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Chapter Text

 The first thing  Starfleet Academy selects for is the skill  to function under high pressure. Scores of psych tests weed out the lesser willed applicants throughout the years of training.

 No matter how intense the circumstances – a star about to go nova, a Klingon armada, alien virus ravaging the ship – they are trained to  let their efficiency suffer no impairment. They are pretty much immune to panic.

Of course, this had a certain downside – tension the crew could handle perfectly well. It was lack of tension they had trouble with. Which was why, except among the science departments involved, star mapping missions were looked upon as a term in purgatory. The young captain held the same view, though the dignity of his position prevented him from complaining as vociferously as many of his subordinates were doing.

 James  Kirk was currently  engaged in fantasizing about what exactly he would say to Admiral Nogura if only he could get a comm. link to that august individual,  instead of attending to the fuel consumption reports his long suffering yeoman had handed to him. (Fortunately the Science Officer was too engrossed in the readings of the uncharted – but profoundly dull to anyone but an astrophysicist- starscape around them to raise a disapproving eyebrow).

 “Receiving a distress signal, sir”

Kirk, startled out of his reverie, had to suppress a grin of delighted anticipation. At this point, three weeks into the star-mapping cruise and with yet another interminable week left to go, even the appearance of a Klingon battlecruiser would have been welcome.

 “Co-ordinates, lieutenant?”

The Communications Officer had them pinpointed already.  Sulu, alert at the helm, fed in the coordinates  Uhura recited. It was taken for granted that the call would be answered – that was the code of Deep Space. You never, ever, ignored a Mayday call.

However, Uhura’s next words were somewhat disheartening.

“It’s an automated beacon, captain. Scout ship, K-5 class. Franklin.”

Automated beacon was bad business. It usually meant that there was no one left to send an actual distress  message.

 “What is at the coordinates? Are they dead in space?”

 It was Spock who answered. “Planetside, captain. The coordinates place them on Xaheer three.”

So atleast they made a landing. That meant  a better prognosis of the crew’s survival.  They may simply have had to leave the ship for some reason or the other and left the beacon broadcasting – though it was unusual to do so without recording an additional message, just so that any busy vessel passing by wouldn’t be tempted to ignore the call by assuming there was no one alive to rescue.

“Head for those coordinates, Sulu. Warp four.”

By the time they were in orbit around the third planet of the Xaheer system, the library computer’s archives had provided them with all details of the stranded ship and her current crew compliment, as well as the planet  itself. 

Franklin, one of the K5 class scouts, under command of Captain  Ernst Smith. Sponsored by the Mining franchise SaheeraProspects.  Crew compliment of twelve, including Smith. From all records, a good, competent crew with several  successful missions to their credit.

“Scoutship, eh?” McCoy asked.

 No one had remarked the doctor’s uninvited appearance on the Bridge. By now, even Spock was resigned to the fact that nothing other than an emergency in the sickbay would call the self-styled oldfashioned country doctor away from the bridge where he had no business being.

“ Smith was at the academy with me for a year. He washed out in the fourth semester. “

Many of the scoutship captains had some connection to the Starfleet. Scouting  was the second best option for those who couldn’t gain a berth aboard one of the mighty starships. Or those who got flung out of the Service for some reason or the other. Prospecting companies were usually more than willing to snap them up, provided they had washed out based on personal rather than technical shortcomings.

 Deep space missions demanded a  very unusual combination of personality traits – stable enough to function under circumstances were the very laws of physics could seem just guidelines, flexible enough to roll with practically anything  the universe could throw at them. Functionally insane, according to  most planetbound  psychologists.  The requirements of a scoutship’s prospecting voyage were  considerably less demanding, mentally and physically.

 “Remember much about the guy?”

 “Not really.” Kirk admitted. “He wasn’t the sort who gets noticed easily. Steady, hard working, all that. But the psyche scans found something off – a slightly higher than acceptable susceptibility to  pressure or something of the sort. Fatal aboard a starship, but a scouting voyage would be right up his alley.”

 “Except this one clearly went down the wrong alley. No natives to complicate stuff, I hope?”

“None. There are ruins, apparently, but all life forms appear to have been wiped out. No one has found out how, have they, Spock?”

 “It would be more accurate to say no effort has been made to find out, Captain” the Science Officer reported. “ it is situated considerably far from the usual shipping lanes, and while it does contain a significant wealth of minerals, notably Ferrous ores,  there is nothing of particular importance, or which could not be obtained at much less expense elsewhere. The ruins have attracted the attention of archaeologists, but a  survey of the system has not been approved yet. The vessel which reported the discovery of the planet could only conduct a preliminary scan. Once it was conclusively established that the planet held neither intelligent population nor valuable resources, attention was diverted away from it.”

“Meaning you’d like to have a good look at the place while we are there?” Kirk suggested, with a grin.

“As we would no doubt be forced to spend  some  time in orbit…”

“Naturally, it would only be logical to put that time to good use. Let’s first see what Smith and crew ran into.”

……………………

The Enterprise team beamed down next to the intact scoutship. No signs of a crashlanding or mechanical failure. The streamlined scout was in perfect shape. The same could not be said of the crew.

 “God in Heaven” McCoy whispered. He had had to get used to scenes of violence in his work, but this was…

”They were slaughtered” Kirk muttered, equally taken aback by the scene of carnage that met his eyes. The bodies lay scattered around and in the ship, all showing vicious signs of trauma. Beaten, stabbed, slashed…

”There’s one alive” Blatantly ignoring caution in a way even Jim rarely did, McCoy rushed into the ship.

Two of the security guards and Kirk followed at his heels. Spock and the guard assigned to him remained outside, scanning for anything that could explain the disaster.

No life forms, at least, none within the tricorder’s range. No energy fluctuations. No atmospheric chemicals that could potentially unleash a psychotic episode. Not conclusive, of course, as the threat could have moved away from this location. At  any rate, there was no apparent threat to the landing party right now.

There was only one of the dozen left alive, and not by much. Ernst Smith had been savaged as wildly as any of his crew. As far as McCoy could see, the only thing that explained his survival was sheer stubbornness.

“I’ve got to get him to the sickbay, Jim. And right now. He’s hanging on by a thread.”

 Kirk nodded and pulled out his communicator.

“Kirk to Transporter room. Dr McCoy and one of the Franklin crew to beam aboard.”

 “Med Team” McCoy called out.

“Med team to the transporter room, serious trauma.”

Kyle was good at his job. No sooner had Kirk finished speaking that the golden whirl of the transporter beam took McCoy and Smith, leaving the rest of the landing party to investigate.

(Four days ago)

Ernst Smith knew, from  the moment he woke up, that this was going to be one of the bad days. He could hear someone humming cheerily out in the corridor as  the door of his sleeping quarters slid open before him.

 “Good morning, Ernst!” Lilian Hopkins, his second in command, called out before resuming her humming with even more gusto.

Smith nodded gruffly, refraining from asking what exactly was so good about it – Lilian could probably list about a dozen reasons, anyway, if he was fool enough to ask. That was one of the things he found either  freaking  adorable or sufficient reason for court martial, depending on his mood.

The other crew members – the six who were on this shift - greeted him as he passed. He returned the greetings, even  managed a couple of smiles. The others didn’t have apparently  terminal  cases of Polyanna syndrome like Lilian, but right now, it would have been hard for Smith to find anything that pleased him.

 He managed to put on a sufficient show. After all, the captain could not afford to let silly things like moods affect him. Not visibly, anyway.

He would have been mortified to discover that not only did his crew know he was in a foul mood, but also the cause of said foul mood, perfectly well.  They had, after all, worked with him for years.

 They knew, and they didn’t mind.

Smith was a good boss, a fair boss. He commanded affection and respect easily. If he had the problem of becoming something of a sourpuss  for a few hours before and after a planetfall, well, one had to allow a captain some faults.

They all knew Smith had attended the Academy – something which was seriously impressive in their (and ninety percent of the population’s) opinion. Only the top 10%  of the applicants made it to the first year of Starfleet Academy. Of those, only 10% actually graduated.

 Washing out not due to lack of grades or discipline, but simply due to a psyche score, something that was mostly genetically determined, was no cause for shame. Only, even after all these years, Smith somehow could not convince himself to see it that way. 

“ETA” he demanded.

The curly headed navigator, Eddie Brennan, looked up from his instruments.

“Twenty  minutes, sir.” He kept his voice subdued, enthusiasm hidden.

Smith always had the worst of his sourpuss phases  just before they were about to land. It was difficult not to be constantly reminded why he was here – here on an alien world, a world that could hold a million secrets. Of those, he could only afford to focus on a single one – at times a group. Whatever ore or oil or whatever the company brass was after this time.

Smith was a born explorer, an adventurer. He would have been perfectly at home as a merchant captain of some far away century, wandering the uncharted seas in quest of gold and spices. But in the 23^rd century, with his employers never more than one subspace call away, his actions practically dictated hour to hour, Smith was stifled, frustrated beyond measure.

He had sought the stars since he could remember – after washing out of the Academy, this had seemed his next best option. But he had not counted on how narrow would be the explorations he would be called on to undertake. Or how harsh the disciplinary action, should he venture outside the framework  programmed. The mining companies had little use of exploration for exploration’s sake, and had learned to restrain it in personnel.

The captain glanced around the tiny bridge of the scoutship. He could sense the carefully disguised enthusiasm in his crew. They toned it down in response to his dour mood, but they were excited. They were enjoying their job.

 Why not?

They did not have before them the images of former classmates in the gold-red-blue of the coveted Fleet. They had never had the chance to touch the stars dangled before them for a short while.

It was only he who fretted and fumed, chafed at the bit – only he who was good enough to know there was something much better out there, and not good enough to actually get there.

 Sometimes he hated them. Hated them for being happy, contented, successful- because this shadow was the brightest they had ever been in,  it was as warming as noon day blaze to them. But he had reached out to touch the stars, and fallen back. Fallen back to see his friends soar ahead.

Smith finally gave up trying to pull himself out of this maudlin mood and settled back in the command chair to plan their mapping duty for the next couple of days.

……………………………

On the planet, something stirred.

 Something that had been slumbering for centuries  blinked awake.

 The roar of the landing scoutship had not been enough to wake it – but the calls of twelve minds within the ship had. A surge of joy-relief-hope, more than that, a deep hunger.  A hunger that had not been slacked for long, oh, ever so long.

The being had almost given up hope. In fact, had she been an adult of her species, she would have given up long ago, let go and sunk into the darkness the rest of her world had vanished into. But she was young, practically a child still, and she had a child’s faith that everything would turn out alright.

It made perfect sense to her that rescue  would come. It always did. She was the child of a world far removed in time and space and mindset from Terra, but  she  still had the faith in fairytale endings common with the younglings of that blue-green planet.

She did know enough to notice that these minds were different, that they did not answer her shouts, but it had been so long, oh so long, since she heard other minds.

 Maybe she remembered wrong.

 These were grown ups, that much even her hibernation-dulled senses could perceive. That meant every thing was alright now. Grown ups knew how to put things right.

She either did not or would not remember that the grown ups hadn’t been able to put things right in the long-ago time before she went to sleep.

The grown ups stood around a large shiny metal thing – what was that supposed to do? Curious, she almost reached out a tendril of power to touch it, take control of it for a minute or two.

But no, that won’t be nice, that won’t be the sort of thing a good kid  would do. And she really didn’t want these grown ups to think she was not a good girl.

Talk to them first. Ask them to let you play with it if you want, but later. First  talk. Let them know you’re here, or they may think everyone’s gone and go away again.

That thought – the idea of rescue being snatched back after coming  so tantalizingly  near – spurred her into action.

“I AM HERE!” she shouted with all the force of her young mind. “I AM HERE! DON’T GO AWAY!!”

The grown ups didn’t answer her. Didn’t even seem to hear. Except one. He winced, as if she had said something very rude instead of just calling out. Glanced around, bewildered, as if he couldn’t see her where she stood, in clear view of him and all the other grown ups.

She stared.

Why didn’t he answer? Why didn’t any of them answer? Was she doing this wrong? She sometimes did, she knew, even in the long-ago time. Zaxrees had had to be so patient with her, so gentle, even to teach her the rudiments of control.

“Strong,” the Elder had said, “Strong, but she does not take naturally to taming that strength, bending it to her will instead of allowing it to bend her.” Then, noticing her expression, the Elder’s voice had turned more soothing. “There is time, Zahna’Lan. You are still so little. There’s time aplenty to learn.”

 But there hadn’t been time. Zaxrees, wise as she was, had been wrong there. There hadn’t been time for any of them. And now Zahna knew so little that she could not even let the grown ups know that she was hear, that she needed help.

 The grown up who had noticed was now looking at her – no, he seemed to be looking through her. No question about it. She was doing this wrong. There was only one way, she knew, to set this right, only one way to make sure they heard.

As the lone grown up who showed any interest made to turn away, Zahna gathered herself and rushed forward, letting herself flow into his mind. She did it with the same desperate abandon of a lost and sobbing child throwing itself into the arms of the first sympathetic grown up, expecting with the automatic trust of a well-loved child to find only help and warmth there.

It should have been a haven of safety, the adult’s mind opening to offer a nest for the young, frightened self, keeping her safe and warm till she was able to explain.

It was, instead, horrible. Zahna found herself floundering in what seemed a sea of shame and rage and hurt – shame above all, fueling all the rage. This wasn’t right! Grown ups didn’t feel this way, they didn’t! Even if they did, they wouldn’t let a child see them like this, wouldn’t let a child fall into this lava scape of emotions.

 Zahna’s world had had seas and oceans lifetimes ago, but she had never been to the seashore. Never had heard of, forget experienced, a riptide. So she had no point of comparison to what pulled her in, drowning her, choking her, carrying her away in it’s wild rush.

Worse than that, it was eating away at her, dissolving and devouring. Taking all her power into itself and giving nothing in return. What grown up would do this to a child?

Then she realized something that sent  a flare of terror through her, making her earlier alarm seem pathetic. The grown up  was flailing, panicked. He’s as trapped as she is, even more so. He was unprepared for the power  flowing into him.

There was no answering power in him, no well-mastered energy that could  tame and guide the young untrained mind. This grown up’s mind was completely powerless, more delicate than the translucent white petals of the Marikolanth flowers that bloomed in her mother’s gardens long-ago.

He was terrified, more terrified than her, without any idea what was happening to him, scrabbling for some, any, handhold. The lava of emotions surging around them  was forcing them towards each other, into each other, merging into one. 

