around, centering completely on Temo. Moke was the eye of the storm, the center of concentrated calm in the midst o
f a whirling mass of destructive force. But Temo was just on the outside of the eye, part of the chaos, and very vulnerable.

  Temo was fast, but he was not faster than light. A crack rent the air, as if splitting it in two, and a lightning bolt lanced down from a cloud black as pitch. It slammed through Temo, and for a moment it actually looked as if it had impaled him. The force of the electricity lifted Temo off the ground, tossing him through the air in much the same way as his plaser blast had sent Rheela tumbling down the first steps into oblivion. For one horrific moment, he actually danced in midair, convulsed by the force of the electricity that fried every molecule in his body. Finally it released him, allowing him to crash to the ground and lie there twitching for some minutes thereafter, even though his blackened and smoking body was already lifeless.

  The people had seen what had happened, and realized that they were next. They redoubled their efforts, trying to run. Had they thought to converge on Moke simultaneously, they might actually have succeeded in stopping him. He was, after all, still a child, heir to the frailties of the average living creature. But they were too caught up in their screeching panic to want anything other than to run for their lives. Instead, the wind scattered them like tenpins.

  Praestor Milo staggered to his feet, trying to find some order in the chaos, and then something hit him from on high. It struck just above his forehead, knocking him to the ground and leaving a large welt of swelling blood. He looked down in confusion at the thing that had just flattened him. He had never, in his life, seen a hailstone. Nor had anyone else in the town. But they were about to see more than enough for a lifetime, as more began to fall.

  The stones pounded down upon the helpless citizens, and they tried to run, but could not-there was nowhere to go. The hail-stones crashed through the roofs of their dwellings, smashing

  through them like falling anvils, blasting apart windows. People were struck, bruised, battered.

  Tapinza-he who had instigated all of this, he who had had de-signs on Moke's mother, who had brought the green monster that had tried to kill Calhoun, who was in league with all of it-he, Tapinza, tried to run.

  But he had caught Moke's attention, and Moke-once he had noticed something-did not allow it to go.

  The wind had become far more fierce, if such a thing was pos-sible, and now it converged around Tapinza. He clawed at the air, trying to batter it back, but there was nothing for him to push away, even though it was solid enough to do him damage. He cried out Moke's name, but as with all other protests, it was car-ried up and away... and so was Tapinza. It started slowly at first, but then increased in speed as the whirling vortex lifted Tapinza. He tried to apologize, he tried to beg for mercy, he tried promises of wealth and grandeur, of fame and fortune. He even tried to claim that he was Moke's father, which was not remotely true- although, at that moment, it wouldn't have mattered even if it were.

  Higher and higher still went Tapinza, so fast that, in no more than an eyeblink, he went from being on the ground to a couple hundred feet above it. Then, like a cat moving on to more interest-ing prey, the wind released him, and Tapinza fell.

  Exactly one person noticed-the Maestress. It was hard for her not to; Tapinza was falling right toward her. Obviously, the Maestress Cawfiel was caught between warring emotions. On the one hand, she knew that attempting to catch the falling Maester would be suicide; on the other hand, she couldn't bring herself to clear out of his way and thus abandon him at his time of greatest need. And so she stood there, transfixed, unable to decide what to do. Then, at the last moment, as she saw the velocity with which the body was falling, she realized that her death was upon her, and the thought terrified her-which was interesting, considering she had spent a long time thinking that nothing terrified her anymore.

  She let out a screech of protest and fright that was, of course, drowned out by all that was around her, and then a large hand grabbed her by the back of her dress and yanked her out of the way as Tapinza hit the ground. He did so with such force that blood spattered everywhere, including all over the Maestress. She stood there, paralyzed, decorated with bits of Tapinza's body. She didn't even look to see who it was that had saved her life. Instead, she was focused only on the unmoving sack of meat and bones that had once been the only creature who walked the planet who had stirred anything akin to emotion in her withered soul.

