NINE
Sixteen Years Ago
The next year of Leonard’s medical studies starts well. But things gradually deteriorate as his work begins to overwhelm him again. He spends less and less time studying in the apartment, doing his work in Bradley’s, a café near campus. This reduces the friction between Jocelyn and him, but whole days go by where the only time he spends with Jocelyn is when they’re asleep.
As his clinical work wraps up, Leonard begins planning for his internship. “We’ll have more time together, then,” Jocelyn says one evening when he comes home early. He falls straight into bed, clothes still on, worn out from a grueling day. She sits on the edge of the bed—it’s the first conversation they’ve had all week.
“I don’t know about that,” Leonard says. “I’ve been talking to Armstrong, and when he did his, he—”
Jocelyn interrupts him. She wants a baby. Having a child will bring them closer together. Lying there on the bed, holding her, Leonard can’t think of anything he wants more. They begin trying the day he graduates from medical school.
After four months, they succeed. Leonard isn’t able to spend as much time with Jocelyn as he’d like to—he’s hip-deep in his internship—but they’re spending more time together than they have before, and things are better.
Joanna is born as Leonard’s internship ends, and she’s wonderful, beautiful, gorgeous. Leonard is absolutely in love with her. He and Jocelyn have decided that it’s best for him to wait a year before beginning his residency so that he can help with the baby. He’ll spend the year working part-time at a local hospital. It’ll make things better.
Although Leonard loves every moment he gets to spend with Joanna, what he realizes is that he and Jocelyn have changed over the past seven years. Medical school has made him more serious, more driven than he was as an undergraduate. Jocelyn is less tolerant of Leonard’s crabbiness.
Leonard spends the year pining for the job he should be doing. He wants to be a doctor, he wants to make people better. He’s seldom at home helping with Joanna, but often at Bradley’s, hanging out with the Emory medical students.
That is where he meets Nancy.
Stardate 4757.9 (2105 hours)
The Farrezzi who had been loading carts were gone. Kirk nodded at Giotto. “Time to go, Commander.”
The gray-haired man grimaced. “You’re sure we’ll find our men in there? Pardon me, sir, but I’m not.”
“Neither am I,” Kirk replied, “but this is our only chance. We’ll board that ship and look in every storage closet if we have to. If Yüksel and Chekov are there, we’ll free them. If not, we’ll do everything we can to stop those slavers.” The captain wasn’t sure when he’d decided on this action, but if it was a violation of the Prime Directive, he’d sort it out later.
He had lives to save—both his own men’s and innocent aliens’.
Giotto relented. “Aye, sir.”
The captain was aware of how his crew saw him, but he didn’t think of himself as reckless. He did what needed to be done, even when that meant putting himself in danger. It rankled him that after serving under him for a couple of years, Giotto hadn’t accepted this about his captain.
The pair waited a few seconds to make absolutely sure that no Farrezzi was going to get in their way. The ramp into the nearest spaceship was twenty meters away. Shaded from the hangar’s bright orange light by the ship, their uniforms didn’t stand out. Phaser in hand, Kirk sped up the ramp. He tried not to think about what would happen if they were caught.
The ramp led into a cargo bay as spacious as the Enterprise’s. It was circular, with a giant column in the center connecting it to the upper levels of the ship. Glancing around, Kirk was surprised to find only a few pods. He’d seen dozens moved inside. It wasn’t a storage area, then.
There were five doors on the central column that he could see. “We have to split up.”
Giotto’s expression clearly showed how he felt. “Be careful, sir. I don’t want to tell Mister Spock that I let you go to your death.”
“I don’t plan on dying any time soon.”
“Few people do.” Giotto looked around the bay. “There’s one open door—you take that, sir, and I’ll cover you.”
“Good luck. Let me know when you find them.” Kirk headed toward the open doorway.
“You too, sir.”
McCoy had no idea what was wrong with him, but it was getting worse. Now he was seeing people. If this had been happening to anyone else, he’d have had them relieved of duty.
“Ah, but you’d like to think you’re too essential for that, wouldn’t you?” Jocelyn followed him as he headed back to sickbay. He needed to look at that research on quantum entanglement and telepathy, and at Ensign Padmanabhan’s data packet.
