STAR TREK®: VULCAN'S HEART Page 16

  Why not take ship for Talos IV, while you’re at it? Get that automatic death sentence.

  Was the ship’s climate control malfunctioning again? She had set it for Vulcan normal, but she was so cold . . . no, she was burning, burning . . . oddly difficult to distinguish between the two . . . Saavik shut her eyes, reaching for body sense, knowing she was too far gone to enter a restful trance.

  There went the cursed alarm again! She slammed her fist down on the arm of her chair, denting it.

  The pain she could no longer deny alerted her. The problem wasn’t the navigational computer. Each time she slept or, to be more accurate, when she blanked out, her survival instincts, honed so fiercely in childhood and sharpened still more by Pon farr, determined to get her home. To Vulcan.

  If I had any doubts about which half of my genome was dominant . . . I suppose I truly am Vulcan after all.

  She turned the cabin temperature up again. After a time, she ceased shivering. . . . It would be easy to just slip away, to acknowledge that she wasn’t going to survive. . . .

  She had spent her life fighting that knowledge.

  Her will was on already on file. It would be logical to prepare her last messages while she was still almost sane.

  “To Captain Howes, U.S.S. Armstrong.” Her captain had always been both professional and kind to her. If she had not outraged him past forgiveness, he would be experiencing what humans called hurt. “Forgive me,” she said at last.

  Now, Sarek. She closed the high, confining collar of her shipsuit and touched her hair, a futile attempt at tidiness. Spock had wanted to pull it down about her shoulders.

  “To Sarek, Ambassador of Vulcan, from Saavik, Commander in Starfleet and, as he was once generous enough to call her, his daughter-in-law.”

  Saavik flinched from the awareness that, after her next statement, Sarek would call her a traitor.

  “Sir, I give you my word by my faith and the faith of the person who means most to me in all the worlds that I have committed no treason. You have given me great honor, my father. Knowing you has enriched my life. Live long and prosper, Sarek. See that there is no war.”

  She attached her personal log, her navigational records, and then, impulsively, medical and navigational telemetry. Sarek of Vulcan would require complete data.

  Whom else did that leave? Spock? No, she could not bear to say farewell to him!

  She was too weary to sit upright. And Spock was not there to raise an eyebrow at her. Saavik slipped down in her chair until her face pressed against the metal of the equipment console. It was cool, smooth . . .

  Saavik came awake with a start. Too quiet in here . . . One good scream would break the silence . . . and leave me irrevocably mad. Instead, she checked her course.

  Finally! She was far enough from the Empire to race for Narendra III. She red-lined the engines. If they blew, at least she would have delivered her message and she would be out of tor-ment. . . .

  No. Think of Spock. How his face had lit when he first saw her on Romulus! Love had been warm in his eyes, whether he would ever admit the word or not. Memories to take into the dark.

  Husband, have I done well? May we rest now?

  She knew she was hallucinating when he answered her.

  Soon, my wife. Just one more duty to perform.

  She programmed a broadband distress call. Perhaps a Starfleet ship on patrol along the Neutral Zone would hear the ancient human cry of sheer disaster, Mayday! Mayday!, coming from a Barolian ship and investigate.

  The fires she had kept at bay so long could no longer be resisted. Her last thought was wonder. She had survived Pon farr before with no difficulty at all. But she had never been bonded mind to mind before.

  Or . . . in love . . .

  EIGHTEEN

  U.S.S. ENTERPRISE-C, STARDATE 21095.3

  Rachel Garrett, captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, ran a hand through chestnut hair cut short for convenience and almost allowed herself to lean back in her command chair and stretch out long legs. Then, she straightened again. Whether or not all was quiet, she was still what Starfleet slang persisted in calling a “straight arrow,” and straight arrows did not, repeat not, relax on the bridge of any ship they commanded.

  At least, this was not one of the “interesting times” that seemed to occupy the various Enterprises—from blue-water Navy to her own ship, the Ambassador-class NCC-1701-C.

  She glanced around her bridge, then allowed herself to look out at the stars. They had drawn her ever since, as a girl, she had stayed out all night gazing up into the vast Indiana sky and promised herself she would one day be one of the people who—what were those lines from the old poem? “Slipped the surly bonds of Earth . . . and touched the face of God.”