She knew she must fight this, take control. This being only looked  like a grown up – he’s an infant, far younger than her, his power fully undeveloped. But  while her power was  well developed, her control was not. She could only scream and hope that one of the other grown ups would come to their help. Or were they all infants? Was that why they didn’t hear her?

Chapter Text

(Present time)

The  landing party spent nearly the entire day planetside, investigating. To no avail. The ship’s log was intact, and  completely useless to their purpose. It detailed only  the events up to  planetfall, and  part of the first day's operations.

 “At least we got a timeline for the…for whatever happened here.”

“Their first day spent here. Or perhaps early on the second day, if they were lax about updating the log. That would coincide with the doctor’s assessment of time of death.”

 “Three days ago. Could stretch to four, but that’s unlikely, according to Bones. Smith wouldn’t have survived that long, not with the kind of injuries he sustained.”

 “It is possible that Captain  Smith was injured at a later date.”

 “Possible, but hardly probable. Everyone else was killed in a single incident. We’ll know more if and when Smith wakes up.”

In the sickbay, McCoy and his team were fighting  to save Smith’s life. Not an easy fight. Several times it looked like they had lost him, but it seemed Smith could rival Kirk himself when it came to sheer bullheaded stubbornness. He wasn’t going to give up that easily. Finally McCoy was able to step away from the surgical table with a sigh of satisfaction.

“He’ll make it.” the doctor reported to the waiting captain. Nightfall on planetside had forced Jim and team to beam back up. “But don’t depend on his being able to clear up the issue of whatever happened down there.”

 Jim frowned. “What do you mean?”

 McCoy gestured at the biobed readings.

“Severe concussion. Brain damage. I’ve managed to repair it, but memory loss is unavoidable.”

“Complete loss?”

 “Maybe. More probably, the recent memories. We’ll have to wait till he wakes up. What were they doing down there, anyway?”

“Standard survey for the mining company. Supposed to check whether the ores were commercially viable. Doesn’t look like they got a start on it.”

 “So whatever it was grabbed them the instant they landed.”

 “Or soon after.” He paused. “Can’t you give any clue about the assailant? There must  be DNA evidence. Blood, or at least skin or fur fragments of the attackers…”

 McCoy shrugged.

“Believe me, both my surgical team and the pathologists who dealt with the autopsies were on the lookout for it. But nah. Nothing. Zilch. “

“Meaning the assault was, most likely, not physical.”

When you have been in Deep Space for a year or more, there isn’t much that can phase you . McCoy, the most planet-bound of the crew, didn’t seem inclined to doubt the assumption.

 “Telekinetic. Well, not the first time we dealt with that flavor. Didn’t our walking computer give his analysis yet?”

 “Nothing definite, he says. His team and Giotto’s  have  been combing the Franklin for any evidence, but  no one managed to turn anything up till now. There are no traces of any intruder. Only human residue energy, human DNA and  human skin fragments. The first idea was that they  had attacked each other- perhaps some kind of psychic assault made them turn on each other. Like those cloud creatures that got us at Elba.”

 McCoy was already shaking his head. “No, Jim..”

 “Yeah, I know.  In any physical assault there should be traces..”

“Besides, no human could have done this level of damage. The only time I’ve seen  physical trauma this bad is in shuttle crash fatalities. Their bones were shattered! Even the sternum – that’s the closest the human body’s got to armor plating. “

The surgeon and the captain remained silent for a long moment.

 “Call me soon as he wakes up. Even if he doesn’t remember what happened down there, he could possibly give some clue.”

The  doctor looked hesitant.

“No, Jim, he’s not going to be fit for questioning any time soon.”

Kirk frowned, but knew better than to argue. It would be safer to insult a drunken Klingon’s  mother than to go against the good doctor when a patient’s health was at stake.

 “I’ll go with your judgment on that. Anyway, notify me. If nothing else, he’ll probably want to see whoever’s in charge.”

“If he knows you from the Academy it could help.”

Kirk  looked a bit awkward at that.

“Maybe. Depends on what he feels about not making the selection. Some of them…”

McCoy nodded, understanding.

“We’ll see.”

…………………………………

Lilian.

He can remember Lilian, stepping forward, worried, reaching out a hand. She’s moving to help him up, Lilian and Andre. He can hear Lilian call out, telling someone out of sight (Eddie?) to go get Dr West. He can hear her calling his name, kneeling beside him. (When did he fall down?) He can see Andre, nervous as a cat on hot bricks, stepping from one foot to the other like a little boy who needs to use the restroom, shooting rapid fire questions at Lilian.

There is a moment like this.

A moment when he knows them all, knows that they are his crew, his people…(dare he say it?)..his friends. But then he feels the creature stirring within his mind, sending a stab of agony through his every nerve. He feels it probing at the memories, the memories that he tries so hard to keep locked away.

Some part of him, a distant part that sounds feebler and feebler by the minute, tells him that the creature is looking for help, looking for a handhold, anything stable to hold onto. But it is  too strong, too scared,  pulling him into the memories with it. He can feel part of his mind crumbling, giving way beneath the panicked flailing.

“Ernst!” Dr Della West calls. She is bending over him, medical scanner inches from his face. “Ernst, can you hear me?”

The voice is well known to him, as is the tone of concern. But now it sends a wall of red hot rage coursing through him. He hears more than concern there.

He hears pity – worry that he would crumble, that he was crumbling, having a breakdown, like those smug bastards at the Academy had claimed. That he’s giving way under pressure.

The red wave wipes out most of his mind as it surges. She doesn’t seem like Della anymore. He can’t remember who is Della. She is female, she is an enemy. She thinks him weak. that’s all he knows, and all he cares to know.

 “Get away from me!”

Della’s eyes widen. She stumbles back, not of her own will, but because he has pushed her away – pushed her away with his mind. There is more, but now the red wave is over everything, swallowing everything, deepening to black, and for a while, Captain Ernst Perrier Smith ceases to exist.

……………………………………..

One of the many qualities that made James Kirk the youngest and most successful captain of the Fleet is his attitude towards anything  alien.

Of course, the slightest hint of xenophobia is grounds for disqualifying one for Command post, but Kirk is not only free from  xenophobia, he is a  genuine xenophile.

Anything new and strange fascinates him, even  (and sometimes especially) the sort of things that would make a  normal  (or saner) individual either throw up or run screaming from the room. Of course, advantageous as this is to his professional life, it also leads too often to the type of situations  that  gives his CMO apoplexy.

 Like the time he tried to pet the Xereedian princess’ pet pathriopod. (Result – acid burns that ate his fingers down to the bone,  allergic reactions to the bite, and a very amused princess).

Or the time he thought it would be a good idea to try the Andorian Fireball  drink  at Bened Six (Result – blacking out after one sip, climbing on the table to deliver an impromptu concert, and getting hauled off  by a furious doctor and a very bemused Vulcan before he could get more than two steps  into a strip tease).

 Or that Klingon girl at Aret Central… Well, you get the idea.

Kirk’s fascination with Vulcan martial arts  falls  halfway between the two extremes.

 From the very first time he saw Spock’s exercise routine – as much dance as battle – the human had made up his mind to learn it. It took almost a month for the young captain to nerve himself up to ask his stoic First Officer for martial arts training, and it took another three weeks of concerted effort (aided and abetted by Gary Mitchell and Uhura) to convince the said First Officer to agree.

After the first session, Spock had little difficulty persuading Jim to hold any future sessions in a private training room, away from the cheering and occasionally giggling crowd of onlookers, mostly for the sake of preserving the captain’s dignity.

 Spock had hoped that the human would sooner or later realize the impossibility of mastering a form of battle adapted for vastly different physiologies, but  as he was soon to realize, the Kirk family motto is  The  Impossible Just Takes Longer.

And after  the…Vulcan Incident (in Kirk’s words, the most awkward divorce  of the century), Spock had somewhat changed the focus of the training, concentrating on teaching his captain moves that would come in useful against an adversary of thrice-human strength, should he be confronted by one again.

 Jim is usually a good student (at least, with a teacher he wants to impress), but this night he was having considerable difficulty concentrating. The carnage witnessed on the planet refused to leave his mind. What could have happened, what creature- he moved a moment too late. 

The moment of distraction had been enough to make him miss a crucial move – meaning the easily blockable strike the Vulcan sent his way hit home full force and flung the human backwards, on a collision course to the exercise equipment near the walls.

Fortunately for Kirk, Vulcan speed and reflexes match upto Vulcan strength. In a swift leap, Spock literally snatched him out of mid-air,  somehow managing to arrest their momentum just right. The captain and first officer fell to the deck in a tangled, undignified and much too suggestive, but mostly unharmed  heap.

Spock didn’t say anything, just looked at the human with his ‘Really, Jim?’ look, the one that made his captain feel about five years old.

 “Um, sorry, Spock.”

“You are unharmed, I hope?”

“No damage. Except to my ego.”

As the illogicalities of human ego is one of the very few subjects which baffle his understanding, Spock did not comment on that.

 “You’re not paying attention, Captain”

 Jim grinned somewhat sheepishly.

“Sorry, Spock.  This Franklin mystery’s got it’s teeth into me.”

The Vulcan looked disapproving as he got to his feet.

 “If you are that distracted, it would be well to discontinue this training session.”

Really, someone should probably tell Jim that pouting certainly does not help his ‘captain image’ as he calls it.

”I am not distracted!”

“This was the first move you learned to block. And the fourth time you ended up on the floor during this session.”

 For a stoic, expressionless  species, Vulcans could  radiate disapproval very well.  

“Was I that bad?”

“Yes.”

Never ask a Vulcan a question to which you don’t want an honest answer. Jim sighed.

 “I’ll keep my mind on the matter at hand, don’t worry. Let’s go on.”

Spock refrained from pointing out that vulcans did not worry – it wouldn’t have been strictly honest anyway, not where this human was concerned.

“ It would be awkward explaining to the good doctor that you managed to get a life-threatening injury during  a training session.”

Jim glared at his opponent  and was about to attempt some repair to his tarnished ego when the intercom beeped.

“Bridge to Captain Kirk!  Bridge calling Captain Kirk!”

 Jim darted to the nearest wall-com unit.

“What is it, lieutenant?”

M’Ress’ purring voice came over the line.

 “Message from Admiralty, sir. Admiral Nogura’s asking to speak to you.”

Nogura. Probably a new mission. Damn. A day ago he’d have given anything for a break in routine, but now the Franklin mystery had got him hooked. He didn’t want to be assigned to something else before they had a chance to investigate further.

”I’ll take it in my quarters.”

Nogura looked more like a wrinkled prune than ever, Kirk noted. The guy really should try one of those rejuvenation  treatments. Sure, groundbound Fleet officials didn’t qualify for anti-aging  therapy, but Nogura could definitely afford it on his salary. Most admirals did.

Kirk had the private theory that Nogura did have the rejuvenation treatment done, just skipped the cosmetic part of it. Get any opposing negotiators off guard, give off the just-an-old-tired-guy-really-totally-harmless aura. It worked often too, judging by his repute for negotiations. Or for foisting reluctant captains off with missions they’d rather be galaxies away from.

 Kirk pushed away the script of the imaginary conversation he had had with the admiral in his daydreams and pasted on the Captain Persona.

 “Good day, Admiral” (No way to tell whether it is morning or evening or midnight wherever the admiral is – the call’s not from Fleet HQ).

 Nogura just nodded. No time to waste on pleasantries.

“You are to divert from your current mission, Captain Kirk.”

Seriously, couldn’t the guy have sent this message, like, two days ago? Or maybe, two days later, once they’ve figured out what the hell happened to Smith and crew?

Kirk had been prepared to argue, ask for time, but once Nogura gave the details, all thoughts of disagreement vanished without trace.

The Aberdeen colony was in trouble – an outbreak of the supposed to be eradicated  Balsine  Fever, thanks to a faulty vaccine shipment. They needed med shipments, and the Enterprise was the only ship that could get there fast enough. They were to rendezvous with USS Magellan, a cargo carrier that would bring them the medical supplies, then proceed at maximum warp to the colony. 

The planet’s  mystery would have to wait. Ah, well, it wasn’t like anyone’s life hung on the line for the Franklin case.

………………………………

Ernst Smith was the only patient in the sickbay, and he had been moved to one of the more private cubicles after surgery. The man’s injuries – the physical ones – had been dealt with. Of course, he would be in no shape to get up and walk about for a week or so, but for a guy who was within kissing distance of death some hours ago, he was doing great. Physically. What worried Bones was the mental damage, and there was no way to assess that accurately  till the guy  woke up.

McCoy watched worriedly as his patient tossed and turned, fighting whatever terrors delirium planted in his mind. The man was past the danger zone, by most measures, but still…He should have come out of delirium by now.

Maybe, he supposed, the man feared return to consciousness more than whatever terrorized him now. After all, they had no idea what Smith  and his crew had encountered down there. There were more than a few hazards of space which could reduce the best adjusted individual into a quivering mass of hysteria. McCoy  had had to pick up the pieces after a few of those himself.

“Make sure someone is on watch throughout” he told Christine Chapel. “The last thing he needs is to wake up alone and restrained some place he doesn’t have the least clue about.”

Christine nodded, not bothering to mention that the biobed monitors would notify the on-duty staff the moment the patient showed signs of returning consciousness. Sometimes the old-fashioned way was better, if one could afford the time for it. Thankfully, this time they could, with Smith as the only patient present.

The CMO turned and strode away to his office. If he didn’t get started on the paperwork he’d soon be buried in it. Well, he was already buried in it, truth to speak. That hobgoblin had begun hounding him about “ the considerable delay in submitting  quarterly requisition requests”.  Not everyone could program themselves to go without sleep!

 Anyway, he had finally run out of excuses to postpone the work, and once Smith woke up, he would be too busy  doing his actual job to deal with administrivia.  The doctor set about the difficult task of coaxing himself into paperwork mode.

………………………………….

Vulcans as well as all competent xenopsychologists, consider the layman’s idea of “Vulcan Emotional Suppression”  ridiculous.

 Part of the confusion is due to translational difficulties, part due to cultural differences.

 Vulcans do not suppress emotions – they control them. To control, one must first face, acknowledge and analyze. That is what meditation (as essential to a Vulcan’s health as sleep would be for a human’s) is used to accomplish.

 Suppression is an entirely different game, and one engaged in by humans, not  the supposedly repressed Vulcans.