Jocelyn looked exactly the way she had all those years ago, on the last day of the divorce proceedings. A head shorter than McCoy, she had long, dark brown hair tied in a ponytail. The simple truth was, she looked great. He, on the other hand, looked twelve years older. He wondered what she thought of him.
No, that was nonsense! Jocelyn didn’t think anything of him, she was a hallucination, damn it!
McCoy headed straight to his office. Odhiambo looked at him as he passed her, but said nothing. Of Chapel, there was no sign. Good—maybe she’d gone back to her quarters to rest. He sat down at his desk and called up the Harding-Cyzewski paper. He was going to read this, and he was going to save those espers—
“Only you can do it, that’s right,” said Jocelyn. “That’s the way it’s always been. That’s the argument you’ve always used for shutting out everyone around you.”
No, it was true! He was the only person who could save the patients who were lying in sickbay, unhurt yet dying. He wasn’t going to let her—
“If you’d just admit the truth about why you’re here, then you could admit that you can’t save them,” Jocelyn continued. “You’re not here because this is what you want to do. You’re not even here because you’re good at it. You’re here because it lets you get away from me. And what kind of reason is that?”
She had him there. So many people signed up for star-ship duty because it was their calling. Look at Jim—that man was at home on the Enterprise bridge. But for McCoy, it was because he didn’t fit in anywhere else. That was why he’d moved from assignment to assignment. This ship was beginning to feel like a place where he could stay… so of course it frightened him.
“Never anywhere long enough for everyone to find out that you’re a fraud. You stayed here too long,” she said. “Your third year here’s just ended—you haven’t been in one place this long since we met. And now it’s done you in. You should have kept running, Leonard.”
If he hadn’t known that there was no way for Jocelyn to be in the depths of deep space, he’d have sworn she was here. A light fixture on the wall shined straight onto her, giving her complexion a weird, otherworldly look, and she had a shadow.
She wasn’t there, and McCoy knew that. He wouldn’t let himself think she was really there. His ex-wife was a figment of his overstressed mind. If he ignored her, she’d fade away. He was going to read this article, he was going to figure out what was wrong with those espers, he was going—
“The problem with you, Leonard, is that you didn’t choose to be here.” Jocelyn crossed the rest of the room, sitting down on the edge of McCoy’s desk.
Hell, he could even smell her. She’d never been one for perfume, but when you live with someone long enough, you remember how they smell. His reaction was curious: a mixture of comfort and anger. If only they’d been able to make it work. If only he’d been able to make it work. Then he wouldn’t be here right now, trying to solve this blasted—
“You merely chose to get away from me. That’s all you’ve ever chosen.”
McCoy switched off his monitor with an angry jab. Physician, heal thyself was the old saw. If he couldn’t figure out why he was hearing voices and seeing people, then there was no hope for his patients.
He left his office, Jocelyn trailing behind him, peppering him with questions. How did he expect to stop his patients from dying if he wasn’t able to do anything about it? Determined to get to the bottom of this, he fetched a psycho-tricorder from the equipment cabinet. The device was designed to gather relevant neurological and physiological data. It could tell him if there was anything wrong with him.
It could tell him if he was going insane.
After a few seconds, the tricorder reported heightened brain activity, but nothing else. A good CMO would relieve himself of duty. It was the right thing to do.
“Then do it!” Jocelyn said. “Do the right thing for once in your life!”
Chapel and the others then would have to face this crisis alone. No. The Enterprise needed a doctor. A neural suppressant was called for, something to clamp down on heightened brain activity. Jocelyn needed to disappear.
If there’d been another way, he’d gladly have done it. Time was running out. McCoy loaded up the hypospray and injected himself.
“Drugged up,” said Jocelyn. “Oh, very professional for a medical practitioner. You’ll be in top form with your brain slowed down.”
“Shut up, Jocelyn.” Back in his office, McCoy reopened the article and began reading, waiting for Jocelyn to add another biting comment.
Nothing came. When he looked up, there was no trace of her anywhere. He gave a relieved sigh. It had worked.
McCoy continued his reading, but to his dismay he quickly found it was hard going. Not because of voices, but because his body could no longer ignore the effects of exhaustion. Every sentence posed more of a struggle than the one before it. He’d used too much neural suppressant, McCoy realized with dismay.
