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With a shout-out to David R. George III.

Come on, the guy’s got Roman numerals.

Roman numerals are cool.

Historian’s Note

This story takes place in early 2274, about six months after the V’ger threat was neutralized by the Starship Enterprise (Star Trek: The Motion Picture).

Chapter 1

Doctor Christine Chapel folded down a jump seat from the port bulkhead of the shuttlecraft Copernicus and dropped into it while mumbling a few choice curses she’d picked up from Leonard McCoy over the years. The famously gruff chief medical officer of the Enterprise had been her mentor in many ways—both good and bad.

Her so-called patient, sitting up in the bed on the other side of the cabin, said, “My hearing is unaffected by my condition, you know.”

Chapel didn’t know exactly what role Commissioner Audrid Dax had in the Trill government, but it was important enough that she represented Trill in high-level Federation meetings, and she clearly had a lot of pull. With a sigh, Chapel studied her patient. Dax was in her early middle age, looking quite fit and trim. Beautiful, really, with long dark hair and a friendly face showing only a few laugh lines. Chapel hoped she herself looked that good ten or fifteen years down the road. All of which belied the necessity of this assignment. Dax smiled back at her, somehow charming and smug at the same time, as if she knew everything that Chapel didn’t. Which is exactly the problem, thought Chapel. This whole mission is a mystery.

“I’ll have to take your word on that, won’t I?” Chapel didn’t like that Dax had turned her bedside manner into McCoy’s curmudgeonly approach, but a patient demanding emergency evac yet refusing all medical scans could get under any doctor’s skin.

“I know it’s awkward.” Dax was still smiling, but sympathetically now. “But I can’t ignore centuries of Trill tradition because I’m suffering from a little personal discomfort.”

Chapel nodded her grudging acceptance but turned away from Dax. If this was only a “little personal discomfort,” why were they racing to rendezvous with the Troyval, a Trill starship? The crew cabin of the Copernicus had been quickly reconfigured as an emergency medical unit; a privacy wall separated the cabin from the cockpit aft of the side doors, and a portable diagnostic bed had been installed along the starboard bulkhead—but with its scanners off-line. Chapel distracted herself from her dilemma by thinking about the design improvements these new shuttlecraft had over the shuttles the Enterprise had during the five-year mission. The large drop-down door in the stern allowed various modules to be quickly installed, depending on specific mission needs. She rolled her eyes. First she was channeling McCoy, now she was turning into Scotty.

Spock’s deep voice emanating from a ceiling speaker shook her out of her reverie. “Doctor, may I have a word with you?”

Chapel glanced at Dax. “Excuse me.” She got up and made her way forward, hoping Spock would tell her the Troyval would be meeting them ahead of schedule. As the door of the med unit slid shut behind her, she settled into the copilot seat on Spock’s right. He no longer looked as severe as he had when first returning to the Enterprise six months before at the start of the V’ger mission, but he didn’t often look comfortable either. He’d gone through a lot back then, breaking his Kolinahr training—the path to total logic—and then mind-melding with the giant machine entity V’ger. It had shaken the Vulcan to his core, transforming his outlook on the role of emotions and logic in his life. He was a changed man but still adjusting to such a profound personal upheaval. Chapel felt an ache in her heart for her friend whenever she saw him doubt himself, a lost expression sometimes plain on his face, at least to those who knew him well.

And Christine Chapel certainly did know him well. She’d served with Spock throughout the five-year mission, and five years of adventures on the Enterprise were like fifteen years anywhere else. She had even briefly hosted his consciousness in her own mind while his body had been taken over by Henoch, one of the last survivors of an ancient race yearning to return to corporeal existence after living for half a million years as mental energy in storage units. At the time that happened, she’d already been carrying a blazing and unrequited torch for Spock for years. It was embarrassing now to think about how, just a few short years before, she’d been pining after him like a schoolgirl; but, in a strange way, it had led to a closeness between them that she wouldn’t trade for anything. The torch had finally been extinguished as she pursued her medical degree. The confidence she’d gained becoming a doctor had done wonders for her, personally and professionally.

Just as Chapel was settling into her new position as chief medical officer of the Enterprise under Captain Will Decker, everything changed. You could say it had reverted. Kirk came back. He brought McCoy back. Spock came back. McCoy’s seniority obviously entitled him to the CMO position. Chapel made a show of being happy that McCoy was CMO instead of her but privately worried she was falling behind in her career. Chapel briefly considered transferring to a different ship, but she decided to stay aboard the Enterprise and forged ahead as best she could, reminding McCoy she was no longer his nurse when he seemed to forget it. And then there was Spock: Initially he had been cold and distant as never before; then, after melding with V’ger, he’d become somewhat bewildered as he embraced his human half. She had been the first to bring up their past “relationship.” Chapel wanted Spock to know how she had moved past her infatuation with him. After trying to explain it in broad, brisk strokes, she still doubted that he understood. She realized that she couldn’t expect him to put all the pieces together when he was moving from a lifetime of denying emotions to suddenly trying to make peace with them.

Chapel studied Spock as he swiveled to face her. He appeared confident and all business. “I have lost contact with the Enterprise.” He spoke softly, obviously wanting to ensure that Dax couldn’t overhear through the temporary wall separating the cockpit from the main cabin. “Sensors are nominal, but with some interference. It could be a natural phenomenon, but so far I have been unable to rule out artificial intervention.”

Chapel rocked back in her seat. “You’re saying someone might be jamming our communications? Can you contact the Troyval?”

Spock’s expression changed subtly, to something not quite grim but also not comforting. “I cannot. But this could simply be a temporary technical problem. Please don’t worry unnecessarily. I will continue to attempt to rectify the situation.”

Chapel almost suggested that, just to be safe, they return to the Enterprise, but she thought better of it. They had been en route long enough that they would be closer to the rendezvous point than to the Enterprise. Even if Captain Kirk thought the communication problem warranted turning around and warping back toward the Copernicus, he’d be playing catch-up compared to the Troyval, where Dax needed to go for her treatment. Continuing to the rendezvous was still the best course of action without additional information—information they were unlikely to get without being able to contact either of the ships. Chapel frowned and drummed her right hand on the copilot’s console in frustration.

Spock tilted his head slightly toward the aft cabin and lowered his voice a little more. “What is Commissioner Dax’s condition?”

“She appears fine. Of course, she still won’t allow me to do a proper exam.”

“The Trill have a cultural taboo regarding—”

“I know, I know.” As she watched Spock closely, his expression became more neutral. Chapel shook her head. “I think you’re trying to change the subject. We’re transporting an important Federation representative on a shuttle with a skeleton crew—an incomplete skeleton, at that—and we’ve lost communications. How is worrying unnecessary?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Worrying is always unnecessary, as it serves no functional purpose. As to our current situation, we are deep in Federation space. There is little cause for . . . concern.”

With a chuckle, Chapel said, “Sorry, but those have the sound of famous, and ironic, last words.”

“If you are implying that something terrible is going to befall us, then no matter how ironic my statement might turn out to be, it is unlikely to be reported and achieve any level of fame.”

Chapel glared at him to see if she could read him, but although his expression had softened slightly, he remained impassive, almost unblinking. He’s practiced this game with Leonard for too long. She gave up with a sigh. “I can tell you one thing for sure: Leonard owes me one for sending me on this trip.”

Doctor Christine Chapel looked up as McCoy entered her office in sickbay without knocking, the swish of the door her only warning of company coming. “Chapel, I—” He stopped on the threshold as soon as he recognized her glare. She made shooing motions with her hands. “Oh, for crying out loud,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. Someone must have been standing behind him, out of Chapel’s line of sight. “Of all the times to . . .” His voice trailed off into mumbling or growling as he stepped back enough that the door slid shut.

As soon as she was alone again, Chapel smiled but then put on her best grimace as McCoy’s voice came over the intership. He could tell when she was smiling, even on a speaker.

“Excuse me, Doctor, do you have a moment?” He tried so hard to sound polite that it was just that much more sarcastic.

She counted to five before responding. “Yes, Doctor, come in.”

The door slid back open. McCoy was frowning, but the tall, stately woman he had with him seemed amused. They both stepped inside her office.

Chapel smiled warmly at her guests. Then she noted the delicate, leopardlike spots running down the sides of the woman’s neck—obviously one of the Trill delegates. Chapel’s smile remained polite, but she had a bad feeling that she hid behind her professional facade. The Enterprise was transporting over two dozen ambassadors and dignitaries, as well as their staffs, to a diplomatic conference on Deneva. Following standard procedure, Chapel had reviewed the database on the delegation until crashing into the metaphorical force field around Trill physiology. They didn’t use transporters, and they didn’t allow non-Trill physicians to treat anything but the most minor wounds. No tricorders or scanners of any kind could be used on them. If the Trill woman had a medical issue, Chapel hoped McCoy wouldn’t have gone along with her insistence on protocol.

“Doctor Christine Chapel, this is Commissioner Audrid Dax. Audrid, Christine Chapel.”

As Chapel got up and came around her desk, she noticed two things: McCoy had called the commissioner by her first name, and his bluster had been replaced by nervousness. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet. Chapel’s smile became more genuine. Interesting. There’s a story behind these two.

“Very nice to meet you, Doctor.” Dax extended her hand, which Chapel shook firmly, noting the coolness of the Trill’s palm. Their lower body temperatures were in the medical records, as it came from simple observation, not diagnostic scanning.

“You too, Commissioner. Welcome aboard the Enterprise.”

“Thank you. But please, call me Audrid.” She gave a sidelong glance at McCoy. “I’m sorry for the intrusion, but Leonard does have a way of blundering into things, doesn’t he?”

“Well, yes, he does,” Chapel said hesitantly, glancing at McCoy. He bounced on his feet and pursed his lips. Is that a blush? Chapel didn’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for McCoy. This Dax must have really had something on him.

He cleared his throat. “It’s not really an intrusion. This is a professional visit after all.”

“Then let’s all sit.” Chapel returned behind her desk while McCoy and Dax sat in the two guest chairs.

“Here’s the situation.” McCoy glanced at Dax as if to make sure she was going to let him speak without further abuse. “Audrid’s a little under the weather. Nothing life threatening, but, given the peculiarities of Trill customs, the treatment can only be administered by Trill physicians. Instead of delaying all the other delegates to the conference, she’ll be shuttled to the Troyval, a medical ship already on its way. Shuttlecraft Copernicus can get to the Troyval in plenty of time, but just in case of any complications during transit, I’m assigning you to accompany Aud . . . the commissioner.”

McCoy almost blurted the last part out, and Dax gave him a sharp look, as if this had been a point of contention. Clearly there was more going on here than what McCoy was willing to share—and, as her superior, that was his prerogative—but the situation was frustrating.

“Of course,” Chapel said. “But given all the restrictions on diagnostics and treatments, my presence hardly seems necessary.”

Dax leaned forward. “At the risk of sounding self-centered, Doctor, your presence being unnecessary is the outcome I’m hoping for.”

Slightly chagrined, Chapel nodded. “I’ll do whatever I can to help, Commissioner.” She glanced at McCoy, who had relaxed a little bit. “I do have some research projects right now that need my attention.”

“I’ll tend to them, just leave me the protocols.” McCoy stood abruptly and made for the door. “Besides, Spock’s the pilot, and I’m not going to be cooped up with him for a couple days in one of those tin cans.”

The door slid shut, leaving Chapel alone with the Trill. Dax shrugged. “He does have a way with last words.”

Chapel laughed in spite of her darkening mood.

Chapel fidgeted in the copilot’s seat as she watched Spock run various scans and diagnostics. She ran a hand through her hair, which she had been wearing down lately. It felt odd after so many years to feel it brushing against the collar of her uniform.

“A human aphorism comes to mind.” Spock continued the slow, deliberate play of his fingers over the console as he spoke, not sparing her a look.

“What’s that?”

“As I understand it, an aphorism is a pithy turn of phrase that—”

“I’m going to stop you right there. I know you and Leonard enjoy your games, but I think it keeps a real distance between you.” She only just resisted patting him on the leg. “I don’t want that. We’re old friends. Close friends. I’d rather just talk without the teasing.”

Spock looked almost flustered for a moment, and Chapel worried that she’d been too sharp. “I was not aware that you felt that way. I am sorry, Doctor.” He stopped his work on the controls for a moment. “We are indeed friends; I would not want you to think I felt otherwise.”

Now Chapel felt a little flustered, taken aback by the sincerity and warmth in his voice. “Of course not, I know that. I just—I’m a little on edge. I’d feel better if we had a full crew aboard.”

“As would I. It was because of the commissioner’s insistence on privacy—and Doctor McCoy’s vehement support for her wishes—that the captain agreed to assign only myself in addition to you.”

Chapel frowned. “So what is it with those two? There’s obviously some history there. Do you know anything about it?”

He shook his head slightly as he went back to tapping at the controls. “I do not. I reviewed the files of all the representatives in preparation for this mission, and it would seem unlikely that Commissioner Dax and Doctor McCoy could ever have crossed paths.” Spock again took his hands away from the controls and sat back in his chair. “I, however, am in no position to criticize him for not being forthcoming about a relationship from his past, as I am sure you would agree.”

Chapel smirked, wondering if this was a reference to his betrothal to T’Pring, which had come as quite a surprise when T’Pring introduced herself as Spock’s wife. Chapel had been particularly shocked and disappointed, given how she’d been taking care of Spock, not knowing his symptoms were caused by pon farr, the Vulcan mating drive. It had taken a long time before she could appreciate the irony that she’d been tenderly caring for her unrequited love while he was in fact in the throes of needing to mate with another woman. The universe has a warped sense of humor, she thought. And maybe it’s best to change the subject.

“What was the aphorism you were thinking of?”

Spock raised an eyebrow, somehow communicating a slight discomfort that she had returned to that subject. “A culinary metaphor that seemed apropos of you closely observing my attempts to discern the reason for our loss of communication: A watched pot never boils.”

That got an open laugh from Chapel, but she was interrupted by Dax crying out in pain. Chapel leaped from her chair toward the aft cabin, squeezing through as the door slid open. She rushed toward Dax, who was doubled over, arms clutching her abdomen.

Chapter 2

As Dax again moaned in pain, she moved one arm from her stomach to wave Chapel away from her. “I’m fine,” she said, although her jaw was clenched tight as she spoke.

Chapel grabbed the waving arm to steady Dax. “You need to lie down. Come on.” With Chapel’s assistance, Dax moved the few steps necessary to get into bed. The Trill’s face was pale, making the spots along her forehead seem darker. Her long hair was sticking to perspiration on her neck. “Will elevating your legs help?”

Dax nodded, her eyes closed. Chapel adjusted the bed, raising the mattress beneath Dax’s legs. After a moment, Dax seemed to breathe easier. Chapel took the Trill’s hand between hers in a comforting gesture, noting Dax’s palm was warmer than before. She tried to slide one hand down to Dax’s wrist, but she didn’t get away with her ploy to check her pulse. Dax pulled her hand away and held her abdomen, which she rubbed gently the way pregnant women often do, but her flat stomach probably ruled out that explanation.

“I’m fine, really.”

“Not very convincing under the circumstances.” Chapel leaned over Dax, looking at the sheen of sweat on her forehead but resisting the urge to place a hand across her brow.

Eyes still closed, Dax smirked grimly. “I suppose not.”

“Then tell me something. Anything.”

Dax took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and opened her eyes. She glanced around as if testing to see if her eyes still worked, then looked up at Chapel. “I feel better, thank you.”

“I’m a virtuoso at helping patients into bed. Mastered that in nursing school.”

“You’ve picked up Leonard’s sarcasm.” Dax said it with a smile.

“The point I was making is that you’re not letting me use my other skills. My doctor skills.”

“You know I can’t.”

“Then why bring me along? I don’t understand why.”

Dax closed her eyes and sighed. “A last resort.”

“Last resort? Leonard said this wasn’t life threatening.”

“I may have misled him a little.”

“Why? I thought you two were old friends.”

“We are. But it’s complicated.”

Chapel held up a hand. “That’s between you two.”

“No,” Dax said, laughing. “I just meant because of Trill customs I couldn’t be completely honest with him.”

“Then we’re right back where we started, aren’t we?” Chapel folded her arms across her chest. “But if I’m going to be your last resort, I’ll need some details before it’s too late for me to do anything.”

