KLINGON OUTER COLONIES

He stood, and he watched, as the cold grew colder and tested even the mettle of a young Klingon Warrior.

"I am the son of a coward."

Oddly, he was the only one that thought so. But no one could persuade him otherwise. For his father had fled, rather than die with the rest of the Fleet, as Mighty Q'onos fell and was no more. It mattered nothing that he did so under orders from Chancellor Azetbur's late father. Colonel Worf was dead to Mogh, his only son.

Lady Mara found him. Her tones were now far gentler than earlier in her life. Back when her husband Kang was alive, she firmly believed that there was nothing  a determined warrior could not accomplish. Now, the thought of sending her godson Mogh to die sickened her. Mara choked on the prayer she nowadays made that someone else do the fighting and
dying.

"Mogh? I have news of your father."

"Lady Mara--I have no father."

"You have a father---and he has been named K'thn Ch'dich!"

The boy-man was a bit taken back.

"Second To The Rock? Then he shall redeem himself by facing The Butcher, Ghidorah?"

Mara shook her head.

"Hear me, you pup! The humans have asked him to be their weapons master. They who are the Rock--Kirk's own children--have asked him to stand in their place, should they fall. He was only a coward in your mind. Now, come inside. This cold is no test, but a dull blade that lingers in the wound."

Mogh still looked up.

"Lady Mara--I am glad for father. But I may not sleep. To fall asleep, I count how many stars I can, til I can do so no longer."

"What has that to do with---"

Then Mara looked up--and she knew.

--------------------
VULCAN

T'Pau stared at the picture of the girl who had caused so much consternation in her life.

"If I told thee how I much I envied thee, Child--would you believe? Thy free spirit was once mine, before I became my world's voice. Once, I dared to love as thee does--openly, and without shame. I had pictured Spock's child born in soft comfort. Thee were so pretty--but what thee said, by way of thy birth, was so ugly. Stern Vulcan could be broken. Had mine eyes but known what the bigots and fools had planned, I would have smote them all, gladly. Vulcan failed thee--and I am Vulcan. Thee and thy human shall live long and prosper. But what of us? We have turned away the neediest heart. I fear our judgement."

Despite a nearly unspeakable incident three years agone, T'Pau still sought her private ridge at Gol for looking up at the sky. But this night, as she looked up, she gasped, even as she had not on that untoward day.

"Prevail, Saavikkam. Prevail, Peterkam. Wipe this vision from my sight, I pray thee."

  T'Pau knew.

---------------------------
EARTH'S SOLAR SYSTEM

At the Counter-Spin shipyards orbiting the far side of the Sun, the Admiralty's deep codes were being broken, to prepare for a last stand against King Ghidorah, hopefully well outside Vulcan's sector.

"Report."

"Lots of officers. Lots of ships. What was the Admiralty planning?"

Harriet Janeway shrugged.

"What all good villains plan. To take over the Universe, of course. By the way, what's going on with that ugly little ship I saw earlier?"

"It may look funny, but its supposed to be overarmor.....what the hell is that?"

Janeway caught site of what everyone else did. The lights in the distant heavens were going out, one by one. Many flashed orange, and were no more.

"What the hell?"

Her scientist's mind quickly reasoned out what was happening, and liked it not at all. She shook her head.

"Anyone for a dry run, to make sure we're ready when the time comes? Myself, I have to not think about this."

"Well, there's this French vintner who was visiting Alpha Centauri, and is demanding passage back to Earth for him and his family."

Janeway rolled her eyes.

"No--way. I'd rather face Ghidorah alone than debate technology with that lunatic again!"

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GNN NEWS, GALACTIC FEED

"The Cochrane Institute has released the following findings, concerning the light show of the past week. Because of time and space differentials caused by King Ghidorah's path of destruction, the light from the deaths of the stars in the rest of our universe has taken much longer to reach us. It is therefore best described as the light caused by the death of our universe. In other news, a mob of Petrans on Regulus stoned a woman to death for the crime of not believing that the two young champions on board The USS Enterprise are deities of some kind. This marks the 7th such incident this week, not including the near-rending of the two champions themselves, mobbed by followers on Epsilon...."

And as the lights blinked out, the sky lost some of its wonder and went blank in spots. The Heavens were vanishing, and to all eyes, there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.

The Sky Was Falling.