Pulling himself together, McCoy was able to hold on until he finished reading. He decided he should rest his eyes for just a moment. That would be fine, wouldn’t it? He’d earned it.
The darkness was so wonderful, and within seconds McCoy could feel himself relaxing.
He didn’t open his eyes again.
With the shuttle safe inside the warehouse, Spock was using its computer to assess all the data they had collected. After changing its course repeatedly, the storm was now again headed for the city district the Hofstadter had landed in, more powerful than ever. It behaved like no known weather system. Its course was erratic, its power spikes unpredictable, and its speed highly improbable. Spock had no theory that would explain all of the storm’s unusual features.
The Vulcan had begun reading Ensign Saloniemi’s report on alien texts when the computer announced an incoming signal. Crewman Tra sounded exhausted and tense. “Commander Spock,” he said, “Ensign Chekov’s also been taken by the Farrezzi. The captain and Commander Giotto followed him, hoping to free him and Yüksel. We were ordered to leave. But Columbus is being followed.”
Spock limited himself to asking, “How many are there, and how close are they?”
“Numbers unknown. We’re faster, sir. As we took off, we were hit before we raised our shields. Our phaser emitter is damaged. They’re out of range right now, but we can’t fight back.”
The presence of other craft changed Spock’s priorities. “Are there any injuries?”
“Rawlins has been shot, and Seven Deers is unconscious. They need immediate treatment.”
“What is your shield status?” asked Spock.
“Fully functional, there was no external damage. They just got the phasers.” Tra sighed. “Lucky shot.”
“The Hofstadter’s shields are damaged. It is unable to fly through the storm,” Spock said. His scans had showed that the interference pattern was growing worse. “How long will you need to reach our location?”
“If I go suborbital, about half an hour.”
“Acceptable. Crewman, I will need every piece of information you and your team were able to gather about the natives. Send us the data, complete with your latest tricorder logs.”
“Aye, sir,” Tra said.
“Hofstadter out.”
While Spock had been entertaining the theory that the population had not disappeared, as that would have been a logistical impossibility, he had not expected the other team’s discoveries to be so incident-ridden.
Spock began powering up the shuttle as he awaited the arrival of the data packet. Once he had read it, he flipped open his communicator. Some of the landing party were exploring the warehouse.
“Spock to Hofstadter party. Return to the shuttle immediately.”
M’Benga was back first. “What’s going on, Commander?”
“Doctor,” Spock said, “the Columbus is incoming, carrying two casualties.”
“Who?” M’Benga asked.
“The wounded are Lieutenant Rawlins and Ensign Seven Deers. Captain Kirk, Commander Giotto, and Ensign Chekov are missing, in addition to Specialist Yüksel.”
M’Benga’s voice was shocked. “How did this—”
“I will send further details to your tricorder.” He sent the data packet to the rest, who had come aboard while Spock and M’Benga had been conversing—with one exception. “Where is Mister Scott?”
“He said he had something to finish up,” said Kologwe. “He’s working on the shields.”
“Continue the preflight checklist, Lieutenant.” Spock stood up.
The Vulcan stepped out from the brightness of the shuttle into the relative dark of the warehouse. He could hear the whistling winds outside, much louder than only a few minutes before. The thunder—and, by extension, the lightning—seemed to have momentarily abated.
Scott was busy working on top of the Hofstadter. Spock could hear the buzzing of a hyperspanner. The engineer yelled down, “Give me just a minute, Mister Spock.”
Spock stepped up onto the warp nacelle of the Hofstadter. The engineer’s hands were in an opened access panel. “The Columbus is en route with wounded,” Spock said. “A combat situation may be imminent. Is the Hofstadter capable of flight?”
“I’ve fixed the damage from the lightning strike,” Scott replied, “but I want to adjust the shields. You canna fly up through the storm if the shields dinna work.”
“The shield malfunction is due to external interference,” Spock pointed out. “Can you remedy it?”
“Aye,” he said. “Give me a few minutes. We canna help the Columbus if we’re torn apart.”
Spock considered. “Continue your work.”
The engineer lifted his head and smiled. “I’ll do my best, sir.”