  She allowed herself the smallest touch of pride. So many of the pioneers in space had been Midwesterners. From Ohio, John Glenn, the first man from the old United States to fly an orbital mission; Neil Armstrong, the first human to walk upon the moon; Judith Resnick, of Challenger, for whom an entire wing of the Early Aerospace Museum at Wright-Patterson was named; and, perhaps the greatest legend of all, James T. Kirk of Iowa, captain of the first Starship Enterprise.

  It had been their duty to serve. And their passion, as it was hers. Which didn’t mean that even a captain of the Enterprise couldn’t appreciate an interval of peace now and then.

  “Captain,” Lieutenant Commander Varani said suddenly, glancing up from his communications console, narrow gray-skinned face earnest, “sensors are registering a distress signal from a small craft—registration indicates a Barolian ship. Heading 65X 35Y mark 42.” He paused, glancing at the human beside him, Helmsman Richard Castillo, for help. Lieutenant Castillo added, “It’s signaling Mayday. In Federation Standard.”

  “Mayday?” Garrett echoed in astonishment. An ancient human distress call coming from a Barolian ship? “Life signs?”

  Lights blossomed on the science officer’s duty station.

  “One occupant . . .” Commander Tholav, Andorian and soft-spoken as always, said slowly. “The basic life-form appears to be Vulcanoid, Captain, but with major anomalies.”

  “Yellow alert,” Garrett ordered. “Patch the display through to medical.”

  She brought up the display from Tholav’s station—life signs on scan measured against a Vulcan-norm baseline—and grimaced at the divergences. If this pilot was indeed a Vulcan, he or she was desperately ill.

  Nothing’s ever simple, is it?

  Garrett was not about to risk taking some exotic disease—or worse, some Romulan who somehow knew “Mayday”—onto her ship, but she also had no intention of abandoning someone in genuine need of aid!

  “Tractor beam on,” she ordered. “We’ll beam whoever it is on board and take the ship in tow. I’m not having any Trojan horses on board my ship. Or Trojan freighters. Security team to transporter room now. Sidearms. Send a medical team in decontamination gear. I’ll join you there.” She keyed open the bridge arms locker and chose a phaser. “Mr. Varani, get to work scanning that ship. Mr. Castillo, help him.” Castillo was the best helm officer she’d ever had, but he also had a damn good tactical secondary specialization. “Commander Tholav, you have the bridge.”

  Three “Aye, aye’s” sounded almost simultaneously.

  Three men from Security awaited Garrett in the transporter room, flanking the transporter chief and Dr. Frances Stewart, the junior medical officer on board, a compact blond woman from Earth’s West Virginia. Stewart’s field was psychiatry—which, as she put it wryly, was why she was called in every time an alien came on board.

  “Energize,” the captain commanded.

  Security braced. The transporter lights flickered. A column of shimmers formed on the pad, solidified into something that turned and screamed in fear, rage, and the despair of a cornered animal. It—no, she—dropped into a fighting crouch and tossed wild hair back from her face, baring her teeth in defiance, then screamed and leapt straight at the security team, long finger
s curving into talons, strong arms reaching for the nearest man.

  “No! Outsiders . . . Alien!”

  Garrett fired, phaser on stun, but the woman’s frenzy carried her on. “Dammit!” the captain snapped, and fired again. To her relief, this time the woman fell, still clawing toward the guards for a frantic moment before she finally lay still.

  Dr. Stewart threw herself down beside the stranger, cradling the limp form in her arms. “Intraship beaming!” she shouted at the intercom. “Get us to sickbay now! Decontamination team to the transporter room.”

  Doctor and alien disappeared in a fast shimmer.

  So much for my nice, peaceful cruise! Garrett thought, and signaled her bridge. “Varani, Castillo? How’s the scan of the Barolian ship progressing?”

  “The drive signature looks clean.” That was Castillo’s voice.

  “And I am trying to access computer via the comm link that brought us the Mayday.” That was Varani. “Doesn’t look like a trap,” he concluded.

  “You think it’s clean?”

  “Captain, your pardon, but I am Ochati, not Vulcan to calculate the odds in my head. I would need further data.”

