Archive of Our Own

* * *

The man who had no name wound his way through narrow passages, right hand extended to trail along the damp and familiar stone wall. He wondered for the hundredth time in twelve years why he always forgot how smotheringly dark these tunnels were. For the hundredth time he felt the rebellious thought, quickly stifled, that next time he would bring a lamp.

The stone under his feet sloped more steeply downward, signaling the end of his solitary journey. From this point on, he would be known only as Second until he breathed the cool night air on the surface, now a thousand meters above his head.

Second felt a sudden emptiness under his hand, and turned sharply to sidle through a narrow opening in the wall. When the others came this way in a few minutes, the gap in the wall would be gone, replaced by solid stone. He moved more slowly now, the cramped passageway less familiar.

A few meters further on, he stopped. "First?" he called, his voice sounding small in the darkness.

"Here."

"We've only got fifteen minutes," he said to the disembodied voice.

"Then we will not waste time," the other answered, and to his left a door slid back to reveal a small room lit by a single wall sconce, the weak illumination blinding after the near-blackness. First stepped into the room, heavy cloak swinging, and Second followed, blinking. The hidden door slid shut behind them.

"What news?" Second asked, turning to search the face which would soon be masked. The identities of all the conspirators were kept a secret, but these two were known to each other. For the first time, Second found himself wondering if theirs was the only secret alliance in the group, or if, even now, there were other trysts, other plots, in other hidden rooms of this ancient labyrinth.

"Complications," First said, his lips curling as if the word tasted bitter in his mouth.

"Who?" Second asked, his stomach tightening. They were days from taking their first irrevocable step. From that moment there would be no turning from the path they had chosen. They could not afford complications.

"The Fleet Commander, for one. Our last missive was intercepted by her flagship two hours ago."

Second cursed. "As we predicted. Has she reported?"

"Of course not. Our operative assures me that her ship will continue to suffer from communications malfunction until forty-five minutes from now, when she will find that is the least of her problems."

"It will appear to be an accident." It was not a question. "Well, I did my best to prevent it. My sister-son can blame no one but her."

First waved a hand of dismissal. "He will know nothing we do not choose to tell him. Our second problem is more pressing." Second raised a questioning eyebrow. "The Federation ship Enterprise has been assigned to survey planet two four seven. They have been in orbit for the last thirty-two hours."

"What?" Second's jaw dropped in disbelief.

First nodded. "The timing could not be worse. We have no way of knowing whether they will stumble upon anything significant, but I recommend that we nullify the threat as soon as possible."

"Nullify--how? The Enterprise is a starship--she's never been captured. Her captain is some sort of demon."

First seized the taller man's throat without warning, squeezing his vulnerable larynx with merciless force. "Silence! Such cowardice has no place here." He squeezed the other's throat once more, as if to punctuate his words, and let him go; Second staggered back, gasping. "Your ship Wyvor will go after her, and every Bird of Prey you can borrow or steal, Senator. And with them--Talocyn."

Second stared at him, suddenly understanding. He turned, pacing in the tiny room, the attack on his person forgotten. "Talocyn. If she is ready," he trailed off, thinking feverishly. "Oh, bright fortune, if she is ready--" he spun, grinning with the sudden taste of victory, after twelve years of skulking in the dark "--Enterprise will not stand a chance!"

First allowed himself a small smile. "None, whatsoever."

* * *

Afterwards, Jerry Richardson would find it difficult to explain what it was, exactly, about the sensor display that struck him as wrong.

He'd only been at Ops for two weeks, was still learning the myriad intricate readouts that allowed him to monitor all the detailed operations of the great ship from one station on the bridge. Behind him, Laura Masters was getting her feet wet at Navigation, his old station. He missed the easy confidence of knowing every control, every nuance of his board. Which was, he supposed, the point of Admiral Kirk's frequent duty reassignments.

Richardson had been the chief navigation officer of the Enterprise for nearly a year, since Chekov had been promoted to chief of security. Ops was a very different--and in some ways more demanding--position. Richardson took it very seriously, despite his reputation for a certain irreverence on the bridge.

What was it that caught his attention near the end of that particular watch? The bridge was quiet, the ship en route to a terraforming colony for standard resupply, well within Federation borders. What was it (the Admirals would ask later) that made Richardson glance at the warp field monitor just at that moment?

"Uh, Admiral?" he said uncertainly.

Kirk looked up, hearing something in Richardson's voice which made him stop what he was doing. "Yes, Lieutenant?"

"Well, I'm not sure what this means, but there's some kind of fluctuation in our gravity bubble."

Kirk got to his feet, coming to look over his shoulder from the lower level of the bridge. Richardson could feel the weight of his scrutiny. "What exactly did you see?" He didn't say, are you sure? and for that, Richardson was grateful. Kirk trusted him to know the difference between the Enterprise's artificial gravity field and the phenomenon they called a 'gravity bubble'--the quantum occurrence that constituted one of the side effects you got when you moved an object the size of the Enterprise faster than the speed of light.

He frowned at the screen. But the numbers staring back at him refused to remain steady, jogging up and then back down.

"Well, sir," he said, "I just happened to be looking at the readout, and I saw the calibrator jump, like it was compensating for something." He swiveled to look down at Kirk, seeking confirmation. "That's not normal, is it?" But Kirk wasn't looking at him.

"Spock, could you come take a look at this?"

Spock was already halfway around the bridge, as if he anticipated the captain's request. Kirk came up the steps to meet him, and together they bent over Richardson's board.

A few moments only, and then they both straightened, each meeting the other's eyes, some silent communication passing between them that Richardson couldn't read.

"What do you make of it, Spock?" Kirk asked, his voice low.

Spock locked his hands together behind his back. "We have a shadow," he said, matter-of-fact, as if confirming a conclusion Kirk had already reached.

The captain turned to Richardson, and the look Kirk gave him made Jerry intensely uncomfortable. "Mister Richardson," Kirk said softly, "raise shields."

Richardson felt his eyes widen. "Sir--?"

"Now, Mister Richardson, if you don't mind."

Richardson jumped to obey, his hands flying to activate the first controls he had learned on this console. The deflector schematic came up, indicating full shield activation; Kirk was already halfway to the command chair. "Mister Sulu, deactivate warp drive, impulse power at my signal." More experienced than Richardson, and more attuned to Kirk's demands after nearly ten years under his command, the helmsman wasted no time questioning the order.

Thanks to Sulu's quick action, they saw rather than felt the brilliant explosion which engulfed the view screen, putting out the stars.

"Z-minus thirty degrees, full impulse," Kirk shouted above the groan of the ship's gravimetric field compensators, which protested at the sudden shift to sublight. The red alert klaxon went off. Sulu obeyed, and the ship lurched beneath them. An interminable three seconds passed, and Kirk reached the command chair. "Warp eight, Mister Sulu. Bearing one hundred two degrees off our previous heading."

The Enterprise responded, pitching violently to starboard before pivoting neatly on her nacelle and leaping toward elsewhere.

Richardson scrambled for his chair, trying to see the shield monitor. "Minor damage to deflectors three and four, Admiral! Compensating."

"Mister Spock," Kirk ordered, and Spock bent over his scanners.

"Nothing, Admiral. We've lost them."

"Lost who?" Masters asked, and Richardson was glad he hadn't been the one to blurt it out.

"Unknown, Lieutenant," Kirk replied with that surprising mildness that Richardson knew enough to interpret as big trouble. "We shall see. Spock, you let me know the second you see a flicker of energy that isn't ours. Uhura, scan for intraship signals, communication squirts, anything, but maintain comm silence. Mister Richardson, keep an eye on that gravity bubble. If you see so much as a one anti-graviton fluctuation, I want to know about it, understand?"

"Yes, sir," Richardson answered. "Holding steady."

Behind him, Kirk watched his people do their jobs, and felt a surge of pride. He drew a breath, and hit the comm switch on his chair. "Kirk to Scott."

"Scott here," came the reply, as if the engineer had been waiting to pounce on the comm button. "What's happenin' up there, Admiral?"

"We've got a 'shadow,' Mister Scott--and it seems to be firing at us. Get ready to funnel more power to the shields if necessary, and get two extra technicians to phaser control. Arm everything we've got."

"Yes, sir! Who is it, sir?" Scott sounded affronted that anyone would have the gall to shoot at his ship.

"They're not advertising, Scotty. I'll keep you posted. Kirk out." He got up and went to the science station. "Well, Mister Spock," he said smiling grimly, "it works in aikido."

Spock straightened, turning to meet his gaze. "Clumsy, but effective," he agreed. "They will have to triangulate our position."

"How long?"

Spock calculated. "Eight point five minutes at minimum. No more than eleven minutes." Kirk blew out the breath he had been holding. "Sir," Spock forestalled him, "there is something else. Such varying readings in our warp-gravity bubble must surely indicate more than one cloaked vessel."

Kirk frowned. "Can you tell how many?"

"Difficult to say. The readings might have indicated as many as six smaller ships, or three large ones, or any combination thereof."

Kirk's jaw hardened; he was starting to get angry. Who the hell would ambush Starfleet's finest flagship two hundred parsecs inside Federation space? Someone who meant business, it seemed.

"Lieutenant Richardson," he said, returning to the command chair, "you keep right on watching that board. You just saved our bacon, young man. Mister Sulu, get as much speed out of her as you can. I want to put as much space behind us as possible."

Jerry Richardson flushed with the compliment, shaking with the adrenaline rush, forgetting that he had been at the end of a long duty shift two minutes ago. He stayed riveted to his board, trying not to think about how close they had come to being sitting ducks for a six-to-one ambush. Eight minutes, Spock had said, and then their brief respite would be over. Whoever had gone to all this trouble to snare the Enterprise would not likely fall for Kirk's little duck-and-run maneuver again.

"Mister Spock," Kirk was saying behind him, "Scan the area. Let me know what we've got--nebulae, comets, black holes, anything. Put it on a schematic and let's see it on the main screen. Uhura, prepare a general S.O.S. to all Federation vessels on all channels and get ready to broadcast it as soon as our friends show up. What Fleet vessels do you have within range?"

She turned in her chair to raise her eyebrows at him. She looked apologetic. "Well, sir--" she began.

"No, let me guess, we're the only ship in the quadrant. When aren't we?" He frowned, as the thought occurred to him. "I wonder if whoever planned this little party knew we would be the only guests?"

Spock's fingers darted over his board, and a schematic map of the immediate star systems came up, transparent layers indicating three-dimensional perspective. "Range indicates ten minute radius at warp eight," he said, and everyone except Richardson turned to look at the screen. "Two Class G star systems, several planetary bodies. Several dwarf star systems. There is a pulsar here--" on the screen, he highlighted its coordinates "--magnitude seven point six. This area indicates a rather unusually dense and massive asteroid field, containing concentrations of several rare elements, and this darker area indicates a magnitude five point three five ion storm, with squalls reaching magnitude eight and higher," he finished rapidly.

"Asteroid field," Kirk repeated, staring at the dark mass on the view screen. "You mean that field isn't part of any star system?"

"Negative," Spock confirmed. "The core of the field is so unusually dense that the asteroids have formed their own orbital system, with no true center. I would not recommend that we attempt to navigate through it."

Kirk made a noncommittal sound, turning that over in his mind, storing it away for future use. "Mister Sulu," he said aloud, "alter course toward that ion storm. I want you to take up a parallel course with it, as close to the storm perimeter as you can get without sacrificing helm control. It'll play havoc with our sensors, but it will do the same to theirs." Sulu complied, and Kirk hunched down in his chair, thinking.

"Coming up on eight minutes, Admiral," Spock said.

Richardson was staring at the warp-field monitor so hard he had forgotten to blink. The moment it happened, he sat bolt upright in his chair. "Admiral! Warp-bubble fluctuating!"

Kirk leapt to his feet. "Phasers ready, Mister Sulu. Evasive--now."

There was a single, suspended moment of silence, broken only by the crackle of the electric storm on the view screen, as the bridge crew held their collective breath. Then--

white white WHITE

--the view screen erupted with searing light. A fraction of a second later, the Enterprise leapt to the side as if she had hit a brick wall, and they were thrown to the deck with wrenching violence. Richardson lay still, then realized he was still breathing. He clambered into his chair, holding his ribs, deafened by the shrieks of alarms going off all over the ship. As if in stop-action strobe he saw, to his left, Uhura drag herself up by the edge of her console and slam the palm of her hand on a switch, which had to be the S.O.S.

"Direct hit!" he cried, reading the information on his board. "Shields still operational--undamaged, Admiral. But we have a direct hit on Decks Seventeen through Twenty." Still dazed, he tried to make sense of the outpouring of information under his hands. "Sir--we have a hull breach. Attempting containment." Blinding light flashed over his shoulder, and Richardson braced himself, but the ship only shuddered, steadied.

"They didn't decloak," Kirk exclaimed. Even as he said it, he was moving toward Spock's station. "Mister Sulu, all phasers, scatter pattern. Fire! Uhura--damage report." They scrambled to obey; to his right, Spock was the only island of solidity in a sea of chaos, bent over his computer with fixed intensity. When Kirk reached him, he spoke over his shoulder.

"Admiral, I read at least four vessels, possibly a fifth. Sensors indicate three Romulan warbirds and a larger ship, possibly a Romulan cruiser."

"Read them? How? Are they still cloaked?"

"Affirmative. I am able to scan their graviton emissions in the ion storm nimbus."

"Just like Mister Richardson's gravity bubble. Spock--" He seized hold of the railing just below the science station. "Can you use those emissions to give Mister Sulu firing coordinates?"

"Attempting it." Spock's fingers danced on the controls. "Transferring now, Admiral."

"Mister Sulu--"

"Ready, Admiral! Firing!" The full power of the Enterprise's arsenal lanced outward on the view screen, reflecting off the ionized fields of space dust which swirled all around them. Suddenly, one lancing beam struck solid matter, and the too-familiar silhouette of a Romulan bird of prey shimmered into existence below them, arcs of electricity leaping from one nacelle. The magnetic disruption from the damaged ship drew a great, whirling ion squall toward it, the storm spinning up into a violent spiral that literally tore the smaller ship apart.

Uhura's voice rang out. "Admiral, damage report."

"Go, Uhura."

"Hull breach is contained. Extensive casualties on deck eighteen, and injuries on decks seventeen, nineteen and twenty. We've lost the starboard thruster array." She glanced up. "Minor damage to starboard nacelle. Repairs underway. And sir--I've jettisoned the log buoy." Kirk nodded, turning back to Spock.

"Mister Spock, can you confirm that shield integrity was not compromised?"

"Affirmative, Admiral," Spock said, turning to meet his gaze. "Whatever that weapon was, our shields completely ignored it." They exchanged a long look, heavy with what Spock's words would mean for the Federation. He turned back to his computer. "Attempting to analyze now."

"Mister Sulu," Kirk said, moving to stand at the helmsman's shoulder. "Opinion--why have they stopped firing at us?"

Sulu thought without looking up from his console. "We surprised them. They've moved out of range of the ion storm so we can't scan them. They're trying to figure out how to get us away from it."

Kirk weighed his words. "Or, they're figuring out how to do what we just did." He straightened abruptly. "Mister Sulu," he snapped, "full astern. Bring us around the far side of that storm."

Even as he spoke, a brilliant azure bolt lanced across their bow, slicing through the space they had occupied. It trailed tongues of magnetic current, and a second storm surge whirled into existence with startling speed. The tempest rocked the Enterprise, but swirled by her, spinning away into the heart of the storm.

Almost before they could draw breath, another burst of fire struck them, and the deck under their feet vibrated with a sickening scream of twisting metal. Kirk caught himself and managed not to fall, feeling the damage to his ship like a physical wound. "Spock!" he yelled over the klaxons, "can you get a fix on them?"

"Negative," Spock shouted back. "We've been thrown clear of the storm." The ship keeled sharply to the side, and now Kirk could hear other, more ominous sounds from the decks below.

Kirk hit the comm switch. "Weapons Control, do you read?" Only static came back at him.

"Admiral, internal power is out on decks thirteen through twenty-two," Uhura said, frowning and pressing her comm link to her ear as she tried to make sense out of the shouting from below decks. "Coolant leak in Weapons Control. Chekov's trying to get to Auxiliary--"

"Mister Sulu, try photon torpedoes. Lieutenant Masters, plot us a course toward that asteroid field!"

A handful of seconds dragged out. "Plotted, sir," she said, voice tight, but focused.

"Sulu?"

"Negative on photon torpedoes, sir," he said. "I've got nothing from Weapons Control."

"All right, go, Sulu. The asteroid field. Best speed." With an ominous shudder, the ship struggled to obey the helmsman's request for warp power. "Mister Richardson?" Kirk asked, looking over at the young man who had not taken his eyes from the warp-field readout.

"Nothing, sir. We're clear."

Kirk turned to the view screen, trying not to think about coolant leaks, about hull breaches, about extensive casualties. They ran, hoping to put a pile of rocks between themselves and disaster. For long seconds, there was only the taut silence of his people doing their jobs.

Then-- "Sir," Masters said, "we've reached the outer tier of asteroids."

"Spock?"

"Bearing two-one-four mark two," Spock said, seemingly unaffected by the desperate pathos of Kirk's chosen course of action. "A singular concentration of verilium and obsitrate. It may shield us, at least partially."

Sulu maneuvered the great ship to Spock's coordinates, carefully weaving in between countless asteroids of varying sizes, any one of which might contain a high enough concentration of volatile elements to destroy them.

"Admiral," Uhura said a moment later, "I have Chekov in Auxiliary Control. He says he should have some power to weapons in the next few minutes."

Kirk nodded, thanking every one of Chekov's Russian ancestors. "All right, Mister Sulu. Full stop. All stations, minimum power levels. Let her drift as much as you can. Isolated thrusters only."

"That'll be tricky with starboard thrusters out, Admiral," Sulu said wryly, setting himself to focus on the task at hand.

Kirk laid a hand briefly on the helmsman's shoulder and squeezed. Then he thumbed the comm button. "Kirk to sickbay."

Chaos came back at him, and his hand tightened on the arm of his chair, the sounds of his crew in pain like a weight somewhere in his chest. "Sickbay. McCoy here, Admiral." The doctor sounded out of breath.

"How bad, Bones?" Kirk asked.

"I don't know yet. I've got two teams on eighteen, one on nineteen. Coolant poisoning all over the damn place. Jim, what the hell's goin' on up there?"

Kirk's jaw tightened, his anger a slow burn in his gut. "A surprise attack. The ships are cloaked--it looks like Romulans. We're running silent at the moment. Keep me posted," he said, knowing McCoy had to get back to his patients.

"Will do, Admiral. Hang in there." There was a click as he closed the channel.

Kirk looked up to find Spock at his elbow, the dark eyes offering silent support, and instantly he felt better. Around them, the bridge was bathed in eerie emergency lighting, the consoles blinking with unnatural silence. Their sheltering rock loomed perilously close, nearly filling the view screen, and in front of him Sulu hunched over his board in concentration.

"It'll mean war," Kirk said, voice low.

"I know," Spock answered in the same tone, his lips drawing thinly against his teeth. "The Praetor must have every confidence in this new weapon."

"Were you able to get anything on it?"

"Negative. It is of some form of particle beam we have never encountered. At times it reads almost as matter. But that is impossible, of course." Spock frowned, intent on the puzzle such an impossibility presented.

"Get on it. See if you can figure out why our shields can't touch it." Spock nodded, turning back to his station.

The silence lasted perhaps a minute this time before Richardson's voice broke it. "Sir, I've got a fluctuation--"

Kirk didn't wait to hear the rest of his sentence. An idea struck him, and he turned to the helm. "Mister Sulu, do you remember the flitter training simulation at Starfleet Academy? David and Goliath?" The helmsman nodded, once, not turning around. "Impulse power, everything you've got."

Sulu glanced up at the screen, startled, then bent over his controls. The Enterprise moved forward, until the rock on the screen blotted out everything. When they could see individual pock marks on its surface, and Kirk's teeth ached with the certainty that she would feel it scrape the underbelly of the ship at any moment, he cried, "Now, Sulu! Just like in the simulator."