Dax stared back at Chapel for a few moments before saying, “Help me up.”

“I’d prefer you stay in bed for now.”

Dax was fumbling around on the bed, finding it difficult to maneuver with her legs raised. “I just want to sit up.”

Chapel nodded and lowered the foot of the bed, then put a hand behind the Trill’s back to ease her upright.

“Thanks.” Dax paused. She turned and hung her legs over the side of the bed. “The condition I’m suffering from is easy to treat, so I told Leonard it was nothing serious. But I didn’t tell him that it’s usually found in Trill much older than I am and that the symptoms have progressed much faster than normal. Left untreated, this simple condition can even be fatal.”

Chapel frowned. A patient who couldn’t be open and honest with her doctor was a challenge under the best of circumstances. As things stood now . . .

“But don’t worry,” said Dax, probably reacting to Chapel’s expression. “We’ll make it to the Troyval long before that becomes an issue.” Dax winced briefly, then again rubbed her abdomen. “Still, with this last . . . spell, it might be best to update them.”

Chapel shook her head. “I’m sorry, but we’re having some technical problems. We can’t contact the Enterprise or the Troyval.”

Dax looked a little concerned, but she shrugged and sat up straighter. “Well, the pain has passed for now. I’ll be fine as soon as we make the rendezvous.”

“I’d still like to prepare for other possibilities. What if the Troyval is delayed?”

“And what if the Troyval is early? There’s nothing to be done but wait and see what happens.”

Chapel slumped back into the jump seat opposite the bed. “All right, I’ll let that go, for now. But I’ve got another question. Knowing Leonard the way I do, I’m sure he would have wanted to be with you whether Spock was aboard or not.”

Dax shook her head, a discreet smile on her face. “Leonard knew a relative of mine long ago. It’s not something Trill discuss. I felt it was best another doctor accompany me. He wasn’t happy about that, as you can probably imagine.”

Curiouser and curiouser, Chapel thought. Between Trill medical privacy and whatever McCoy was keeping to himself, there seemed to be no way for her to get a handle on the situation.

Dax swung her dangling legs around, looking like a nervous child in a chair. “I know this may be out of line given how unforthcoming I’ve been, but there’s something personal I’d like to ask you.”

Chapel couldn’t help herself—she started giggling. She waved a hand at Dax, who was looking at her uncertainly. “I’m not laughing at you.” She giggled some more, then caught her breath for a moment. “Well, maybe I am a little.”

Now Dax joined her, chuckling with a bit more reserve. “I’ll admit I had that coming.”

Chapel’s fit of laughter was winding down. “Oh, all right, why not. What’s the question?”

Dax shook her head. “Not now, when we’re laughing. It’s serious.”

“You’re not going to leave me wondering about this, I’m already too much in the dark. Come on, if we can’t talk about your symptoms, we’ve got to talk about something.”

Dax hesitated for a few seconds, then stopped swinging her legs. “It’s nothing major, I hope. There seemed to be some tension between you and Leonard, and I’m concerned I could have complicated the situation.”

Chapel leaned back and thought how to respond. She wasn’t surprised that Dax had noticed. McCoy was an open book when it came to his feelings: They were all there on his expressive, grumpy face. And Chapel couldn’t help but think that being candid with Dax might get the Trill to open up about some of her secrets so Chapel could treat her.

“Don’t worry about that. It’s simple, really, and kind of silly sometimes, like the business about not knocking. I served as his nurse for years before I became a doctor, and those old habits are hard to break—for both of us. He’s still my superior officer, but there are times when it feels like nothing has changed, and insecurities I thought I’d left behind . . . Well, since he returned to active duty, I’ve started to consider if remaining aboard the Enterprise is what’s best for my career. Which is sad to think about, because I love that ship and crew. They’ve both carried me through some rough times. The crew is like family to me.”

It might have started as a ploy to gain Dax’s trust, but it had all been sincere, and by the end Chapel was surprised how emotional she felt. The crew is like family to me? Who am I kidding, they are my family. I see Mom and Dad so rarely, and Uhura is the sister I never had. Leonard is both doting father and annoying older brother. And Spock . . . Spock is still in a special place all by himself. If I ever leave them, it will be the hardest decision I’ve made since I left Earth. Chapel had put aside a promising career in bioresearch to wander among the stars on the minuscule chance of finding her fiancé, Doctor Roger Korby, who was lost on a deep-space archaeological expedition. She’d ended up on the Enterprise and they found Roger on Exo III—but it was an android copy; the real Roger was already dead. Chapel had found her fiancé only to lose him again; she had watched him come to the realization that he was no longer human, inside or outside. But I didn’t just watch . . . I helped him understand he had lost his soul, and then I saw him destroy himself and another android because of it. Captain Kirk had offered her a transfer if she wanted it, but she stayed with the Enterprise. Going back to bioresearch, the field that had led to her meeting Roger, had no appeal. But her work on the Enterprise, although rewarding, came with a nomadic lifestyle that had its own compromises. As the years passed, starting a family of her own—hell, just having a relationship—seemed less likely. With a wistful smile, she looked toward the commissioner.

Judging by Dax’s faraway look, Chapel had gotten her thinking about difficult decisions in her own past. As Dax’s expression shifted from reflective to melancholy, Chapel knew she couldn’t leave her patient’s side. She didn’t know what to say to the intensely private woman, but Dax broke the pensive silence.

“Do you have any children?”

It’s like she read my mind, thought Chapel. And for someone so private, she sure goes right to the thorny questions. Don’t the Trill have small talk? “No, I don’t. I was engaged once, but I lost him. He died on a research expedition.”

Dax nodded slowly. “I lost my husband, Jayvin, ten years ago. We have two children, Neema and Gran—they’re both in their twenties now.” She took a deep breath, then turned to look Chapel in the eye. “Neema was only fourteen at the time of Jayvin’s death, and I spared her the grim details. A few years ago she managed to find a full account of Jayvin’s final assignment. She hasn’t spoken to me since learning the extent of my omissions.”

“I’m so sorry.” Chapel recalled that Spock and his father had not spoken for eighteen years after Spock entered Starfleet Academy. “I’m sure she’ll come around. Have you tried reaching out to her?”

“We had a few awkward attempts at conversation at first but then silence. She’s always been a stubborn one. And I’ve found the whole painful situation easier to ignore, to pretend it’s not there. It’s something we Trill are good at.”

Chapel didn’t know how to respond to that, and the way Dax now gazed down at her hands folded in her lap, it seemed obvious that she wasn’t waiting for her doctor’s advice. Chapel got up from the jump seat and stretched. “I’m going to check in with Commander Spock. Why don’t you try to get some rest?”

Dax nodded silently and lay back down. Chapel went forward to the cockpit, pausing briefly after the door slid shut behind her to compose herself. Spock may have been more open to his own emotions now, but that didn’t mean Chapel wanted him to see her feeling depressed. What she needed now was a good dose of old, distant Spock. She took the few steps to the copilot’s seat before he noticed her hesitation.

He turned toward her as she settled in and then looked through the forward port. “Is the commissioner all right?”

“For now. Her pain passed quickly, but I can only hope her condition remains stable. I’m trying to get through to her. I feel as useful as ballast on a spaceship.” Turning from the distorted star field of warp space, she looked across at Spock. “How’s our situation?”

“Our situation?” Spock raised an eyebrow and looked at her blankly for a second or two. “Could you clarify the question?”

Chapel kept from rolling her eyes. She needed old Spock, but apparently she was getting new Spock. “Communications status, I mean.”

“Of course.” The Vulcan turned quickly toward his control panel, as if to cover his confusion. “I am running one last test to rule out natural phenomena. If this is technological jamming, it must be a relatively new technique. The Enterprise’s computers could have parsed this in a fraction of the time, but, unfortunately, we don’t have those resources at hand.”

Chapel slumped in her chair. All this uncertainty was wearing her down. “I was hoping for good news.”

“That would be the preferable outcome of my diagnostics, but I am not optimistic at this point. I have begun contemplating contingency plans.”

They fell into a worried silence. At least worried on Chapel’s end; she was unsure what Spock felt, although he did appear . . . discomfited. He resettled himself in his seat and then tugged a bit on his uniform, adjusting the collar. She almost never thought of the current uniforms as new anymore. She’d been wearing hers for well over two years. But Spock had left Starfleet after the five-year mission. When he’d boarded the Enterprise en route to V’ger he’d been wearing Vulcan civilian clothes. In the months since, she still half expected to find him wearing the old blue tunic and black pants, and perhaps that’s what he would prefer. She was just about to ask him about it when he spun abruptly toward her. She almost flinched, and he appeared slightly surprised himself. After an awkward moment of each looking at the other expectantly, he finally spoke.

“Doctor, I must ask you: Since my encounter with V’ger, have you ever felt . . . uncomfortable in my presence?”

“You mean before right now?” At his sharply raised eyebrow she changed her tone quickly. “I’m sorry. And after I told you I didn’t want any teasing. You just surprised me, is all.” She swiveled her seat toward his. “No, I haven’t. I knew you were going through a lot, and I wanted to do whatever I could to make it easier for you. And if letting you go through it alone was what you wanted—and that’s what it seemed like to me—then I was ready to do that.”

He nodded, steepling his fingers in front of him, looking as if he were pondering the scientific mysteries of the universe. Finally, he looked back at her. “Earlier, I implied that the captain assigned me to this mission. While that is true, he did so after I requested it. I wanted to spend time with you so that we could discuss my developing emotions.”

“Of course. But why bring it up again after so many months? I’d assumed we were settled on this.”

“As did I. But as I have continued integrating emotions into my life, I have noticed I sometimes feel . . . awkward around you.” He leaned forward. “To clarify, I do not mean that I have inappropriate feelings for you, but I must admit that I do not completely understand the situation. Any insight you could provide . . .”

She gazed warmly at Spock. “Well, first I have to ask: Why exactly do you think feelings for me would be ‘inappropriate’?” This time both of Spock’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. Chapel laughed at his expression but quickly explained: “I’m sorry I laughed, but I’m not teasing you, really. We’ve been through so much together that even though we’ve developed a certain professional and personal friendship, a stray thought or some almost subconscious feeling outside the bounds we’ve set isn’t unusual.”

He lowered his eyebrows and nodded thoughtfully. “I see. As we have long established that we are, as the saying goes, just friends, I thought the demarcations of the relationship were more . . . precise. Could you elaborate?”

Only Spock could make this sound scientific. “Yes, we’re just friends, but we’ve shared experiences far more intimate than the average friendship. I bared my heart to you while infected with the Psi 2000 virus, and I’ve never regretted it.” The crew had been exposed to polywater, which broke down inhibitions, letting Chapel tell Spock her true feelings, something she never would have done otherwise. “And then there was what happened with Henoch. We never talked about sharing minds. Maybe it was too much for either of us.”

Spock went back to looking at his console, clearly embarrassed by the memory.

“It’s okay, we don’t have to talk about it now. I only bring it up to show you that we don’t have a black-and-white friendship. We’ve gone into a gray area, and, given everything else you’ve been through, I’m not surprised if you have some confused feelings about me. You need to take your own advice: Worrying is always unnecessary. We’ll always be friends.”

Spock looked back up. “Thank you, Christine. That was—”

He was interrupted by a chime. Glancing at his console, he frowned. “This is disconcerting. I have confirmed that our communications are being jammed artificially.”

Just as Spock finished the sentence, weapons fire rocked the shuttlecraft.

Chapter 3

Chapel went airborne. As she landed, the inertial dampers caught up with the sharp jolt delivered to the Copernicus. She found herself on the deck with her back against the port-side hatch behind the pilot’s seat. She got up quickly as the shuttlecraft stabilized, the deck again feeling more like the floor than a wall. Alarms blared, and there was a faint smell of smoke and burning circuits in the air. She needed to check on Dax, but if the shuttle didn’t survive the next few minutes, that would be moot. Starfleet doctors faced choices a civilian doctor never had to worry about.

Spock had kept his seat, his hands now a flurry of tapping across his panel. “We have dropped from warp. Shields down.”

Chapel hurried into the copilot’s seat. Through the forward port she caught a glimpse of movement, a dark ship larger than the Copernicus arcing away from them. “What can I do?”

“Monitor for overloads on secondary systems while I reroute power.”

She brought up a power display on the second attempt, glad she hadn’t had to ask Spock for help. Her knowledge of operations had faded during her years as a nurse, and being in the dark about what was going on during ship emergencies was a powerful incentive to take refresher courses. Even as she studied for her medical degree, Chapel had brushed up on all the new hardware. She didn’t want to feel lost on her own ship after the refit.

“Sensors and communications damaged.” Spock called out updates as he worked. “Engines off-line but powering back up.”

Only once in the next minute did an indicator go red-line, and Chapel was able to manage the situation on her own while Spock kept at the primary systems. Thirty seconds later, with a glance and a nod, Spock indicated she could go aft.

Chapel hurried. Dax had been alone for two minutes since the attack. At first the door to the cabin didn’t open, and she nearly collided with it. With a sinking feeling she checked cabin pressure and was relieved to see a nominal reading. She tapped in an override code and the door slid open. Rushing through, she found Dax on the deck, tangled in the bedclothes, pale and trembling.

“Commissioner, what’s wrong?” Chapel kneeled beside Dax and grabbed one of her hands, which now felt warmer than a human’s.

Dax mumbled an unintelligible response without opening her eyes. Chapel doubted the Trill knew she was talking out loud. After a moment of silence—Spock had finally shut off the alarms—Dax spoke again, and this time Chapel thought it was in a Trill language. Then, very clearly, she said, “No, no.”

Chapel thought about getting a universal translator in case Dax continued speaking in Trill, but she didn’t want to leave her patient. She sat all the way down, trying to find a more stable position. The artificial gravity had been knocked out of sync, and the deck still felt like it was at an angle. “Audrid, listen. You’ve got to tell me what to do. I can’t just sit here.”

Spock’s voice crackled over the speaker. “The hostile ship is coming about and deploying a universal docking ring.” Chapel gritted her teeth. If they were forcibly boarded, would she be allowed to do anything for Dax?

Dax’s eyes finally opened, and she clutched at her abdomen. “Is that a rescue ship?”

Chapel shook her head at Dax’s confusion. “No. We were just attacked minutes ago. You fell out of bed, which must have aggravated your condition.” Dax looked like she was going to ask something, but Chapel kept on talking. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, so, please, tell me what I can do right now.”

“You can’t do anything.”

“I don’t know about that. I’m a damn good doctor.”

Dax managed a faint smile. “I’m sure you are. But . . . let’s just say I don’t think we’re at the last resort yet.”

Chapel sighed. “You’re quite the optimist.” The seriousness of the situation didn’t seem to have really gotten through to Dax. “Well, let’s get you back in bed at least. If we have company, I don’t want them to find me with my patient on the floor.”

Dax struggled to her feet with Chapel’s help and climbed back into bed, still clutching her abdomen with one hand. Just as Chapel got her tucked in, Spock announced, “Hold on.”

Chapel felt her stomach flutter as the artificial gravity cut out. I could have used a little more warning, she thought, knowing it was unfair to Spock, who was now trying to do the work of at least two people by himself. She hurried to strap Dax into the bed, adjusting the restraints so they didn’t lay across her patient’s tender abdomen. Chapel lost her footing from the inertia of her hurried movements. She leaned into the bed and then rebounded from it, her feet leaving the floor. Trying to grab something to stabilize herself only sent her spinning. The lights flickered and went out as her head bumped against something—the overhead, maybe. She was completely disoriented. The emergency lighting finally kicked in, and Chapel realized her head was near Dax’s feet, her own feet pointing at the open jump seat on the port bulkhead. She was looking straight up at the overhead. Chapel couldn’t picture how she had gotten into that position, but she pushed her confusion aside and tried to remember her zero-g training. Making slow, careful movements, Chapel got control of her momentum, grabbed an overhead handrail, and propelled herself across the cabin to the door, which, thankfully, slid open without hesitation.

The air had cleared in the cockpit. Spock danced his fingers across the controls, and as Chapel hovered closer, she could see that he had finished rerouting systems to make up for damage.

“Strap in and brace yourself.” His voice was sharp, almost harsh. She was still getting settled in the copilot’s seat when he said, “Going to warp . . . now.”

