The Gardens of the Desert, Part 1
Title: Gardens of the Desert
Authors: lindmere and merisunshine36
Artist: ladymac111
Mixer: nextian
Beta: sail_aweigh
Series: ST XI
Character/Pairing(s): Joanna McCoy, Kirk, McCoy, Pike, Spock/Uhura/OFC, Winona/Sarek
Rating: PG-13 for violence and language
Word Count: 27,000
Warnings: Secondary character death, violence, discussion paralleling the autism debate
Denarian Cargo Ship Kulaat Beng
2279.132
There are many kinds of nothing. There’s a difference between nothing and zero, between a void and a vacuum, between space without energy and space without matter.
In his 50 years in Starfleet service, Christopher Pike has learned to appreciate all sorts of nothing, but he’s never seen a nothing as significant as this one. Because in this seemingly empty parsec of space there used to be--clearly visible to Starfleet telescopes, even deep inside Romulan space--a planet. A little more than a month ago, a routine scan had reported on the planet, unoccupied and unimportant and unmistakably gone--no collision, no debris, no nearby celestial bodies to take the blame. Just a planet that was there, and then not there.
And a hell of a lot of suspicions.
Pike’s been hoping for the worst of these to be proven wrong ever since he volunteered for this mortally dangerous mission. Now his hands are gripping the arms of the captain’s chair hard enough to leave permanent imprints, and he’s willing First Officer T’Lak to hurry up with the damn results, already. She’s unexcitable, precise, circumspect, and all those other Vulcan virtues, and Pike has never appreciated any of them less.
After an eternity and a half, T’Lak swivels her chair around and straightens her uniform shirt.
“Captain Pike, I have completed my preliminary assessment.” Four other heads whip around in unison.
“Please continue, Mr. T’Lak,” Pike says, keeping his voice level, as if each passing second isn’t compounding their risk to a heart-stopping degree.
“As we have only one other data set to which to compare it, it can hardly be considered conclusive.” She stops and bites her lip, the Vulcan equivalent of extreme agitation.
“Of course,” Pike says, giving her the courtesy of patience.
T’Lak was at the Academy when the Destruction happened, and lost her whole family along with her promised bond-mate. She was the first to volunteer for this mission, even though she’s young by Vulcan standards and has a safe posting on the U.S.S. Leakey, a science vessel. Jim Kirk, now Science Fleet Admiral, considers her captain material--for the science fleet. It’s one of the many, many things he’s likely to be pissed about when and if Pike makes it back to San Francisco.
T’Lak lays her palms on her knees and focuses on her hands. “Captain, I have determined with an 82.5% confidence that the spatial disruption patterns and energy signatures present in the immediate vicinity are sufficiently characteristic of those found following the destruction of Vulcan to impute the same origin.”
“I understand you, but I’m going to ask you to state your conclusion explicitly, for the record.” Pike is already thinking of all the hearings, all the debates sure to result from this most unwelcome news. The data is already streaming to the Federation, deeply embedded in a series of mundane messages of the sort to be expected from the Denarian trader they’re pretending to be. But T’Lak is a promising physicist, and her on-the-spot assessment will carry added weight.
“Very well, sir.” She rises and clasps her hands behind her back. “It is my assessment that the energy signatures detected in this vicinity are unlike those of any other known particle decay in this dimension, except for one.”
“And what is that one?”
Pike knows what she’s going to say, but even so, the act of speaking it aloud changes things.
“Red matter.” She sits back down, but her spine is, if anything, more rigid than before.
“Thank you, Mr. T’Lak.” He swivels around to the comm station, just two meters away, to give T’Lak a bit of privacy. “Lt. Kort, encode the Bridge recording from the last two hours and dispatch it under my signature.”
“Aye, sir.”
“And now, unless anyone has any objections, let’s plot a course for Starbase 23 and get the hell out of here.” There’s a kind of group exhalation; Kanayurak, who’s filling the role of both helmsman and navigator on the small bridge can hardly lock in the coordinates fast enough. Pike doesn’t have the heart to remind them that the most dangerous part of the mission is still ahead. It’s possible, though unlikely, that they escaped attention; possible, and likelier, that silent watchers are waiting to see what the little Denarian vessel is up to and respond.
It only takes half an hour to end Pike’s suspense.
“Romulan vessel approaching at 472 mark 6, captain. We’re being hailed.” Laaven, the comms officer, is a Tellarite with twin passions for French wine and Romulan culture. He’d joked with Pike when they shipped out that the mission might be his only chance to meet a Romulan in the flesh.
“Answer them, Laaven.”
It’s easy to fake voice and visual transmissions, which is why Starfleet has gone to the added length of creating an artificial persona modeled on an actual Denarian. When Laaven speaks, his words are translated into the raspy syllables of a short-tempered merchant.
