—Prologue—
2261.261
Cold Station 12
Beta Quadrant
The cryo pods resting in Captain James Kirk's hands, just two of them, held four tiny vials apiece. Each one of those contained a little blob of tissue barely five millimetres long.
"We should leave them here, Jim," the Vulcan standing beside him said. "And forget we found them."
On Kirk's other side, McCoy asked, "And let them die? This place is on its last legs, Spock. It's a miracle the backup generator was running enough to keep these frozen."
Jim was torn. They'd stumbled across this hidden facility, long-abandoned and barely functional, by what he was considering to be a never ending curse. Exploration had led them to discover that it had been a top secret facility created to shelter these embryos, but it had been abandoned nearly a century before. There had originally been nearly 1900 of them, which was a terrifying thought. But now just eight remained.
Eight minuscule, defenceless lives literally resting in his hands.
He pictured a toddler with dark hair and bright blue eyes, and an infectious grin. Wondered if he held that child's family in his grip at this moment.
"I can't," he said to Spock now. "They're innocent. I can't let them die."
"You know what we must do, then," his first officer sighed. "Because we cannot return them to Earth."
"No," Kirk agreed softly. "We can't take them to Earth. I don't think any of us want to go there, Spock, but you know it's the right thing to do. If these were Vulcan, you'd want them to go to your people."
Spock looked at the embryos with a neutral expression, but Jim knew the man well enough to know he was disgusted. "My people do not present the danger these do."
That was true enough. But Kirk just couldn't do it, couldn't abandon them.
"Okay. Detour. We'll get back to our mission after we deal with this. It'll only be a couple of days, right? And he'll owe us."
McCoy snorted. "Yeah," he drawled. "This is gonna go well."