USS CONTACT, CAPTAIN'S READY ROOM
The door chime sounded. Saavik forced her face back to a mask of utter calm, and then told them to enter.
Imre got immediately to business, unknowingly doing the best thing he could for her. "Prefix code has been changed, per your orders. You wanted to talk to me about something?"
Saavik handed him the padd. "You know the tactical station tests."
"Seeing as how I was there, yes. Everything was normal."
"I added it to the list of other stations reading normal, such as the helm."
Understanding dawned. "I see. You're worried the weapon systems are compromised and it doesn't show up, just like the rest."
"I consider the possibility. Depending on his intentions with Coridan, our saboteur might have programmed an attack on the Enterprise. It would explain why he brought our ship to this point in time. You know we cannot allow it."
He gave a slow, small nod. "Naturally I agree." He dropped the padd on her desk with a curse. "We'd be better off if the tactical test got screwed up. Then we'd know for a fact that it is."
She gave a deeply agreed, "True. We will inform the command staff as a formality. It will be the first topic at the meeting."
He dragged his fingers on both hands through his hair. "The reports we're waiting for need five minutes."
"I commend them on their efficiency. I expected longer."
"Let me take that time to clear my head. It's been a long day and it's not close to over." He went to her replicator. "Two fingers of Jameson 18."
He had given her ten minutes; he earned his five while she attacked this from other angles – and put Hellguard back behind its door.
Saavik thought about what he'd just said. Not the order for the alcohol – it had taken the programmers a little time to make the computer understand orders in fingers – but his comment on clearing his head. "You make an excellent point. I will order the command staff to a half hour break after our meeting. It will aid them once the saboteur strikes and they can take none at that juncture."
Imre took the drink to her couch under her weapons collection, bypassing the two chairs in front of her desk. The couch could, if necessary, convert to a bed if she ever needed to sleep while staying at the bridge.
She sent a notice to Bimojigar that Spock or another would contact them for a conference. Depending on who attended on both sides, her communication officer needed to be ready with the necessary visual controls.
Imre took a slow sip and then held up a forefinger. "I'm breaking my rule about giving me five minutes. You asked for who recently was part of the crew and left, meaning they still had the opportunity to inflict the sabotage."
"And?"
"Just a few, the usual transfers everybody has. I checked against T'Kel's description of who kidnapped them and the number drops to zero again. Still a good thought."
"We eliminated another possibility." Sooner or later, it had to get them someplace. It had to reveal the saboteur.
They had cleared the crew. Each person on board received more than one approval.
And yet…
Imre spoke into his glass. "You're reconsidering that it might be me."
Saavik didn't deny it; she had no reason to do it. "You reconsider me for the same reason."
His lips pressed together as he looked into his drink. "Who knows this entire ship better? Which is when it starts with us reconsidering the command crew too." He let out a long breath. "If I could come up with a reason that would make you betray the Federation - which I haven't been able to do - you would never, never, kidnap and use your children as part of your plot."
She would die first. "I obviously have an accomplice. He is the one who took the children."
"That would be illogical. No one else could better get to the kids or gain their trust than you, except for their father and grandfather, and they didn't go. You certainly wouldn't send a stranger for that reason, and you would still go yourself to make sure your accomplice didn't harm them. So you wouldn't send someone else and you would never kidnap them at all. If we consider that your accomplice took the children without your knowledge, you'd immediately drop from the conspiracy and work against them."
"I am that honest as a conspirator?"
"You're that pissed off that they took your kids." He leaned back into the couch. "It's not you."
"Or you." For a number of reasons.
"Which takes us to Kyle Nachson, since he's second officer. I can only think of one reason that man would betray his oath as an officer and work against the Federation."
Saavik frowned. She hadn't thought of any. "And that is?"
Imre shot her a look for missing the obvious. "If you told him to do it. Conversely, Kyle would eat his own limbs before he'd betray you. He's been with you a long time, hasn't he?"
"That is a relative term. However, it has been since his last year at the Academy. Someone brought him to my attention."
