CHAPTER 15

"A date, Bones?" Kirk asked, eyes large with disbelief. "You and Aggie are . . . dating?"

McCoy looked embarrassed and pleased at the same time. "I think I prefer the term courting. And yes, I'm courting Aggie."

Jim tossed the half-eaten celery stick back onto his tray in disgust. They were sitting in his quarters, sharing a private supper. From McCoy's satisfied look when Rand set down their plates—celery sticks and baked salmon—Kirk suspected that there had been some discrete medical guidance in regard to his caloric intake of late. He would need to speak to his yeoman about loyalty but shoved the thought aside for later; he didn't want to be distracted from the current conversation.

"You're telling me that you had an entire moon to yourselves and now you're just courting?" he asked for the third time. "Please, God—tell me you kissed the woman?"

McCoy shifted uncomfortably. "A gentleman never—"

"Bones!"

"Yes! I kissed her! A lot!" McCoy said, unable to keep the grin from his face. "And it was . . . amazing, Jim. I still can't believe it. I thought that I would never feel—or that any woman would look at me like" — McCoy gestured at himself in a way that implied he didn't consider himself much to look at, then locked eyes with Jim—"I don't have the words to thank you, Jim. It's changed my world. I mean it."

The sincerity in his friend's words humbled him, and he shook his head. "Don't thank me, Bones, thank the lady." He held out a glass of brandy to the doctor who was still wore a light wrist brace, then picked up his own glass.

"To Aggie," he toasted, raising his glass to lightly chink it against McCoy's before he downed it in one gulp. Thankfully, it burned the taste of the god-awful celery from his tongue, and Jim smacked his lips together in appreciation.

"Do we drink too much, Bones?" He asked suddenly, staring at his empty glass.

McCoy studied his own empty glass for a moment. "Possibly."

"Want another?"

"Yep."

They sipped their second glass slowly, enjoying each other's company and the feeling of shared lightheartedness. It wasn't often that a starship captain and his chief surgeon had anything to feel lighthearted about, and Jim rejoiced in his friend's newfound love as much as McCoy did.

"Boy, I thought you'd be really pissed about getting beamed down to that moon," Jim said with a tipsy grin. "But I guess all is forgiven now, eh?"

McCoy raised an eyebrow at him and smiled in an all too innocent fashion. "Oh, yes. All forgiven, Captain." Then he mumbled under his breath. "Till yer next physical, of course."

Jim heard it and chuckled. "Perhaps not my most ingenious plan," he confessed. "But the outcome was exceptional, despite the few bumps along the way."

"Hoo boy! Talk about a bump!" McCoy exclaimed, leaning forward. "You should have seen the size of that Romulan, Jim. He was damned near the size of that Klingon you pissed off back on Rillis. You remember him?"

Jim flexed his jaw. "How could I forget? Which reminds me, I'd best watch out for your right hook next time we get in the ring."

McCoy's smile flickered.

"What is it, Bones?" Jim asked with a grin. "Don't tell me it was really Aggie with the right hook?"

McCoy shook his head. "No, I hit him right enough. It's just something . . . " He looked troubled, the lines in his face emphasized by the cabin's soft lights. He took a deep breath and expelled it loudly. "Aggie's having trouble with what happened. She's having nightmares again," he clarified. "She's not getting more than a few hours a night despite the sedatives. I keep telling her she needs time but . . . " McCoy shrugged helplessly. "She's afraid of what she did, Jim, with the power cell. She keeps wondering if, maybe, she isn't some sort of weapon, after all."

Jim carefully considered his friends words. The fact that Aggie knew how to dissemble a Romulan blaster didn't concern him: it wasn't the most complex piece of machinery in the galaxy, especially after her stint in Engineering. With a confident shake of his head, Jim concluded. "Aggie's no weapon, Bones."

"That's what I keep telling her," he said with a shake of his head. "But she can't let it go. She's afraid of what other things—bad things—might be in that head of hers. She says she needs to find out who—or as she says, 'what'—she is."

