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"I don't know what happened," his mother said. "One moment, he was fine and the next he was clutching his head in pain. But he says that it's not his pain, it's Jim's."

"His Human friend?" Lady T'Pau asked.

"Yes," Sarek answered. "She has been on Tarsus Four for…"

"That is of no importance," Lady T'Pau said, cutting his father off. "Come, child. Kneel." Spock glanced at his father before he did as the elder of his house instructed. "Will thou allow me to see what has caused thy pain?"

"Yes," Spock said quietly. There was no reason to deny her access and it was only logical that someone with more control over their telepathy examine why he could sense his friend and what may be the cause to her distress.

"My mind to you mind," Lady T'Pau said, her fingers on his psi points. "My thoughts to your thoughts."

The world around Spock shifted and he found himself standing in a housing area of some kind, one he did not recognize. There was evidence of a battle. Bodies and blood littering the unfamiliar street in a macabre fashion.

"Thou has never been here?" Lady T'Pau asked him.

"No," he said as he examined the bodies on the ground at his feet. The manner in which they were positioned, and their lack of weapons lead Spock to change his initial observation, there was no battle here. These bodies were the result of a series of executions. The face of a man among the dead captured Spock's attention. His facial features, particularly his eyes, were familiar. "James Abraham Kirk."

"You know this man?"

"He is Jim's uncle. The older brother of her late father. I believe that this is memory."

"It is recent as evidenced by the emotions that accompany it."

That is when Spock felt it, like a spear through his heart, a searing and unyielding pain. Due to her youth and humanity, Jim had always possessed strong emotions and, through practice, Spock has been able to block himself from feeling them. However, the strength of her emotions was more than he was prepared for. Spock could feel her heartbreak, her fear, her confusion and, strongest of all, he could feel her determination.

"Something has happened to the colony on Tarsus Four," Spock whispered. When he last spoke to Jim, he could see her uncle in the background working at his desk. "Where is she?"

"She is here," Lady T'Pau told him as everything around them changed again. They were in a small room, the lowest level of a dwelling, it appeared.

"We have a knife and an old phaser, some medical supplies and more mouths then food," a boy said, looking at him, one of his eyes covered in medical dressing.

"We'll make do," Spock heard Jim say. The boy wasn't talking to him, it was Jim. Spock was looking through her eyes and she was looking in a mirror attempting to remove blood from her face. Her blue eyes dimmed in a sadness that was at odds with the mirth that he had grown accustom to.

"How's your arm?" the boy asked.

"Broken. I'll live," she muttered. Jim was in considerable pain, he could feel it, however she refused to allow the younger children see any weakness. Spock only recognized one of the children, a small child that she introduced him to over the communications system four point seven months ago. His name was Kevin, he was seven years old and his parents lived in close proximity to the Kirk dwelling. "How's your eye?"

"Hurts. I'll live," the boy looked at her as he assisted Jim in wrapping her injured limb. "I can't believe Kodos would just order people to be killed. I mean, they just gunned them down in the streets. I can't…How?"

"Albert Einstein said that 'the world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.' In the end, there just weren't enough people willing to listen when my uncle and Hoshi and Kev's folks and you mom tried warning them. It's so illogical to ignore facts…" Jim sighed and wiped her face with her uninjured arm before moving to redress the boy's wound. Due to the cauterization, the injury was either caused by a phase or plasma weapon to the boy's face.

"Do you think that distress signal went up?"

"I don't know; computers aren't actually my thing. If Spock were here, he'd know. He knows everything. It's a good thing he's not here though… I wouldn't wish this on my enemies and he's my best friend," Jim said. Spock felt a small sense of pride at her reference to his skill. Despite her situation, she was thinking of him. Why was she thinking of him? "I can't die here, Tommy. Not like this."

T'Pau chose that moment to close the meld and pull her hand away from his face, "His friend is in danger."

"What kind of danger?" his mother asked, her hands on his shoulders. Spock did not listen as Lady T'Pau explained to his parents what happened. He knew what he had to do.

"I must go to her," Spock said, rising to his feet.

"Spock, you can't just…" his mother said.

"Mother, it is only logical..."

"Logical! You can't go rushing off to another planet, Spock," he could hear the hysteria in her voice. It was unnecessary.

"There is no need for an emotional outburst," Spock said.

"I'll go with him," Sybok said. "She's his only real friend, Amanda. He's not gonna let it go."

"No, I will not. Just as she would not," Spock told the room. "If it were my life in danger, Jim would come for me."


"You went running around triage like a crazy person when you got there," Jayme chuckled as she thought about him rushing into the room where she was being checked over. It was about the only thing from the whole ordeal on Tarsus that she could actually laugh about.

"I did no such thing," Spock said.

"Yes, you did and you know you did," she smiled. "You know, I always wondered if my distress call got out."