Sulu responded, moving his hands in a choreography no human eye could follow. The view screen tilted alarmingly, perspective not making sense, the rock beneath them spinning in an unexpected direction. Under their feet, the ship vibrated unnaturally, struggling to obey her helm. An instant later, Sulu hit another series of controls, and the white line of the Enterprise tractor beam reached out in a sweeping pattern on the scope.

Masters, watching the nav readouts, wondered crazily for a second whether Kirk meant to slam them into the asteroid. Then she looked up at the view screen, and understood. Impossibly, the Enterprise had managed to skate over the horizon of the great rock, slipping into an untenable orbit barely a kilometer from its surface, the tractor beam extended behind them. As she watched, Sulu swung them around in a great arc, aiming the nose of the ship toward the stars. Then, neatly as a fisherman planting his feet and swinging his net, he suddenly pulled all power from the impulse drive and threw it into the tractor beam.

With a sound that made her hackles rise, the Enterprise formed a pivot, swinging the great rock around in a wide, slow, impossible arc. The vibrating worsened, and warning lights began to flash on the board. Still the asteroid swung--

Explosions rocked the ship, alarmingly close. Masters read them on the scope and couldn't believe it. "Sir, I have two vessels down! They collided with the asteroid. Correction--three ships down." She read the scope again, confirmed it. "Completely destroyed, Admiral--"

"Release tractor beam," Kirk ordered, just as the stress alarm went off. "Get us out of here, Mister Sulu."

Masters looked up, saw what Kirk had seen. On the screen, the asteroid was coming around in the completion of the arc Sulu had begun. If they didn't get out of the way, they would meet the same fate as the ships on her monitor.

Sulu hastened to comply, coaxing half-impulse from the protesting engines. With reluctance, the ship responded, limping sluggishly out of the path of impending disaster.

"Brilliant, Mister Sulu," Kirk said, standing at his shoulder. "Brilliant! I always wondered if that would work," he muttered as an afterthought. Masters shot him a startled look; beside her, Sulu breathed a silent sigh of relief.

The respite didn't last long. "Ship decloaking, Admiral," Spock said, and they looked up to see the frightening shape of a Romulan dreadnought materializing off their bow, nearly half again the size of the Enterprise, its blunt nose emblazoned with its name unmistakable Rihannsuu script. She was closing rapidly.

"Admiral," Uhura said quickly, "intelligence carries that ship's comm signature. It's the Talocyn, capabilities unknown." She looked up. "It's a prototype, sir. Intel has no other details."

"Sir," came Richardson's voice, rising with apprehension. "I've got an object approaching at warp point five."

"Bearing?"

"Three-oh-two mark seven. Originating from the dreadnought. It looks like an escape pod, sir. One life form reading."

Kirk hit a button on his console. "Mister Chekov, do we have phasers?" he asked, clipped.

"Ten seconds, sir," came Chekov's breathless answer. "I can get you a five second burst at eighty percent."

"On my mark, Sulu," Kirk said. "Give me fifty percent magnification on screen." Sulu complied, and as one the bridge crew looked up to see what trick would be tried on them next.

"Sir," Uhura broke in. "The pod is hailing us."

"Steady, Mister Sulu," Kirk said. "On screen, Lieutenant."

The view screen crackled, damaged receptors struggling to form an image out of garbled signals. Static, and then clearing, and a woman's face took shape on the screen.

Kirk made a sound, and Spock turned to look at him. The captain swore, once, short and vicious. Kirk's gaze was locked to the view screen, and Spock followed his gaze to meet the eyes of--

For an instant, he was tempted to echo Kirk's sentiment.

"Admiral!" the Romulan Commander cried, desperation evident in her strong face. "Heed me! They will fire on me at any moment. You must not allow appearances to sway you. There is a deeper plot concealed here. You must--" she was silenced by a deafening scream of phaser fire, and her pod lurched, throwing her against the console. Kirk had leapt to his feet. Spock came halfway out of his own chair, hands locking on the railing and going white.

But she straightened. "The Romulan Empire is not responsible, Admiral. We are betrayed. I came to warn you. They will destroy you if they can. But if you survive--" another burst of fire struck her craft "--this conspiracy rots the very heart of the Federation. 'Tal intercepted a transmission from Talocyn to the Federation Council Headquarters--"

"Admiral--" Richardson broke in, alarmed. "I'm reading high gamma emissions from that pod. Reactor buffer field nonexistent."

Kirk's head snapped toward Spock. "Confirm that, Mister Spock."

Spock returned his gaze for an instant, then turned to his computer. He straightened, flashing a look of silent appeal to the woman whose eyes found his, but his words were for his captain. "Confirmed, sir. Fission reaction building toward detonation in eleven seconds. Collision imminent."

Kirk swallowed hard, and pivoted toward the helm console. He seized the back of Sulu's chair. "Sulu--"

The helmsman shook his head, his hands clenching helplessly on the controls. "No good, Admiral. The pod's too close for me to maneuver out of its path, and the tractor's burnt out completely." On the screen, the Commander bent over her sparking console, wrenching at her thruster controls, struggling to alter the course of her tiny craft. Smoke poured from the board, filling the cabin, choking her.

Kirk hit the comm button on his chair again. "Mister Kyle, do we have transporter capability?" The main transporter coil was on deck eighteen--he knew the answer already. Silence echoed back at him. "Commander," he said, heavy with regret, "our transporters are out."

She smiled, bleak. "I never expected to live out this day, Admiral. When I stowed aboard Talocyn, I found the bodies of Talocyn's crew in the cargo bay, all dead. The ship is running on impenetrable security subroutines, all directed from the bridge, which is sealed off. Whoever is piloting that ship--they are no friends of the Empire."

"Eight seconds to detonation, Admiral," Richardson said.

The Commander swore, a Rihannsuu oath Spock had heard her use once before, and looked up. "Jim," she said quickly, "listen to me. The ambush is a blind, do you understand me? They want you out of the picture because they have some reason to believe you can stop them."

"Who?" he demanded, and his voice could have cut duranium.

"Unknown. S'Tal is dead. My ship was destroyed two days ago, sabotaged. It was only luck I was not on board. When I found out Talocyn was launching, I--"

Kirk broke in, his voice hard. "Commander, we're out of time."

She broke off, stood straighter. "I understand."

Kirk held her gaze, shaking his head once in apology. "Mister Sulu," he ordered, his voice deadly calm. "Prepare to fire on my order. Commander--"

She shook her head, refusing to let him say it. "They murdered my crew, Jim. Stop them."

He lifted his head, a promise. She looked at Spock then, her eyes saying all the things for which there were no words. "Keep the trust," she said.

"Fire," Kirk said, voice flat. He didn't take his eyes from her face; the screen erupted in a brilliant, star-shaped explosion. The Enterprise shuddered, fighting against the force of it, and then the screen faded to the ordinary brilliance of stars.

The bridge fell silent, save for the crackle of electricity, more circuits buckling under the strain of a near-proximity blast. Six pairs of eyes stared at the empty screen.

Spock struggled for acceptance, finding it difficult. Finally, as if compelled, he turned to look at Kirk. He hadn't moved, his eyes were locked to the now-empty view screen. Then, instinctively, Kirk turned and sought Spock's gaze, his eyes wide; Spock felt the ache like a painful heaviness in his chest, and he started to go to him.

He'd made it halfway down the steps when Richardson swore under his breath. "Admiral, we've got a problem. That blast nimbus hit the forward sensor array, and we've got some kind of overload chain reaction going on. Dampers five, six and eight are out." Realization hit Spock. The crackling grew louder, an ominous hum of electricity. "Nine--"

With a violent pop, blue, arcing electricity sprang abruptly from the navigation console. Masters jumped back, her chair toppling to the deck, and a fraction of a second later the command chair console exploded in a deafening roar of rent metal, wire and cobalt flame. On the steps, Spock felt the force of it slam him backward against the railing, but he was looking at Kirk, standing less than a foot from the chair, and he saw--

Furious ribbons of current leaped outward from the command console, enveloping Kirk in an incandescent halo, so bright Spock raised a hand instinctively to shield his eyes. The surge flung Kirk backward, throwing him eight feet to smash into the opposite railing. Kirk's body hit the deck, his right leg twisting under him with a sickening crunch of sinew and bone, and he lay still.

Spock stood paralyzed for long seconds. Then he jerked, as if stung, and moved.

He knelt at Kirk's side, his heart in his throat. He reached out; his hands were shaking. He seized Kirk's shoulders. Kirk was hot, as if the current surged out of his body and into Spock's hands. He wasn't breathing.

Distantly, Spock was aware of Richardson vaulting over the railing from Ops, a portable fire-extinguisher in his hand. He discharged it at the flaming mess of the command chair, and the fire stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

"Sir!" Sulu cried, an alarm from his board catching his attention. "Talocyn's coming around. Mister Spock!"

Spock looked down at Kirk's lifeless face, and felt a sliding emptiness. No.

The helmsman's urgency penetrated his shock. He made himself let go of Kirk. Stood up. Blind, he turned to face Sulu. "Impulse power," he heard himself say.

"Sir!" Sulu turned back to his board "I have one quarter impulse."

Spock could not see. There was a great, choking darkness, a terrible void in his mind. "Full astern, Mister Sulu. Five second thrust." His knees threatened to betray him; he braced himself against the still-smoking navigation board. Behind him, Richardson was crouching over Kirk's body. "Station, Mister Richardson." he choked. He drew a ragged breath, struggling against the words which tried to form in his mind, refusing to hear them. His thoughts spun; who could he spare? "Lieutenant Uhura."

She understood at once and hurried to Kirk's side, kneeling and beginning CPR without hesitation. Spock wrenched his attention back to the view screen.

Sulu completed the maneuver. Disruptor fire crossed their bow, cutting through the space where they had been. Spock leaned against the console, shutting away the desperate denial with the effort of his life. The smell of burnt flesh filled his nostrils. "Mister Sulu," he said hoarsely, "you have been called the best helmsman in the fleet. Prove it."

Sulu gave a short, sharp nod. "Bearing, sir?"

"Two-two-seven mark two. Full impulse."

Grimly, Sulu rotated the great, battered ship on her axis and sped her deeper into the asteroid field.

"Lieutenant Richardson," Spock ordered, "coordinate with helm control. Take us into the geometric center of the field and initiate full stop on my order."

"Yes, sir."

On the screen, Talocyn hung immobile in space. By the time her commander realized their intent, the Enterprise had plunged past the first ring of asteroids--a headlong flight that would kill them all, if Sulu's instincts were less than brilliant.

Spock slammed a hand down on the charred navigation comm switch; impossibly, it lit. "Bridge--medical emergency nine. Trauma team, respond." The words felt like glass in his throat. "Doctor McCoy."

There was a hiss of static. "Spock, we can't get up there. The lifts just went out, and I've lost main lighting in sickbay. We're on emergency power down here. We'll try to get through in the tubes, but--"

Spock understood. His eyes fixed on Uhura, bent over Kirk's inert form. Sickbay was seven levels down from the bridge, and thirty sections away. Even if a team could get through, they would be far too late.

"Acknowledged," he whispered.

Uhura looked up as he drew near; the despair on her face told him all he needed to know. "That's enough, Lieutenant," he managed. She hesitated, pausing in her compressions until he met her eyes and nodded; at last she let her hands fall away and sat back.

He knelt across from her, looking down into the too-still face. In that moment, he knew the truth of his own existence with perfect comprehension. A great, dark chasm opened at his feet, mirroring the shape of all the years he had lied to himself about what he felt, about what he was, turning the lie inside out, taking his breath with the sudden violent certainty of what this man meant to him.

He extended long fingers, saw that they were unsteady. Touched Kirk's face. With everything that he was, he closed his eyes, and reached.

He tasted blood. He could not breathe. He reached out blindly for the light that had always been and touched only cold darkness. His body trembled, shuddering with the effort to reach a mind which could not answer.

Spock felt himself falling down a long, dark tunnel. Jim Kirk was gone, and there was no more light anywhere.

No! He fought it, refusing to accept it. No, I will not let you go, I will not--

Darkness. Nothing. All the long years stretching out before him.

T'hy'la!

Somewhere, a star lit and began to shine, so dimly at first, but growing. Light...light under his hands, in his arms, growing, a warm radiance that welled over him--

Spock? Jim whispered. And breathed.

Uhura gave a joyous, disbelieving gasp. She made a sound like a laugh, raw and weak with relief.

Spock's eyes flew open at the sound, in time to see Kirk's lips shape his name. He seized Kirk's hand in his own. "Jim!" His voice broke. He caught his breath, overwhelmed by the bright, scintillating patterns of Jim's thoughts. Alive.

Kirk stirred with effort. "Hurts--" It was as much as he could manage; his face twisted as he tried to move, going white, and he fainted.

"It's okay," Uhura said quickly. "He just passed out. I think his leg's broken."

Together they carefully stretched Kirk's legs out, laying him flat on the deck. Spock bent over him, overcome by the need to touch him, touch his thoughts, affirm the living reality. The broad chest rose and fell evenly.

He stood raggedly. "Take care of him, Lieutenant," he rasped, all he could manage.

He made himself look at the view screen, and struggled to regain control of himself. "Mister Richardson," he said at last. "Report."

Richardson came to attention with effort. "Yes, sir. We've reached the geometric center of the asteroid field, and we appear to be without company, sir. Ship at full stop."

Spock took a step toward the navigation console, sitting down heavily in the chair Masters had vacated. He glanced at the few readouts that were still functioning, and turned to the helmsman. "Mister Sulu," he said quietly.

"Yes, Mister Spock?"

"I believe you have exceeded your reputation, Mister Sulu."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

Kirk was sitting up, propped against the Engineering console, when the lift doors opened to admit a bedraggled and exhausted-looking McCoy. Spock spotted him and untangled himself from the navigation computer, getting to his feet. "Doctor--" he said quickly, and gestured toward the captain. Kirk raised his head, grimacing with the pain that motion produced. McCoy went to him.

"Hey, Jim boy, what've you been doin' to yourself? This place looks like hell, and so do you."

Kirk's mouth twisted with an expression that might have been an attempt at a smile. "I'm having a bad day," he managed.

McCoy ran his scanner over his friend, breathing a little easier when it showed a regular, even pulse and neural activity within normal parameters.

He opened his medikit, pulling out a hypo. "You were damn lucky," he said, his eyes admitting just how lucky, not wanting to say more in front of Spock. "Just hold still, and I'll get you fixed up good as new."

"What is that?" Kirk put up a hand to ward off the hypo.

"Now, Admiral, you just be the captain and let me be the doctor, okay? I know what I'm doin'."

"Bones," Kirk forestalled him. "Don't give me any painkillers. Just do what it takes so that I can move around a little. That's an order."

"Now wait just a damn minute--"

"We're not out of the woods yet, Doctor. You understand? As soon as we get phasers on-line, we're going right back out there. I have to be fully alert, period. No arguments." McCoy met his eyes, looking as if he would argue anyway. But he knew Kirk was right; grumbling, he dialed a different setting on the hypo, and moved to inject it directly into the swollen knee. "This'll help a little," he said gruffly. "Won't affect anything but the immediate area." He put the hypo away. "I'm gonna set that leg now. You ready?"

Kirk nodded grimly, reaching up to hold onto the edge of the console. "Do it."

McCoy pulled the bone straight. Kirk didn't cry out, but his face went very pale. McCoy fit the splint to the leg as quickly as he could, not looking up until it was finished. "Okay, Jim, that's it. Against my objections, just for the record."

Kirk flashed him a small, tight smile. "Thank you, Doctor."

"I expect to see you in sickbay for a full exam at the first possible opportunity, understand? And take it easy on that leg. I mean it."

"I will, Bones. I promise. Here's hoping we won't need your services any more today."

McCoy squeezed his arm. "Amen. But it could have been a lot worse, Jim."

"Let's just hope it's over," Kirk said grimly.

* * *

Thirty-two minutes later, the Enterprise emerged from the asteroid field to find she had the playground all to herself.

The bridge crew stared tensely at the view screen, waiting for the burst of light that would herald their destruction. Spock kept his eyes on his viewer, searching for any kind of anomalous energy reading, any motion at all. When a minute went by and he still could find no sign of the Talocyn, he lifted his head to meet Kirk's gaze.

"Opinion, Spock?"

He straightened up and joined Kirk at his temporary seat on the bridge's upper level. "Uncertain, Admiral. But possibly..."

"What, Spock?"

"Possibly the Talocyn's absence makes sense in light of the Commander's warning."

"Meaning--they couldn't afford to get caught."

"Precisely. If her assumption is valid, the Enterprise is not their ultimate target. They may have concluded that we would be destroyed in an asteroid collision, or perhaps that the risk of failure had increased beyond an acceptable level. Once we entered the field, our actions became unpredictable, and undetectable. They may have decided to delay our destruction for more favorable conditions."

"If that's true," Kirk said, weighing his words, "we could find ourselves in the middle of another ambush at any time."

"Affirmative. And very likely, Jim."

* * *

Kirk didn't let himself relax until they reached hailing distance of Starbase Ten.

He sat back in the charred command chair, feeling as if he had aged twenty years in a day. Twenty-seven people had died in as many hours--twenty-seven people under his command. And a woman who had once been an enemy, who had become an ally, and perhaps a friend.

On the view screen, the great wheel of the starbase curved white and reassuring, offering a haven for the battered ruin that was the Enterprise. Two weeks of refit and shore leave awaited his crew on the starbase below; two weeks of Admiral Komack's questions and meetings awaited their captain. Right now, he thought, a debriefing sounded like a vacation. "Secure from general quarters," he said, and silently added, thank God. From the collective sigh on the bridge, he guessed he was not alone in his sentiment.

He looked around at his bridge crew, giving silent thanks that none of them had been hurt this day. Pride welled up in him, looking at their faces--strained, tired, but with heads lifted, knowing that they had beaten the odds yet again.

"Commendations noted for Commander Spock, Lieutenant Commander Sulu, Lieutenant Richardson, Lieutenant Masters, Lieutenant Uhura, Lieutenant Chekov," he said into his log recorder, completing a lengthy list of commendations to be awarded for this day's work.

He closed the log and got stiffly to his feet, wincing inwardly at the lancing pain in his knee and ankle, trying not to show it.

At the science station, Spock turned, the dark eyes remarking that he was not fooled by Kirk's bravado any more than he had ever been. He stood up, the motion graceful and efficient, as always. "Admiral, I recommend that you relinquish command to me and report to Doctor McCoy." His tone was cool and eminently logical, the concern in his voice nearly undetectable.

Kirk flashed him a small smile that said he wasn't fooled. "Very well, Mister Spock. You have the bridge. Begin crew dispersal at your discretion. I'll see you--"

"Admiral," Uhura interrupted, her face intent as she listened to a voice they could not hear. "There's an eyes-only communiqué for you on Fleet channel. Would you like me to pipe it down to sickbay?"

Kirk started to decline, then found to his dismay that his legs did not seem to want to hold him. He steadied himself against the command chair. Spock, who missed nothing, was moving swiftly from the science station down the little flight of steps to hover at his elbow. Not looking at Spock, he made his way carefully to the turbolift. "Very good, Lieutenant," he acquiesced. "I'll take it down there." He made it to the lift, feeling Spock's gaze boring into his back.

On the threshold, he turned, his eyes touching each of them. "Well done, everyone."

* * *

McCoy glanced up as Kirk came into sickbay, looking even more tired than McCoy himself felt. "Well, look who it is. Glad you could make it," he said. "Wouldn't do to have the captain of the Enterprise fainting on his own bridge. What would they say about me?" Kirk stood still long enough for the doctor to glom him with his hypo, then started toward McCoy's office.

"Mind if I use your comm? Somebody at Fleet couldn't wait for me to report for debriefing."

"Go ahead. But if you think you're getting out of here without a complete diagnostic, you've got another think coming." Kirk disappeared into his office. A moment later, the doctor thumbed the intraship when it beeped at him. "McCoy here."

"Spock here, Doctor. Did the captain arrive in sickbay?"