“This is the Denarian trader Copious Fortune, Star Empire Merchant License 37285,” Laaven says, giving the literal translation of the ship’s name, though Pike prefers to call it the Good Luck.
The reply is clipped. “Denarian vessel, state your business.”
“We’ve completed delivery of a cargo of produce and spices to Unroth VI and we’re going home,” the simulated Denarian says with simulated impatience.
There’s an extended pause during which Laaven and Kort exchange looks, and Kort raises her crossed fingers in what’s become the universal gesture of Shit, I hope this works.
“We have no record of any such delivery, Fortune. And you are in restricted space.”
“I have an identification, captain,” Kort says. “It’s a Hawk class Bird of Prey.”
Of course. Ten times their size and with more than a hundred times more firepower than necessary to obliterate their little vessel. Not a bunch of Imperial functionaries looking to confiscate a cargo and line their pockets, but a military vessel responding to a security breach, probably eager for information but not likely to take chances.
“Tell them we’re sorry but our star charts show this as free space. Say that we’ll vacate immediately.”
Kort relays the message, looking as apprehensive as Pike feels. Another long pause.
“Be that as it may, Fortune, we require visual inspection to verify your identity. Disable all shielding and set your transporter to receive. Any resistance will be met with deadly force. End communication.”
Well, Pike thinks, there it is. A scenario they’d rehearsed, as the Romulans tended to be shoot first and ask questions later. A scenario with only one possible outcome, which everyone on board had agreed to when they were in a conference room on Earth and it was easier to be brave.
“All right, then. Tell the Romulan vessel to approach and be ready to board in 5 minutes. Amaruk,” Pike says, using Kanayurak’s first name. “Enable self-destruct. Keep the cloak on the engines until the last second so they don’t see us powering up.”
He meets the eyes of each of his crew. They’re all so young. Pike himself is hardly an old man, but he’s counted the last 20 years as borrowed time. His first life had died on the Narada; he’d boarded as a doomed starship captain and been carried off as someone whose possibilities had narrowed and expanded at the same time. He owed that life to Jim Kirk, whose commitment to peace with the Romulans got him kicked off his beloved ship--a peace that Pike has now well and truly torpedoed with this mission. He thinks of Jim now with uncomplicated love, and hopes his judgement won’t be harsh.
He thinks of Aune, too formidable to call “girlfriend,” too independent to let him call her “wife.” The last time he’d proposed she’d laughed and said, Wait until we have nothing more interesting to do.
He thinks of his family, and the families of the crew, and of folded flags and memorial ceremonies and no bodies to bury, and has no interest in thinking about it any more.
Last he thinks about Darcy, his old Golden Retriever, curled up on the hearth at his friend Erik’s house. She’d gotten used enough to Pike leaving and coming back that she’d usually just lift her head and give him a thump of her tail when he exited with a bag over his shoulder. This last time, though, she’d whined; Pike had petted her and talked to her for a good 10 minutes, because he’d always been convinced she understood Standard. He had still been able to hear her whining after he shut the door.
“Bird of Prey approaching, sir,” Kanayurak says.
“Very good.” Pike walks to the main console and punches in a few codes with fingers that only tremble a little. “Engage auto-destruct sequence, Pike Alpha 9952 Gamma Epsilon.” There’s no natural-language computer on this ship, just an acknowledging trill. “Kanayurak, tell me when they’re 30 seconds away.”
“Yes, sir.”
There isn’t time for a speech. They’re scared, and in a few minutes it won’t matter any more, but they’re splendid, courageous people, and they deserve the best he can give them.
Pike pulls his uniform straight and pastes his most genial smile on his face. “It’s been an honor serving with all of you. This mission may do more for the the survival of the Federation than anything that’s happened in the last decade. You should all be extremely proud. Whatever happens next--” He pauses, and meets T’Lak’s eyes. “Well, we’ll all find out together. Thank you all.”
“Thank you, sir,” T’Lak says, and reaches out her hand. He takes it and holds it.
“Bird of Prey at 40 seconds, sir.”
“Understood.” His finger hovers over the button. All he’s done in his lifetime, and it’s come down to this.
He squeezes T’Lak’s hand and remembers the worst nights after his injury, how it felt to reach his hand down in the dark and feel Darcy’s warm, living body, stroke her silky coat, and know he wasn’t alone.
I’m sorry, old girl, Pike thinks, and pushes the button. You were looking out for me until the very end.
Seconds later his atoms return to the universe.
+++++
Joanna McCoy has never been a morning person, but on New Vulcan she rises early to walk to work before the searing heat puts her thermoregulator into overdrive and the thin, scorching air makes her throat feel like she’s inhaling warp afterburn. In the pink pre-dawn, the low, buff-colored skyline of Uzh Shi'Kahr, with its countless blocks of identical prefabricated dwellings, looks soft, even beautiful.
