by Peter David
Since B’Elanna’s back was to him, he could easily approach her from behind, which he did.
The Terran’s eyes grew wide, and he exclaimed, “Who are you?”
As Tuvok moved to apply the nerve pinch to B’Elanna, the latter said, “Really, Doctor, if you expect me to fall for that old—”
Then she collapsed to the floor.
“To answer your question, sir, I am Tuvok of Vulcan, and I am here to take Kes and Neelix back to the Terran Rebellion.”
“I’m sorry, Tuvok of Vulcan, but I’m Doctor Lewis Zimmerman, and these two aliens are my meal ticket.” Zimmerman had yet to lower his disruptor pistol.
Tuvok had half expected this. He was familiar with all the Terrans involved in the rebellion, so the fact that he did not recognize Zimmerman or his cohort meant they were eighty-two-point-nine percent more likely to be opposing B’Elanna for their own personal gain.
He weighed his options. One was to attempt to overpower Zimmerman. Given that the doctor was armed and in his own territory, as it were, Tuvok doubted very much that his own superior strength would do him much good.
Then a jar went flying across the room between Tuvok and Zimmerman.
The doctor turned his head toward where the jar had come from, as did Tuvok, but no evidence of the method by which the jar had been flung across the room presented itself.
Another jar also flew through the air, this time toward the entryway. Then another. Then a large scanner started shaking on the floor, as did several items on shelves.
Since tectonic stress was an impossibility in a city suspended in the sky, Tuvok deduced that there was a seventy-three percent chance that these actions were due to psychokinesis. If so, Kes’s psionic potential is far greater than that of even the most powerful telepath among the Vulcans, Tuvok thought soberly as he ducked another piece of equipment that he was too busy dodging to identify. A glance at Kes’s prone form showed that, though she was still sedated, her mind was active. She was sweating profusely, and she appeared to be in the throes of rapid-eye movement. Of course, a REM state could mean something completely different for Kes’s species, but still, Tuvok thought it to be an indicator of tremendous cranial activity.
Most of the debris currently flying through the room was doing so at roughly one-point-seven-six meters above the floor. Tuvok therefore thought it best to dive to the floor, where his chances of being struck were considerably reduced.
Zimmerman either did not make this deduction or simply was unable to react fast enough to implement any action in response to it, as he was struck on the side of the head by a heart stimulator. Point-nine seconds later, he joined Tuvok on the floor, albeit in a state of unconsciousness, and with a head wound that resulted in copious amounts of blood pooling on the doctor’s forehead and the floor beneath him.
Crawling on the floor proved efficacious, especially since the items being thrown about the room were all flying freely until they struck something, usually a wall. Tuvok was far enough away from the walls that, as long as he stayed low, his risk was minimal.
When he reached Kes’s bed, he got to his knees and reached out toward Kes’s face, the tips of his fingers touching the parts of the face covering the neural pathways to the cerebellum.
Then he started speaking the mantra that was one of the most closely guarded secrets on Vulcan, words that had rarely been spoken in the presence of a non-Vulcan for many centuries:
“My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts. Our minds are becoming one.”
Suddenly, Tuvok found himself flooded with strange images …
… an underground city full of people like Kes. These were the Ocampa, who lived a contemplative life, one that Kes found dull, though Tuvok thought it rather inviting …
… a gap in a security field, designed to keep the Ocampa safe, but which Kes used to escape, to explore …
… capture by the Kazon-Ogla, aliens that Kes found fearsome and strange, but whom Tuvok recognized by type, if not specific species: scavengers, pirates, thugs—and torturers, as they visited horrible pain on Kes …
… the smiling face of Neelix, the oasis in the desert of her imprisonment by the Kazon-Ogla …
… striking out at her jailers, killing them all with her thoughts …
… Neelix coming for her, rescuing her, taking her to this strange place …
… Zimmerman’s experiments, worse even than the Kazon-Ogla. Those scavengers were motivated by hunger, thirst, and a need for resources. Zimmerman, though, was using her for his own selfish purposes, though Tuvok knew that there was both more and less to Zimmerman’s experiments …
… and throughout it all, still the desire to explore, to see, to learn, and to do it with Neelix by her side.