McCoy quelled a tired grin. Spock was worse than his grandmother. "Yes, he's here. Don't worry, I won't let him get away."

There was a pause, and McCoy listened to Spock silently considering whether or not to protest his 'quite logical concern' for the captain's health. "Thank you, Doctor," he said at last.

"Don't mention it." McCoy looked up and saw Kirk emerging from his office. Getting a good look at Jim's face, he finished quickly, "I'll keep you posted," and broke the connection. "Jim, what is it?"

He didn't know what to call the hollow look in Jim's eyes. McCoy went to him and laid a hand on his arm, steering him to sit on the nearest cot. He searched Kirk's face. "Jim?"

Kirk seemed to come back to himself, meeting the Doctor's gaze with his own. "I'm all right. Bones, my mother died." At the look on McCoy's face, he shook his head, bemused. "I know. I can hardly believe it myself. She died of an aneurism two days ago. Can you believe it?"

"Jim, I'm sorry."

"I don't--" Kirk drew a breath, and he was the captain again, putting away his grief until later, when he could deal with it in private. "Let's get on with this." He stretched out on the diagnostic bed.

McCoy ran his scanner, respecting his wish to change the subject, at least for the time being. Kirk had learned something from Spock about controlling his feelings over the years.

He wasn't surprised when he looked up from his examination a few minutes later to see that Kirk had fallen asleep. Good; God knew he deserved it, after this day. He ran the growth-forcer over damaged tendons, thinking about all the times he had done this before, would probably do it again. Keeping James Kirk in one piece was a full time job.

As he was finishing, his partner in that endeavor appeared in the doorway.

McCoy glanced up, and caught the expression on Spock's face in that unguarded moment. Spock's eyes were only for the man who lay sleeping on the cot--it didn't look like he was aware of what his face was revealing.

A moment only, and then Spock was stepping into the room, his mask firmly in place. "How is he, Doctor?"

McCoy waved the lights down two levels. "He's sleeping now, and that's the best thing for him. There's nothing wrong with him that a week of rest won't fix." He hesitated. "Spock, there's something else."

They drew away from the bed, and McCoy told him quietly what had been in the communique from Starfleet. Spock's eyebrows drew sharply downward, and he turned to study Kirk's drawn face. "How did he react?"

"As well as could be expected. You know him, Spock--he took it on the chin. But I think it took him by surprise."

Spock made a noncommittal sound, moving to stand at Kirk's bedside. "We are expected to report for debriefing, Doctor. Most of the crew has already beamed to the station. The three of us are the only officers left on board."

"Well, they're just gonna have to wait. No one's gonna wake Jim up for a debriefing except over my dead body," McCoy said, challenging Spock to argue with him.

"I concur. I suggest that we take turns, so that the Admiral does not get impatient." And with that he sat down next to Jim's cot, with the air of a man who had settled in for the duration.

McCoy stared at him, confounded, then began to laugh for the first time in days. "All right, Spock. You can have the first watch. I'll report and be back here by twenty-two hundred. If Jim wakes up, tell him--tell him I said to do what his first officer tells him."

"Acknowledged, Doctor," Spock said, his lips curving almost imperceptibly.

* * *

Spock felt a curious lightness in his chest. He started to reach out, to touch Kirk's outstretched hand; abruptly, he stopped himself. As if in response, Kirk's hand closed around empty air, the lines of his face altering. He looked young, and terribly fragile.

Spock watched him sleep, feeling the deck beneath his feet rapidly turning to quicksand.

Twenty-seven dead, and Kirk would bear the responsibility for all of them, as he always did. So many, over the years, such a weight to be borne by one man. Spock was possessed by a sudden, uncontrollable desire to defend him, shelter him, protect him from a universe too harsh to tolerate such a light as his... a light he had nearly lost today. Spock closed his eyes, pressing his fingertips against the heat behind them.

Kirk stirred, pulling Spock back from the edge of some dark and treacherous chasm.

He opened his eyes, disoriented. "Spock?" He frowned, as if not certain how he had come to be sleeping in sickbay, Spock keeping watch over him as he had done so many times before. He started to swing his feet to the floor, but was stopped by a wave of dizziness.

Spock held him against it, his hand on Kirk's elbow indicating firmly that he was not to get up. "It's all right," Spock said gently. "There is no danger. We are in spacedock at Starbase Ten, and the crew is safely ashore."

Kirk looked up at him, remembering. Realization flickered over his expression, quickly repressed. Spock squeezed his arm, very briefly, before abruptly letting his hand fall.

Kirk's looked away. His shoulders bowed, heavy with weariness, and grief, and the weight of those twenty-seven deaths. He didn't try to hide it from Spock, as if he were just too tired to fight it any longer. At last he met Spock's gaze, and unspoken understanding passed between them.

"Are you all right?" Kirk asked at last, searching Spock's face.

"Yes, Jim," Spock said, his expression carefully neutral. "But I am... concerned. You must not attempt to take responsibility for recent events upon yourself."

Kirk sighed, drawing away from him. "I hear you, Mister Spock." His face told another story.

"Admiral, there was nothing you could have done to prevent even one casualty. Logic demonstrates that your actions prevented a great many more deaths." Spock struggled to keep his voice even, intent with the effort to penetrate Kirk's self-condemnation. "The Commander chose her own destiny, knowing the price. You are no more responsible for her death than the rest."

Kirk turned on him. "Aren't I, Spock?" His eyes were bright, and Spock flinched from the bitterness in them. "Aren't I responsible? I mean, isn't that what Starfleet pays me for, to take responsibility? I gave the order to fire." He averted his face, not wanting to burden the Vulcan with his indecorous emotion.

Spock choked back the words he would have said, understanding that Jim was not yet ready to accept what he was trying to tell him. This was a battle Spock could not fight for him. Easier for Kirk to blame himself, perhaps, than to accept that there was nothing he could have done to prevent it, any of it.

He touched Kirk's shoulder, not meeting his eyes. James Kirk would not break, certainly not in front of his first officer. But at least Spock could share this grief a little, could do something to help bear this weight, even if it was only the touch of a hand.

Startled, Kirk looked up; he searched Spock's face and then relaxed, understanding. "McCoy told you about my mom."

"Yes, Jim. I grieve with thee."

Kirk felt the open empathy, and was touched. Spock's eyes were dark and unreadable, pools of shadow in his angular face. Spock did not release the gentle grip on his shoulder.

"It's all right," Kirk said quietly, drawing back from the touch that must be disturbing for Spock. Guilt welled up, a sobering tonic for his morose self-pity. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Spock. "Just unexpected, that's all. I'll find a shuttle to Earth in the morning."

Spock let his hand fall. "Jim--"

Kirk shook his head, reading the stiffness in Spock's body language. "It's all right." He drew back within himself, regretting the weakness that had allowed him to burden Spock with his too-human feelings.

"Jim, the ship will be in spacedock for at least a week. Perhaps two. I could--" Spock stopped, trying to find a logical way to express his wish. "I could accompany you to Earth."

Kirk looked at him for a long moment, letting him see what the offer meant to him. "Thank you, Spock. That means a lot to me. But I won't ask that of you."

Spock tried to find words to argue, but none came.

Exhaustion and the medication proved too much for him to fight; Kirk slept again, a strangely vulnerable figure without his gold uniform shirt.

Watching over him Spock found himself at last unable to silence his relentless thoughts, full of forbidden and unwelcome self-truths. When had it happened? he asked himself bitterly. When had he let himself forget the harsh lessons he had spent two point eight years learning on Vulcan?

Spock closed his eyes, some part of him laughing acidly at his own foolishness. Might as well ask when a tentative friendship had given way to intimate looks speaking without words, to private evenings playing chess, to long nights alone in his quarters, unable to sleep for the questions he dared not ask himself in his heart--might as well ask how a Vulcan who claimed to have no emotions had come to love a human with a fierce and enduring devotion beyond measure.

He saw the shape of his folly, and still he could not take his eyes away from that mobile, sensuous mouth, from the dark smudges that shadowed his eyes.

He drew a breath against a strange tightness in his throat. Something was wrong with him, he thought, some medical condition which caused this constriction of the throat and lungs, and filled him with absurd impulses which shamed him to his soul... the hunger to touch him, his hair, his face, to lie down next to him and shelter him with his body.

Spock bowed his head, knowing he was lost.

* * *

McCoy found them like that half an hour later.

"Spock? You asleep?"

Spock's head lifted. "Negative, Doctor." He stood up, schooling his face under McCoy's too-perceptive gaze. "Did your debriefing go smoothly?"

McCoy rolled his eyes and began what promised to be a lengthy tirade on the asinine red tape of Fleet procedures that would demand a ninety-minute grill session of a surgeon who had been on his feet for twenty-two hours, not to mention a ship's captain who couldn't even stay awake long enough for a medical exam. Spock let him rant, all too grateful for the distraction.

At last McCoy wound down. "How's our patient doing?" he asked, though Spock had seen him scrutinizing the scanner readings even in the middle of his diatribe.

"I suspect he will sleep for some time. As you should, Doctor. I suggest that you follow his example." He gestured toward the nearest bunk.

McCoy checked the readings over Kirk's head one last time, and breathed a deep sigh. "Sleep sounds so good right now I think I could cry. But I'll take your sound medical advice instead." He hoisted himself onto the diagnostic cot, and was snoring almost before he was horizontal.

Spock took McCoy's willingness to sleep as a sign of both the Doctor's exhaustion and Kirk's satisfactory state of health. He bent to arrange the coverlet Jim had twisted around himself. He stood like that for long moments, hand bare centimeters from the fine, sleeping face. At last he jerked his hand back, breaking the spell.

Spock straightened, and shook himself. He strode from sickbay without looking back.

* * *

Hundreds of light years away, two men met in secret in a tiny, damp, hidden chamber buried underneath three thousand feet of rock, and discussed the precarious state of a plan twelve years in the making.

"She didn't tell them anything. She didn't know anything!" The man known as Second did not much care if his voice carried beyond the chamber. There was no one else on this gods-forsaken rock. "Listen to me--all is not lost. Enterprise is in Spacedock for repairs. My sources tell me the crew's full complement will be reporting for duty in two weeks. All we need do is wait, and we can destroy them without any risk to ourselves."

"How?"

The senator told him.

First's eyes shimmered like the color of Terran blood. "Your agent will do this? Without fail?"

"He will. Once the agent it distributed, no one will live long enough to figure out where it started."

His companion's eyes narrowed as he weighed that. After a long moment, he said, "You had better make certain of that, Senator. It will be your life that is forfeit should we fail again."

* * *

Jim Kirk left for Earth in the early hours of the morning, tired to his soul and suddenly hungry for the blue skies of home, even if it meant planning his mother's funeral. He thought of her and just felt numb. She was part of another lifetime, and her death seemed as unreal as his own childhood. He tried to remember her face, and found that he had to look at the holo-pic in his traveling case.

He hesitated in the civilian terminal, stopping at a comm port as the agent announced last boarding call. He'd wanted to say goodbye to Spock, to thank him for being there for him the previous night, for offering to come with him. But it was five in the morning--and anything he might have said would only have embarrassed them both, anyway. He sighed, and got on the transport, knowing Spock would understand.

* * *

He was already gone when Spock went looking for him in sickbay, two hours later. The ship was unnaturally quiet, most of the crew having been released on leave, repair crews just beginning to arrive. Sickbay was deserted. Spock stood in the doorway, realizing he was too late.

As he paced the corridors with no particular destination, Spock felt an emptiness in the ship which had nothing to do with the scarcity of personnel. He had slept badly, plagued by nightmares in which he was on the bridge, kneeling on the deck, Jim Kirk dead under his hands. Vulcans do not dream, it was said. A lie, of course--one of many.

He stopped at the door to the observation deck. The computer crew would not report for another hour. There was nothing, really, for him to do until then, nothing to stop him from going inside.

Someone had left the great portals open to space, the starfield a dazzling arc of light and color. Spock felt himself drawn to the vast transparent panes; they towered two stories over his head and extended ten meters in either direction. He gazed out into that great curtain of night, hardly seeing it. Instead he was seeing a face--his face.

Spock loved him. That truth stood out in stark outlines, seemed to fill the room. He had always loved him--so much that he could not breathe in the face of that inescapable awareness.

His gaze shifted to his own reflection, and he saw the emotion written naked on his face for anyone to see. Stomach sinking, he backed away from the window, as if he had suddenly looked down to find only empty space beneath his feet.

Vulcan, he thought, with desperate certainty. He would go to Vulcan. Tomorrow. To Seleya, and end this foolishness once and for all.

* * *

Kirk stirred as the cabin chime sounded, announcing the transport's imminent arrival. Must've dozed off, he realized; he sat up, looking out the viewport. His breath caught a little as he caught his first glance of Earth, blue and serene. He hadn't come home on a commercial transport in a long time--had forgotten what it was like to look out and see his homeworld in all her glory, nothing between him and the planet below but a thin pane of aluminum.

He watched their approach, suddenly wondering why he hadn't gone to see Mom last time he'd been on leave. Why hadn't he answered her letters more often? He remembered her in a rush, a mishmash of childhood memories overlapped and faded with disuse. She'd lost her husband; she'd lost Sam and Aurelan, whom she'd loved like a daughter. And now she was gone, and Jim was the only one left to bury her.

The thought of going home alone to that empty farmhouse made him wish he'd let Spock talk him into letting him come along. But he pushed that aside, knowing it would just make the loneliness worse if he thought about it.

The shuttle plunged through the thin layer of cloud cover, and San Francisco spread out bright beneath them. Sun shone on the bridge and on the bay; they docked, at last, after waiting more than twenty minutes on standby for a gate. Kirk got to his feet, swinging his small case over his shoulder, and let the flood of passengers carry him through the gate and out into the terminal. Ahead, he saw the ramp which led to ground transportation, and which he would later take to catch a flitter to Iowa. But the skylights overhead promised a warm April afternoon, and he decided to go down to the wharf for a couple of hours and look at the tall ships. He'd always loved San Francisco in the spring.

Later, he would remember that afternoon as a slow, pleasant walk along the waterfront, sun on the waves, people laughing, talking, as they strolled by the easels artists had set up in the park, the carts of steaming clam chowder, the booths of souvenirs and holo-cubes. He would remember that he saw sea otters, frolicking playfully in the surf, seeming to beckon to him to join them.

He wouldn't know that the memories were false, planted in his mind by a Romulan operative. He wouldn't miss the memory of a figure stepping out of a doorway--a memory which was erased from his mind as if it had never been.

* * *

Heat struck Spock like a tangible blow, making him hesitate in the hatchway of the courier ship. Two years had passed since the last time he'd set foot on Vulcan, and the desert seemed to sense his presence like an intrusion, striking him with a wave of scorching air, mocking him. You have failed, it said, and the voice was T'Sai's. Your answer lies elsewhere.

Spock lifted his head and descended the ramp. Such delusions were nonsense, of course; the desert neither rejected nor welcomed any being. The desert simply was. He bowed his head against the stiff wind that sprang up as his feet touched the red earth.

He passed a comm terminal and hesitated. Sarek and Amanda were on Andoria, and he was inappropriately grateful for the family confrontation he would not have to endure. But this would be the first leave he had taken since the year he had spent on Dantria--the first opportunity he would have had to visit Saavik since she had gone to foster with the family on Helena. She was twelve now; if she found out, she would not understand.

He stood there, not calling. Quicksand seemed to drag at him from every direction, unwelcome feelings rising in him in a confused jumble, thorny and painful. He wished nothing more than to get away from this place, this orderly port city with its effortless efficiency and cool, disapproving Vulcan stares.

Spock turned away from the terminal and toward the looming outline of Seleya in the distance, hoping it would offer calm respite, at least, if not a cure for the ache in his soul.

* * *

Kirk stepped out onto the wing of the flitter, the evening breeze ruffling his hair. It was spring, and the primary smell was damp earth, mixed with faint overtones of hay, new grass, and the horses in the north meadow. He jumped down, waving to the flitter pilot, who returned the salute. The small craft rose, and sped off over the fields with hardly a murmur of displaced air.

Kirk stood in the middle of last year's alfalfa, breathing the Iowa air, thinking that it had been a long time since home had held any meaning for him beyond the Enterprise. Still, it was good to feel the breeze on his skin, to hear meadowlarks again. He started toward the house, trying to shake the weariness which dragged at him.

He breasted the hill where Sam's treehouse had once stood, and saw a figure coming up from the house which should have been empty. He squinted, shading his eyes from the setting sun.

"Uncle Jim!" the figure called, waving.

"Peter?" he called back. "Is that you?" The young man waved again; the sun dropped behind the trees, and Jim recognized his nephew. Peter broke into a long-strided lope.

He grinned as he reached the top of the hill, and he still looked like his mother, but that grin was pure Sam. Kirk hugged his nephew, grinning himself.

"Peter! It's so great to see you--what are you doing here?"

"I was on break from school. Thought I'd come see you, and say goodbye to Grandma."

"I'm glad," Kirk said.

Peter was taller than he was, he realized as they started down the hill. He looked sideways at his brother's son, seeing the quick intelligence, the shy earnestness, a familiar set to the jaw. Something settled in him, and for the first time in longer than he could remember, Kirk found himself glad for solid ground under his feet.

* * *

In the early hours of morning, T'Khut dawned, red and silent.

Spock stood on the stone balcony, looking out over the valley still in shadow, three thousand meters below. He had forgotten this silence, the hush which stole over Seleya and Shi Kahr at this hour, as if even the desert animals, even the wind dared not make a sound which might disturb the acolytes in meditation.

Above him, the slow vibration began, rising in the stones beneath his feet, the voices of the white-robed ones swelling so gradually that the sound seemed to come up out of the mountain itself. They rose, a single note, a thousand voices as one.

Today he would put on his civilian clothes and walk down the mountain. He would board the courier, and this time tomorrow he would be on the Enterprise, supervising her refit.

He was not ready.

For six days, he had knelt on these stones, walked in the gardens of the acolytes, felt the dawn come up through the soles of his feet. Six nights he had spent in the desert, meditating under a shimmering tapestry of stars, until the music of it sang in his blood.

The vibrations faded under his feet; the narrow flagstones grew still. He stood there a moment longer, breathing the dry, cool morning air. Far below, the city of Shi Kahr was stirring.

This morning, as he returned from the desert, a figure had waited for him inside the gates of the sanctuary. Though robed, hooded, he had known her instantly--even before he saw her face. He stopped before her in the courtyard, feeling like a clumsy child about to be chastised.

"Spock," she said, and there was no condemnation in her voice save that he imagined.

He bowed his head, saluting her. "T'Sai."

She studied him, her eyes hooded. "Why have you come?" she asked at last, and this time there was some inflection Spock could not identify. Reproof? Pity?

"I am on pilgrimage," he said quietly, feeling the chill of the breeze off the dunes.

For a long moment, the Master of Seleya was silent. Her slate-colored eyes appraised him, seemed to weigh him. "Son of Sarek," she said finally, "thou art on the trail of a beast which does not exist. It is the formula for a fall."

Spock stiffened, feeling as if she had slapped him. The words echoed oddly in the stone courtyard.

"Master, explain," he demanded.

She returned his scrutiny unflinching, and her face never changed. "Shall I explain to thee the truth of thine own heart?"

He opened his mouth, but she turned and stalked away from him, her crimson robes swirling behind her. Spock stood staring after her for a time, until the singing began, and then he made his way up the steep, spiraling steps to the balcony, feeling cold under the heavy robes he wore.

He had no idea what words he would have spoken, had she not turned her back on him with such finality.

He could stay on Vulcan, he thought, his hands resting on the low stone railing, realizing only then that some part of him had not planned to return to the starbase. He had served one full tour of duty--the Fleet could not hold him. He could teach at the Academy, if he wished.

There was just one thing wrong with that, and it had carried him down this mountain once before, two and a half years ago. Your answer lies elsewhere. His eyes found the narrow trail snaking away to the west, remembering that morning as if it were yesterday.

He could stay. But he closed his eyes, and knew it was not to be. He had come to Seleya for answers, for peace, some antidote for the demons which ate at him. As he had come once before. And he had found, once again, the truth he could not escape, the truth which was the only answer he had ever known.