Beautiful? she thinks. I’ve been here too long.
She’d loved studying astronomy at the Academy, survived if not thrived on the obsessive competition among all the students there, and then run headlong into the reality of spending the next 40 years or so at a ground station or a starbase--that is, if the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire didn’t destroy each other first.
Two bad options, but the nice thing about having ready access to space ships is that it creates a lot of possibilities, especially when your dad has connections to half the galaxy. Joanna likes to think that Winona Kirk would have taken her onto the Teslau Project even without her dad pulling a few strings, and she’s certainly been working hard to convince Winona that she’s useful. Whether New Vulcan is better than a starbase on Nowhere Prime is something she hasn’t yet decided.
As she passes Okuh Khu’rak, the eighth spoke-like road leading to the center of the city, she hears footsteps behind her. A few moments more and they overtake her.
“Moi racha,” says the voice beside her in greeting. In the dim light she makes out a Vulcan man, youngish by the look of his unlined face. “Are you going to Market?”
The Market occurs every sixth day, on the eastern outskirts of the capital city. Joanna goes from time to time, but finds it a depressing affair. Food production and distribution is centralized; a small amount of water is reserved for personal use, and those who don’t drink all of their allotment raise salad vegetables, fruits and other luxuries in cube gardens. The quantities are small and the prices high, but it would be rude to say so.
“No, osu,” she says. “Not today. I’m going to work.”
“Ah. And where is ‘work’?” Now Joanna is a little alarmed; it’s polite--if over-friendly, by Vulcan standards--to do a bit more than greet a stranger, but it’s positively un-Vulcan like to express so much interest in one.
“I work for--I’m, uh, a researcher,” Joanna says, thinking at the last minute of Starfleet security training.
“Surely there are enough Vulcan scientists already? Do they really have to be imported from--” he gives her a closer look “--from Terra? You are human, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” Joanna would welcome an excuse to turn off the ring road, but the ninth spoke is still 50 meters away. “But there’s no shortage of work that needs to be done, is there?”
The stranger is not puzzled, as most Vulcans seem to be, by rhetorical questions. “Indeed. In this we are in perfect agreement. I wish more Terrans felt as you do, and more of my people as well.” With that, he turns and smiles at her, shocking her down to her toes. “By the way, I am Rh'vaurek.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Rh'vaurek.” Joanna has no desire to give this man her name.
“Yes,” he says. “Likewise. And now, if you will excuse me, I do not wish to be late to Market. I've developed a taste for favinit since my arrival, and the growing season is terribly short.”
Without seeming effort, though the sun is beginning to rise and send its first scorching beams onto the gravel road, the man doubles his pace and is soon far ahead of Joanna.
Joanna may not be piloting a starship on a fast track to command; in fact, she’s very plainly a research assistant working in a fertility clinic on a backwater planet. She’s quite sure, however, that she’s the first in her graduating class to meet a Romulan.
+++++
Winona ducks through the doorway of Spock and Uhura’s home to the small courtyard out back. The sheer number of carefully arranged desert plants back there are a testament to the patience of their owners, each one flourishing despite the colony's ongoing shortage of water and other key resources. A light breeze ruffles her hair, foreshadowing that turning point between day and night in which the sun reluctantly cedes its grasp over the land.
She finds Uhura curled up in a chair, her nose buried in a PADD as Spock and Saiehnn's twin girls make mischief in the corner. At the moment, they’re studying a small lizard-like creature with all the focused concentration of two engineers confronted with a cracked dilithium crystal.
Uhura welcomes her with a warm embrace. She's bypassed traditional Vulcan clothing in favor of a diaphanous garment that brings to mind Earth's desert traditions, a choice that suits her well. Like the plants she tends, she's had to adapt. Winona sinks into the chair next to hers and gratefully accepts a glass of whatever cool beverage Uhura is having; even after nearly five years here Winona hasn’t quite gotten used to the way the heat relentlessly leeches every bit of moisture from her body.
"How are the little ones?" Winona asks by way of greeting, recalling distant memories of Jim and Sam as she watches the two girls whisper to each other.
"They were tested again a few days ago.”
“Again?” Winona says, taken aback. At this rate, they'll have to set up a special wing at the hospital just for the two of them. “What’s the verdict this time?”
“T'Sura is still essentially psi null towards anyone except her sister. Saiehnn once said that her efforts at telepathic communication were like a raw subspace datastream--colors, sounds, idea fragments, but no meaning. If her abilities don't manifest soon, we're not sure that any of the local schools will admit her."
