Post by Lt Commander Marcus Aquila on Apr 30, 2021 6:22:40 GMT -5
Historian's Note : The Following Takes place... in an eternity and an instant after Ynga collapses and is carried away by Varel on Wanderer having just destroyed the Chantry forces.
The biting cold gripped her, embraced her as icy fingers stabbing into every nerve in her body… yet inside she burned like a fire. She stretched her hand, and ripped a star from the sky, the image of a church burned in her mind and she had known it was necessary. Then she collapsed deep into the snowbank. After an eternity or a moment she pulled herself to her knees, she did not know where she was… she looked down. Her hand was frozen to the bank, frozen through. She tried to pull away… to stand, but it was stuck… she could not feel it. She pulled with all her might and it shattered, just below the elbow. She screamed. But not for pain… but for what it meant. Her hand was gone. And she was lost. She heard the sound of a wolf in the distance… wolves joined by other wolves… she heard the patter of running feet upon the snow and mustered all she could to run from them. Foot step after foot step her naked feet hitting the burning ice of the ground before her. Her breath freezing moments after leaving her mouth. She was dying but she ran buying any second of life she had left.
Ahead she crested a hill and she looked on a vast frozen lake. She cradled her left arm, what was left of it and she looked on the ice. In the distance she spotted something… a woman, naked but for a golden hair whipping around her, at her feet several cats lay and she reached forth. Her hand beckoned. “Freya…” Ynga muttered to herself her voice barely audible over the howl of wolves and wind. Ynga stepped onto the ice, she walked toward the woman turning only when she could hear the starving wolves behind her. And there she saw another woman. She was beautiful, her golden hair down to her side. She reached out as well.
Ynga looked in the distance, then back to the wolves and the second woman… She could feel her body being drawn to slow. Something whispered in her to turn around. And the woman turned, the second half of her body decayed, dead, she was cursed… “Hel.” Ynga cried. As the wolves continued on to the ice slowly. She kept moving, as fast as she could go but her feet were freezing. Her vision was getting blurry. The woman before her drew closer.. Closer. She reached out with her good arm and then she touched her hand. She fell into the lap of the golden haired lady of the slain and she was warm, the woman looked down into her eyes and wiped a ruddy tear from her cheek.
“No, you are not done yet. Daughter of Aslaug.” The woman’s words echoed in her mind. As she slipped from consciousness.
“Ynga, come on! We will be late!” The chipper sound of Hildi took her from her play, and Ynga stood up from the field of Izarian Moon Blossoms and looked at her younger sister. The five year old came over to her and grabbed her hand and started to tug. Ynga followed toward the house walking at first but then they could see the shuttle landing a starfleet shuttle. Ynga ran as fast as her little legs could take her and so did Hildi, both of them giggling. She was happy. They got to the landing pad just in time to see their mother and father greeting Ragnar as he got out of the shuttle and then she felt the blast of the shuttle’s impulse engine lifting off. Ragnar was in his Academy uniform. She ran straight up to her brother and hugged his leg.
“Ynga, you're getting so tall and strong, careful you might injure me!” Ragnar smiled at her and picked her up into his arms then Hildi was lifted to join her.
“Are you going to stay long enough to play!” Hildi exclaimed laughing. Ynga joined her in repeating the question, three times.
“Now girls your brother has not even come inside yet and had breakfast.” her mother’s voice was young, and it was comforting. “Come now, I’ve made his favorite.” Ragnar carried her and Hildi into the house. Ynga felt safe in his arms.
As they breached the threshold of the house the ground shook. Ynga fell hard then looked up. Her Sister Hildi was hiding under the bed, she could hear Helga crying in the other room and the ground shook again. The air raid sirens sound the red alert and they could hear the sound of phaser fire on the horizon as they hid in their room. Ynga crawled under the bed to be with her ten year old sister as they felt the ground rock again with a shield impact over New Seattle’s protection Zone. The Klingons were attacking… they must have slipped a raid in to attack the Starfleet tactical school. She wondered if Ragnar was up there defending them. She knew he was and the klingons were going to die because of it. It was a good thing. The only good traitorous klingon was a dead one.