The brashness and roughness he had learned in a difficult orphanage on one of the Frontier colonies nearly got him kicked out of the Academy. A friend of a friend brought his potential to Saavik, to see if he could be saved.
Difficult orphaned life on a border colony: yes, Saavik had definitely taken interest.
So Kyle became, in the eyes of everyone else, Saavik's unofficial protégé. In her mind, as well as Spock's and Sarek's, he became what Amanda would call her stray.
Imre snorted. "He said he made a declaration to Sarek and Spock… what did he declare?"
"That he had followed me to Vulcan from the Armstrong, despite my objection, to do whatever he could to see to my safety and be of good service as my officer. As I said, medieval. My husband and father-in-law, however, called it immensely respectful."
"Great, now I look bad. He's raised the bar too. I would need to do something bigger, like…" He looked pointedly at his favorite piece of her weapons collection: a beautifully crafted spear where even its tip was an artwork of wrought gold metal as a layer over quality carbon steel. It had what looked like a Terran French horn at its top, except with an alien version of an Ojibwe dreamcatcher in place of its levers, valves, and slides. The native chieftain would signal a call at the start and at the end of battles, as well as in celebration for a marriage, birth, an extended family all home again, and for an ally who had proven themselves a true friend in peace and conflict. V'Zacaha had sounded this spear for just that reason before presenting it to 'her new sister, Saavik'. The dreamcatcher, with its whites, golds, and greens, was actually the tribal sigil with an additional symbol for the Vulcan.
"You are not arriving at the house carrying that Qeechal spear. However, this is a good time to inform you I have added your palm print to the locking mechanisms. These," she pointed out three of the pistols, "are kept loaded as well, and while they appear to be antiques, they are phasers with sham casings. You will need this code to go with your palm print." She gave him the Old High Vulcan word for 'unlock', and had him repeat it until he could say it correctly.
"But why?" he asked.
"To defend the bridge. These are closer than the nearest weapons locker. They would not allow me to add one to the bridge, so we have only Nachson's phaser at his station. If we are attacked, you will either aid me in unlocking these weapons more quickly or you will take my place if I have fallen."
It quickly sank in. "Understood, Captain. I would like to set up drills for the different shifts on the bridge. Some of these weapons are unfamiliar and we'll need a comfort with them in the event we are attacked."
She agreed and told him to include Tran and his Security teams. She unlocked the sword with the embedded flintlock in the pommel and down into the blade from its place behind her desk. "This is authentic and loaded. It is Mr. Nachson's favorite. This," she indicated the war hammer with an armored elephant as the weapon's head, "is Mr. Jaxon Tran's. They have borrowed them for training. I tell you this so you may include the knowledge in your drills, although all personnel must become familiar with each weapon. However-"
"Wait, Captain. Why do they get to borrow their favorites and I don't get the horn spear?"
"Because they asked me, and it is a Qeechal spear, not a horn spear, from the planet Ahnoonj'kwa."
He cursed a little before the handsome face smiled. "Lucky me, I get to work for the funny Vulcan."
Saavik imagined the several people in her past – actually, everyone from her past – who would be stunned by that description of her. Including herself.
"Ma'am, do you see the irony of a Vulcan arming her bridge when humans don't?"
Yes, she did. However, when she took on the mantle as the shield around Vulcan, she freely admitted the ferocity she did it with had its share of Romulan talons, as well as something ancient Vulcan to it.
"We are Vulcan's defenders, Commander. It is a different perspective. However, returning to the original matter."
"Yes, of course. You said you didn't want Nachson following you to Vulcan."
She locked the flintlock sword back in its place behind her desk. "You know the previous discrimination for the Starfleet commander of Vulcan forces. I did not want it affecting Nachson. You will remember I spoke to you as well about it."
"I do. But he followed you anyway."
Without her knowledge of it. He had suddenly shown up in her office with his authorized transfer papers and a note from her former captain: "I can't take him moping about the ship. He's yours. –TH"
"He said he had talked to Spock before, Captain. Because he's your protégée?"