* * *

Kirk left Komack's office, his shoulders set. After two weeks on the farm with Peter, the meeting had been a rude awakening.

The Starfleet brass were sitting on his report like a brood of jealous hens, tearing it into little pieces between them. Nogura wanted to go to the Council. Komack wanted to send in the dark horse, and let Fleet Intel handle it. Stocker wanted to patrol the Neutral Zone, armed with everything they had.

The common thread in all their machinations was the use of the Enterprise as bait.

Kirk strode through the corridors of Starfleet HQ, his sealed orders in his hand. He made for the promenade, planning to head back to the farm for a last evening of quiet before the storm. He found that he had become quite attached to his seventeen-year-old nephew in the last two weeks, surprised to recognize a kindred spirit in this gawky young man who had no one else. The two of them had buried Winona on the hill, and spent the days which followed riding, fishing, and getting to know one another.

The lift opened onto the civilian level. Kirk stepped into a small alcove, bending to drink from a public fountain. He slipped a capsule out of his pocket, swallowed it, and continued down the ramp toward the promenade.

At the foot of the ramp, he turned toward the surface transport depot, and nearly ran headfirst into Leonard McCoy. "Bones!" he exclaimed, and grinned, thumping him on the back. "What are you doing in San Francisco?"

"I was visiting Joanna. She and Robert are working at Life City. You heard of it?"

"Of course. You headed back to Starbase Ten?"

"Yeah, you on the four o'clock?"

"No, I'm heading out tomorrow. Peter came down for Mom's funeral, and we're having dinner tonight."

McCoy's face lit up. "Well, tell that boy I said hello." They started down the corridor and McCoy glanced down, noticing that Kirk was still limping a little. "How's that leg?"

"Fine," Kirk said easily. "Good as new."

"Well, we'll see about that tomorrow." McCoy warned. He shook his head. "A hell of a day that was, I don't mind telling you."

He rambled on for a bit, and Kirk let him, reluctant to let his CMO read him too closely. He'd almost got a handle on this thing, and the last thing he needed was McCoy playing head-shrinker on him. Just nightmares, that's all. They would pass, like they always did.

He halted abruptly, as McCoy's last words registered. "What did you say?" he heard himself ask. His voice sounded hollow, even to his own ears.

McCoy stopped, surprised. "I said, even Spock went home for a few days. First time I ever saw him take leave when there was work to be done."

Kirk had been in this very building when he'd watched Spock's message tape five years before. He'd felt this same numb panic when Lori Ciani had handed it to him. Didn't you know? Your First Officer's resigned...

He realized he was gripping McCoy's arm, and let go, telling himself not to be ridiculous. This wasn't five years ago; Spock had probably just gone to visit his parents. "He's back at the Starbase now?" he made himself ask. It sounded all right.

McCoy was looking at him like he'd sprouted horns. "He's been there a week already, supervising the repairs. But you knew that, didn't you?" Jim breathed again, and McCoy's concern deepend. "Jim?"

Kirk got a grip on himself and flashed a grin at his old friend as if his lapse had never happened. "Hey, you'd better get going, if you're going to make the sixteen hundred."

McCoy smiled back a little uncertainly. "Yeah, I guess I'd better. See you tomorrow, right?"

"Right, tomorrow," Kirk said easily. He clapped McCoy on the shoulder and left him there before McCoy could ask him any more questions.

As he walked away, Kirk clutched the packet of orders tighter, asking himself what the hell was wrong with him these days.

* * *

Spock bent his head over the report from Engineering, keeping his eyes from the chronometer with considerable effort. It didn't help much, since his biological time sense seemed to be running equally slowly, dragging out the minutes until an hour seemed an interminable eternity.

He schooled the tension from his body with careful discipline. This foolishness had to stop. He was still a Vulcan. Against his will, his eyes strayed to the chronometer on the command chair readout. Thirty-six minutes.

Spock looked at the data padd, not seeing it. His work was far from foremost in his mind; instead, as he had for the past two weeks, he found himself wondering how he was going to manage. He had never been able to lie to Jim. What had made him think he could make these feelings go away just by wishing it? What had made him think he could come back here and pretend that nothing had changed?

He'd made himself believe it, because he could not stay away. And if Jim knew--

If Jim knew, he would pull away from Spock, perhaps even pity him. And that Spock could not bear.

He would pretend that nothing had changed, and he would make it true. If it took everything he had, he would make it true.

Sooner than he would have believed possible, Uhura announced the arrival of Kirk's shuttle. As if he had not heard, Spock focused on the report in front of him. The power consumption curves were up, and would require further calibration, and perhaps it would not hurt so much once they could return to the everyday routine of duty--

Abruptly, he stood. "Lieutenant Uhura, you have the con." He left the bridge, the Engineering report still in his hand.

* * *

Spock reached the shuttle bay just as pressurization was complete and the doors slid open. He had some thought of simply reporting the engine status to Kirk, of discussing the calibration schedule. Then Jim stepped out of the airlock, his travelling case over his shoulder, and Spock saw him and knew that he had been a fool to think anything would ever be simple again.

Kirk looked well, bronzed by the sun. His limp was barely noticeable. He grinned at the sight of Spock coming to meet him, and his first officer felt a peculiar heaviness.

"Spock! Everything okay?"

Spock blinked, realized he meant the ship. "Yes, Admiral. Proceeding on schedule." He paused, searching Kirk's face and reading the underlying fatigue. "How was your trip?"

Kirk looked at him a little oddly, bemused, as he made for the lift. Spock fell in beside him. "Fine, Spock. Quiet. And you? How was Vulcan?" Spock looked at him sharply. "I saw McCoy at HQ. He told me you went home for a few days."

Spock nodded. "Agreeable," he said at last, stealing a glance at Kirk as they reached the lift and stepped inside.

"Bridge," Kirk said, and smiled a lopsided smile. "I know, I know, I'm not even in uniform yet. But you know me--can't stand to be away a minute longer than necessary."

Spock inclined his head, not trusting himself to speak. In the confines of the lift, he found himself nearly paralyzed by Kirk's proximity. He wanted to touch him, wanted to say, I missed you. The faint scent of sunshine and grass and the sweet salt of the ocean was coming off Kirk in waves. Spock felt the heat radiating from his own body in response. He handed Kirk the data padd to distract him from his first officer's discomfiture.

Kirk scanned the report, eyes noting the power curve, and looked up at him a moment later. "You've scheduled a calibration series?"

"Yes, Admiral. For oh-nine-thirty," Spock said, forcing himself to attention.

The lift reached the bridge. "Good. Everything else looks as good as could be hoped." The doors slid open, and Spock breathed again, following his captain down the steps.

Kirk grinned hello at Uhura, his hand subconsciously tracing the lines of the railing, the command chair. Feeling his ship. Spock had witnessed this ritual a thousand times, but this time his stomach fluttered with a host of feelings he did not dare name. He averted his gaze, feeling suddenly naked, fearing these forbidden thoughts would be written on his face for all to see.

Kirk scanned the status reports, talking with Uhura in low tones, leaning on the railing. He said something which made her laugh, that low, musical chuckle. A moment only, but it was enough. By the time Kirk turned to face him, Spock was able to meet his gaze.

"Let's call a department head meeting for eleven hundred hours," Kirk said. "In the meantime, continue status checks. Let me know if you find anything I need to know about. I'll go get changed and check in with Scotty." He tilted his head, looking up at Spock for confirmation; Spock nodded, and Kirk flashed him a little smile. "See you at the briefing, then."

He disappeared into the lift, and Spock watched him go, knowing he had been deluding himself. The words he'd wanted to say ached in his throat, impossible.

* * *

"Opinions?" Kirk said at last, his voice worn from speaking. He looked around the table, meeting the eyes of each of his officers in turn.

As usual, McCoy was the first to speak, voicing the trepidation they all felt. "It doesn't smell like roses."

Kirk gave a short laugh, without much humor. "I'm not crazy about this either, Bones. But we haven't been given much choice."

"Admiral, what did the lab send back on the hull analysis?" Sulu asked. "Could they tell us anything about that weapon?"

"Still working on it. The word is, some kind of chemical weapon." A murmur went up around the table, surprise and disbelief.

"Then, that is vhy the shields had no effect."

"Affirmative, Mister Chekov," Kirk confirmed. "We're supposed to have a complete analysis in the next forty-eight hours."

"Oh, great," said McCoy. "How long's it gonna be before they get the Romulan consulate to admit they didn't just misplace a couple of battleships?"

"That's not our problem. It's up to us to make sure we stay in one piece long enough to catch one of them." Spock saw him rub absently at the back of his neck, as if the thought gave him a headache.

The discussion continued for several minutes, but no amount of conversation was going to alter the grim situation Starfleet was putting them in, asking them to present a juicy target. Kirk caught Spock's gaze as the others debated, his look admitting just how dire it was. Spock's lips thinned in response.

"We leave Spacedock at eighteen hundred hours," Kirk said at last, when everyone was talked out. "File final status reports at seventeen hundred."

"You okay, Jim?" McCoy asked quietly, as the meeting broke up. "You look tired."

"Sure, Bones," Kirk said, still seated. He didn't meet the Doctor's gaze. "Just space lag. It's two a.m. in Iowa." McCoy looked from Kirk to Spock, still sitting next to him. His look seemed to say, keep an eye on him. Spock watched as he followed the others out.

Spock turned back, determined to exact a promise to rest from his captain--and found Jim looking at him in concern. "Jim?" he said involuntarily.

"What is it, Spock?" Kirk asked softly, really looking at him for the first time that morning. "You haven't said two words all day. Is there something--?"

"No, Admiral," Spock said quickly, averting his eyes and cursing himself for his inability to control the muscles in his jaw. They jumped, suddenly tense under Kirk's scrutiny.

Kirk caught it, missing nothing. He started to touch Spock on the arm, stopped himself. Spock felt his gaze on him and was afraid to confront it. Finally, as if compelled, Spock lifted his head and met Kirk's eyes, deep with concern.

"Spock?"

Spock stood up, almost knocking his chair over. "Nothing is wrong." With a fierce effort, he wrested himself under control. "I am quite well, thank you," he said, calmer this time. "Is there anything else, sir?"

Kirk held his eyes for a moment, as if he would question Spock further. But he seemed to read Spock's need, and dropped his gaze. "No, Mister Spock. You may go," he said softly.

Spock fled.

* * *

Laura Masters stepped out of the lift on deck seven. The light was so bright. She put a hand to her temple, struggling to walk steadily from the lift to the door to sickbay, ten meters down the corridor.

She reached it, and the door slid open to accommodate her; inside, she staggered and caught herself against the bulkhead.

Christine Chapel looked up and saw her; she came out of her chair and around the corner of her desk in an instant. She put a hand under the taller woman's elbow.

"Laura, are you all right? What happened?"

"I'm okay. Just a headache. But the liacin I took didn't seem to do anything."

"That looks more like a migraine." Chapel helped her to a cot, then ordered the lights down to the minimum level. "Here, lie down," she said gently. Masters made a half-hearted protest, which Chapel ignored. She got the young woman on the bed, and studied the readouts above her. "Hmm," she said after a moment, reaching for her hypo. She filled it, and injected the contents into Masters' neck, below the base of her skull. "Better?" she asked a moment later.

Masters drew a breath, and smiled weakly. "Yeah. Thanks, Doc."

Chapel checked the young woman's pupils and gave her a glass of water. "Here, sip this." When the pain faded a little from her patient's gray eyes, Chapel asked quietly, "Have you ever had a migraine before, Laura?"

"No. Never."

"Did you do any drinking on leave? Any unnormalized alcohol?"

"Well, I went to a party in New Athens, but I didn't drink much," Laura said, shaking her head. "Nothing I haven't had before."

Chapel made a noncommittal sound. "Well, your scan shows abnormal swelling in the brain stem, like that caused by ethanol poisoning. I can't see any problems, but I'd like to run some blood tests."

Masters sat up. "I'm running late already. Could I come back after shift and do them then?"

Chapel looked at the monitor again, then back at Masters. "Well, I don't see why not. I'll let Doctor McCoy know you're going to come by. Do you feel all right?"

Masters swung her long legs over the edge of the cot and stood. "Good as new, Doc. You do good work."

* * *

They warped out at eighteen hundred, as scheduled. Six hours later, Spock let the door to his quarters shut behind him, and leaned against it in silent relief.

He closed his eyes, listening. Nothing but silence from the next room. Sleeping, he hoped.

Spock discarded his uniform for the black meditation robe, moving to kneel on the cool stone. Quickly he cleared to the first levels, reaching for the familiar disciplines to hold forbidden thoughts at bay. It would get better, he told himself. It had to get better, because he did not think he could stand too many more days as difficult as this one had been.

Even the disciplines eluded him, and at last he abandoned his attempt at meditation and rose, pulling the heavy robe tighter about him. Weary of his own thoughts, Spock lay down on the bed, willing himself down into sleep with iron determination.

The dream crept up with such gentle footsteps that he did not sense the threat until it was much too late.

It began with the house. The house, and Earth, an autumn sky darkening to nightfall, and the first cool spatterings of rain...

Spock reached the footpath just as the skies opened up and began to pour. He dashed between the gates and up the steps, reached the cover of the eaves, and turned to look out over the water. Storm clouds piled up over the bay, a great gray wall.

Shaking rain from his hair, Spock stepped over the threshold.

Glass panes over the door refracted the silvery evening light, painting delicate patterns on the tiles. Somewhere at the other end of the hall, a single lamp burned, warm and inviting. Spock shrugged out of his coat, hanging it on its hook as if he had done it a thousand times. His feet carried him without conscious thought.

He neared the open door from which yellow light spilled. With objective detachment, he knew this for illusion, knew the danger, and some rational part of him tried to break its hold; finally, unable to stop himself, he stepped through the open doorway.

"Glad you made it," Kirk said, getting up from beside a crackling fire and brushing off his hands. "That's a nasty storm coming. I was worried you wouldn't make it home." He came to Spock as if they had always known this; his hands slid easily under Spock's tunic, intimate and sure.

Just for a moment, Spock thought, and drew Kirk to him, burying his face against Jim's neck "I missed you," he whispered, closing his eyes and holding on as if he would never let go.

He opened his eyes to darkness, and knew he had spoken aloud.

Then he heard the sound which had woken him. He was out of the bed and across the room before he was fully awake, responding instinctively to that sound, a visceral, choked scream.

Spock plunged through his own bathroom and the tiny chess alcove into Jim's bathroom; he burst into Kirk's quarters, searching for whatever nameless danger threatened his captain, but there was no one else in the room. On the narrow bed, Kirk thrashed in the grip of nightmare. He cried out again, a wounded sound.

Spock crossed the space between them just as Kirk's eyes flew open, staring unseeing at some nameless horror.

He caught Kirk's shoulders. Still trapped in the dream state, Kirk fought him, nearly wrenching free of Spock's hold. Spock gripped harder, held him down against the bed.

"Jim!"

Kirk gasped. Then Spock's presence reached him, and he stilled, choking back the sound of terror that tried to escape him. His shoulders started to shake. Spock drew him instinctively closer, holding him against whatever shape he had seen in the darkness. "Jim," he said again, trying to pull him back from the dream which had not been a dream. "Shhh, it's all right, it will be all right." He caught his breath on the feelings which rose in him in response to Kirk's nearness, tried to force them away.

"Spock?" Kirk whispered at last.

Spock drew back. "I am here," he murmured, disentangling himself from the hold which had become nearly an embrace.

For long seconds, Kirk sat close, not touching, his face in shadow. At last he drew a shuddering breath.

"What was it?" Spock asked, hearing the roughness in his voice.

Kirk shook his head wordlessly. "Nightmare," he said finally. "I don't know. I'm sorry, I--"

Spock reached out again, forcing Kirk to look at him. "This is not the first time, is it?" He felt Kirk suppress a shudder, his eyes bleak. Understanding dawned in Spock. "And this was no ordinary nightmare. Jim," he demanded, "how long has it been since you slept?"

"I don't know what you're--"

"Admiral." Kirk stilled. "Do not lie to me, not when the safety of the ship is at stake. How long?" The safety of the ship was not what concerned Spock, not at the moment, but he knew it was the one thing that would reach Kirk.

Kirk's expression hardened. "Two weeks, give or take," he said at last. "I was hoping it would stop when I got back here."

Spock felt something cold settle against his heart. "Jim--" he began, and stopped. "How are you still functioning?"

Kirk's eyes closed, and this time he was the one who pulled away. "Amcetolyn, mixed with a keracin derivative. I've been dosing myself every few hours."

Spock rose to his feet before he knew he meant to. "Jim--! Why not seek help from a physician? Why not go to McCoy immediately? Amcetolyn was never intended for prolonged use."

Kirk glared at him, his face twisting in a snarl. "Because I don't want any damn doctor poking around in my head, all right? Not even McCoy--can't you understand that?"

Spock found himself without words. Then, as abruptly as it had come, Kirk's fury vanished. "Look," he said, his tone suddenly reasonable, "I'm sure this will pass. And if it doesn't, then I'll talk to McCoy. First thing tomorrow, I promise. Tonight, I just need to sleep." He rubbed his hands over his face, pinched the bridge of his nose. "Please, Spock. I'm just so tired."

Spock stared at him, unable to shake the feeling that he had just witnessed a disturbing personality transformation. A moment ago, Jim Kirk had looked at him with such painful honesty that he had forgotten to breathe. Now, Kirk was closed to him, revealing nothing.

Sleep was what he most needed, though, and perhaps this was simply cumulative stress, with his mother's death the last straw. Perhaps Kirk was right, and being back on board the Enterprise would prove to be what he needed. Spock had long known that Jim could never really relax anywhere else.

"I will accept your promise," he said quietly, "if you will allow me to help you sleep."

Kirk stilled, his face in shadow. "Help me, how?"

Spock drew closer, hesitant now. "A simple technique. I will merely lay the tips of my fingers against your pressure points. You will feel a little warmth, and it may help you relax."

Kirk gave him a long look, unreadable. At last he lay back, and Spock came to sit on the edge of his bed, not quite touching. "Close your eyes," he commanded, rubbing his hands together slightly to warm them. "Hands at your sides."

Kirk did as he asksed; Spock laid his fingertips against Kirk's temples and focused on letting the smooth, meditative energy flow outward. Slowly, by small increments, he felt Kirk let go of his tension, felt him give over his trust to Spock, letting Spock guide him at last into a troubled sleep.

The temptation to stay, to take far greater liberties, was a steady pressure on Spock's heart. He set it aside with effort, and went to find McCoy.

* * *

"Spock!" McCoy said, looking up in surprise. "What are you doin' here? Aren't you on alpha shift?"

"Affirmative, Doctor. But you are not, and I have come to speak with you about the captain's health."

McCoy came around to the front of his desk, leaning casually against the edge of it. "Well, there was no permanent damage from the cardiac arrest, if that's what you're worried about. I checked him out thoroughly, and didn't find a thing, not so much as an abnormal blip." He remained tight-lipped about his own uneasiness regarding Kirk, waiting to see if Spock would offer some logical substantiation for his doctor's intuition.

Spock made a dismissive gesture, crossing to face him directly. "Doctor, he has not slept at all in two weeks. He has been suffering from severe nightmares, and has been dosing himself with amcetolyn in order to function with some semblance of normality."

McCoy straightened, mouth dropping open with shock. Then he cursed. "I knew something was wrong. Damn him for not coming to me with this!" He turned and grabbed his medikit, intent on confronting Kirk immediately.

"Doctor," Spock forestalled him, "I do not believe he will see reason. Not in his present state of mind."

"Oh, yes he will." The doctor gave a short, humorless laugh. "Just let him try to--"

"Leonard," Spock said, and his tone made McCoy stop and meet his gaze. "Not yet. He is sleeping at the moment. I wish you to tell me what effect this may have on him."

McCoy sat down heavily, taken aback. "Well, if he's not sleeping at all, that mean's he's not getting any REM sleep--and that's bad news. REM deprivation can lead to irritability, loss of attention span, escalating to violent behavior and other personality changes if the deprivation continues. Eventually, it can cause madness. On top of that, the stuff he's been taking raises blood pressure, heart rate--" He broke off, seeing that Spock got the picture. Spock was pacing now, his expression grim.