As Dr Noel would put it, the difference between emotional control and emotional suppression is the difference between washing up your dirty dishes diligently and simply shoving them into the back of the cupboard. In the latter case, sooner or later something would go rotten  in the dark and come spilling out, usually in a spectacular fashion.

 That is one of the main reasons humans are the most vulnerable to psychic attacks of all kinds, and tend to find recovery a very long process. Even the most extroverted and open minded human has corners in his mind where he dare not glance.

 Deep attics and cellars where things that cannot bear the light of day is hidden, forgotten. Layers upon layers of defenses, mental walls, are built around them. In most cases, whatever you put behind the walls remain there. The walls hold strong, and allows you to go about your day-to-day business, wearing the proper mask to your own as well as the others’ sight. 

But a psychic assault, by it’s very nature, involves a  tearing down of all sorts of walls – including these defenses. Few minds are strong enough to withstand the deluge of their Id baggage without drowning in it’s filth.

 Zahna had not meant to attack. But the effect was the same. She had pushed past all the natural barriers that shield one mind from another, not with the surgical precision of a trained telepath, but in a clumsy wrecking-ball charge. Internal as well as external walls crumbled.  

For Smith, what came out of the cellar was hatred  – hate  more intense than his conscious mind  would have believed himself capable of sustaining. Towards himself for not being good enough, towards the Academy for not considering him good enough, towards his classmates for being good enough. And, unfortunately for everyone involved, towards his crew for being happy where they were, in their  blissful ignorance (or so it seemed to him) of a better life.

Zahna, in her innocence, had placed all her power in the control of the ‘grown-up’ mind as was the custom. Smith, the conscious self that called itself Smith, was too panicked, too confused, to grasp that power – but what had just been freed from the cellar wasn’t.

Zahna herself, too terrified by what erupted from the depths of this infant’s mind,  fled as deep as she could, curling up on herself in one of the darkest pits she could find. She  could sense something of what was happening outside, but there was nothing she could do. The infant-who-looks-like-a-grown-up has  monsters within his mind, and the monsters have taken the power that should rightly have been shared.

Perhaps later she might find  the courage to try and wrest back her power from them, but at the moment she was too frightened to do anything other than curl up and metaphorically pull the covers over her head. She lay in the false  comfort of the darkness and silence, wishing that the monsters would be gone by the time she had to come out again.

Chapter Text

“Sickbay to Bridge. Jim, you there?”

Kirk rolled his eyes in affectionate exasperation. Teaching Bones to act formal was almost as tough as  teaching Spock to  ease up.

“Yes, doctor. What’s the matter?”

“Smith. He’s awake. You got that right, he wants to see the guy in charge. Right now. Can you come down here?”

“Will be right down.”

  Then it dawned on him the kind of news he would have to break to Smith, and the spark of relief was replaced by a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He could use some moral support here.

“Spock, with me. Sulu, you have the conn”

Smith had forced himself to go to the graduation ceremony of his Academy batch, mostly to prove that he was over it. He had watched them all walk on stage, one by one, in red and blue and gold.

The golds were the fewest, of course. The golds shone. And the one who shone the brightest was  one James Tiberius Kirk. Every kid who made it to the Academy had been the stars of whatever school they came from, but a few like Jim – they were supernova bright.

Smith wasn’t surprised to see that he had made captain. Captain of a Constitution Class, no less.  All the same, he wished it wasn’t Kirk who had answered the distress call. The voices that had been silent so long had started up again, and the sight of  his former classmate really wasn’t helping.

 “Hi, Ernst”

James Kirk hadn’t shed the boyish look of his Academy days. Some of that was due to the Anti-aging meds Deep Space crews got, but not all.

 “Kirk.”

They had been classmates, yes, but not close enough to be on first name terms a decade and a half later. He was surprised Kirk remembered his name. Of course he didn’t, you fool. He just checked the crew files.  “Glad to meet you  again, but wish it’d been under more pleasant circumstances.”

Jim looked enquiringly at McCoy, and received a slight shake of the head. He hadn’t gotten around to breaking the news yet.

Smith was continuing “What happened down there? I suppose Hopkins has filled you in.” He frowned, noticing their expressions. “Hopkins isn’t hurt too badly, is she?”

Kirk steeled himself.

“Captain Smith. There’s something we must tell you…” Kirk began. A few sentences in, McCoy took over. It didn’t take very long to tell.

“All my crew?” the grey eyes were full of a desperate pleading. “All? Lilian?”

 “I’m sorry” Words so inadequate that they border on the ridiculous. But what else is there to say?

“There were twelve of us, but six would have been off shift. They’d have been aboard. Whatever…whatever it was, on the planet…Or did they…Were they trying to rescue us?”

 From  lieutenant Durga’s report, the posture of the dead bodies suggested they had come running out, perhaps hearing the screams. But none of the off duty crew had managed to reach as far as the exit – those corpses were all in corridors or rooms. Smith really didn’t need the details right now.

 “Perhaps. You don’t remember…”

Smith shook his head, ignoring the bolt of pain that shot through it.

“The last thing I remember is preparing for landing. Everything was normal…Seemed normal. Pre landing checks complete, everything fully operational,  Lilian – that’s Lilian Hopkins, my First Officer – humming a tune…It annoyed me, her humming” He made a sound that was half laugh and half sob. “Are you sure? Lilian, she’s blond, green eyes, pixie figure. Way tougher than she looks.”

 “We…found her.”

 Smith nodded. It wasn’t like he hadn’t already been told. It was just…Lilian, dead. The Polyanna girl. Andre, so quick on the take – not quick enough, this time.

“It was too late to save any of them.”

 Smith groaned and closed his eyes. His expression made it clear that he was wishing they were too late for him as well. Kirk could sympathize – what faced Smith now was any captain’s worst nightmare. The old adage was right, in a way – the captain should go down with the ship. For his own sake.

………………………………

 Zahna had finally worked up the nerve to venture out of her hiding place. Or rather, made a better hiding place.

 Now she stood in the middle of a meadow – the one where they had all played, in the long-ago time. Crystal flowers sent their mild odors to color the air, the long blue grasses waved gently in the breeze. The sky was a soothing shade of amber.

She could almost kid herself into believing that she was home safe, playing in the meadow, it was springtime and soon the others – Zavreen, Txenar, Xezethin – would come out to play with her.

But she knew only too well where she truly stood, and what lay outside the transparent dome she had conjured up around herself. Ernst was there, of course (She decided to call him Ernst, that was the way he thought of himself – as names go, it’s pretty weird, but easier to say than ‘infant who looks like a grown up’). She wasn’t all that scared of him, would have even liked to talk to him.

But the monsters were out there, too. Ernst seemed oblivious of them, though she could see them watching her with hunger in their eyes. They knew it was her power that they  held, her power that had allowed them to detach from Ernst and take form. They also knew she was capable of snatching that power back – in theory, at least.

For a while, they had been worrying at the dome, scratching at it, trying to find their way in. She had no illusions about what would happen, should the dome give way – maybe one of the smarter kids like Xezethin would have stood a  chance, but not her.

Right now, the monsters looked like they found something else to focus on. They no longer stood salivating at her, but swarmed around Ernst, all focused on something outside.

 Something was happening outside. Even through the walls of the dome, she could figure that much out. Others stood around Ernst in the outside world. What sort of others, though? There could be grownups there, but Zahna was not going to make the same mistake twice. She may not be as wise as Zaxrees, but she wasn’t stupid, either. She would wait, watch. Right now, she was okay inside the dome.

………………………………………………..

“You have left orbit?”

Smith stared. He had heard a lot of things he didn’t want to believe in the last hour, but this was the last straw.

”You don’t have a clue who – what- killed my people, and you have left orbit?”

Kirk sighed.

 “We don’t have a choice, Captain Smith. There’s a colony in serious trouble. Once we’ve got the med supplies to them, we’ll return and resume investigation.”

Sure. If you don’t get called away on another urgent mission, maybe. What’s one company ship or two, eh, Mr Perfect Starship Captain?

 “The bastards who did this would be long gone by then!”

Like they care. This is too mundane for them to waste their time on, the smug..

…………………………………

The monsters were getting angry.

Zahna watched, going as near the borders of the dome as she dared. They were snarling, clawing the air as if they wanted to get at someone outside. That was bad. Really bad. That was the way they got, down on the planet – No, they were starting to quiet down. Now they looked more crafty than angry, and that scared her worse. They were getting through to whatever was outside. Getting through to someone outside.

………………………………

“The indications are that the attacker was native to the planet.” Spock said.

 “There are no freaking natives there! They don’t let company vessels land on planets with natives!”

 And you know that, if that blasted Science Officer insignia you wear isn’t just for show.

“All the same, it seems as if the initial surveys overlooked something. There are  no traces of any spacefaring vessel (other than yours, of course) having entered the planet atmosphere. Our scans revealed no intruders.”

And if it did, you damn well would ignore it! Can’t have anything interfere with… You won’t be leaving, you smug bastards! You won’t leave it behind like some trash! If you do leave, I’m gonna make damn sure you don’t get very far!

What the hell am I thinking?

Smith paled. He could feel the red wave creeping upon him again. He no longer remembered what had happened planetside, but instinct warned him that this meant something very bad indeed. McCoy, his eyes darting between the biobed readings and the patient’s face, decided the visiting session had gone on long enough.

..........................................

 “Did you try a psych scan, Bones?”

 “The primary one. He’s too messed up for anything more elaborate, right now.”

“And?”

 “Inconclusive. Primary scans almost always are, heaven knows which brain damaged paperpusher made that one standard procedure. It’s only use is to tell whether the neurons are firing- hell, I could tell you that just by looking at the guy.” The doctor paused for breath. “Anyway, as I said, the amnesia is near total when it comes to the events on the planet. The last clear memory he has is of the day before planetfall. Everything else, blank.”

“I suppose he couldn’t be faking it?”

 “Well, I can’t say for hundred percent certain without a more detailed psyche scan, but on the whole, I’d say no. He’s not exactly a good actor, going by his profile.”

“He certainly wasn’t, at the Academy” Kirk had a slight smile on his face, remembering something from that time which now seemed so long ago right now.

 It had been less than fifteen years, but those years could seem long as centuries  or as short as seconds when spent out in space, depending on your mood while recollecting.

”His responses are certainly natural enough.”

………………………………….

It took McCoy only one look at Christine Chapel’s face to see something was very wrong.

“What happened?”

The  nurse just stared at him blankly for a second.

“Christine! What?”

“Nothing happened.” Chapel murmured. “But something almost did. Oh God, Len, I came within one second of killing someone!”

Now it’s the doctor’s  turn to stare.

“What’re you talking about?”

 “Lieutenant Therval. He’s still on antidote shots after that Gremaxian attack. I was to give him his shots.”

“And?”

 “And I nearly injected him with cordrazine! Cordrazine, Len!”

McCoy’s  eyes widened  in horror. He knew perfectly well what a shot of cordrazine would do to an Andorian’s system. And Christine knew  that, too.

“I caught myself just in time, he didn’t even notice anything wrong, but one second longer and…I can’t..” She shook her head as if trying to clear it. “The worst thing is, I don’t have a clue how it could have happened. You know me, Len! I’m no novice, I’m good at this, of course I am, otherwise I wouldn’t be aboard, but this…This is the sort of mistake even a first year student won’t make. I wasn’t in a hurry or anything. It was labeled! Labeled perfectly clearly – cordrazine. I still took that vial!”

 McCoy was almost as horrified as Chapel. It was indeed an extreme error, one he would never have expected Christine  to make. There were of course some drugs that shared names, ones you had to be careful with, but it took a level of incompetence impossible in a Starship crewmember to  confuse Cordrazine and antidote shots.

“I am placing myself on report.”Chapel  stated, pulling herself together.

 McCoy  nodded. There were no mitigating factors here. She  had come on shift just a couple of hours ago. It was quiet down in sickbay, no patients in serious condition, except Smith. No reason for her almost fatal lapse. The only saving grace was that she had had the integrity to place herself on report. After all, she needn’t have confessed at all.

McCoy surveyed his colleague with a professional eye. Was she ill? She looked pale, shaky, but that could just be the reaction to what almost happened.

“You are relieved of duty, Chris. Go to your quarters. I’ll make an appointment with Noel for you.”

 Noel. The ship’s chief psychiatrist. Christine Chapel nodded numbly. She was not going to argue. She hadn’t been able to tell Leonard the worst of it.

 It wasn’t  a lapse of attention.  She had seen herself picking up the vial of cordrazine. She had known what would happen to the lieutenant. And something had  made it impossible for her to stop herself. She had almost…No, not almost, quite, wanted him dead. Wanted to see him fall, see him  convulse as the drug nuked his nervous system. What was wrong with her? Was she having a nervous breakdown? Was this how it felt?

 Why Therval? She didn’t even know him! He was just a random patient, not even one who gave any trouble or tried to flirt or anything. Just a polite, unremarkable man. If she was going crazy, why not target someone she knew? Had reason to be angry at? Jealous of?

She had been angry, she had for the duration of her fugue state, hated him. But it was a strange anger, strange hate, completely pointless and detached. As if it was someone else’s hate she was channeling. Oh yes, she most certainly needed Dr Noel.

………………………………………….

 Kirk  had been told that Smith was much calmer and wanted more information about the incident. And he was, at the beginning. But it had taken only a few minutes for the situation to deteriorate. Smith was clearly in no shape to see anyone but a psychologist.  What had Bones been thinking of, clearing him for visitors? He tried to keep him calm, but whatever he said only served to trigger the unfortunate man worse.

“You people didn’t even bother to try and find out. Some damned  creatures slaughtered my people and you just…just..”

 Kirk knew what  the man was going through. God knew, he would have been even more of a mess if something happened to his ship, his crew.

“We will investigate. But the med shipment must get to the colony in time, Ernst. You’ve seen what Balsine  fever does.”

Smith glared at him.

 “And you are the only ship that can investigate? Starfleet doesn’t have enough ships to send one to investigate? “

 “We are the nearest. Smaller fleet ships don’t venture out this far. Even including the time taken at the colony and our return journey, we’d still be back here before any ship sent as a replacement can.”

Ernst smiled bitterly.

“Sure. You’re telling me the reaction would’ve been the same if it was one of your fancy Constellation classes that got  hit?”

Anything that could take down a Constellation class ship would be considered a high priority threat. The defensive and offensive capabilities of a company vessel like Smith’s were considerably lesser.

