Kravi’q Son of Ca’lin paused, breathing hard, his lungs burning with an intensity that he never knew possible. Twin hearts pounded in his chest with such ferocity that he feared that they would burst through his armor. All around him, the rolling grassy plain stretched into every horizon as the H’Poc survivors clustered together, fighting for breath with matted hair and weary expressions.

A soft breeze, cool and rich with the scents of untouched earth, drew the heat from Kravi’q’s exposed skin. The tall grass, green as the hull of his lost ship, swayed and clicked against itself in a restless dance. Carried on that same wind came the closing brays of hounds and the short, brassy blasts of horns. The hunter was the hunted.

Kravi’q was a helmsman, a pilot. His expertise was in the black of space, not the rolling grasslands of this nameless world. But with the captain and XO dead, the burden of command fell to him as the ranking officer.

If they were dead. Hur’agha had slammed into the forward bulkhead with such force that no warrior could survive. And Kora’q; well, the old man would only have slowed them down.

“Maybe that old targ finally got his wish and died,” Kravi’q muttered, curling his lip.

Bursting over a rise and pouring into the light, a dozen riders emerged. Kravi’q swore. These mounted warriors rode fragile-looking but blisteringly fast beasts, their hooves pounding like thunder. Long hair streamed from their necks, and more whipped behind them like the banners their riders carried.

The riders were clad in steel beneath long tunics dyed in an array of colors: black and white, reds, yellows, purple, and more. Each tunic was emblazoned with stylized animals and bold geometric shapes. Light glinted off their curved helms and the steel tips of their long spears. The weapons were at least three times longer than any spear he had seen in the Empire’s war museums.

The riders were circling them as if herding them.

They are herding us, Kravi’q realized, into their main army.

He adjusted his grip on his bat’leth and glanced between the circling riders and the rising dust cloud of the approaching infantry. They would not survive this, but perhaps they could live long enough to bring honor to their families and houses and meet them again in Sto’vo’kor.

“Today is a good day to die!” Kravi’q howled, his voice carrying across the battlefield.

The survivors echoed the cry. Grogga held the group’s only disruptor. Most carried only their d’k-taghs. Three had bat’leths and two more gripped mek’leths. They had the skill advantage, and with the disruptor, they even had a slight weapons advantage, but the enemy had the numbers.

A green disruptor beam lashed out and struck a rider from his beast. The man threw up his arms, his spear and shield flying in opposite directions as he tumbled off the back of the mount in a crash of steel plate and a spray of grass and dark soil.

First blood was theirs.

Behind them, the main army crested the ridge, their spears raised like a bare forest protected by a wall of round shields. The foot soldiers were not as polished and colorful as the riders, but no less deadly.  A volley of arrows whickered out thick and black in the sky before falling back to earth and disappearing into the grass uncomfortably close with a deadly thwack from the impact.

Grogga fired again and dismounted another rider. His third shot went wide as the cavalry peeled away. They galloped to a safe distance to avoid the disruptor, but close enough to pen the Klingons in against the infantry—a classic hammer-and-anvil maneuver.

Kravi’q smirked. “Cowards.”

The hounds brayed wildly, straining against their handlers, as a horn blasted across the field. The infantry answered with a unified, guttural “Huh!”, followed by the crack of shields locking into place. Two ranks of spears dropped in a unified motion. The front rank bracing their shafts on their round shields, the second resting theirs on the shoulders of the men ahead.

Another volley of arrows sailed through the air. This time, the range was locked in, and they fell among the loose formation of Klingons. An arrow struck Drakka with a brutal impact, and he fell into the grass, the shaft buried deep, and he didn’t rise. Three more Klingons were struck. One was killed outright, and the other two had arrows protruding from their armor. They stared back at Kravi’q with stoic expressions, as any warrior should. Pain was weakness. You did not show the enemy that they had hurt you.

Regaz, the closest, gripped the shaft with his left hand and snapped the wood sticking from his shoulder without a flinch. He grunted at his commander and nodded. Kravi’q returned the nod, drew in a deep breath to fill his burning lungs, and surged across the field. His long legs carried him forward in powerful strides.

The green disruptor flashed behind him. Two shots scorched shields, and a third caught an enemy warrior square in the chest. The man’s helmet flew back, and the distinctive spoon-shaped forehead ridge and pale grey-ish skin appeared. The man was a Cardassian.

Karvi’q didn’t know what to make of that, and there was no time to figure out the implications of this realization. As he closed in on the shield wall, arrows zipping past him, he could make out the faces more clearly. They were mostly human, but there were the distinctive spots of Trills, the neck ridges of Cardassians, and even one of them looked human, but his skin had that blue tinge of an Andorian.

“Rawr!” he growled as he crashed into the formation. His bat’leth swept the spears aside with a sharp ching of metal on wood, and he drove the blade’s point into the chest of the wide-eyed Bajoran in front of him. The man stumbled back and vanished into his own ranks, the scent of copper, death, and body odor heavy in the air.

This place makes no sense, he thought as an arrow slammed into his shoulder. A burst of pain shot through his body, and his grip faltered, but only for a heartbeat. His father’s words echoed in his mind: “A warrior does not drop his weapon. Now pick it up, son.”

He roared and slashed at the man ahead of him, a fighter wearing nothing but a steel bowl on his head and a blue tunic. He had a long, curly ginger beard and rough, calloused hands. He was no trained warrior, yet he took up arms, stared down an injured Klingon, and did not flinch.

“I will see you in Sto’vo’kor,” Kravi’q said, respect in his tone as he brought the bat’leth down.

A sharp blow caught him from behind, driving the air from his lungs. Another strike landed a moment later, and his legs buckled as pain flared bright and overwhelming. His vision narrowed, and he lashed out wildly with his bat’leth, seeking legs that wisely stayed out of range.

Something stung his neck but only for a second, and he fell to the ground seeking air that refused to fill his lungs, and blackness closed around him. His chest rumbled with a gurgle of liquid as he tried to say, “Father, we’ll be sharing that bloodwine soon.”

And then there was nothing.