"He must be removed from duty, until we determine the cause of this. We cannot allow it to go on any longer."

"Who's the doctor here, Spock? You or me?" McCoy said, and Spock had the grace to look somewhat chagrined.

"We will confront him in the morning," Spock said at last.

"Damn right we will," McCoy growled. "Somebody's gonna have to be there to keep me from kicking his ass, and it might as well be you."

* * *

Alpha shift.

Spock stepped into the turbolift on deck five, some thirty minutes early. It had been a long night.

"Spock, wait," came Kirk's voice behind him, and the captain dashed forward to slip through the closing doors. He was in uniform, and appeared to have every intention of assuming his duties on the bridge.

Spock examined him closely. Vitality radiated from Kirk's body, and he practically bounced with pent-up energy--but there was a certain strain about the eyes. "Sir," he said carefully, "I thought we agreed you would allow Doctor McCoy to examine you this morning."

Kirk smiled warmly at him, an expression that was only slightly forced. "And I will, Mister Spock. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten. I'm going to see him at oh-eight-hundred. But you can stop worrying -- I feel fine. Practically good as new. Whatever that was you did last night, it really did the trick."

Spock frowned slightly, but he could see no grounds upon which to argue. Kirk did, indeed, look fine, and if he was not, McCoy would determine as much.

"Bridge," he said at last, conceding the field for the time being.

They started in on the day's routine, relieving the gamma shift personnel at their respective stations. Spock bent over his computer, setting himself to monitor Kirk subliminally. A quarter of an hour later, the rest of alpha shift began filtering in, assuming their stations one by one.

They were on a course for the Byzantia terraforming colony, less than a light year off the course they had followed two weeks ago. At Ops, Richardson was trying to look nonchalant as he checked the warp field monitor. He had programmed a detailed computer alarm to alert him if any fluctuations registered--but he glanced at it anyway, just in case.

When the chronometer displayed twenty minutes past watch change, Kirk said, "Has anyone spoken with Lieutenant Masters this morning?"

Richardson turned, surprised. Laura was never late. He had been so focused on his board that he hadn't really registered the empty chair at Navigation.

Kirk looked around the bridge. No one said anything. Richardson saw first Uhura, then Sulu frown, as they tried to remember when they'd seen Masters last. "I spoke to her yesterday, sir," Richardson said finally. "She was pulling a double shift. Wasn't she on gamma watch last night?"

Kirk checked the log, confirming that Hazzarstennaj had been on duty for the entire shift. "No," he said, his eyebrows drawing together in mild consternation. "Are you sure, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir," Richardson responded. "Positive. I saw her at seventeen-thirty in the forward mess, and she said she was on her way to the bridge."

"See if you can locate her, Uhura," Kirk said. The communications officer turned to her board, signaling first Masters' quarters, then an intraship hail, then a general bulletin. Nothing.

Richardson stood up. "Sir, request permission--"

He was interrupted by a whistle from the comm.

"Chapel to bridge."

"Uhura here, doctor. Go ahead."

"Uhura, I just heard that alert. I don't know if it's significant, but Laura Masters was in sickbay yesterday, about seventeen hundred hours. I treated her for a migraine, then released her. She was supposed to come by and see Doctor McCoy last night, but I just talked to him, and he says she never showed up."

Kirk signaled to Uhura to put him on. "Doctor," he said, "did she check out all right when she left sickbay? Could she have had another migraine, or some other illness that could have incapacitated her?"

"It's possible, Admiral. She'd never had one before. She was supposed to come by so we could run more tests."

"Thank you, Doctor. We'll try her quarters. I'll let you know if we need anything else." He met Richardson's look, and nodded, "Go, Lieutenant."

* * *

"Come on, Laura," Jerry said under his breath, as he pressed Masters' door signal and waited. Just as he was about to press it again, Chekov joined him.

"She's not answering?" Chekov asked. Admiral Kirk had sent him, Richardson realized. His eyes fell on the sidearm the security chief wore, and it occurred to him belatedly that they were on a covert mission, the Romulan woman's warning suddenly echoing in his memory. I found Talocyn's crew, all dead.

Jerry shook his head. Chekov produced a tricorder and scanned through the door. "No life form readings," came Chekov's verdict. He checked the readings again, and his hand moved to enter his security override code on the hidden lock panel. The door slid open.

"Laura--?" Jerry began, and stopped, one foot over the threshold.

"Bozhe moi," Chekov breathed, and pushed past him into the room. After a couple of steps, he, too, came to a halt. From where they stood, both officers could clearly see Laura Masters' prone form on the floor near the bathroom door. There was a strange odor, very faint, of metal in the rain.

She was unequivocally dead.

"Jesus, Laura, no," Jerry said, and started to cross the room; Chekov put up an arm to prevent it.

"Don't," he said, and it was an order. Jerry looked at him in confusion, and Chekov insisted, "Look at her!" Jerry took another step, and saw what Chekov had seen.

The dark stain which ran from Masters' ears, down her throat, and under her head was not a shadow. Her lips had drawn back from her teeth to reveal blackened gums, an expression of profound agony.

Chekov grabbed his shoulders, moving him forcibly across the room, maneuvering him into a chair that did not face the ruin of a young woman who had been their friend. Jerry forced himself not to turn, forced himself to watch Chekov bending over Laura's comm terminal.

"Chekov to bridge," he said, his even voice belying the horror Jerry could read clearly in his face.

"Bridge. Kirk here," came the captain's voice, and Richardson felt irrationally reassured.

"We found her," Chekov said flatly. "She's dead, sir."

A moment's hesitation only, then Kirk said, "Cause of death?"

"Unknown, Admiral. I think--illness, of some kind, sir." He swallowed, and hesitated a moment before continuing. "She appears to have lost a lot blood from the ears, sir. Her skin is an unnatural color. No sign of forced entry, and the privacy lock was engaged." He exchanged a troubled glance with Richardson. "We have not approached the body, sir. But I have to recommend a full autopsy and quarantine."

"Understood," Kirk said quietly, at last. "Hang in there, gentlemen. We'll get a medical team up there as fast as we can."

"Yes, sir." Chekov ended the communication.

Jerry stared at him, trying to come to terms with the reality of this situation. "What the hell is going on?" he whispered, reading his own sudden fear mirrored in Chekov's eyes.

* * *

Only minutes, but it seemed an eternity passed before the med team swarmed into the room, eerie and unfamiliar in their white iso suits. Chekov and Richardson let themselves be sprayed with the disinfectant mist, then packed into two of the empty iso suits the team carried. The third suit was maneuvered onto Masters' body.

Morgan al-Rassan, the ship's virologist, read her scanner and looked up to meet M'Benga's comprehending gaze across the young woman's corpse. They exchanged a long look. Al-Rassan straightened and touched a control to close the ventilator duct directly above her head.

The team got Masters onto a grav-stretcher, and then all of them filed out of the small room, passing through the bio-field they had erected in the doorway. It tingled on the skin, even through their suits. In the corridor, Kirk waited for them. Behind him stood Uhura, meeting Chekov's eyes through the thin layer of his face shield. She looked scared.

Richardson felt his own racing pulse speed up another notch.

Kirk looked down at the dead woman's face, his expression unreadable. He turned to M'Benga. "McCoy and Chapel will meet us in Autopsy One," he said vaguely, turning away, and despite the grimness of his own situation, Chekov looked up at him in surprise.

That hadn't sounded like Kirk at all.

* * *

In sickbay, Chekov and Richardson sat in the iso room, still in their suits, not talking much. Uhura came and tried to cheer them up for a while over the intercomm, and when that didn't work, went to find out for them what the doctors were talking about.

On the other side of sickbay, Chekov could see McCoy and al-Rassan deep in a heated debate, while Spock and Chapel bent over a lab computer, Kirk looking over their shoulders. M'Benga had not emerged from the autopsy chamber. The security chief turned to pace across the small room in frustration. Richardson looked up at him, not sure that he wanted to know what Uhura would have to tell them.

"What's happening out there?" he asked at last, to break the silence more than anything else.

"Does it look like I know?" Chekov snapped.

Richardson didn't take it personally; the tension was getting to him, too. "Al-Rassan's the Enterprise virologist," he said after a minute.

"I know," Chekov said glumly.

All four of the scientists minus M'Benga were now bending over the computer. Uhura hovered nearby, looking worried. The captain was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

Chapel flipped back to the preliminary readings she'd taken on Masters the previous evening. "Nothing," she said again, shaking her head. "The only abnormal thing on her scan was some vascular inflammation. That's it. And she said she'd had no other symptoms."

McCoy, standing behind her, rubbed a hand across his eyes. "She was supposed to report to me at twenty-two hundred hours. That means in five hours, or maybe a little more, she went from perfectly normal blood chem readings to what we found."

The door to Autopsy One slid open, and all four of them turned to see M'Benga emerge from the small chamber. As he did, he punched in a security lock on the door.

"All right," he began. "Cause of death as we suspected. Complete breakdown of cell structure of the cerebral vasculature and brain stem. As far as I can tell, only neural cells were affected. Nerve ganglia and other systems in other areas of the body appear to be intact. The aural bleeding was caused by severe pre-mortem brain swelling, resulting in the rupture of several cranial blood vessels. I estimate time of death at twenty-two thirty hours."

McCoy gave a low sound of dismay. "Six hours from first symptom to death."

Uhura made a small sound. "Pre-mortem brain swelling--you mean, before she died, she would have felt that?"

M'Benga nodded. "It must have been extremely painful. But with that kind of pressure, she would not have retained consciousness for very long."

"Normal migraine symptoms," Chapel murmured.

"You couldn't have known, Christine," McCoy said quickly.

"I'm just thinking."

"Doctor al-Rassan," Spock said, "what did you learn from the high-power scope?"

"There's a microorganism there, all right," she said. "It does not appear to have any of the structural characteristics of a virus, but it is definitely organic. I'm not ruling one out." She reached over Chapel's shoulder to bring up another image on the monitor. "That's the best image I could get."

Uhura looked at it; it looked like a lot of little black specks to her. But Spock leaned closer, seeing something she didn't. "Maximum magnification?" he asked, and Chapel nodded.

"That's it, Mister Spock."

"...somewhat spiral in shape..." he murmured.

"You see that, too?" Al-Rassan asked. "Good. I wasn't sure. I've got the 'bot working on getting me some cross-sections now."

"Listen," McCoy said wearily, "I think we need to focus on containment right now. If this is a virus, or some other organism, we need to find out where Masters went on leave, and if there's been any more cases. If it's airborne, with an unknown incubation period and a six-hour meltdown cycle--we're not going to have much time."

Spock nodded. "Agreed, Doctor."

Chapel looked up. "I know where she went. New Athens. She said she went to a party with some friends there."

"All right," McCoy said, "then that's where we start looking. Contact the hospitals in New Athens, check the news feeds from nearby cities. Every minute counts now."

Chapel nodded, then looked to Uhura. "I could use the assistance of a Comm officer with clout on the airwaves..."

"You got it," Uhura said, and headed for the door at a jog.

McCoy turned around, noticing that someone was missing. "Hey, where'd Jim go?" he asked, perplexed.

For a moment, Spock did not hear him, absorbed in the data before him. Then, abruptly, he straightened. "What did you say?"

"I said, where did Jim get off to? He was here just a minute ago..."

Spock looked blankly at the empty space where Kirk had been. The empty space--

t'hy'la?

--like a pit opening beneath him. It hit him then, a wave of cold certainty.

"Something's wrong," he croaked, and was out the door before McCoy could open his mouth.

* * *

Spock strode down the corridors of the great ship. He wasn't running, but McCoy had to run to keep up with him. At the end of a hallway, Spock halted abruptly and thumbed the switch on a comm box. "Spock to Admiral Kirk," he said, but only waited a few seconds, as if he knew there would be no answer, and didn't want to waste time waiting for one.

He headed for the turbolift.

In the lift, McCoy sensed rather than saw him start to fall, and he grabbed Spock's arm instinctively. "Hey! Are you okay? What's goin' on?"

Spock straightened away from him. "Jim," he gasped, holding onto the railing as another wave of disorientation hit him. "Something--" McCoy stared at him in shocked silence, as Spock's face twisted with unconcealed pain. Abruptly, the doctor understood. He had seen this happen to Spock once or twice before, when Jim was in trouble.

"What is it?" he asked, restraining himself from grabbing Spock again. "Is he all right? Is he--sick?"

Spock shook his head, visibly wrenching himself under control. "I don't know... can't feel him..." He closed his eyes, letting his mind reach out for the thread that would lead him to Jim. There--

The lift doors parted, and Spock plunged through them, McCoy on his heels. They were on one of the lower decks, Engineering, McCoy registered, but he focused on keeping up with the longer legs of the science officer. They reached the end of the corridor, and Spock turned the corner, breaking into a run.

Then he just stopped. They were in the middle of a narrow access hallway, control panels lining the walls on either side of them. Spock seemed to falter uncertainly, as if whatever sense had led him here suddenly shut down. He took another, hesitant step.

He turned, and suddenly there was an alcove beside him, a recessed tube entryway that McCoy hadn't seen, and Spock drew a breath that was almost a sob.

He knelt. Behind him, McCoy reached them, half-expecting to see Kirk like Masters had been, his eyes open, blood streaming from his ears. But he looked all right, just unconscious. McCoy reached for his medikit, and that's when he saw what was in Kirk's hand: a hypospray, empty.

It didn't make sense. He knelt beside Spock, watched him lift Kirk's still form in his arms, cradling Jim's head against his chest.

Still numb, not believing, McCoy snatched the hypo out of Kirk's lifeless fingers. Saw the faint violet residue in the chamber.

He made a sound in his throat, and a moment later he had flipped open his medikit and managed to get his scanner aimed at Kirk's chest, though the fingers which held it were suddenly nerveless. There, okay, his heart was still beating--hell, it was beating so fast McCoy could hardly decipher one pulse from the next. He pulled a hypo from the kit, emptying it directly into Kirk's chest. Took another reading. Spock did not look at him, only held on to Jim as if his life depended on it.

Out of the corner of his eye, McCoy saw Spock lay his hand alongside Kirk's face, the long fingers finding the contact points of the mind-meld. The scanner registered a spiraling slowdown of Kirk's heart, reacting to the drug McCoy had given him. His pulse rate approached normal.

"Spock. Spock!" McCoy had to say his name twice before Spock's head came up. "He's all right. Come on, let's get him to sickbay." Spock rose, lifting Kirk without effort. McCoy searched Spock's face. After a moment, he seemed to come back from some far away place, his eyes clearing.

Wordlessly, he followed the doctor back the way they had come.

* * *

Chekov was standing at the window-wall, and saw them come in. "What the hell--?"

Richardson looked up. "What?"

Chekov watched Spock carry the captain to a private diagnostic cubicle, McCoy stopping just inside the doorway to confront Chapel, who had risen to her feet at the sight of them. The intercom was open, but the conversation was too low for him to hear all the way across the room.

M'Benga had briefed them on the situation, not candy-coating it, but reassuring them that their chances of contamination were slim. Chekov had just begun to convince himself that he and Richardson were in the clear--just a few days of isolation, then it would all be over.

Then Spock came in, Kirk in his arms, his face set in rigid, frightening lines.

"This is not good," Chekov muttered under his breath.

Richardson got up, following his gaze. "What is it?"

"They just brought the captain in. Unconscious." It had to be unconscious. Not dead, surely. No, McCoy wouldn't stand there arguing with Chapel if he were.

Chapel glanced at him through the glass, then sat back down in front of her computer. McCoy turned and followed Spock into the diagnostic room. Chekov watched helplessly, feeling like a fish in a tank.

* * *

McCoy saw that Spock had already gotten Kirk on the diagnostic cot, and was standing near the head of the bed, his hand pressed to the side of Kirk's face, his eyes half-closed. McCoy's eyes scanned the readings. Not bad--his pulse rate was a steady one hundred and twenty beats per minute, as if he had been jogging lightly. That was all. But he was still unconscious, and McCoy didn't like the look of Spock one bit.

He scanned for cranial swelling, relieved when his readout didn't show any. Allowing himself to breathe a little easier, he began running other tests.

Some minutes later, Spock let his hand fall, and opened his eyes.

"He's gonna be fine, Spock," McCoy said quickly, putting all the confidence he could muster into it.

Spock glanced up at the monitor, then down at Jim's face. After a long moment, he said, "Is he?"

McCoy looked at him sharply. The angular face was set in its mask, the mouth a hard, unforgiving line, and the doctor suspected that it was himself Spock would not forgive. "That drug cocktail he shot himself up with is bad news, but the effects aren't permanent. We got to him in time, Spock."

Spock looked at him then, with all the honesty of the long years of their friendship--to each other, and to this man. "You ignore the obvious. Something is happening to him, something which has prevented him from sleeping for more than two weeks. Something which is slowly driving him insane, which even now is eating at him. He deliberately overdosed, Doctor."

McCoy met the dark eyes, unflinching. "He couldn't have meant to kill himself," he said finally. "You don't commit suicide with amphetamines and anti-psychotics."

Spock looked at him, and at last McCoy had to look away. "It was what he had," Spock said softly, the honesty brutal now, for both of them. Then, so quietly that McCoy could barely decipher the words, he added, "I believe he may have been past the point of rational deduction."

McCoy shook his head, refusing to accept it. "No. No, I don't believe it. Not Jim Kirk. Not in his right mind. I don't care what the circumstances--"

Spock moved, suddenly, turning his back on the doctor. "Do you not understand? Are you hearing what I say? He is not in his right mind. That is what I felt. Madness--" he broke off, but not before McCoy heard the naked horror in his voice.

The doctor shut his eyes, hearing the truth of it against his will.

He closed his hand over Jim's, the skin cool to the touch. The life-sign readings were approaching normal, but Kirk didn't stir. He gave no sign of awakening, and McCoy caught himself wondering what the hell was going to happen to all of them, if he didn't.

He left Spock with the captain, suddenly unable to bear being in that room any longer. All around him, time seemed to be accelerating, running out, and everything felt like it was about to crash down around his ears.

He glanced toward the two men in the iso unit. More people he cared about, depending on him. Al-Rassan and M'Benga were nowhere to be seen--they must have gone to the lab to analyze the cross-sections of Masters' tissue. McCoy stopped behind Chapel, just as she closed a comm link.

She looked up at him, her eyes wide with undisguised apprehension. "The captain?" she said, reading his distress.

McCoy sighed, drawing a tired hand across his face in what was beginning to be a habitual gesture. "Resting quietly. But what did you and Uhura find out?"

She touched her computer screen, bringing up a graph. "The news is bad, Len. There's been twenty-three reported cases of unexplained deaths on Helena matching our profile, eighteen of them in the past solar day; two of them were Rigellian. The Med General at New Athens is trying to get the spaceport closed down. They're going to declare planet-wide quarantine."

"Too late."

Chapel nodded, looking sick with it. "The first patient was declared dead twenty-six hours ago. By this time tomorrow, there'll be hundreds dead. The staff at New Athens Disease Control has traced the original case to a girl there, Maia Ferré apBosin. I'm trying to trace her connection to Masters now. It's most definitely airborne," she concluded, her voice faltering for the first time.

Twenty-six hours, McCoy thought, and six hours for the symptoms to develop. The oldest case was thirty-two hours old. Masters had been on the Enterprise for nearly thirty hours. That mean the incubation period could be as much as fifteen days, or as little as one.

"We've got to find out when Masters came in contact with the organism," he said, feeling the pressure of the hours on his throat. If incubation was at the short end of his estimate, then people he knew were going to start dying very soon. "Stay on the trace, and plot anything you find out." She nodded. "What else?" he asked.

"No confirmed cases in any other news feeds so far, but that doesn't really tell us anything. The Rigellians complicate things--incubation may vary cross-species."

He shook his head, refusing to let himself hope that the outbreak had been contained to a single planet. New Athens was a busy port, with ships from hundreds of Federation worlds. "I'm going down to the lab," McCoy said. "Keep an eye on Chekov and Richardson."