She clipped the restraints together just as the Copernicus lunged forward, the warp transition rough, like a bumpy ride in a surface vehicle. She lurched to one side, the edge of the seat digging into her ribs. There’s another bruise, she thought. After a few seconds of rough and tumble, things settled down, but it didn’t take Scott’s senses to know that something was off with the warp drive.

Chapel sat up straight and rubbed her sore rib cage. “What the hell was that?”

Spock continued adjusting the warp field on the fly while he briefed her. “I powered down key systems to give our attacker the impression they had damaged us more seriously than they had. They proceeded with their apparent plan to board us. When they came alongside, I engaged warp engines while they were just within our forming warp field. They received the worst of the resulting gravimetric displacement, although it did affect us as well. I was able to compensate, but unfortunately I do not know how long my patchwork rerouting will keep our engines on-line. If you could assist me again?”

Chapel turned toward her panel, where the power levels of various systems were still displayed. Over the next few minutes she called out readings to Spock as he continued rerouting subsystems and programming new subroutines to keep primary systems in sync despite the hodgepodge nature of his field repairs. Chapel could barely follow much of the work, but overall she understood the concept. Rerouting around damage seemed simple enough, but with so many systems that needed to be highly integrated in order to work effectively—artificial gravity and inertial dampers being the most significant example—the process could be exceedingly intricate, often requiring computer assistance to manage properly.

Finally Spock brought the artificial gravity back on-line and switched from emergency to normal lighting. He leaned back in his seat and let his hands drop into his lap. He sighed deeply. If she hadn’t still been strapped in, Chapel felt like she might have fallen out of her chair. It had been a long time since she’d seen such a—for lack of a better description—human reaction from him. She was about to say something when he spun to face her, and the look of anger on his face made her pull back in her seat and keep silent.

“I will not”—and he slammed his hand on the armrest—“lose you, the commissioner, or this shuttle.”

As quickly as this rage had surged to the surface it was gone, and he slumped down, his expression worn and tired. Chapel realized he was thinking of the loss of the shuttlecraft Galileo on a mission seven years ago—and the death of two crew members under his command.

“Spock?” Chapel watched him closely. “You did everything you could back then, just as I know you’ll do now.”

“Everything was not enough.”

“Sometimes it’s not. But in the end you brought home more than you lost. That’s cold arithmetic, I know, but it is . . . logical.”

“Yes.” He straightened up. “There are still times logic can be a source of comfort.” Spock glanced her way. “I must apologize for my outburst. It was unbecoming.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me.” She undid her restraints. “I know you’ll do whatever it takes to get us out of this situation, and I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

He nodded. “I understand.”

“Do you? You know I’m not just talking about this mission, right? I mean I’ll help you in this transition you’re going through. After we get back to the Enterprise, any time you need to talk, you call me. That’s not a doctor’s order, that’s a friend’s request.”

He rewarded her with a soft smile. “I understand.”

“You better. Now . . .” Chapel peered through the forward port. “Who attacked us? And why?”

“Unknown. Sensors remain off-line, but as the ship maneuvered around us I was able to see it clearly. It was a nondescript civilian vessel approximately twice our size, with many illegal weapons upgrades. I have no way of knowing their motives for the attack.” He paused thoughtfully. “They could have easily destroyed us but instead tried to dock. Clearly they wanted to take us alive.”

“Or capture the ship intact.” Chapel frowned at her own grim insight.

“True. Whatever their reasons, I can only hope that sentiment remains after my defensive measures.”

“But we left them behind. You kicked their ass with your warp-field trick.”

“Any so-called ass kicking would have been minimal. We must assume that they will quickly effect any necessary repairs and pursue us. Our warp trail will be easy to track. Given the vessel’s size, they will be able to maintain a higher warp factor. They will overtake us before we reach the rendezvous point.”

“That was not comforting.”

“No.” Spock turned back to his controls to monitor the systems and made some minute adjustments. “We are back on course for the rendezvous, for now. I was able to get the navigational sensor subsystems operative, fortunately. But we will eventually need to take further evasive measures to elude our attackers.”

“That could be a problem. Commissioner Dax’s symptoms are worsening. I don’t know if we can safely delay the rendezvous.”

Spock nodded. “Nevertheless, I cannot realistically guarantee that we can safely make it to the rendezvous as scheduled.”

They sat quietly together for a few minutes, contemplating the no-win scenario that seemed to be developing. Finally Spock broke the silence. “I will take all these variables into account as I develop strategic options. But . . .” He hesitated. Chapel waited, but before Spock could finish his thought, Dax called out.

Chapel was out of the copilot’s seat and headed aft without any further thought about Spock’s unfinished sentence. In the seconds it took her to get to Dax’s bedside, her patient had lost consciousness.

“Dammit.” Chapel felt for a pulse at Dax’s neck, her fingers looking pale compared to the Trill’s spots. Dax’s pulse was faint but steady, her breathing even if a bit shallow. There seemed to be no reason for Dax to have lost consciousness, but, of course, Chapel knew nothing about what was causing the symptoms in the first place. For all she knew, this loss of consciousness could be unrelated to whatever was causing Dax’s abdominal pain. Chapel suddenly felt her stomach lurch as she thought, I’m an idiot—she could have just hit her head during the attack. Are Trill at higher risk for hematomas than humans? Chapel had no way of knowing.

Although she tried to feel better by telling herself that Dax would have surely told her about such an injury, Chapel examined the woman’s head closely and carefully. She turned Dax’s head left and right, then gently lifted it from the pillow as she ran her hands through the Trill’s long black hair. She found no external signs of injury, no blood in the hair, no swelling. She opened Dax’s eyelids. Her pupils were equal and responsive. Chapel took one of Dax’s hands in her own, felt a palm that was almost back to its usual coolness. Checking the pulse at Dax’s wrist, Chapel was relieved to find it had gotten a little stronger. She arranged her patient’s arms comfortably and tucked the covers back into place.

Chapel paced back and forth in the small cabin. Her patient seemed stable for now, but overall Dax’s condition had been worsening since leaving the Enterprise. Now that the commissioner was unconscious—and the shuttle had barely escaped from their mysterious attackers—Chapel decided that “the last resort” Dax had spoken of had arrived. She had to break the rules.

She didn’t activate the bed’s built-in diagnostic scanners but opted for a more narrowly focused handheld scanner, which she networked with the bed’s monitor. I’ll just eliminate the possibility of head injury. That seems least intrusive. For now.

The doctor expected to simply confirm no signs of hematoma, but as soon as she ran the scanner over Dax’s forehead, odd readings popped up on the monitor. It was almost like the Trill’s brainwaves had echoes. Maybe a malfunction in the scanner, something out of sync?

Setting the handheld scanner aside, Chapel grabbed a medical tricorder and ran the scan again. The higher resolution of the tricorder made it clear the secondary brainwaves weren’t echoes; they didn’t always mimic the primary waves but sometimes went off on their own. That triggered a memory, and Chapel realized that the overlapping brainwave patterns resembled scans taken of a Vulcan and another person during a mind-meld.

But that created more questions than answers. Is this normal for a Trill? Or is this a symptom of some sort of neurological disorder in Audrid? If so, why is she presenting with abdominal pain? Chapel frowned as she leaned over Dax. “In for a penny, in for a pound?” she said aloud, trying to convince herself to go further in order to properly treat the woman.

With a resigned sigh, she held the tricorder over Dax’s abdomen and ran a cursory scan. The results bordered on nonsensical. She reset the tricorder and scanned again. The results were the same. Similar to the dual brainwave patterns, she was actually getting dual life signs. Chapel resisted the urge to bang the tricorder on its side a few times to knock some sense into it. But maybe there was a reasonable explanation for this. Perhaps the Trill nervous system was different from most humanoids’. Maybe their spinal column housed more complex neural structures. If there were some sort of significant neural cluster in their lower spine, that could explain all of Dax’s symptoms as well as the aberrant scans.

Chapel decided to run a more detailed scan that she hoped would confirm or refute her theory. After that, she would decide how far she could pursue diagnosis and treatment. She had to keep Dax alive until they reached the Troyval—and if she had to compromise the Trills’ tradition of medical privacy, it was always easier to ask forgiveness than permission, especially when faced with an unconscious and failing patient.

“Here we go.” Chapel ran the scan and watched wide eyed as the results indicated a large, wormlike life-form inhabiting Dax’s abdomen.

Chapter 4

Chapel let the tricorder slip from her hand and fall to the bed. It rolled off the edge and clattered to the deck. She left it where it landed and went to sit in the jump seat, staring across the cabin at Dax still strapped into the bed. The fact that Dax hadn’t simply admitted to having some sort of parasite infesting her body implied that this was, if not normal, at least not unheard of among the Trill. So is that thing causing her symptoms? Or—and this was an unnerving idea—are Audrid’s health problems unrelated to the creature living inside her, because all Trill have these things? If they’re hiding that from the rest of the Federation, it would certainly explain their taboo about non-Trill doctors.

Chapel laughed nervously, then clamped a hand over her mouth. She couldn’t let Spock suspect anything. His scientific curiosity wouldn’t let up. It was bad enough she had made the decision to do the scans; after what she had discovered, maintaining doctor-patient privilege was more important than ever.

She got out of the jump seat and picked up the tricorder. She erased the scans from the screen, then tapped in an additional code to overwrite the device’s memory with random data, further ensuring patient confidentiality, especially if the instrument fell into the hands of their attackers. If Spock was right, and he usually was, they could still end up being boarded or worse. Chapel followed the same procedure with the hand scanner, then stowed both items. Then she turned back to her patient, who appeared to be resting comfortably. She put her hands to her cheeks and rubbed her face as she looked down at Dax’s abdomen. Again she noted how flat it was, though the parasite was at least the size of Chapel’s two fists put together. The lack of external indications of its presence implied the mysterious creature was inhabiting a natural body cavity, which in turn raised the possibility of coevolution. If the Trill had evolved a perfect space in which the worm creature could live, perhaps the relationship was more mutualistic than parasitic.

Then two more ideas hit her, setting her head spinning. She felt like she could use some of McCoy’s special medications he kept in his office, like Saurian brandy. Because what if he knew about this all along? And what about those overlapping brainwaves? Could this thing have some level of sentience? Maybe she had better stop thinking of it as a “thing.” But if not a thing, then what? A slug? A worm? She settled on “slug” for now.

“When I get back to the Enterprise, Leonard McCoy, you owe me the biggest and best Finagle’s Folly you’ve ever mixed,” she whispered.

Then she gave in to her own scientific and medical curiosity. After undoing the upper safety restraints, Chapel rolled down the covers, pulled up Dax’s shirt, and placed her hands on the woman’s bare abdomen, which she gently palpated. The slug began squirming beneath her hands, and Chapel was disappointed with herself for a squeamish reaction to the writhing. Come on, you’re a doctor, you’ve had your hands inside patients . . . this should be nothing.

Chapel continued her exam, noting a line across Dax’s abdomen that could have been scar tissue. Before she could ponder that, she became aware of a mild tingling in her palms, almost as though static electricity was playing across her hands where she was in contact with Dax’s skin. At the same time she noticed Dax’s breathing become deeper. Chapel kept running one hand over Dax’s abdomen while she took hold of one of the Trill’s wrists with the other. Her patient’s pulse was also strengthening, so she continued the gentle massage as the slug kept wriggling around beneath her hands.

Dax suddenly opened her eyes and stared at Chapel in surprise. The doctor smiled back at her reassuringly. Dax placed a hand on Chapel’s hands, weakly pushing them away. “You can’t,” she whispered. But it was clear she was quickly regaining her strength. After a few deep breaths, Dax carefully sat up. She rolled down her shirt and looked closely at Chapel, who had backed up a step. “What have you done?” Her tone was firm, angry.

“What I had to do, no more, no less.”

Dax looked skeptical. “Did you medicate me?”

“No, of course not.” Chapel hesitated. Although difficult discussions were a necessary part of being a medical doctor, usually the doctor didn’t have to worry about creating some sort of diplomatic crisis. She had no idea what the official Trill response would be to her discovery of their secret. Although, if they still want to keep this secret, it would be against their best interests to make an example of me. Thinking of it that way, I’m probably not the first outsider to stumble across this. She steeled herself and continued. “But while you were unconscious, I did some cursory scans to eliminate the possibility of head trauma. I noticed anomalous brainwaves, which led me to discovering your . . .”—“slug” seemed too crude for this conversation—“. . . passenger.”

Dax looked away for a long while. Chapel let the silence linger. She could hear various soft mechanical sounds from the shuttle, many of which, even to her ears, were subtly different than they were supposed to be. It was a testament to Spock’s abilities that the unarmed Copernicus was still chugging along at top warp speed after an unprovoked sneak attack. As Dax’s silence drew out, it occurred to Chapel that perhaps the commissioner could face repercussions for the discovery of the slug. That didn’t seem fair, given that she was ill; but for all Chapel knew, maybe Trill were supposed to go off and die before letting an outsider learn about the slugs.

“Well,” Dax said, turning back to face Chapel, a dark look on her face. “Obviously, I had hoped to avoid this. Such transgressions are not taken lightly by my people.” Her expression softened. “But I did say I brought you as a last resort, so I can’t simply lay the blame on you. I put you in this position, and circumstances have overtaken us.” She shook her head.

Chapel crossed to the jump seat and sat. Then she put all of her complex questions into one simple word. “Why?”

“There are lots of reasons, some of which make sense, at least to Trill. Other reasons . . . who knows? ‘Because that’s just the way it’s done.’ They say it for centuries, even though no one knows why that’s the way it’s done.” Dax shrugged. “It is what it is. All you really need to know is that the symbiont—my passenger—is a sentient being, and its survival is the priority.”

Chapel hesitated. The need to reach the Troyval as scheduled had become more imperative even as it seemed less likely. She was relieved Dax hadn’t brought up the attack yet, but they would have to talk about its effects on their rendezvous plans. Nevertheless, Chapel wanted to learn as much as she could about this symbiont first, as she might be the only doctor available for Dax in the foreseeable future.

Chapel leaned forward. “Obviously I want both of you to be fine, but from my point of view, I’m your doctor. You’re the one presenting health concerns to me. Unless the symbiont is the one who’s truly sick, why should it get preferential treatment?”

“You have to understand, you’re treating both of us, we’re intertwined. Audrid is my given name and Dax is the symbiont’s name. Audrid Dax is our joined name, representing both of us combined. Our minds are linked, as our brainwaves show. We’re a single entity, physiologically bonded. But the symbionts are very long-lived. While Audrid is already in middle age, Dax has centuries left. Because of that, symbionts move from host to host as needed, and the survival of that legacy is more valuable than any single host.”

“Okay. All right.” Chapel was trying to wrap her head around this. It was a lot to take in, especially after the ambush and all the unanswered questions that had raised—like how long until their attackers caught up to them? And then what would happen? “So . . . wait. If your minds are linked, then you have mutual memories?”

“Yes.”

“You can remember things from previous hosts, and future hosts will have your memories—that’s what you mean by a legacy?”

“Yes.”

Chapel flopped back in her seat. “Well, I’m just . . . flabbergasted. I mean, the Vulcan mind-meld is one thing, but this . . . this is—” She stopped, her mouth still open, as she connected additional dots. It was an incidental thing, but they were in the eye of the storm and their future was uncertain; this might be their last chance for some much-needed levity. “Oh, wait a minute. Wait one country-doctor minute. When you said that Leonard knew a relative of yours, you meant that he knew a previous host of your symbiont. So . . . does he know?”

Dax glanced down, as if toward the symbiont. Chapel thought that she seemed a little embarrassed, which was a surprise in itself. Clearing her throat, Dax said, “They met about thirty years ago. And I may have let slip an intimate detail that revealed my familiarity with their time together.”

“Well, that explains that.” Chapel laughed. “No wonder he was so nervous around you. He can be awkward enough about relationships under normal circumstances. He’d have no clue how to behave in this situation. Who would? Outside of another Trill, I mean.”

Dax looked back up and shrugged, clearly over whatever indiscretion she might have committed. She looked tired. “That was one of the reasons I didn’t want him to come with me.” She lay back down. “I didn’t want to deal with all the questions.”

Chapel got up and helped Dax arrange her covers. The lighthearted moment was already gone. “Then I’ll keep it professional. Tell me about your condition. What’s the treatment?”