“The data from the Columbus indicates that its shields are unaffected,” said Spock. “This suggests that the Hofstadter is more susceptible.” Spock knew some of the differences between the G-class Hofstadter and F-class Columbus, but not as thoroughly as Scott.
Scott paused his work for a moment. “The Hofstadter is a later model,” he said, thinking aloud, “and the power conduits that feed the shields are larger—leaving less room for insulation. The interference could be through… That narrows it down, Mister Spock.” The engineer resumed his work.
Spock returned to the pilot’s seat to examine the report from the Columbus. It was not unheard of for a planetary population to go to great lengths to save itself, including mass migration and climate modification. It was an unorthodox solution to place the entire population in hypersleep. It appeared to have worked. The atmosphere of Farrezz was near normal levels for the life-forms the Columbus team had found.
The shuttle was ready for takeoff. However, Scott continued to work on the shields. Spock conferred with Jaeger about the storm system. If the Columbus was still being followed, the Hofstadter crew would need to leave this location as quickly as possible, and he did not want to incur any more damage from the storm.
Spock’s discussion was interrupted.
“Hofstadter, this is the Columbus. We’re five minutes out. Can you ready the door?”
“Hofstadter receiving,” answered Spock. “Which door?”
“The southwestern, sir.”
“We will be ready.”
Spock closed the channel and called for Kologwe to join him. They headed back into the warehouse. Mister Scott was no longer on top of the Hofstadter, but bent over a nacelle, adjusting his hyperspanner.
“What’s going on, sir?” asked Scott. “Are they all right?”
“We will know in a moment.”
Spock quickly strode across the warehouse. He noted Lieutenant Kologwe was carrying a phaser rifle. “A logical precaution, Lieutenant.” Spock activated the door’s opening mechanism, and Kologwe pointed the phaser rifle through the growing aperture. The wind raged through the opening, carrying gusts of rain, clumps of dirt, and bits of debris. When the door had retreated fully, Spock was barely able to remain standing.
The noise made it impossible to be heard. Spock resorted to flashlight signals. The Columbus was hovering half a meter above the ground, moving slowly forward, when a strong gust of wind hit its side and threw it off its course.
It struck the building wall at a height of four meters with a crash that managed to permeate the howling wind. The considerable force shattered part of the wall, and pieces of various sizes began to fall.
Broken pieces blocked all their escape routes. Spock and Kologwe had nowhere to go.
Scotty was watching as Spock guided the Columbus into the warehouse. When the shuttle slammed into the wall, he jumped into action. He grabbed his phaser in one quick flick, set it to a wide spread, and fired.
The beam disintegrated most of the debris. Spock’s Vulcan reflexes did the rest, pulling himself and Kologwe to safety. The engineer looked up to see that the Columbus was moving forward again. When it had cleared the entrance, Spock immediately closed the door, keeping wind and rain out.
Scotty rushed over to the Columbus, M’Benga right behind him with his medkit. The others quickly joined them. What had gone wrong?
When the hatch finally opened the doctor rushed in. Scotty hoped Rawlins and Seven Deers were okay. He knew Seven Deers had a family on Alpha Centauri. Her two children were adults, but they still shouldn’t have to lose a parent.
Scotty moved off to the aft section of the Columbus to see if there’d been any damage from hitting the side of the warehouse. As he began to examine the shuttle, a loud crack made him jump and drop his phaser. It sounded like thunder mixed with an explosion. Had that been caused by the storm? What was it? Scotty looked around but saw little outside the beam of his flashlight.
Something small dropped on his head, and he looked up. A cloud of dust engulfed him, and his eyes began to burn. More small bits pelted him, in the face, on the forehead, chest, shoulders. Squinting, he pointed his flashlight at the ceiling above him, just in time to see a large piece of it race down.
His legs moved of their own accord, but then his world collapsed, causing waves of pain to smother everything. Blackness was the only thing his eyes registered before giving up.
So far, Giotto hadn’t encountered any hostiles, but he knew his luck wouldn’t hold. Even if the Farrezzi had no sensors to tell them that intruders were aboard, he’d cross paths with them sooner or later. The commander had his doubts that they would ever find Yüksel. The botanist had been gone too long. There was a slim chance they might locate Chekov—a very slim one.