  The howling of the wind was mirrored in the howling torn from Moke's throat, and the storm grew greater, and the hailstones fell with greater ferocity, and there was lightning all around, and the town was being smashed to pieces, and the rest of the people were going to die, that was all, just die, die, death everywhere, a great sea of death, for Moke had never known death before, but now that he grasped the concept, he was going to visit it on all of them, everyone who had ever hurt his mother or him or-

  "Enough."

  Over all the desperate and terrified cries, over all the yelling, over all the insanity that was around them, the voice of Mackenzie Calhoun carried. He was standing barely two feet away from Moke, and it was clear from the look in his eye that he was going to accept no excuses, no protests of innocence, no further battering of people or property. Mere seconds before, he had pulled the Maestress out of the way of a very ugly death. Now, he put his own life on the line, standing before a child insane with grief, and he said again, in a tone that made it clear that this was an order, "Enough, I said."

  "But they-"

  "Moke," and this time there was an implied menace, "enough. Your mother wouldn't want this. Neither should you." Then, his voice suddenly getting softer, more compassionate, he said, "Go to her. She needs you now."

  Moke hadn't even realized that there was life left within his mother. Immediately, the town forgotten, spared by the mercurial

  nature of a chad's attention span, Moke ran to his mother. He col-lapsed at her side, staring down into eyes that saw him only with love.

  "You made... quite a mess..." she managed to say.

  "They hurt you..."

  "I know. But they can't hurt me... anymore..." She was speaking as if from very far away. There was, amazingly, a sound of mild relief in her voice.

  "Ma..." he said urgently, but was too overwhelmed at first to continue.

  Calhoun knelt beside her. At first, she looked at him blankly, as if aware that she knew him from somewhere, but couldn't quite place where that might be. Then she realized. As if reading his mind, she whispered, "It's... all right... not your fault..."

  "Just rest," said Calhoun.

  She clearly tried to shake her head. "Plenty of time... for that..."

  The winds were dying down, and only a last few hailstones were trickling from the sky. The moans and cries of the people were starting to become audible.

  Her voice became even more hoarse, a bare shadow of itself. He had to strain to hear her. "I understand now... never had power... until Moke was born... my mother had it... not me... then, when Moke was born... got power... didn't real-ize... I never had it... he did... I'ma... a catalyst... there's something in me... that triggers ability... in my fam-ily... that's why... I couldn't make rain... when Moke was around...because of me, my mother had it...because of me... so did Moke... never on my own... and Moke, on his own... won't..."

  "I don't wanna be on my own," Moke wailed.

  "You won't be..." she said softly, and she looked to Calhoun. "Will he?"

  Calhoun slowly shook his head and there was a sad smile on his face. "Never."

  She tried to lift her arm, but it wouldn't respond. With infinite gentleness, Calhoun raised her hand up and put it against his face, on the side opposite the scar.

  "Whoever she is..." Rheela managed to get out, "... the woman who... holds your heart... she's... she's very lucky... tell her... I said she is... you will... tell her..." He nodded.

  "Moke... honey... Mommy loves you... always... you can make the clouds go away now... have it stop being... so dark..."

  "I have, Ma. Look..."

  Abov
e them, the clouds had indeed parted, and now, from on high, a single stream of light enveloped them, as if the eyes of the gods on high were staring straight down upon them.

  "Much... better..." she whispered. "Just let me... enjoy the light here... for a few moments..."

  And Moke held her close until she was gone.

  SHELBY

  shelby didn't say anything for some time after Robin Lefler finished speaking. When she did, it was simply, "Then what?"

  Lefler shrugged, as if nothing much mattered after that. "Well... Si Cwan and Kalinda left not too long after that. I'm not too sure where they went. Although... believe me, Captain, I know them. If there's a relaunch of the Excalibur, they'll know about it, and will probably show up."

  "And what will you say to him? To Si Cwan, I mean."

  "I know who you meant. I just..." She shook her head. "I don't know." Then, as if to try and change the mood through sheer force of will, she slapped her thighs and said, "My mom and Scotty have been working day and night since then, overseeing re-pairs and such. The owners of the place want to put Scotty in charge of the joint as manager. He keeps saying he's not inter-ested, although Mom keeps telling him just to think of it as a re-ally big pub."