Zahna knew she had to do something soon. The monsters were getting  angry, and they had her power. There were other people here, in this new world they had taken her and Ernst to.

The monsters wanted to hurt these people, though she couldn’t understand why. She had the feeling Ernst didn’t either, though he could now see the monsters. He was in his own dome now, one she had helped strengthen. It was the monsters who were outside, talking. If Ernst stepped out, they would swallow him up, like they swallowed her power.

She was scared, yes,  but she had to do something. She had started this, after all. Maybe she could warn the others. The others outside. There would be some grown ups with them, surely? She would be careful. But she had to warn them. The monsters wanted them all dead. Them and her and Ernst and scariest of all, maybe the monsters themselves, all dead.

“We’ll find  out the truth, Ernst.” He tried to assure the man. But Smith was growing more agitated, not less.

“Find out the truth! Quit pretending, James Kirk. You couldn’t care two hoots what happened to my people. You think we don’t know what you hotshot Fleet people say about us? Think about us?”

 “Ernst, I-“

 “Sellouts! That’s what you think, isn’t it? Damn shopkeepers! Just wants to mine and sell, no place in the stars, eh? So when one of us runs into trouble, serves us right. Just who do you think nearly kills themselves getting you the dilithium for your pretty ships? Who do you think goes out there, not in a fancy palace like this, but ships no bigger than shuttles, hunt out…”

Kirk tried to get a word in edgeways, but Smith was too angry by now.

“Serves us right, eh? I know what you’re thinking! Convinced we messed up. We’re the sort who messes up, right? Not good enough for your fancy Academy, and shiny gold shirts. We’re still out here too, Kirk! And we don’t have your fancy weaponry and shields. We go out there in what we got, even if what we got is a hunk of tin that should’ve been scrapped a decade ago. We go out in it, no, not for years, but long enough. Long enough to meet trouble and sort it out, just as well as you and your team out here-“

McCoy was by now at Smith’s side, alerted by the medscreen when the man’s heartbeat and adrenaline levels shot way over the safe margin for someone in his condition. Even without the medical alert, he would have known already. Smith’s shouting now probably reached the corridor outside. The patient caught sight of him.

 “None of that! None of your damned hypos!”

 “It won’t send you to sleep.”McCoy tried to soothe. “Just relax you a little..”

“Relax?”Now his rage was directed at the doctor. “My people died, man! They died and the ones who did it are getting away scotfree, because your precious fleet can’t be bothered to-“

 “Now, that is enough.” The doctor ordered in the no-nonsense voice he used with hysterical patients. “You won’t be doing your people any favors by working yourself into a- Good God, Jim, give me a hand here!”

Almost without warning, Smith had gone rigid, beginning to convulse. If Kirk and McCoy hadn’t reached out to steady him and ease him back onto bed, he would have fallen to the floor.

 “Ernst!”

Smith’s eyes were wide open, unfocussed. He wasn’t seeing any of them. His mouth opened and closed as if he was trying desperately to speak, but no words came out. McCoy’s hands darted to the medkit beside every bed and selected a hypo in a swift sure movement. Smith let out what sounded like a strangled sob. His back arched as if he was being electrocuted.

Kirk, completely out of his element here, could only watch uneasily. It lasted for mere moments, as McCoy pressed the hypo against Smith’s shoulder and the man quieted, body going limp.

 “What the hell was that, Bones?”

 “A grand-mal seizure” McCoy said grimly. “This is worse than I thought, Jim.”

He went to one of the wall-coms, barking sharp orders into it. Finally he turned away from it to face the pale looking captain.

 “It must be a lingering effect of the brain damage. Even with the tech we have, there’s a limit to how much we can fix when it comes to the central system. The brain’s pretty delicate.”

Already McCoy’s assistants were pouring into the room, nurses and neurology specialists, prepping the unconscious Smith for further scans. Never at ease in the sickbay at the best of times, Jim hurried out.

If he had caught sight of the petite girl with wide violet eyes, he would have assumed she was one of the nurses- looked too young to be a doctor. But she had been hidden from his line of sight by the hurrying medbay professionals, all of whom were too busy to notice the stranger in their midst.

And most would not have seen her, anyway.

 Zahna was being very very gentle this time, she was even dressed as these strange grownup-children were, in a little blue dress, but she didn’t have much time. Smith had stepped out of his dome, now that he knew what the monsters were going to do. He thought he could fight them back, but she knew better. Maybe once he could have fought them, after all, he was the one who had locked them up to begin with, but now the monsters had her power. Soon she would have to go back and help, or they would eat him alive and she would be alone with the monsters.

Chapter Text

The Engineering department, as always, hummed with the organized chaos in which it’s chief and most of his people flourished.

If the Bridge was the brain of the Silver Lady, this was her heart – a place where the awesome energies of life pulsed and flowed, never ceasing, where a single falter, a single misstep, could mean death to all the crew of this little floating world. And every single one of Scotty’s laddies and lassies knew that. Any who showed the slightest tendency towards inattention or clumsiness  were ruthlessly weeded out by Scotty with almost Vulcan precision  and shifted to Maintenance. Only the elite, who had proven themselves time and again,  had the permission to even approach the mighty engines which the Scottish engineer  was practically in love with.

There were rumors that whispered how the engineer had once locked the captain himself in the brig for unauthorized access to the Engine Room. (Like most widespread rumors aboard, this had it’s root in truth, not that either of the men involved would admit it – Jim had been a bit too eager to get a look at his ship before officially taking charge. The engineer had seen a  Command division kid  wandering around his precious engines and then offering  the ‘ridiculous’ excuse that he was the new captain…)

Anyway, this was not the sort of place you could afford to have trouble, nor the sort of people who would be likely to precipitate such trouble. So it was with a bunch of startled curses that the off-duty Chief Engineer, dozing in his office, came awake at the sound of the Code Red alarm.

For a second he was convinced it was the Red alert, but no. Whatever the trouble was, it was confined to the engine rooms. In less than a second, Scotty was fully awake and darting at top speed to his endangered bairns. What greeted him was  disaster.

Lieutenant Dale, the officer-in-charge for the moment, looked at the flushed chief with a mixture of horror and mortification.

“Sir, the warp engines…”

Scotty’s flushed face turned the color of pasty as he got a good look at what had happened.  At the burned mass of fused metal and synthetic circuitry. To a layman, the damage would have looked minor. A small section was all that was affected.  Tiny, in comparison to the behemoth engines.

But Scotty and his people knew better. The tiny burnt out section was one of the key  areas  of the coils. Damage here meant serious strain on the dilithium processors and thus on the engines themselves. Strain that  even the mighty warp engines were not built to function under for any considerable time.

 “Slow down. Warp one.”

 “Done, sir” Dale promptly replied. “The minute I saw it  I called the helm to slow.”

 “Good lad.” Scotty was already kneeling before the offending area, inspecting it with infinite care and speed.

“Could be an overload, couldn’t it?” Dale sounded uncertain.

The lad doesn’t really believe that, Scotty supposed, there are too many safeguards to allow for that sort of thing. But he also knows what is the alternative.

“Could be” Scotty murmured, focused on the mess before him. 

The chief engineer didn’t have to look up to see who had arrived –  the rush of footsteps down the corridor, skidding to a stop.

 “Scotty, report.”

 Kirk did minor in Engineering at the Academy, after all. He could  see the seriousness of the situation. Scotty didn’t bother to get up or salute – Kirk wasn’t  much of a stickler for protocol, and even if he had been, right now the engineer had more important things to do. Like make sure they weren’t going to  end up as fragments of radioactive waste in the next few moments.

 “Trouble, sir.” The engineer  said, already moving to the nearest console to re-route power. “It looks like an overload.”

 “Accidental?” the First Officer moves  silent as a cat. Scotty wasn’t aware of his presence till he heard his voice.

“I doubt it.” The engineer made sure to lower his voice so that only Kirk and Spock heard him.

 “How bad?”

Meaning, how will this affect our mission. Kirk was in full captain-mode, not marred by his off-duty wraparound green tunic. (And the very ruffled bedhair).

 “We’ll need some high speed repairs. Normally I’d sue for a planetary orbit, keep her safe and stable while we work this out, or better, a stopover at a starbase. But with that Aberdeen issue…”

“Can we make it to Aberdeen  in time with only in-flight repairs?”

Scotty looked somewhat uncertain.

“ I won’t be able to make any promises on that score till we get started, Captain. If you can talk the Brass into switching ships-“

Kirk cut that idea down before Scotty could get all the words out.

“Sorry, Scotty, no chance of that. No one else can make it.”

 The engineer shook his head glumly.

“Aye sir, thought so. The nearest is Lexington and they’re still limping after that run in with those Yoggoroth beasties.”

“Get this fixed long enough for us to make it to  the colony, then you can take as much time you want for the repairs. Cinexar VI is close enough to the  Aberdeen system. We’ll be able to get whatever we need for repairs from there.” Kirk turned away. “As soon as you can leave this in Dale’s hands, meet us in the Briefing Room.”

It was a solemn group that gathered around the Briefing room table. Kirk glanced round the room. Spock, Scotty, Uhura, Giotto, McCoy. All (except the doctor, of course, but even he had guessed from the others’ expressions) knew what this particular malfunction meant.

 “Sabotage.” Kirk’s tone was calm, but it held enough of a snarl. “Giotto, what does the security feed show?”

The Chief looked uneasy.

“The feed is completely garbled, sir. The videos show just a mass of static at the projected time of attack.”

Of course. When had things ever been  that easy?

“Naturally. If they’re smart enough to target just the right area for max damage, they’d be smart enough to wipe the cameras.”

“We do have the feed intact from the corridor cameras. No one other than approved Engineering personnel entered the department  in the 24 hours before the attack occurred.” “At least that narrows down the suspect pool.”

Scotty’s face was flushed a deep red with both shame and rage. The Judas was one of his laddies. It wasn’t even as if the culprit were a new crew member, one he had not yet had the chance to know and judge. All  crewmembers had been aboard for at least three months – in Deep Space, that is more than enough time to see what someone is made of. It was someone who had already passed his scrutiny, someone who had had the time to know the pulse of the ship, to form attachments. It was something he didn’t want to believe, but so it was.

 “Scotty” Kirk knew how the engineer would react, but this question had to be asked and answered. “You know your people best. Is there any who is more likely than anyone else to…”

The Scot shook his head glumly.

“If ye had asked me yesterday, I’d have said you were daft for suggesting it. I canna imagine one of me laddies…”

“But one did.”

 “Aye, sir. And I’ve given it quite some thought, but…No. None of them seems more likely than another, and to my eye, all seem unlikely.”

Kirk choked down a curse. Of course, if Scotty imagined any of his people capable of hurting his “bairns”, that one wouldn’t have been one of his people long.

 “Giotto. I assume you’ve already gone through the psych profiles?”

 “Yes sir. As  Mr Scott said, all are unlikely, but the likeliest suspects among the unlikely ones are Luisa Prescott, Harley Emersen and Chaithanya Gopinath. Ensign Prescott had an aunt  among the crew of Franklin – Dr Della West. She was reported to be quite distressed.”

“She was sent on mandatory counseling” Scotty interrupted. “Of course the lassie was upset, but she knows her duty.”

“I said they are all unlikely suspects, Mr Scott, just the least unlikely. Lieutenant Emersen was transferred to Engineering from the Science department  against his protest, and considered it a punitive measure.”

 “The lieutenant had been in a relationship with  cartographer Valerie Marlowe, which was later broken off by the lady. The… emotional fallout from the separation made it preferable to separate their work environments lest the efficiency of both suffer.”

If the situation was less serious, McCoy would have chuckled. He was pretty sure  said emotional fallout was the result of Valerie walking in on Emersen and Yeoman Sandra Travers, and the cause of  a sheepish  Emersen showing up in  sickbay  sporting a hand-shaped bruise on his cheek.

 Giotto continued “Lieutenant Gopinath’s girlfriend  Anna Pavlovna was one of the security officers killed in the Balkan ambush. She had, for a time, blamed rashness of the commanding officer for her lover’s death” Kirk winced. He had been the commanding officer “But, by all reports, she seemed to have come to terms with it.”

 “Possible motives, yes. Opportunity?”

 “It could have been set up any time since yesterday’s inspection. We go over the engines once every twenty four hours. Whoever did it used a timer, delayed reaction. All three had been on shift. Had the chance, if they were quick  enough and bold enough.”

The inter-comm beeped.

“Dr Noel calling Briefing Room One. Dr Noel calling-“

McCoy, the nearest to the wall-comm, grabbed it. “Helen? What’s-“

“The captain and Mr Spock are there with you, aren’t they, Len?”

“Yeah, you-“

“I’ve got Emerson here with a hysterical confession and Christine with an even more disturbing theory. The captain and commander should hear both.”

…………………………………..

“Damn.” By the time Nurse Chapel and Dr Noel had finished their explanations, Kirk was practically hoping for a nice safe piece of sabotage. “I assume you’ve already used  scans?”

“Of course. Both  Chris and Emerson show the same spiking of Alpha waves, originating from the same neuron cluster. Chris is almost back to normal now, but Emerson’s still shaken. I’d  suggest giving him a sedative and letting him sleep this off.”

McCoy agreed readily. The young lieutenant was already in a state of panic. Further  interrogation would only send him deeper into  hysteria.  Noel had  asked most of the important questions already.

 “Run this by me again. So Emerson came to you in a panic.”

“ He had apparently sabotaged the engines so as to have them overload at the right moment, then went to sleep.”

 “Went to sleep.” Kirk echoed.

“Apparently, his idea was to have the engines overload and explode, so that he would die in his sleep. According to psych profiles, Emerson is the last man aboard likely to choose suicide, forget a suicide that’d take everyone else with him.”

“And his reason – his girlfriend jilted him? Though that happened two months ago?”

“He claims that a surge of anger filled him. Against Valerie, against Mr Spock for transferring him, against Scotty for not appreciating his efforts – all the petty problems a normal guy in his position would have, blown up to epic proportions. Once it passed, naturally he freaked out.”

 “And nurse Chapel, you  feel  that you had been acting under external influence?”

 “Yes.” Christine still looked somewhat pale, but sure of herself. “It was like…Like someone else’s anger  was flooding me. “

“Emerson claims his own frustrations were amplified. It was different with you?”

She paused a moment as if to make completely sure.

“Yeah. I mean, if it was my frustrations that got amplified, I’d have gone for Dr McCoy.” Or maybe Mr Spock.  

