Note: So we're back! Everyone wrote me so many wonderful messages, including private ones through here and my site, about what Trek canon is and what you thought of me and Babel. I never expected that; thank you! Plus, Paramount not only made S/Saa through its latest book official Trek again - receiving mass critical and fan approval, but they highlighted it as part of their official 50th anniversary celebration. That's huge. But mostly, it was all of you. Thanks again!
USS Enterprise, Turbolift
Scotty said once the doors closed, "Captain, you did lie." Which made everyone in the lift stare at her except for Spock.
"Arguable," she answered, "and, as you noted, we can make better use of the time."
I only have time for my son right now.
Her gaze swept over the remaining two lift occupants: the man in Spock's uniform and the woman in hers, hidden from Rhinar's view when the doors were open. Pointed tips had been added to their rounded ears, curved eyebrows were made into wings, and makeup shifted their base coloring from red warmness into green coolness. No one who saw their faces would ever think they were Spock and her, but for appearing at a distance with their backs to the flight recorders, they'd do.
Scotty immediately spoke after what she said. "We have a problem that I could nae show you with him watching us. Ye can't take this turbolift to Deck 7. We got recorders outside main engineering that pick up the turbolift doors. So I'm pausing the lift by six. Ye're going to climb down."
Their body doubles handed them gloves and tricorders as well as giving Saavik a toolkit. They'd put a strap on it so she could secure it to her body. She also stashed inside the earpiece she had palmed.
"Take the first horizontal shaft and head aft. Ye'll see an emergency hatch by the hydro vent that'll drop ye on to Deck 7, away from the recorders and by Gangway 2. Ye know the path from there." He shook his head. "I still wish ye'd let me go in yer place."
Saavik spoke as she quickly checked the tricorder. "I will be careful with your ship, Mr. Scott."
The engineer flushed a little at getting caught over his real concern. Spock's body double handed over a phaser, and her husband's blue tunic immediately covered the weapons belt and even half the phaser. Its black grip blended in with his pants.
Unlike the women's uniform where the belt lay on top of the dress. Something about it made Saavik eye her stand-in.
No, not the belt itself, but how it lay on the tear she'd made. "Excuse me." She reached out and quickly recreated the rip on the other woman.
Who blurted, "What a shame!"
Saavik's head jerked up and her tunnel vision over Setik widened, allowing her to see the hungry look in the young woman's eyes as she smoothed the command dress and pulled down the sleeves where her fingers stroked the captain's stripes.
Of course. Her concern for her son made her blind to the impact of something that didn't exist on the Enterprise until today: a female captain.
But the woman didn't say anything more about it. "Sir," she said to Spock, "I'm Lieutenant Jennifer Lee and this is Ensign Robert Wright. We met your children and we just wish we could do more to help."
Scott slowed down the lift car.
Spock's voice held a deep note. "You make it possible for me to go after my son. That is of great help."
Scotty cranked the handle and the car stopped. Spock forced the doors open and began to climb out.
Lee rushed out her next words to Saavik. "Mr. Nachson… made a huge impression on us too."
Saavik quickly understood what that impression was on Lee. Spock leaped out of the car to the ladder. She moved into the doorway.
Lee finished, "I'm glad I got to meet you, even briefly, Captain. We've all been hoping for a chance."
Saavik watched Spock start to climb. She had a second before the rungs were clear for her. She leaned out into the shaft, still facing Lee. "Tell the others. I am not the first female captain. The one who is will receive her commission quite soon, so do not think it is unobtainable now." Spock's feet were at the same level with the car. Saavik reached for the ladder and grabbed a rung. "I served with her and we remain in close association." Both from Hunter being T'Pren's Ko-mekh-rá and our friendship which led to that choice. "You will be proud she represents you. She and all the others who come immediately after her. The message holds true for non-humans you may know as well."
She kicked off from the lift and started to climb as Scott's head popped out. "We'll keep the turboshafts clear, but I cannae hold them for long. This Rhinar would see an alert in Auxiliary Control."
Spock answered as he climbed further, to make room below him for her to be out of the way of the lift car. "It is much appreciated, Mr. Scott, or we would risk a higher level of danger."
"Aye, what else is new?"
They waited for the half-second before the turbolift started down again. Being lovers and, more than that, being well married, they knew each other's body movements and how to respond, even unconsciously. Their weight was denser since they were Vulcan, and he naturally weighed more than her. It meant Spock wordlessly pushed out to arm's length from the ladder as he moved his hands and feet from the rungs to the poles in order to slide, rather than climb, down. Saavik didn't need to think or ask about it; she closely hugged the ladder until her husband slid down around her, then moved her hands and feet to his.
Their combined weight and gravity dropped them like an anchor with the speed of a missile, their gloves and boots protecting them from the friction. Seeing the horizontal junction, they first slowed, then braked with their feet. Braked as in they swung from the ladder still at half the rapid speed into the new shaft. They each came out of a roll and broke into a full, flat-out run until they grabbed the emergency hatch and swiftly got it open.
