"Do you remember when you took me to Florida for my birthday?" Nyota mumbled.
"Certainly." That had been the night he realized he was developing a deep affection for her that went beyond generalized attraction.
"We stared- up at the stars and you told me-" she shivered uncontrollably and he held her tighter, sensing another contraction was coming. "You told me about Vulcan… constellations."
A quiet scream began a slow departure from her lips and Spock did as he had already done forty-one times before and gripped her face and felt a devastating rush of pain course through her. She began a series of shallow pants and his fingers became wet from her tears. Thirty seconds later it was over and her body slackened and slumped against his chest.
"What gave you cause to recall such a memory?"
"You said we were in the 37 Geminorum system. That's part of the Gemini constellation."
"Yes."
"The mythology is so interesting. The Romans stole it from the Greeks," she whispered. "Castor and Pollux…"
Spock remembered the story well, but wished to keep her conscious and talking. She seemed to be growing so weak and had already vomited from labor pains twice. "Remind me."
"You didn't forget," she mumbled, allowing a wan smile to streak her face. "You don't forget anything."
"I wish to hear the story again."
"Castor and Pollux were twin half brothers born from a mortal woman. One was the son of the King of Sparta, and the other was the son of Zeus. They became famous Argonauts – explorers on a quest to find the Golden Fleece." Her voice trailed off and she craned her neck to look up at the night sky.
Spock pressed the knuckle of his index finger into the neural node at the base of her skull and she moaned and drew in a deep breath through her teeth. "I do not believe the story ends there."
"Then Castor was killed, and his brother Pollux asked Zeus to make him immortal too, and together they became the constellation Gemini."
He recalled lying with her on a warm sandy beach six years ago, talking at length about the ancient myths and legends of Earth and Vulcan. Where Vulcan had only several collections of stories about the stars and planets, Earth had hundreds due to the incredible diversity of its people.
Almost all of Earth's earliest cultures had their own tales about the stars – the Babylonians, Chinese, Indians, Egyptians, Greeks, Incans, Romans, Vikings, and so many others. She had always been fascinated by the lesser-known myths, those of the Native Americans and the indigenous peoples of the African and Australian continents.
Spock put his hand on her chest and realized her breathing had slowed. "Nyota?"
"Castor and Pollux… they're considered guardians of sailors in the ancient myths."
"I did not know that."
"Sailors associated them with a weather phenomenon called St. Elmo's fire. It normally showed up near the end of big lightning storms."
Spock was familiar with the Terran common name for the occurrence of a luminous coronal discharge on tapered objects during electrical storms. Vulcans called it dukal-igen-wesh – literally ball lightning. "Explain."
"It's just a plasma discharge," she slurred. "But ancient sailors didn't know about ionized gases and electrical fields."
"I wish to know more."
"You're the ship's science officer. If I have to give you a lesson on simple weather phenomena we're… in… trouble." She gasped and clutched her belly again.
For the forty-third time, he melded their minds and shared the experience with her. Her pains were growing worse and more frequent, and it seemed logical to conclude her labor was progressing, but he lacked the knowledge to say when she would be ready to deliver.
She started to scream. He held his breath, trying to draw more of her agony away but it seemed to have little effect so he slid his hand over her mouth to stifle her long shriek. He disliked having to quiet her, sensing she would prefer to endure this without any restraint, but he was forced to weigh her suffering against their safety.
Sharp pain ripped through his fingers, causing him to pull his hand away. He was bleeding. Her teeth had torn straight through the flesh of his middle finger, exposing the bone of the central knuckle. As her contraction started to subside and she became aware of the taste of his blood on her tongue, she retched once again into the waterproof bag he'd given her earlier.
"I'm so- so sorry," she wailed. "I'm so sorry."
He cradled his injured hand and offered her one of the bottles of water to rinse her mouth. "I know this is difficult for you."
She swilled the water around in her mouth and spit it into the bag. "How can you be so calm?"
Her voice was a low growl, raw and accusatory. It was taxing every fiber of his being to remain composed and logical, and he sensed that admitting this to her would only cause her to panic further.
"Ugh, I'm sorry," she moaned. "You've been nothing but amazing to me and I- I just-"
"You are performing admirably under the circumstances."
She rested the back of her head on his chest and sniffed. "Women used to die in childbirth."
Spock knew this. Evolutionary biologists called it the obstetrical dilemma. The prevailing theory stipulated that the pelvis of all bipedal sentient species was the direct consequence of two opposing evolutionary pressures. The ability to walk upright demanded a narrower pelvis and thus the size of the bony birth canal had decreased. Unfortunately the development of larger craniums necessitated a wider pelvic area to accommodate infants, and thus, the problem.
