Vulcan, HIeSj fai-tukh shi'oren
(The Name of the Children's School)
Nachson beamed down outside the school – kneeling? - and Spock watched him hurry to join them. He signaled to be let in the separate entrance to the headmaster's office. Once S'Jenes opened it for the Tactical officer, he tried it himself. It was locked from the inside as well.
"Retina scan," the headmaster explained, "activated if security has been engaged. It is keyed to me and two others in the executive staff."
Saavik gave Kyle a quick gaze, curious on the time he spent with her older self. "We are added to the system. Temporarily. S'Jenes, Nachson must be added as well."
He agreed and began gathering the scan.
Kyle shot a look at the four large windows, two on either side of the door. They formed a wall. "What about these?"
"Sealed." S'Jenes finished adding him to the system. "Against forced entry or breakage."
Nachson asked Saavik, "When do we move?"
"We have two means of attack available. We favor going at the next class change in six point one eight minutes and containing Rhinar in this office."
"The other?"
"Seizing him next door immediately."
Nachson went down the entire wall of surveillance monitors in front of them. He whistled appreciatively. "Good system. You can see everything."
"In here, yes. Including the outside surveillance system, as well as this entrance and the office itself. It is not available separate from here and one other location for the assistant headmaster." Saavik gestured to the same screens showing the classrooms and the rest of the school. "We can also view our target."
The man sat in his chair, chatting with a couple of the office staff; even through a monitor, they could tell he radiated charm and intelligence. Spock estimated that, at best, Rhinar perpetuated his innocent cover story; at worst, he lined up further hostages if he needed them. He managed to appear as casual whenever he returned to looking at one of the walls that showed the classrooms.
"Unfortunately," Spock pointed them out, "Rhinar can see these as well. It is why we did not send anyone into the classes or divert them from their schedules."
Classroom security measures, however, are activated. He cannot see that. The man who had brought all that pain to Setik.
"Fortunately," Saavik explained, "he has believed the teachers' statements that the children's lessons could not be interrupted."
Each teacher falsely elevated their lesson priority when S'Jenes told them what was going on. Spock watched as Setik's class studied prehistoric animals including an infant DSuuvSe that formed as a hologram, floor to ceiling. Plants as well as the ground, the murky sky, and the rest of the environment, sprung to life with it. The children's chairs disappeared into the floor and walls so they could move around and study the ancient world. The creature bent its head to examine the students, giving them a better look at it, before it walked into the next room who learned which life came from Vulcan's long gone primordial seas, the room 'flooding' so the children lived in the old ocean. The DSuuvSe stopped here for a moment, side by side with its flippered ancestor, then coordinated with the class above and raised its long neck so its head popped through the floor, its coloring changing to fit the children's story in T'Pren's and T'Kel's class.
All interesting lessons, but interruptible, which was why the girls and Setik answered Rhinar's summons the first time.
Not this time. This time, his children were safe and would remain that way. Saavik still had plenty of resources to even without calling upon the people Rhinar knew.
"Morton," Saavik ordered. "Report."
Jake Morton's light brown hair and finely shaped beard were regulation, of course, but he followed Saavik's earlier order about no uniforms. He sported, instead, a loose black and white shirt with a kilt and a sporran pouch holding a phaser and a communicator. "We can't beam the target out. Some students have parents in diplomatic and other sensitive services. So, the school blocks transporters so no one's abducted."
"It explains," Spock said, "why Rhinar did not attempt beaming the children out of the school."
S'Jenes added, "We could shut it down. It will cause an additional issue, however."
"I didn't know if I could beam down," Nachson said. "But they told me you cleared this entrance."
Saavik reminded everyone, "If Rhinar gets outside, we must keep him within the transporter block."
Nachson answered the first point by echoing something Spock thought of earlier. "He might figure it out if we shut it down." He examined the other room, shaking his head. "It's a lot of hostages. That's why we're favoring attacking at the schedule break? Bring him here by himself."
His captain and Spock agreed. The only danger as far as hostages would be S'Jenes needing to escort Rhinar into his office. But the saboteur should let the headmaster leave; it was what he had done in the first timeline.
Morton complained to Saavik. "Rhinar's got to be planning to take the kids out through the door here. But how, with that lock? Phaser?"