Sweat covered his brow, caused by the humidity. The air was warm and smelled like the rich soil of a garden. Distracting, but nothing he couldn’t cope with.
The floor suddenly shuddered. In the distance, Giotto could hear sounds. He sprinted to the nearest alcove and shoved himself in. Judging by the sockets and cables, its purpose was power distribution.
The sounds in the distance were barely audible. They became fainter, then disappeared altogether. Giotto waited another minute, just to make sure that they’d gone. Was it really possible that neither he nor the captain hadn’t been spotted? If this had been the Enterprise, and intruders had found their way aboard, they wouldn’t have remained undetected for long. It was possible, however, that this ship was not a military one. Giotto’s scan of the exterior had not shown any weapon emplacements.
So far, he’d found nothing that would help him in his search for two missing crewmen. He’d seen no brig, no holding cells, no torture chamber. He’d inspected every side corridor, every alcove, along the way. Nothing.
His instincts told him he was going in one big circle. He had good orientation skills, normally not needing a tricorder or a map, but the slaver ship was turning out to be a challenge. It all looked the same, just one big tunnel, like the ones they’d seen below the city.
Giotto checked his tricorder, which had been automatically mapping the interior. The map told him he was not going in circles, but it was of little help otherwise. He remembered what Chekov had said about the unique physiology of the aliens. No front or back, so it stood to reason that their vehicles wouldn’t have them either. Perhaps it was like the Enterprise’s saucer section, where everything important—bridge, sickbay, life support systems—was at the center. Common sense, right? At least, it was to humanoids. He was about to find out if the same was true for five-limbed squidthings.
“Now lift them up, slowly,” Spock said.
The weight of the large block that had fallen from the ceiling and narrowly missed the Columbus was considerable, so he had ordered it cut in two by precisely modulated phaser beams, to minimize the danger to Engineer Scott, who lay trapped beneath it.
If the Farrezzi pursuing the Columbus had caught up with them, there would have been more than one strike. Could it have been lightning?
Mister Scott had been the only one hit by the ceiling piece. Spock regretted that his conversation with Tra had distracted him from noticing the ceiling fragment until it was too late. The lower half of Scott’s body was covered by the larger chunk, making for an unsettling sight. It was fortunate that he had been standing close to the port nacelle’s aft end, as it kept the concrete from crushing his legs completely.
The engineer required immediate attention. Doctor M’Benga had interrupted the treatment of his other two patients, who had been moved to the Hofstadter. Spock had given the order to remove the concrete block. After cutting it in two, Lieutenant Kologwe and Petty Officer Emalra’ehn had attached all the antigrav devices from both shuttles to the pieces and removed them carefully as Spock and the doctor supervised. At a safe distance, they disengaged the antigravs, sending the block of concrete to the floor with a resonating thud.
“What now, sir?” Lieutenant Jaeger asked, standing beside Spock, wide-eyed. “He needs a sickbay.”
“I have every confidence in Doctor M’Benga’s abilities.” Spock’s statement was not wholly true. Having Doctor McCoy present would have increased Scott’s odds of survival by four full percentage points.
“I wish I had your confidence, sir,” Jaeger said. For a moment, he gave the appearance of wanting to say something further but stopped himself. The geophysicist looked up at the ceiling. Through the gaping hole, they could see dark clouds lit by frequent flashes of lightning. “The rain is getting stronger.”
A steady stream of drops had been pelting Spock’s face, but their intensity and frequency was increasing.
“Ow!” Jaeger’s hand shot up, covering the top of his head.
“As is its solidity.” The rain had turned to hail. Spock stepped backward, out of reach.
“It’s cooled down surprisingly fast,” said Jaeger. “I don’t think this place is going to be safe much longer, the way this storm is going.”
“I agree,” Spock said. “Tell the doctor we have to move Mister Scott.”
Jaeger stepped over to the Columbus. Spock knew that with the wind gaining more strength, they would soon be caught in a deadly trap. The structure had been weakened by the ruptured roof and would not be able to withstand the onslaught.
Spock had to perform a quick reassignment of the shuttle crews. “Lieutenant Kologwe.”
“Aye, sir?” The security officer stopped and turned, her hair and face covered in a wet sheen.
