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English
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Published:
2024-04-05
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1/1
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A Gift from Betazed

Summary:

Taking place in the "Yesterday's Enterprise" universe.

Atas Koi, former Starfleet officer and one of the few surviving Betazoids left, has a gift fit only for the people that killed his own.

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

January 8th, 2366

He walked through the dreary, green-tinged corridors of his ship with a purposeful gait. Part of him missed the clean, efficient decor of the standard Federation starship — it was both comfortable and practical. This ship was anything but comfortable — the Klingons didn’t believe in it and why should they? As a people, they were concerned with little else outside honor and battle.

Taking this vessel hadn’t been easy, but that was the point: he needed to test the abilities of his crew in the field against their enemy. He had only lost five crew and none of them were that important — their deaths would serve to only reinforce the living’s will to succeed.

He entered the captain’s quarters to find the Klingon bastard bound and kneeling on the floor. Atas could smell the stench of bloodwine and sweat coming off the creature in waves.

He glanced over at his first officer to find her dark eyes locked onto his.

He’s resisted my attempts to breach his mind, she communicated to him telepathically. Her face was unmoving, but he could detect the frustration in her mental tone.

Atas smirked. “I’ll handle him.” He knelt in front of the Klingon and suppressed the urge to kill the thing; as much as he’d enjoy it, there was information they had to have.

If their mission was to succeed, they’d need to know the fleet movements of the Klingons and that was closely guarded information.

The Klingon growled at him. “You wish to attempt to do what your underling couldn’t?” The captain flashed a toothy grin. “Good luck.”

Atas flashed a grin back. “Let’s have a little cultural exchange, shall we?”

The Klingon breathed in deeply as Atas reached into his mind — not gently, but brutally. He started with the Klingon’s most cherished memory, something easy to access.

The world melted around them, soon replaced by a cavern, its walls lit by the fire of standing torches. The Klingon stood beside him, a blade in one hand and a body of another Klingon below him. The Klingon growled and tried to stab Atas, but nothing happened.

Atas tapped a finger against his head. “This is my playground.” He bent down and looked more closely at the body. He stared at it for a long moment before he recognized who it was. “This is your first kill. Your dishonorable cousin.”

The Klingon tried to move again but once more remained still. “What is this?!”

“This,” Atas said as he stood up, “is me drilling into your mind. Everything around us is merely a conduit … like a holodeck. It’s a world that I can change and you can’t. Memories are so powerful yet so vastly under-appreciated.”

He pointed at the body and it rose from the ground, blood spilling out of its wound. “The brain remembers so much that few are consciously aware of. Like nightmares.”

The body’s limbs twisted, audible crunching sounds coming from it as began to turn itself inside-out.

The Klingon captain yelled in rage, but the rage was a cover for the fear. The fear that the many beings he’d sent to their deaths would one day come back to haunt him.

Atas stepped aside as the body’s grueling transformation continued. “I have what I need, but I don’t grant you mercy. I don’t allow you comfort. I don’t give you peace. I can only promise one thing and one thing only: you will end. There isn’t anything more after this, nothing beyond … just suffering.”

The body now was completely inside out, fluids and organs spilling out from it as a noxious, sickening odor filled the cavern.

“Kill me! Kill me!” The Klingon captain demanded.

Atas smiled. “Enjoy this gift from Betazed.”

He blinked and the world around him faded back into the reality of the captain’s quarters.

The Klingon laid on his side, eyes wide in fear, screaming.

“Atas, did you get it?” his first officer asked.

He stood up and nodded. “I have the codes.” He glanced down at the Klingon. “He has his nightmares.”