"No. Spock only knew of Nachson at that point, not even on sight. Their initial meeting followed Spock and I returning to the Armstrong after our wedding. Nachson was sent to greet him, Dr. McCoy, and then-Captain Uhura. He recognized Spock only as my new husband, not as Starfleet legend and notable ambassador, and informed him they had installed a double bunk in my quarters."
The transporter chief had been appalled, her consort had rightfully accepted fact as fact, and Dr. McCoy had joyfully told everyone the story.
Imre laughed to himself before he said with a broad smile, "I asked you for Nachson's life to remind me of how right my first decision was. His loyalty to you can't be broken, even if he believed in whatever a collaborator thought. It's not him."
"No, it is not. It is not any of them. We have ensured it."
His eyes flicked up above her head to the Master Systems Display showing the Contact supposedly free of issues.
Saavik had let Imre go on, knowing he needed it. She had calculated how long it would be before he got to this point: he stared at the nothing in his glass until he suddenly gripped it hard as if he imagined doing the same to the saboteur's throat or maybe wanting to throw the glass into the wall.
"Our ship," he spat. "He runs around our ship and we're left standing here like idiots!"
He definitely wanted to throw the glass and even got to his feet, staring at it with bared teeth.
"He's not one of us, and that means that at some point, we stood there and waved this guy through to every part of the ship he wanted to tear apart!"
His fingers tightened and made his knuckles white. It took four seconds before the worst anger vented out in an exhale through his nose. He forced his jaw to ease.
"Are you really going to let me smash this all over your wall?"
"Would it help?" she asked quietly.
In answer, he sat it down on the arm of the couch. He eyed the horn spear with some desire.
With the non-idea of a crewmember being a saboteur, Saavik moved on. Connections pulled apart and linked in new combinations. She started at her station and sent the data to T'allendil to include in her search.
If we remove the issue of the saboteur fearing his own timeline will be eradicated, we may prove who he is. Except he should have shown on their searches.
It is not the equipment and I normally would state it is not us. Which returned her to someone in the crew at least aiding in this plot and masking the real signs their searches would discover.
But no, it was not the crew, and she knew that decision was correct. She must not waste time with indecision. No captain could afford it.
Removing the timeline issue fit with Frubia and Frubia also fit in with the children's description of what the man wore. But again, the scans.
He wasn't Starfleet, but he had the knowledge level of someone in it. They had eliminated the crew, and personnel who transferred off. Saavik went at the computer: someone who had been Starfleet and then left or received a discharge would fit the conditions, but again the result was zero.
It was there: Saavik could see the variables and how they should work together, even with the unknown factors. Something critical barely hid itself, she should grasp it. If it was a physical puzzle, some pieces would be missing, yes, but enough were there that if the player could recognize them upside down, flipped over, and half sticking out from beneath others, they'd have the answer.
I should recognize them, she chastised herself.
"Have you ever heard the expression 'you're going to burn a hole in the screen?'"
She answered him by speaking her thoughts. "I am reminding myself of the Vulcan game kal-toh."
"The one with the rods? It's supposed to be harder than chess."
"More importantly for this moment, it is not only a game of thought and strategy, it emphasizes patience. You cannot solve the chaos of the puzzle without it."
Which may be why I fail to see how the variables relate to each other.
Near the couch, in the left corner across from her desk, was a stand with her Twilight Eagle statue, a gift from Amanda, secured to the top and lit from above and below. In the right corner, on the other side of three more tall windows, stood a centuries-old lirpa with an uQSo creeper plant growing around it. The two were enclosed in a tall, transparent aluminum display case on a decorative stand and lit with a red light which mimicked Vulcan's sun. They stood next to the large Vulcan stellar map hanging on the wall, a recreation of the ancient charts made by PreReform warrior tribes to guide them at night. A gift from Spock many years ago. Below were two small firepots, one on either side of her carved trunk depicting Vulcan's rise to peace.
Imre's head went from one object to the other. Her exec then rubbed a hand across his forehead and drew it down his mouth. Fatigue. No, aggravation. "Whose lirpa is that again? I know it's from the family."