“Ygna, Hildi!” That was their father’s voice. The Mountain of a man came through the door.
Ynga called out, “ We are here Father!” And Björn moved and lifted both girls up as they got out from under the bed.
“We are moving to a safer area, klingon ground forces have landed come girls.” He carried them into another room and they met with her mother and baby Helga before her father led them out of the house and with the flow of Izarian settlers retreating toward a shelter point originally built for the Dominion War. The roads leading to the point were full of families moving back toward the shelter. Ynga knew many of the other children her age from school. Her father placed them in their spot in the shelter and then he kissed their mother and each of his daughters on the forehead and headed out with a pair of axes in hand and a rifle. He didn’t say goodbye to her mother or each of them.
“I am scared, mother!” Ynga cried, holding onto her joined by a similar chirp from Hildi. Her mother held them both the best she could and the doors to the shelter closed and they saw the lights dim to show the shields went up, her mothers voice soothed her. “There is no reason to be scared, my little Valkyrie. You are Izarian. We are Izarian. We will never be conquered.” Ynga clung to her mother but over her shoulder she thought saw something, a pale woman kneeling over someone.
“WE ARE THE BORG, WE WILL ADD YOUR BIOLOGICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN. YOUR CULTURE WILL ADAPT TO SERVICE OURS. YOUR RESOURCES AND WORLD WILL SERVE THE COLLECTIVE. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.” The mechanical voice broadcast from the viewer. Ynga watched the news from her home and her thirteen year old sister Hildi dropped what she was doing to join her. Her mother came into the room. The anchor continued to say that that was the last transmission heard from Vega colony before communications went dark with the list of responding ships scrolling across the bottom of the screen including the USS Seattle. Ynga’s heart skipped a beat, that was Ragnar’s ship, the one he flew. Her brother was going to face the Borg. “Ragnar is going to be in that battle, Mother. He could die!” She felt her mothers hand wipe a tear from her eye that she did not even know she was shedding.
“He won’t.” Her mother answered. “I have seen my own end my dear and all of you are there to usher me to the afterlife. Your brother cannot die until after that. And I am old enough to have many grandchildren in that vision.” She felt her mother hold her close.
“Those are just superstitions.” Ynga responded, fully happy to be in her mothers comfort.
Her mother brushed her hair to the side. “ Yes Perhaps. But it is better than fearing every day.”
The ground shook again and Ynga was dazed, blood was dripping down her face from glass that had shattered inward. She quickly thought to Hildi, Helga, her mother and her father, they were safe, they were on Earth.. Damn it she should have listened to Ragnar when he told her to leave. She could hear the sound of phaser fire in the distance as the city buildings burned creating the orange glow of Ragnarok over New Seattle. Garth city was gone.. It had fallen in a matter of seconds and Pibroch city was where most of the ground fighting was taking place. The Institute had been hit just moments ago by something from the Herald ship in orbit. She had.. She had to get the data transmitted to Starfleet.
“Ynga! Ynga are you still alive?” The sound of her friend Leif came over the smoke and glass. She felt his hand lifting her up. “Come on we have to get out of the observatory, they must have detected what we were doing and destroyed the array.”
She spit blood, she couldn’t see out of her left eye it was nothing but red. She ripped off some of her dress and wrapped it over her eye. “Leif we have to get this to Starfleet. There’s a chance we can kill that thing but only if they act now, it's sitting over Grímsvötn, if they could destabilize the caldera and force an eruption they could bring that thing down.” Leif looked at her in disbelief.
“Ynga are you insane, that would destroy half the city including Marcabot palace.” Leif tried to drag her. “ We are getting to a shelter.”
“No Leif, look that half of the city has been evacuated for three days yeah there are probably some people there but there's nothing we can do for them and that Dreadnoughts going to wipe out the entire planet if we let it.” Ynga jerked her hand back.
