Spectre

by William Shatner

At another time in his life.

  But not this time.

  He caught her hand and cut himself off from her touch. "Believe me," he said.

  Nothing would happen between them. He wouldn't allow it

  "You really do love her," Janeway said.

  "Love" seemed such a small word for what he felt, but even a book full of words could not express what he had found with Teilani, and what still remained for the two of them to discover, together. "I really do," Kirk said.

  Janeway stepped back. The limits of her environment had been tested again, and now she processed her observations.

  "Help me get her back," Kirk said.

  Janeway didn't play any games. "Help me get the intendant and T'Val back to where we belong, with the information we need." There was a directness to her style of negotiation that Kirk admired.

  Kirk held out his hand to accept her challenge and seal the bargain.

  But then Janeway hesitated. "What about Starfleet?"

  The blunt, archaic term Kirk chose to describe what he thought Starfleet could do to itself made Janeway laugh. it.

  "Such language to be coming from a starship captain," she chided him. "What happened to diplomacy?"

  "Diplomacy is born of patience," Kirk said. "At this point in my life, I'm all out."

  Overhead, the simulated stars of a simulated world shone in breathtaking spectacle.

  Beneath them, Kirk and Janeway were exactly where they belonged.

  They shook hands.

  Not as man and woman, but as soldiers, allies.

  And now that their own alliance had been forged, the war for each of their worlds' survival could begin.

  FIFTEEN

  I'll be home soon, he had told her.

  Teilani repeated those words, softly, a whisper, as she rubbed her thumbnail back and forth against the leather strap that bound her hands, crossed at the wrists.

  I'll be home soon.

  James had told her that. She closed her eyes, closing off the ominously stained and tattered fabric-padded walls of her four-meter-wide, spherical cell, and saw James once again. Smiling at her from the communications screen on Chal.

  His trip to Earth had gone well, he had told her. Spock was coming to see him. He was going to help an old friend, and then—

  Home soon.

  At the time, days ago, weeks ago, she couldn't be sure with all that had happened since, Teilani had rejoiced at that message from her James. There was a lightness to him, a familiar sparkle to his smile, a new energy and purpose to his mood.

  And she could see that he had made his decision.

  He would return to Chal.

  And to her.

  As she slowly floated in zero gravity, legs curled, arms folded close, in the center of her cell, Teilani once again wished that she had been at City's central comm station to receive that message, to talk with James herself. But what she saw and what he said in the recording more than made up for any disappointment she might have felt.

  Because when James had left Chal, Teilani truly had not known if he would return. All she had known was that he would follow his heart, and that there was nothing she, nor anyone else, could do to influence that journey.

  The stars James Kirk steered by were his own. And she treasured each moment that their paths remained the same.

  Then Teilani heard the distant creaking of a pressure door and quickly opened her eyes, ending her escape into memory.

  Whenever she had heard that door in the past few days, since her abductors had taken her to this place, it meant one of them would be coming soon.

  But it was too early for her daily meal. Which meant something had changed. Something new was going to happen.

  Teilani uncurled her legs and swung her hands up over her head, still rubbing her thumbnail furiously against the strap. Her change in configuration stopped the slow spin she had fallen into as her angular momentum was conserved.

  In another few seconds, she saw that her hands would brush against the curved wall of the cell, and she would be able to cling to it by grabbing on to the ribbons of torn fabric that swayed like fronds of seaweed.

  She had no idea what this cell had been intended for originally, but judging from the rips in the padded wall and the dark splotches of dried liquid that stained it, the previous occupant had not enjoyed his incarceration here any more than she did.

  She heard a thrumming noise in the air—the sound of some mechanism or device she still hadn't identified—and, as they had all the times before, the six round light panels arranged equidistantly around the cell dimmed. However the sound and the dimming lights were related, their presence meant that the hatch to her cell would open in only a few more seconds.

  Teilani's thumb burned from the friction of her constant rubbing. Another day, she estimated, and she would wear through the leather strap completely. One more day, and she would finally be able to fight back. But not now. Escape would have to wait.

  Then there was a rush of air and the circular hatch of the cell popped open and swung away. In the sudden breeze, all the tendrils of shredded fabric in the cell waved toward the dark hatchway as if pointing the way out.

  Teilani ceased her rubbing. She risked a quick assessment of the strap. The crease she had worn through the leather was noticeable, deep. Perhaps even less than a day's effort would be required to slice all the way through.

  Then, one of her captors appeared in the hatch. Looking around, cautiously.

  And Teilani was surprised.

  It wasn't one of those who had abducted her on Chal, taking her so simply and efficiently from her bed with a single transporter beam that had given her nothing to fight against.

  Those responsible had been Cardassians. They had not spoken to her at first, only stared at her in the small cell she had been beamed to in what she had guessed was a commercial freighter in orbit of Chal.

  It was only after the third time she had thrown herself at the security screen that sealed the cell, and had almost succeeded in grabbing the throat of the spindly Cardassian who seemed to be the one in charge, that her abductors had finally broken their silence.

  When she had awakened from the neural shock of the forcefield, the thin Cardassian had informed her that the screen was now set to lethal intensity. If she tried to push her way through it again, she would not wake up.