"Sarek's great-grandfather, Aevrauk. Solkar's father." She took a moment to look at it. "It was his favorite. When the wars ended, he stabbed it into the ground so the creeper would engulf it. Do you see the random green pattern like splatters on the red leaves? They are called blood leaves. Green blood on red sand," she whispered. "Families used to grow these in a prominent place if someone died in a House war. It meant many houses had these plants." She paused, picturing it. "Aevrauk deliberately chose it as the vine to overcome the lirpa. He meant it as a symbol that he never would have to take it up again, so no more blood would be splattered on the sands."
Imre spoke in a hush, "A flair for the epic. I admire that." He lifted his glass above his head in a toast to the Vulcan's memory.
It is certainly a trait both my father and husband have inherited. After a second, Saavik added T'Pren's name to the list.
He shook his head in admiration as he got up to refill his drink. "You married into one helluva family, Captain."
Yes, I did.
Imre sipped his drink as he moved to one of the windows and leaned against it, keeping his eyes on the display case. "How often do you have to trim back the plant?"
"I don't. No one ever has and we do not know why." Saavik caught his looking at her. "I am quite serious. It does move, of course."
"Which is really disturbing to see, by the way."
"It does grow, but it also recedes, so it is not the exact length all the time. The lirpa has not oxidized either, although, granted, we have not pulled the blade out of the soil. However, an uQSo vine feeds on microscopic mites in the light. It leads to the prevalent theory in the family that the plant also feeds on the redox reaction before it completes and damages the weapon. In return, that oxidation feeding stunts the plant's growth."
Imre swirled the remaining whiskey in his glass. "Easy enough to test the theory."
"Yes."
A corner of his mouth lifted. "But no one ever has."
"No. A flare for the epic. Vulcans are equally guilty of it when it comes to those days. Solkar once said Nature showed us his father's symbol had changed. The blood splattered plant did not engulf the lirpa, so we may be reminded that the day may come when the weapon would have to be pulled from the ground and taken up once more. He meant it more as a reminder not to lose the peace and allow violence to overtake us again."
"Is that why you asked for it?"
She actually had asked Sarek for only a plant clipping, because she respected it so much, and thought of growing it around another lirpa. She'd never expected that, on the day she moved her personal items into her completed ready room, her father would send three cousins with the new floor-to-ceiling display case and its inner environment harboring the lirpa and its uQSo creeper.
Imre held up a finger. "I think I know what meaning it has for you." He drew the finger along the rim of the glass, his eyes far away. "You don't want to ever have to draw the weapon from the ground, sharpen its blade, and take it up against an enemy. Let the plant have it." His eyes raised and met hers. "But you will, if you have to. For Vulcan, for the Federation, for me and the crew. For your family. To protect them, and, most importantly, so they don't have to take up the lirpa themselves."
If someone needs to be blood spattered, let it be me.
Before the Federation. Before Vulcan. Before the family. If nothing else, let it never be the children. It already happened once with T'Kel, and Saavik fervently wished it would be the last and only time.
"Am I right?" Imre glanced through the window to the Enterprise. He grinned as he headed for the replicator and asked for water. "I'm right."
He swallowed it in a few gulps and walked up to the case. His voice sounded far more serious. "Ma'am. Will my palm print unlock this as well?"
She chose to misunderstand him. "There are lirpas on the wall if you feel you need one, including one of lighter weight if someone in the crew is uncomfortable with the standard one."
He stayed respectfully quiet.
She took a breath. "Yes, you can unlock it." She watched the vine twist and climb in a new direction. "However, Commander…"
She didn't need to say it. "The last resort, Captain. Absolutely, the last resort. I swear. Let the plant have it."
Saavik's station chimed. One was T'allendil's finished report; she had sent it ahead of the meeting anyway, so her captain would know its details for any further decisions. A second chime was a call from the Enterprise. Spock must be letting her know when this other meeting was.
She pressed a control. She didn't pay attention at first until she heard a voice.
Amanda.