“You caught yourself in time, though.” Noel said. “If this control is external, perhaps the perpetrator realized simply projecting their anger wasn’t as effective as they wanted, they needed to tap into the victim. So they changed strategies when they went for  Emerson.”

A quick learner. Was there any way this could get worse? Kirk went to the inter-comm.

“Giotto, it’s a  Code 11.”

Meaning,  hostile entity playing puppeteer, post guards in  pairs over every strategic location, have all the security cam videos monitored constantly, every one on the watchout for out-of-character behavior, check every system for damage or time bombs, go properly paranoid.

“Was this what happened to the Franklin crew?” Noel asked.

“No” McCoy was sure of that, anyway. “That one was telekinesis. So unless the hitchhiker we picked up is not the one responsible, we got one that digs both  mind and matter control.”

 “Almost all psychic abilities have the same root” Spock agreed.”It’s not unknown for a sufficiently powerful telepath to manifest telekinetic powers, or vice versa.”

“Great. Any clue why it hasn’t gone the same route with us as with the Franklin bunch? Playing cat-and-mouse?”

 “Perhaps, doctor.”

 “Or maybe it’s weakening?” Kirk, more optimistic than his second-in-command, suggested, “ It may well be unable to survive outside it’s native system.”

 “Or it’s  got something big level packed and ready, and don’t want to lose any shots  playing around.”

“Always the optimist, Bones. Well, Science Officer, your opinion?”

“Insufficient data. However, if I were ordered to speculate, I would agree with your conjecture -  Life outside it’s ecosystem could be taxing it’s resources considerably. “

 “Let’s hope the blasted thing is taxed enough for us to grab.”

None of the others bothered replying to the indignant doctor. Even had they intended to, they never got the chance, for at that moment, a strong shudder ran through the ship, knocking everyone  off their feet. The lights flickered, went out, came back again. Gravity failed for a moment.

 “What the…” Even before he was steady on his feet Kirk was reaching for the intercom. “Captain to the Bridge! Sulu, what’s going on over there?”

There were scores of possible answers – unexpected ion storm, attack by a hostile vessel, a pulsar – none of them would have been as alarm worthy as Uhura’s  “I’m afraid we don’t know, sir.”

 Kirk glanced at the others

  “The Inertial dampers quit on us. Sulu’s at the helm now.”

Now horror was plain on every face (except, of course, Spock’s.)They knew what this meant. Without the dampers, the course of the giant starship would have to be maintained with more than human  precision.  Also, more precision than the computer could maintain, since the autopilot software was programmed to take into consideration the effect of the dampers. A minute change in course or speed would impart an inertial force that would reduce the entire crew compliment into so many  bloody smears upon the  metallic walls.

 Thank heavens Sulu was on the Bridge and had sense enough to desert the command chair to take the helm. When Sulu was in the command chair, helm went to DeSalle, a talented enough officer, but right now, they needed the best at the helm.

 “Spock, with me!” The captain and the first officer darted for the nearest turbolift.

“Bridge!” Kirk barked out and the lift began to rise – for a moment. The minute change in the near silent whine of the mechanism would usually have been noted by the captain if his mind had not been preoccupied by whatever was happening to his ship.

The Vulcan, with his capacity for compartmentalization, did note it as soon as it became evident and realized here was trouble. But even he could have done nothing in the split second before the lift gave a violent jerk, much more violent than the earlier tremor.

The captain’s first thought was that even Sulu’s expert hands must have erred. But the next moment it became evident that the disaster was much more localized. The lift ceased it’s upward motion abruptly – then it began to fall. Kirk tried to pull himself to his feet using the levers as handholds – they were not quite in freefall yet, but proceeding with enough speed downwards for fatal damage. Spock, who had managed to keep his feet,  went for the manual control circuits. The plummeting lift began to slow as manual control was initiated.

“That was too damn close” Kirk muttered. Spock turned to him, reaching out a hand to help him up.

The lift chose just that moment to resume it’s plunge in a sudden sickening lurch. Kirk, somewhat to his later chagrin, screamed. He thought he caught sight of someone else for a moment – someone else in the lift with them. A petite girl. All his disoriented Great-Bird-of-Galaxy-I’m-Gonna-Die mind could register of her was  a confused glimpse of wide violet eyes and a blue tunic.

 Spock dived for the manual controls again, and managed to pull the lever down. The lift slowed once again. This time he did not let go of his grip  on the manual controls till the lift ground to a  complete halt at the next level.

Kirk staggered out on legs that felt like jelly. That was much too close a call. It took the captain a few deep breaths  before he was sure he could speak without the risk of throwing up all over his immaculate first officer. Said First Officer had, of course, recovered his Vulcan poise effortlessly (if he had ever lost it in the first place, that is) and moved to the inter-com.                 

     ” Commander Spock to Bridge. Shut down the turbolift system. No one is to use it again till proper inspections have been run and the defect detected.”

 A somewhat confused “Aye, sir” from Uhura – she would practically have the conn now with Sulu at the helm. 

“Captain?” Spock turned to him, concern clear in the  dark eyes though not in the voice.

“I’m fine, Spock.”

In fact, nothing hurt but his ego – seriously, working alongside a Vulcan could sometimes give you an inferiority complex. It’s only now that he begins to process the sight of the girl in the lift – a neardeath hallucination, the combination of his panic and the natural disorientation of freefall? Kirk thought not. Even as they made for the ladders – time to get to the Bridge the old fashioned way – he re examined what he thought he saw, and was convinced.

“Spock. Did you…see someone else? In the lift with us, I mean?”

He expected  a baffled glance (as baffled as a Vulcan could look, anyway) and a question “What do you mean, Captain?”, but Spock only looked  grim.

 “I did not, per se, see the entity, captain. But I sensed another, stronger mind’s proximity.”

“That explains the turbolift. Have to admit, the thing knows who exactly to go for.”

 “In that case, perhaps Mr Scott should be warned. He is the single most essential officer aboard at the moment.”

They had been deposited on deck seven by the lunatic lift, and it’s a long climb to the Bridge. Both made it in record time. The first thing Kirk did was comm. down a warning to the chief engineer – Spock was right. With the number of mechanical failures that were now popping up almost by the minute, the Scottish miracle worker was beyond essential.

Damage reports were pouring in from all sections, tying up Uhura and M’Ress most effectively. Sulu had gotten to the helm in time to prevent complete disaster, but there had been plenty of damage done in the few brief moments. Maintenance and Medical were on overdrive. Even without a possible insanity-inducing intruder loose on the ship, this would have been bad enough.

Sulu’s face was set in grim determination, sweat standing out on his forehead. This was taking much more concentration than he would be able to maintain long term. The best helmsmen had already been summoned. They would take it in twenty-minutes-long turns till the dampers were back online.

“Captain” Uhura called “Report from  lieutenant Giotto. There are several sightings of an intruder aboard – petite  female, early or mid adolescent human appearance,  in a blue tunic, black hair in a sort of ragged pixie cut, violet eyes. All sightings correspond to feelings of serious emotional disturbance. There’re reports of vandalism and assault pouring in from every deck.”

One such act of vandalism had been responsible for the turbolift malfunction that nearly took out the command team.

 Kirk mentally went through  an imaginative litany of Klingon curses. This was Psi2000 all over again.

“Signal Code 11, lieutenant. Shipwide broadcast.”

 He gave the expected PA announcement to the crew – the lowdown on the situation, stay alert, stay calm, they’re getting on top of it, the usual spiel of reassurance. Signing off, he turned to the First Officer, hoping for some reassurance himself.

“ Spock, are you getting anything? On the telepathic field, I mean? Is the entity broadcasting some signal?”

The Vulcan shook his head.

“Nothing I can detect, Captain. But perhaps in a meditative trance I could pinpoint the entity’s location, perhaps communicate with it.”

Kirk frowned. This was a powerful telepath they were dealing with, not to mention a particularly hostile one. From all indications, it could well be powerful enough to overwhelm Spock. No, they weren’t desperate enough to try that strategy yet.

“Right now I need you on the Bridge, Spock. Let’s try the more orthodox means first. Is the entity’s  energy signature registering on the sensors?”  

“It is, but in too diffuse a manner – there are strong echoes left  by each  manifestation. It is near impossible to identify the actual presence.”

Of course it would be. He went to the intercom.

 “Giotto,  do we have the one who sabotaged the dampers?”

 Not that  s/he would actually be responsible, but at least they could be locked up to prevent further damage.

 “ We can’t be 100% sure, sir, but everything points to  lieutenant Evans.” Evans. Kirk tried to recollect who that was – thirty something guy, prematurely grey, astrophysics specialist. “One of the search teams found him hiding in a Jeffries tube, practically catatonic. He’s in sickbay now.”

Speaking of Sickbay…

”I take it that there’s nothing new to report on Smith?”

 “No, sir.”

He had had  a security team dispatched to watch over the Franklin captain, who still lay comatose after his seizure.  Whether or not Smith was aware of the entity’s presence, it would have some kind of connection to him. After all, it had left him alive. Perhaps it would show up to finish him off, perhaps it had been using him as a temporary host.  For the same reason, he had had a protesting McCoy move Smith to one of the isolation cubicles, as far away from the wounded crew members as possible.

……………………………………..

Zahna  had been scared of the monsters from the moment she saw them, but she had not understood just how dangerous they could be. It wasn’t just Ernst who had monsters within. All of these grownup-children did.

And Ernst’s monsters could call to the  other monsters  and wake them up. Oh, not for long, these other monsters did not have the strength to be on their own for long. The  grownup-children always managed to push them back down into the cellars and attics.

 But, though knowing little or nothing about the workings of a starship, Zahna  did know  that those monsters were doing plenty of harm in their temporary freedom.  Ernst’s monsters were enjoying this, calling out to everyone they could reach, as soon as they had figured out how to do it. She had tried, time and again, to warn these strangers. But it never seemed to work. Besides, their monsters scared her a little, too.

Only a few seemed to see her, and even among them, none managed to hear her over the call of the monsters. She didn’t know what to do. Ernst was hurt, hurt very badly. Not in the body, as he had been hurt on the planet.

 On the planet he had seen  all the blood and bodies and turned the  monsters’ power – her power – on himself. Tried to hurt himself, kill himself, as his friends had been hurt and killed. It hadn’t worked, because these strangers came and made him well. But now he was hurt – Ernst himself, not his body. The monsters had turned upon him and savaged him. She had returned in time to save him, to bring him into her dome, but not in time to prevent his being so badly hurt.

 He needed help. Help that she knew how to give, but no longer had the power for. All her  power lay with the monsters, and her attempts  to take it back had been swatted aside almost  without effort.  It would have seemed completely hopeless, if not for the one glimpse of a grown up. At least, she was pretty sure he’s a grown up.

The strange looking man, the cold  one with the dark eyes…She had the sense that there were no monsters in him, that he never gave the monsters a chance to live and grow strong. She had caught only  a brief glimpse of him, but the impression she had received was that in his mind, there were no dark places for monsters to hide, only a cold clear light that was almost frightening in it's merciless clarity. Maybe, just maybe, if she could get him to hear her…..

Chapter Text

“ I assure you, governor Welles, we are making all speed we can”

Kirk had his most confident look pasted on. Technically it was true – they were making the best speed they could. Warp One. The last thing the Aberdeen governor and his people needed  now was to know just how precarious the situation was.

He had debated confiding in the governor – after all, they had the right to know…But one look at the pasty, sweating face and watery bewildered blue eyes convinced him that would be the worst course of action.

The governor of a pleasant,  well developed colony planet, situated far from the borders, Welles was not used to real danger. When he stood for election probably the worst  challenge he had expected to face was a labor strike or two. Already far out of his depth, the only thing that kept him going was implicit trust in the coming rescue.

If he realized the truth – that the Enterprise may not arrive in time, may not arrive at all – he would crack. Kirk had enough experience to know how panic would spread faster than any virus, without a real leader to help stem the tide. So he soothed and promised, mentally crossing his fingers.

 Ending transmission, Kirk turned and gave went to his feelings by punching his cabin wall. A most illogical course of action, as the Vulcan standing beside him almost (but not quite – he had, after all, worked with humans for years) remarked.

 “We’ll never get to Aberdeen in time. Not at this crawl. Till the dampers are fixed we can’t go beyond Warp One – a change in speed would  mash us into jelly”

“Engineer Scott reported that the dampers would come back on line in three hours’ time, captain.”

 “And you know that three hours could mean, quite literally, the difference between life and death.”

 “We could-“

 “We could still make it, yeah, but only if nothing else goes wrong. And that is too optimistic for even me  to hope for as long as we’ve got this damn thing loose on the ship. Your scans haven’t turned up anything?”

The Science Officer looked regretful.

“We have been attempting to filter out the echoes, captain.  But the power surges are markedly unstable.”

 “It’s been quiet for a while now.  You getting a feeling that it is building up for another surge?”

“Intuition is  more your talent than mine, Captain.”

“Smith.” Kirk muttered. “It’s all centered on him. You tried focusing the scans on his vicinity, right?”

 “Of course. But there is nothing conclusive, I’m afraid. If the entity is possessing him, it is not completely confined to his body. Rather, it is using the physical body as an anchor, one it can return to if necessary.”

 “Dracula’s coffin.”

“Pardon?”

 “Never mind.” He paused. “We may have to try the mental contact after all, Spock.”

“I am willing, sir.” He caught the worried look on Jim’s face and continued “The kind of search I am proposing is not as risky as  a mind meld. The entity may not even be aware of my presence to begin with.”

The door buzzer sounded.

“Jim! You two in there?”

“Come in, Bones.”

The CMO looked grumpier and more disheveled than ever.

“We just got the update from Aberdeen Medical Council on Subspace channels. It’s  hell there, Jim. “

Kirk sighed. “I know.”

“And the sickbay is already clogged up, thanks to this blasted hitchhiker. What are we going to do about it, I’d like to know! Do we have a plan yet?”

 “We do.”

Kirk explained.

 McCoy stared.

 “Wait one blasted second, Jim, we don’t know what this thing can do, whether it can nuke Spock’s mind, the way that Nomad thing almost did...”

“We know that we must locate and contain it as soon as possible, doctor. Surely, you of all people are aware how urgently the medical supplies we carry are needed.”

“It won’t do any good if you-“ 

“He knows best here, Bones. If he thinks he can handle it-“

 “Because he has such a great track record of backing off when he’s past his limit, right?”