  But other than that, her abductors had refused to answer any of her questions or respond to her threats.

  A few days after that, she was again transported as she slept, reappearing inside this cell, wherever it was. Even with the presence of zero gravity, she couldn't be certain if she were actually in space—antigravs might be used specifically to mislead her, or to make any escape attempt more difficult. About all Teilani could be sure of was that she was no longer on Chal. There, her absence would have been noticed within hours, and given Chal's limited island landmass and population of under one million, local Federation authorities could have conducted a search of the entire planet within an hour.

  That Cardassians were involved in kidnapping her was not surprising. The war with the Dominion still continued, and not for a second did she doubt that what had happened was in some way connected to James.

  But the sight of the stranger in the hatchway caused her to reconsider every other reasonable conclusion she had drawn.

  This captor was not Cardassian. She was human. A young woman with a strong square face and short blond hair. She caught sight of Teilani at the side of the ceil and called out, "Stay there."

  Teilani chose to do so anyway, watching carefully as the young woman pushed herself through the hatch and floated across to her. The stranger wore a dull gray jumpsuit with a stylized image of Earth on the left shoulder. It was not a uniform Teilani recognized.

  Expertly, the young human landed on the curved wall beside Teilani. Teilani saw that the woman wore snug foot coverings that let her toes move freely, as if they were fingers in a glove, allowing her to grasp the fabric of the wall an
d hold herself in place while still leaving her hands free.

  "Where am I?" Teilani asked.

  There was an air of flattened resignation to the young human. Teilani recognized it. It reminded her of the people of Chal during the virogen crisis, before James had returned, and there had been no hope.

  "I can't tell you," the human said. She had an equipment pouch clipped to the belt of her uniform. From it, she now withdrew what seemed to be a medical tricorder, though it was twice as large as the ones Starfleet used.

  "Can't, or won't?" Teilani tried again.

  The young human said nothing. She seemed to be having trouble getting the tricorder to switch on.

  "What's your name?" Teilani tried.

  "Tasha," the human said. She hit the flat of her hand against the side of the tricorder and its status lights at last flickered on. "What's that for?" Tasha disconnected the remote scanner from the tricorder and held it at the appropriate distance to ensure a deep threedimensional scan from two point sources. "To make sure you're all right."

  Teilani found that unusual. Her Cardassian captors on the freighter had been prepared to have her kill herselfagainst the security screen. Unless, Teilani thought, they lied to me.

  "Is that important?" Teilani asked. "That I'm all right?"

  Tasha ignored her.

  Teilani sighed. "All right. Can you tell me about this . . . room?"

  Tasha frowned as if the tricorder still wasn't functioning properly. "What about it?"

  "What's it for?"

  "Medusan feeding chamber."

  "Oh."

  Medusans were noncorporeal life-forms so hideous in appearance that most humanoids were driven mad just by glimpsing them. Teilani had heard stories of what Medusan ships were like, and she realized that if she was on such a craft now, no escape would be possible. One look at the ship's crew would be enough to—

  She was beginning to think like James—she saw the flaw in the argument.

  "Where's your visor?" she asked Tasha.

  For those humanoids who had to interact with Medusans, a protective visor had been developed. If Tasha didn't have one, it could mean that there were no Medusans on board.

  But Tasha didn't bother answering that question either. All she said was, "You can't escape."

  "How do you know?"

  For the first time since she had entered the feeding chamber, the young human looked Teilani directly in the eye.

  "Because I've tried."

  Teilani studied Tasha's jumpsuit again. "Is that a prison uniform?"

  "It might as well be." Tasha frowned at the tricorder.

  "Is there something wrong with that?"

  Tasha made an adjustment, turned the tricorder around and held it so Teilani could see it. "Did you know about that?"

  It took only a moment for Teilani to see what Tasha meant. The look of surprise on her face must have been obvious.

  "I guess you didn't," Tasha said. She slipped the remote scanner back into place, then snapped the tricorder closed. "That might make a difference when you get to the labor camp and—"

  Using her joined hands as a club, Teilani swung her fists against the tricorder to drive it into Tasha's forehead. The zero-gravity reaction slammed Tasha against the wall, made Teilani bounce away from it, and launched the tricorder into a spinning straight-line trajectory across the spherical cell.

  Even as Teilani spun in midair, she drew her knees up to force her feet between her wrists, then pushed with all her strength.

  The leather strap keeping her hands together dug into her wrists. But she kept pushing, as if her feet were a wedge and her wrists were a single piece of stone with a crack running through it.

  Finally, just as the pain threatened to become more than even she could withstand, she heard the weakened strap rip along the line she had gouged through it, and her legs snapped out as her hands burst free.

  Teilani didn't care what waited for her outside the hatch— Cardassians, Medusans, or even the Dominion's own Jem'Hadar. Escape was no longer something that was just for herself, or for James.

  There was something more to fight for now.

  Teilani slammed into the padded wall, clutched at it to absorb the momentum of her flight, sighted on the hatchway across the chamber, then pushed off like a swimmer plunging through frictioniess water.