  “I want that ship searched, understand? Mr. Castillo, select your away team and assemble in the transporter room at ten hundred hours. By the time you finish, I want you to know it so well that you can even report what shipyard welded her deck-plates.”

  “Aye, ma’am.”

  “Signal if you need me. I’ll be in sick bay. And Richard . . .” Garrett paused and saw the people around her grin. Only my mother ever calls me “Richard,” Castillo always said.

  “Yes, Captain?”

  This time even Garrett had to suppress a grin at the good-little-boy voice. Yes, Captain: Yes, Mother. Mister, just you wait till you get back to this ship. “No unnecessary risks.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Chief Medical Officer Aristide, his thin, dark-skinned form elegant as always, was waiting for Garrett in his office. “We’ve got our . . . guest stabilized,” he began. “Or as stable as she’s going to get. Your phaser almost killed her, Captain.”

  Garrett ignored that. “Where is she? And, for that matter, what is she?”

  “Where she is: We’ve got her in isolation. What, is another matter.”

  To Garrett’s surprise, the doctor made no attempt to accompany her into the isolation area. She studied the medical staff hovering around the figure on the biobed: all women. Garrett caught Dr. Stewart’s glance and raised an eyebrow. Stewart hurried to her.

  “Captain, you remember, in the transporter room, the stranger attacked Security when she probably could have taken out either LoPresti or me, or gone straight for your throat? When we brought her round from your phaser—”

  Damn, does everyone in sick bay have to blame me for protecting my crew?

  “—we found out real fast that our guest here seems either to panic or go berserk in the presence of men. She took one look at Commander Aristide, screamed again, and tried to take him apart. We set up this isolation unit because, frankly, I don’t think she’s got the strength for another attack. Whatever is wrong,” Dr. Stewart continued, “it’s nothing contagious. Nothing to affect humans, at any rate.”

  “Amen to that. Any idea of who she is or what is wrong with her?”

  “We’re running standard ID scans. Unfortunately, her condition’s deteriorating. Can’t restrain her either,” Dr. Stewart added, “for fear of another episode. You . . . ah . . . may want to stay back on the off chance she comes round and recognizes you from the transporter room.”

  “I’ll take the risk.” Garrett moved as quietly as she could to the biobed and looked down at the Enterprise-C’s involuntary passenger. Vulcanoid, all right. The elegant pointed ears, the arched eyebrows, the dark, thick hair, and the skin with its green tint underlying the pallor of critical illness were all Vulcan. Unconscious, the woman’s face was inhumanly serene. That, too, was Vulcan.

  One of the techs, a young Bolian woman, blue skin darkening with sudden surprise, said, “Captain, we’re confirming ID on her. This woman is Starfleet.”

  Damnation! This was getting more complicated by the moment. Starfleet personnel in a Barolian ship coming off a heading that could be traced back into the Neutral Zone?

  “Her name?” Garrett asked sharply.

  “I am Saavik.” It was barely a whisper from the Vulcan woman.

  Rousing herself with what was plainly a great effort, she opened fierce dark eyes and fixed them on Captain Garrett’s face.

  “I am Saavik,” she repeated. “I sent a warning. Narendra. Narendra III . . . and Melville Colony . . .”

  Saavik! Garrett had heard good reports of Commander Saavik, who was first officer of the Armstrong. The woman’s long career had attracted some fairly interesting rumors. . . .

  “Oh my God,” the captain muttered under her breath as she put together some pieces of the puzzle. She pressed the Vulcan’s hand, feeling it hot with fever. “We haven’t heard any distress signals.” Was Commander Saavik hallucinating?

  “Subspace . . .” Saavik sighed. “I sent that message!” Her eyes opened again, a touch more sane, her gaze scanning her surroundings. “What ship?”

  “This is the U.S.S. Enterprise. I am its captain, Rachel Garrett.”

  “Enterprise,” Saavik repeated. Her gaze seemed to focus, even to brighten. Her lips parted as if she had much more to say—but then her head lolled sideways.

  Stewart was instantly at Saavik’s side. “Pulse is shot to hell, so fast I can barely count it. She’s the one who’s bonded to Ambassador Spock, isn’t she? In that case . . .”