If he was human, Spock would have been irritated at the manner the doctor was discussing him as if he weren’t present.  As Vulcan, he simply deemed the discussion illogical – after all, it was the only viable option now that the scans had proved useless – and left the room, ignoring the doctor’s exasperated protests.

He did not bother to exchange his on-duty uniform for the traditional meditation robe – the robe was only a matter of convenience, not necessity. However, he did raise the temperature and gravity of the room to Vulcan normal before kneeling to initiate the meditation.

Most meditative exercises can be separated into two categories – introverted and extroverted. Looking deeper into one’s own mind or projecting one’s mind out into the external world. The second variety was, among Vulcans, generally used for relaxation purposes – a few minutes’  feeling of oneness with the universe could be much more refreshing than hours of sleep – but it could also be used to search, to reach out for the signature of another mind. (Part of the reason there were rarely any Missing Person cases on Vulcan – in the rare cases where the family or mate of the individual in question  can’t trace them through the bond, trained  police  officers  could do it easily enough).

 Spock let his mind rise away from the confines of his body, seeking the mind of the stranger. Telepathic, certainly. Telekinetic, probably. (They couldn’t, after all, be sure the same entity was responsible for the murder of the Franklin crew).

 The rainbow hue of human minds – their auras were almost always in a confused swirl of colors, overlapping and intertwining much as their emotions did. It was very rare indeed to meet a human with a stable aura – he had personally encountered only two such individuals. Captain Christopher Pike and Commander – now Captain – Una (better known as Number One), this stability being the main reason that the teenaged Vulcan ensign had accepted them as his mentors, and much much later, friends.

 He sensed the presence of one particular mind close by, the bright,  even-more-chaotic-than-usual  aura unmistakable. Jim. He must have entered the cabin after the meditation trance was initiated, more worried than he had let on. Illogical. If something did go wrong, there would be nothing the psi-null human could do. illogical, but human. He sent his mind further outwards, seeking for the power he knew to be near.

James Kirk  was not the kind of man who could lead from behind the frontlines. He hated the idea of  staying back and sending his men into danger, which was why he always led landing parties personally despite all the logical arguments his first officer presented and all the tirades his CMO (and occasionally  exasperated admiralty) launched into.

But in this case, he had no choice. He felt his insides clench with anxiety as the minutes passed. It was impossible to tell what was happening, whether Spock had zeroed in on the invader, or whether the invader had zeroed in on Spock. He almost got up and began to pace around, but made himself stay still. It probably made little difference – a meditating Vulcan would be completely unaware of any external stimuli. But still…

There were some of the crew who had a high enough ESP rating to register as a warm glow, but no trace of the blaze of power that would mark the dangerous hitchhiker. The entity must have gone dormant for a time….

Wait.

 That was…Yes, it was indeed the presence he had sensed earlier in the turbolift. But not quite. Now it was masked, surrounded by something…Not another consciousness, more like fragments of  a mind…

He could sense a battle being waged. Power. Power so immense that it was almost beyond comprehension, but uncontrolled… Anger too, and a storm of emotions that was much too chaotic even for a human mind…He moved closer, realizing that the combatants, whatever they were, had become aware of his presence.

“ GO BACK!”

 Not a threat, a warning. Even had he been inclined to turn back, the frantic cry had come too late.

The first sensation he became aware of was a voice calling his name. The voice itself was familiar. The note of fear in it was not. As he emerged further from the trance, he realized he was lying half-cradled in someone’s arms, presumably the same one who was pleading for  him to wake up.

“Captain?”

Jim sighed in relief, still somewhat pale.

 “What happened, Spock? It looked like you went into some kind of seizure..”

Almost like Smith had…

”The entity. I located it, but it seems I  underestimated it’s power.” Seeing the expression in the human’s eyes, he added “I am unharmed.”

“Well,  let Bones be the judge of that. We’re heading to the sickbay.”

“Yes, we must.” Spock agreed calmly. “But it is not I who needs help.”

As if on cue, the inter-com shrieked. “Security teams to sickbay! Lovecraft alert! Repeat, Lovecraft alert!”

Yep, Lovecraft alert, alright, Kirk decided as he skidded to a stop outside sickbay. Or what had been the sickbay some minutes ago.

 “Are the patients-“

 “We got them all out.” McCoy reported. The doctor looked more angry than afraid. “Except Smith, that is. This mess is centered on  him. Started in his cubicle, so we had enough of an advance warning to rush everyone out, carry a few out. Chris and M’Benga are setting up a field hospital in the shuttle bay.”

Kirk steeled himself and took a second, longer look. Within the sickbay doors, what greeted them was a landscape straight out of one of the more warped surrealist paintings of the twenty first century.  

Swirling shapes, mad shadows, wild whirlwind colors composed that world. Strange designs and patterns that melted into themselves or tore each other apart, a wild warble of sound that resolved into a frantic chant – of rage or fear, he couldn’t tell. He had to look away, nauseated.

“First telepathic, then telekinetic, now freaking reality warping. What the hell are we dealing with here, Jim?”

Before Kirk could answer, one of the Engineering team looked up from his tricorder scan, alarmed.

“Sir, whatever is going on in there, it’s putting way more pressure on the ship’s framework than it’s built to stand. If this goes on for much longer, there’ll be a hull breach.”

Kirk nodded and stepped closer to the whirlpool landscape.

“Smith! Smith, can you hear me?”

 He had not intended to step in – whatever Bones may think, he did have an instinct of self preservation. Either he moved a bit too close or the chaos within actually reached out and pulled him in. In any case the effect was the same – the sane, familiar world vanished.

Turning back, he saw the door had vanished as well. There was nothing behind and before him except  what seemed like eddies of  a psychedelic mist. Eddies which seemed intent on drawing him further in. He knew he had only to back away, a few steps would surely bring him back to the outside world…But which way was back?

Damn. Less than a minute in and he had already got himself turned around.

 “Spock? Bones?”

Not much use calling out. He couldn’t hear them if they replied, and chances were, they couldn’t hear him either. Right now it was between him and  Smith…Well, the Mr Hyde version of Smith, if he had followed Spock’s hurried explanation correctly. He had more personal experience with the so-called Dark Side of the Soul than most did, and he shuddered at the idea of a being like that wielding the power of a god.

“Smith?” he called both with his voice and his mind.

 No reply came, but before him, a shape began to emerge in the midst of the mist. A shadowy shape, growing clearer…Was the mist fading, or the creature advancing? For a  moment he dared to hope it was…what was she called, Zahna? But no. This thing was no kid, alien or otherwise. And not Dr Jekyll either, he’d bet.

Kirk darted away, trying to circle around the creature. Idiotic, he realized a moment later. This was not a concrete realm. In effect, he was within whatever  was left of Smith’s mind, a place that the hulking brute before him ruled for now. It was upon him before he had moved a step.

Kirk had met his share of some seriously alien looking aliens, including several who were not life-as-we-know-it at the time. But the face that loomed out of the mist was the only one that brought a complete, instinctive revulsion. This was something which was never meant to be brought in to the light, brought before human eyes. Later, trying to explain it to McCoy, he would be faced with the impossibility of expressing in words just what made it so awful.

It was  roughly the size and shape of a man. Even had a face that somewhat  resembled Smith’s. But the face – and the hands that reached  hungrily for him – had a curiously unfinished look. Like a not-very-talented child had been trying to craft a doll from play-doh and lost interest half way.

 He tried to run, to pull away from the  reaching fingers, but he was powerless to move. Some months ago, a disastrous mission involving a body-snatcher had  led to his mind having to be temporarily sheltered within Spock’s. The Vulcan had then pointed out (and demonstrated) that it was his realm in every sense of the term, and physical rules applied only as the telepath saw fit. This was basically the same situation, but this time he was not surrounded by the calm logic of a Vulcan scientist’s mind. This time he was trapped within a mad man’s mind, one which had no intention of releasing him.

“Smith” he called once again, trying to keep his mind off the gory remains of the Franklin crew. “Smith, we can-“  

 “No talking, Captain Perfect. Not this time.” It was something of a surprise to hear the thing speak. somehow he had expected it to just growl like an animal.

 “Smith, this…Whatever it is you are doing…It’s placing too much stress on the ship.” Even animals had an instinct of self-preservation. “You keep this up, you’re gonna cause a hull breach” Was hull-breach too sophisticated a term for it to grasp? “The ship –at least this part of the ship, I guess they’ve sealed off this section by now – would blow up”

“I know what a hull breach means, Kirk. Even now you can’t quit patronizing me, can you?”

 Nope, definitely no animal level.

”In that case, you also know that you will not survive the breach.”

It laughed. “My poor dear captain. What makes you think I want to survive?”

They definitely would have been better off dealing with an animal. It was only the sapient species which  had such a low regard for self preservation. This wasn’t Smith’s evil side, the way his own shadow self had been. No animal cunning here, no simple pursuit of pleasure. This was a  part of Smith’s self that was meant to be hidden for ever, a part that loathed itself as much as it loathed the outside world.

“Smith. You need help. We can help you, heal you. You don’t have to hurt anymore.”

The real Smith must be somewhere in here. And the girl. Perhaps, if he stalled long enough…

”Help?” the word was practically spat out. “Help! Oh, yes, that’s your role. The protectors. The starship people.It’s you who’re going to need help this time, and there’s precious little of it going around, you know. I don’t think any can be spared  right now, sorry.”

 It was like being caught in the midst of a tornado. Near-substanceless hands were tearing at him, trying to pull him apart, bit by bit. All the pent-up fury now directed against the man who had everything Smith so badly craved.

Kirk tried to resist, tried to hold onto himself, but he was helpless. It was like thousands of small animals were attacking him all at once, tearing away chunks of flesh, bits of skin.. For a moment he could not even remember who he was, Kirk or Smith or someone else altogether.

He nearly screamed when a cold hand abruptly clamped down on his arm. Probably would have screamed, had not a quiet voice called “Captain?”

The assault ceased, driven away by the newcomer’s shields.

“Spock.” Kirk had managed to regain his composure. “You do have a knack of arriving in the nick of time.”

“I had some difficulty locating you.”

Convinced that the captain was  mostly unharmed, Spock turned his attention to their  surroundings. Bound so long in the darkness, the  ‘monsters’ had apparently sought to mask themselves in light this time. Even with Vulcan shields, they were far from safe here.

 The whirlwind raged around them, threatening to take them apart, hues that they had no name for, shapes that should not exist. Dazzling bright, brimming with  power, and utterly meaningless.

 It was well that the  disordered mind had  focused on the captain. It had failed to detect  the quieter power the Vulcan held ready. Spock knew that he could not win a battle fought on this turf. Of course, that left only the option of changing the turf.

The Vulcan diverted all the power of his considerable will into making order out of this chaos. The mad landscape rippled, pulsed, then, in a transformation so swift that it looked like something the holodeck may conjure up, morphed into the red-gold sands of the Vulcan desert.

Vulcan’s Forge. Home to  the pacifistic, logical race who held  the bloodmad warriors buried deep within. The familiar landscape, refuge of his lonely childhood,  the singing dunes and the jagged lava rocks sculpted into strange shapes by the sand storms.  A  beautiful, but harsh world that demanded nothing less than perfection from her offspring. The desert, the scene of the Kahs-wan test stood as the symbol of  strength, control, power. Order imposed upon chaos, logic  overwhelming  madness.

“Cool” Kirk grinned.

The creature before them screamed, fought. But it  fought with the wild lashing out of an amateur – strong, incredibly so, but untrained, undisciplined. Spock avoided the surge of power that tried to wrap itself around him, side stepping with the grace of a ballet dancer. “I can kill you!” it screamed.

“I can still kill you both! Even here!”

Spock knew  that this was indeed  true. There was so much power here, dormant, waiting to be tapped by the mad man’s rage. Next to this mental cache, the Warp Core itself  seemed as harmless as a kid’s firecracker. He could hold it off for a while. But overpower it? No,  even Vulcan mental disciplines had their limitations.

“You cannot defeat me, Vulcan!”

 “Perhaps.” Spock admitted calmly.”But I will try my utmost to do so.”

Smith snarled. A stronger wind sprang up suddenly, one of the dreaded sandfunnels. Flame hot sand, heated by the merciless fires of Eridani 40, flew at their faces, eyes, like a million red hot needles. Spock took a deep breath, ignoring the burning sand that seemed to fill his lungs. This was mere illusion, conjured by his own mind, turned against him. The sand ceased to sting, the storm ceased. The certainty defended him.

But his  human captain  had no such shield of faith. Kirk staggered back with a sharp cry. Spock could not enter his mind to shield him this time. They were both within another mind to begin with. With a swift gesture (which resembled a magician’s flourish more than the logical first officer would care to acknowledge) he conjured before them a forcefield against which the sands broke like tides upon a seawall.  Kirk, recovering enough to notice, grinned appreciatively. However, the Smith-creature still stood on the other side.

“ Your powers are limited, Vulcan. Captain, do you realize how helpless you both would soon be? He cannot last long against me – you, you I would smash like a bug. Humans are so easily impressed.”

“You are human” Kirk shot back. (Granted, the effect was probably a bit ruined by the fact that  he was still trying to cough out sand, but still…).

“I was. But now I am reborn.” It’s eyes narrowed. “To think I wanted nothing more than to be one of you! One of those Caesars of the stars!”

The sandstorm  changed to flames in an instant, surging against the force field. Spock’s  eyes narrowed as the  Smith-creature  made a swift conjuring gesture.

“Stand back, Captain.”

 Later, when trying to describe it to an incredulous Bones, Jim would say it was like a scene out of some old Holovid. A duel of sorcerers, power whirling round them in bright streams and waves of energy, dazzling bright and deadly, reality – what passed for reality here – merging and rippling and changing around them.

 The place seemed to change – the blood red sands of Vulcan’s Forge giving way to icy tundra, to the darkness of an airless moon, to a roaring storm shorn sea, then back again to the desert, shifting and changing wildly as first one and then the other dominated the battle.

 Neither actually, physically, struck the other, but both had begun to  bleed, long slashes torn open in their flesh as if  the waves of light and sound that roared around them were blades as sharp and cold as a Romulan dagger.

At first Kirk  tried to help, but very soon realized he was merely distracting the Vulcan. The captain’s  willpower was indeed formidable, but he lacked  both Smith’s mad strength and Spock’s ironclad control. He was helpless before the onslaught of images Smith bombarded him with, and had to be pulled away by the First Officer  at the last moment.  