Prior to early advances in medical technology, many Vulcan females died in childbirth at rates that dwarfed human maternal fatalities when other factors such as disease and malnutrition were controlled for. Before the first series of reformations several millennia ago, death in childbirth was a minor contributor in a gender imbalance that forced many Vulcan males to fight for their mates.
Vulcan infants had bigger midbrains and thicker skulls than their human counterparts, making their heads larger and less pliable and therefore more likely to become lodged in the birth canal. Nyota was carrying his child, a child with Vulcan genes. Dr. McCoy had discussed the possibility that she would have to deliver by surgical means if the child grew too large, but no one had questioned modern medicine's ability to get both Nyota and their child safely through the process of birth.
Spock thought of their descent to the remote moon and the dwindling oxygen in the pod, the scaly carnivores in the swamp, his search for food, and their fight to stay dry and warm and evade the Orions. They had all been cautionary tales about the inherent hubris technology afforded advanced societies, and now he was reminded of it again.
For all their language, culture, technology, and social wisdom, he, Nyota, and everyone else were still fundamentally just animals caught in the classical struggle for scarce resources. Their situation put them back in the position of their distant ancestors – they were no longer protected from things like starving or freezing to death, and nor was Nyota exempt from the dangers of childbirth. It was logical to accept this.
Logic taught him to separate irrational worry from reality and suppress it – either she would die or she would not and there was little he could do to affect the outcome. But now that he held her in her arms and was present in the experience, his logic was failing. Nyota was his mate. She was carrying their child. Spock had always believed that all emotions were capable of mastery, but now he was less certain.
"I don't want to die, Spock," she whispered.
Nor did he. A long and prosperous life was the obvious desirable goal for any species. The odds were impossible to calculate with great precision, but even if the child was safely delivered from her, their collective chances of long-term survival were quite poor between the dangers of the natural environment and the Orions.
Logic required they should accept that inevitable truth, but hope demanded they should focus on the unlikely possibility of success. Many great Vulcans had taught him the value of logic, but many great humans had taught him the necessity of hope. His mother, Captain Pike, Dr. McCoy, Jim… Yet no one had done more to teach him the importance of hope than the woman lying slack in his arms, who was on the verge of breaking from her physical and emotional anguish.
There was a disconnect between what he knew and what she needed to hear, and given her present condition, he chose to defer to her. He bent forward to whisper in her ear, "I am confident that you will do what you have always done: persevere."
Another contraction began and he helped her through it, careful to keep his fingers away from her mouth. When her body relaxed, she sighed and looked up at the sky again. "The stars… nothing looks familiar here."
Spock followed her gaze and stared at a myriad of familiar stars made unrecognizable by his relative location on a remote moon. He focused his eyes and recalled well-studied star charts, did several quick adjustments in his head, and eventually found a frame of reference. "I believe that is li'rah, the star humans call Vega."
"Li'rah? That's weird," she muttered. "Vega is part of a constellation the ancient Greeks called Lyra."
"Who was Lyra?"
"What, not who," she replied. "Lyra represents the lyre of Orpheus."
"The musician who lost his mate to the god of the underworld?"
Nyota stiffened and slowly nodded. "Something like that."
She remained quiet for nearly a minute before she asked, "What was li'rah to the ancient Vulcans?"
"The bringer of life," he replied. "It could only be seen during the spring months and signaled an end to the worst of the winter's electrical storms. When it became visible in the southern sky, ancient Vulcans took it as a sign to begin planting crops."
"Interesting," Nyota said, her voice holding a hopeful tone for the first time in days. "In Kenya you can't even see it until the darkest part of the night in early summer. Some of the tribal cultures would look to the northern sky and see Vega as a beacon for the migratory animals. It would appear just after the rainy season and soon after that, the Maasai Mara would be covered with millions of zebra and wildebeest."
Her body shuddered and just as Spock braced himself to help her through another contraction, he heard the sound of sliding rocks from overhead. His eyes shot upward and found the forms of nine Orions standing on a rock face fifteen meters above them.
For a fraction of a second he felt a wave of peace, but his mind was still quick to react. He reached across his body for the phaser, moving while turning Nyota toward the rock he was leaning against to shield her from their weapons fire when he found himself awash in unanticipated warmth and overwhelming light.
His existence no longer made logical sense. His eyes were adjusted to the dark so the blinding light flooding his senses momentarily disoriented him. There was shouting and his ears were ringing from a piercing siren in the distance. His arm instinctively rose to shield them from oncoming attack, but in the next instant, he realized hope had not been in vain after all.