Tuvok saw all this and more, and also tried to convey his own inner calm to Kes, teaching her to relax and not tie her telepathy so closely to her emotions, to control her urges and anger and frustration.
It was not an easy task. Tuvok was horribly out of practice, for one thing, not having actually participated in a mind-meld in fifty-three years, ten months, three days, and that was under controlled conditions with a fellow Vulcan who engaged in the mind-meld willingly.
But he persevered.
Take your mind away from the pain, he urged. The pain is a river that is flowing away from you.
I don’t want to feel the pain anymore! Kes’s voice was plaintive.
Tuvok tried to be reassuring. You do not have to. You can put the pain aside.
Neelix! Is he safe? He’s—
Naturally, her first thoughts would be of her paramour—and also the only familiar person in her world right now. Do not be concerned. Neelix is here with you, and Doctor Zimmerman is unconscious.
For the first time, Kes seemed to realize that there was another presence with her. Who are you?
I am Tuvok of Vulcan. I was on the ship that rescued Neelix’s escape pod, and I am here to rescue you—both of you, he added, knowing that Kes’s feelings for Neelix were strong and not wishing to alienate her.
And then, realizing that it was a huge risk, but seeing no alternative—especially since more of Supervisor B’Elanna’s soldiers could enter at any minute, and the sight of four bodies on the floor, one of which was the supervisor’s, and Tuvok standing over their prize prisoner was not likely to engender a positive result—Tuvok opened his mind to Kes.
Seventy-six years, eleven months, and three days ago, Tuvok stood in the receiving room of a stately house in ShiKahr on Vulcan. With him were several other Vulcans, all appearing to be approximately as young as Tuvok—who had recently reached the thirtieth anniversary of the year of his birth—and who had all received the same peculiar summons. The house belonged to Sarek, the father of Emperor Spock, and was decorated sparingly but tastefully, with a ryill hanging in the center of one wall and sand sculpture against the opposite.
Tuvok knew few of those present. He recognized Captain Saavik, who had taken command of the Emperor’s former ship, the I.S.S. Enterprise. Tuvok, a ten-year veteran of Starfleet, himself served as captain of the I.S.S. Excelsior, having killed Captain Styles when he proved to be working against the Emperor. (Tuvok would have preferred to take Styles alive, which was now Empire policy rather than assassination, but Styles gave him little choice, refusing to disarm.) None of the others in the room, however, were known to him personally.
Sarek himself entered the receiving room, followed quickly by Emperor Spock and Empress Moreau. Tuvok raised an eyebrow in surprise, for as a Starfleet captain, he had been made aware of the Emperor’s itinerary. According to the latest reports from Starfleet Command, as reported to Tuvok by Lieutenant Valtane that morning, the Emperor was on Andor and the Empress on Luna. What’s more, the royal personages were dressed, not in their traditional robes of office, but in drab civilian garb.
The Emperor spoke without preamble. “All of you have many aspects in common. You are all Vulcans, you have all proven yourselves to be loyal to m
e and my policies—and each of you has a psionic index of seven-point-nine or higher.”
That caused a visible stir throughout the room. Psionic indices had not been spoken of publicly in over three centuries, since first contact with Earth. To speak of them in the presence of an alien such as Empress Moreau was a breach of Vulcan protocol the likes of which Tuvok had never seen.
“The Terran Empire is doomed,” Spock continued. “Its fall is inevitable. I, however, can see no reason why the forces of entropy should be allowed to take the Empire when we can all work together to see that change occurs within our expected life spans. However, in order to bring about a truly free nation in this galaxy, we must still, to coin a Terran phrase, stare into the abyss.”