  A meter from the hatch, Tasha rose in front of her, blood bubbling from the gash on her forehead, hands driving for Teilani's throat.

  The two women spiraled around so that Teilani hit the wall to the side of the open hatch, her legs swinging through the opening while her head and shoulders remained inside, Tasha still firmly attached.

  "There's no place to run!" Tasha shouted.

  Teilani slapped her hands together against Tasha's ears. The blow made Tasha release her grip. Braced against the chamber wall, Teilani pushed out and Tasha spun away, sputtering.

  Teilani flexed her legs against the edge of the hatchway and curled forward to pull herself through it and into the corridor beyond.

  At once she was stricken by vertigo. This was a Medusan ship, and the topography of its twisting corridor followed an understanding of three-dimensional space that made no sense to a humanoid brain.

  Keeping her eyes tightly closed, Teilani braced herself on a handhold attached to the corridor surface beside the hatch. She told herself that if she just kept her eyes shut, propelled herself by her sense of touch alone, she would be all right.

  "I'll be home soon," she whispered as she opened her eyes for just an instant, chose a direction, and pushed herself along, holding her hands out in front of her, "I'll be home soon."

  Somewhere on a ship like this, she knew, there would have to be a shuttlebay. Or an escape pod. Or even an emergency transmitter. All she would have to do is find one or the other, and somehow James would come for her. Come for them both.

  Suddenly her hands hit bare metal. She had reached a turn in the corridor.

  She steadied herself, turned her head, and prepared to gaze again on the unsettling alien architecture of the Medusan ship.

  But just as she opened her eyes, a voice called out to her.

  Not Tasha's. But a Cardassian's.

  "Chal!"

  Startled, Teilani turned her head reflexively to look up— down—across—through the corridor she had just traversed, feeling her head spin and her stomach rebel as she fought the disorientation to make sense of directions that seemed to advance and recede at the same time, like an optical illusion.

  But in the midst of the visual confusion, two figures were clear.

  A Cardassian.

  And Tasha.

  The Cardassian, wearing thick goggles that presumably enabled him to function within the Medusan ship's geometry, held a disruptor to Tasha.

  "This is why there's no escape," the Cardassian said.

  Then he pushed Tasha into the corridor ahead of him. For a moment, Teilani saw the young woman's eyes, saw the despair in them.

  And then the corridor flickered and buzzed with the disrupter's discharge and Tasha was consumed by fire and became . . . nothing.

  "There are fifteen more Thetas on this vessel," the Cardassian hissed. "All human or Vulcan. Each minute you remain out of your holding cell, we will kill another of them,"

  If Teilani had thought there was the slightest chance she could overpower the Cardassian, or reach a shuttle, she would have risked everything to do so—everything except the lives of innocent people.

  Steeling herself, she pushed herself back along the corridor to the hatch. She passed through a cloud of scorched air—the scent of Tasha's death.

  At the hatchway, she paused.

  The Cardassian had backed down the corridor, remaining out of reach,

  "Why kill them and not me?" she demanded.

  "The Thetas belong to me," the Cardassian said "You belong to the Regent"

  Teilani was ready to launch herself at him. "No one owns me!"

  The Cardassian leveled hi
s disrupter at her, and though she knew it would be set only to stun, she suddenly feared risking even that level of neural shock. Not after what Tasha had shown her on the tricorder.

  Without another word, Teilani swung through the hatch and returned to the spherical chamber.

  "How disappointing of you," the Cardassian sneered as he began to swing the hatch closed. "The Regent prefers his playthings to show more spirit."

  "Tell the Regent he's a dead man," Teilani said.

  The Cardassian leered. "Much better."

  Then he shut the hatch and, with a rush of air, it sealed itself.

  Teilani floated in the chamber, without even a leather strap to focus her concentration on.

  "I'll be home soon," she whispered to herself.

  Against all reason, she wondered if James might hear her.

  SIXTEEN

  Kirk and Janeway made their way through the thick trunks of the pine trees, guided by the heady scent of the nearby campfire, protected from bumping into serious harm by the light of a full moon Kirk estimated to be about twenty percent brighter than it really should be. The holodeck was still taking care of them, managing to add a slightly annoying layer of twenty-fourth-century moderation even to the wild grandeur of Yosemite.

  Then they stepped into a clearing, pine needles and small twigs crackling under their boots, to join the others as they had planned: Spock, McCoy, and Scott all sitting uncomfortably on fallen logs; T'Val standing by the hoverchair which placed the mirror Spock as close as possible to the rockringed fire.

  Scott immediately got to his feet. "Where have ye been, Captain? I'm on duty in twenty minutes."

  McCoy tossed a small piece of kindling into the banked fire. "Do you have to ask?" he muttered to the engineer.

  Kirk was insulted. "Bones, it's not like that at all."

  McCoy shrugged. "Just promise you won't make us sing again."

  "I like singing around a campfire," Kirk said. "It's part of the whole experience of—"

  But T'Val, as angry as a Vulcan could appear to be in public, stepped forward to confront him. "As impressive as this holographic technology is, recreation is inappropriate at this time."