by David Mack
T’Prynn removed her sidearm and handed it across the narrow aisle to Spock, who passed it to Marlena. “Set it for heavy stun,” Spock said. “If my gamble proves to be an error, I trust you will know what to do.” Then he reached out and pressed his fingertips to T’Prynn’s face. At first she flinched from his touch, but he extended his arm fully and made contact. “My mind to your mind,” he intoned, closing his eyes. “Our thoughts are merging.”
The Vulcan woman closed her eyes as she said, “Our memories combine.”
“We are together,” Spock said.
T’Prynn replied, “We are one.”
Anger and jealousy swelled in Marlena’s heart. She hated to see Spock share such intimacy with another woman. She remembered their own mind-meld of a few years earlier. It was an experience more profound than sex, more revealing than confession. Adding to Marlena’s anxiety, T’Prynn was a Vulcan and therefore able to participate in the psychic union with greater ease than Marlena had. She wondered if T’Prynn’s mind aroused Spock, or if the Vulcan woman desired him.
Marlena yearned to press her thumb on the phaser’s trigger. Give me a reason, she thought, her fury simmering as she watched T’Prynn’s face for the slightest hint of pleasure. Swoon or bite your lip like a whore—I dare you.
Instead, both Spock’s and T’Prynn’s expressions remained blank as he removed his fingertips from her face and they opened their eyes.
“I know her mind,” Spock said. “She can be trusted.”
Marlena still aimed the phaser at T’Prynn. “Are you sure?”
Spock took the phaser gently from Marlena’s hand. “I am certain.”
It galled Marlena that Spock had discounted her opinion so easily. In most other matters he had proved willing to heed her counsel, so why had he resisted her advice regarding T’Prynn? She feared he was too quick to trust other Vulcans, and not willing enough to imagine some of them might prove to be his enemies.
If he has a fatal flaw, Marlena decided, this will likely be it.
Spock handed the phaser to T’Prynn, who tucked it back onto her belt under her sash. “What are your orders, Admiral?”
“When we reach the Enterprise, stay close but be discreet.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “And if Commander Decker or his operatives attempt to move against you?”
“In that case,” Spock said, “be swift, precise, and merciless.”
With the perfect calm of a trained killer, T’Prynn replied, “Understood.”
13
Homecoming
Spock exited the Surak to find Enterprise’s acting captain, Commander Willard Decker, and its former executive officer, Commander Scott, waiting for him in the fully refitted ship’s cavernous main hangar bay, which coursed with activity.
“Welcome aboard, Admiral,” said Decker.
“Thank you, Captain,” Spock said, addressing Decker by title rather than by rank. “I trust you’ve received your orders from Starfleet Command.”
“I have, sir. As you requested, I’ve forgone the usual trappings of a command-transfer ceremony.” Though the statement was one of simple fact, there was a subtle undercurrent of resentment in Decker’s voice. Considering the circumstances, Spock was not at all surprised.
“Very good,” Spock said. “Proceed.”
Decker handed Spock a data slate. “Admiral Spock, having been duly requested and required by Starfleet Command to relinquish command of I.S.S. Enterprise to your authority, I hereby surrender this vessel’s command codes.”
Spock tucked the data slate under one arm and extended his free hand to Decker. “I relieve you, sir.”
Shaking Spock’s hand, Decker replied, “I stand relieved.”
Stepping away from the shuttle to permit Marlena and T’Prynn to debark, Spock asked Decker, “What is Enterprise’s state of readiness, Commander?”
“Mister Scott and I will finish our final calibrations to the warp drive by thirteen hundred hours, sir.”
“And the crew?”
“All personnel aboard and accounted for.”
“Very good. Please prepare the bridge for my arrival.”
“Aye, sir,” Decker said, bowing his head at the implied dismissal. He departed at a quick step and left the shuttlebay.
Spock turned to see Marlena supervising the unloading of their personal effects from the Surak. T’Prynn was already gone, vanished into the ship.
Commander Scott lingered on Spock’s flank. “It’s good to have you back in command, Admiral,” he said. “I dinnae trust that lad Decker in the big chair.”
“Thank you, Mister Scott. I regret I was not able to reinstate you as first officer, but Grand Admiral Decker insisted his son—”
Scott held up one hand. “No apology needed, sir. I never cared for the job anyway. Engineering’s where I belong.”
“Then I, for one, am pleased to once again have the honor of your services as chief engineer. Take your post and prepare the ship for immediate departure.”
“Aye, sir,” Scott said with a smile that was as unexpected as it was sincere.
Walking back to Marlena’s side, Spock said, “I must report to the bridge.” He rested one hand on the case containing the Tantalus field device and added in a confidential tone, “I trust you will see to the appointment of our quarters.”
Marlena met his steady gaze and said, “Everything will be arranged to your liking by tonight—assuming none of Decker’s people interfere.”