“There’s still nothing you can do. It requires specialized drugs that only Trill doctors have experience with.”

“But what about just now? My touch seemed to alleviate your symptoms.”

“I don’t know. Somehow you stimulated the symbiont, which in turn woke me through our bond.” Her eyes closed, but she kept talking. “Our bond is the problem. The changes of aging can sometimes interfere with it. It’s usually just a temporary discomfort, but this early onset I’ve had is worse. Are we almost to the Troyval?”

Chapel frowned. Dax asked the question so nonchalantly it was clear that she was disoriented and had forgotten about the attack. Chapel considered sparing her the distress, but there was still the chance that the urgency of their situation could convince Dax to reveal more details about her illness.

Taking the Trill’s hands in her own, Chapel was concerned at their returning warmth. “Audrid, I need you to listen closely. We were attacked, remember? They tried to board us, but we escaped. We might have to delay our rendezvous to avoid being captured. Anything you can tell me—”

Dax’s eyes fluttered open as she lifted her head from the pillow and squeezed Chapel’s hands. “Our bond . . . fading. If lost, we’ll both die.” Her head slumped back to the pillow and her grip went slack. She was in a deep sleep, on the edge of unconsciousness.

Chapel let go of Dax’s hands gently and ran a few tricorder scans. As far as Chapel could ascertain, Dax seemed stable for now. Chapel erased the scans from the tricorder’s memory and left the device at the foot of the bed, setting it to chime if there was a significant change in Dax’s vital signs. After redoing the upper bed restraints, Chapel got field rations out—she wasn’t sure how long it had been since either she or Spock had eaten.Then the shuttle lurched, causing her to stumble. She dropped the unopened rations and grabbed the overhead handrail.

The Copernicus quickly stabilized, but then the lights dimmed. Chapel held on tightly for a moment longer, looking around the cabin, expecting something else to go wrong. It did: The shuttle dropped from warp and the lights dimmed further. If their attacker was following them at warp speed, every second the Copernicus was at sublight brought the enemy exponentially closer. The lights flickered but didn’t go out. She hurried into the cockpit to find Spock kneeling between the pilot and copilot seats, one hand working furiously on each control panel, literally doing two people’s jobs at once.

“I was just about to call for your assistance,” Spock said, without slowing or looking at her.

Chapel slipped into the copilot’s seat. With a glance at the panel in front of her, she saw he was resynchronizing secondary systems with the standard protocols. The interface was clear and intuitive. “I’ve got this,” Chapel said. She took over as Spock got back in the pilot’s seat and redoubled his efforts. Seconds later the stars visible through the forward port distorted and elongated as the Copernicus returned to warp.

The Vulcan was shaking his head as she looked over at him. “I can do no more remotely. I need to pull up the deck plates and make direct mechanical repairs.”

“Which you can’t do while we’re at warp, I suppose.”

“Correct.”

“But we’re at warp already. Can’t we make it to the Troyval?”

“Unlikely. The longer I push the shuttle at warp speed, the greater the chance that the next time it malfunctions it will require repairs beyond my abilities or available resources. We’ll be dead in space. The logical course of action is to stop as soon as possible for repairs.”

Chapel knew what he meant, but it felt better to keep moving than to stop, especially if they were being pursued. “And what about that other ship?”

“There’s still no sign of it, but my repairs to long-range sensors have been minimal. Logic dictates they are following our warp trail.”

“If they are, there’s nothing we can do. As soon as we drop from warp, they’ll be on top of us.”

“Perhaps. But I have formulated a stratagem.” He pulled up a star chart on the screen between the seats. “We are approaching an uninhabited system with the unlikely designation Rose’s Folly. Were I superstitious, I might find that off-putting; however, I am willing to be guided by the maritime adage of ‘any port in a storm.’ ”

Chapel smiled in spite of their increasingly tenuous circumstances and looked at the chart. “That Jovian planet has a crazy magnetic field.”

Spock glanced up at her with a small smile before continuing. “Indeed. We will drop out of warp and enter into orbit of RF III. Our sensors will not function properly within that field, but neither will theirs. Of the several predictable outcomes, there is a distinct chance that our pursuers will not immediately realize what has happened. The odds are small but encouragingly within the realm of possibility that they will warp past the system.”

“You’re quantifying getting a lucky break.”

Spock only paused a second before saying, “Yes.” He raised an eyebrow as if daring her to further critique his plan, but Chapel motioned for him to continue. “I will effect the minimum necessary repairs, then we’ll leave the system on a different course. I believe that I will be able to repair and modify the communications system sufficiently to get a message through to the Troyval, even if we are still being jammed, to notify them of a new rendezvous point. They should be able to compensate for the course change with minimal delay.”

Chapel nodded. “We just need to do whatever we can to get to the Troyval as soon as possible. If you think this is the best way to accomplish that . . .”

“I do. However, I have to point out—and I tried to raise this issue earlier, but Commissioner Dax required your assistance—that the final decision is yours.”

“What?” Chapel looked at Spock. She must have misheard him. “You’re the ranking officer.”

“Then my concern that this was not made clear in the rush to get under way was justified. This is a medical evacuation, and as the medical officer, you are in command of the mission regardless of our respective ranks. I have made a number of proactive choices under the circumstances, but you need to give full consideration to the plan I have put forth, as it is not without risks to your patient.”

Chapel slouched back in her seat. “Yes, of course.” I can’t believe I let that slip my mind. So easy to fall back into old habits, always the one taking orders. Now she sat up straight. She trusted Spock implicitly, and his plan made sense. “Plot a course for Rose’s Folly, Commander. You’ve got repairs to make. I’m going to check on my patient. Notify me if anything changes.”

Spock nodded, a subtle smile on his face. “I can say something only rarely spoken by me during the five-year mission: Yes, Doctor.”

Chapel chuckled as she got up and headed aft, but she quickly turned serious as she entered the cabin and again examined Dax. Although the Trill’s breathing and heart rate remained steady, her dual brainwave patterns had become increasingly asynchronous. The bond with the symbiont was clearly deteriorating. If Chapel didn’t think of a treatment option soon, Audrid Dax would slip into a coma, and perhaps die, long before the rendezvous.

Chapter 5

Doctor Christine Chapel paced around the aft cabin, repeatedly looping by Dax, past the door to the cockpit, down along the opposite bulkhead, past the drop-down ramp in the stern, then alongside her patient again: an unconscious patient for whom she had no helpful species-specific knowledge, medicine, or procedures.

“Let’s talk this through,” she said. Chapel found that sometimes talking out loud could help sort through a difficult problem because it forced her to focus on and articulate one thought at a time, getting a jumble of ideas under a semblance of control.

She kept walking and tried to ignore that the overhead lights were flickering and the shuttle’s flight was getting wobbly, as though it were a rowboat on a windy lake. Soon they would drop out of warp and she wouldn’t have to worry about a poorly configured warp field. Instead she’d have Spock’s makeshift repairs to worry about.

“Okay, not helpful. Let’s focus on Audrid.” She stopped pacing beside the bed and looked down at her patient. “She’s bonded with a symbiont. Both physically and, more important, mentally. More important, because I can see by the brainwaves that it’s the psychic link that’s fading. Their brainwaves are simply going out of sync, like when a Vulcan is winding down a mind-meld. Soon there’ll be no overlap at all, and then the bond will be broken—and both will die.

“The key is that bond, but how can I fortify a failing telepathic link? It seemed to help when I palpated her abdomen, but I need more than guesswork, I need practical knowledge of—”

She stopped talking as inspiration struck, needing to let her mind race ahead faster. Her thoughts bounced back and forth between events of the five-year mission, the dispersal of the crew afterward, and what was happening to Dax right now. Doctor Jabilo M’Benga. He’d done his internship on Vulcan, and his specialized knowledge had served Spock well on several occasions. He’d done extensive research on mind-melds throughout his career, continuing after he left the Enterprise. She recalled that he’d done a paper on nontelepaths treating telepathic disorders.

“That could be the solution.” She froze in place. “If I have it.” Aboard the Enterprise the paper would have been easily accessible from the main computer, or Chapel could have even contacted M’Benga directly. She didn’t have those options at the moment. Here’s hoping for some luck, Chapel thought as she activated the viewscreen above the diagnostic bed. Since the diagnostic scanners had been off limits to her, she’d had no reason to turn on the bed’s systems—until now. The unit’s computer had an extensive medical database, including research papers not yet fully integrated into standard diagnostic protocols.

As she keyed in search parameters, the overhead lights flickered and went dark. The diagnostic bed had its own power source, however, so the cabin remained lit by the screen as it filled with an index of authors and titles. Chapel tried not to think about the shuttle’s failing systems as she scrolled through the information on the screen. Finally, there it was: M’Benga, Jabilo. “An Overview of Telepathic Challenges and Solutions for the Nontelepathic Caregiver.” She selected the entry and glanced at the abstract, which mentioned “nonstandard treatment modalities that bridge the gap between nontelepath and telepath.” She was already sold. Pulling up the text of the full article, she delved in.

Although the increasingly rough flight of the Copernicus was distracting, it didn’t take long for Chapel to find the data she needed to support her working theories and point the way toward a course of treatment. There were examples of telepathic species that maintained constant mental links, and they provided her with insights thanks to M’Benga’s meticulous and wide-ranging scholarship, which even included surprisingly in-depth information on the Tholians. However, the most relevant information related to Vulcans and other touch telepaths.

Jabilo wrote that “the nontelepath often has much of the same physical structure of the touch telepath, but only uses those conduits of the nervous system for their intended purpose. The touch telepath has, in effect, upgraded the nervous system for dual-purpose use. The nervous system of a touch telepath functions as the communication relay between brain and body, but it can also facilitate a communication link with the nervous systems of other beings, thereby allowing the touch telepath to tap into those beings’ thoughts. . . . Under appropriate conditions, a nontelepath’s nervous system can augment an ailing telepath with therapeutic results.”

It seemed clear that when she had palpated Dax’s abdomen, stimulating the symbiont, her own nervous system had provided a boost to the failing bond. If she were to act as a human shunt, Audrid and Dax should be able to stabilize, even shore up, their bond until the Copernicus reached the Troyval.

Before she could start the treatment, Spock paged her over the intercom. I guess that still works, she thought as she joined him in the cockpit after checking Dax’s vitals. Both the Trill woman and symbiont should be fine while Chapel spoke briefly with Spock, but she was anxious to return to her patient.

Spock looked grim. “As you may have noticed,” he said, with a gesture toward the darkened overhead lights, “we are having some technical problems. In order to ensure our safe arrival at Rose’s Folly, I need to stabilize some systems immediately. If you could assist me by once again monitoring the systems from the copilot’s station, I will get started.”

She responded with a grim look of her own. “Spock, I need to start treating Commissioner Dax or we’ll lose her.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Doctor, I am obligated to remind you that Trill cultural mores do not allow that.”

Somehow his formality made the statement less imposing. Chapel shrugged. “Commissioner Dax and I reached an understanding of sorts. Even if we hadn’t, I wouldn’t just watch her die.”

Spock tilted his head. “Under the circumstances, I will focus on the former statement and avoid the ethical debate implied by the latter. Nevertheless, the situation puts us at cross-purposes.” He thought for a moment. “I should be able to attend to these repairs on my own, but I would appreciate the safety net provided by your supervision. Would it be possible for you to monitor my progress and your patient’s condition simultaneously? I could route the data to your diagnostic display.”

Chapel shook her head. “I really don’t like dividing my attention, but I don’t see that I have much choice. Let’s do it.”

He gave her a crisp nod. “If all goes well, you will not have to do anything. But if any subsystems start red-lining, please make sure I am aware of the situation.”

“Of course.” Chapel realized that while she was serving as Spock’s backup, she had no backup herself. With a sigh, she turned toward the aft cabin, but Spock called her back.

“I could use your help pulling up this deck plate.”

They lifted up an access panel that stretched from between the cockpit seats back to the door into the aft cabin. Chapel took a moment to peek into the tight crawlspace as Spock gathered the necessary tools and materials for the repair work. She could see charred conduits and areas covered in emergency self-sealing foam. He had his work cut out for him.

“Good luck,” she said as he lay down on the deck and started wriggling into the crawlspace.

He craned his neck to look back up at her. “As reluctant as I am to admit it, that may be what we both need right now.”

With a nod, the doctor stepped into the aft cabin and went to Dax’s side. The monitor above the bed was now a split screen, displaying key energy readouts and subsystem relays on one half and Dax’s vital signs on the other. This was no way to treat a patient, but, as Dax had said, It is what it is.

Once again, Chapel rolled down the covers and lifted Dax’s shirt. “Well, here we go,” she said, and she placed both palms on Dax’s stomach. She applied some pressure and slowly moved her hands around. The symbiont didn’t respond as quickly as the first time. Beginner’s luck, I guess, Chapel thought. She continued, moving her hands in small circles, then looked up at Spock’s progress on the monitor. As she watched, she saw subsystems going off-line then coming back on again, sometimes repeatedly. He was obviously taking slow, careful steps and testing his repairs as he went. Erratic energy signatures smoothed out, and some flat-lined systems began powering up for the first time since the attack.

“At least one of us is making progress.” Even as she said that, Chapel felt the stirrings of the symbiont. Her downward pressure met with resistance as the symbiont arched its wormlike body. The sensation didn’t surprise her as much this time, and she made an effort to replace her original thoughts of parasites with the idea of a fetus moving within its mother’s womb. She continued her gentle massage and was soon rewarded with the strange electricity of the undulating being tickling her palms.

She was certain this was the mental energy of the symbiont. Chapel didn’t expect any actual communication with it; the creature was so alien to her that she suspected a deeper bonding would be necessary for that. But communication wasn’t the goal, only the facilitation of the link between symbiont and host. Still feeling the static bursts on her hands, Chapel lifted one hand slowly from Dax’s abdomen. Chapel concentrated on her palms, envisioning the path between them, up the nerves of one arm, into the spinal cord, and back down to the palm she was moving toward Dax’s forehead.

She hesitated, her left hand hovering over Dax’s face, a subtle tingling still playing across the palm, an echo of the strong sensation in her right hand resting above the squirming symbiont. Chapel glanced at the monitor. Dax’s vital signs were stable. The various feeds from Spock’s repair work also appeared under control. Everything’s fine, she told herself. Chapel looked back down at her patient—patients—and placed her left hand firmly upon Dax’s forehead.

Instantly there was a burst of static along her left palm. Chapel felt as if there were a magnetic pull between her hand and Dax’s forehead. Dax twitched once, her body jerking slightly as if startled, then relaxed. Chapel felt an odd sensation moving up one arm and down the other, similar to getting IV fluids and feeling the cool liquid move through your bloodstream. But this was the neural energy of Trill and symbiont linking through her own nervous system, their natural reaching toward each other facilitated along an external pathway.

For a disturbing moment, Chapel lost all sensation in her arms. The numbness began spreading down her spine, but Chapel reasserted herself by moving her arms—without breaking contact with Dax’s body—and again envisioning the pathway from palm to palm, as if emphasizing the course of the detour to her patients. Feeling returned to her arms, and the tingling sensation of the Trill neural energy stayed confined to the appropriate route—at least mostly. Although she kept picturing the route as moving straight from one arm to the other through her spinal cord, wisps of neural energy strayed upward toward her brain, causing a sensation of whispers she couldn’t quite hear. She forgot to blink, almost forgot to breathe. Her perception of time stretched, melted, evaporated. Chapel knew she should check on Spock. Spock needed her. She was his backup. He was counting on her, as she had counted on him innumerable times over the years. But these thoughts were hazy, glimpsed through a fog, and insubstantial themselves, ghosts she couldn’t grasp, stirred into chaotic patterns as her fingers passed through them, she was lost in a desert, trying to scoop up the water of a mirage, her hands coming up dry, sand spilling from her palms . . .

Chapel wrenched herself away from Dax and staggered away from the bed. She inhaled deeply, gasping, as if surfacing after having held her breath far too long. The monitor displayed Dax’s brainwaves largely resynchronized, at least for now. Chapel stared at the waves arcing up and down across the screen, drawn to them, but slowly her senses expanded. Shifting her gaze to the engineering feeds on the other half of the monitor, Chapel saw graphs, various colored lines zigzagging, numbers flashing, red and green bars. Nothing made sense; her mind was unfocused, like it was elsewhere, like she was a reflection in a mirror with no substance of her own. Somewhere deep in this fog of jumbled sensations, there was something else, something solid, insistent, grounding. Her impression of this coalesced into a single word, a plea for help from out of the darkness: Christine . . .