"If so, he is armed." And S'Jenes became endangered again as well as she and her team. She looked at Spock. "Securing him here remains our best option."
"I concur. Allow Rhinar to think he has what he wants: the office to himself and the idea that Setik and the twins are answering his summons."
S'Jenes pointed out, "That is a further matter. You can see the children's actions on the room monitors. What will this man do when he sees Setik and your daughters are not coming here?"
Saavik answered by calling, "T'Kyss."
A young Vulcan crewwoman, the newest of Saavik's strays and dark in skin, long hair, and eyes, moved to the bank of monitors. "Computer," she called and ordered it to tie all school systems to it.
Spock explained as she worked, "We will switch the views on the displays at the next class change. It will appear our children are coming here. One will be copied to cover our own movements. The other classes will switch as well if they are meant to, so students will appear to go to their next room."
Saavik finished, "T'Kyss also shifts the views for the outside system, enough so it will appear no one except staff and students are there. Nachson, contact Tran now. He is to beam down with his team on your signal. You will be outside this entrance out of sight. When the word is given, he is to send personnel to each level of the school and meet you outside this door."
She turned to the remaining two people in the room; Spock did too. He gave Vysath a welcoming glance. The man had dedicated his life to T'Pau's Honor Guard; when she had died, he knew it was time for a different path, rather than continue with her successor. He married the woman who had waited for him over the decades and transferred to Vulcan's fleet. He grew his dark brown hair in and took all his daunting knowledge to his new life.
Commander T'Mes told Saavik he was on leave. So was T'Ratka standing next to him, before she rejoined her husband Soluk on Commander Stron's ships. Which meant Rhinar could study Saavik's Security staff all he wanted; these two didn't exist there.
Not to mention that while on leave, Vysath walked with his daughter to school and returned to walk her home, enjoying the serenity of his surroundings, the exercise, and his child. Spock and Saavik got hold of him before he left the school this morning.
Of course, he'd stay when his daughter was in a building with a kidnapper, but even without that, he'd be here. Taushan Rhinar threatened T'Pau's line.
They both put themselves under Saavik's command, so she told he and T'Ratka, "You will guard the classroom levels."
He bowed his head and T'Ratka agreed out loud. Her light tan coloring paled next to his warm caramel. In her impressionable youth, Spock remembered, she took on some of Saavik's habits, like the cursing. It had been… interesting.
Jake nodded. "Give me time for T'Kyss and me to go around so he doesn't see us. What position are you taking, ma'am?"
"Spock and I will go with you and take posts in the corridor until Rhinar is inside this office. We will then move into the outer area and ensure he takes no hostages in the staff. When he is contained, we enter the office."
The headmaster looked around the group. "If I may, your Security measures add to my existing thought on how strong a threat this man is. You stated he deceived your children once before."
"Your point?" Saavik warned. Spock would not have used such an edge, but he also didn't say anything against her using it. Not if their children were being insulted.
They weren't. "That speaks to his ability. The twins and Setik, like most children of service regardless of species, can subconsciously read body language in a way regular children typically cannot. Therefore, if this Rhinar uses the office exit, I will shut down the school."
Spock knew that statement held a lot of power to it. The school was of the latest design: it had a relocatable core function, where large circular pods swung out, some forming a column on each side as if the students themselves stacked it all together with their toys.
The relocatable function meant the pods could swing back into the central core, disconnecting any physically attached systems. Two smaller ships could then pull it up by a tractor beam and relocate it. The reasons for it all were lengthy, but S'Jenes intended a graver one. Pulled into itself, the school became inviolable. If Rhinar left the building, the headmaster would call for a full shutdown; if the man went inside, S'Jenes had already ordered the pods secured individually.
Kyle went over to T'Kyss, the one corner of his mouth pulled up. "You are so the new favorite."
She lifted a wry eyebrow at him. Not all of Saavik's strays knew each other well because of the differing reasons why they needed her to help them and for how long. Amanda's had been the same. But Nachson checked in with T'Kyss occasionally, alone or with Saavik, to see how she was.
So she understood his tone and returned it, best as she could. "It is not a competition."
He grinned back before his thoughts faded it. "Did you hear what this guy did?"
T'Kyss nodded.
"He's mine. That's only right," Nachson insisted.