“You will encounter no interference—from anyone,” Spock said with grave assurance. “T’Prynn will see to that.”
14
A Shadow on the Son
“Yeah, they’re settled in,” Will Decker said, hunching over the desk in his quarters with a cold drink in one hand and his head in the other, “but it took his wife less than an hour to find the surveillance unit I hid in his quarters.”
Decker’s father, Matt—better known throughout the Empire as the Grand Admiral of Starfleet—hollered back over the secure subspace comm, “Well, whose damned fault is that, boy?”
“What am I supposed to do, sir?” Will’s father had always insisted he call him “sir,” even in private, ever since Will was a boy. “I can’t just barge into his quarters to plant new taps.”
His father shouted, “Don’t ask me how to fix your mistakes, boy! I need you to keep tabs on that crafty Vulcan, no matter what it takes.”
Sipping from his vodka on the rocks, Decker brooded, You could’ve done it yourself if you’d kept him at Starfleet Command instead of letting his mother give him back the Enterprise. He swallowed his mouthful of vaguely medicinal-tasting booze, and then held back his flood of bile behind a tight-lipped frown.
“I’m doing all I can, sir, I promise you. But it’s not as if Spock doesn’t know who I am—he knows I’m your son. Which is probably why he’s been keeping me at arm’s length ever since he came back aboard.”
“Yes, we expected that,” the grand admiral said. “But that’s no excuse, boy. If Spock’s got a bead on you, don’t come at him straight. Use your head—flank him!” He leaned forward so his stubbled visage filled the screen of Decker’s desktop monitor. “Use cutouts, proxies. Get someone else to do your dirty work.”
“The only people who get near him are the ones he already trusts,” Decker said, uncertain how to translate his father’s advice into action. “Turning one of them won’t be easy.”
“No, no, no,” protested the elder Decker. “You’re not hearing me, boy. I’m saying send a woman.”
Decker shook his head. “I don’t know. He seems pretty devoted to his wife.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” said the grand admiral. “Spock wouldn’t be the first married man to take a mistress. Besides, this is exactly what we need—a wedge to push those two apart. Marlena’s been his staunchest ally ever since he got rid of Kirk. But back when she was Kirk’s woman, she was famous for her jealousy. If you can get some nice piece of tail on that ship to draw Spock�
��s interest for even a minute, that ought to put Marlena’s temper into play.”
“And if Spock isn’t the cheating type?”
“All men are the cheating type, boy. You just have to find the right woman.”
2272
15
Creatures of the Chase
It had taken two failed attempts and several months to arrange, but Will Decker was certain he had at last hit upon a foolproof plan to insinuate a mistress into the life of the otherwise unimpeachable Admiral Spock.
Unfortunate fates had befallen his first trio of would-be Jezebels.
Janice Rand and Carolyn Palamas—a pair of buxom blondes who had insisted on offering themselves to Spock as a duo, thinking it would double their seductive appeal—had vanished without a trace shortly after their carefully arranged clandestine rendezvous with the Vulcan.
Marla McGivers, a sultry and intellectual redhead, had fared slightly better, finding herself transferred without explanation to the I.S.S. Hornet the morning after her failed bid at seduction.
Decker felt no remorse for what had happened to the three women, but he blamed himself for not thinking through the matter before taking action. It was stupid of me to think that just because he has a human wife, he must be partial to human women, he chastised himself. A married man never wants more of what he already has—he wants something different. Something new.
With that in mind, deciding who to send next had been easy. All he had to do now was relax and wait for word of his new operative’s success.
He stretched out on the bed in his quarters and watched a vid of a soccer match recorded the previous day on Deneva. Earth’s all-star team led Deneva’s team at the half, two goals to one. Just as Decker had expected, the colony team still hadn’t learned how to avoid the offside penalty while playing offense.
Idiots, he mused, grateful the Denevans’ ineptitude would likely net him a tidy sum when Earth’s team covered the point spread on his bet.
The buzz of his door signal tore his attention from the game. Perfect timing, as always, he thought with irritation as he got up. Barefoot and in his nightclothes, he padded out of his sleeping alcove and across his quarters to the locked door. He activated the intercom. “Who is it?”
A woman with an exotic accent replied over the comm, “Ilia.”
He unlocked the door. It sighed open, revealing his lover, a lithe Deltan woman. Like most members of her species, she was completely bald—and gifted with intensely powerful pheromones that made her nigh irresistible.
She all but fell through his door, collapsing into his arms.
“Ilia!” Decker said, pulling her inside his quarters. “Did he hurt you?”
“Only my feelings,” she said. Looking up at Decker, she cracked a salacious smile. “But you’d never do that, would you, my love?”
Decker held her at arm’s length, but he felt his resolve crumbling before the assault of her pheromones. “Ilia, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be with Admiral Spock on the rec deck.”
