ANCIENT VULCAN

S'Tassk had seen many things as Surak's 1st student, but never anything so troubling as his master's latest vision quest. The nature of truth had been given unto his teacher, and the truth of nature as well. But it had not been enough for the leader of Vulcan's Reformation.

"In my visions, I saw a shadow gathering in the periphery. I would know its shape."

"To jump at shadows, teacher, is not logical."

"Do not seek to show wisdom beyond your time, S'Tassk. I must needs again retreat into twilight."

So it was that Surak fasted and exerted himself in ways his student had never seen before.

Fear was not a worthy emotion, but S'Tassk did feel this for his master's fate. Finally, Surak felt ready, and entered the dream-state that had transformed a planet of willful barbarians. Five hours later, Surak awoke and spoke the last words he would ever speak.

"Three heads do I remember, and these are known to me, and these are the heads of the Ancient Destroyer! So I saw Gh'draeh, formed from hateful lies; Behold, The Ancient Destroyer! I die. Logic Falls Away! IDIC dies screaming! Gh'draeh comes! GH'DRAEH! Yet Two Come, And They Are As A Rock. Whole Galaxies are gnashed twixt those teeth. But upon that Rock shall those teeth be as fine crystal, and when they break, even Gh'dreah is mortal, and liable to..."

S'tassk felt the passing. He performed his final task, and carried Surak's katra to Mount Seleya. But the shattering experience cost Vulcan more than just its savior. S'tassk organized a group of like-minded followers, and left Vulcan, turning their backs on Surak's teachings. So was founded the Romulan Empire. If Gh'draeh comes, reasoned S'tassk, then what use were any of his master's lessons?

"Politics are done with, Surak. Right-line or no, you were my father. Acknowledgement is for land, not for love. On my world, we shall yet embrace emotion, which is like air. Cold logic will not lop off the beast's heads."

A mighty power in the quadrant was thus started by fear of a being most didn't even think existed. While the legend would be less well remembered, the fear of Romulans would continue. And Gh'draeh would come.

ANCIENT Q'ONOS

Emperor Kahless batted about his young grandchildren like toys, and still they came at him. The code of honor he himself had laid down three generations agone was now like the air these children breathed. They were true warriors, and he was fiercely proud of them. All the great houses would descend from this field of mock-battle, he knew. But still old Kahless was like a mountain to them. Then, together, they rushed him, after huddling in what he knew was a plan. So it was that Kahless fell, laughing joyfully at their victory over him. His eldest granddaughter was perplexed.

"Kh'lie, why do you seem pleased? Our attack was a desperate one! In rushing you together, we displayed no honor."

Kahless stood up, grabbed her, and threw the delighted girl into the air. She landed like a panther, ready to fight again. Kahless spoke to all of them as one.

"How else would you have won? I do not mean that there are no rules, but when a opponent has power and advantage over you, and must be brought low, you must plan and seek allies before battle in some instances. Now who would be so fierce an opponent as to require such an abandonment of D'har?"

"The Dark One, Molor, Grandfather!"

"Ah, but Molor is long dead, by your K'hlie's hand."

"The blocker of the path to StovoKahr?"

"The devil, you say? No, only the wicked and dishonorable need fear that one."

The twins, brother and sister, later as legendary as Kahless himself for their wise rule, spoke up, despite their tender age.

"It is King Death-Khiterah-isn't it, K'hlie!?"

Kahless looked up at the stars.

"One day, wave-lightning will strike the world, and only if all warriors forget their own personal honor will a single star remain in the night sky. Against the three heads of King Death, there are no rules. Above all else, Khiterah must be destroyed! Not only is the monster without honor, he is the bane of all honor! Now, my little warriors, I go for a walk-alone! But rest assured, I will return to be among you once more."

But no one ever saw or heard from Emperor Kahless ever again. The warning was lost in the body of his many other teachings, and excised entirely during the Fourth Rising. But legends persist, and some refuse to forget. Some Klingons in a later time said that one of the three heads was a Federation Starship called Enterprise.

OLD EARTH, 19th CENTURY

The man saw his employer even more sullen than usual, despite their great victory.

"I say, Holmes! Why the long face? Inspector Lestrade actually thanked us. The Order Of The Ancient Destroyer is finished, both here in London, and in New York. You are to be commended, yet here you mope. Why, man?"

"Oh, Watson! This wicked Order is not smashed. We've barely wounded the body of these child-murdering fiends! They are more widely scattered than FreeMasons, only what people commonly fear of them and other secret societies is true of the Ghaedorans. We've wounded the body, but we've failed to lop off the three heads of the Beast!"

"Holmes, what the devil is a Ghaedrus, anyway?"