Reality rushed into hard-edged focus around her. She staggered as if dropped onto the deck from meters in the air. Alarms jangled, slicing through the cabin, setting her teeth on edge.

“Spock!” She rushed to the cockpit door, which didn’t open. Chapel banged on the manual controls mindlessly, then stopped to actually look at the display. Cabin pressure was decreasing slowly in the forward compartment. Luckily it wasn’t serious enough to block the override command she entered.

She dashed into the cockpit. Spock was facedown deep in the crawlspace—she could only see his legs, which lay there limp, lifeless. No, this is not happening! Chapel grabbed him by the ankles and pulled. He’s only unconscious. I know he’s still alive. I’d feel it if . . . if he were gone. His body slid out until she could see the small of his back, then came to a sudden halt. Another tug brought no progress. She crawled over him, lying on top of his body, so she could peer into the dark crawlspace beneath the deck. As her eyes adjusted, she could see that the left sleeve of his uniform was caught on a ruptured conduit. Chapel reached up alongside him and got her hand on his sleeve. She could feel a bunch of fabric gathered along the tip of the conduit, the threads of a hole torn through the uniform, the damp warmth of blood where her efforts to pull him out had caused the conduit to slice into his triceps.

“Dammit!” She focused her anger into one ferocious tug on the sleeve, which tore away from the conduit. After pushing his arm closer to his body, she moved down to his feet again and pulled him the rest of the way out more slowly. It was an accomplishment, but there was no time for celebrating yet. Grabbing Spock under his arms, she half lifted, half rolled him up onto the deck. She had made a mess of his neatly arranged supplies beside the access panel, but she found a couple of emergency sealing packets and tossed them into the crawlspace. She dragged him farther out of the way, near the starboard hatch, then wrestled the access panel back into place by herself.

Her body trembling from effort and adrenaline, Chapel hurried into the aft cabin to grab a medkit. She spared a quick glance at Dax’s vitals, which were still stable, then she went back to Spock. Chapel dropped down to sit on the deck beside him. She pulled Spock up across her lap so that she could cradle his head in her left arm while she scanned him. Dull green blood ran from his upper lip—probably another injury she’d caused while yanking his unconscious body from the crawlspace—and the scan showed his oxygen levels were low. His left arm was still bleeding from the laceration, but no major blood vessels had been cut. She gave Spock a shot of tri-ox with the hypospray from the medkit and kept him cradled in her arms.

He looked a little pale, and she placed her hand upon his forehead. As soon as her palm touched his skin, she felt a burst of jumbled thoughts. She couldn’t tell if they were hers or his. Maybe her perceptions were still turned outward by the experience of channeling the symbiont bond; maybe that and her familiarity with Spock, the time she’d held him in her mind, combined to jump-start a link. She blinked rapidly, disoriented, as bursts of his confused emotions filled her mind. The singular friendship he felt for Kirk, the tangled camaraderie shared by him and McCoy, his loyalty toward the crew . . . And then Chapel, the place she had in his life, his lack of context for understanding the depth of those feelings, complicated by their past, her love for him and how it had changed and matured.

Chapel tried to pull away, embarrassed that she had felt his most private thoughts, but she seemed too weak to move her arms. Another part of her worried about the status of the shuttlecraft. How much of his repairs had Spock completed? Were they on course? She hadn’t even noticed if they were still at warp, and now she sat with her back toward the bow, unable to see out the port. Were they simply drifting, helpless and exposed, in open space? She had to get up. Had to check on Dax and the Copernicus. Chapel grabbed the hypospray to give herself a stimulant but felt it slip from her fingers and clatter to the deck as her eyes closed.

Chapter 6

Chapel forced her eyes to open. Spock’s face was just inches from her own; she still had him cradled across her lap, and she had slumped forward as she lost consciousness, overwhelmed by the mental links she had experienced. She blinked her eyes to help them focus and looked at Spock. His color had returned to normal, and his breathing was deep and regular. His injured lip was slightly swollen, but the bleeding had slowed. Chapel sat up straight and tried to stretch her stiff back as much as she could without waking him. She turned his left arm slightly to get a peek at the laceration. It was shallow, with just a trickle of fresh blood. That wound required care soon, but she needed to give some thought to the shuttle. She glanced around, trying to get a sense of their status. There were no alarms going off, either from the cockpit or from the diagnostic unit aft, and the normal lighting had come back on. The thrumming she felt through the deck seemed like the usual warp speed sensation. Before performing repairs, Spock obviously would have programmed their course into the computer, along with several emergency subroutines, so perhaps they’d come through this just fine. At least what could be called “fine” under their current circumstances.

Before Chapel could dwell upon those circumstances, she felt Spock stirring. She looked down in time to see his eyes snap open. He glanced around in confusion and raised an eyebrow. “Are we on the deck?” She nodded, smiling at him. He looked back up at her. “Are you holding me in your lap?”

“Yes, I am.”

His eyebrow lowered and he said, “Interesting.” He shifted a little, but he didn’t try to get up. “I remember being in the crawlspace and discovering some unsealed microbreaches in the outer hull. I had to keep the area clear of sealant to facilitate making the necessary repairs. My intention was to finish the work quickly, before the thinning air would affect my Vulcan physiology, which is adapted to lower oxygen levels. When I realized I had overestimated my tolerance, I called for your assistance, but clearly you did not hear me. Nevertheless, I assumed you would soon notice the developing situation on your monitor. I am curious . . . why did you respond so slowly?”

Somehow he asked that without any sense of incrimination, with only a tone of scholarly interest. Chapel smiled sadly while she formulated a reply. She couldn’t tell him she’d been facilitating a link between Audrid and her symbiont and had lost all sense of time or her surroundings. She didn’t know if she should admit she had heard him call her name in her mind, and she wanted to avoid explaining how her heightened neural state had allowed her to unintentionally eavesdrop on his thoughts.

“I’m sorry, I was at a critical point in my treatment of Commissioner Dax. I was so focused I just didn’t realize the danger you were in. When I did . . . it was quite a scare. For a split second I thought I might lose you.”

“It appears you were successful in averting that outcome.”

Chapel laughed. As a smile so wide it almost hurt spread across her face, she felt tears gather in her eyes. She wiped at them quickly before they fell onto Spock, still gazing up at her.

“I . . .” He hesitated, appearing confused. He reached up with his left hand to the side of her face. He wiped a tear away with his thumb and let her lean into his hand. She placed her right hand over his left. “Do you recall when I awoke in sickbay after mind-melding with V’ger?”

“How could I forget? I treated you. I was trying so hard to maintain my professional composure.”

In a desperate attempt to make contact with the intelligence behind the gargantuan spacecraft before it reached Earth, Spock had stolen a thruster suit and gone into the alien ship alone. Chapel learned that he’d encountered images spanning the universe, representing the craft’s travels. When he found an image of the robotic probe that V’ger had put aboard the Enterprise in the form of their lost navigator Ilia, he had initiated a mind-meld through the glowing sensor on her neck. He’d been overwhelmed by the information that gushed into his mind, learning that the V’ger spacecraft was sentient. There were no organic life-forms aboard it. He’d also sensed the profound emptiness that drove V’ger. When he had come to in sickbay, he’d been rather demonstrative when explaining that despite V’ger’s logical perfection and vast knowledge, it was isolated and aimless. Standing beside her patient, Chapel had watched Spock grasp Kirk’s hand while saying that such a simple feeling was beyond V’ger’s comprehension. She knew that she was witnessing an epiphany, but she had maintained her professional distance with great effort when all she’d wanted to do was grab his other hand and be a part of the moment that had changed Spock’s life.

Spock nodded. “Yes, I felt . . . liberated. I mentioned simple feelings.” He moved his fingers slightly against her cheek, and she squeezed his hand in return. “But they are not so simple, are they? Your feelings for me . . . they seem to have deepened, even though we did not progress into a romantic relationship. That confuses me.”

She shook her head. “But we did progress—just in a different direction. I grew past those feelings, but I didn’t forget them or disown them. You’ll always hold a special place in my heart.” It felt good to tell him.

“That result seems contraindicated by the circumstances.”

Chapel pulled her face away as she started laughing. “You’ve still got a lot to learn about emotions.”

“I concur with that assessment.” With her help he sat up beside her on the deck. He stretched a little, then stopped with a slight wince. “I seem to have injured my arm.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Chapel got an anabolic protoplaser and dermal regenerator from the medkit and explained what had happened while she treated his arm and his bloodied lip.

“A logical, if unfortunate, trade-off. In the future I will avoid losing consciousness in such hazardous confines.”

“Maybe Scotty could give you some pointers.”

“Indeed.”

Spock got up and returned to the pilot’s seat. While he started doing systems checks, Chapel looked in on Dax. The Trill was still resting comfortably in a deep sleep. Her brainwaves showed a slight asynchronous trend since Chapel last checked, but the amount of deterioration was small. At this rate, there should be no problem keeping Audrid and Dax stable until the rendezvous. Chapel hoped this would allow her to spend more time assisting Spock; he would probably need the extra hands to keep the Copernicus flying.

She moved back into the cockpit and eased into the copilot’s seat. Spock looked up from his controls with a frustrated expression.

“I was not completely successful in my repairs. Our shields are nominal, but we have only short-range sensors. While this will suffice to assist with our course changes within Rose’s Folly, they will not give us much advanced warning of the hostile ship’s return. The comm system is functioning erratically, but—with a modicum of quantifiable luck—I should be able to send the Troyval new rendezvous coordinates.”

“What’s next, and how can I help?”

“We are nearing Rose’s Folly. I’m programming an asymmetrical directional collapse of our warp field.”

Chapel raised her eyebrows. “Pretend I’m not Scotty and explain that to me.”

“I do not have to pretend that, as you are most obviously not Mister Scott.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Chapel immediately kicked herself for her offhand response as Spock blinked his eyes a few times while parsing its possible implications. Although Spock was an expert in repartee with McCoy, he was still too confused about her friendship to process the same kind of playful banter from her. She had to be more careful about what she said. “Please, continue.”

Spock grabbed on to that request like a lifeline. “When a ship drops out of warp, the standard dissolution of the warp field imparts forward momentum along the ship’s course into normal space. By altering the warp field shutdown, I hope to adjust our course, quickly directing us toward RF III while creating a false trail along our previous course. This may fool the hostile ship’s sensors and force them to backtrack to find us. Even a gain of a minute could be the difference between getting to the Troyval or being caught.”

“Altering our course with the warp field . . . like putting English on a cue ball.” Chapel was pleased with her analogy at first, but she received only a raised eyebrow in response. “When shooting billiards, you can put spin on the cue ball by where you hit it with the stick. Then when the cue ball hits the cushion or another ball, it’ll curve off or even move backward.”

Spock lowered his eyebrow. “If the cue ball represents the shuttle, and its sudden change in direction after impacting another object represents the effects of an asymmetrical warp field collapse, then the two situations are not entirely dissimilar, although I am not sanguine about the use of collision in the metaphor.”

Chapel kept her expression blank. “That started to feel like teasing, especially the last part, but I’ll let it go for now.”

With a hint of a smile, Spock went back to working the controls. “I have initiated standard protocols for ship detection, but if you could monitor the sensors for any detail that just does not look right, it might provide us with an early warning.”

“Will do.” Chapel pulled up the sensor feeds on the panel in front of her. Certain things were easy for tricorders and various diagnostic scans to pick out, but there were still hints that an organic mind could pick out almost subconsciously before a computer found a match by running through its entire database. That’s what Spock was hoping for here: that some little blip would draw her attention even if the computer found it to be within expected statistical variances.

Chapel stared at the readings, tweaking the way they were displayed a few times until the data made sense to her. It was quiet in the shuttle, the only sounds coming from the engines, the soft tones of the computer, and the feedback of her and Spock’s fingers on the controls.

Spock broke the silence. “In the past, under similar circumstances, I would calculate the odds, try to anticipate all the variables, and then formulate the responses necessary to adjust the odds as much in favor of the preferred outcome as possible. Now, even as a positive outcome becomes more difficult to foresee logically, I grow more certain that I will make that outcome happen. I feel that I will get us out of this situation, no matter what.

“Although such emotional impulses remain a source of confusion, I do wish to continue integrating them into my life. Nevertheless, I still appreciate the structure that logic provides for me. These two outlooks are perhaps not outright contradictions, but the amount of overlap seems quite small.” He turned toward Chapel. “How do you structure the emotional life?”

“You might be asking the wrong person.” Chapel stared out the forward port for a moment before turning her attention back to the sensor readings. “It’s funny you put it that way, because, looking back, I’m starting to think a lot of my choices were based on a yearning for structure, but always outside myself. My engagement to Roger, joining Starfleet, then my—dare I say it—fascination with you. In a way, they were all external sources of structure.” She chuckled. “Just think how much structure a Vulcan would provide as a mate.”

Spock smirked very slightly. “I’m sure my mother would say sometimes too much structure.”

Chapel laughed. “I’ve come to realize it’s about balance. There’s nothing wrong with wanting stability in my life. But I need more control. At a certain point, too much structure from outside isn’t stability, it’s confinement.

“As for your situation, you need to find your own balance, which takes time. You don’t want to be a slave to emotions or logic. They can temper each other, complement each other.”

Spock nodded. “That is helpful. But now we have to focus on other matters.” Spock tapped out commands on his panel. “I need to initiate the asymmetrical warp shutdown soon. I have integrated inertial damper compensations, but the course change might still be rather abrupt. I suggest you secure yourself aft and monitor Commissioner Dax during the turbulence.” He turned toward her. “Do you still wish to continue on this course of action?”

Chapel didn’t hesitate. “I already made my decision, and nothing has changed my mind. Let’s stick with it. I’ll let you know when I’m ready.”

She got up and walked briskly into the aft cabin. She was surprised to find Dax awake.

“How are you feeling?”

Dax licked her lips. “Thirsty. Other than that, surprisingly well, thank you.” After Chapel gave her a sip of water, she added, “What did you do to me? I recall strange dreams or memories of . . . but that can’t be.”

“I’m sorry, but we don’t have time to talk about it. We need to buckle down for a few minutes, then I’ll bring you up to speed.” Chapel checked Dax’s restraints and made some quick adjustments, then got into the jump seat and belted herself in. “Just hold on, this should be over shortly.” She reached over her shoulder and activated the intercom. “We’re ready back here.”

“Affirmative.” The line stayed open, and Chapel could hear Spock’s hands moving and the feedback as he operated his controls. “Course change coming up in eighteen seconds.”

Well, that was cutting things closer than I realized. He can still play things close to that Vulcan chest of his. “Acknowledged.” To Dax she said, “Brace yourself.”

No one said anything else, and the seconds stretched out interminably until Spock said, “Five seconds.” There was a pause before he said, “Dropping out of warp—now.”

Even before he spoke the last word, Chapel felt dizzy. The inertial dampers had kicked into high gear in advance of Spock’s unorthodox maneuver. Even so, when the ship dropped into normal space it felt like giant hands had gripped the shuttle fore and aft and twisted in opposite directions. Instead of being thrown to one side as the shuttle lurched, it felt like being thrown in all directions at once as the shuttle itself corkscrewed off in a different way.

For a second, Chapel didn’t realize the sharp echo she heard in the cabin was the harsh curse she herself had screamed. The lights went off, came back on. She wondered why the lights were on the deck now, then figured out the artificial gravity had gone out of alignment and the field was only slowly reorienting. Finally the deck corresponded with down again, and the bucking bronco ride was over. Chapel undid her restraints and crossed the cabin to Dax, staggering a little bit as the impulse engines engaged.

Dax, still clinging to her restraints, looked a little pale but otherwise appeared fine. “I never liked carnival rides.”

Chapel was looking at the monitor above the bed. “I wouldn’t get back on line for that one either.” It appeared the rough ride hadn’t harmed Audrid, the symbiont, or the bond, for which she was relieved. “Try to relax. I need to check on Spock.”