“He sent me away,” she said, affecting an exaggerated pout.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Decker said. He let her go and walked to his sleeping nook. She followed him with a lovesick devotion. Turning to face her, he pointed and said, “Tell me everything that happened. Everything.”
Ilia’s breaths were quick and heavy, as if she had been exerting herself. “I met him where you told me to,” she said, tracing the curves of her bosom with her fingertips as she continued. “He came alone, like we’d hoped. I set the exercise pod to private mode …” She pulled off her tunic and prowled forward, cornering Decker. “I showed him how delightfully charming I can be.” Unfastening her slacks, she added, “He put his hand on my cheek, and then he complimented my beauty and said my pheromones were very potent, even for a Deltan in her sexual prime.” She let her pants fall to the floor around her ankles. “Then he said good night and left me alone in the pod.”
Beholding the breathtaking siren standing before him in her undergarments, Decker marveled at Spock’s willpower. “He just walked away? From you?”
“Yes, my love,” Ilia said, wrapping her arms around his neck and draping herself on him like a fashion accessory. “I failed you. Please forgive me.”
He wanted to be furious with Ilia, but his mind was a morass of primal hungers. His breaths were short and heavy, and he felt hyperaware of Ilia’s body heat. Even her breath was alluring, as if it were scented with a hint of cinnamon. He ran his hands down the sides of her torso and admired the smoothness of her skin, the perfection of her muscle tone, the elegant curves of her hips.
She pressed herself against him, a force of desire unstoppable once set in motion, her unfettered lust stoking the banked fires of his own passion. Her lips brushed his with the tender touch of a pickpocket as she took his hand and guided it through her thighs.
All notions of restraint fled from his thoughts. He seized Ilia by her shoulders and threw her onto the bed. Then he was on top of her, ripping away her bra and underwear, taking his perfect concubine in exactly the way he knew she wanted—roughly, without apology or hesitation.
But even as Decker luxuriated in the glories of Ilia’s flesh, one question lingered on the fringe of his thoughts and troubled him deeply.
What kind of man must Spock be that he can resist this?
Marlena did not consider herself a voyeur, but as she watched Decker and Ilia on the monitor of the Tantalus field device, she could not help but admire the athleticism and imagination of their fevered copulation.
She heard the door of her and Spock’s quarters open and close. Footfalls drew near with a rhythm she recognized as Spock’s. “The tramp went straight to Decker,” she reported.
He joined her at the device and regarded Decker and Ilia’s wild fornication with a dispassionate stare. “As we suspected,” Spock said.
“I can’t fault him for a lack of commitment,” Marlena said. “The first three sluts he sent were just pawns. At least this time he cared enough to send his own whore.” Casting a sidelong glance at Spock, she added, “But you already knew about Decker and Ilia, didn’t you?”
“Indeed,” Spock said. “T’Prynn learned of their relationship before she returned to Vulcan, while researching Decker’s dossier for my files.”
On the Tantalus field device’s screen, a moment of precarious sexual acrobatics by the limber Deltan woman raised Marlena’s brow in surprise. Feeling a bit intimidated by Ilia’s erotic prowess, she asked her husband, “And how, exactly, were you able to resist her seduction pheromones?”
“The pheromones of Deltans and Orions have little effect on most Vulcans,” Spock said, as if it were common knowledge.
She wasn’t sure whether Spock was telling her the truth, but in the interest of quelling her own jealousy Marlena chose to believe his explanation. “Good to know,” she said. She nodded at the screen. “I guess Mister Decker’s not so lucky.”
“Apparently not,” Spock said.
“It’s curious—she went straight to him after meeting with you,” Marlena said. “Rand, Palamas, and McGivers were all smart enough to avoid him after botching their missions. Did Ilia just get herself so hot and bothered trying to woo you that she had to use him as a pressure valve?”
Spock replied, “In part, yes. Also, when she let me touch her face, I planted a telepathic suggestion that she should seek out her master.”
“If you had contact, why didn’t you just read her mind?”
“Deltans have a limited empathic ability. It is not strong enough to warrant their extermination by the Empire, but it makes them receptive to some forms of psionic contact. However, had I invaded her psyche deeply enough to read her thoughts, she would have been as privy to my mind as I was to hers.”
Looking at the monitor again, Marlena winced at Decker’s and Ilia’s latest activity. “I’ve seen enough,” she said, reaching toward the device’s trigger.
Spock reached out and sta
yed her hand. “No,” he said. “Not yet.”
“What are we waiting for?” asked Marlena. “We have proof he sent Ilia, which means he’s spying on you—probably on behalf of his father.”
Arching a single eyebrow, Spock said, “True. But we already suspected that to be the case. By permitting him to act, we have lured him into exposing his allies on the ship, enabling us to eliminate them—and to isolate him.”
“Is it your will that he should live?”
“For now,” Spock said. “We can use this device to observe him and learn what secret reports he makes, and to whom. As long as he does not suspect he is being observed, there is no reason for us to tip our hand.”