Winona's heart goes out to the three of them. Saiehnn knew that this was a possible side effect of the hormone therapy she'd endured in order to carry Spock's children to term, but it had seemed so remote at the time that she’d deemed it a reasonable risk. It turned out to be one of those things that was an acceptable hypothetical but a difficult reality.
A faint smile lights up T'Sura's face as her sister Saavik presses small hands to each of her round cheeks, presumably sharing some joke or story that was probably funny only to the two of them.
"How's Spock taking it?"
"Like you'd expect," Uhura says with a grimace. "The last thing he wants is for them to go through the same things he did as a child. He spends hours every day researching, talking to anyone he can find with a background in telepathic healing. Some nights he forgets to eat. Saiehnn, on the other hand--she’s taking it all in stride. If you ask her, T'Sura is no different from any other Vulcan child.”
"Except for the part where she’s one-quarter human and the product of billions of credits in science funding. But I can't say I'm surprised," Winona says, tilting her head in thought. "Most of her life was spent on Earth and the colony. She's not going to carry the same ingrained cultural expectations as someone who grew up on Vulcan."
"True," Uhura responds, before going silent again. She lets her eyes fall shut and presses the glass to her face with a small sigh.
Winona's work keeps her busy enough that she doesn't come to see this growing family as often as she should, but even with months between visits she can tell that something isn't sitting well with Uhura. And she'd bet next month’s water allotment that it has nothing to do with T'Sura, even. A small frown has taken up permanent residence in the corners of Nyota’s mouth, and the forceful personality she built her career upon seems to have all but vanished.
"So, Spock's having a time of it, Saiehnn is good, but what about you?" Winona probes gently. She's old enough to be Uhura's mother, and the listlessness on display here remind her immediately of her own son's bouts of introspective moodiness.
"Me?” Her eyes widen slightly in surprise. “Well, Joanna McCoy’s been a delight to have around and she loves visiting the twins. The teaching is still rewarding, personally and ,surprise surprise, even academically. It's really fascinating, the way these children interact. They speak the most interesting patois of Standard and English. Maybe I'll get a paper or two out of it with all this free time I have on my hands now. Jo’s always telling me how much her work--"
"Stop," interjects Winona, holding a hand up in the air. "I love Jo, but I didn't ask about her. And I didn't ask about your teaching, either. I asked about you."
Uhura buys time to come up with an answer by refilling both their glasses. "Fine, I guess. Tired. Old. I mean, look at my hair." She yanks on her long ponytail, which is liberally streaked with gray, and wrinkles her nose.
Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the twins. T'Sura has the lizard balanced on her shoulder, where it's nearly invisible against olive green cloth of her dress.
"Look, Aunt Nyota,” says Saavik, “the animal's skin changes color as a defense against predators."
Winona crouches down to look Saavik in those big, dark eyes that are a direct legacy from her father. "I wonder if you'd change colors if we put you in that shrub over there."
Saavik and T'Sura exchange one of those long-suffering looks that all Vulcans seem to come equipped with the moment they leave the womb.
"Our species does not require defensive coloring, Lady Winona, as on this planet we are the apex predator." She turns back to Uhura. "We require nourishment. May we have something to eat?"
"Only if you promise to sanitize your hands as soon as you get inside. And if I find that lizard in your bedroom later, there’ll be no holovid time for the next three days!" Uhura yells after them, although they’ve already disappeared from view.
It takes Winona a moment to convince her knees that they're ready to bring her back into an upright position. "Am I ever glad that I was finished with this 30 years ago. Although some days I can't help but think that Jim stopped aging at five."
Uhura’s eyebrow quirks upward slightly, one of the many character traits she's picked up from Spock over the years. "Really, now? Seventy-two isn't that old these days, and from what I've read, Sarek's swimmers aren't necessarily out of the race yet, either. Don't you want to try? We can do it, we have the technology."
Warmth rises to Winona's face in silent acknowledgement of the fact that her relationship with Sarek is the colony's worst kept secret. Winona's settled enough into her independent lifestyle that they still keep separate addresses, although Sarek has been dropping increasingly unsubtle hints about how logical it would be for her to give up her tiny flat. But that does nothing to keep local shop clerks from giving them knowing looks when they're out together, or to prevent the Vulcan Science Academy from addressing invitations for their various annual functions to the both of them. Winona is a bit irritated at the presumption, but after a scandalous cross-species marriage, the loss of his home planet, a son with multiple wives, and two genetically manufactured grandchildren, local gossip rolls off of Sarek’s mind like water from a duck's back.
"I wouldn't pass up some nourishment myself." Winona says, changing the subject. What's for lunch?"
"A healthy blend of fresh grains and vegetables that are high in fiber and vitamins, with fruit for dessert."
Winona tries and fails to keep the grimace off her face. Uhura laughs, her teeth a bright flash of white in the rapidly encroaching darkness.