She met his gaze. "And the captain?"

"He'll be all right. Let me know if he wakes up. And keep me posted." McCoy squeezed her shoulder, drawing comfort from her as much as he gave it. What little comfort there could be...

* * *

Spock watched Jim sleep, his face too still. Spock had done what he could, lulling the chaos of his friend's thoughts with the ordered patterns of his own. But it had been painful and disturbing, the mind he touched nearly unrecognizable.

He had withdrawn, unable to bear the shock of reaching for the mind of his t'hy'la only to find a stranger there.

He was still there, watching over Kirk, when, on the other side of the observation glass, a crewman in a Life Sciences coverall collapsed neatly into Christine Chapel's arms.

* * *

Spock helped Chapel get him onto a diagnostic cot in Main Sickbay. Leigh Bryson, also from Life Sciences, watched helplessly. She looked frightened, and very young.

"He said he had a headache," the Bryson offered, and Chapel met Spock's eyes.

Chapel gestured Spock and the young woman back. She dialed a setting on her hypo and emptied it into the crewman's neck, trying not to remember that she had done the same thing for Masters only the night before. That done, she touched a control on the side of the bed. A faint, golden field surrounded the unconscious man.

Chapel looked up and met Bryson's wide-eyed stare. "How long?" Chapel asked, and her voice seemed to calm the girl.

"About... about two hours," she said. "We were on duty in the botany lab, and he said he didn't feel well, that his head hurt. He signed off shift and went to his quarters. I didn't think anything of it. I heard the medical watch alert, but I didn't make the connection until ten minutes ago. He just didn't seem that sick."

"I know, it's all right. You did the right thing, Leigh. But I have to ask you some more questions," Chapel said, and the girl nodded. "Did Ensign Lee know Lieutenant Masters? Do you know if he was in contact with her yesterday?"

"The navigator? No, I don't think so. Aaron only came on board around sixteen hundred hours, and he came straight to the lab. We'd been working on a project together, and we wanted to get right back into it. We pulled an all-nighter. I don't think he even knows Lieutenant Masters."

Chapel grimaced inwardly, but didn't correct her use of the present tense. Time enough for that later. "All right, Leigh," she sighed, straightening. She hadn't gotten much sleep herself, and her spine crackled. "Listen, I think you ought to stay here for now. Why don't you go relax in my office? I just want to keep an eye on you until we figure out what we've got going around."

Chapel saw her glance toward Chekov and Richardson, who were watching through the glass. But she wasn't assigned to the Enterprise for nothing, and she didn't argue or let her fear show. "Okay, Doc."

"Good girl," Chapel said. "Feel free to use my terminal. I'll let you know as soon as we know anything useful, I promise."

Once she was out of earshot, Chapel turned to Spock. "It doesn't make any sense," she said. "If he only came on board eighteen hours ago, he couldn't have caught it from Masters."

Spock nodded grimly. "Agreed."

"Then what's going on here?"

"There are three possibilities. One: Ensign Lee also visited New Athens while on leave. Two: Lee was contaminated by another, unrelated source. Or three: the organism has mutated, altering the incubation period."

She found herself nodding agreement. Flawlessly logical, she thought.

"Then we'd better find out where Aaron Lee did spend his leave."

Five minutes later, she looked up at him from her terminal. "Well, he wasn't anywhere near Helena.," she concluded, not liking the alternatives that left. "So the incubation period is even shorter than we thought, or--he had to have contracted it on Earth." She swallowed. It sounded even worse now that she had said it aloud.

The expression on Spock's face matched the sinking feeling she had.

"Even if he did not--" Spock said.

"--he would have been a carrier," she finished.

McCoy came in. "How's Lee?" he asked, reading the dismay on Chapel's face.

"I've got him in stasis. I think it should delay the progression a few hours. I've reduced the vascular swelling, temporarily."

"Then why do you have that look on your face?"

Chapel told him.

"Dammit." McCoy closed his eyes, opened them. "Better start checking the Terran hospitals. And better call the Surgeon General. If there are cases on Earth, we've got a plague on our hands."

She nodded, and got on the horn again. McCoy turned toward Spock, hollow with the knowledge of what he had just said. But there was something else Spock needed to know. He gestured, and Spock followed him into his office.

"They just found Ensign Lang in her quarters, dead," he told Spock, and saw the dark eyes widen. "She's been dead for over four hours." He sat down heavily on the edge of his desk, wishing fervently that he could pour himself a drink from the bottle of bourbon stashed in the cabinet. He couldn't get the image of the young woman's face out of his mind. She'd only been twenty-two. Unwillingly, he thought of his daughter.

"Unlikely," Spock murmured, and something in his voice made McCoy look up.

Spock gazed into empty air, as he followed the thought to its logical conclusion.

"What is?" McCoy asked carefully, knowing that look.

"The timing," Spock answered, certainty growing. "The three cases: Masters, Lang, Lee. Valerie Lang was among the crewmen who volunteered to remain at Starbase Ten for the refit. She never took leave at all." He turned to look at McCoy, seeking confirmation.

McCoy, weighing his words, suddenly got it. "What are the chances of three crewmen from the same ship contracting the same illness, within hours of each other, while in three completely different star systems, a hundred light years away from each other?"

"Nonexistent," Spock said, as if solving an equation.

The doctor met his certain gaze. "There has to be another connection."

"Yes."

A minute later, it appeared on McCoy's computer, surprising them both.

Question: what outside factor could be found to link a navigation officer in New Athens, a botanist in Kanagawa, and a chemical engineer in spacedock at Starbase Ten?

Answer: all three of them had been among the personnel chosen for landing parties during a standard planetary survey mission three weeks ago.

All three of them had been on Elaeis II. All within hours of each other.

McCoy read the computer's answer, then read it again. Mouth open, he looked at Spock. "But, I was there, too," he said blankly. "So were you--so was Jim, for that matter. There were dozens of crewmen down there at one time or another."

"Then I suggest, Doctor, that all of us were infected."

McCoy stared at him. "But do you realize what that means? You're sayin'-- you're sayin' the crew of the Enterprise may be responsible for unwittingly spreading a deadly plague across half the Federation!"

Spock's face said he wasn't immune to the horrific implications. "That is exactly what I am saying."

At that moment, the intercom whistled. "Doctor?" It was Chapel.

McCoy swallowed hard. "Go ahead, Christine."

"I just talked to the Surgeon General," she said over the speaker. "Forty-seven cases on Earth. Thirty-two of them are already dead." The nightmarish impact of that was in her voice, and McCoy crossed his arms over his chest as if to ward off her words.

Spock leaned across the desk. "Where? What cities, Doctor Chapel?"

There was a pause. "Most in San Francisco. Also Yokohama... Firenze--and three cases in Cedar Rapids. That's in Iowa." McCoy's head came up. Numb, he turned toward Spock.

Whose dark eyes met his, sharp with meaning. "Iowa," Spock repeated, and he didn't sound surprised.

"Thank you, Chris," McCoy said numbly. He closed the connection.

Looked at Spock.

"Dear God," he whispered. "Everywhere we went..." His voice trailed off, and against his will, the thought came: he had spent the last days of his leave at Life City. With Joanna.

Chris hadn't mentioned it, so she must be all right. But for how long? And Jim's nephew--how many others?

"We are forgetting something," Spock said suddenly. McCoy had to force himself to pay attention.

"What? What are we forgetting?" My God, what had they done? How had he let this get past him?

Spock bent over the computer, changing the parameters of their previous search. He touched the screen to run it, and straightened to meet McCoy's gaze. "We are forgetting a very vital piece of the puzzle, Doctor. You. Myself. Jim. The dozens of Enterprise crewmen who were on Elaeis II."

McCoy forestalled him. "Why are we still alive?"

A pointed eyebrow lifted. "Precisely. And furthermore, if the Enterprise crew are the primary carriers, why did Masters and Lang survive three weeks, when so many others are already dead?" He looked at the screen.

McCoy's gaze followed his, to read the results of Spock's amended query. On the monitor, a new graph had been displayed. Down one side, it listed the names of every crewperson who had set foot on Elaeis II. Seeing them, McCoy shook his head in dismay. So many he knew personally--Jim, Spock, Christine, so many others--seeing their names was like reading a funeral roster. They were as good as dead, each one of them a time bomb, counting down.

Next to the names, bars of color spread out across the six days they had been in orbit, indicating periods of time when each person had actually been on the surface, a topographic map spreading below the bars indicating geographical locations for each crewman at different times. For long minutes he only stared at the map, trying to make a pattern out of it, the colored squares a blur. Then, slowly, understanding came to him. "Hey--"

"I see it, Doctor," Spock said softly.

McCoy skipped to the far right hand side of the screen, where Spock had asked the computer to tally the total amount of time each person had been on the planet. He focused on the numbers. A most unexpected, unmistakable correlation.

Out of a total of thirty-one crewmen, in sixteen different landing parties, three names stood out: Masters, Lang, Lee.

McCoy had been looking for geographic correlation--some indication of one, traceable source for the microorganism on the planet's surface. But there was none. The correlation had to do with time. It didn't matter where they went once they beamed down. It mattered how long they stayed there.

"Out of everybody in the survey teams, Laura Masters was the first one to beam back up," McCoy said.

Spock was nodding as if it all made perfect sense. "Yes. On the second day of orbit. And she never returned in any subsequent landing party." He pointed to the other names. "Look. Here, and here. Lang beamed up for the last time some five hours later. Lee, eight hours after that. Precisely the same delay as the manifestation of their symptoms."

McCoy was scanning the numbers rapidly now. "Can't be a coincidence. We have all the data right here to be able to predict who will get sick, and when!"

Spock altered the parameters again, this time listing the landing party members in the order of their last beam-up, with time spacing indicated in hours alongside. The new data came up, and McCoy saw the tremor in Spock's hand. Spock straightened and locked his hands behind his back.

According to the transporter records, McCoy himself would be safe for a little under three more days. Spock, in charge of the survey team, had been among the last group to beam up, giving him more than four days. But the list on the screen said Jim Kirk would be dead in twelve hours, unless they could find a cure.

McCoy hit the comm switch. "Chris, get in here! I think we've got something to work with."

* * *

"Amino acids," Morgan al-Rassan cried triumphantly, jumping up from her chair. She whirled, grabbing Christine Chapel by the shoulders laughing.

Chapel's attention was on the chemical diagram on the screen. "Yes," she said slowly, "yes!" She looked to McCoy. "Remember what we said? We told everyone not to eat the naza fruit--we said there was something odd about the biochemistry of the plants there."

"Protein, Doctor," al-Rassan said with finality. She plunked down in her chair again, leaning intently toward the computer. "We knew there was something funny about the protein, we just didn't realize what it meant." She brought up a second image, nearly identical to the first. McCoy saw it then.

"Son of a gun--"

Spock appeared, returning from Kirk's bedside at the commotion. "What have you found?"

McCoy laughed. "Mister Spock, I believe we are, as they say, on to something. See the molecule on the left? That's an ordinary protein, like you might find in any organic substance on any planet in the galaxy, except one. On Elaeis, the proteins look like that."

"But they are identical--" Spock began, and then he saw it, too.

"--except that the one on the right has one incomplete acid pair. In all our surveys, that was the only thing really remarkable about that little planet. Never saw anything like it. It's as if, for some reason, that amino acid never evolved a partner."

"So, okay," Chapel said excitedly, "let's say the virus is everywhere down there. We found it in enough samples to be able to assume so. So everyone who beamed down got it. And the sooner we left, the sooner we got sick. What does that tell us?" She turned to Spock. "Logically?"

He looked at her, surprised. "That something on the planet prevents the illness, for a time."

"We didn't eat the fruit, but we lived down there for six days, we breathed the air, we drank the water. We got enough of those--" Chapel pointed at the screen "--in our systems to prevent growth of the virus for a while, say, a week or so. But then we were out of luck. The virus couldn't find any more broken acid chains to co-opt, so it went looking for the next best thing. Which turns out to be cranial vascular cells. Next thing you know, we've got a chain reaction. Meltdown."

"That's why the people we infected started dying first," McCoy whispered. "They didn't have our head start."

"We guessed the incubation period was between one and fifteen days," al-Rassan mused. "But it's actually somewhere in the middle. Otherwise, the infected crewmen would have returned from shore leave to find the rest of us already dead. If we knew where Ferré came in contact with Masters, we'd know exactly." She spun in her chair, her face animated. "But it doesn't matter! They've got samples from Elaeis at Starbase Ten, at the Vulcan Science Academy, at Life City--half a dozen places. It's as good as a vaccine! It'll buy us all the time we need to find an effective antiviral."

"Hell, we can make the stuff," McCoy said. "All we have to do is send the computer file to every hospital and clinic in the Enterprise database."

Chapel grinned. "We distribute the molecular structure, and it buys us the time we need to find a cure. It'll work."

McCoy found Spock's eyes on him. He nodded, an answer to the question Spock wouldn't ask. His eyes followed the line of Spock's gaze to the small room on the other side of sickbay. "We'd better start replicating the stuff now. If we hurry, we should be able to get to Lee in time to prevent brain damage."

* * *

Two hours later, Aaron Lee opened his eyes to find himself the object of intense scrutiny. Bright blue eyes gazed intently at him. They searched his face, crinkling at the corners.

"How do you feel?" Chapel asked. Aaron became abruptly aware of his surroundings, of other faces bending over him. Leigh Bryson was there, looking tearful, but relieved.

"Doctor Chapel--?" he began, confused, sitting up. "What--?"

While Chapel fussed over him, Leigh Bryson explained why they were all so happy to see him wake up.

McCoy gave the thumbs up to Chekov and Richardson, and they came out of the iso unit wearing identical grins of relief, throwing their arms around each other's shoulders. "Freedom!" Richardson cried, grabbing al-Rassan and planting a kiss firmly on the older woman's cheek, laughing at her bemused expression.

"Now, not so fast," McCoy brandished his hypo, steering Chekov toward a vacant cot. "You two are next."

When he'd discharged them free and clear and ready for duty, McCoy passed al-Rassan at the comm terminal, where she was speaking to the Med General in New Athens. He patted her shoulder, heading for the diagnostic cubicle. There were still unanswered questions here, and it was time to face them.

Spock looked up as he came in. Jim hadn't moved; McCoy frowned, looking up at the readout. Respiration, heart rate, blood chem, everything read normal, across the board. He looked at Spock, not liking it.

"Has he--?"

"Negative," Spock said, his voice low.

McCoy checked Kirk himself, trusting his hands and his instincts as much as he trusted instruments. But he found nothing out of the ordinary, no reason for Kirk to remain unconscious. He wished he could believe Kirk was simply exhausted and getting much-needed sleep, but Kirk was too wan and still for that.

"It is not the virus," Spock said, "and it is not the amcetolyn. Something was done to him, Doctor. That is what caused the violent nightmares, the symptoms of severe stress. That is what brought on the overdose--and what is now preventing him from regaining consciousness. There is no other logical explanation." He looked down at Kirk, deeply troubled. "I tried to reach his mind, Leonard, but he will not allow me to come for him. He cannot sense me, I think. It was like touching the mind of a stranger."

There were any number of forces which might gladly pay a great deal for the information Kirk carried in his brain. Any number of enemies who would have been glad for revenge. At the thought of some of them, McCoy's blood ran cold.

"Spock, I don't know what to do for him, except wait, and hope that he wakes up."

Spock's mouth drew tight. "If he regains consciousness, I might be able to heal the damage which has been inflicted. Perhaps even determine who did this to him, and why. But while he is unconscious, I am afraid I can do nothing further."

* * *

"Spock," McCoy said from the doorway more than an hour later, "Doctor Chapel and I need to speak with you."

Spock looked up, registering the underlying stress in McCoy's tone, the uncharacteristic formality of his words. There was a refusal on his lips--but it came to him, reading the blue eyes, that McCoy would not casually ask him to leave Kirk's side, now.

He searched McCoy's face, lined with weariness, and after a moment, he nodded and stood up.

McCoy turned in the doorway, and Spock followed. Chapel stood just outside. They stepped into McCoy's office, and he shut the door behind them.

Chapel glanced at McCoy, who gestured for her to go ahead, Straightening, she faced the first officer. "Sir," she began, "I have reason to believe that there is a connection between the Elaeis virus and the attack on the Enterprise two weeks ago. It is my opinion, sir, that whoever tried to destroy this vessel did so with specific knowledge of our survey mission to Elaeis II, and with the express intent to prevent us from discovering the nature of the virus, and to further prevent us from distributing samples to other scientific institutions."

Spock stared at her, utterly expressionless, for nearly fifteen seconds. But his calculator was clicking away, making connections, analyzing probabilities.

"Explain," he ordered, beginning to weigh options with careful deliberation.

"Sir, Morgan and I just completed our list of calls. We've been on subspace with every hospital, clinic, and research facility within a two-week radius of Starbase Ten. It took us three hours, but we reached everybody. We had the computer give us a schematic of the outbreaks, so that we could determine the incubation period of the disease." She drew a breath. "Mister Spock, at least half of the outbreaks we charted could not have been caused by Enterprise personnel."

"The symptom cycles were all wrong, Spock," McCoy broke in. "A lot of those cases could not have happened when they did. Not if we're counting the Enterprise crew as the only carriers."

Chapel felt her hands clench into tight fists at her sides. "Somebody deliberately seeded that virus, at least two days before we ever reached Starbase Ten."

"I will need to see your data," Spock said at last, and Chapel let out the breath she'd been holding.

* * *

"No question about it," McCoy said over Spock's shoulder. "Someone had to spread it deliberately. There's no other explanation for those epicenters."

Spock nodded, his eyes registering the planets, the cities which had been hit hardest. "Agreed," he said. The names were rapidly forming a pattern--one which was unmistakable.

The Deltan capital. Andoria. The Vulcan Science Academy. A hundred worlds, and on each, the vast majority of deaths had occurred in major cities, research centers, embassies.

Spock did not believe in coincidence.

"Whoever tried to destroy the Enterprise did it to protect their investment," Chapel said bitterly. "They were afraid we might figure it out--we'd been to Elaeis. Had samples. We might ruin their plans."

"But why, Spock?" McCoy asked, a physician who simply could not grasp the reasoning of a being who would do such a thing. "Why kill all those people?"

"Domination, Doctor McCoy," Spock said. "Blackmail. Terrorism. With the lives of so many as hostage, the possibilities would be limitless."

McCoy fell silent, trying to come to terms with the idea that there were monsters in the world capable of galactic genocide.

Chapel was looking at her graph, still finding it hard to accept. It had been bad enough when they were only fighting a virus. That was an enemy she could understand. But to contemplate the real enemy--sentient beings capable of deliberately infecting a hundred planets with a deadly virus, who would implement such a plan, and then attempt to destroy the only ship in the galaxy which could save them--

She shook her head, as if her denial could change the cruel nature of the universe.

A moment later, she realized what unresolved contradiction had been nagging her, nibbling at her subconscious, all this time. "Mister Spock," she said slowly, "there's something I don't understand. Why didn't we walk right into another ambush?"

McCoy snorted. "You mean you thought the first one was so much fun that you want to try it again?"

Spock stopped him. "She's right."

"What--?"

Spock stood up. He met Chapel's gaze, as if he were hearing the dropping of the other shoe. "Doctor, she is right. We were the fly in the ointment. Logically, we should have been attacked within hours of leaving spacedock." He began to pace, in unconscious imitation of his captain.

Chapel cocked her head, spelling it out for McCoy. "Why would they let us go? They knew we were the only ones who could stop them. We were all together again--every one of us carrying the secret of the virus in our blood--neatly trussed. Sitting ducks."

"I'll be damned," McCoy said, getting it. He looked to Spock. Spock was staring into space, thinking furiously.

"Coincidence..." he muttered, his lips drawing against his teeth.

It was at that moment that the soft, pneumatic swish of a door made all of them look up.

Chapel stared at it, for a moment unable to reconcile the sound with what she saw. The doorway was empty. There was no one there.