From there, the Emperor went on to explain an audacious plan, one that required the elimination of the Terran Empire, conquest by external forces, and the insertion of millions of Vulcans as sleeper agents. He spoke of a project called Memory Omega, and two Terrans, Doctors Carol and David Marcus, a mother-and-son team who would safeguard the full repository of the Empire’s scientific knowledge after the inevitable fall, and serve as the caretakers of Spock’s plan after his likely execution.
The plan had been conceived, and its first stages executed, more than two decades earlier, at approximately the same time that Spock assassinated Captain James T. Kirk. The Emperor, recognizing the need to recruit younger Vulcans to his cause, had brought Tuvok and the others here now in hopes of convincing them to participate.
At first, Tuvok was skeptical. So were several of the other Vulcans in the room, and the discussion that ensued lasted through the night and into the next dawn. Eventually, Tuvok was swayed by the arguments presented—less so by Spock, Moreau, and Sarek, and more by Saavik, who brought a youthful passion to her defense of the Emperor’s plan. He agreed to participate, as did all the others.
Within thirteen-point-four months of this meeting, the Alliance succeeded in conquering the Terran Republic—as Spock had renamed it a scant three-point-seven weeks after the meeting at ShiKahr—and then the plan had truly begun.
While Terrans were mostly sent into slavery, Vulcans were made servants, as Spock had predicted. Tuvok had thought this to be the largest flaw in Spock’s plan, as Vulcans’ superior strength and stamina might make them more attractive for mining work, but Tuvok had reckoned without the sadistic aspect. Both Klingons and Cardassians preferred to humiliate those they conquered—a trait they shared with the Terrans, truth be told—and Vulcans were not nearly as much “fun” in that regard.
But the efficacy of Spock’s plan depended on the secret of Vulcans’ telepathy continuing to remain just that: secret. It also depended on the lack of telepaths in this part of the galaxy. The Terran Empire had all but eliminated those species that had psionic abilities out of fear, and that fear served Spock’s plan well.
Kes, however, changed everything. She could not be allowed to remain in Alliance hands ….
Tuvok opened his eyes, taking his hands away from Kes’s face. Her eyes were also open, and staring at him. “That’s all I am?” she asked in a ragged whisper. “A commodity to be kept out of one nation’s hands or in another’s?”
Bluntly, Tuvok said, “Unfortunately, the answer is yes. While telepathy is common among your people—though apparently the levels you have achieved are unusual—it is all but nonexistent here.”
“Except for Vulcans.”
“A fact we have labored to conceal, and which I revealed to you at great risk.”
Nodding quickly, Kes said, “I understand what’s at stake, Tuvok.”
“Good. Now it is imperative that we depart.” He deactivated the force field that restrained Kes to her biobed, then did the same for Neelix. He hefted the unconscious alien—who weighed more than he appeared, to Tuvok’s chagrin—over his shoulder.
Kes was staring at Zimmerman and B’Elanna, who were both unconscious, and a Klingon and Terran, who were very obviously dead. “What happened?”
“That is the subject of a protracted discussion that is best postponed to a later date. We must proceed to Geronimo and prepare to depart.”
With that, Tuvok led Kes out of the laboratory and into the corridor, moving toward Bay 5.
13
Seska stood dolefully, still bound to the marble column, the cold stone pressed against her back, rear end, and legs. The alarms had long since ceased, and the silence was deafening. She had already tried to pull the restraints out of the column seven times since B’Elanna and Janeway left, but they showed not the slightest sign of giving.
A few Klingons had run past, ignoring her completely. She knew that the prisoners had escaped, but she had no idea which prisoners. For all she knew, B’Elanna had others incarcerated here. Even if the prisoners were Harry, Chakotay, Tuvok, Neelix, or Annika, Seska wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to be rescued by them.
No, not Annika. B’Elanna said that Janeway killed her. That was a pity, as Annika was the only person besides Tuvok in the entire rebellion that Seska actually liked.
And, she realized, her thoughts were ridiculous. Yes, she’d told Chakotay that she was done with the rebellion, and she probably was—but she also preferred being rescued by them to being lashed to this damned column where B’Elanna could hit her with the blinding, painful rays until she was remanded to Cardassia for trial.