"Barring that, I make a mean vegetable protein cacciatore."
Authors: lindmere and merisunshine36
Artist: ladymac111
Mixer: nextian
Beta: sail_aweigh
Series: ST XI
Character/Pairing(s): Joanna McCoy, Kirk, McCoy, Pike, Spock/Uhura/OFC, Winona/Sarek
Rating: PG-13 for violence and language
Word Count: 27,000
Warnings: Secondary character death, violence, discussion paralleling the autism debate
Denarian Cargo Ship Kulaat Beng
2279.132
There are many kinds of nothing. There’s a difference between nothing and zero, between a void and a vacuum, between space without energy and space without matter.
In his 50 years in Starfleet service, Christopher Pike has learned to appreciate all sorts of nothing, but he’s never seen a nothing as significant as this one. Because in this seemingly empty parsec of space there used to be--clearly visible to Starfleet telescopes, even deep inside Romulan space--a planet. A little more than a month ago, a routine scan had reported on the planet, unoccupied and unimportant and unmistakably gone--no collision, no debris, no nearby celestial bodies to take the blame. Just a planet that was there, and then not there.
And a hell of a lot of suspicions.
Pike’s been hoping for the worst of these to be proven wrong ever since he volunteered for this mortally dangerous mission. Now his hands are gripping the arms of the captain’s chair hard enough to leave permanent imprints, and he’s willing First Officer T’Lak to hurry up with the damn results, already. She’s unexcitable, precise, circumspect, and all those other Vulcan virtues, and Pike has never appreciated any of them less.
After an eternity and a half, T’Lak swivels her chair around and straightens her uniform shirt.
“Captain Pike, I have completed my preliminary assessment.” Four other heads whip around in unison.
“Please continue, Mr. T’Lak,” Pike says, keeping his voice level, as if each passing second isn’t compounding their risk to a heart-stopping degree.
“As we have only one other data set to which to compare it, it can hardly be considered conclusive.” She stops and bites her lip, the Vulcan equivalent of extreme agitation.
“Of course,” Pike says, giving her the courtesy of patience.
T’Lak was at the Academy when the Destruction happened, and lost her whole family along with her promised bond-mate. She was the first to volunteer for this mission, even though she’s young by Vulcan standards and has a safe posting on the U.S.S. Leakey, a science vessel. Jim Kirk, now Science Fleet Admiral, considers her captain material--for the science fleet. It’s one of the many, many things he’s likely to be pissed about when and if Pike makes it back to San Francisco.
T’Lak lays her palms on her knees and focuses on her hands. “Captain, I have determined with an 82.5% confidence that the spatial disruption patterns and energy signatures present in the immediate vicinity are sufficiently characteristic of those found following the destruction of Vulcan to impute the same origin.”
“I understand you, but I’m going to ask you to state your conclusion explicitly, for the record.” Pike is already thinking of all the hearings, all the debates sure to result from this most unwelcome news. The data is already streaming to the Federation, deeply embedded in a series of mundane messages of the sort to be expected from the Denarian trader they’re pretending to be. But T’Lak is a promising physicist, and her on-the-spot assessment will carry added weight.
“Very well, sir.” She rises and clasps her hands behind her back. “It is my assessment that the energy signatures detected in this vicinity are unlike those of any other known particle decay in this dimension, except for one.”
“And what is that one?”
Pike knows what she’s going to say, but even so, the act of speaking it aloud changes things.
“Red matter.” She sits back down, but her spine is, if anything, more rigid than before.
“Thank you, Mr. T’Lak.” He swivels around to the comm station, just two meters away, to give T’Lak a bit of privacy. “Lt. Kort, encode the Bridge recording from the last two hours and dispatch it under my signature.”
“Aye, sir.”
“And now, unless anyone has any objections, let’s plot a course for Starbase 23 and get the hell out of here.” There’s a kind of group exhalation; Kanayurak, who’s filling the role of both helmsman and navigator on the small bridge can hardly lock in the coordinates fast enough. Pike doesn’t have the heart to remind them that the most dangerous part of the mission is still ahead. It’s possible, though unlikely, that they escaped attention; possible, and likelier, that silent watchers are waiting to see what the little Denarian vessel is up to and respond.
It only takes half an hour to end Pike’s suspense.
“Romulan vessel approaching at 472 mark 6, captain. We’re being hailed.” Laaven, the comms officer, is a Tellarite with twin passions for French wine and Romulan culture. He’d joked with Pike when they shipped out that the mission might be his only chance to meet a Romulan in the flesh.
“Answer them, Laaven.”
It’s easy to fake voice and visual transmissions, which is why Starfleet has gone to the added length of creating an artificial persona modeled on an actual Denarian. When Laaven speaks, his words are translated into the raspy syllables of a short-tempered merchant.