That was when they stopped their headlong rush. They carefully raised the hatch and lowered themselves down to minimize noise. Spock went first; she didn't know if he did it deliberately, but it paid off. Crewmen traveled the corridor and he signaled to them to make no indication that something was happening. By the time she dropped into view, people were wide-eyed enough over an older Spock, but when they recognized her, something would have slipped out to the flight recorders in the other corridor where their body doubles had already passed into Engineering.
They ran again, even with Gangway 2 being close by, in sync and unleashed. No mental controls blocked their bond to each other and no need to minimize their body language in fear of it being recognized for what it was. The personnel seeing them now saw them for a second or two at most, not enough to distinguish the husband and wife running by them.
They hurled themselves at the three-sided gangway ladder and slid separately this time; the tunnel space wouldn't allow them to double up again. Jaxon Tran and Olivia Trujillo waited for them right around the corner.
Saavik's Security Chief reported. "The body doubles are working. He has no idea that's not you in Engineering and that it's not us outside the brig."
And no flight recorders here: like Kirk said, it was not a security system. Less than half the ship had recorders, so it left large blind spots. They were in Auxiliary Control, for instance, but not in the corridors right outside it. The playback was also not a live feed; someone had to wait ten minutes to see in the recording what was happening now. The system was intended to document decisions and actions in critical areas: that was all.
For the first time since Rhinar started using it, Saavik, Spock, and her people could employ it to their advantage.
Saavik pulled her husband aside. She not only lowered her voice, she spoke in their own language. "Remain here."
"No. He is our son."
"Of which I am very well aware. However, you equally know these Jefferies Tubes do not allow us to work side by side and the machinery through which I must move may not allow for your size."
"Then that will become the moment I remain behind. What you fail to remember, my wife, is my familiarity with this technology."
"A first-year cadet can take apart a force field emitter. Husband." He stopped at the term. "Stay here, be safe. Allow our children to have one parent if I am killed doing this. Monitor the force field, and aid Tran and Trujillo to retrieve Setik went it comes down. I may be confined by the access tubes and unable to move into Auxiliary Control quickly."
The last point made him hesitate, but he glanced at her very capable Security people. "We will discover a way to reach Setik and my being with you may keep us both alive."
She lost the argument and knew it. Son captured, daughters and mother barricaded in a ship's prison, and now husband rushing into the fight.
She'd recognized the odds of winning the argument had been low. She still had to try. She pulled off her tricorder and handed it to Trans. They went over his orders to ensure they had the same understanding of them.
Spock activated his tricorder and they bent over the scan results. A white mechanical component on a yellow panel marked the junction where they believed the first emitter was connected. They could just see the red handles inside the tube, but nothing else at this angle. If only they could cut into the wall and break Rhinar's grid at the emergency emitter node, but Scott's evaluation placed that connection inside the tubes at a junction.
They moved down the corridor and around the corner to the first access tunnel in their path. They dove into the Jefferies Tube after they swapped equipment; she went first with the tricorder and he followed with the toolkit. They climbed up what was laughingly called steps until the junction. The third tunnel they traveled marked the next important spot. Here they went off the tube system by opening a maintenance panel. The thrum from the nearby engines and the matter-antimatter reaction chamber dominated their sensitive hearing. Machinery and its cables were naturally tight, but not so much that they couldn't get in. Saavik had a slim space around her, but Spock nearly had to force himself into the space. She looked back but said nothing. If he brushed the components, he risked disrupting them and that would show in Auxiliary Control.
Or cause a reaction that reached the nearby engines and electrocuted them.
She saw him gauge it and nod for her to keep going. He was right behind. Now the journey became lifting components to the end of their cables to twist through or pack down an apparatus to give the vital sliver of more room. She had done this once before when Spock was in a deadly standoff and had called for her.
Here.
They should have the right spot. The emitter would throw its field out into the space surrounding it. The majority of that was a corridor, but since it was never made to do what Rhinar used it for, it would likewise shoot the energy barrier up the diagonal tube. That was why they 'burrowed like some sort of beastie'; they would have been burned worse than Chen if they came down the tunnel from another.
Saavik laid at a slant, her head aimed at the floor outside the wall where she crawled. Spock tapped her abdomen and handed her a cutter tool, his arm having to press down on her body to fit in the space. The panel was locked with the access on the other side. Nobody imagined Starfleet officers doing what they were doing.
She heard him get something else out of the kit and looked down the length of her body to see him retrieve the earpiece. He reached in between a few components and rewired contacts. They sparked but activated. She started at the panel as he spoke to the bridge.
"Communication status."
Two major risks: first, if the laser inside the cutting tool hit the force field, they not only alerted Rhinar, but Setik, T'Kel, and T'Pren would be suddenly and brutally orphaned. Second, if Rhinar still cut into Communications, he would wonder why Spock talked but his body double made no such movement.
"Lieutenant Uhura here, sir. This channel is clear. I'm using the Contact as a filter, so to speak. Rhinar is still on the old one. We're sending chatter through it so he doesn't know what we've done. My people are looking for the actual disruption he did to my systems."
They heard Kirk say, "Is that them?" His voice got louder and he came up to her. "Spock? Saavik?"
