T’Nedara had plenty to keep her busy so there was little time to fret over an absent mate even if she had been so inclined. She wasn’t the kind of person to brood, and she had serious and urgent responsibilities in the temple.
Most of the planned renovations were taking place on the lower levels. Naturally, the hospital and infirmary were the top priority, and the old living quarters were left alone for the time being, which included the space set aside for her and Selek.
Like the Mother Superior, T’Nedara recognized that the future of the temple might be uncertain, but as a hospital and maybe even a school dedicated to the science of Biometrics, they might stay here and have a future.
Or the old place would degenerate into a museum, filled with the same dust and silence of the catacombs deep below. It could be worse. T’Nedara shuddered to think of it bulldozed completely and replaced by rows of cubicles.[14]
The Mother Superior shared her concerns, and the two of them spent the next two days making further renovation plans. The Infirmary was to be expanded into a hospital, with the Biometrics section being the prominent feature of a much larger facility. A whole floor was set aside for the library and other various records that were currently scattered throughout the temple.
“I may be the last to be interred in the Catacombs,” the Mother Superior sighed into a cup of tea one night. “You must be the one to seal them when the time comes.”
“Mother, I will be the last,” T’Nedara said. “There is no other home for me than here, with you, and the words of Surak.”
T’Nedara carefully pulled a few extra leaves from the basil. It was a thick, hearty plant, and could stand the stress of losing a few extra leaves. Something about the heavy, oily taste calmed her, answering a mysterious craving.
Perhaps not so mysterious, she thought, staring through the window into the falling light. If she did the test herself tonight, she would know everything by morning.
T’Krella was just leaving the Infirmary when T’Nedara arrived. The young novice was preparing to graduate to an officiate, and had moved into the regular Dormitories.
“Greetings, Reldai,” she used the formal address for a ranking cleric of the temple and bowed her head.
“T’hy’la[15],” T’Nedara touched her friend’s shoulder. “Please, the formality isn’t required. We are both off duty, and you’re getting older now. Enjoy your rest, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The novice picked up her basket and turned to go, but hesitated when she saw her friend open a cupboard and remove some vials and cups.
“Neddy,” she said quietly, “what are you doing?”
“I’m administering a pregnancy test,” she said, her voice flat. “I’ve been noticing some dietary anomalies.”
It had only been a few weeks since the now infamous Kal If Fee, but Vulcan females don’t have a menstrual cycle the same way as humans even if the gestation period is roughly the same.
T’Krella quietly stepped to her friend’s side as she took a sample of blood from her fingertip and placed it on a glass slide. They both watched the screen as the computer completed the scan. The green flashed a dark green, a positive result.
“Well, you’ll be an aunt, my little Rella,” said T’Nedara, and she could sense her friend smiling behind her.
The green light flashed, indicating the computer was compiling all of the finer details. T’Nedara saw it lengthen and bend, and felt the floor move underneath her tip and spin.
She blinked and found herself kneeling on the floor. A few leaves of basil had fallen out of her front pocket. T’Krella was crouched next to her, holding her arm.
“I’m glad I was here,” she said, as they slowly rose. “You might have hit the floor otherwise.”
There was a moment of silence between them. T’Krella saw the leaves and picked them up.
“The changes in diet you mentioned?”
T’Nedara nodded and leaned on the counter.
“This is a plant from Earth, isn’t it?”
“Yes, a gift from the former Sub-Commander.”
There was another profound silence between them, one of understanding.
“No wonder you suspected.” T’Krella let her stoic mask slip for a moment and whispered, ”He’ll be so happy…I mean, I’m sure your mate will be gratified when he returns.”
T’Nedara wanted to say something logical and crisp, something with a neutral tone or a harsh and biting fact. But it felt like there was no air in her throat, and nothing but a lonely emptiness waiting for her upstairs.
She could only exhale sadly, and lean for support on T’Krella.
“Come with me to the Dormitory,” T’Krella said, holding her gently. “The computer can do its work alone. We’ll check on the rest tomorrow.”
T’Nedara could have slept in the empty tower, but she was grateful to take a spare bed near her friend. T’Krella insisted, “A precaution, should you feel dizzy again.”
The dreams of T’Nedara were filled with strange and mysterious symbols. She saw Selek, laying in what looked like a garden, with a thin beam of white light emanating in a long, bent line from his shoulder to his thigh. His body floated through space, the stars were buzzing around his head. They were like clusters of white flowers in a dark green sky, humming like insects.
The vision cracked, and T’Nedara woke to a loud BOOM.
Someone was screaming. The wall next to her shuddered. The air filled with dust and gravel.
T’Krella’s bed was empty and rapidly filling up with debris falling from the ceiling. Others were running for the exits, and T’Krella ran towards the one that would lead her to the Mother Superior’s quarters.
Her first instinct was either an earthquake or volcanic eruption. The temple was built around an active lava bed, and had been known for frequent tremors, but nothing before like this. The temple already had an evacuation plan and the residents were following as best they could.