“This is the Denarian trader Copious Fortune, Star Empire Merchant License 37285,” Laaven says, giving the literal translation of the ship’s name, though Pike prefers to call it the Good Luck.
The reply is clipped. “Denarian vessel, state your business.”
“We’ve completed delivery of a cargo of produce and spices to Unroth VI and we’re going home,” the simulated Denarian says with simulated impatience.
There’s an extended pause during which Laaven and Kort exchange looks, and Kort raises her crossed fingers in what’s become the universal gesture of Shit, I hope this works.
“We have no record of any such delivery, Fortune. And you are in restricted space.”
“I have an identification, captain,” Kort says. “It’s a Hawk class Bird of Prey.”
Of course. Ten times their size and with more than a hundred times more firepower than necessary to obliterate their little vessel. Not a bunch of Imperial functionaries looking to confiscate a cargo and line their pockets, but a military vessel responding to a security breach, probably eager for information but not likely to take chances.
“Tell them we’re sorry but our star charts show this as free space. Say that we’ll vacate immediately.”
Kort relays the message, looking as apprehensive as Pike feels. Another long pause.
“Be that as it may, Fortune, we require visual inspection to verify your identity. Disable all shielding and set your transporter to receive. Any resistance will be met with deadly force. End communication.”
Well, Pike thinks, there it is. A scenario they’d rehearsed, as the Romulans tended to be shoot first and ask questions later. A scenario with only one possible outcome, which everyone on board had agreed to when they were in a conference room on Earth and it was easier to be brave.
“All right, then. Tell the Romulan vessel to approach and be ready to board in 5 minutes. Amaruk,” Pike says, using Kanayurak’s first name. “Enable self-destruct. Keep the cloak on the engines until the last second so they don’t see us powering up.”
He meets the eyes of each of his crew. They’re all so young. Pike himself is hardly an old man, but he’s counted the last 20 years as borrowed time. His first life had died on the Narada; he’d boarded as a doomed starship captain and been carried off as someone whose possibilities had narrowed and expanded at the same time. He owed that life to Jim Kirk, whose commitment to peace with the Romulans got him kicked off his beloved ship--a peace that Pike has now well and truly torpedoed with this mission. He thinks of Jim now with uncomplicated love, and hopes his judgement won’t be harsh.
He thinks of Aune, too formidable to call “girlfriend,” too independent to let him call her “wife.” The last time he’d proposed she’d laughed and said, Wait until we have nothing more interesting to do.
He thinks of his family, and the families of the crew, and of folded flags and memorial ceremonies and no bodies to bury, and has no interest in thinking about it any more.
Last he thinks about Darcy, his old Golden Retriever, curled up on the hearth at his friend Erik’s house. She’d gotten used enough to Pike leaving and coming back that she’d usually just lift her head and give him a thump of her tail when he exited with a bag over his shoulder. This last time, though, she’d whined; Pike had petted her and talked to her for a good 10 minutes, because he’d always been convinced she understood Standard. He had still been able to hear her whining after he shut the door.
“Bird of Prey approaching, sir,” Kanayurak says.
“Very good.” Pike walks to the main console and punches in a few codes with fingers that only tremble a little. “Engage auto-destruct sequence, Pike Alpha 9952 Gamma Epsilon.” There’s no natural-language computer on this ship, just an acknowledging trill. “Kanayurak, tell me when they’re 30 seconds away.”
“Yes, sir.”
There isn’t time for a speech. They’re scared, and in a few minutes it won’t matter any more, but they’re splendid, courageous people, and they deserve the best he can give them.
Pike pulls his uniform straight and pastes his most genial smile on his face. “It’s been an honor serving with all of you. This mission may do more for the the survival of the Federation than anything that’s happened in the last decade. You should all be extremely proud. Whatever happens next--” He pauses, and meets T’Lak’s eyes. “Well, we’ll all find out together. Thank you all.”
“Thank you, sir,” T’Lak says, and reaches out her hand. He takes it and holds it.
“Bird of Prey at 40 seconds, sir.”
“Understood.” His finger hovers over the button. All he’s done in his lifetime, and it’s come down to this.
He squeezes T’Lak’s hand and remembers the worst nights after his injury, how it felt to reach his hand down in the dark and feel Darcy’s warm, living body, stroke her silky coat, and know he wasn’t alone.
I’m sorry, old girl, Pike thinks, and pushes the button. You were looking out for me until the very end.
Seconds later his atoms return to the universe.
+++++
Joanna McCoy has never been a morning person, but on New Vulcan she rises early to walk to work before the searing heat puts her thermoregulator into overdrive and the thin, scorching air makes her throat feel like she’s inhaling warp afterburn. In the pink pre-dawn, the low, buff-colored skyline of Uzh Shi'Kahr, with its countless blocks of identical prefabricated dwellings, looks soft, even beautiful.