They were back on Enterprise and seated on the transporter pad in main engineering.
"Ha ha! Alricht then!"
"Mr. Scott?"
"Mr. Spock!"
The ship lurched and Spock's ears began to make sense of the loud siren and the yelling in the distance. They were at red alert. The ship was under attack.
The ship's chief engineer started to bark out orders. Nyota began to laugh through her wailing and Spock gripped her hand, trying to help her to an upright sitting position.
"No! Draw power awa' fae aft thrusters fur th' shields!" the engineer cried before turning back to Spock. "Is she ok?"
"She is in labor," Spock replied.
Mr. Scott's eyes grew wide and his mouth began to work at forming syllables.
"Initiate a site-to-site transport to sickbay," Spock ordered.
"Uh- aye," Scotty murmured.
"What is the ship's current status?" Spock asked, watching Scotty's fingers fly over the transporter's controls.
"We're under attack. The Orion Syndicate. It's bad."
"Explain."
"They launched a torpedo that hit deck 2 and depressurized the bridge above it!" he yelled.
"And the bridge crew?" Spock asked.
"Sickbay. Don't have a status."
As the Enterprise hadn't yet received a new first officer, that left Mr. Scott, the ship's second officer, in command. He felt her hand grip his forearm and turned to see her staring at him intently. "Go."
It was the logical decision. Mr. Scott was overburdened and the most logical way for Spock to assist Nyota now was to ensure the safety of the ship. He nodded and started to rise to his feet but she pulled him into a deep, almost angry kiss.
"Standby for transport," Mr. Scott cried before turning around to Ensign Keenser to yell something unintelligible.
"Good luck," she croaked.
Rather than remind her that a belief in luck was illogical, he simply replied, "You too."
He stood back, stepped off the platform, and watched her disappear into the matter stream. She was on her own now. Rather than allow himself to continue to worry for her, he turned his attention commanding the ship from the emergency bridge Mr. Scott had established in main engineering.
An hour later, they finally stood down red alert and he took a seat on a toolbox by the door. Two Orion ships had been destroyed and three others had been seized with the help of the USS Valiant and a small fleet of ships from the Kantare Civil Defense Patrol.
Information was still coming in, but it seemed the moon designated 37G-7D-27 that had been their home for the past two days had been a base of operations for an Orion black market narcotics plantation. Relations with the Kantare were exceptionally tenuous but the captain of the Valiant was attempting to handle the situation.
Damage reports were coming in from all over the ship. The saucer section had taken severe external damage because the Enterprise had been caught unawares by a small fleet of Orion frigates. It seemed the Orion Syndicate was now in possession of limited cloaking technology. Starfleet Command would certainly be displeased, given anti-piracy efforts continued to demand more personnel and resources with each passing year.
"Commander Spock, are you ok?"
He looked up to see Ensign M'Ress, the Caitian communications officer, standing over him holding a clean uniform and wearing a look of concern. She sniffed the air gingerly and looked at his clothes. He was filthy from two days of running through a swamp, not to mention covered in dried amniotic fluid.
He accepted the uniform and replied, "Yes, I am well. Thank you."
But there was still much to do. He had yet to receive an updated report from sickbay on the status of Nyota or the bridge crew. He reached up to toggle the switch on the wall to open an internal channel to medical when Ensign M'Ress said, "I'm glad we found you when you did. They had one hell of a dampening field. Is she- is she going to be ok?"
Spock looked at her feline face. Ensign M'Ress had served on Enterprise less than a year and had struggled to perform her duties in the beginning, but Nyota had taken it upon herself to give M'Ress the necessary remedial training and she'd excelled ever since. He knew the young ensign admired Nyota, and realized he was not the only one waiting to hear about her status.
"I do not know," Spock admitted. "I need to get the report from sickbay, excuse me."
"Of course, sir."
He reached for the switch again, only to be interrupted by Mr. Scott. "We got deck 12 cleaned up, but I-"
"Mr. Scott, please excuse me," he interrupted.
Just before his fingers made contact with the switch, Dr. McCoy's voice drawled through the speaker. "Sickbay to emergency bridge."
"Spock here."
"I've got your final casualty report – zero dead, 43 injured. 2 critical, 5 serious, 17 fair, and 19 in good condition. That leaves us at 430 aboard."
Spock was about to ask about Nyota when the doctor added, "I have a correction. Total aboard is 431. Congratulations. It's a girl."