Her eyes dashed between his. Her youth didn't stop her from grasping the – fraternity – with which he asked it. Neither did the fact she hadn't gone to the Academy; she had enlisted instead because its immediacy served her goal to get in Starfleet service faster.
Her eyes flicked to the captain and him again. "As long as it doesn't compromise the mission."
Morton agreed.
Saavik gave the signal for the VSE officers to move to the classroom levels. Vysath walked up to T'Kyss with a lengthy glance and then held out his hand in asking.
She went from him to Saavik and back, then reached down to her black pants with their decorative wide lines and small ornaments here and there of metal and beadwork. In the next second, she revealed it as a custom gun belt with the ornaments disguising Type 1 phasers and a dagger. She handed two of the phasers to the VSE officers who hid them in their own outfits.
Vysath bowed his head once more in respect and then swept his hand in a gesture indicating she should proceed them. T'Kyss got Saavik's permission to go, she was very new to the forces here so less recognizable, and S'Jenes announced from his door that the staff had a meeting at the next class change. The three officers made sure to answer with the office workers.
Spock thought briefly of how good it'd be for T'Kyss to study with Vysath, for several reasons, and then thought of nothing except what was about to happen in thirty seconds –
- twenty
- ten
"Hands," the adult Setik called and Saavik and Spock's bodies responded. He stretched his hand flat and slipped it between his parents, leaving room for his sisters and for his mother and father to still touch fingers over now adult sized hands. His life emptied into them, the one his mother knew and the one after she had to leave. Of growing up without her, of his father and grandparents and his mekh-rás, who were told who they were after Kirk and Scott were gone. Of Uncle Jim joking and calling him Bones Jr. and McCoy engraving it on his office door at the colony. Of rumors that he was either Sarek's or Spock's illegitimate child. Of building creditability that he was a cousin but still avoiding his young father. Of losing Imre, and Ssaalz and McCoy there for him, the way only another doctor could understand that loss. Of how Uncle Jim periodically updated his message to Saavik, once recording in front of the three children, "I'm ready to tell Sarek don't worry about it, because I'm going to give you and Spock a swift kick and ask you what the hell are you waiting for? What are you afraid of? Be like Sulu and Robert April, not like me." Of sneaking home to Vulcan, needing to see it. Of illogically going with his sisters to see their pet. Of sneaking a glance at their very young selves and reminisce. Of burying himself in a crowd for a concert rehearsal, and seeing a fresh young dancer named T'Qet. Of returning to see her, wanting to go up to her, be introduced, hand her his heart, but seeing her betrothed come to her, and knowing envy.
Then he stopped being an individual and became one with Spock/Saavik.
- five
- zero
Spock ran with Saavik's team around the building to come back in and station themselves outside the office. Nachson was right by the outside door and Tran beamed down. They signaled S'Jenes and he led Rhinar into his office; Spock heard the saboteur ask to see Setik and his sisters on the monitor. T'Kyss' machinations worked well as they heard from Rhinar's satisfied mutterings.
Control. He will not get the children. He will not repeat the pain he gave Setik.
The headmaster left his office and called his staff to their meeting; they filed down the corridor past Saavik's team to be safe at last. She leaned towards Spock. "Ready?"
He agreed and she gave Morton the order. They burst around the corner and to the office door, but Rhinar hadn't planned this far to be so easily caught. As they came in the office, he went out. Morton took the shot, but the man was gone.
"Nachson!" Saavik shouted and got no response. "Move!" she ordered next and they hit the other door with precision.
Tran and two others joined them from the opposite corner. Searching the grounds swiftly, they saw Rhinar running around the corner, Nachson on his heels.
Blocking their shot.
"What is he doing?" Saavik ground out.
Kyle disappeared after Rhinar and his captain took off after him. They only saw him disappear through another door. Tran grabbed it before it closed.
Saavik's communicator beeped. "Captain," Nachson whispered, "he's got a retina falsifier, probably with S'Jenes' scan."
"Bring him down!"
"Working on it, Captain!"
While Saavik told S'Jenes through her communicator to order the computers to not accept his access for the short term, Spock worked through on her thought. What was Nachson doing? This wasn't like him. Between Saavik's orders and the threat to the children, the man should have attacked Rhinar immediately.
Unless…
Saavik was the one person Nachson heeded above all and her older version hadn't come back with him. She still existed. Where then was she?
