A Matter of Time
This is another in story in my AU, involving my original character, Daphne. For the purpose of the story, it's ony necessary to know that in my ST universe, Daphne is Kirk's half sister and Spock's wife. This story is really about Kirk and Spock and what binds them together. I wanted a story that celebrated every member of the Enterprise' crew and the incredible heroism I have always expected they are capable of.
Daphne lay in his arms, cocooned in warmth, satiated, drifting in and out of consciousness. She should have been exhausted enough to fall into a deep sleep. Since Spock had taken her to their quarters some time ago, he had taken her up and over the precipice into ecstasy a half a dozen times that she could remember. There may have been more that simply overlapped. He had joined with her body, mind and soul with an abandon and passion she had rarely encountered in the year they had been married. The bond between them had flared like a new sun, as if he was falling in love with her all over again.
In spite of her utter helplessness in his control, something in her soul was whispering urgently. She had given herself to him, as always, with utter trust. But the last few hours had been intense, even for them. He had dimmed all the lights, even the meditation flame. The fact that he was still holding her in the velvety darkness, his hand formed into the familiar V tracing slow lines on her body as if to map her, his skin burning against hers, was also more than unusual. The one time she had tried to roll over he had held onto her as if she might suddenly vanish.
Vulcans were raised in a society that had evolved over millennia in conditions that had made them extremely protective of their bondmates. Something had happened in the course of the previous day to trigger Spock's overprotective nature.
She just didn't know what.
She knew that Alpha Shift had begun with the discovery of a floating derelict. Scans had revealed no signs of life and the Captain had brought the ship on board, in the cargo bay on Deck Twenty-Two, for further investigation.
She knew that Spock and the Captain had been in the cargo bay with it for only a short time when they had unceremoniously abandoned the room, opened the bay doors and allowed the entire ship to be blown back out into space. Kirk had then ordered Chekhov to lay in a course for the nearest Star base and take them there at the highest possible speed.
Kirk and Spock had arrived on the Bridge looking as if the demons from the deepest Abyss were chasing them. Even Spock had appeared unusually rattled. He had monitored their distance from the derelict ship for a short time and then abruptly asked her to accompany him. Without a word of explanation they had arrived in at their quarters.
Since then, they had not left the bed.
Daphne shifted closer to him, reassuringly. He was solid and ardent, unshakable as always. But something still teased at the edges of her consciousness like bees humming in a jar.
He still had not explained the odd "winking out" of their mind link, which had ostensibly been the reason for bringing her to their quarters.
She reached up to trace a long slow line down the side of his face to his neck, turned her hand over so that the back of it stroked down his arm. His wandering hand slid teasingly over her hip and down over her thigh.
Daphne shivered.
"Are you trying to arouse me again?" she asked.
His voice was an erotic whisper in the dark, "Do you doubt that I can?"
She stretched and all but purred, settling against him more intimately. "I don't doubt you can set stone on fire…. And I am not stone."
Still, she reached for his hand and mirrored it with hers, making him pause.
"You should just tell me," she said finally, pitching her voice to Vulcan hearing. "Whatever it is that happened, it will not make me leave you or love you less."
There may have been the slightest hitch in his breathing. It seemed that he froze for a moment. Then his hand left hers and stroked over her hair. The tousled silk, robbed of its spun gold color by the dark, was still heavy and sensual to the touch. He played with the part and slide of it for a moment, the ripple of curl winding through his fingers.
He had not meant to make love to her. His only intention in bringing her back to their quarters had been to explain the events that had transpired. But then the door had swished closed behind them and she had gazed up at him with those golden eyes, wide and vulnerable, trusting, accepting.
Vibrant and alive…..
To be fair, she had initiated the kiss; her empathic senses had picked up instantly on his mood. Her mouth had moved slowly, tentatively under his at first, before it had deepened and deepened until the desperate need to breathe had finally broken them apart. With deliberate slowness, he had slipped two fingers over her palm and the back of her hand, around her wrist where her human pulse beat slowly with desire. The link between them sparked like shattered starlight and need had almost overwhelmed him.
It had been a long time since they had left a trail of torn clothing between the bed and the door.
Before he let the memory of what had followed distract him again, he brought his fingers to rest at last on the telepathic touch points of her temple and cheekbone.
"I have a memory to share," his voice was lower than usual.
She moved to rest more comfortably in the hollow of his shoulder and nodded once. He was Vulcan. She was his wife. If this was how he needed to tell her, she would not deny him.
"My thoughts to your thoughts," he intoned softly, "My mind to yours. Become one with me, k'diwa. Our minds are one..."