  “My thought precisely, Doctor.”

  Even now, comparatively little was known about Vulcan biology, but ever since the days when Ambassador Spock had been Science Officer Spock of the first Starship Enterprise, Pon farr had been an open secret.

  Then Saavik, poor woman, must have been overwhelmed while on some Federation mission. “No wonder she relaxed when I told her she was on board Enterprise,” Garrett breathed. “She served on the first one. With James T. Kirk.”

  “She looks too young for that!”

  “She is young, relatively speaking. For a Vulcan.” Garrett turned back to Saavik. “We’ll get you to Vulcan. Is that what you want? Is Ambassador Spock there?”

  Maybe mentioning his name broke some rule of Vulcan etiquette, but at least it got Saavik’s attention. She forced herself halfway up with a frantic “No!” and grabbed Captain Garrett’s hand. Even now, Garrett thought, trying not to wince, that Vulcan strength could break every bone in it.

  She needs the physical contact. That’s right: Vulcans are touch telepaths.

  “I crossed the Neutral Zone,” Saavik whispered. “From court . . . at Ki Baratan . . . Romulus . . . Narendra III . . .”

  Garrett listened to her story in growing horror. Oh God, no, let it be only a sick woman’s hallucinations! As Saavik, exhausted, sagged back against the bed, the captain shouted across the room at the wall communicator, “Mr. Varani! Any record of transmissions? Any sign of warbirds?”

  “No warbird sightings, Captain. We are beginning to receive a message, however. Timed at regular intervals. Directed at Starbase 9 and the Klingon Empire. First one should be reaching Starbase 9 . . . right about now.”

  “I want you to raise Captain Walker Keel. I want a reply in the next fifteen minutes. Encrypt it.”

  “Spock . . .” It was a heartbroken murmur from Saavik.

  “While you are attempting the impossible, Mr. Varani, I want you to contact Vulcan too. Ambassador Spock, if at all possible—” If Ambassador Spock’s bondmate was this ill, Garrett doubted he would be fit or willing to be seen. Still, he’d have to have some sort of confidential aide.

  And Vulcan was a damn sight closer than Starbase 9.

  Communications signaled from the bridge.

  “Yes?” Garrett called at the wall unit.

  “Piping Lieutenant Castil
lo through to you, ma’am.”

  “Castillo, any information yet?” she asked.

  “Captain, I’m pulling our guest’s reports out of her ship’s computers. She’s also left a personal log and a couple of letters. To Captain Truman Howes of the Armstrong. And to Sarek of Vulcan. Marked private, but I think . . .”

  “Send ’em through to sickbay,” Garrett ordered. “Dr. Aristide’s office.”

  In that relative privacy, she quickly accessed the information from the Barolian ship—then sat back, a cold weight settling in the pit of her stomach.

  My crew . . . oh God, my crew.

  “Get back over here, Mr. Castillo,” she ordered. “We may need to move in a hurry.”

  To Rachel Garrett’s astonishment, the Vulcan who awaited her onscreen in her cabin was not some aide or even Ambassador Spock, however much the worse for wear. It was his father, the legendary and formidable Sarek, senior ambassador of Vulcan.

  “Captain Garrett of the U.S.S. Enterprise.” To her astonishment, his eyes held a hint of warmth even though they seemed to be looking at something very far off. “It has been approximately fifty-three point six of your years since I have been contacted by a captain of the Enterprise. How may I serve you, Captain?”

  God, Garrett thought, this was one charming Vulcan! Granted, he had plenty of practice. He and his son probably knew humans better than any other Vulcans alive. “I am looking for Ambassador Spock. Do you know where he is? Can you deliver a message to him?” That ought to leave Sarek enough of an “out” so he would not have to speak directly of Pon farr.

  “My assumption,” Sarek said, “is that Spock remains on Oriki.”

  Garrett stared at the Vulcan, the beginning of a truly horrible surmise forming in her mind.

  “What is it, Captain?”

  Sarek’s glance was far too perceptive. “Not two hours ago,” she began cautiously, “we rescued a very ill woman, who has been identified as Commander Saavik of Vulcan. She left a message for you.”