T'Kel put her hand between her brother and mother so her life would join theirs. A life of rebelling against a mother who wasn't there. Of growing up and understanding. Of meeting Ante and believing his fire was what she needed, the only time she clashed with her twin. Of them ending and his agreeing to forget her, T'Pren removing the memories to protect them all. Of the Contact failing after so many decades of providing their people shelter, a hospital, and protection. Of how both Uncle James and Imre convinced her to put on Saavik's command uniform and give everyone the uplifting note as she took her mother's chair on the last orbiting flight, the captain's seat then moved to the colony's Council chambers. Of losing Grandmother, the maternal figure in their lives with Saavik gone, standing by her bedside with Father who lived it twice. Of losing Uncle Scotty and hearing him tell her as he left for the Norpin Colony, "I'm nae gone for good, lass. It's only retirement. I just wish I could hand over the Enterprise's engine room to ye." Of Uncle Jim gone and his last words, "I'm not pushing Command if it's not what you want." Then his grin, "But it suits you." Of the pain from all the losses driving her to contact Rrelthiz, her Ko-mekh-rá, who later told T'Kel, "I giggle when I see Friend Saavik now. She is terribly unprepared for you, little one!" Of later smuggling Ssaalz to see her mother, something the colony frowned on because of the danger.
She became one with her family.
Spock glanced up for one second and saw the classroom pods rollback into the building. T'Kyss leaned out a window and watched the rest of the team pile through the doorway. She ducked back inside, guarding her section, and Spock followed his wife.
They stood underneath the building in a storage area that ran the full length of the school above. Saavik focused on her hearing and her head jerked up. "Tran, cover the entrances."
Spock took the Security Chief's place with Saavik. She pointed with her chin and began weaving around the crates. Nachson popped up and handed his captain a tricorder.
"I lost visual on Rhinar when we came down here. But I remembered," he rushed through so Saavik couldn't give him hell, "the other you said he used crates. The school has a shipment on an automatic schedule. He's got to be in one of these boxes. I did a scan, but he's shielded them. Doesn't matter, we'll find the ones he's got for the Contact."
She gave the order to Tran and then stared hard at Nachson. "You owe me an explanation."
Kyle matched her stare. "I ain't gonna lose this guy. Promise."
Spock picked up on his speech pattern's degradation to his Frontier life. Failing Saavik would cause it, which brought back the question again. What was he playing at?
T'Pren did not need to touch her family because their energy grew so powerful, but she wanted to as the last thing she did, so she put her hand in its place with her brother and sister. Her katra followed its natural pull to connect and join with her twin first. They became one again, since the time they separated from being a single girl in their mother's womb. Then she united with the entire family, giving herself to be one in life. A life of how Grandmother doing what she could to fill in for their missing mother, leading she and T'Kel through the women's rites as they grew like she had for Saavik. Of Grandfather's look as he sponsored her for a diplomatic appointment, her father having the same expression from where he watched in the background. Of everyone coming to see her as she was sworn into the colony's governing council made up of the command officers and the diplomats. Of Csala coming up to her after Sarek pinned the diplomatic signet on his granddaughter, telling her, "I promised Amanda I would watch over you when she cannot be here." Of having to watch her twin running to the man who would never be the one for her and having to help T'Kel heal. Of running to her Ko-mekh-rá Hunter and Sa-mekh-rá Ruanek from losing Uncle Jim and Grandmother, hearing Amanda record the message to the time traveling Saavik, shaking her head, eyes gleaming. "You lied to me. I won't see your wedding." She struggled to make do. "At least, I know it happens." Then with force, she pushed it down and lightened her voice. "Do you know how hard it was to look T'Pau in the eye after your children put her in a Winnie the Pooh song?"
The family was one.
Nachson peeled off in one direction, Saavik and Spock in another. The Vulcans went swiftly through sections, eliminating entire groups by their labels marking them for storage at the school. Rhinar would have to tag his for transport or he would miss his chance to get on Saavik's ship. By Spock's calculations, the Contact would stop loading cargo in 22.398 minutes. He grabbed a manifest: the school's shipments were scheduled for beaming out in 13.71 minutes.