Some were trapped under rubble or buried under piles of jagged rocks and gravel. Monks and soldiers alike struggled to free their stricken friends. She stopped to help move the rocks, aware that she was speaking but barely aware of her own words.
Put pressure on it. Follow the evacuation protocol. Exit through the infirmary.
T’Nedara tried to ignore the streaks of lurid green across the floor as she stumbled towards the residences in the upper levels. Another shock made the floor beneath her vibrate, but she managed to reach the two high doors that led into the Mother Superior’s apartments.
They were broken, hanging askew in the archway like broken bones, T’Nedara could only peer inside while she struggled to pry the door open.
The foyer was filled with rubble and what looked like curtains, and she could hear someone speaking. It was the Mother Superior’s voice, harsh but muffled.
T’Nedara managed to open the door enough to squeeze through, and fell on her knees next to the rubble.
They were not curtains. They were clothing, soaked in warm blood, and it only took a moment for T’Nedara to recognize the mangled body.
The Mother Superior was in a troubled sleep when she was roused by a rough hand and a phaser thrust into her face. She heard a voice.
“She’s not upstairs. We have to find her before the charges…”
“Quiet. The old woman will know.”
“Where’s T’Nedara?”
She blinked, confused. But her eyes cleared, and she recognized the twisted symbols of the Cult of Maripol adorning their clothing. They had become notorious terrorists in recent years, fighting a system that no longer had any use for them or their wretched blood god.
This did not explain why they were looking for T’Nedara.
“What do you want with T’Nedara?” She snapped back.
“Hurry up, you old fool, otherwise we’re all…”
The loud boom shook the walls, and the rock in the ceiling collapsed, covering the bed in rubble. Some of the dust cleared, and the cultists dug into the wreckage to drag the Mother Superior, now gravely injured, into a safer part of the room.
All the while they were yelling about the charges. A signal was badly timed, a fuse had blown, a mistake had been made. There was a second charge in the upper spire that was intended to cover their escape, and her disappearance.
A door swung open in the next room. Someone yelled, but their voice was drawn out by a second explosion, and the rubble that fell silenced them forever.
“Where?”
The urgency of the voice behind the phaser was palpable. The Mother Superior knew that if she could stall them, even for only a few minutes, no threat could force her to speak ever again.
“Your dead god has no place…in our house,” She sputtered and tasted blood. “The words of Surak…”
A scream of horror broke the unearthly calm of the Mother Superior’s words. Another person had entered the foyer and what they saw elicited a reaction of horror and grief.
The cultists forgot the stricken temple matron and rushed into the next room. It was filled with piles of jagged rock and broken furniture. A woman was bent next to a pile of ruined stone and dusty ash, digging through it with bare hands, yelling something.
NO PLEASE GODS NO
She was screaming and crying at the same time, her tears mixed with blood and dust.
T’RELLA PLEASE PLEASE NO
She dragged the remains from the twisted pile. Red cloth and white stone mixed with green viscera and black soot. Gore soaked her clothing, and she remained oblivious to the cultists, holding T’Krella’s dead body close as her robe was soaked in blood.
“Mirran[16],” one of them hissed, “what if we killed her?”
“Only one way to find out. Where’s the one you call T’Nedara?”
The sound of her name roused her, but only enough to look at them with shock and horror.
The walls heaved and cracked. Voices started yelling outside and they were growing closer. The sounds prompted the cultists to work quickly.
“You’ll die here, either way. Hurry up, where is she?”
T’Nedara took a breath and felt her resolve come back. She fumed at how helpless she felt, until her eyes carefully settled on the staff leaning against a broken desk.
Only a few meters away, and in her hands it could become a deadly weapon.
The cultist with the phaser stepped forward and opened his mouth to speak again, but he was silenced forever when a precise volley of phaser fire blew his jaw apart.
His friends met a similar fate as they tried to run. Three precise shots was all it required, and not a single atom of precious energy had been wasted. Even in the midst of her emotional torment, T’Nedara concluded its user knew this weapon surgical precision.
A shadow of a phaser rifle appeared on the wall, a weapon that was not found within the monastery, followed by the shooter appearing through the shadows and dust. They were wearing a pair of goggles, which they removed upon seeing the stricken Vulcan crouched on the ground.
T’Nedara had not seen her before, and they had never met, but she knew who it was immediately.
“Sub Commander T’Pol,” she said, as formally as possible.
“T’Nedara,” T’Pol answered curtly, “the structural integrity of the building has been compromised. I will escort you to…”
A moan from the next room distracted both of them. T’Pol ran to its source, while T’Nedara gently placed her friend’s body on the ground and covered her face.
The Mother Superior was still alive, but had lost the power to speak. T’Pol tried to lift her, and she angrily resisted.
She clutched T’Pol’s hand and pointed to T’Nedara. The monk stepped forward and pressed her fingers to the Mother Superior’s temple. Their eyes locked for a moment.