"It did not," he told her. "The communications system on the colony was tampered with. No doubt Kodos ensuring that his plans were not interrupted."

"Do we know anything about that?"

"Yes, and you are not going to like it."

"Tell me something I don't know," Bones said as he walked into the room. If being on the Enterprise bothered him, being on this small unnamed ship was downright torture. He was antsier than usual.

"The famine that struck the colony was the result of an experiment," Spock told her.

"Do we know who was behind it?" Bones asked.

"Not according to this," Jayme sighed as her eyes skimmed the chemical compounds that the response teams collected in the immediate aftermath of Tarsus IV. "The RNA strands are engineered. Somebody let this loose on the planet."

"Maybe it was Kodos," her best friend said. "Who else would've benefit from that mess. He set himself up in some childhood fantasy as a king."

"Kodos was a politician, not a scientist," Spock pointed out.

"I would've gone with sadistic megalomaniac but that's just me. And the colony was full of scientists," she said with a groan.

"Maybe someone who made it out of there helped him," Bones said.

"No," Jayme shook her head. "A lot of his followers had a suicide pact. The handful that didn't kill themselves were taken into Federation custody. Anyone from Tarsus who could've helped him is dead. Which means he had outside help. Maybe whoever developed these chemicals promised him safe passage off the planet."

"Okay. What about the elephant in the room?" Bones muttered.

"Section Thirty-one had nothing to gain from the massacre," Spock said. "As distasteful as many of their actions are, their mandate had always been for the betterment of the Federation. Had they been in a position to prevent what happened on Tarsus Four, they would have."

"We're talking about the people who sent Jim into an impossible mission," Bones said.

"It wasn't impossible. I did it," she said, sounding a tad more smug than she intended. "They wanted to see if I could hack it. I can bet that if my face wasn't all over the place, they would've made a genuine attempt to pull me into their ranks. I mean, I'm too visible to be black ops now but the point is still valid."

"Then explain why they haven't killed him already," Bones said. "I mean, what have they been waiting for?"

"There was a body, Bones. All but a handful of people thinks he's dead," Jayme sighed. "Of those who don't, only a few of us can ID him. And only then by his voice. He altered his physical appearance. That face… it's not the one I remember."

"They couldn't ask someone else to do this because…?" the doctor asked.

"There were only nine people who could have positively identified former Governor Arnold Kodos," Spock said. "Of those nine, six are dead, Cadet Kevin Riley is at Starfleet Academy, Doctor Thomas Leighton is a Federation scientist who will meet us on Tammeron when we arrive and the ninth is Jim. Simply put, Leonard, there is no one else."


"So, what's your story, John Richard Harrison from Dover with a degree in anthropology?" Jayme asked. Since she couldn't sleep and they were both awake, she figured that she might as well talk to him. "Do you really have that degree or it that just something they put in your file?"

"It's one of the only real bits in my file. You read it?" he smiled.

"Only the parts that Pike could get me, which wasn't much since most of it is either fake or redacted," she chuckled as she sat down.

"As it should be," Harrison smiled. "I am just your average Federation citizen whose parents died on Tarsus Four while I was at university in London. After I joined Starfleet, I was approached by Thirty-one. I had one condition."

"To be on the team that found Kodos," she guessed. If Jayme was ever recruited by Section 31, it's what she would've asked for.

Most people thought that Kodos was dead but Jayme never believed that the body they found in his house was him. The scans that were done proved inconclusive but the body was wearing Kodos' signet ring. The Vulcans felt that it was only logical that it was him and Starfleet took their word for it. She could never really blame them for it, even if she didn't like it.

"Yes," he said with a nod. "It is regrettable that it took the deaths of the others for us to find him."

"No kidding," Jayme sighed and looked out at the stars.

"What was it like? Tarsus."

"Before or during?"

"I remember before. It was beautiful and peaceful. What was it like during? If you don't..."

"I don't mind," she glanced at him before returning her gaze to the stars. "I don't remember the executions clearly. Too much confusion, I suppose. I remember what happened after the enforcers left our block. There just this silence; oppressive and deafening. Like all the sound on the planet was gone."

"That's not the worst part, is it?" Harrison asked.

"No. That was the bodies. People who never did anything to anyone just… left to rot in the street like trash. Old ladies and children... left as a warning or a promise, I don't know. Thing I remember most was when I found my uncle. His eyes just staring up at the sky. I can see them all time. I mean, they're my eyes. The Kirk family trait. I look in a mirror and they're there," Jayme sighed. She took a deep breath. "I don't remember any Harrisons, so I don't know what happened to your parents."

"I read the reports, I don't recommend it," he said with a small smile. "I'm sorry for what happened to you and your family."

"And I'm sorry for what happened to yours," she said. "I wish I could've done… more."

"You did what you could. Sometimes, that's all you can do."