“We? What are we, we are a couple of Volcanologists NOT Starfleet Captains! We need to get to a shelter. Come on.” Leif started to move and then turned back around looking to see if Ynga was following him. The tall red haired man was frightened. But she knew he would do what she wanted. He loved her even if she didn’t return the feeling. Really ever since they had been children. She needed him to help her.
“Fine you go, but I’m going to the secondary communications array, I should be able to contact a ship in orbit.” Ynga walked past him, her injured eye stung under the cloth. She heard Leif mutter something then he followed her.
“Ynga those things are going to be crawling all over this place if they really saw we scanned them and found that shield weakness. Don’t you think the first thing they are going to lock down is communications?” Leif followed while Ynga moved quickly. “We don’t even have any weapons!”
Ynga spotted an emergency fire break box and she opened it taking the axe out and handing it to Leif. “Here now we have a weapon.” She moved with determination toward the communications room. When she arrived at the corridor to the communications room the power was out to the console and they could hear mechanical footsteps in the distance. As they approached the communication room Leif pushed her back, one of those constructs was walking down the hallway. He waited and then mustering something she watched him charge it with the axe, the axe cutting through the metal and the sentry no longer moving. They both entered the room quickly after and Leif started trying to seal the door as Ynga went to restore power from local emergency backups.
She started to work on the console. Then she brought it up and scanned for a starfleet ship. “ There's a lot of noise but… there I have one.. This just might work!” The screen flickered and the image of a blonde woman appeared, her face was fierce and determined with several scratches on it.
“This is Lieutenant Sif of the USS Mjolnir, we are a little busy fighting a battle right now, what is it you need to tell us.” The woman's face flickered on the screen as Leif secured the door.
“Hello this is Doctor Yngrid Bjornsdottir of the Izarian meteorological Institute, I am transmitting to you scans taken of the Herald Dreadnought and a plan of action to trigger an eruption from Grímsvötn that should be enough to engulf the ship in a volcanic pyroclastic magma discharge large enough to destroy it. But only if you act now!”
“Doctor? Give yourself a promotion Ynga?” Leif laughed as he worked.
The woman on the screen blinked for a moment then responded. “ It is a sound plan, The captain has considered it. Take cover.” The screen blinked off. And then a few minutes later there was a dramatic massive shaking and loud explosion, the quakes continuing as parts of the infrastructure fell around them. Ynga felt a violent shove push her forward and she hit her head. She heard Leif yell out in pain and she tried to get her bearings in the quake, but she went black. She awoke perhaps moments later and she looked around she saw Leif. She crawled toward him, it felt like her arm was broken but she made it. she took his hand.
“Leif I think we did it.” She squeezed his hand but got a very faint response. “Leif? Leif what's wrong?” Ynga looked up and she felt sick, Leif was half under a strut beam. The push, he must have pushed her out of the way. Her head was spinning, she tried to crawl and move the rubble but it was too much.
“Ynga,” Leif called to her, his voice laboured, blood coming from his mouth and ears. “Ynga.. I..”
Ynga tried to cradle her friend’s head. “Leif shh, save your strength. Starfleet will be here to save us soon. They are coming!” Ynga began to cry, her damaged tear ducts streaming tears and blood down her cheeks, her head ringing. Leif looked into her eyes and then seemed to look past her a moment. Then he seemed to smile. “Ynga, I… love you…” Ynga looked down on him and leaned over to kiss his forehead unable to speak through her tears but the action caused her to lose balance and she fell, seeming to slip from consciousness again. In her haze she saw something: A beautiful woman clad in shining armor, and a winged white horse behind her. She was leaning over the two of them, she touched Leif’s chest. Then Ynga slipped from consciousness.
Ynga was on a frozen plane again. The howl of the wolves present. The woman that held her was smiling, she said nothing but Ynga thought yes, this is safe. I can go with her now… I can. It’s better than the wolves and Hel’s frigid grasp. I am sorry mother, it would seem I changed… fate. As Ynga began to slip away she heard another voice. Distant, over the howling wind. “My mind to your mind. Your thoughts…”