Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

"Nurse Chapel to Lieutenant Kes, come in please."

"Kes here. What do you need, Christine?"

"Could you come down here for a second? I need some help with a patient."

"On my way."

She walked out of the lab and down to sickbay, sighing deeply. The Enterprise was headed for Starbase 6 for shore leave, and everyone aboard couldn't wait. They were all exhausted.

The first thing she saw when she walked into sickbay was Lt. Steinburg, clutching his arm. He apparently wasn't letting anyone near him. She walked up to him slowly and smiled.

"Hey lieutenant."

He turned to her and gave her a wan smile. He was obviously in a lot of pain.

"Can I see your arm?"

He reluctantly held it out, but when she touched it, he hissed and drew it back.

"Stop being a wuss, Steinburg. Give me that arm."

He stared at her for a moment, then held out his arm again, gritting his teeth as she gently held it.

"He's got a compound fracture, Christine."

She nodded and smiled. "Thanks, Kes. Wanna help out?"

"Sure," she said, taking a PADD from Christine. She sat on a biobed to read it. But two seconds later it crashed to the floor.

She heard voices, so many voices, hundreds of souls in the darkness. Void. They cried out, screaming and pleading for help, but no one answered. She felt their desperation, their fear and confusion. Something was killing them slowly, something no logic could explain.

Desperation. Fear. Confusion. Illogic.

Death.

"Kes!"

She had slid off the biobed and was collapsed on the floor, her head aching. She rubbed her temples and felt tears well up in her eyes.

"The Intrepid…."

"Come on, Kes, up you go. Dr. McCoy had better get down here soon, or I'm calling him down from the bridge." Christine helped her up and onto a bed. A tear rolled down Kes' cheek.

"Nurse, I need your help for an exam-what's wrong, Kes?"

She turned and nodded to Dr. McCoy, but when she saw Spock, she slid off the biobed and approached him slowly.

"I'm so sorry…all of them…." she whispered to him. She knew he understood.

McCoy looked at her oddly. "Miss Chapel, I'll take care of Spock. Do an examination on Kes for me, please."

Christine nodded and Kes returned to the biobed.

"I assured you, doctor, I am quite all right. The pain was momentary. It passed quickly."

"Well, all my instruments seem to agree with you. If I can trust these crazy Vulcan readings."

Spock climbed off the biobed and straightened his uniform.

"Spock, how can you be so sure the Intrepid was destroyed?"

"I sensed it die."

"But I thought you had to be in physical contact with the subject before-"

"-Doctor…even I, a half-Vulcan, could hear the death scream of 400 Vulcan minds crying out over the distance between us."

"Not even a Vulcan could feel a starship die."

"And yet I could," interrupted Kes. "I felt them…all of them. Their confusion, their desperation…the Intrepid is dead, doctor, along with her crew. I know…and so does Spock."

"But 400 Vulcans…."

"I've noticed that about your people, doctor," said Spock coldly. "You find it easier to accept the death of one than the death of a million. You speak of the objective hardness of the Vulcan heart…yet how little room there seems to be in yours."

He headed for the door.

"Suffer the death of thy neighbor, eh Spock? Ah, you wouldn't wish that on us, would you?"

"It might have rendered your history a bit less bloody."

…

"Sickbay to Captain Kirk, McCoy here."

"Kirk here, what is it?"

"I'm getting reports from every deck: half the people on the ship just fainted."

Kes looked over at McCoy ruefully as he described the crew's sudden symptoms. She seemed the only nurse in sickbay who wasn't tired, irritable or dizzy. She felt all right, but it pained her to see so many people like this. There was no light banter, no jokes, not even a smile from any of the people lined up to receive stimulants.

"How do you feel, Rolands?" she asked an engineer.

"Horrible," he spat back. She injected him and sent him on his way. Almost all of them were like that.

The line seemed never ending. Department heads from all over the ship were calling in reports of irritableness and sudden weakness. The line was backed up into the corridor now.

"I'm going up to the bridge, Kes. Replicate some more stimulants; it looks like you're going to need it."