McCoy frowned. There hadn't been anyone else in sickbay except for the three of them. No one else, except--

He was one step behind Spock, who crossed the distance to the diagnostic cubicle in record time. They saw, through the small window, what both of them had known they would see. Nothing. The little room was empty.

Spock spun, his face tight with a look McCoy wished he hadn't seen. Chapel appeared beside him. "What's going on?"

"There is no such thing as coincidence," Spock grated, and she took a step backward, seeing his face. Spock started toward the door, but McCoy moved to block his path. For an instant, he thought Spock wouldn't stop.

"Spock--where?" he demanded, standing his ground.

The dark eyes focused on him with effort. "Engineering--has to be," Spock managed. "That's where we found him before." Then he was past McCoy, sidestepping him neatly. The door slid open, and he began to run.

McCoy grabbed his medikit. In the doorway, he turned to Chapel, who was right behind him. "Chris, stay here. Call Scotty. Tell him we've got a problem. Tell him to look for Jim, that it's an emergency." He turned to go after Spock.

"Len, what's going on?"

"I don't know!" he cried over his shoulder, breaking into a jog. "Just tell him!" He sprinted for the lift.

He reached it just as the doors were closing, and managed to squeeze through. With an overwhelming feeling of deja vu, he turned to confront Spock.

"Tell me."

"Doctor--"

"You said there's no such thing as coincidence. Now, tell me what you meant by that!"

Spock grimaced, as close to angry as McCoy had ever seen him. "I have been a fool. I said that someone had tampered with Jim's mind, but I did not make the connection."

"What connection?"

"Why weren't we attacked, Doctor? Why, when Starfleet had set us up as the perfect target?" The dark eyes blazed suddenly. "Because we were supposed to be dead already." Spock turned away then. "You were right," he whispered. "He was not suicidal. He was employing the only weapon available to him. Himself."

McCoy had to restrain himself from grabbing Spock forcibly by the arm. The lift slowed. "What the hell are you saying?"

Spock straightened, readying himself to spring through the doors as soon as they parted. When he spoke again, his voice was almost normal. "They programmed him, Doctor. He was supposed to sabotage the ship. Destroy the Enterprise. Instead, he shot himself so full of amphetamines that he had a heart attack before he could fulfill his directive."

Then the doors opened, and Spock plunged through them.

Pounding after him, McCoy felt comprehension strike him like a physical blow. Of course. Why risk a messy space battle, when you could plant the perfect weapon right where no one would think to look? They'd programmed him, probably with the help of a mind-sifter or some similarly nasty device. Whatever they had done, it had damn near driven Kirk over the edge. But when the program kicked in, he'd found a way out.

McCoy ran faster. What were the chances that Jim would be able to deflect that inner directive a second time? Or that he would survive another attempt?

* * *

Jim Kirk watched the actions of his body as if from a long distance away. It was a curious feeling, a little like dreaming, not at all unpleasant.

He returned to awareness in sickbay, waking abruptly from the most wonderful dream. He'd heard a voice. That was what woke him--a voice, very gentle, but commanding him with an inexorable power.

Now. Get up quietly. Let no one see you.

Following that irresistible imperative, he swung his feet to the floor and stood up. The door opened to his touch. Moving lightly, on the pads of his bare feet, he crossed the space to the door. The three strangers at the computer were deep in conversation, and didn't look up.

As soon as the door shut behind him, the voice came again.

The lift. Run.

He ran.

He turned as the lift doors were closing, and saw a man burst out of the room he had just left. He felt a brief flicker of recognition. Then the doors shut, and he forgot it.

He was in a strange place now, watching himself as if from above, his feet padding silently along a metal catwalk. Ahead of him, a pillar of light beckoned, drawing him onward. Seeing it, he frowned, putting his hand in his pocket, searching for something. But, no. Whatever object he had thought to find, it was gone; then the brief thought slid away from him. His forehead smoothed, relieved.

The computer, came the voice, and he saw a panel of blinking lights near the glowing column. He moved to stand before them. There were voices now, below him, but he couldn't hear what they were saying. It didn't sound important.

"Computer, this is Admiral Kirk," he said, feeling a great happiness spread through him as he spoke the words at last.

* * *

Spock plunged through the doors into Auxiliary Control, and stopped. Unwillingly, he looked up.

Thirty feet above them, on the other side of the glass, Jim Kirk stood at the engineering control station. He was smiling.

Scott came toward Spock, shouting something. Turning, Spock saw the two crewmen swarming up the ladders to the catwalk. Instinct warned him with absolute certainty that they would not be able to stop Kirk, that in his current state, Kirk would not hesitate to kill them. "Stop them!" he ordered, pointing. Surprised, Scott obeyed, calling up to the technicians on the rungs above him. "Get a phaser," Spock said to McCoy behind him, not pausing to listen to the doctor's protest.

"Report," he said to the chief engineer.

"He's locked us out of the computer," Scott said, flushed from running. He had arrived there from Main Engineering a moment ahead of Spock and McCoy. "I dinna ken what he's doin'--"

"He is attempting to destroy the Enterprise, Mister Scott," Spock said grimly. "If we try to stop him by force, he will fight us."

"But--he can't," Scott said at last, eyes wide with confusion and disbelief. "The computer willna' initialize the destruct code without direct authorization from three senior officers." As they watched, Kirk moved along the catwalk to the environmental control station, and leaned over the board.

"Then he will not use the destruct code," Spock murmured, his eyes on the captain. "Something else."

"Sir," an engineering technician cried from across the room. "Look!" They turned, following the direction of her horrified gaze.

The golden, scintillating field which surrounded the antimatter reserve chamber had darkened noticeably. As they watched, it deepened to a rosy copper color.

Scott drew a sharp breath. "He's alterin' the shield frequency--"

Spock understood. "He can't disable it, not alone. But if he changes the frequency--"

"--and if he creates a controlled atmosphere resonance in the chamber--"

"--the shield will collapse." Spock finished. "Where is McCoy?" He turned savagely to the empty doorway behind him.

Scott paled, and put out a hand, stopping Spock. "Sir--ye canna'. If he's altered the shield frequency, ye canna' risk firing a phaser in the chamber."

"Yes. Of course. You are right."

Spock turned back toward Auxiliary Control. Scott saw him weigh odds against the necessity for immediate action, saw him conclude that there were no more alternatives left to him. With swift grace, Spock crossed the room and started up the nearest ladder.

McCoy appeared at Scott's side, out of breath, a phaser in his hand. "What--?" Scott pointed. Wordlessly, they watched the shape on the ladder. Spock reached the top, and stepped out onto the catwalk.

At EnviroControl, Kirk felt the vibrations of the metal through the soles of his feet, and straightened. Spock watched him turn, his body between Spock and the console, and Spock met the eyes of a stranger.

"Jim," he pleaded, putting into the name all the years of their friendship, all the depth of what they were to each other, the spoken and the unspoken. "You must not do this."

Kirk smiled. "You're too late. It's done. The frequencies will converge."

Spock faced him on the walkway. The smile was wrong. The eyes glittered dangerously. The fine hairs on Spock's arms stood up, responding to a subtle vibration in the air around them.

"Jim--" he whispered despairingly. Kirk shifted, and Spock became aware that he was getting ready, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. Spock took a step toward him, and Kirk laughed, delighted.

"Oh, no. You can't do that. No touching the computer. Do you want to ruin everything?"

Spock took another step, and stopped. Only a few steps between them now. How long? Perhaps only seconds before they would all be annihilated in a spectacular explosion. Spock could stop it, if he could get to the computer before it was too late.

There was just one problem. He was going to have to go through Jim Kirk to do it.

Madness glittered in the hazel eyes. In his current state, Kirk would not surrender, would kill Spock if he could. There could be no turning from that truth.

Spock couldn't move. He had to move. If he failed to act, four hundred and thirty people would die. Jim would die. Logic insisted that he had no choice, no choice at all.

Thirty feet below, McCoy held his breath. He understood, watching the two men, that time had almost run out. He saw Spock set himself to go for the throat, the angular face fixed in the desperate lines of knowing there could be no other choice. McCoy felt his own heart rise in his throat. Kirk was an athlete, a fighting man--but he didn't stand a chance against Spock's strength.

Then--against all logic--McCoy saw Spock reach out toward Kirk, hand outstretched, palm upward.

Spock reached out with every fiber of his being, unable to stop himself. "Jim, please. T'hy'la--"

It was a word he had never spoken aloud. Kirk looked at him, a long, silent moment in which neither of them drew breath. So far, so far to come, back to a place where that word could mean something. Spock saw a faint, flickering understanding in the mad eyes. Saw Kirk reach out for the thread Spock offered him, try to hold to it, to come back to him.

He tried to find the way, but the thread slipped from his grasp. The stranger couldn't save him.

There was, however, one thing he knew how to do, and now, he found, he could.

Below them, McCoy saw Spock move with deadly speed, his hands raised. Saw Jim's face alter, a brief, fleeting smile. Saw Kirk take a step backward off the catwalk.

Time seemed to stop then, a perfect moment in which the universe held its breath. In what felt like slow motion, McCoy saw Kirk's falling body slip past the railing. Spock, already moving, flattened himself and reached for Kirk in an impossible stretch. He slammed full-length into the metal walkway, momentum carrying him under the railing and halfway over the edge of the catwalk. He stretched his hand to the fullest extent of his reach--

--and caught Kirk's wrist as he plunged toward the deck, thirty feet below.

For a brief second, Kirk's weight threatened to drag Spock over the edge. Spock held on, digging into the mesh with the toes of his boots; after a few agonizing moments, he pulled Kirk up and in. McCoy saw long fingers close on the space between Kirk's neck and shoulder.

Spock rolled them onto the walkway, and Kirk lay still.

Scott reached the engineering console, and McCoy finally registered his absence. He'd been so riveted to the drama at the edge of the walkway that he hadn't even noticed when Scott crept up the ladder.

Within moments, the glowing column at the center of the chamber began to regain its normal, golden cast. Leaning heavily against the control board, Scott wiped sweat from his eyes and gave the doctor a thumbs-up.

* * *

Spock carried his captain through the corridors for the second time that day. McCoy was with them, feeling a little shell-shocked, though he wasn't sure Spock looked much better.

Kirk began to stir restlessly as they reached sickbay. McCoy followed Spock into the little room, watching him settle Kirk on the diagnostic cot. The readings above Kirk's head fluctuated oddly, refusing to stabilize. His eyes fluttered open, but McCoy saw no recognition there.

"Doctor," Spock said, in a voice McCoy barely recognized. It was the first word he had spoken. McCoy looked at him blankly, then understood. He glanced once more at the vital sign monitor and, reluctantly, stepped back.

Spock touched Jim Kirk's face. "We are one," he said, aloud and in the link. Kirk stirred as if he would move to break Spock's hold, but Spock suppressed the motion, whispering gently in his mind.

"Everything will be all right. No one will harm you."

Kirk made a small sound, animal-like. He shuddered, struggling to escape some nameless pressure.

Spock held his breath, waiting; if Kirk fought him, the damage he could inflict might be greater than the damage he healed. The mind he sensed was withdrawn, almost unrecognizable. He reached out with infinite gentleness.

"Jim. You must trust me. Everything will be all right."

After an interminable pause, Kirk sighed, and closed his eyes.

"Yes. That's it, t'hy'la, just let go. You are safe." And with a feather-light touch, Spock sank deeper into Kirk's consciousness, searching.

Everything was gray. Gray walls, gray shapes, even the light, dim and shadowy, insubstantial. There were memories, translucent and faint, drifting aimlessly--childhood memories, faded and worn. Spock went carefully, brushing fingertips lightly along the corridors of Kirk's mind. He knew this place--was at home here, as nowhere else in the universe. But a gray mist blanketed the familiar pathways, confusing him. It was hard, very hard, to feel the way.

The mist thickened, choking him, and he began to fear that he would become lost, wandering forever in this bleak and lonely place. He began to forget who he was, and why he had come. He should turn back. Now. He knew it, in the kernel of self he could still preserve.

No choice. He pressed on, drifting down into the darkness.

* * *

It seemed to Kirk that something had gone wrong--horribly wrong. He had failed, he thought, though he could not remember what task had been set for him.

Failure was not an option. There were no alternatives. This he knew as if it had been chiseled into his brain.

He was fading.

He couldn't hold on to the light any more. Gratefully, he sank down into gray numbness. Gray was better. Sharp angles hurt; the light hurt. Better to just let go and drift.

Then the voice came again. He shuddered, turning away from it, begging it wordlessly to leave him alone. Running from it, down all the long gray corridors of his mind. He had failed. Time to let go.

But the voice reached out for him, and he could not elude it. Even now, its power was inexorable. He ran, and when he could not run any more, he stopped, cornered.

Jim.

He made himself as small as he could, wishing desperately that the voice would go away. It hurt, more than anything which had gone before.

I am here. Come back to me.

The words came, flowing over him like silver rain, soft and infinitely gentle. After a while, he could listen to the gentle rhythm of them, could feel them wash over him like liquid music.

It's Spock. You know me. You can come back. I will help you.

Very slowly, Kirk began to relax. Oblivion retreated, drawing back from the mesmerizing voice. He listened to it, eyes half-closed, letting it dance over him with its feather-touch.

The figure grew nearer, and he saw it was the dark-eyed stranger from the bad place. Abruptly, he began to back away, his fear rising. Stay away from him, came the inner warning, and he turned to bolt, but the stranger was in front of him, was inside of him, and there was no way out, nowhere to run.

Jim, please. Please, I beg you--

Deep within the darkness, like a bright gem at the bottom of a still, ebony pool, something was shining. And in the moment when he turned to look at it, he forgot to be afraid.

* * *

"Hello, stranger."

Kirk tried to blink, tried to focus on the face. His brain didn't seem to want to function properly. Feeling as if he were learning the motion for the first time, he finally managed to swallow, and opened his eyes.

McCoy watched him, his breath catching when the hazel eyes opened at last, clear and lucid to their green-gold depths. He grinned, and didn't try to stop the tears which welled up. Kirk blinked, gradually coming back to awareness.

After long moments, he met the blue eyes. "Bones--?" he said slowly, his voice hoarse, as if he had been shouting.

McCoy laughed, a little breathlessly. "None other."

Kirk blinked again, and turned his head slightly. "Spock?"

"Here," Spock said, standing a few feet away, struggling against a nameless pressure in his throat. He wanted to laugh, to cry, to take Kirk in his arms and never let go. He stood very still, doing none of those things, drinking him in with his eyes.

Kirk looked from Spock to McCoy, and drew a breath, silver cobwebs slipping from his mind. There was something he should remember.

He sat up, frowning. "Someone want to tell me what the hell I'm doing here?"

* * *

Unable to tolerate the chaos of his own feelings, Spock fled sickbay, eating up the corridor with long strides, trying to break the hold of something which had captured him.

He came to a small conference room, and slipped inside.

There was a strange, disturbing vibration resonating in his skull, spreading waves of dissonance through him. He could not concentrate, could not hold to the familiar disciplines. He had come perilously close to some display he dared not contemplate. It was a terrifying sensation, this loss of control, and he fought without success to stop the trembling in his hands.

He forced himself to sit, draw breath, reach for the discipline he had known all his life. Madness, this torrent of emotion, blind and uncontrolled--the need to touch him, to be with him.

He sat up, understanding abruptly what insidious sensation was even now spiraling in lazy ribbons through his veins, rising along his spine, spreading in concentric waves from the centers of his brain.

He had reached out for what was left of James Kirk's mind with everything he had. Had held nothing back, in his desperation to bring his t'hy'la home. Had left his own bonding centers open and undefended, and had gone too deep.

Spock closed his eyes in defeat. It had been necessary, he whispered fiercely to himself. No choice. But in the secret darkness of his heart, he knew the truth. That he had permitted himself the one desire he could not defend against. That he had lost himself in the link, forcing from Kirk the one thing that he could have no other way, reaching out for the one thing Kirk could not, in his damaged state, deny him.

That he had, perhaps, even done it deliberately.

For a long time, he didn't know how long, he let despair overwhelm him. Parted, and never parted. Ever and always touching, I await thee. Bitterly, the words mocked him, slashing at him with razor edges of guilt. He hadn't said them, hadn't named what he'd done, but that changed nothing.

He was still Spock. Despair was a self-indulgence--one he did not deserve. There would be a tomorrow, no matter how much he could wish not to step forward from this moment. With the long habit of discipline, he drew a deep, steadying breath, and lifted his head. He would leave this room. He would function normally, as far as that was possible. Somehow, he would face the man who waited for him in sickbay.

He got to his feet, unable to completely suppress the singing in his nerves--the elation, in spite of everything.

* * *

Kirk remembered little of the events of that day, was startled to find that he had lost nearly ten hours of subjective time. McCoy told him what had been going on. Kirk stared at him in disbelief.

"Bones, I don't remember any of that."

"Well, you wouldn't. Whoever did this to you, they were thorough. We were pretty worried," he admitted.

"Sounds like I missed all the excitement," Kirk said, a little overwhelmed. "But who would do something like this?"

"Jim, I'm not sure we'll ever know. Now that we've neutralized their biological weapon, they'll keep a low profile. Whoever they were, they covered their tracks. Probably you never even saw the face of the monster that did this to you."

Kirk shook his head, still finding it hard to believe. "They almost got away with it," he murmured. "If it wasn't for you and Chapel and the Enterprise crew, we'd be looking at galactic genocide. The end of the Federation. All those billions of lives--"

"If it wasn't for you, me and Christine Chapel and the rest of the Enterprise crew would be so much plasma," McCoy said softly. "I saw what you did up there. I'll never forget it."

"Hell, I don't even remember it," Kirk said, embarrassed. He looked McCoy over critically. "You look exhausted. Don't you think you deserve a rest after what you've been through today?"

"Amen. And that's just what I've got planned, as soon as I'm finished embarrassing you."

"You mean you're not done?"

"Not quite." McCoy settled one hip on the edge of the bed. "There's something else I want to talk to you about."

Jim eyed him warily. "What's that?"

"Spock."

Kirk frowned, glancing toward the space where Spock had been. He'd excused himself a few minutes before, saying he was needed in Engineering. "What is it? Is something wrong?" He started to get up, heedless of the dizzy sickness the abrupt motion engendered.

"Hang on just a minute," McCoy forestalled him. "It's nothing like that. But there is something I think you need to know."

"Well, come on, then, Doctor. Out with it."

"You haven't been exactly yourself, these last couple weeks. You've had a lot to deal with. I'm going to prescribe some serious R&R time for you, and don't think you're going to get out of it."

McCoy seemed be struggling for words, and that in itself was enough to set off Kirk's alarms. "You're not telling me anything I don't already know, Bones. Now, what about Spock?"

"Jim, you came damn near close to dying from that shock you took on the bridge. You almost died again today, twice. That's been pretty rough on those of us who care about you." He drew a breath. "I think it was hardest of all on Spock."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying, sometimes, it takes almost losing someone to make you realize how you feel about them. I'm saying--I think it really got to him. That almost losing you was a rude awakening for him." He met Kirk's eyes. "I'm saying that I think Spock's feelings for you go beyond friendship, Jim. And the events of the last two weeks have made it impossible for him to hide that from himself any more."

Kirk stared at him, and found he couldn't think of a damn thing to say.

McCoy had expected disbelief, possibly even anger. He had, frankly, expected Jim to tell him he was crazy. He hadn't anticipated this blank silence, didn't know what to make of it.

The silence grew. Finally, he couldn't stand it any more. "Well? Aren't you going to say anything?"

Kirk just shook his head and gave a low, choked sound, almost a chuckle. "What do you want me to say?"

McCoy almost laughed. Then it hit him, what he'd been missing, what Jim's blank reaction meant. Spock wasn't the only one.

He shut his mouth with a snap. "Ah, well--" he said, rather stupidly, and shut up.

Kirk sighed heavily and looked away. "Don't worry, Bones. It's not fatal. I got over it. He will, too." He broke off, as if aware that he was revealing more than he really wanted to. "I'll take care of it, Bones."

"You can't leave me hanging with that!" Why was it so much harder to believe this of Jim than it was to accept it in Spock?