The sound of footfalls got her attention, even though she was fairly sure it was another few Klingons running about trying to locate the prisoners. That they were having so much difficulty bespoke the likelihood that Harry Kim was one of those who had escaped.
That hypothesis was proven correct when Harry himself came around the corner—though Seska almost didn’t recognize him. He was wearing a pair of pants from a Klingon soldier’s uniform, stained in spots with blood. Harry’s bare torso was likewise smeared in blood—all of it, she realized, Klingon—underneath two bandoliers strapped over each shoulder covered with d’k tahgs, disruptor pistols, and one mek’leth. His face was also bloody, again all of it Klingon, and his hair was mussed and caked with more blood. There wasn’t, however, a single scratch on him—aside from his scar, of course.
In each hand, he held a disruptor pistol. Upon seeing Seska lashed to the marble column, he stopped short, looked her up and down, and said, “Well well well, what have we here?”
Of course, given a choice, Seska would have preferred that Tuvok do the rescuing, or that alien Neelix—certainly not the one who had broken three of her limbs.
“There’s a button on the side that’ll let you finish the job you started on Geronimo,” Seska said with a sneer.
“Tempting—very, very tempting.” Harry walked over to the side of the column, and Seska braced herself for the onslaught of the rays.
However, instead of pushing the button, Harry instead put both disruptors in his left hand, grabbed the mek’leth from the bandolier with his right, and then raised that arm. He swung down—
—just at the right angle to slice through the left restraint without cutting into her flesh.
Not wanting to look a gift vrok in the nose, she quickly undid the right restraint with her now-freed left hand. Her wrists had gone yellow from the days of being bound. To her relief, there were no foot restraints. Almost leaping down off the column, she put as much distance between it and her as she could.
Speaking honestly, she said, “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“You’re lucky on two fronts. One is that I need you for something—something no one else can do.”
“What happened to the others?”
“We all escaped. Tuvok’s going after Neelix and his woman. I’ve been trying to find B’Elanna—no luck so far—but I do have a plan, and, like I said, I need your help to make it work.”
Seska asked, “What about Chakotay?”
Harry shook his head. “That’s the other front you’re lucky on. I found him and Janeway, both dead. They probably killed each other.”
“Good,” Seska
said emphatically. She wouldn’t cry any tears for either of them. Chakotay wasn’t fit to run a race, much less a rebellion cell, and Janeway was the lapdog of that halfbreed tralk and deserved to die at the hands of the man she betrayed most directly.
“Chakotay’s orders,” Harry said, “were to kill you if you weren’t willing to come back with us.”
Stunned that Chakotay had been willing to give her that chance, Seska asked, “Then I’ll come back with you. What’s the plan?”
It was rare for Harry Kim to smile, so when he did so now, Seska got a cold feeling in her gut. “Oh, it’s a good one, trust me. Here,” he added, handing over one of his disruptors, “you’ll need this.”
When Neelix came to, he found himself bouncing on his stomach and looking down at the dark feet of someone running down a corridor. He was also nauseous.
After a second, he realized that he was being carried over someone’s shoulder. “Er, excuse me?”
The feet stopped running, and he felt himself being tossed gently forward. Landing on his feet, he found himself facing the naked form of the Vulcan from Captain Chakotay’s group, whose name he couldn’t for the life of him recall. “Thank you very much, Mister Vulcan,” he said cheerfully.
“His name’s Tuvok,” said the most beautiful voice he’d ever heard, “and he saved our lives.”
Whirling around, Neelix saw Kes, upright, alive, and looking … not well, truly, but better than she had in some time. Grabbing her shoulders, he cried, “Kes, my love! You’re all right!”
“Getting there,” she said with a small but difficult smile.
“We will have time for reunions at a later date,” Tuvok said. “We must make haste to Bay 5.”
Kes nodded, started to walk forward, then stopped. “Someone’s coming.”
Sure enough, two Klingons turned the corner. Upon sighting the three of them, they raised their disruptors.
Then those same disruptors flew into the air toward the ceiling.