What if Rhinar had hijacked the ship to the point it would go on automatics into the slingshot warp? If they didn't catch him here and he got aboard the Contact, would it still go, even with Imre ordering against their leaving Vulcan? If so, Rhinar would not have the children…
…but he could abduct Amanda. Or – Spock recalled what his younger self and father said – Rhinar could kidnap the earlier Spock on the Enterprise and hold his timeline hostage.
He and Saavik picked up their pace when they heard a large bang followed by Nachson's voice.
"Got him! Jax, get over here!"
Spock and Saavik ran to his spot too and had their phasers aimed at the large crate as Kyle opened it and jumped back.
Nothing.
Something large scurried at the exit that Jaxon Tran had guarded until Nachson called him away.
The Security Chief apologized immediately. "I shouldn't have left it open like that, Captain."
She urged him after Rhinar and then stared down Kyle once more. He spoke first and Spock noted that nothing could undo the determination in Nachson's tight jawline.
"Told you, Captain. This guy's goin' down."
She brought his gaze to include Spock. "Our children are a target here."
"I can't forget that. Ever. You know what else? You're a target. You and the ambassador. I ain't forgettin' that either." He leaned in closer. "You gotta trust me, cuz in the end, I serve you. That don't change."
Something brushed Spock's psi senses, something barely there, like a mental touch but at a distance. How was it he felt it, whoever it was? It grew in power and his bond to his wife told him it was her older self.
And yet, not her. The touch held flavors of… him? The children? How?
Perhaps she meditates. Her touch is calm. And she broadcasts the family bond.
He would do the same in her place.
Saavik said nothing to Nachson, trust didn't always need words, so she simply turned and looked back to see if he was with her. That frozen second where his wife stood calm and a warrior with a woman's roundness, her dark eyes intent with the all-important lives she'd save, and a bronze green flush along her cheeks. Just like the first time years ago when he was struck by the realization Saavik was a woman.
Or perhaps he thought of it because of the mental brush of the family bond from the other version, like he whispered in his own ear with the same message he once gave McCoy: "Remember."
Of how he was on the Enterprise, that so young version of himself. Of how he asked his older self, "Do you still have my memories?" How he asked Kirk, McCoy, and his parents if they had guessed right about his wife. Of how McCoy teased Kirk, but Amanda and Sarek simply said they had. Of how he kept trying to piece together who she could be out of the women he knew. Of watching the one part of the Contact head for warp, the saucer section left behind, and wondered what part did his wife stay on. How his mind drifted to the woman again as she had been doing. How much she impressed him, how he called her that and admirable. Of that initial sight of her, how she struck him as, 'Beautiful. So very beautiful,' and how she knew exactly what he needed to hear with such innate understanding. How he wanted to speak with her more, but… but she kept him at a distance. How she did come close to him, twice; once in fear of his life and the second to say in Vulcan, so it was private, how much it meant to know him, even if only shortly. Of how he found her wounded and wanted so much to scoop her up and run to Sickbay with her pressed to his chest. Of how he'd be that one she allowed herself to lean on and he with her. Of his wish, if only he was not the only one she kept at bay because she was so good with his older self and T'Kel. How outspoken she was, at the same time so good with his mother. How her forthrightness was rather like T'Kel's brusqueness, and his older self saying T'Kel was like her mother, and Rhinar teasing, "You two bickering is very interesting…"
Of how it came to him with her ship gone and the stars in his eyes. How something about how he looked around made Kirk say, "You figured it out." Of how Amanda asked him, "Well?" and he nodded strongly. How McCoy teased, "You know, Jim got this wrong, so why don't you tell us who you think it is." Of how they had him write it down, and he mentally spoke her name as if it were her ahtía name and he had the privilege of calling her his. Of how he imagined doing nothing more than being with her, imagined her with him everywhere until the time came for him to ask, "Will I be your choice?" How she, his real wife, would whisper with that husky voice and burning eyes when he came to her for pon farr, "To you, my husband, I consecrate all that I am. As it was in the dawn of our days, as it will be for all tomorrows. Never parted. Always touching and touched. Two bodies, one mind." How pon farr was no longer something to be reviled. Of how he asked his older self with a vehemence about her and shared his secret longing, "I want to talk to her now. I have gone from avoidance to anticipation to eagerness. It is illogical, but the thought of this wait is too great." Of how the children approached him, giving him the chance he almost missed, and then his older self had told him the memories of all of it must be suppressed to safeguard their future.