The panel's lock gave way and she handed the cutter down to her husband to put in the box. They had no room and sensitive equipment all around; they couldn't leave tools out.
"Captain," Spock responded, "I suggest you inform my double to go to a comm panel and use Rhinar's channel. You will have to speak to him on their lack of progress. Mr. Wright's voice will not substitute as mine for more than a word or two."
"We got that covered," Kirk replied. "The Contact has given us a databank of reports and communications for you and Saavik. We put together simple statements from that. What's your progress?"
Spock told him where they had reached; Saavik now bent the panel carefully until it touched the power node. The small door went side to side, but if she opened it that way, in came the force field to hit the machinery like a match to an explosive. The tricorder acted as her eyes since the panel and junction cut her view. Kirk whispered and they couldn't hear him, but he said in a moment that he had summarized their report for Sarek's ears.
Suddenly they got their first piece of good luck. Saavik gestured for the earpiece. "Rhinar used jumpers to activate his power. I remove those and the emitter is disabled. Have we regained control of the shields?"
Otherwise, they still couldn't transport Rhinar and Setik out.
"No."
The matter-antimatter reaction chamber lay dangerously close and yet Saavik thought it was nothing next to what Kirk just said about Setik remaining in Rhinar's hands.
"Saavik, I talked with Imre. I know his plan to bring down the shields, but Rhinar would see that happening. He'd take it out on Setik until we stopped."
She had to tell her son's father what she just heard.
"Listen," Kirk went on, "your best bet is to take down that force field and get your people in immediately – I know." She must have made a sound. She didn't know she had. "Rhinar can see the force field come down."
"And take it out on Setik until we stop," she pressed.
"…I know. But you know, it's better odds."
Saavik again told Spock what was happening and they shared a look. She said it aloud this time, at a volume no human listening could hear. "Adun, our son."
She had gone in first; it meant she was trapped by his being behind her. "Go. One of us must break this net. Switching places is near impossible and wastes time. Go."
They agreed she'd keep the earpiece. He would use a comm panel.
He found her hand for a quick, intense kiss and pushed out backward. She began preparing what she needed.
"I must speak with my Security Chief."
Uhura answered. "Captain Kirk has returned to his chair. Rhinar was suspicious at his remaining here. Your Mr. Tran reported he has a team at the other end of the corridor. Rhinar can't escape at either end."
I should have brought more teams.
"Lady Amanda and the twins? How has this affected their security?"
"Four officers still guard them in the brig."
That didn't add up. Saavik went over it and Tran's way of thinking. "He sent an additional guard for Ambassador Sarek?"
"Yes, ma'am. So if Rhinar realizes what's happening and drops the shields… two people are with him."
"Understood." It was a good idea, but they still contended with their enemy beaming Spock's father into space. The twins and Amanda were safe behind their force field.
"Lieutenant, have Ambassador Sarek's coordinates transmitted to the Contact. They are to use them in lieu of a transporter lock and watch for the shields to go down. If Rhinar attempts beaming him out, my ship is to break through and transport him to safety."
If only they knew Setik's.
"Can you do that?"
Can it really harm the future for her or even the others on the bridge to know? "Yes, we can. If they are prepared and immediately move."
Spock, her Spock, came into the line to say they were ready. Saavik told him to hold while they waited to hear on Sarek's coordinates and rolled on her side. The jumpers would be easy to detach; she packed up the kit and looked back the way she came. She wanted to move fast once she could leave. She wanted to be with Spock when he breached Auxiliary Control.
She took the tricorder and wiggled it through the panel. And waited.
"Ambassador Sarek's coordinates are locked," Uhura reported.
Saavik jammed the tricorder on top of the power junction. She used it and the bent panel door as a shield to protect her hands where the force field slipped around gaps. Her gloves started to burn; no matter. She yanked at the red 30 and blue 5R3 jumpers and heard the satisfying sound of the emitter powering down.
"Move!" came Tran's voice through the earpiece as a low, concentrated sound. Spock must have left the comm panel on for her to hear.
Saavik shoved off the wall at her head to push herself back to the hatch. She awkwardly went backward through it.
"Sarek!" Rhinar shouted. "Kirk! What's going on?!"
Uhura had left the channel open too.
She abandoned the toolkit at the top of the Jefferies Tube. It slowed her down, so it had to go. She tried sliding down the red rails and the sides of the steps, but it didn't work nearly as well as the turboshafts.
As long as it gained me even a second.
Saavik's boots hit the carpet in the hallway, she pivoted and ran in almost the same movement.
"NO!" Tran shouted. It came out of the open doorway of Auxiliary Control.
Kirk inadvertently repeated Rhinar. "What's going on? Somebody, report!"
Saavik could hear Sarek and McCoy through the line, but her eyes and ears were for her husband whose body drooped.
"Spock?" She could say no other name like Husband. They were back to being chained away from each other with the people they had listening to them.
Spock came over and answered the bridge. He looked only at her. "Rhinar dropped our shields and transported Setik out."
They stared at each other with one common thought.
Into space.