“Conditions are expected to deteriorate, so we must be prepared to leave in a hurry. You have the necessary experience; I need you to pilot the Columbus. Be prepared for protracted turbulence once we take to the air.”
“Aye, sir,” she said somberly. Spock knew very few humans who had such a tight grip on their emotions. He told Kologwe to take Ensign Saloniemi with her. M’Benga had moved Lieutenant Rawlins to the Hofstadter where he could keep an eye on him.
Spock returned to the Hofstadter, where Saloniemi was gathering his materials. The Vulcan sent out a highly focused signal to the approximate location of the Enterprise. With no contact for nearly twelve hours, it was difficult to say where the ship would be, but he was confident in his selection. However, he received no indication that the signal had arrived at its destination.
The increasing interference had affected both their sensors and their shields. If there were distortions in subspace impairing the Enterprise’s journey, it was possible that there were similar ones much closer to Mu Arigulon. Mister Scott had isolated the interference pattern to create his countermeasure. Spock ordered the computer to map the interference, noting the levels.
“Fascinating.”
“Sir?” asked Saloniemi, leaning over the back of the navigator’s seat, tricorder in his hand.
“The computer has determined that the subspace distortion is strongest near the ‘projector’ at the hub of the reactor network,” Spock replied. “This explains our inability to obtain precise scans.”
“Is it creating a warp field?” asked Saloniemi.
“Possibly. The Farrezzi were clearly in the early stages of warp flight.”
“But if there’s a distortion reaching into deep space, they must be advanced.” Saloniemi shook his head. “That doesn’t fit.”
“It is not a matter of advancement so much as sheer power,” said Spock. “There were numerous reactors in the Farrezzi network, the equivalent of five or six times the Enterprise’s power. If we are to end the distortions, the logical conclusion is that we must deactivate the ractors.”
The rain had returned and was increasing in strength. The shuttle’s sensors told him that the wind had increased. Just then, a sensor blip caught his attention: three moving objects had been detected.
When they opened fire on the warehouse, it became clear what had caused the earlier explosion.
Ahead of Kirk, the tunnel took a sharp turn to the right. He slowed down to listen. Nothing. That was a relief. He’d hate to run into—
Two Farrezzi stood near the next junction, roughly twenty meters ahead. They were large, impressive beings. Kirk stopped as soon as he spotted them, but it was too late. With their five protruding eyes, it was impossible for them not to have seen him.
They were fast, almost impossibly so, given their legs didn’t contain any bones.
Instinct took over. Kirk ran, fervently hoping that his memory of the tunnel maze was reliable. When he passed an alcove, he hurled himself into the recess. The impact pushed the air out of his lungs, and his left shoulder hurt like hell after hitting the wall.
Two blurry shadows sped past him, which was good.
They stopped almost immediately, which was not.
In one quick motion, he grabbed his phaser, sped out of the alcove, and fired a rapid sequence of shots at the Farrezzi without waiting to take aim.
When one of them toppled, Kirk had good reason to fear being squashed, heavy as they were. The Farrezzi he’d hit collapsed on itself, legs giving in like cooked pasta, before its body fell backward and hit the floor with a thump.
One down, one to go. Before the captain could get off another shot, two of the Farrezzi’s limbs shot out, grabbing Kirk’s arms with their prehensile ends and pinning him to the deck. As the being came closer, two of its other limbs wrapped themselves around his legs, and the fifth made for his throat. His phaser was just a half meter from his right hand. It might as well have been on the other side of the planet.
Up close, the wrinkly, fur-covered alien torso resembled a large, fleshy bulb that expanded and contracted rhythmically. The legs’ ends—not actually feet—split in two, then again in two smaller ones, to leave the Farrezzi with a total of four thin tentacle-like digits per leg, capable of wrapping themselves tightly around objects.
The grip on his throat was not that tight, but he was beginning to feel its effects. His vision started to swim, his heart pounding. Kirk summoned all of his energy to buck and thrash wildly beneath the slaver’s heavy body.
Pinned down like an insect in a specimen collection, he had no chance. The more he resisted, the stronger the grip became. To top it all off, Kirk knew it could get worse. If another Farrezzi came to this one’s aid, he’d be done for.