Spock reeled inside at the rush of memories. He'd identified himself with the person they called the older Spock. The one who left Vulcan right now and lived that day of nightmares and heaven.
He was wrong. He was the younger Spock, the one who initially ran from the idea of becoming who he was today. Then he had turned around in his mind – and his heart. He wanted to protect the children, he wanted to know who would call him husband, and knew he'd find the steps towards peace.
He needed to find a way to save the memories and he wished he could thank the older Saavik for opening the door on these suppressed ones.
It all happened in the time it took Saavik to go from looking at Nachson and facing front again. She caught the change in her husband's expression and asked with her own if he was all right. He answered by going to her shoulder and out the door with her. They caught up with Tran in a couple seconds and didn't see Rhinar anywhere. Shots from a phaser got everyone's attention and they broke into a hard run around the side. That was when Spock noticed Nachson missing; he said nothing to Saavik. She most likely knew.
The sight around the corner made even the Vulcans blink. Rhinar attempted getting back into the school while three levels up, T'Kyss herded him from the entrance with phaser fire. Suddenly, he stumbled backward and Spock could now see inside the door's alcove. Nachson stood there, waiting, and he walked out so the saboteur could see him better. He held his arms out to the sides to show he held no weapons.
He yelled up to T'Kyss without looking at her. "I got this, Ky."
T'Kyss pulled back into what must be an empty room; no sounds came out and Spock wondered if Vysath had cleared that side of the building to not scare or risk the students.
"Here I am," Kyle told Rhinar. "You want the Contact, you want those kids? Take your shot."
The saboteur drew a phaser and Saavik leveled hers. Except Nachson circled around and got in the way again.
"I lied. You ain't getting them." He walked straight at him, slowly. "What's the matter? I thought you were tough. You were one time in your life."
Time.
Spock put a part of his mind to work on the Time Planet and being able to remember other timelines.
Taushan Rhinar snarled at Nachson, "You're outclassed! Her stray mutt, nothing more!"
Kyle flashed white teeth. "Best title in the world." He turned his back on Rhinar. "I hear you're pretty brave jumping somebody from the back."
Tran bringing up his phaser around Kyle sent the saboteur into a run for another entrance and this time, Nachson ran at full speed, cutting him off. Rhinar shoved him, but Vysath came out the door and flung the man far away from the school. He got up and started struggling away.
The hum of transporters sounded and the telltale column of sparkling light formed outside the school's boundary. A tall woman, gray long hair with an eagle's feather trailing on her shoulder, eyed Rhinar with a destructive grin. "Forget us?"
A Carreon woman came up from behind Saavik, neon blue in her stripes and eyes where her daughter Ssaalz's were green.
"Rrelthiz! How are you here?"
"The other three had to be on the starship, Friend Saavik, to go to Babel." She kept walking to circle Rhinar. "Not us, however."
Us, Spock thought, so one more. That would mean the person he had tried reaching when they beamed down to the school but got no answer from him. He must have been meeting with Hunter and Rrelthiz because he had no other reason to be at the school. His eldest child didn't start until next term.
Saavik signaled her people to back up the two newcomers and aimed her own phaser to protect her former captain and her friend. "How did you know?"
The Carreon didn't answer her; she shouted at Rhinar, gesturing with her talons. "I am T'Kel's Ko-mekh-rá, her sworn benefactor. Do you know how many offworlders are honor bound to one of my people? Only Friend Saavik. To me. Did you think those vows meant nothing to me? The one to her, to the little one?"
Captain Hunter called, "I'm T'Pren's Ko-mekh-rá. The kids are bound to our minds, so it was pretty stupid to think we wouldn't be around. And as for McCoy, Sulu, and Uhura, they've just shoved the entire fleet at Spock and Saavik's beck and call. Ask the Klingons what I can do in a lot bigger battle than this."
Was this what the older Saavik had done and why she told Kyle Nachson to play cat and mouse? To track down the children's mekh-rás and send them to help? Although he didn't remember the Carreon and the former captain being near Vulcan.
Hunter called to Nachson, "You talked to them."
He half-glanced to his captain, but couldn't finish it. "Yeah. You too?"
"Last few years. So, we knew what they planned."
Saavik demanded an answer and Rhinar took off seeing them distracted. Rrelthiz and Hunter let him go. The retired Aerfen captain, in fact, waved him off with another feral grin, into –
A very large Vulcanoid man.