Her last breath gurgled out of her throat and she slumped to the broken floor.
T’Nedara felt her own breath leave her body, and her chest was heavy with loss, too heavy to cry any more this time.
“Come, and quickly,” T’Pol hastened out of the shattered room with T’Nedara close by her side.
The entire compound had to be evacuated, and over the course of the next few hours a whole army of structural engineers and forensic scientists descended upon the temple. Temporary field hospitals and tents for forensics and dig teams dotted the normally peaceful mountainside.
The remains were still being recovered as the mountains started to cut into the sunlight. Survivors were allocated to hospitals and alternative housing for the time being, although one important exception was made regarding the future Mother Superior. T’Nedara left her bloody robes with the forensics team and changed into a plain, unmarked one before she joined Sub Commander T’Pol on a shuttlecraft. She knew nothing more about her undisclosed location.
Perhaps it was because of this hive of emotion and chaos that the katra of the Mother Superior remained silent. T’Nedara felt the weight of her somber gaze, watching the aftermath of the attack from behind her own eyes.
The attack had taken place in the early hours, just before the dawn. After a whole day of recovering the dead, first aid, and emergency transportation, the stars were starting to wink in the sky when T’Pol quietly boarded her personal shuttlecraft with T’Nedara.
T’Pol had a personal home in a suburb of Shi’Khar. It covertly had a shuttlecraft landing pad and a transporter, along with the extra security afforded to all Vulcan officers. Her son’s mate would be safe here, while the temple was assessed to be either rebuilt or demolished.
As it is with Vulcans, the tour of the small house was painfully businesslike. The host didn’t change her neutral tone didn’t change until T’Pol showed her the spare bedroom.
“You’ll be sleeping here,” T’Pol said. “This used to be Selek’s room.”
A few books and trinkets lined the shelves. It was plain, with few colors or decorations, typical of a Vulcan male.
T’Nedara pressed her hands against her abdomen and nodded.
“I must take further steps to secure this domicile. Please take some rest. We will speak at length tomorrow.”
“My deepest gratitude, sub-Commander,” T’Nedara managed to whisper. Then she was left alone, surrounded by the memories of her absent mate.
The closet still contained a few sleeping robes. They were too big, but that didn’t matter, and before lying down in bed she looked at the bookshelf.
Closer inspection revealed some of Selek’s closest secrets. Some were books in Vulcan, but she also saw a few titles in English, a Terran language of which she knew very little. The history of medicine and philosophy had compelled her to study Classical Chinese and Sanskrit instead.
There was one she could read. The spine had the letters in capitals – DUNE. She took hold of the spine and pulled it away.
Something glimmered in the depths of the shelf. She reached behind the books and found a small globe filled with water. It contained a scene made out of clay or plastic, depicting a seashore. A tree that looked like a long, curved pipe with foliage exploding from the very top leaned over the surf. When the globe moved, the sky inside filled with a flock of tiny seagulls that would swoop around a sailboat on the horizon.
There was a sign on the beach white with black letters that made them easier to read. It was in English, and although she could make out the letters, she wasn’t sure what they meant.
Clearwater, FL.
She sighed and placed both the globe and book on the bedside table. A numbness gripped her as she reclined. She could still hear the explosions and screams, but couldn’t react to them. Her body was squeezed out of breath under a weight of darkness and death.
T’Nedara had never carried a katra before. She had heard that sometimes they would invade their waking minds with disturbing visions, but for the whole day she hadn’t even heard a whisper from the Mother Superior.
She had been busy, distracted, and unfocused, cracked and torn inside like the interior of the temple. Now she remembered the tight grip on her hand and the light going out of her Mother’s eyes.
The memory faded into a peaceful orange light and took T’Nedara with it. She followed the fading lamp into a troubled sleep, and dreamed she was sitting cross-legged before a smoldering urn of incense.
Rich smoke rose from the cauldron and the room was filled with the sweet aroma.
Another monk was sitting next to her. A young woman who looked vaguely familiar. She spoke without turning her head.
“Be not troubled,” she said gently. Her voice rose over the disembodied chanting that seemed to radiate from the heavy smoke. “I have faith you will honor my memory, and continue our sacred traditions. I rest easy in your care.
My daughter. May you live long and prosper.”
“T’Ulla,” T’Nedara recognized the Mother Superior and called her by her name. “I will do all that I can. You will not be forgotten.”
The Mother Superior rose, and she was wearing a long robe with wide sleeves that seemed to be made of gold and fire. Rays of light were broken by the thick smoke, and T’Nedara’s eyes stang.
She blinked, and it was morning.
[14] The nickname Vulcans gave to the inexpensive living quarters that were produced in large numbers and often used to house the sick, indigent, or other disenfranchised groups like refugees.
[15] “Life friend”, a term used for close friends and siblings.
[16] A Vulcan curse similar to “damn” or “hell.”
Cristina in Oaxaca 