Kirk swung his legs over the opposite side of the bed, turning his back to McCoy. "It was a long time ago. And frankly, none of your business. Nothing happened, all right? He doesn't even know," he added softly.

"Jim--look at me."

Kirk finally looked back at him, a hard stare.

"Just-- Be careful, all right? I care an awful lot about you--about both of you. I don't want to see this drive you apart."

"Well, that depends on Spock, doesn't it, Doctor?"

* * *

Gamma shift. Ship's night.

Spock moved as if he were dreaming, feeling as though his feet did not touch the deck. He held to his hard-won equilibrium with desperate resolve. Every nerve in his body was calling him to sickbay, crying for the consummation of what had begun in the link.

With grim determination, he turned and walked in the opposite direction.

Not far. Just get in the turbolift. Make it to his quarters and it would be all right, at least for tonight. Worry about tomorrow when it came.

He got off the lift on deck five, and saw Kirk coming toward him down the opposite hallway.

Defeated, Spock stopped in the center of the corridor. The pounding of his heart nearly deafened him.

Kirk smiled, an odd quirk of the lips, as if he had just heard the punch line of a joke told at his expense. "Hi."

It set off Spock's warning bells. Not speaking, not able to speak, he turned as Kirk reached him and fell into step. He saw in his peripheral vision that Kirk's wrist bore the shadows of bruises where Spock had caught him as he fell. Seeing the faint purple marks there made his throat ache. He swallowed the feeling with effort.

They stopped at the door to Kirk's quarters. Kirk looked at him, a speculative glance from beneath lowered lashes. Before Spock could speak, Kirk turned away from him, reaching to touch the door release.

Spock stood in the hallway with his hands clenched at his sides. He started to say, Goodnight, Admiral, as he had a hundred times before, but the words stuck in his throat. The low vibrations in his skull seemed to amplify, spreading tendrils of warmth down the back of his neck, a sensation at once alarming and seductive.

The door slid open, and Kirk took a step forward, stopping in the doorway with his back to Spock. Spock hesitated, a fraction of a second only, and then turned, starting toward his own quarters on legs which did not want to obey.

From behind him, Kirk's voice came softly, holding him. "Spock."

Spock halted mid-step, that voice spreading through his stomach like warm honey. Reluctantly, he half-turned toward his captain. He did not look at him. Could not. He suddenly knew that if he did not get away from Kirk, very soon, he was not going to be able to stem the heat which even now was threatening to undermine his precarious control.

Don't look at him. Don't look at him, or he will know--

"I think we need to talk," Kirk said.

"You should rest, Admiral," Spock stammered quickly, hardly knowing what he was saying. "We will talk tomorrow--"

"No, Spock," Kirk said, very gently. "Now." The voice was tempered steel, soft and irresistible. Helplessly, Spock felt himself raise his head in response; unable to stop himself, he met Kirk's eyes.

Kirk caught his breath. Until the moment when Spock turned to look at him, he hadn't believed it. Involuntarily, he reached out. Like a man sinking in quicksand, Spock took a step toward his outstretched hand, and then another, and the door slid shut behind them.

Kirk realized Spock was trembling. His own throat felt very tight. This was suddenly scaring the shit out of him, and he took a half-step backward, drawing an unsteady breath.

Spock swayed toward him, breathing the smell of him, and all at once control fled, and he felt it go, and then there were no words, just him. His hands in Jim's hair, his mouth on the warm silk of Jim's lips. Jim stiffened --and responded, kissing him back with a fierce tenderness.

Kirk shuddered a little. Spock's lips were hot, the taste of him like smoke, like some potent liquor that burned going down. He could stand it only a moment before defenses came up, insisted with cold clarity that he couldn't do this. He broke the kiss, backing away.

No, I can't. I can't. I'm not--

Not what? He didn't know. Even as he backed away, he felt Spock all around him, inside of him, the lingering heat of Spock's hands in his hair, on the back of his neck, painfully intimate.

"I don't understand--" he began. But it hit him that he understood perfectly, that he'd finally heard what Spock had been trying to tell him for a long time--a truth so profound in its simplicity that he couldn't deny it any longer, though he had denied it for nearly a decade. He felt it singing inside of him now, an awareness of Spock that was more than physical.

Spock shook his head, the ashes of Vulcan discipline crumbling under his feet. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "Jim, I never meant--" The look on Jim's face chilled his blood to ice. Denial was written clearly in the hazel eyes, his expression closing in silent rebuff, exactly as Spock had known it would be. "We can go to Vulcan," he said, hearing the way his voice shook, needing to say it anyway. "It need not be permanent."

Kirk couldn't look away from Spock's face, from the dark eyes so naked and exposed. He drew a breath, struggling to control his body's reactions. "Don't," he said quickly, seeing the anguish in Spock's eyes. "It's my fault, Spock. You didn't do anything wrong. It's just, this isn't a good idea, no matter how much--" He broke off. Cursed himself silently, for betraying more than he'd meant to.

"Jim--?" Understanding lit deep in Spock's eyes. He took a step toward him.

Kirk told himself to move, but it didn't happen; Spock took another step, and then another. "Jim," he said, barely a murmur, "why didn't you tell me?"

Kirk flinched. He felt himself trembling, and willed it fiercely to stop. "Because it isn't fair to you," he whispered at last. "You're a Vulcan. You've never wanted anything else." He swallowed. "Because I'm the captain, and the ship has to come first."

Spock just looked at him, waiting, and finally Kirk had to admit the real reason. "Because I couldn't take it if you left me again," he choked, and couldn't look at him any more.

Then Spock touched him, touched his face, and Kirk felt all his careful defenses fall away. He closed his eyes and turned into that touch and his lips met Spock's as if it were what they were made to do.

Never, Spock said in his mind. And with a depth that rocked them both, Spock reached. Never, Jim. I love you--have always loved you. And the feeling ran so deep in him that Kirk felt it to his bones, beyond words, a truth which took his breath away.

The long fingers touched more than his face, his neck. Kirk groaned, and he felt as if he burned in the heat of Spock's body, melted under the pressure of that link, all-encompassing. His lips parted and he kissed Spock with painful intensity, his mouth wanting more, wanting to drown in it. There was no room for thought, only feeling, this deep, full oneness, unlike any link they had ever shared. Always before there had been control, duty, restraint--and now they were kissing in slow motion, almost unable to focus on the merely physical sensation in the face of it.

Then Kirk let his tongue touch Spock's; Spock made a sound in the back of his throat like surrender, and swayed against him. Exquisite heat uncurled between them, and it became hard for Kirk to know where one of them ended and the other began.

Spock shuddered, waves of sensation flowing from his belly, up his spine to the base of his skull and back again. Jim's hand spread across his lower back, and that support was the only thing holding him up.

Jim tasted sweet and salty at once; he tasted like he smelled. Spock inhaled the scent of him. Somehow they had backed up against the edge of the desk; Jim leaned on it, pressing Spock against him, his arousal hot against Spock's thighs. Spock's own erection throbbed against Jim's stomach, deliciously full and carnal and eager for more. Jim's tongue caressed his, and he shuddered with it, feeling that he could reach orgasm just from this

Jim's hand slipped under his tunic, cool fingers describing a trail of fire from his waist to his shoulder blade and back down his spine. Consumed by shivers of desire, Spock sank to his knees, burying his face against Jim's thighs.

Once he was no longer touching the contact points of the meld, once Jim's mouth was no longer on his, he found it a little easier to breathe. His hands slid from Jim's hips of their own will. He slid them under Jim's uniform, let them caress smooth skin.

Spock closed his eyes and felt Jim moan, a low, sensual sound. Still stroking him, Spock buried his face against Jim's sex, breathing in that intoxicating scent. So many times he had fantasized this moment, so many times forbidden himself to allow the fantasy. Pleasure buzzed in every inch of him. This was what he was made for, his body was telling him, to worship him in precisely this way, to love this man with every inch of himself, body and mind.

He found the closure to Jim's trousers. Working it open, he pushed them down with shaking hands, the skin beneath silky and pale. Jim shuddered; the touch of his mind fluttered in Spock's as Jim's fingertips brushed over Spock's temples. Reverently, he pressed his lips to the curve under one pelvic bone, his hands sliding around Jim's hips of their own will to caress bare skin. He closed his eyes, letting the sounds of Jim's pleasure overwhelm him.

Spock's lips followed the trousers as he pushed them down, kissing the softness of Jim's groin and thighs. Jim was shivering now, his breath coming in soft gasps. Spock felt the heat of Jim's penis alongside his face, breathed him in. Unable to stop himself, he turned his head and pressed his lips to the velvety skin stretched tight over Jim's hardness. Eyes still closed, he opened his mouth and let himself taste. When his tongue moved against Jim's cock, Jim cried out, jerking against him.

Jim caught his hands, stopped him. Shaking, he pulled Spock up against him. "Not yet," he pleaded, burying his face against Spock's neck. "Please, not yet." Spock felt him fighting for control; he stroked Jim's neck, feeling the pull of the link again like a siren song. He found himself slipping deeper into Jim's consciousness, drowning in that liquid flame, and he fought for control of a different kind. It would be possible to lose himself forever in that radiance.

"Jim," he managed, breathing it against Jim's hair. "Let us join our bodies now. Let me know you in all ways."

Jim gave a soft groan and kissed him deeply, his desire hot and eager between them. It was answer enough.

In the end, it was Jim who got them half out of their clothes and across the room to his bed. Spock felt the bed under him and Jim on top of him, felt Jim's nakedness against him and the maddening constriction of his own trousers. Jim's naked cock pressed on his and he wanted nothing more than to feel that silk-wet heat against him, but he could not seem to stop kissing Jim long enough to finish undressing. At last Jim fumbled for the catch and worked Spock's pants open, pushed them impatiently down around his knees. He made a hungry sound and bent to devour Spock's belly and flanks with wet, open-mouthed kisses. His sex rubbed urgently against Spock's thighs, and Spock made a desperate sound, low in his throat.

Kirk looked up in time to see his logical Vulcan throw his head back in helpless desire, his eyes closed, lips parted, ears flushed; Kirk was mesmerized, momentarily stilled by the sight of him. "Spock," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. The dark eyes fluttered open. Kirk held them with his own, seeing Spock's flame in response. Still looking at him, Kirk stroked his hips and the soft skin of his thighs; Spock watched him, eyes hooded. As Spock watched, not breathing, Kirk bent and took Spock into his mouth.

Spock cried out, then panted softly, and the sound was so heartbreakingly vulnerable that Kirk choked a little, feeling his chest constrict with emotion. He sucked, caressed Spock deeply with his tongue; feeling how close he was already, Kirk broke off and slid upward, mapping Spock's body with his lips and tongue, caressing, claiming every inch of him until he reached Spock's throat and felt Spock clasping him in helpless arousal.

Kirk moved against him, his cock stroking the underside of Spock's, and they both shuddered with the pleasure of it. His lips found the graceful curve of Spock's ear. "You are," he whispered, tongue darting to tease the soft inner part of the ear, "so beautiful."

Spock moaned as shivery delight thrilled down his throat, making his nipples draw painfully tight under the rough fabric of Jim's tunic. Jim brushed his hips near Spock's again, and then they were kissing once more, and Spock forgot everything else and let sensation overwhelm him completely.

Kirk felt Spock's hands in his hair, trailing sparks of electric current, Spock's mind-voice dancing in and out of the link as they moved together with rising urgency. Kirk caressed and pinched his small, responsive nipples--and he felt his own tingle and throb in response as the link slid deep and their bodies, their feelings, began to meld. He struggled to breathe. God, he'd never known it would be like this--

Only with you. Only you, came Spock's answer, deeper than thought. He pulled Jim's hips against him and Jim's cock slid against his belly, fluid slipping freely from both of them now, a deliciously hot wetness between them. Jim buried his face in the space between Spock's neck and shoulder. He began to move in a shuddering rhythm, helpless; he gave himself to low, shivery moans, his breath on Spock's ear sending goosebumps up and down Spock's body.

"Oh, god," Kirk gasped, feeling the shivers in his own body, feeling his own pleasure amplified and shared in the link. He didn't know if he spoke the words aloud. "Spock, I can't--" He shuddered, and moved faster, feeling his orgasm rising in the pit of his stomach; the moment he did, his urgency became almost unbearably intense. He shuddered hard, trying to hold back, but beneath him, Spock felt it, too. In response, he spread his thighs, rocked up into him, and Kirk felt himself slip down between them, blind instinct seeking to join their bodies as deeply as he could.

He fought for control, but Spock's hands tightened on his ass, the long fingers hot, burning with that inner fire. They slid between his buttocks, urging him on.

"Spock, no--no," he panted, wanting more than anything not to hurt him. "We can't--"

"Jim, yes," Spock countered, just as desperate, face hot against his neck. He reached down between them and stroked Kirk, just a handful of strokes until he thought the pleasure would kill him. Spock's hand grew wet and slippery with Kirk's urgency and he spread it over Kirk's heat, guided him home.

With a deep, animal moan, he slid roughly into Spock's body, nearly coming in the first seconds. The orgasm built in his belly in slow, shuddering waves. He felt the soft heat of Spock all around him, felt Spock's own deep, shuddering pleasure from that penetration. Then his mouth was on Spock's, responding to Spock's unspoken plea. He thrust again, and here was a moment of clarity and euphoria unlike any he'd known.

Spock's fingertips brushed his temples, and sent them over the edge.

The first wave of his release rose, crested, and Kirk felt himself start to come apart. Their bodies locked together. The second wave came, a great, rolling swell; he cried out, a raw sound he didn't recognize. Then Spock's release was flooding through him, too, searing him like a hot wind. It burned through him with its intensity, and emotion broke helplessly in him as he came, and came, and wept.

* * *

The road back to single consciousness was a very long one. Jim tried with difficulty to recapture his own pattern of thoughts, his own personality, and found that after a time he was able to lift his head, able to distinguish his own heartbeat from Spock's, though their hearts seemed to each echo the rhythm of the other's. He let go, just letting himself drift, feeling Spock's pulse in his own blood, the pattern of Spock's thoughts.

As for Spock, he could not help feeling that this moment was all there had ever been, or ever would be--the two of them, minds and hearts and bodies singing as one, half-naked and spent and blind with relief.

"Jim," he said, just wanting to say the name, knowing his unprotected heart was in his voice, and not caring. In answer, Jim's arms tightened around him, drawing him close. It was another kind of ecstasy, to just lie here and feel those arms around him, to breathe the scent of sex on their bodies, to close his eyes and press his lips to the pulse at Jim's throat. He realized only then how much he had hungered for this closeness, and for how long.

It was a kind of confession. Jim's hands were touching him, stroking his back, his shoulders. Spock could feel him starting to drift, slipping into simple exhaustion, the strength of Spock's arms a reassuring sanctuary. Jim murmured, nestling into the warm crook of Spock's body, his mind sliding gently toward stillness, humming faintly with the same low current which sang in Spock's nerves. For long moments there was only the sound of their breathing.

Jim began to snore faintly, and Spock caught his breath on a quiet laugh that threatened to become something else. He bent his head to Jim's, inhaling the essence of him, closing his eyes in satisfaction. Emotion, untempered, flowed through him. He felt as though he had been traveling toward this moment all his life, and that nothing would ever be the same. Everything he had ever feared was here in this room, in the strong, protective circle of his arms. Everything he had ever wanted, in the secret, yearning solitude of his heart. He felt himself expanding, encompassing that truth, embracing it with arms stretched wide--and there was no pain, no loss, only a bright, golden light, growing in him, shining in all the dark and hidden corners of his mind.

It was his last coherent thought before the rhythm of Jim's breathing lulled him quietly into sleep.

* * *

He woke to find Jim curled against him, the sweet curves of his captain's ass pressed into the hollow, spooning shelter his own body had made. In the first moment of awareness, he caught his breath, not moving, not opening his eyes. There was a terrible, slicing moment of doubt, and he felt it clench in his stomach.

He fought, with every ounce of will he possessed, to hold on to the illusion.

Then Jim stirred, murmuring his discontent at the uncomfortable pressure of the arms which had suddenly tightened around him. Against his will, Spock opened his eyes, hardly daring to breathe.

Real. This was real--this solid, beautiful weight resting on the tops of his thighs, in his arms. He buried his face against the back of Jim's neck. After a moment, he was able to draw a breath without releasing the hot tears of relief which had risen in his throat.

Curling more tightly around the warm shape in his arms, Spock felt the magnitude of what they had done come home.

The bond between them still hummed its presence at the back of his skull. But there had always been that--perhaps since the beginning. For years he had tried to deny it; then, when that became impossible, he had tried to ignore it. It was the truth T'Sai had spoken of--the one thing which had barred him forever from kolinahr, if only he could have found the courage to admit it.

Shall I explain to thee the truth of thine own heart? T'Sai had known, even if Spock could not, or would not, see it. The very agony which had driven him to Vulcan had made kolinahr an impossibility for him.

Too soon, he felt Jim shift, stirring toward consciousness. One hand uncurled on the pillow, and slid searchingly behind him, touching Spock's hip. The fingertips stroked him, once, gently. Then Jim pressed against him, stretching luxuriantly; at last he turned in Spock's arms and opened his eyes, smiling sleepily.

"Hello there," he said.

Spock found no words. They lay side by side, heads close together, fingers clasped lightly between them. Spock saw his own terror and wonder reflected back at him, and they just looked at each other for a while, trying to let it settle.

"When did you know?" Kirk asked at last.

Spock swallowed. "That I loved you? Or that I could not hide it from you any longer?"

"That you--could love me. Like this."

Dark eyes grew serious, the pain of it with him, even now. "On the bridge," he said hoarsely. "I thought you were dead, and I knew what a fool I had been. I thought it was too late." He swallowed against remembered grief. Then he smiled slightly, his lips curving against the soft hair. "But I loved you almost from the beginning. I just couldn't accept it. Stubborn," he murmured.

Kirk was quiet, his fingertips on Spock's chest.

"When did you... know?" Spock whispered, suddenly uncertain.

Kirk was silent for long moments, remembering back to that day in Lori Ciani's office, remembering the fierce, unexpected stab of her words, the slow dying of watching Spock's terse message tape.

"Honestly?" he said at last. "I think I was always curious. I've always been curious about what it would be like to love another man. But I never met anyone I could imagine being with, until you." He shrugged. "I gave up on the idea pretty quickly once I got to know you. At least, my head did. The rest of me... well, I thought it did." He hesitated. It still hurt, even after all these years. "When I found out you'd left Starfleet, gone to Vulcan, without even saying goodbye--I found out I wasn't as tough as I'd pretended to be," he concluded, making an effort to keep the hurt out of his voice. He smiled a wistful, bittersweet smile. "I didn't even know what kolinahr was. I just knew I missed you."

Spock came up on one elbow, looking down at him--most beautiful, most beloved. He forced Jim to meet his eyes. "I have never said I'm sorry." Kirk started to shake his head, but Spock stopped him. "No. I am... sorry. In all my life, it is the most foolish thing I have ever done. I was afraid," he admitted, feeling the relief at being able to admit it, finally. "I was afraid of this. Afraid of losing you. Each time something happened to you, each time I feared you were dead, I wanted to die. I could not accept that. Could not accept it, and could not deny it."

"So you tried to forget me," Kirk said very quietly. "You went to Gol."

"I had nowhere left to go."

Kirk listened to the shape Spock's confession made between them. Spock's fingers tightened on his, and Spock drew a breath as if he would speak. But Kirk stopped him, met his eyes. "I sincerely hope," he said, "that I'm not going to have to wait until the next time one of us returns from the dead before you let me make love to you again."

Spock stared at him, and before he knew what he had done, a sharp, breathless laugh escaped him. Seeing the way Kirk's eyes lit up in surprised delight, Spock lifted one eyebrow. "If so, then I shall have to take up a dangerous pastime."

Kirk's grin widened, and he looked down, studying the way Spock's small nipples responded to touch. "Maybe later, huh?"

His voice had turned husky, awakening slow stirrings of desire in Spock's belly. "As you wish, Jim," Spock said, and closed the distance to Jim's lips without fear.

* end *