"Rhinar!" Hunter called. "Meet Ruanek!"
Former Commander of the Romulan Star Empire until he sacrificed everything to bring home a Spock suffering deeply from pon farr when he couldn't get to Saavik on his own. Because of that friendship and what he could teach the part-Romulan children, Saavik and Spock made him T'Pren's Sa-mekh-rá. He came out of the school. "Sounds like you did forget about us," he told the saboteur. "But we've been waiting to take you down for a long time."
Spock watched Saavik's eyes sweep everywhere, reevaluating her strategy with the latest wildcard thrown at her with Ruanek and the others here. Not to mention, how they acted on a plan of their own without including her or himself and jarred with Tran, Morton, and the VSE team.
Except it was Spock and Saavik's children at ground zero. They would never be pushed aside in the defense of those three young lives. Arguing security with Saavik, especially his and the children's, was an exercise in futility. Everyone here knew it, and so, she gestured to him while calling out to the others, organizing their attack.
But Rhinar exploited the disorderly approach of the children's guardians before she could shore up the holes and disappeared back into the building unchallenged. Spock remembered the school's shipment was scheduled in under two minutes.
Saavik immediately got the VSE team and T'Kyss into play from inside the school and sent Tran in from the field. Morton and the remaining Starfleet team were ordered to the entrances into the school.
Then her eyes drilled into the others before she started to go into the building.
"Trust us," Hunter called to her, long gray hair blowing in a breeze. Her narrow eyes confident - like her former science officer's.
"Captain to captain?" Saavik called back.
Hunter's head shook no. "Mother to mother." And she motioned with her head to include Rrelthiz and then to Ruanek as a father.
Spock had no time for further discussion and started going into the building with his wife when Rhinar was driven from it once more, Tran following him, T'Ratka and T'Kyss calling Saavik's communicator that they were holding their places.
"Friend Saavik!" Rrelthiz shouted. "Do what you do!"
Saavik contacted everyone in the building followed by the ones outsides, weaving them all into a network to shut the enemy down. Then, she took a leap of faith and ordered her people to wait for the word to be given and put the reins in the others' hands.
Nachson turned as he cut off their enemy again and Spock met the Tactical Officer's eyes. The saboteur could still get away; time had not been fixed.
But it could be and it would be soon.
"Saavik." It'd take too long to explain. Spock held a hand over the psi points on her face and then made contact. He found his wife also felt that brush of the other Saavik broadcasting the family bond, but it held no new memories as it had for him. Logical, as they were the same person with no changes in their historic timeline.
He used that mental brush and the other Saavik's sense of another time to be the substitute of the Guardian's touch that had protected both Kirk and him from losing their memories of the other timelines.
He wrapped all his considerable telepathic skills around his and Saavik's minds. He took them through each memory they had of that other life as they lived it, plus the new ones he just found, and placed it into their long term memory, securing each one with the ones from their own lives. All under the connection of them to that time.
The intricate, shielding net Saavik kept around the family came alive on the field. Tran called out to Nachson, and Rhinar broke past them to snatch his phaser from the ground. He aimed at Spock and Saavik. "Take me on board the Contact," he ordered the closing circle, "or I kill the captain and the ambassador!" To prove it, he fired at their circle sending them to the ground.
The Security Chief brought up his weapon, Ruanek charged like the entire Empire joined together, Rrelthiz leaped to him, using him as a jumping point, and Kyle broke speed records to fling himself between Rhinar, Saavik, and Spock. Nachson yanked his own phaser – far from unarmed, after all – and aimed at the saboteur who fired at him. The shot just missed, striking the ground right in front of him. He fell off balance into Saavik and his eyes turned distant.
Spock only heard the rest.
Ruanek spoke, his voice resigned. "It's all we can do." Then, "Jolan'tru."
"Yosca," said Rrelthiz with a warble on the end.
"Goodbye," and Hunter rebalanced like she was back on the Aerfen's bridge, the first, and very young, woman captain in Starfleet. "Tran, it's all yours."
T'Kyss called from above, no doubt bearing down with a phaser, "In position."
T'Ratka entered the grounds with the swish of a door opening and closing. Vysath came through like lightning that Spock felt instead of heard.