As the door slid open she was momentarily frozen by the sight of the Jovian planet practically filling the forward port. Spock glanced back at her. “I see you are well. Is the commissioner all right?”

The laceration on his forehead, and the green blood running freely from the wound down the side of his nose, shook her out of it. She got a medkit and began running the dermal regenerator over the cut. “We’re fine. What happened up here?”

Careful to keep his head still while she treated him, he said, “I underestimated the instability of the maneuver as I apportioned the inertial damper adjustments. On the positive, the warp shutdown propelled us even faster and farther into the system than I expected, and the impulse engines are operating at full power.”

Chapel was listening, but she was focused on sealing the laceration. As she gave his forehead a few more passes of the regenerator for good measure, she tried to replay what he’d said in her mind. She furrowed her brow. “What was that about apportioning the adjustments? What do you mean?”

“I prioritized the aft cabin for power distribution to ensure the commissioner’s safety.”

“And mine.” Chapel dropped the regenerator back into the medkit before she threw it across the room. She couldn’t believe Spock had done this. “You risked the safety of the pilot. That sounds like a command-level decision to me, and one I would not agree with.”

Spock’s eyes widened just slightly at the accusation. “I was protecting the mission and our passenger.”

“Does that change my assessment of the situation?”

He hesitated, then said, “No. You are correct.”

“Damn right I am. And what would have happened to our passenger and me if you’d been seriously injured?” She didn’t give him time to attempt a response. “I don’t say this lightly: Don’t do that again, not while I’m in command.”

Spock was sitting ramrod straight. “Understood.”

Chapel exhaled and softened her tone. “Okay, at ease, Spock. Give me a status update.”

Before he could answer, multiple alarms went off and the emergency lighting came on as all the displays flickered and went dark.

Chapter 7

“We have entered RF III’s magnetosphere. Our limited sensors did not detect the intensity of the charged particles and plasma we would encounter when crossing the bow shock.” Spock was almost pounding at the sluggish controls. “Attempting to route additional power to shields.”

Chapel wanted to help but didn’t know what to do as she stared at the powered-down displays in front of her. Finally, they came to life. She brought up some additional data and didn’t like what she saw. “We’re losing power in the impulse engines, and the planet’s pulling us in. We’re accelerating!”

“Maneuvering thrusters are on-line. I am adjusting our approach to get out of the plasma torus created by the largest moon. With less electromagnetic interference, I should be able to get impulse engines functioning properly.”

“Should? Can we overcome the planet’s gravity with just thrusters?”

“That is unlikely under the circumstances.”

As Spock struggled to maneuver the Copernicus, Chapel began turning off the cacophony of alarms that filled the cockpit. At this point, they really didn’t need reminding of the deep trouble they were in. She reviewed the alerts before deactivating them, making sure Spock was aware of the problems first. Her approach was somewhat random, as the controls continued to function erratically due to interference from the magnetic field. Chapel moved to another alarm and felt her stomach turn.

“I’ve got a proximity alert.” RF III had numerous small satellites, little more than captured asteroids, in erratic orbits. Chapel looked through the port, expecting to see a large chunk of rock spinning toward them. Spock spared a quick glance toward her display, but the shuttlecraft lurched violently to one side. Chapel, who hadn’t belted in, gripped her seat to keep from falling to the deck, aided by the strength brought on by fear. In shuttles the inherent dangers of the harsh environment of space were immediate and visceral, not like on a starship, where you could almost forget you weren’t working in a planetside hospital. Her survival instincts urged her to hold her breath in case they started venting atmosphere, but the calm, diagnostic part of Chapel’s mind noted she hadn’t heard the grinding shriek of stone on metal.

“That was not an impact,” Spock said as he fought to regain control of the malfunctioning propulsion system.

She was grateful for his even tone, his determined expression. Chapel refocused on her displays, trying to think like a science officer. “Confirming the nature of the alert.” That even sounded like something Spock would say.

Automated alerts were set off under many conditions and needed to be reviewed by a crew member to determine what triggered them and to weed out false alarms. Chapel tried to get more information, a task complicated by her limited knowledge of sensor operations and the rocking of the shuttle. She quickly realized she’d made a mistake, but she liked the real answer even less. “It’s a warp signature,” she said, working at the panel. She looked over at Spock. “Did they spot us?”

The rocking subsided, and some of the secondary displays popped back on-line. Spock nodded with satisfaction at the results. “I was able to move us into a less energetic region, and I altered the shield frequency to more fully protect us. Impulse engines should be back on-line soon.” He leaned over to look at Chapel’s display and tapped a few controls. “There are no indications that they noticed us. Remember, sensors are barely operational within the magnetosphere. Automated subspace scans detected the warp trail as a ship passed by the system. The strength of the frequency is consistent with the size of the ship that attacked us. They appear to have fallen for my misdirection, but for how long is uncertain. I must make repairs.”

The thought of Spock going back into the crawlspace unnerved her, but they had no alternatives.

“I could attempt the repairs in space with little additional risk, but in this orbital environment—” He was interrupted by an alarm from the diagnostic bed, easily heard even though muffled by the wall separating the cockpit and the aft cabin.

Chapel rushed to her patient’s side. Dax’s brainwaves were deteriorating again, and she had gone into a deep sleep, at the edge of losing consciousness. As Chapel watched the patterns move across the monitor, she could see that the changes were subtly different than before. Skimming through the scans prior to when the alarm was triggered, Chapel could pinpoint the relapse to when the Copernicus crossed the bow shock into the magnetosphere of RF III; from that point onward the bond between Trill and symbiont declined in strength until it reached the threshold that set off the alarm. Something in this highly charged environment was exacerbating Dax’s condition.

Chapel reached under the covers to put her palm on Dax’s abdomen, hoping to feel the staticky sensation caused by the symbiont’s neural energy. Even after a few minutes there was nothing. Chapel couldn’t try to stabilize the bond as she had before. She just had to hope that Spock could make the necessary repairs to get them out of this environment as soon as possible. That meant she had to help him as much as she could, taking her away from her patient. The situation just got worse and worse.

Spock’s voice crackled over the intercom. “May I enter?” Chapel flinched, startled.

Great, now what? “I’ll be there in a second.” She turned off the monitor so that Spock wouldn’t see the brainwaves and went to the door. Spock was standing patiently in the cockpit, outside the area that would trigger the door to open. His calm demeanor made her feel better, but it didn’t change the facts of their situation. “Commissioner Dax has had a setback. I think it’s because of the electromagnetic field. We need to move fast.”

“I concur. But I need to use the crawlspace in the aft cabin. My access from this side is hampered by the emergency sealant you had to use. It would be best if you remained in the cockpit to monitor hazards in our orbit.”

“But what am I supposed to do about them? I’m a doctor, not a shuttle pilot.” I can’t believe I just said that. Too many years serving with Leonard. She was grateful Spock let the use of the phrase pass without comment.

“I trust you will do your best. Our extremely limited options leave us little choice.”

Chapel sighed and checked Dax’s vitals one more time with a tricorder. There was no change. Dax was essentially stable aside from the weakening bond. Chapel linked the bed’s diagnostic systems to her tricorder so she could easily monitor Dax’s condition from the cockpit, then left the aft cabin.

Spock briefed her on the displays. The short-range sensors and navigation systems were working and largely automated. Anything that crossed their orbit would be indicated on the tactical display, along with automatic minor course corrections. If the situation got complicated, the navigation computer would present her with course options, and she would have to make a judgment call, as Spock would be unable to break away from his repairs. However, if something really unexpected happened, requiring significant manual adjustments, Spock would return as quickly as he could.

“That’s a lot of ifs, but we just need to get through this.” She looked back up at Spock. With a smile, she added, “What are you waiting for? Get to work.”

He tipped his head. “Aye, aye, sir.” He entered the aft cabin, locking the door open.

She watched him for a moment as he lifted an access panel in the center of the deck and kneeled beside it, considering his next step. But then she had to turn away as an alert tone sounded from the pilot’s controls. The display indicated in red an asteroid about the size of a briefing-room table tumbling toward their orbital path. The nav computer made a course alteration so minute Chapel could feel no change, but the tactical display of the asteroid turned green. With that taken care of, she took a look at the tricorder, which she had placed nearby on the console. Her patient was stable. Chapel could only hope that things continued like this.

Time stretched out as the Copernicus orbited the planet. The sounds of Spock’s work were reassuring—soft tapping, the electronic tones of diagnostic scans, the hum of systems coming back to life. Even when something went wrong, with the lights flickering or a screech of metal on metal, there was no outburst of angry profanity—as she so often heard from McCoy in the lab—but instead, at most, a deep sigh and then more quiet sounds as Spock redoubled his efforts.

She was grateful for that quiet, productive atmosphere, which helped her through her increasingly difficult assignment in the cockpit. More and more small rocks pinged against their shields. Every impact caused a flash on her readouts, which in turn caused her to flinch. She would have turned off that display, but often a burst of small impacts indicated a larger, more dangerous asteroid on its way, and she appreciated the additional warning.

The instrument feedback was bad enough, but when those small impacts were against the forward shields—and Chapel could see the flashes directly through the forward port—it was even more disconcerting. Her mind filled in the sound of an explosion with each burst, as she squinted against the blue flare of the energized shield. It felt like she was being forced to walk through a minefield, knowing there was no pattern to the mines: a field of random death, expecting at any moment her next step would be her last.

Her eyes darted between those unnerving displays of orbital debris and her tricorder. Dax’s bond, as indicated by the divergent brainwave patterns, continued to weaken, although there remained little Chapel could do. In contrast, her pulse was elevated, her breathing just a little too fast. Working under this kind of constant stress was not conducive to doing the job at hand. The more nervous she got as she monitored the constant pelting of the shields, the more likely she was to miss something, to be caught off guard when an alarm suddenly squealed for attention, to hesitate when immediate action was required.

She glanced back over her shoulder. Although she could hear an oddly melodious clanking from beneath the deck as Spock worked, she could no longer see him. He was too far into the crawlspace, which reminded her of his first near deadly repair attempt. Chapel’s unease intensified as the clanking stopped. She sat up a little straighter. Although she told herself he had probably just finished one task and was now turning to another, Chapel couldn’t help but consider other, darker possibilities. Nevertheless, she refocused on her assigned task, turning back to the display on the pilot’s console. In that second or two she had looked aft, three large asteroids, all in red, had appeared.

Her eyes widened as she leaned closer, trying to sort through the complicated graphics of orbital mechanics. When observed from within an artificial gravity field, the movements of objects in a micro-g environment seemed particularly counterintuitive. Two of the tumbling asteroids, each bigger than the Copernicus, looked like they would collide with each other close to their nearest approach to the shuttle’s course. Automated sensor scans were bringing up geological details of the asteroids on a separate display, analyzing whether they would break apart or just ricochet off each other. The closer the asteroids approached, the more accurately the exact point of impact could be predicted, and the angles of the surfaces that would touch, increasing the accuracy of predicting the degree to which the asteroids might shatter and the resulting courses of the pieces.

There was a sudden proliferation of red and green lines as the navigational computer plotted all this information, and then the display started flashing various lines to underscore their uncertainty. The computer was essentially shrugging its shoulders and giving up. A sharp beeping was accompanied on-screen with the flashing words PILOT INTERVENTION REQUIRED. The moment she’d been hoping to avoid had arrived.

Chapel looked up from the display. The view through the port was overwhelming. While focusing on the major problems, she hadn’t noticed the corresponding increase in minor impacts. The forward deflector screen was lighting up like a fireworks display. Too distracting. She put her head back down, looking only at the tactical display. PILOT INTERVENTION REQUIRED flashed with increasing frequency as the moment of collision neared. She had to do this. There was no time to get Spock up here. She tried imagining the tumbling asteroids as billiard balls, envisioning them caroming around as they rebounded from each other, but the two-dimensional nature of the billiard metaphor didn’t quite fit. Then she thought of performing remote surgery, manipulating medical instruments within the three dimensions of a patient. Somehow she combined that concept in her mind with billiards, as if operating on an organ while ducking around tumors moving freely within the abdominal cavity. It was a ridiculous notion, but she seized upon this way of applying her own experience to what she had to do.

Chapel laid her hands on the controls and began making adjustments. At first it seemed like they were still moving toward certain impact, especially as the two larger asteroids collided and each burst into several smaller threats, but then—after what seemed like hours but could only have been seconds—she watched as more and more objects and course projections turned from red to green. Before the full weight of what she was attempting to do had settled on her shoulders, she had threaded the needle, and the Copernicus was past the threat.

As she slumped back in her seat and tried to catch her breath, her hands began shaking. She looked back through the open door in the aft cabin but still couldn’t see Spock. There was nothing but silence from below the deck. The exhilaration of her accomplishment mixed with a sinking feeling in her gut.

“Doctor?” Spock’s sudden call, unbearably loud in the silent cockpit, seemed to emanate from nowhere. Chapel leaped to her feet in surprise, barely restraining a startled yelp, spinning around as if she expected to find him hiding under the copilot’s seat.

“Dammit, Spock, you scared the hell out of me!”

His calm voice crackled back over the intercom. “I apologize. But I noticed what felt like some fairly complicated course adjustments and wanted to check in.”

Chapel flopped back down into the pilot’s seat, one hand on her chest as she once again tried to get her breathing under control. Gasping became giggling, and she let the release of nervous energy continue for a few moments until she could practically hear the confusion within Spock’s silence. “Don’t worry, I haven’t gone space happy.”

“I will be there shortly.”

“No, I’m fine, really. Just a minor adrenaline overdose.”

“You misunderstand. The repair work is completed.”

Chapel heard the last sentence over the intercom and directly, as Spock’s head poked up out of the crawlspace, his wrist communicator still held to his mouth. She couldn’t stop smiling as he deactivated the communicator and climbed onto the deck. Getting to her feet, she took a moment to steady herself as her body finally relaxed, then she went to help him replace the access panel. As Spock returned to the cockpit to resume his pilot duties, the door sliding shut behind him, Chapel returned to her patient’s side.

She’d kept as close a watch as possible on Dax’s vital signs, so there were no surprises as she reviewed the brainwave scans more closely. The bond was weak, almost as bad as it had been before Chapel had intervened as a human shunt for their neural energy. Luckily, with the repairs completed, they should be leaving the magnetosphere soon and getting back on course to the rendezvous. She tapped in some new parameters for automated alerts and returned to the cockpit, tricorder in hand.

Spock glanced up as she took the copilot’s seat. “Would you prefer to sit here?”

I swear I just saw a twinkle in his eye. And that was the best compliment I’ve ever gotten. “Thanks, but no thanks. That’s all the piloting I hope to ever have to do.”

“There is no doubt in my mind that Lieutenant Sulu would say that you are a natural.”

And the best compliment just got better. “Thanks. But I think I’ll stick with medicine.”

“That is a logical application of your existing training, of course.” He had turned back to his controls, working assuredly as he continued speaking. “I am plotting a slingshot maneuver away from Rose’s Folly. Not leaving an impulse trail will make it harder to track our new course, and I altered the intermix formula as much as possible to change our warp frequency, further obscuring our trail.”

Chapel gave him a worried look without saying anything. She knew he would understand her reaction: An accidental slingshot effect had once sent them back in time to Earth in the 1960s. In her experience aboard the Enterprise, time travel was always skating on thin ice. He noticed her expression and responded.

“Rest assured, this will be a simple sublight gravitational maneuver with no temporal side effects. Tempting though it may be to gain some time for Commissioner Dax by jumping ahead to our rendezvous, the risks outweigh the benefits in most circumstances.”

Relieved, Chapel belted in and adjusted her restraints. Even at sublight speeds, it could be a bumpy ride. Spock explained he was adjusting their angle of approach to as clear an orbital path as possible, and he would shift all available power to the forward shields. The Vulcan looked at her, eyebrows raised, and she simply nodded. He nodded back and plunged the Copernicus toward RF III on a tight arc. The forward screen lit up with small impacts as they were accelerated by the planet’s immense gravitational pull. Chapel closed her eyes as RF III filled the forward port. Then the proximity alert went off, indicating a warp signal approaching Rose’s Folly.

Chapter 8

Chapel knew Spock had his hands full with the slingshot maneuver. She snapped her eyes open, ignoring RF III still looming over them, and called up the data on the alert. The warp frequency matched the ship that had previously flown past Rose’s Folly.