Frowning, Jim rocked back in his chair and bounced it a few times, thinking. They still hadn't been able to unravel the source code or retrace the route that the mapping ship had taken. The problem was that they had too much data, overwhelmingly so. Even with Chekov and Sulu's combined algorithm of elimination, they were still left with several hundred routes with each route containing a thousand planets or more.

A proverbial needle in the haystack.

But in light of recent events, Jim reasoned, it was a needle they would have to find. The Romulans certainly believed that Aggie was a key to something, something so important that it was worth going up against a Federation starship to get. And whatever it was, Starfleet would want to know about it.

"If Aggie were to help in the Science Labs," Jim started, holding up a hand to forestall McCoy's protest. "With the data only, I think everyone would get their answers a lot sooner. Perhaps she'll see something that may trigger a memory. To be honest, Bones, I don't think we can do it without her. The cryo-unit is over a hundred years old but the sophistication of the coding, it's beyond me. It's beyond Spock."

Silence settled heavily between the two men as both of them considered the implications of such a statement. Finally, McCoy muttered. "I've no right to stop her if she wants. . . " McCoy glanced up with an anxious expression on his face. "But promise me, Jim, promise me she won't go near the cryo-unit."

"She won't even know it's there," he promised. "I'll order the doors to Lab 3A locked at all times."

McCoy nodded absentmindedly, but Jim could see that his friend was still mired in worry. He pushed his tray aside and leaned on his desk, grinning wickedly. "Tell me again, Bones," he said, waggling his eyebrows. "Are you sure that kissing is all that happened on that moon? I was sure there was time for an Orion Spinal Twist—"

"Jim!"

McCoy's shocked exclamation sent Kirk into peels of laughter which did not end as the doctor gave an exaggerated lecture regarding the limits of the chiropractic field.

With a weak wave of his hand, Kirk waved off the announcement of "captain on the bridge." His head was pounding from last night's drinking binge with McCoy, and he was in no mood for unnecessary noise. Kirk eased himself into the command chair slowly, determined not to further piss off the miniature Klingon inside his skull who was repeatedly stabbing his left eye with a Bat'leth.

He was sorely tempted to call Sick Bay, but he and McCoy had agreed a long time ago to reap what they'd sown, excluding a sudden emergency, of course. Where was an interplanetary disaster when you needed one, he thought sourly.

"Report," he demanded in a loud whisper.

"Star Fleet has responded with approval to leave our designated patrol area," Uhura said, her usually soft voice more a balm than an irritant to his aching head. "They ask to be kept notified of any developments in Ms. Aggie's situation, and they pass along their well wishes on her journey to finding her identity."

Kirk nodded his thanks. He started to turn the chair to address Mr. Spock but found the motion suddenly too overwhelming. With a slow tilt to his head, he glanced at the science station. It was empty. Frowning, he turned to ask Sulu if he knew of the first officer's whereabouts when he noticed that Sulu and Chekov were not in their usual chairs, either.

"Ensign Smith," Kirk said, leaning forward to address the secondary helmsman. "Do you know where Mr. Sulu has gone?"

"Yes, Sir," she said, turning in her chair to address him. She was a beautiful blonde woman with a bust line that Kirk had to force himself not to notice. "He's in the Science Lab, Sir."

"And Mr. Chekov?"

"Also in the Science Lab, along with the Commander."

What the devil is going on here, he thought, irritation rising, before Ensign Smith's words sank in. There was only one reason for the simultaneous disappearance of three of his bridge officers—the source code.

"I'll be in the Science Lab," he murmured to Uhura before stepping into the turbo-lift. "Deck Five," he said, before clamping his lips shut as the lift sped downward.

The computers in the aft section of the Science Labs were some of the most complex and advanced computers in existence. Kirk never particularly cared for the blinking, beeping lights or the faint smell of ozone in the recycled air. It wasn't that they weren't imperative to the operation of the ship or the exploration of space, quite the opposite in fact. The computers provided vital, often life-saving data; however, they would never replace the singularly human trait of 'gut feelings' or the ability to make command decisions. If any good had come from Dr. Daystrom's disastrous M-5 multi-tronic unit, it had proved without a doubt that computers would never be able to replace people.