They had found the ship adrift, moving aimlessly along what had presumably been its last set course. The hull was scored and breached in dozens of places. One thin warp nacelle was missing entirely, the shattered stump bleeding some kind of coolant out into space. The other dangled uselessly from a twisted piece of metal that had once been its support. In multiple places the skin of the ship was sheared back like a banana peel. Its type and design were unknown. Spock and Chekhov had taken its last known trajectory and gone light years without finding a possible placed of origin. There were no life form readings, and after bringing the craft aboard and stowing it in the cargo bay, they had not been able to find anyone at all.
Security had crawled over it an inch at a time and finally declared it safe. Kirk found Spock, alone in the cargo bay, investigating it. Overcome no doubt by his near obsession with technology, the Vulcan was kneeling on the cold metal floor amidst the wreckage that had been salvaged. Before him stood a cylinder about two feet tall, slender as a reed but unbending. Spock was absolutely still, intense with concentration. Jim studied his First Officer for a moment.
In the last four years he had watched as Spock had struggled to reconcile the worlds of science and cold, hard logic with the world of the human heart. He had come to rely on Spock's keen intelligence and utter calm in the face of adversity. Spock had chosen for some unknown reason to lay all his incredible resources and skill at his captain's disposal.
In short, they had forged a friendship that crossed all the lines of conflicting cultures and logic.
He went to squat down next to Spock and said,
"So what is it?"
"It is a cylinder, approximately one point five meters tall with a six inch diameter, of unknown origin and purpose," Spock replied, without taking his eyes off the object.
A smile twitched the corners of Jim's mouth. Four years ago he would have thought Spock was being obtuse or deliberately vague, even attempting to annoy him. Now he knew the Vulcan was simply giving him all the information he currently possessed as clearly and succinctly as he could.
"So what's so …fascinating about it?" Jim asked, emphasizing his friend's favorite word for the strange and unusual.
Spock sat down; resting his arm and the PADD he was holding on one raised knee.
"It is completely undamaged."
Jim didn't have quite the fatal curiosity that plagued Spock, but a puzzle of this magnitude was sure to get his attention. He looked again at the twisted pile of wreckage cluttering the cargo bay. It seemed impossible that anything had come from it unscathed. Then he turned once more to the cylinder, pristine and gleaming.
"Was it shielded somehow?" he asked.
"It seems obvious that it was protected from whatever destroyed the ship and crew. What is not obvious is how or why," Spock replied. He turned the cylinder to show Jim a flat panel of squares containing foreign markings. "Uhura has linguistics working on this, but so far it is incomprehensible."
"No other writings or anything in the ship?" Jim asked.
"There is very little left in the ship that has any kind of recognizable form."
Jim stroked his jaw for a moment, thoughtfully. "So who were they, and perhaps more importantly, who attacked them…. And why?"
Spock may be more obsessed with the mysterious and undamaged cylinder, but Jim was far more concerned with the possibility that something in this region of space might attack the Enterprise.
Spock started to reply when suddenly the Enterprise lurched sideways. It seemed that the ship was shifting around them, though they were frozen in place. The lights flickered crazily and the ship hummed off and on. Then the light went out entirely into a foggy grayness that formed around Spock, Jim and the cylinder.
When the bubble vanished, Kirk and Spock were lying almost flat on the deck. The cargo bay was bathed only in a dim blue glow; it was the emergency lighting.
But it should have been brighter. Instead it appeared to have been on for some time. They both began to rise but Spock froze suddenly and gasped, falling forward to brace himself against the deck.
"Spock?" Jim reached for him, wrapping his hand firmly around his arm, "What?"
"Daphne," Spock whispered his wife's name, "She's ….gone."
Even in the dim light, he could see Jim's eyes fly open. "What do you mean? Gone?" he demanded. He always sounded as if he could change whatever pronouncement had just been made by the sheer force of his will.
Spock was still braced on the deck, staring at it unseeing.
"The link between us," his voice was ragged, "it's been severed."
"What would do that?" Jim's voice was clipped.
"Distance …a great distance," Spock paused and looked up at Jim from narrowed, haunted eyes, " or death."
He managed to move enough to sit on the deck again. There was more, but he couldn't quite find a way to tell this human. His sharp Vulcan hearing was sending him a message as urgent as his telepathic sense - silence. The ship was utterly devoid of voices, and the constant pressure of 428 alien minds he shielded himself from daily had also vanished.
Jim got up and strode resolutely to the comm unit on the wall. He punched it perhaps harder than was necessary.
"Bridge!" he barked. He waited…. And waited….. Finally he hit it again, "Engineering! Scotty!"
"Jim!" Spock had managed to rise. The tricorder was now being held limply at his side, having delivered a message he now had to give his Captain. A dark and dangerous shadow lay across his Vulcan features. "They won't answer."
"Why not?" Jim spoke the words without really wanting to know.
Spock held up the tricorder. "Because according to this, there is no one alive on this ship except you and me."