Spock was locked in battle with whatever Smith had become – he could not afford to spare any power to defend his human friend. This was the realm of  the mind – where dreams and nightmares could be forged into reality as clear and deadly as any weapon.

A place where ‘Mind Over Matter’ was not merely an inspirational quote, but literal and deadly truth. Where Captain James T Kirk was helpless to defend his friend, helpless to defend his people – for he had no illusions about what would happen, should  the Smith-creature  triumph.

 And unfortunately, that scenario was beginning to seem more and more likely by the minute. Spock was extremely skilled, not to mention well trained. But even he was tiring before the onslaught of Smith’s relentless strength. Jim, doomed to the role of the onlooker, a role he despised in any situation, forget one as dire as this, let his eyes wander over the everchanging  backdrop around them.

The sands stretched to infinity on all sides. Relentless. The place of trial, was it not? The Kahs-waan desert into which Vulcan children ventured, to prove themselves…

The first time he caught a glimpse of the shimmering aura, Kirk thought it was merely his eyes playing tricks on him, befuddled by the unaccustomed bright light of the alien star. Or that the scene was to be changed again, as Smith got the upper hand for the moment.

But then the shimmer solidified – only for an instant, but long enough for him to catch a glimpse of a blue medical tunic and wide violet eyes.

Chapter Text

But then the shimmer solidified – only for an instant, but long enough for him to catch a glimpse of a blue medical tunic and wide violet eyes. Then she was gone, as if blown apart by the sandstorm that had now begun to rage, but a voice- the voice of a girl, almost a child, whispered

“ I’m so sorry. I tried to stop them, but  I don’t know how!”

Zahna. Must be her.  

“Zahna? Is that you?”

No reply. Was the kid scared, trying to get away from the fight? Or scared of him? Considering what she had seen of Smith’s mind, that wouldn’t surprise him.

 “Zahna, I’m a friend, okay?”

He glanced at Spock and the Smith-creature, locked in battle. Maybe if he moved a bit away from ground zero…

”I tried.” the girl’s voice pleaded again.

No hostility  there, at least. There was no way to be sure just how much of her power was still in her control, but given the track record, it would probably be more than enough to blast him into atoms if she panicked.

 “I tried, I know it’s my power, but I can’t take it back!”

 “Could you try once more, Zahna? We are-“

 “I know! I heard you tell  the monster!” She sounded close to tears. “I thought they’d come to take me away, take me to the others, but…”

 “It wasn’t your fault, kiddo.”

 Spock hadn’t had time to explain much, but he had made that very clear. It wasn’t the ‘intruder’ who was the problem here.

 “That doesn’t change anything! You said the ship’s gonna blow up!”

And all the grownup-babies would die, and it’d be me - my power- that killed them.

“Not if we stop  the monsters.”

“ We can’t! Your…brother…He’s trying, but he’s not strong enough,  he can’t fight it alone!”

 She had almost said ‘keeper’, but her brief contact with the strange grownup’s mind had told her that it was not quite  the right term, and even if it was, it would only offend them. Kirk  didn’t bother to correct the relationship misunderstanding. It was close enough, anyway.

“Then help him, Zahna. He’ll know how to take your power back.”

 “He knows. He told me.”

 “Then…”

 “It’ll distract him from the fight, if I join him now. Just a moment, but the monster’s right there and it’ll kill him, kill us both, he’s already hurt bad.”

Hurt bad? Jim really didn’t like the sound of that, especially as he could no longer see the dueling pair.

“I’ll distract it.”

 “You can’t.”

 “Watch me try.”

“No, you really can’t! It knows you can’t hurt it, it won’t bother with you!”

 Um. Yeah. The kid had a point. The Smith-creature could swat him like a fly. Any distraction he provided wouldn’t last too long.

“We have to do something, Zahna. Tell you what, I’ll-“

“Go get Ernst!”

“Ernst?” He involuntarily glanced towards  the creature.

“That’s not Ernst! That’s the monster!”

Her form was solidifying now. Kirk got his first good  look at the hitchhiker. Damn. She couldn’t be more than twelve (or whatever the equivalent was among her folk). A kid this young had no business anywhere near this fight. He would have been mortified to know that Zahna’s thoughts regarding him ran in a somewhat similar direction.

 “Go find Ernst!” she repeated again, almost stamping her foot in frustration. “He can distract the monster! He did it once, he came out from the dome, but then  the monsters were all so strong and I couldn’t help and he got hurt, but if he comes out now, we can –“

 “Whoa, slow down, kid. Where’s Ernst? Do you know?”

 She pointed towards the bluish mountains in the distance.

 “There. That way.  Run really really fast”

 “All the way to the mountains?”

 “No, just look at the mountains and run! You’ll know when you get there, run!” 

Taking orders from pre-teen girls. It’s  really not your day, James T.  But he had to admit that the kid’s idea made sense. After all, wasn’t that his original plan – try to reach Smith, talk him down?

 “Any more of those monsters around, Zahna?  Can you tell?”

She paused, eyes narrowed as if checking something on a mental radar.

“No. there were a lot, but they all sorta…merged to fight  your brother.”

That at least took care of one worry.

 “You can run really fast, can’t you?” Zahna asked nervously.

 Jim  gave her his most confident grin.

“You bet, kid.”

 Fact was, he couldn’t. Spock had called up Vulcan’s Forge to give himself the homeground advantage. Definitely a smart move. But even more definitely a disadvantage for a human captain trying what amounted to a high-speed cross-country  marathon through it’s flaming heat and thrice-Earth gravity.

Jim was already puffing and panting. Quit being a wimp, James T, he told himself in his best drill-sergeant voice. Vulcan seven year olds go trekking here!

Um, speaking of seven year olds…Hopefully Spock’s  conjured desert wouldn’t be true enough to life to include le-matyas (aka  combination snake and mountain-lion-on-steroids)…Or that carnivorous vine that nearly had Bones for breakfast last time they vacationed on Vulcan…

When the transition came, it was so abrupt that Kirk thought the sun had finally boiled his brains enough for hallucinations. Because  it looked like he had run right into the Starfleet Academy. But not the Academy as he remembered, the Academy as it was.

 This place was empty, desolate. No chattering students, no professors calling classes to order, no barked commands from the training fields, no humming of  transporters as some one or the other beamed down or away almost every minute.

 Nothing.

Silent.

 Empty.

 No, not quite empty. Grey forms drifted aimlessly through the corridors, as insubstantial as shadows  themselves. Lost.

The corridors were festooned with cobwebs, the metallic silver grey paint peeling, the walls themselves cracked and stained. The bold arrowhead insignia of the Fleet was so coated with grime that he could barely  recognize  it.

This was an abandoned world. No, worse, this was a dead world, a world denied its decent burial.  Smith is in here? This is what his psyche chose to hide out in? Dehner and her people would have a field day with this.

“Smith!” he called. His voice echoed eerily through the  grey corridor. “Smith! Smith!”

No answer came. Could Smith even hear him? Where was he right now…This looked like the student quarters…Was Smith hiding out in his old room? What was his room number?

 Five…Their  batch all had rooms starting on five…Think, James T! Wait. That prank he tried to play on Finnegan, the one that backfired when he got the rooms mixed up and accidentally pranked Smith instead.. So Smith’s room  must have been pretty close to the upper-classmen rooms, with a number similar to Finnegan’s…Five..Two…Got it! Five Two B.

 He had almost expected to see a teenaged cadet Smith in the room, but Smith looked his proper age. If anything, a decade or so older. The other man looked up at Jim, his face pale, resigned.

“Is it nearly over?”

 It was the tone that set Jim’s alarm bells ringing. Smith sounded defeated. He had already given up.

“It’s nearly over for the  opposite team.” Kirk declared, making his tone jaunty enough to neutralize Smith’ despair. “But we do need  you to come deliver the coup-de-grace, though.”

 Smith gave a harsh, humorless laugh.

 “The Lie-Through-Your-Teeth basic course was in the second year?”

“Nah, third year. Or we’d figure out too early that the instructors are full of bullshit.”

 “You haven’t changed much, have you, Kirk?”

 “Maybe, maybe not.” He paused. Dropped the jaunty tone. “But you seem to have changed a great deal indeed, Ernst, if you are actually going to sit here and let the bastards who killed your crew get away with it.”

 The same laugh again, now with a tinge of hysteria.

“That bastard is sitting right here, Cap.”

“No, it is out there trying to kill my first officer. All that’s in our minds don’t belong to us, Ernst. Believe me, I learned that the hard way.”

He began to talk, rapidly, but not skipping any part, telling Smith more than anyone else (except perhaps Spock) knew about the ‘transporter mishap of the year.’ In the corridor outside, the grey forms gathered, fingers occasionally brushing the window,  soft incoherent whispers  providing a background hum.

“That thing out there, it’s more or less the same, Ernst. In you, yeah, but not you.”

He had held Smith’s attention, but that was not enough. It wasn’t the same. He- his shadow self -  had been stopped before he had done  anything …irreversible.  Smith hadn’t been that lucky.

What could one say to a man who went through something like this? What could convince such a man to pull through?

It was not his reassurances that Smith needed. He was too impersonal, a casual acquaintance of the Academy days, a stranger. The broken man before him needed a friend’s hand, a friend’s heart…

His eyes went to the grey shadows that pressed  in at the windows. They  no longer seemed menacing. Or purposeless, for that matter. They were watching. Listening. As if…

”Your people, Ernst. Your crew. They –“

“You think I’ve forgotten them?”

There was no anger in Smith’s tone. He was too worn out for that. Just  pain that went so deep that Kirk almost couldn’t bear to look upon it.

“I can see them, Kirk. Every single one of them. Lilian, humming that song of hers…Eddie, he had just managed to get that Andorian girl at the base to agree to a date.. Doc Della, she’s the last one I remember seeing, down on that blasted planet..”

 Smith was growing more agitated as the recital went on. But Kirk was no longer paying attention to him. His eyes were fixed, instead, upon the grey shadows that hovered near the door now. No longer quite so grey, or quite so shadowy.

He let Smith  talk, let him unknowingly call up the ones he was eulogizing, in his own manner. And watched each shadow grow more distinct, take on color and form and voices.

 The first to  truly form was a petite blonde. Lilian Hopkins. The Pollyanna girl. She was the first to step through the door, half walking, half floating, to her oblivious captain’s side.

 Kirk stepped back to let her pass, and the others followed her. Now their voices were no longer confined to murmurs.  Ernst Smith looked up into the smiling blue eyes he had never expected to see again.

 Jim  moved away, stepped out of the room. It seemed   sacrilege to listen to the whispered words that passed between the dead crew and their captain. He was taking a risk, but it wasn’t as wild as his usual gambles were.

Smith was a good captain, and he knew his crew. Some part of his mind would remember that. The mind tries so hard to lock away it’s demons that sometimes it catches an angel or two as well in the darkness. There was little time, he knew that. If only…

He blinked. The place was changing. Melting, shuddering a little. For a second he thought he was wrong, the gamble had fallen through. But then he noticed that the walls were not crumbling as he had feared. It was morphing, just as his surroundings were.

 He had to close his eyes, dizzy with the sudden changes in angles and corners around him. When it finally felt safe to look again, the ghostly Academy was gone.

He stood beside Smith on the tiny Bridge of USS Franklin. The other captain was still pale, lines  of pain etched just as deeply in his face, but the dullness of despair had gone from his eyes.

“Lift off, Captain?” he asked.

 “Your Bridge, your rule” Kirk replied.

……………………………….

 The Smith-creature  noticed the change first.  Spock and Zahna had taken the roar of the approaching scoutship to be just another side effect of the mental duel, but the creature  could sense the  rapidly nearing presence of the will that had bound it so firm once. The will that could bind it again. 

Smith’s hands went to the  ship’s phaser controls. Kirk almost moved to pull him away – those weapons were nowhere near as powerful as the ones he was used to, but they were definitely powerful enough to vaporize Spock and Zahna along with their opponent.

 But this wasn’t the real world. Real world rules no longer applied. Instinct – and perhaps an echo of all the telepathic signals flying to and fro around him – told Jim that these weapons would not touch anyone but the single target.

  The phaser beams momentarily outshone Eridani itself as they converged on the half-formed  creature. It would not be enough to kill it –not even enough to seriously harm it. but it did distract it, and that was all Spock and Zahna needed.

 Kirk, even from his vantage point, could not see exactly what happened. For one horrible moment as the dazzling effect of the phaser glare faded, he thought Smith had  miscalculated after all – only two beings stood where once there had been three, and the creature was still present. Then he got a clearer look .

The new being looked mostly like Spock. But the eyes were Zahna’s – wide and violet and much too young to be in a mess like this.  Silvery flames wreathed   him – them – like a  shimmering halo.

For the first time in a very long while, Zahna felt safe. At last there was the calm shelter of a grownup’s mind, shielding her, guiding her. The monster didn’t look quite so threatening anymore. It was something out of a nightmare, and nightmares always faded when  a grownup turned  the lights on. 

The grownup – Spock of Vulcan, another strange name – lacked the strength of the minds she had once merged with. Zaxrees, Xenethin, L’Xasar, all  who had once guided her before the bad times came.

 But he knew how to use the strength he did have with such precision that it had allowed him to hold at bay all the  power  the monster had taken from her.

The monster was still snarling. Something about killing her, killing them. It didn’t matter. She – they – won’t let it.

 “The power is meant to be shared” she said calmly. “If you won’t share, it’s mine to take back as I please.”

It lashed out, sending a surge of violent power at them. Exactly what they had hoped it would do. Zahna/Spock reached out to grasp the power flung at them, as a  cowboy may grasp the whip that lashed out at him to pull it out of his opponent’s grip. It was much the same here.

For a second, the surge of power scared Zahna, almost made her back off, fearing that it would turn on her. But the grownup’s quiet voice spoke again, guiding her, reassuring her. Providing the precise control that was beyond her ability.

 It was her power, it couldn’t hurt her, not unless she let it.  it yearned to flow back into her, knowing that it did not belong to the monsters.  The  power which should have obliterated the merged being  flowed into it, into Zahna.

The Smith-creature screamed. Perhaps it felt itself begin to die. Or atleast felt part of itself being torn away. Zahna  almost felt sorry for it, then remembered what it had done to Ernst’s friends  down there on the planet.  It was her turn now to be whole again.

 Kirk wasn’t  sure at what point the conjured  Franklin vanished, depositing him and Ernst Smith gently on the desert  sands. One minute he was on the  cluttered bridge, the next minute he was  two feet away from the flailing Smith-creature.