“It’s the same ship, and it’s getting close to where we dropped out of warp.”

“Acknowledged.” Spock’s focused gaze shifted between the foreword port and his instruments.

“Their warp field’s shutting down. They’ll see us when they go sublight.” Even if she recalled how to run more detailed scans, she knew it would be unwise, because the enemy ship could trace active scans back to the Copernicus.

“Perhaps. But I plotted our course to take us out of the system on the opposite side of RF III from our inbound approach. If they follow our course in, we should warp out in their blind spot. Hold on.”

Chapel looked out the port as RF III shot past to starboard. She felt herself pressed back in her seat as the shuttle was slung out of the system.

“I am sending narrow-beam message bursts toward the Troyval’s most likely position along its course to the rendezvous.”

Chapel’s head still felt glued to her seat, but she turned toward Spock. When she could see him, he was frowning. “Did they jam us?”

“No, the system went off-line after only three bursts.” He examined his displays. “The g-forces of the maneuver must have compromised my repairs, which were already at the limits of my abilities and our resources. No matter, it is time to go to warp, which would have likely caused the same problems.” He tapped his controls, and the stars stretched into lines as the Copernicus jumped to light speed.

Once again Spock leaned over to study the information on the copilot’s console in front of Chapel. He nodded a few times, an eyebrow raised. He sat back in his seat and was silent.

Chapel watched him think as long as she could stand it. “Well? Report.”

He lowered the eyebrow. “Sorry, I was contemplating the scant information we received from passive scans.” Turning back toward her, he pointed at various elements of the sensor readings on her display. “They did drop from warp near where we did. It is difficult to discern if I successfully kept RF III between us at all times as we left Rose’s Folly, but there are no indications that they ran any broad scans that might have caught a glimpse of us, nor that my narrow-beam transmissions were noticed. It is not unreasonable to infer that they were indeed following the course indicated to them by our previous warp trail, and that they are now investigating the traces we left behind in the system. If they have a competent crew, they will eventually see through my various attempts to minimize our warp signature and continue their pursuit.”

“So we’re warping to a rendezvous with no way of confirming the other ship is headed for the same place, no more repairs or tricks are readily available to us, and an enemy ship will soon be on our trail.”

“That is a grim assessment, but accurate.”

“Then this is a simple race. We should run as fast and as long as we can.”

“I agree. I will push my repairs to the limit. The closer we are to the Troyval when our engines give out—or our pursuers catch us—the better.”

As Spock manipulated his controls with a certain Vulcan gusto, and the thrumming of the warp engines increased, Chapel went back to Dax. She was relieved to see that the Trill’s brainwaves were slowly strengthening since leaving the violently energetic magnetosphere of RF III. Chapel briefly laid her hand on Dax’s abdomen and was soon rewarded with the odd tingling sensation of the symbiont’s neural energies upon the nerves of her palm. She quickly withdrew her hand. As long as the bond was intensifying naturally, she thought it best not to impose herself between Audrid and Dax. The option still remained available to her if they relapsed and their brainwaves became asynchronous.

After running several other scans and closely monitoring Dax for about half an hour, Chapel made her way back to the cockpit. She slumped into the copilot’s seat and suddenly felt weary.

“I could easily fall asleep sitting right here.”

“It has been a tiring mission.” Spock rotated toward her. “I must admit to feeling less than optimal myself.”

“Less than optimal? That bad?”

“Indeed. I would estimate that I am functioning at only ninety-two percent of my abilities.”

“Really? Practically useless.” Chapel let her eyes close but then forced them open before she really did fall asleep. Glancing over at Spock, she saw him fine-tuning the engines, doing all he could to keep the Copernicus going as fast as possible.

Chapel shook her head. “Remember what I said about looking for structure?” She waited until he nodded slightly before continuing. “It’s strange. Starfleet certainly has plenty of structure, with the chain of command and the Prime Directive . . . but this, this right now?” She waved an arm around. “This is not structure, this is flying by the seat of our pants. We get into these situations all the time. And no matter how much Leonard pisses and moans about it, I’m convinced, deep down, that he thrives on this stuff. But I’m not ashamed to admit that I don’t. Not a bit.”

Spock frowned. “But you perform admirably under these conditions. Your piloting of the shuttlecraft—”

“It’s not about doubting my abilities. I know I’m a good doctor, and in an emergency I can stretch myself beyond that. Big picture . . . even the best swimmer wants to get out of the pool now and then, you know what I mean?”

“I see your point.”

“I have to ask myself if the Enterprise is still the best place for me—for my personal and professional growth—in the long term. Coming back to her after the refit seemed right at the time . . . but maybe it was only the comfortable decision.”

Spock nodded. “I have had similar thoughts myself. For a long time, serving on the Enterprise, under both Captains Pike and Kirk, seemed like the nearest thing I had to a family because of my estrangement from my father. I still struggled with my emotions at the end of the five-year mission, especially after the captain’s promotion, so leaving to pursue Kolinahr seemed eminently logical. After V’ger, however, I wondered if staying aboard the Enterprise was simply the easiest course of action, a return to the familiar. The revelations I received from V’ger should drive me to embrace the unfamiliar.” He paused. “In the end, I decided that simply being aboard the Enterprise thrusts me into the unfamiliar.”

Chapel nestled further into her seat. “That makes sense. For you, that is. For me . . .” She trailed off, both because she wasn’t yet sure of her answer and because she was slipping into sleep.

Chapel was shaken awake by the shuttle violently lurching to starboard. In the dim emergency lighting, Spock looked particularly grim.

“They are back,” he said. “A glancing blow from their weapons knocked us out of warp. Our shields held, but our sensors are out. Initiating evasive maneuvers.”

This time it was Chapel’s stomach that lurched as Spock threw the damaged Copernicus into a hairpin turn. A beam flashed past the forward port.

Spock lifted an eyebrow. “That was not at full power.”

Chapel gripped her console. “They still want to take us alive.”

“Logical. They realize we are in a fragile condition. I may be able to use this to our advantage.”

Before Spock could elucidate, a soft cry of “Doctor!” emanated from the aft cabin.

Chapel headed back, staggering left and right as the Vulcan corkscrewed the shuttle away from their attacker. She paused at the door. “Spock?”

He glanced back over his shoulder expectantly.

“Get us out of here. Whatever it takes.”

After he gave her a quick nod, the doctor entered the aft cabin. As she did, the lights flickered. She couldn’t see any smoke, but there was a distinct smell of overloaded circuitry in the air. Dax watched her from the bed.

“Sorry about the ride,” Chapel said. “I think it’s about to get worse.”

Dax frowned. “Who are they?”

“We don’t know.”

“What happened to me? I felt so much better for a while . . .”

Chapel briefed Dax on the circumstances surrounding their time in Rose’s Folly. “You’ve been improving ever since we left, but it was a shock to your already weakened bond.”

“I understand. And now these whoever-they-are won’t let us get to the Troyval?”

Chapel nodded sadly and grabbed the bed as the Copernicus spun around. Then its course evened out, followed by the engines thrumming up to full power.

“Doctor, please take a seat and brace yourself.” Spock’s voice over the intercom was insistent, but Chapel wanted to know what was happening.

She opened the door to the cockpit and froze on the threshold. The hostile ship filled the forward port. Copernicus was bearing down on it as if Spock were going to ram it. Even as it seemed they were on top of the other ship, Spock continued accelerating.

“What are you—” She didn’t get to finish her question before the enemy got out of the way at the last second, and Spock took them to warp at full power. She was in the air for a second before landing hard on her glutes and taking a backward somersault along the deck. Landing facedown, she scrambled to her hands and knees and back to her feet as she rushed into the cockpit.

As she threw herself into the copilot’s seat she got a glimpse of Spock’s profile: his jaw clenched, his gaze unblinking as he drove the shuttle beyond capacity. He was shutting down everything he could; the displays and lights went dark as the whine of the warp engines got louder and higher in pitch.

“Spock?”

He made no sign that he’d even noticed her presence, much less that he had heard her. His fingers continued to dance along the controls as he pushed the Copernicus past its repairs and past its specs.

“Spock! Report!”

He blinked his eyes, and his expression softened slightly as he glanced toward her. “I surmised that although they were trying to keep us from going back to warp, they would not risk the effects of a collision. I maneuvered until they were in a spot directly along our course and then, as Mister Scott might say, gave it all she’s got.”

“I did tell you whatever it takes. Carry on.”

“Acknowledged. If I can convey a certain level of recklessness, perhaps they will be convinced that further attempts to capture us could result in the loss of the Copernicus and be self-defeating.”

“It would be self-defeating for us too, so be careful.”

“A logical approach.”

Throughout the exchange his hands never stopped moving. Pushing the already damaged shuttlecraft so hard required constant adjustments to maximize energy output without burning out repaired systems. The sound of the warp engines was a screech of pain, like a wild animal caught in a trap, and yet Spock kept the shuttle going. Chapel felt a little surge of hope that somehow he’d pushed the Copernicus beyond the limits of their enemy, that they would make it to the rendezvous. But then there was a deep moan that shuddered through the deck. Emergency lighting flickered and dimmed. Suddenly it seemed there was smoke everywhere, and they dropped from warp, dead in space.

“There is nothing more I can do.” With his shoulders slumping in a very un-Vulcanlike way, Spock shut down the sputtering warp engines completely and shifted all power to life support. “We cannot go to warp.”

Chapel knew there was no point in running on impulse power. The enemy would be on top of them any second regardless. “You did everything you could. Like you always do.”

Spock said nothing, but he straightened up and peered through the forward port for their enemy.

“There they are.” Chapel pointed to starboard as the unidentified ship took a slow, wheeling turn in front of them, as if making sure a cornered animal had no fight left. As the ship arced around and headed back toward the Copernicus, a universal docking ring was easily visible on its port side. They clearly still meant to board the shuttlecraft.

Spock reached below the center screen and opened the weapons locker. Before he could take a phaser, Chapel grabbed both of them, one in each hand. “You’d better arm yourself as well,” she said as she checked the charges in the phasers. In response to Spock’s raised eyebrow, she added, “You think I’m kidding? This doubles my chances.”

With a shrug, he got up and went into the aft cabin to access the portside locker. Chapel followed close behind. Dax turned toward them.

Spock said, “I am sorry, Commissioner, but we are about to be boarded. We will do all we can to protect you.”

“Thank you.” Her voice was soft.

Spock opened the weapons locker.

Dax spoke up more firmly: “Please hand me one of those.”

He glanced at Chapel, who stepped beside her patient. Dax was pale, and her head shook a bit as she lifted it from the pillow, but her stare was unblinking. Chapel gave Dax a grim smile, then said over her shoulder, “Get her a type-1, that’ll be easier to handle.”

Spock checked the small phaser’s charge and setting, then handed it to Dax. “I hope you do not have to use it.”

She smiled weakly. “I think I’ll have to disappoint you on that.”

As he nodded and pulled a phaser for himself from the locker, the clang of the universal docking ring conforming to the port hatch echoed within the shuttle, accompanied by a sharp jolt. Chapel and Spock both staggered a bit. Spock hurried out of the aft cabin.

Before following, Chapel said, “Good luck.”

“To us all,” said Dax.

Chapel stepped over the threshold, awkwardly holding her two phasers in one hand while locking the door to the aft cabin behind her. Then she positioned herself in front of it, both phasers pointed at the port hatch. Spock stood across from her in the cockpit, his phaser also trained on the hatch. A soft whoosh outside the hatch indicated that the docking tube between the ships had been pressurized, further confirmed by the sound of boots approaching the shuttle. Chapel stole another look at Spock as sparks erupted around the edges of the door. He glanced her way and nodded, somehow saying so much with the subtle gesture, before refocusing on the hatch.

Just as Chapel turned back, the sparks stopped. A stinging smoke hung in the air, along with the sharp echoes of the cutting process. Then the hatch began to be pulled outward from its frame. Without glancing at each other, Chapel and Spock fired simultaneously into the widening gap around the hatch. They were rewarded with a heavy thud, presumably caused by a suddenly unconscious humanoid falling to the deck on the other side.

Chapel smiled at the thrill of that victory, but it didn’t last long. Now the hatch was pushed quickly forward into the shuttle, and the return disruptor fire wasn’t set on stun. The shrill scream of the energy beams slicing through the air was deafening, the near misses still painful, as waves of heat burned even through their uniforms. Chapel thought that they may have stunned one more, but she and Spock were forced backward to the starboard hatch to avoid being hit. They stopped firing and raised their arms in surrender to bring the barrage to an end.

Smoke now filled the forward cabin, glittering with minute particles blasted from the damaged surfaces around them. The destroyed hatch clanged to the deck, and two Orion males appeared from the gloom, disruptor rifles at the ready. Chapel grimaced as the identity of their pursuers was finally revealed. The Orions were well known as pirates and slavers. Tall and muscular, they seemed to fill the shuttle as they strode forward, pinning Chapel and Spock against the starboard hatch.

Spock took a half step forward, as much as he could in the cramped space. “You are in violation of interstellar law.”

The Orions exchanged bemused smiles. The one on Chapel’s right said, “Drop the phasers.” There seemed little choice, and Chapel and Spock both let their weapons fall to the deck. The one on Chapel’s left, who was a slightly paler shade of green than the other, gathered up the weapons and tossed them into the docking tube. Then he stepped over to the door to the aft cabin. When it didn’t open automatically, he blasted the locking mechanism with his disruptor and kicked the door in with a large black boot. The wall of the medical unit was designed for privacy, not to withstand an assault.

Chapel tried to move toward the aft cabin, but she stopped when the Orion guarding them swung his disruptor into her face. Door-kicker stepped over the threshold and was immediately hit by a heavy phaser stun. He staggered backward, cracked his head on the handrails above the pilot’s seat, and fell to the floor. The remaining Orion laughed at his insensate companion and shouted, “The Trill’s definitely alive!”

A voice responded from within the docking tube. “That’s fortunate for you trigger-happy idiots.” A third Orion male entered the shuttlecraft, stepping carelessly upon the legs and arms of his unconscious crew members, two in the docking tube and Door-kicker in the shuttle. He was a little shorter than the guards who had entered first, but his bare arms were even more muscular. Chapel guessed he would have no trouble dealing with his subordinates in hand-to-hand combat.

He stepped beside his remaining guard and looked Spock up and down. “Move the Trill to my ship.”

Before Spock could reply, Chapel said, “No.” She folded her arms across her chest and glared back at the Orion.

He turned toward Chapel, a curious expression on his face. Glancing back at Spock, he said, “I’ll deal with you shortly.” He stepped closer to Chapel as he reached into his belt and drew a disruptor pistol, which he placed gently under her chin. “If you refuse, I’ll kill you and move her myself.”

Chapter 9

Chapel could feel Spock’s gaze on her, sense his readiness to fling himself between her and the Orions. But she was in command of this mission, and she would continue to take the initiative. Besides, it was her understanding that Orion women wielded the true power in their society, so she might have more of a chance at controlling this situation than Spock.

Chapel moved her chin away from the disruptor to make it easier to talk. “Why do you want her?”

The Orion commander shoved the disruptor back against her throat. “I get paid well because I don’t answer such questions. I’m not paid to spare people who get in my way.”

Chapel swallowed painfully. His nonanswer actually implied some information. He may have been hired to take Dax. Or maybe any Trill, she thought. Trill secrecy could lead to curiosity from dangerous places.

She paused long enough that Spock entered the conversation. “Doctor, I think the logical course of action is to do whatever is necessary to keep Commissioner Dax alive.”

Chapel understood he meant keeping herself alive as well. Clearing her throat, she said, “My patient will die without treatment, and this raid of yours will be pointless.”

“Pointless? No, this is a reward for my gamble. My idiot crew thought shadowing the Enterprise on its way to another boring Federation conference would be pointless, but then a shuttle went off on its own. And who was aboard but a Trill. And if she dies, we still have a human female—and a Vulcan with a generous price on his head in the Romulan Empire.” He moved the disruptor from Chapel’s throat and poked its emitter roughly against Spock’s temple. “Dead or alive.”

A bounty hunter, Chapel thought. He’ll sell any or all of us to the highest bidder. She gave Spock a look she hoped was encouraging, then turned back to the Orion commander. “I’ll need someone to carry her.”