Tran called out, "I'm calling it!"
And Saavik's net came down around Rhinar's ears.
He tried to break free but the mixture of Starfleet, VSE, the Romulan and the Carreon rushed in, Morton and the remaining two streaming out of the school until no gaps big enough existed between them.
Rhinar tried one last time by diving for his phaser and aiming it at Rrelthiz, the only civilian in the group. But she leaped towards him instead of away and so did Tran and Ruanek. The Security Chief brought Rhinar down with a blow to the jaw.
Time reverted.
The family by the lake, their hands all touching together, as joined as they themselves were, disappeared.
They never existed.
Tran looked down at the pale man on the ground rubbing his jaw. "What the hell's going on? I was in my office."
Nearly everyone appeared totally confused, especially Hunter and Rrelthiz who didn't remember coming to Vulcan.
They were all confused except for Kyle. He sat up from where he leaned against Saavik and looked as puzzled as everyone else, but it partially cleared. He'd never really recall.
But he knew enough. His phaser stayed aimed at Rhinar's head. "I remember - you attacked our ship and the captain. And those kids!"
Rhinar snarled back, "You don't know anything!"
"I got the bare idea."
Saavik and Spock shared a last look as their fingers moved away. And then, their mouths moved into small smiles no one else could see.
Spock raised his voice. "And we have all of it." His and Saavik's shadows fell over the group as they walked up with the sun behind them.
Rhinar lunged at them, but Tran and Nachson grabbed him. "No! You can't stop this! What about my children?! What about our world?!"
Saavik ordered him taken into custody to Orbital Command, Interrogation level code, Full Dimension, and was about to contact Imre when he called her.
"Captain, is everything all right? I turned around and you were gone."
"I will debrief you in full, Commander." In the meanwhile, she explained they had a prisoner and she needed to speak with numerous people. Commander T'Mes to take their diplomatic parties to the celebration, and Starfleet Command plus Ambassador Sarek's ship to let them know Contact wasn't going to Babel.
"We're not?"
"We will return to the shipyards. Sabotage, Imre. I will explain in the debriefing."
Imre made a sound of disbelief. "That's got to be a record for the shortest amount of time a starship left and had to go back."
Spock promised an explanation to Ruanek, Rrelthiz, and Hunter, and suggested they go to the Contact so he and Saavik could explain to everyone at once. They made comments, mostly joking, so it was a good sign as they moved outside the transporter block boundaries and beamed up, taking the VSE officers with them.
Nachson stayed behind, his face screwed up. "Captain."
Spock watched his wife eye the man.
"Saavik." As far as Spock knew, Nachson never used her name before. He sounded raw and looked worried. He rubbed his head like something was under the surface that he could almost grab. "I feel like there's - Did I… put Setik in danger or… let you down? Because I'd rather die."
Saavik nearly flinched at the last word, but after it, she was almost smiling. She had remembered, her husband saw, an unbroken fact: she trusted him. "You did not 'let me down'. Quite the opposite, Kyle." He smiled at his name. "We are, as always, indescribable and forever, and forever has no end."
How true, Spock thought.
"Is that a quote?" Kyle asked.
"A paraphrase."
Now Nachson could grin. "Captain, my captain."
She gave him back a wry look. "You know the captain died in that poem."
"That's why I don't go past the first line."
She shook her head at him but kept her eyes on his. "Return to the Contact. I will join you shortly. - One last thing." He turned back, communicator in hand. "You and Thalla sh'Shytral. You are ready."
A slow, beaming smile rose over his face. "Yeah?" He looked at his captain. "Yeah! Bimo! One to beam up!"
Spock faced the school and thought about needing to go inside and inform a more than likely confused S'Jenes about what happened. Where Setik and the twins had no idea of the battle for them before or after Rhinar's capture. But he waited and was rewarded for it.
Saavik came to his side and leaned into him. He put his arm around her. The sight of her in the sun, so Saavik, so his mate. He saw her with the eyes of both Spocks who watched the vision of her on the Enterprise's viewscreen. The Spock who got to call her his and the younger one who was struck by her.
But his were the eyes she looked up into now with one of those marital looks that said they got through another trying time. So, this Spock pulled her tighter to his side.
More work awaited them and immediately, but for the moment they stopped to just stand there. The fight was over; the family was safe and together.