There was no question now which way the fight was going. The silvery flames around  ZahnaSpock  had wrapped themselves around the Smith-creature, as if they were the tentacles of some deep sea creature sucking away it’s prey’s lifeforce efficiently, ruthlessly.

 Finally the flames faded, shrinking back into their form. The creature stumbled, turned as if to flee. And found itself face to face with Smith.

Zahna had taken back every fragment of her power that had overloaded Smith’s mind, but he had a power of his own over this half-formed monstrosity.

As he advanced upon it, it seemed to be shrinking, crumbling in upon itself, dissolving. Smith did not, perhaps could not, say a word. He didn’t need to. Zahna had that right – monsters can’t live long in the light.

…………………………………..

Zahna  stood once again in the clearing she had conjured up – but this time there was no need of a dome to hide behind. She was safe here. Spock  stood beside her.

 “You did well, Zahna.”

 He didn’t smile as he said it, but she could see the smile in his eyes.

  “Can’t I stay with you? Do I have to go away?”

  “We must end the meld, Zahna.”

 She knew that. And she knew why. The illusion of being safe in a grownup’s mind once more had been  just that – an illusion. Spock  of Vulcan was as  smart and gentle as  Zaxrees had been, but he was not Zaxrees.

He was not one of her people. Her people were all gone, they had not come back for her as she had thought. They were gone.

Spock’s form shimmered, as if about to vanish. He was..less there. Zahna’s eyes widened in horror as she realized what was happening.

He was hurt worse than he had let on. The battle with the monster..It had cost him too much of his strength to hold it at bay. That was why he was in so much of a hurry to break the meld. He was dying, and he was afraid she would be pulled into death as well if their minds were linked.

She almost screamed. No one was supposed to die! No one!  That was why she had fought so hard to get past the monsters. To stop them from killing anyone else. 

“Zahnalan, do not grieve, I..”

“You aren’t supposed to die!” She felt the mental links between them being severed. “No! no, don’t go away, I can set this right!”

 I must. Zaxrees taught me enough for this.

She closed her eyes, went deep into the core of her power, the calm center.

 Heal him. Give him strength.  Reach for a different sort of power, not the power that  is for battle.

This time the wave of energy that flowed from her was gentle, completely controlled.  It settled as a mantle of blue-white light over Spock who looked startled for a moment.

 It was working,  Zahna realized, having hardly dared to hope. Healing was among the first-taught-skills, but also the trickiest to actually use. It was working.  

She could sense his heartbeat gaining it’s normal speed and rhythm, his wounds healing, strength flowing from her to him. He was worried what it would do to her, and Zahna almost laughed. She had more than enough strength to spare.  

The life force  that revived him was only a fraction of her power. Even had  it been more, much more, she would willingly have given it. No more lives would be taken by her power,  certainly not his.

...............................

 Jim blinked as he found himself back in sickbay. The  mad fog had vanished, leaving only the prosaic, dependable real world.

Spock,  looking slightly dazed and a bit too pale, was beside him. Beside Spock stood a child -  Zahna. She didn’t look much different in the real world than she had in the …Astral plane, or wherever they had been.  The three of them  had materialized surrounding one of the biobeds. A biobed  in which Smith’s still form lay.

Chapter Text

 Once again, the usual group – Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura,  Giotto, Noel -  met around the Briefing Room table.

This meeting had a considerably more relaxed air, as no one had to worry about imminent disintegration – for now, at least.  Things were more or less back to normal, as far as ship business went. They were making good time to Aberdeen,  finally back at top warp speed again.

But it was hardly a case-closed situation. Too many loose ends remained to deal with. Kirk hoped to get at least half of those tied up by the end of the meeting.

“Bones, what’s the prognosis on Smith?”

  “He’s still comatose, but nearing the surface steadily. Zahna asked if she could help, but better not risk it. Her brand of power doesn’t go too well with non-telepathic minds. The neural damage is healing nicely, but that of course, is the least of his problems. Prognosis on that would be more Helen’s province than mine, I’m afraid.”

Helen Noel  nodded and took over.

“I would be inclined to be optimistic. From what we know happened within the…psychic plane, let’s say,  he has made the first step. However, what happened to him on the planet and later within his own mind, is no small matter to recover from. It will take time.  I’ve contacted  Dr T’Ress  at  Cinexar VI” she paused “We are heading to Cinexar VI after Aberdeen, aren’t we?”

 “Definitely.” Kirk agreed, catching Scotty’s horrified expression at the very suggestion that repairs to his bairns may be delayed.

 “Good. Cinexar has one of the best mental health facilities of this sector.  They’ll have Captain Smith back to normal soon enough.”

“The kid will be glad to hear that.” McCoy  commented. “Speaking of her…”

 “She’s remarkably well adjusted, from what  I can tell. Of course, we don’t have any Norm readings for her people, so  I can’t be sure. “

 “The xenosociology department  is working on constructing a reliable model of the planet’s  culture from what Zahna  has  been able to tell them. “

 It wasn’t as much as they would have liked to know, though. Zahna had the typical easy going  pre –teen’s  attitude of letting most of the world drift by. She could tell them her people’s name for themselves (Xenedian – children of  the stars), their name for their world (Xendia – Haven).  She  could tell them a lot about her village and her friends, but she had little clue  whether  or not  their lifestyle  was typical of the planet’s culture in general.

 “The data obtained till date gives  the  picture of a Class Seven  species.  They  can exist either as energy beings or in physical bodies. The latter are mostly constructs, though they tend to maintain one single form. Certain of the elders were capable of shapeshifting, according to Zahna. She has never see evidence of this skill, though. It could well be a children’s legend. Zahna herself is incapable of  appearing in any form other than her current one, and occasionally finds it difficult to maintain it so as to be visible to us.”

“That was what went wrong down on the planet. The Franklin crew couldn’t hear her and when she tried to telepathically contact them..” Kirk sighed. “That’s almost always the problem, isn’t it?”

 Poor communication kills isn’t hyperbole out  in space.

“Do we know what wiped  out the Xenedians?” Uhura asked.

“A  psychoactive virus. Nothing that can affect us, no need to worry about that.” McCoy  replied. “But it spread like wildfire through them. The kid doesn’t know too much about it. naturally, they tried to keep the worst news from the children. From what she did find  out before the end, the  disease spread through almost 95% of the population. Finally it mutated into a harmless form, but  by then their world was in chaos. Too many  dead, the ones  who remained  too shellshocked to  take on putting the world back together again. The usual aftermaths of a societal collapse – famines, supply chains ruined, other diseases…No riots or violence, though. Or maybe that was just her part of the world.”

“A Class Seven society would have progressed beyond such barbarous behavior, doctor.”

“Not always when Apocalypse comes knocking.  Anyhow, they just….The damage was too great.  From what she told us, it sounds like everyone that survived just went and put themselves into some kind of suspended animation. Zahna is the only one who survived long enough.”

 “Mass suicide?”

 “Maybe. Zahna  was told that  people would come to rescue them, but that…Well, would you tell  a kid that their entire world was doomed? No, don’t answer that, Spock!” 

The Vulcan raised an eyebrow, but remained silent.

“Can we be sure no one else survived?” Kirk asked.

 “Ms Zahna is sure of  it, Captain. The  arrival of sentient species was enough to awaken her mostly because her world had been completely silent for so long.”

 “So she is the last of her race. The last survivor of her world.”

Giotto was the first to voice what was lurking at the back of everyone’s mind.

 “Pardon me, sir, but…Is there a possibility that the young lady could be…dangerous?”

If looks could kill, Dr McCoy would have been guilty of homicide then and there.

“ We are not talking about a ‘young lady’ as you put it. We are talking about a little girl. If you still think it was she who was responsible for-“

“Doctor, I know quite well she’s innocent in what happened, but innocent doesn’t mean safe, does it? Not in your line of work, and not in mine. She’s a little girl, yes, but would you feel easy knowing that a little girl has her hands on enough power to blow us straight out of space? Especially when the little girl in question has been through enough trauma to have an adult civilian in therapy for months?”

 “So you-“

“Bones.”

McCoy quieted down.

“Spock, you have seen into her mind. What do you think?”

The first officer hesitated a moment before replying.

“I agree with Lt Giotto.”

“Of all the….Damn it, Spock,  you owe your life to her!”

“I do, and she has my gratitude.  But that does not change the facts, Doctor.” 

“She has been quite willing to obey and learn, Spock. When she saw we knew what to do, she pitched in and helped. She follows all the rules we set for her, cooperates enthusiastically.  All reports indicate her to be a sweet, gentle child.”

“But she won’t be a child much longer, Captain” Noel stepped in. “ Far as I can  figure out, she is in her late childhood, the equivalent of a human child of eleven or twelve. She has a  well-cared for child’s automatic  faith in adults, though she seems to recognize only one of us as adult..”

Noel  grinned as she glanced at Spock.

“ But she is soon going to enter adolescence. The basic stages of life  are  pretty uniform among most sapient species. As she behaves  now  like a normal child, we can assume she will behave  like a normal teenager in the near future.”

Giotto grimaced. No one would be likely to forget the last reality warping teenager they encountered. Especially not the security chief himself, who had spent most of that particular temper tantrum as an unusually large purple  frog.

“I have seen into Ms Zahna’s mind. She has too well developed a sense of empathy, as well as right and wrong, to be another Charlie Evans. With her, the danger is not malice or selfishness, but simple naivete. If she causes harm, it will be in a misguided attempt to do good.”

 Vulcans age slower than humans – Spock was not as far past adolescence as the others present. He still remembered  perfectly well what those turbulent (yes, turbulent even for  Vulcans)  years had been like. There had been insecurity and confusion, but there had also been, paradoxically, an overconfidence in his own skill. The certainty that he, and only he, had the right answers, that whatever the problem was, it could be solved if only the adults would listen to him.

 Kirk was evidently thinking along the same lines.

 “And this teenager would be able to get grownups to listen to her…”

“Precisely, Captain.”

“All teens go through a phase like that.”

 “Yes” Noel  admitted. “They need to be guided through it, by those whom they would  accept as superior. A parent, elder sibling, teacher, any one who has gone through a similar struggle.”

“But Zahna would find no such guide.” Kirk mused. “Her people are gone, and with them, the guides who should have been.  Vulcan elders can teach her to control her telepathy, but the rest of her arsenal…”

 “Not Vulcans, Captain. Organians.”

 Kirk shook his head somewhat regretfully.

“A good idea in theory, yes, but it won’t work, Spock. You know how insular they are. No way they’ll take on the training and care of an alien child. Not to mention Fleet Command. They’re still seething over how  Ayelbourne basically held peace talks at gun point.”

Spock, who had considered the Organian’s method highly logical (and the only approach likely to work with the Klingons involved), chose not to contest the second point.

 “ There is a high degree of probability that the Xenedians were an Organian colony, Captain.”

 The others stared at him.

 “The  Xenosociology department’s report  didn’t mention that, did they?”

 “No. I am basing my conclusions on the similarity I sensed between Ms Zahna’s  psychic  aura and that of the Organians.”

A mindmeld, or even a lighter mindtouch,  allows the participants to ‘see’ and recognize each other. As any sighted person who had prior encounter with a Vulcan or Klingon could identify a member of that species by sight, a telepath who had once encountered the distinctive psychic signature of a species could recognize it again elsewhere.

 He would probably have recognized the  Organian presence earlier, had it not been for the fact that  Zahna’s powers (whether under her own control or not) had been initially used for aggressive, at best defensive, actions alone. As  such, there had been no point of reference with the  energy signatures of the obsessively pacifist Organians.

But  Zahna had used her powers in a different fashion - to heal him. Spock  had felt an Organian’s healing touch once before, when  Elder  Trefayne unobtrusively  healed the damage the Klingon Mind Sifter had inflicted. (Damage that had been considerably more serious than he had led the captain to assume.)

 “How sure are you?”

 An Organian child. This definitely put a different complexion on things.

“98.76%.”

 “That is pretty sure.”McCoy drawled.

He, for one, didn’t particularly like the idea of consigning the kid to the care of the snobbish  reality warpers.  But what else could be done?

“There are certain subtle differences, but only those which would naturally  be seen between a branched species, say Vulcans and Romulans.  It could be that Xenedians were a  group that branched off from Organia for reasons of their own. Or perhaps a lost colony.”

“Probably the latter, if they were truly expecting a rescue.”

Kirk paused, wondering just how far this new info complicated and simplified  the issue. Organians. He had no particular fondness for them – the one thing James Kirk hated of all things was having control snatched from his hands.

 However, it went without debate that they were well intentioned.  They would watch out for their own.  He had seen personally quite how protective Organians could be  of those who came under their aegis. If they would accept Zahna as one of their own…

 It would probably take some considerable red tape, but if a shared origin could be proved with as much certainty as Spock claimed, the decision would be unanimous.

 “She doesn’t behave like one of those.” McCoy put in.

“Doctor, you have never personally encountered an Organian.  The very few Federation members who interacted with  them have never encountered an Organian child. We know very little about their behavioral patterns.”

“She would be in good hands, Bones.” Kirk  assured him. Of that he had little doubt. “ Besides, she has been alone way too long. She needs the company of her equals. She needs to be taught. She needs a lot of things that we will not be able to give her.  Organians are  her best chance.”

…………………………

“It’s so pretty!” Zahna exclaimed in an awed whisper, practically glued to the glass of the Observation Deck.

 Stars spun in the void, a million jewels set in dark velvet. Billions and more of life in each of the tiny distant worlds they passed. Christine Chapel  stood at the child’s side, a hand on her shoulder. Pretty, indeed. It was a sight that never failed to awe a mortal, no matter how often they looked upon it. There were other crewmembers present, but no one raised their voice above a whisper, even the most gregarious content to merely stand alone and together, lost in the stars. You don’t raise your voice in the presence of Infinity.

Zahna  looked upon the stars as she listened to the discussion in the Briefing Room. Listened to know where she would be sent, to which of the shining worlds outside.

Organia.

 That name was unknown to her, but that was probably the name these star-wanderers had given to it. They called her own world Xeheer Three, after all. (Though the name would be changed to  Xendia soon, the Captain had assured her, now that they knew that was what the natives called it.).

Organia…But the other name – Ayelbourne. That was familiar to her. That was a common name  among the cityfolk, though her villagers had used simpler, more sibilant names. Ayelbourne.  Zahna smiled. She was going home, at last. Grownups had come to take her home, as Zaxrees had promised long ago.