The Orion commander smiled and stepped back from Spock, but he kept his disruptor pointed at Spock’s head. “Dulan, go with her.”

The guard nodded and gestured with his disruptor rifle at Chapel. She led him into the aft cabin over the demolished door. Dax’s eyes were closed, her skin pale. Chapel scanned her briefly. There was nothing she could do. They were running out of time, and desperate measures were called for. Chapel steeled herself as she would before delivering bad news to a patient or a patient’s family.

She turned toward Dulan, who stood a meter and a half away from her, his disruptor pointed at her midsection. In her best neutral doctor’s voice, Chapel said, “I need to prepare her medication. It will only take a moment.” She gave him a poker-faced stare until he nodded grudgingly. Chapel opened a drawer in the diagnostic bed and began mixing a vial of the sedatives she thought would act quickly on an Orion. Dulan watched her closely as she whipped up the potent drug cocktail and loaded it into a hypospray. She leaned over Dax, then hesitated.

“Go ahead, give it to her,” Dulan said.

She looked up at him. “Listen, we both know that I’ll probably be separated from my patient, whether by being put in a different cell or being killed. Let me show you the best point of injection so she can continue receiving her meds if I’m not there. I’m sure she’s worth more to your commander alive.”

Dulan looked uncomfortable. “I’m not even a field medic. Show someone else.”

Chapel stifled a smirk. Is this big hunk of Orion muscle squeamish? “Come on,” she said firmly, “the treatment’s as easy as plomeek soup. I’ll show you.” She was certain Spock’s sensitive hearing would pick that up.

She leaned back over Dax. “You can’t see from back there. There’s a very specific point on her neck . . .”

Dulan stepped forward and craned his thick neck to see where Chapel was pointing a finger at a specific Trill spot on the side of Dax’s neck. When she was sure she had his full attention, she said, “Just remember the shape of this spot. That’s where you need to place the hypospray.”

As she finished the sentence, she was already injecting Dulan in the abdomen with the hypospray in her other hand. He didn’t even have time to blink before he slumped forward. Chapel tried to guide him quietly to the deck, but he was easily over a hundred kilos and went down like a bag of rocks, his disruptor clattering alongside him.

Chapel stooped to grab the disruptor. At the same time, the face of the Orion commander appeared in the doorway. He leaned further in, a look of shock on his face. His disruptor wasn’t yet visible, as his arm was across his chest, still pointing back at Spock. As Chapel got her hands on the disruptor and started to raise it, the commander had already swung his arm around, bringing his pistol to bear on her. That’s when Spock’s hand appeared on the Orion’s beefy shoulder and pinched a particular nerve in the Orion’s neck. Spock maneuvered the unconscious commander softly to the deck.

Chapel immediately injected the commander with the hypospray; then, stepping over him, she left the aft cabin to do the same to the other three fallen Orions. “They’ll be out for at least six hours.”

Spock nodded. “The rest of the crew will soon check on their commander.”

“How many more do you think there are?”

“From the size of their ship, I would estimate at least three, possibly five.”

“We have to get Audrid to the rendezvous. We need that ship.”

“It is the only logical course of action open to us. And we need to neutralize the Orions for our own safety regardless.” He moved quietly to the docking tube to retrieve their phasers.

Chapel tucked the hypospray into the medkit, which was still in the cockpit, and slung it over her shoulder. She grabbed two of the phasers. Spock grabbed a phaser and the commander’s disruptor pistol. This time Chapel raised an eyebrow at him.

He hefted the disruptor. “I find myself unable to estimate the exact odds, but certainly this increases our chances.”

Chapel smiled grimly and they headed into the docking tube. It was five or six meters long and shaped a bit like an S; Chapel surmised it was to provide defensible points during boardings and to keep the boardees from being able to fire shots straight back into the Orion ship.

Spock had taken point, and Chapel felt comfortable letting the experienced officer lead the way. They rounded the final curve to find a closed hatch. Spock raised an eyebrow. “They may not yet realize anything is wrong. Although I would be surprised if they were not scanning the Copernicus.”

“Their commander did say they were idiots.”

“Indeed.” Spock banged on the door with the butt of the disruptor pistol and bellowed in passable Orion, “Idiots!”

The hatch immediately swung open, revealing another Orion male, this one shirtless and displaying a weightlifter’s physique. When he saw them instead of his commander, he stood-stock still, too stunned to do anything but stare back at them, eyes wide. Chapel stunned him with both phasers, and Spock caught him, dragging him back into the docking tube. Confused shouts echoed within the Orion ship at the sound of phaser fire.

Chapel tightened her grip on her phasers. I’m about to board a pirate ship and fight for my life. She glanced at Spock.

Spock looked back at her, his expression the epitome of Vulcan calm and assurance. “Ready when you are, Captain.”

Even under their dire circumstances, Chapel smiled. It was exactly what she needed to hear. Spock never failed to amaze. With a nod she said, “Hold fast, Mister Spock.” She turned toward the open hatch. “Let’s go.”

They made short work of the two remaining pirates, neither of whom had been ready to defend their ship from being boarded. After Spock jury-rigged the docking tube to replace the destroyed port hatch and confirmed nominal life support aboard the Copernicus, they’d left all the unconscious Orions adrift aboard the shuttlecraft with an automated distress signal and a recorded warning about the passengers. With Dax aboard the faster Orion ship, they made it to the Troyval on time, even after their unexpected detour. They’d been able to contact the Troyval and confirm the new rendezvous point along the way.

Two days after commandeering the Orion ship, Chapel and Spock finally had the chance to relax aboard the Troyval. Dax was expected to make a full recovery, in no small part due to the unorthodox treatment she had received. Chapel had felt compelled to detail her actions to the Trill physicians so that they had a complete picture of Dax’s condition as they took over her treatment. They had acknowledged their gratitude quietly and then never spoke to her again. The doctors trusted her to keep doctor-patient privilege and guard the secrets of the Trill.

Captain Penon of the Troyval had been another matter. Called to his quarters alone, which had raised Spock’s eyebrow, Chapel had endured a prolonged grilling and scolding. She had struggled to never glance down at his abdomen, curious if he too carried a symbiont. She had finally convinced Penon that the secret was safe with her through a combination of personality and the signing of a confidential document to be kept in a special file within the Trill embassy to the United Federation of Planets in Paris. It had pained her to have to lie to Spock about this, but it was a small price to pay for keeping Dax alive and not being sent to a penal colony on Trill.

The Troyval was currently en route to meet the Enterprise, which had delivered the delegates to the conference and then immediately turned around upon being contacted by Captain Penon. While en route, the Enterprise had retrieved the Copernicus, and it now had a brig full of pirates.

Chapel and Spock quietly passed their remaining time aboard the Troyval in a passenger lounge. They sat beside each other in comfortable chairs, looking out a large set of ports at the stars streaming by. At least Chapel was comfortable. For about the tenth time that Chapel had noticed, Spock attempted to straighten his torn sleeve.

“The state of my uniform is inappropriate for a Starfleet officer.”

“We’re not on duty. Relax.”

“Our duty status is somewhat of a gray area. Without a duty schedule or explicit orders from the captain—”

“Look at this.” Chapel held up the glass from which she had just sipped. “What is this?”

Spock peered at the beverage closely. “It appears to be tranya.”

“Correct. And have you ever known me to drink on duty?”

“No.”

“Okay, then.” Chapel took another drink. “Besides, look at me.” She held her arms wide. Her white uniform was mottled with gray smudges. There was a dark, sooty stain from a disruptor bolt’s near miss on her shoulder, and there was even some of Spock’s blood on her left sleeve. “I’m a mess. I should have worn my grays. And they bring out the blue in my eyes, don’t you think?”

Spock thought a moment. “I have no idea how to respond to that.”

“Oh, come on, I thought we’d reached a point . . .” She trailed off as she took another swallow of tranya and squinted at Spock. “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”

He ignored her question. “During all the activity surrounding Commissioner Dax, capturing the Orions, and our own treatment and debriefings, I feel I have neglected proper comment on your actions aboard the Copernicus.”

She waved her empty hand at his face. “Oh, pshaw.” Did I just say pshaw? This tranya sneaks up on you. Chapel took another sip. If Spock noticed her mildly inebriated behavior, he did nothing to indicate so.

“When I heard you say ‘Easy as plomeek soup,’ I surmised you were attempting to alert me to some sort of gambit. It was what Captain Kirk would have done.”

Chapel put her glass down. “It kind of was, wasn’t it?” She sat forward in her chair. “It was exciting. Empowering. But I’d rather be doing something other than improvising my way out of being murdered or enslaved. Though, in a strange way, I wouldn’t trade our little adventure together for anything.”

“We did make a good team.”

“That we did.” She picked up her glass again and took a sip. “But even so, I don’t think being the CMO of the Enterprise—or any ship, for that matter—is what I want anymore. I’d like the opportunity to advance my career. Maybe in command.” Chapel turned in her seat a bit so she could look more closely at Spock. “What about you? The admiral will probably be called back to Starfleet Command. Would you take command of the Enterprise?”

Spock sat quietly for so long, Chapel wondered if he was going to answer. “There is no guarantee that the ship would be offered to me, but if so . . . my answer would depend on many variables. It is logical to acknowledge that I may have to make that decision someday, but for now I feel no need to rush toward the future. I am attempting to . . . savor my current path.”

“That’s a great answer. After all you’ve been through, you deserve some time for yourself.” She clasped him on the shoulder. Spock reached up and briefly placed his hand on hers.

“Thank you, Christine.”

As footsteps approached, they turned to see who was joining them. Chapel leaped to her feet when she saw Commissioner Dax enter the lounge. Spock also stood, although in a more dignified fashion.

“I was told I’d find you two here.” Dax looked strong, her normal color having returned to her face. “Captain Penon told me the Enterprise will arrive soon. I had to see you before you left.”

Chapel embraced Dax. “I’m so glad to see you on your feet already.”

“Thanks to you. Both of you. You saved my life, and I will always remember that.”

Spock nodded, clearly uncomfortable with Dax’s gratitude. Chapel hid a smile. What would he think if he knew exactly what Audrid means by always?

Dax let him off the hook. “If you wouldn’t mind, Commander, could I have a moment alone with my doctor?”

“Certainly, Commissioner. I hope your swift recovery continues.” Discomfort aside, Spock swept out of the room in a rather stately manner.

“He has very piercing eyes,” Dax said as she turned to face Chapel. “Yet there’s a warmth to them somehow.”

Chapel kept a straight face. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Dax looked as though she were considering asking Chapel more about Spock but then thought better of it. “I just wanted to emphasize my thanks to you. Dax will live to touch many more lives after me, and you will be remembered by every one of them.”

Put that way, Chapel found herself a little overwhelmed, and tears gathered in her eyes. After she pulled herself together enough to respond, she said, “I’m honored to be a part of those memories.”

“I hope that Captain Penon wasn’t too hard on you?”

“He . . .” Chapel considered how best to answer. “He did what he had to do. I hold no grudges. But I have to say that my not knowing about the symbiont could have meant death for both of you. I think the Trill should trust their Federation allies and end the secrecy.”

Dax shrugged. “Maybe some day . . . but not today. In the meantime, we just have to hope for doctors like you.”

They chatted a little while longer before being interrupted by Spock on Chapel’s wrist communicator. The Enterprise had arrived and, honoring the Trill’s transporter taboo, had sent the Galileo over to pick them up. The Starfleet officers were to head down to the shuttlebay. Chapel said goodbye to Dax and joined Spock on a leisurely stroll through the corridors of the Troyval, knowing they would soon be back aboard their own ship.

“I’m almost disappointed our adventure is over,” Chapel said.

“Indeed. I cannot emphasize enough how fortunate I was that Doctor McCoy chose not to come along.”

“I feel the same way.”

“That is . . . satisfying.”

They continued in companionable silence for a while, then rounded a final turn and faced the entrance to the shuttlebay. Chapel said, “This mission will be the perfect way to remember the Enterprise. And my service with you.”

“Then you have made the decision to request a transfer?”

Chapel took a deep breath and then let it out. “I believe I have. I don’t want to leave right away tomorrow or anything, but sooner rather than later.”

They stood silently looking at each other, both saddened that Chapel would depart the Enterprise.

Spock broke the silence. “I am sure you will succeed at whatever you do.” He held up his hand in the traditional Vulcan gesture. “Live long, and prosper.”

With a mischievous laugh, Chapel said, “Oh, what the hell!” and leaned forward to plant a big kiss on Spock’s lips, which, to her surprise, he returned. They stepped back from the kiss—comfortable with the slightly more than friendly expression of affection between old friends who’ve been through a lot together—to find Kirk and McCoy coming out of the shuttlebay.

The new arrivals froze on the threshold, the automatic doors vacillating, starting to close, then opening back up again. Unlike the movement of the doors, the eyes of both Kirk and McCoy were frozen wide open.

Finally, McCoy blurted out, “What the hell’s going on with you two?”

Chapel, after a sidelong glance at Spock, said, “Captain, Doctor, I’m going to put in for a transfer. Spock begged to come with me, but I insisted he had to stay on the Enterprise.”

Spock stood with his arms behind his back, head tilted to one side. “Regrettably, I have resigned myself to the necessity of remaining behind to keep Doctor McCoy out of trouble.”

McCoy was speechless. Kirk, laughing deeply, leaned against a bulkhead for support. Chapel and Spock looked at each other. Spock gestured for her to go first, and the two of them entered the shuttlebay and went aboard the Galileo together.

Acknowledgments

Writing Star Trek is a special kind of collaboration with scores of people whose work has gone before, and there’s no way to thank them all by name. So, a big group thanks to all the actors, writers, composers, and other crew members who created the filmed adventures that informed my work on the printed page. A particular thanks to those people behind the episodes and movies that are referenced in this work, especially those episodes that developed the character of Christine Chapel. Obviously, a very special acknowledgment to Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, who played the character for decades and looms large in the history of Star Trek for many reasons.

On the text-based side of the Star Trek universe, thanks to my editors, Margaret Clark and Ed Schlesinger, for inviting me to pitch for these new-fangled eBooks that all the kids are talking about, and for coming up with the idea of giving Chapel an adventure in which she could kick some ass. A tip of the hat to Michael Jan Friedman and S. D. Perry, whose stories in The Lives of Dax helped flesh out Dax’s back story; and to Christopher L. Bennett, who has chronicled the Enterprise crew in the time shortly after Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Thanks to the indefatigable fans who maintain the websites Memory Alpha, Memory Beta, and Chrissie’s Transcripts Site, always great helps when writing in the Trek universe. A shout-out to Jeff Ayers (author of Star Trek: Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion) and Jeff Ford (friend for more decades than we want to admit) for providing insightful feedback on the manuscript, and to Gerri Leen (grand prize Strange New Worlds writer) for being an enthusiastic Chapel fan.

I also have to mention some of my fellow Trek writers just because they’re such great people to have become friends with over the years: Kirsten Beyer, Greg Cox, Kevin Dilmore, David R. George III, Robert Greenberger, William Leisner (whom I occasionally allow to be a terrible person), David Mack, Marco Palmieri, and Dayton Ward.

Thanks also to anyone whom I’ve forgotten to mention—my only excuse is the tranya (it sneaks up on you). Last, I have to mention my personal next generation of Star Trek: my daughter, Ella, because if I didn’t have her name in one of my books, I’d be in big trouble.

About the Author

Scott Pearson contributed stories to Strange New Worlds VII and Strange New Worlds 9 as well as to the Star Trek: The Next Generation twentieth-anniversary anthology, The Sky’s the Limit. His novella Honor in the Night is in Star Trek Myriad Universes: Shattered Light. Most recently he has had stories in three ReDeus shared-world anthologies alongside many other Star Trek writers. He lives with his wife, Sandra, and daughter, Ella, in personable St. Paul, Minnesota, near the banks of the mighty Mississippi River, fabled in story and song, where he endeavors to make a living as a freelance writer/editor. Visit him on the Web at www.yeahsure.net and www.generationsgeek.com. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter. You can listen to Generations Geek, the podcast he does with his daughter, at www.chronicrift.com and on the iTunes he’s heard people mention over the water cooler.

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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ISBN 978-1-4767-6375-0

Table of Contents

Historian’s Note

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Acknowledgments

About the Author