Beautiful? she thinks. I’ve been here too long.
She’d loved studying astronomy at the Academy, survived if not thrived on the obsessive competition among all the students there, and then run headlong into the reality of spending the next 40 years or so at a ground station or a starbase--that is, if the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire didn’t destroy each other first.
Two bad options, but the nice thing about having ready access to space ships is that it creates a lot of possibilities, especially when your dad has connections to half the galaxy. Joanna likes to think that Winona Kirk would have taken her onto the Teslau Project even without her dad pulling a few strings, and she’s certainly been working hard to convince Winona that she’s useful. Whether New Vulcan is better than a starbase on Nowhere Prime is something she hasn’t yet decided.
As she passes Okuh Khu’rak, the eighth spoke-like road leading to the center of the city, she hears footsteps behind her. A few moments more and they overtake her.
“Moi racha,” says the voice beside her in greeting. In the dim light she makes out a Vulcan man, youngish by the look of his unlined face. “Are you going to Market?”
The Market occurs every sixth day, on the eastern outskirts of the capital city. Joanna goes from time to time, but finds it a depressing affair. Food production and distribution is centralized; a small amount of water is reserved for personal use, and those who don’t drink all of their allotment raise salad vegetables, fruits and other luxuries in cube gardens. The quantities are small and the prices high, but it would be rude to say so.
“No, osu,” she says. “Not today. I’m going to work.”
“Ah. And where is ‘work’?” Now Joanna is a little alarmed; it’s polite--if over-friendly, by Vulcan standards--to do a bit more than greet a stranger, but it’s positively un-Vulcan like to express so much interest in one.
“I work for--I’m, uh, a researcher,” Joanna says, thinking at the last minute of Starfleet security training.
“Surely there are enough Vulcan scientists already? Do they really have to be imported from--” he gives her a closer look “--from Terra? You are human, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” Joanna would welcome an excuse to turn off the ring road, but the ninth spoke is still 50 meters away. “But there’s no shortage of work that needs to be done, is there?”
The stranger is not puzzled, as most Vulcans seem to be, by rhetorical questions. “Indeed. In this we are in perfect agreement. I wish more Terrans felt as you do, and more of my people as well.” With that, he turns and smiles at her, shocking her down to her toes. “By the way, I am Rh'vaurek.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Rh'vaurek.” Joanna has no desire to give this man her name.
“Yes,” he says. “Likewise. And now, if you will excuse me, I do not wish to be late to Market. I've developed a taste for favinit since my arrival, and the growing season is terribly short.”
Without seeming effort, though the sun is beginning to rise and send its first scorching beams onto the gravel road, the man doubles his pace and is soon far ahead of Joanna.
Joanna may not be piloting a starship on a fast track to command; in fact, she’s very plainly a research assistant working in a fertility clinic on a backwater planet. She’s quite sure, however, that she’s the first in her graduating class to meet a Romulan.
+++++
Winona ducks through the doorway of Spock and Uhura’s home to the small courtyard out back. The sheer number of carefully arranged desert plants back there are a testament to the patience of their owners, each one flourishing despite the colony's ongoing shortage of water and other key resources. A light breeze ruffles her hair, foreshadowing that turning point between day and night in which the sun reluctantly cedes its grasp over the land.
She finds Uhura curled up in a chair, her nose buried in a PADD as Spock and Saiehnn's twin girls make mischief in the corner. At the moment, they’re studying a small lizard-like creature with all the focused concentration of two engineers confronted with a cracked dilithium crystal.
Uhura welcomes her with a warm embrace. She's bypassed traditional Vulcan clothing in favor of a diaphanous garment that brings to mind Earth's desert traditions, a choice that suits her well. Like the plants she tends, she's had to adapt. Winona sinks into the chair next to hers and gratefully accepts a glass of whatever cool beverage Uhura is having; even after nearly five years here Winona hasn’t quite gotten used to the way the heat relentlessly leeches every bit of moisture from her body.
"How are the little ones?" Winona asks by way of greeting, recalling distant memories of Jim and Sam as she watches the two girls whisper to each other.
"They were tested again a few days ago.”
“Again?” Winona says, taken aback. At this rate, they'll have to set up a special wing at the hospital just for the two of them. “What’s the verdict this time?”
“T'Sura is still essentially psi null towards anyone except her sister. Saiehnn once said that her efforts at telepathic communication were like a raw subspace datastream--colors, sounds, idea fragments, but no meaning. If her abilities don't manifest soon, we're not sure that any of the local schools will admit her."
Winona's heart goes out to the three of them. Saiehnn knew that this was a possible side effect of the hormone therapy she'd endured in order to carry Spock's children to term, but it had seemed so remote at the time that she’d deemed it a reasonable risk. It turned out to be one of those things that was an acceptable hypothetical but a difficult reality.