"Far worse than the devil, my friend. It was in the name of Ghaedrus that Socrates was made to drink hemlock. Herod spurned his own God and those of Rome and offered up The Slaughter Of The Innocents to him. Every great wicked act has this Ancient Destroyer's talon-mark. Pray you never find out what a Ghaedrus truly is, Doctor Watson."

"I think--I shall do--just that Holmes."

OLD EARTH, 20th Century

The little, leering, insane man looked up at the three-headed image and shouted loudly, screaming his lungs and his remaining coherence away.

"WHY!? I have done as you asked! How many more will die? I will kill them for you, but I MUST HAVE POWER! The power YOU promised me! I...."

The bronze image of Ghidorah then fell over, instantly crushing the man. An officer and a guard found him.

"Let the record show that the Fuhrer committed suicide-nothing else!"

Adolf Hitler's body was burned. The statue was found by Russian soldiers, and it became a prized possession of Joseph Stalin, who called it an inspiration. In the next century, it was purchased by no less than Colonel Green.

USS CONSTITUTION, 2255

George Samuel Kirk, Sr. stared hard at the holovid he had been sent. He would now never meet his boy Sam's son Peter. He would never see his boy Jim assume his first Command. They weren't boys anymore, he knew, but that was the way he liked to think of them.

Gently, he pushed the body of Robert April out of the command chair. George Kirk had been wearing non-conductive clothing when the attack came. Not a First Officer's job, he knew, to perform such basic maintenance as he was doing. But he enjoyed it. When every panel on the ship suddenly shot out deadly energy, he was the only survivor. The others never even knew what hit them. But Kirk saw.

"If Heichi Nogura were here right now, he'd swallow his glasses."

But the man whose career he and April had protected from the bigots in Admiralty Hall was safe at home, and George was glad of that. Outside the ship, waiting, somehow hovering in space was an obscenity. Three times larger than the Constitution in its torso alone, it was a golden, bi-tailed, three-headed dragon, defying God's laws of physics--for no other reason than because it could. While it waited, Kirk acted. He slaved all the ships functions into one, simple command.

"Well, at least we know what became of Vulcania Colony. Computer, Time-Warp Factor Four - NOW!"

But the last sight George Kirk  saw was the Grey Death's head fire out a ghastly green beam, that reduced Constitution to floating debris almost instantly. He hadn't even had a chance to ram the damned thing. Satisfied with its kill, Ghidorah flew off, defying still more universal laws.

Vulcan, Late  2285

Peter Kirk woke up screaming. He never slept much more than a half an hour anymore without nightmare images of King Ghidorah's coming flooding his mind. Going to the kitchen of Ambassador Sarek's house, he poured himself a glass of milk. He had learned, slowly but surely, how to keep food down after the nightmares.

Sarek emerged from his and Amanda's sleeping quarters. Peter owed Sarek,
and not merely for rescuing him from The Order Of The Ancient Destroyer.
The Vulcan mental disciplines the Ambassador taught him, even as his own
faded from illness, saved his sanity.

The telepathy that was his unspoken heritage came from his birth-mother's father, Doctor Thomas Sorel, secretly deposed Rihannsu Imperator Tasorel. Yet Peter had little to do with this man, who still resembled the Ambassador, despite long-ago surgery. Just as he had little to do with Sam and Aurelan, addled by childhoods gone wrong, and reliving those childhoods at their son's expense.

No, although Jim was originally meant only to be an unspoken genetic donor to the line of his sterile brother Sam, Captain Kirk was the father of Peter's heart. Though parsecs away, he had always felt closer to the great man and his lady, Nyota Uhura, than the supposed grown-ups he had once lived with. They were the parents of his heart.

He had come to look upon Sarek and Amanda as another set of parents, those of the mind, and he paid them that respect. They were the stability a little boy on child-labor driven Deneva once prayed for, and they did not dwell in a facade model colony. They were real, as was his love for them.

"Did I wake you, Father?"

"No. I must make final preparations for the meeting of my fellow diplomats tomorrow in Tanavat City. There, I will at long last tell them of the looming threat posed by Ghidorah. You are meeting with someone, as well?"

Peter nodded.

"He says he has information on Ghidorah, and that he's an old friend of Jim's. Name of Mitchell Evans."

Sarek knew well that Peter was not merely chasing spectres. The obscene link that fate had forged between the young man and the old devil meant that only he and Saavik could discern fair from foul, and those who truly knew of the monster from fakes and frauds.

"Try and sleep, Peter. I know it is difficult, but you are more and more exhausted. In the first month of the New Year, you begin your tour of duty aboard the Enterprise. James will wonder what sort of host I am to his boy, if you are near breaking by then."

Peter did as he was told, and when he next woke, he was deliriously happy, for the clock said he had slept a full 45 minutes. But in his dreams, the monster still came, as he was coming toward all of known space. The real nightmare had yet to begin.