Kirk had expected to see his officers working at the computers, tapping away furiously as they worked on the source code. Instead, Sulu and Chekov flanked Spock who stood a good five feet behind the closest terminal.

He approached them, glancing at the only occupied terminal as he did so. Aggie didn't look up as she addressed the computer then clicked several buttons.

"Mr. Spock," Kirk greeted as Chekov quietly shifted to stand next to Sulu. "Any news on the code?"

Spock blinked slowly as though processing the question, then turned to look at the captain. His dark eyes were filled with admiration, and oddly enough, apprehension. "I have never before witnessed such efficiency in a human being," Spock said, then took a breath as though internally resetting himself and answered Kirk's question. "She has nearly broken the source code."

"This morning? Already?" Kirk was incredulous. "I just talked with McCoy last night."

"And he, in turn, must have spoken to Ms. Aggie last night," Spock said, raising an eyebrow. "For she has, along with Mr. Sulu, Mr. Chekov, and myself, been here since 2300 hundred hours."

Kirk didn't need to convert it to civilian time, 11:00 PM, to know that his officers had spent the night in the Science Lab. "Has she said anything?" he asked, glancing again at the thin figure sitting at the terminal.

"Occasional requests for data," Spock said, almost reverently. "The form of which has lead me to conclude that Ms. Aggie has narrowed her search to four solar systems and seventeen planets. I believe we will learn of the exact system and planet before the hour is out."

"My God," Kirk breathed. "There were thousands of planets . . . "

"Twenty-three thousand, eight hundred and eleven, to be exact."

Kirk stood next to Spock, silently watching as Aggie continued to perform calculations and submit new equations into the computer. He didn't understand a tenth of what he could see on the monitor, but he knew by Spock's behavior that he was witnessing a near-miraculous event.

Seventeen minutes later, the computer beeped an affirmative tone, and Aggie froze mid-calculation. She reached out with a pale hand and punched a key next to the screen.

On the far wall above all the individual terminals, was a large viewscreen where data could be displayed for everyone in the lab to see. A planet appeared on the screen, rotating slowly to give a 360 degree view. It was several intense shades of blue, darkest near the equator and fading to a soft white near the axis.

A water planet, Kirk realized in surprise. Few air-breathers chose to live on such worlds due to the difficult conditions and the extreme isolation. But there were exceptions: lab outposts and the occasional extreme sports center. He glanced at the solar system and realized it was one of the most remote. No sports center then, he decided, and couldn't recall ever hearing of an outpost so far from known space. Who would live on such a planet, and why?

A chair creaking caught his attention, and he saw that Aggie had turned to face them. She looked physically and emotionally exhausted: her eyes were glassy and her cheeks had taken on a flushed, feverish look.

Living on a ship with dozens of zealous scientists and engineers, Montgomery Scott not being the least among them, Kirk immediately recognized the signs of burn-out. Aggie had been suffering from internal conflict ever since her encounter with the Romulan, and in an obvious attempt to alleviate her fear and confusion, had driven herself to the very edge of her abilities.

Kirk walked over to her and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. "Aggie?"

It took two more attempts before she realized he was there, a third for her to comprehend that he was speaking to her. Her red-rimmed eyes opened a fraction wider, and raising a trembling arm, she pointed at the blue planet on the overhead screen.

"Home."

The single word was filled with equal parts relief and trepidation, and Aggie, as though a dam had finally been released within her, buried her face into her hands and wept.

Kirk was overcome with pity and squeezed her shoulder gently before moving to the intercom on the wall.

"McCoy here."

The voice that came out of the grill sounded irritable and gruff. Clearly Kirk wasn't the only one suffering from last night's binge. The thought would have been perversely gratifying had he not been so moved by the weeping figure sitting at the computer terminal. "Bones, I think you'd better come to the Science Labs."

"Why? What's going—"

"And bring one of your hangover concoctions, will you?" Kirk interrupted, then added. "Better make one for yourself, too."

There was a long pause on the other end.

"I'll be there as quick as I can. McCoy out."

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