◊: Mother
Star Trek
Steamrunner
By K.H.Giblett
Book 1 of the USS Destiny Saga
Natasha and her mother ran through the forest. Her mother gripped Natasha’s hand so tightly that her nails dug into her skin. Natasha wanted to cry out from the pain, but she could not bring herself to make a sound.
She felt too scared.
Scared of them—the green-skinned men who always came for their kind. Those who thought of them as nothing more than vermin.
Then Natasha caught a glimpse of something thin and metallic ahead.
An instant later, she tumbled.
A sharp zipping sound filled the air as a metal wire coiled around her legs. The ground rushed up to meet her, and her face slammed into the soil, dazing her instantly. White-hot pain lanced through one side of her face.
“Nyrah! No!” her mother screamed.
For an instant, Natasha remembered her real name.
Her birth name.
But the moment passed. The wire around her legs tightened and began dragging her across the forest floor. Someone had set the terrible trap to ensnare its victims and haul them away.
“Mother!” Natasha screamed, clawing at the ground.
It was useless.
The wire ran to some kind of motor, powerful enough to drag a Bajoran five times Natasha’s size with ease.
Her fingernails broke as the machine dragged her faster and faster through the forest. Dirt covered her face, and she could barely see through the tears and soil caking her eyes.
They turned her over.
A man knelt above her.
The darkness of the forest hid his face, but Natasha knew he was no friend.
She struggled against her captor.
The man slapped her.
The blow sent stars bursting across her vision.
He stood and chuckled.
“The harder they fight, the better,” he said.
Then he planted a thick boot on her chest and pushed down.
“We’ll have you working in the mines, Bajoran!”
The man pulled something from his pocket and activated it.
The beacon flashed as it alerted others to their location. Its white light glowed against the darkness, illuminating the man above her.
Natasha gasped.
She had known what he was before she ever saw his face.
But seeing him made him no less terrifying.
He had the telltale grey, reptilian skin and the bulge in the middle of his forehead that marked his species.
His kind were among the great terrors of Bajor. They knew nothing but domination and evil.
He represented everything she feared.
He was Cardassian.