A faint smile lights up T'Sura's face as her sister Saavik presses small hands to each of her round cheeks, presumably sharing some joke or story that was probably funny only to the two of them.
"How's Spock taking it?"
"Like you'd expect," Uhura says with a grimace. "The last thing he wants is for them to go through the same things he did as a child. He spends hours every day researching, talking to anyone he can find with a background in telepathic healing. Some nights he forgets to eat. Saiehnn, on the other hand--she’s taking it all in stride. If you ask her, T'Sura is no different from any other Vulcan child.”
"Except for the part where she’s one-quarter human and the product of billions of credits in science funding. But I can't say I'm surprised," Winona says, tilting her head in thought. "Most of her life was spent on Earth and the colony. She's not going to carry the same ingrained cultural expectations as someone who grew up on Vulcan."
"True," Uhura responds, before going silent again. She lets her eyes fall shut and presses the glass to her face with a small sigh.
Winona's work keeps her busy enough that she doesn't come to see this growing family as often as she should, but even with months between visits she can tell that something isn't sitting well with Uhura. And she'd bet next month’s water allotment that it has nothing to do with T'Sura, even. A small frown has taken up permanent residence in the corners of Nyota’s mouth, and the forceful personality she built her career upon seems to have all but vanished.
"So, Spock's having a time of it, Saiehnn is good, but what about you?" Winona probes gently. She's old enough to be Uhura's mother, and the listlessness on display here remind her immediately of her own son's bouts of introspective moodiness.
"Me?” Her eyes widen slightly in surprise. “Well, Joanna McCoy’s been a delight to have around and she loves visiting the twins. The teaching is still rewarding, personally and ,surprise surprise, even academically. It's really fascinating, the way these children interact. They speak the most interesting patois of Standard and English. Maybe I'll get a paper or two out of it with all this free time I have on my hands now. Jo’s always telling me how much her work--"
"Stop," interjects Winona, holding a hand up in the air. "I love Jo, but I didn't ask about her. And I didn't ask about your teaching, either. I asked about you."
Uhura buys time to come up with an answer by refilling both their glasses. "Fine, I guess. Tired. Old. I mean, look at my hair." She yanks on her long ponytail, which is liberally streaked with gray, and wrinkles her nose.
Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the twins. T'Sura has the lizard balanced on her shoulder, where it's nearly invisible against olive green cloth of her dress.
"Look, Aunt Nyota,” says Saavik, “the animal's skin changes color as a defense against predators."
Winona crouches down to look Saavik in those big, dark eyes that are a direct legacy from her father. "I wonder if you'd change colors if we put you in that shrub over there."
Saavik and T'Sura exchange one of those long-suffering looks that all Vulcans seem to come equipped with the moment they leave the womb.
"Our species does not require defensive coloring, Lady Winona, as on this planet we are the apex predator." She turns back to Uhura. "We require nourishment. May we have something to eat?"
"Only if you promise to sanitize your hands as soon as you get inside. And if I find that lizard in your bedroom later, there’ll be no holovid time for the next three days!" Uhura yells after them, although they’ve already disappeared from view.
It takes Winona a moment to convince her knees that they're ready to bring her back into an upright position. "Am I ever glad that I was finished with this 30 years ago. Although some days I can't help but think that Jim stopped aging at five."
Uhura’s eyebrow quirks upward slightly, one of the many character traits she's picked up from Spock over the years. "Really, now? Seventy-two isn't that old these days, and from what I've read, Sarek's swimmers aren't necessarily out of the race yet, either. Don't you want to try? We can do it, we have the technology."
Warmth rises to Winona's face in silent acknowledgement of the fact that her relationship with Sarek is the colony's worst kept secret. Winona's settled enough into her independent lifestyle that they still keep separate addresses, although Sarek has been dropping increasingly unsubtle hints about how logical it would be for her to give up her tiny flat. But that does nothing to keep local shop clerks from giving them knowing looks when they're out together, or to prevent the Vulcan Science Academy from addressing invitations for their various annual functions to the both of them. Winona is a bit irritated at the presumption, but after a scandalous cross-species marriage, the loss of his home planet, a son with multiple wives, and two genetically manufactured grandchildren, local gossip rolls off of Sarek’s mind like water from a duck's back.
"I wouldn't pass up some nourishment myself." Winona says, changing the subject. What's for lunch?"
"A healthy blend of fresh grains and vegetables that are high in fiber and vitamins, with fruit for dessert."
Winona tries and fails to keep the grimace off her face. Uhura laughs, her teeth a bright flash of white in the rapidly encroaching darkness.
"Barring that, I make a mean vegetable protein cacciatore."