CHAPTER 30

It had taken the Enterprise nearly two days at top warp to reach the edge of Quadrant Five, whereas Spock had calculated that the agent's ship could have reached it within an hour of blasting through the bay doors. Star Fleet Headquarters and Section 31 remained on high alert, fearful that McGivers had plans of selling the technology to the Klingon or Romulan Empire in further retribution for his daughter. In the end, however, McGivers remained a loyal agent.

Just before committing suicide, he'd activated the ship's emergency locator beacon on a channel linked directly to Section 31. The U.S.S. Constellation II, with its assignment to document the newly discovered asteroid belts in Quadrant Five, had reached the ship first. Commodore Abigail Morgan had sent a message that the craft was empty, except for the agent's body, and that the navigational memory banks had been wiped clean. There hadn't been a suicide note.

Nearly a week later, the techs at Star Fleet, after failing to find any atmospheric residue or scoring on the ships advanced hull, determined that the ship had not landed on any planet. They did determine that the transporter had been used. Once. And since the beam destination was merely a half a kilometer from the ship, they concluded that whatever had been transported had been beamed into open space.

During the last few months of the Enterprise's five year mission, the ship was assigned to patrol Quadrant Five. Kirk rarely left the captain's chair, working double shifts with his data pad on his lap, continually reviewing the new search grid patterns that Chekov and Sulu had been formulating. Spock, on the other hand, rarely left the Science Lab, creating search diagrams based on the cryo-unit's composite material.

During meal times, Scotty either sat alone or with Hemsworth, muttering often about the quality of seals. "Aye, they'll last anywheres from a thousan' to a hundred thousan' years. Aye, they will do." Then he would shake his head in a bewildered sort of way and fall silent the rest of the meal.

McCoy had heard the engineer's comments just once before retreating back to his quarters. He had his meals delivered after that. It was difficult to comprehend that Aggie would, quite literally, sleep her life away. Or sleep until a seal finally degraded, the power source malfunctioned, or the unit was caught in some gravitational pull of a nearby planet or star.

He stared at the live feed of space on his wall, his eyes searching the pinpricks on the monitor more out of habit than any real hope. She's out there, he thought. Just drifting. Just waiting to be found.

Haunted, McCoy was driven from his quarters. He stalked the quiet halls and decks—it was in the middle of the Beta shift—until his exhausted steps took him to his friend's door. As expected, Kirk was awake. His expression was wretched and the dark circles under his eyes matched McCoy's own.

"You look like shit, Jim," McCoy muttered, dropping into his usual chair. "I told you to stop it already." He wasn't referring to his friend's resolve to search as much of the quadrant as possible before the end of their mission, but the guilt he knew that Jim secretly hoarded over the loss of Aggie. "I told you before: it isn't your fault. Captain James T. Kirk is just a man, and even he can't do the impossible." McCoy wiped at the moisture under his eyes then raised a finger, adding, "But if anyone could, it would be you."

"Thanks, Bones."

McCoy wiped at his eyes again then shook his head. "I just don't understand, Jim. I can't figure it out."

"What?"

"What the point was. . . of all this pain? Her pain. Everything she overcame, her brilliant mind, her laughter, her dreams and hopes. What does any of it matter if she was just going to be put in stasis again?" McCoy rubbed his chest, felt the scars from the phaser burn that the skin regenerator hadn't been able to heal. "Even the magnetic storm that went over Origin didn't leave a trace of her: the lab, her clones, her room, all her data . . . thrown into the sea. So tell me, Jim, what's the damn point of it all?"

Jim sat quietly for a long time, staring at the untouched glass of brandy in his hand. "Did I ever tell you—no, of course I didn't—I've never told anyone. But you know I was on Tarsus when . . . when Kodos did what he did. I was just a kid myself, but I was old enough to have a baby die in my arms. He might have been three, maybe four months old. He looked much younger though, more like a newborn," Kirk added in a too-casual voice. "He'd starved to death, you see, the crops had failed and people were dying. There was nothing I could do. And as I buried his body, I wondered why he'd been born at all. What was the point of such a little life: he hadn't had time to do anything or accomplish anything of significance. No one would remember him.

"I asked myself that question when the rescue ships arrived the very next day. I asked it as I entered Star Fleet Academy. And I kept asking that question while serving on the Farragut, and after becoming captain of the Enterprise. I kept asking, 'what was the point of his life?' And then we found Miri and all those other Onlies. Do you remember her, Bones?" He didn't wait for McCoy to answer but continued. "I wondered how some children could have so little time while others seemed to have so much. And then I looked at Miri, really looked at her, and like a new sun exploding into existence, I finally found my answer. The point of life is simply life, Bones.

"I thought nobody would remember that baby, but then I realized that I had been remembering him. And every life has this light to it, and that baby's light has urged me onto achievements that I couldn't have reached alone, pushing me on despite my fears. And as a result, other lives have been saved. Like Miri's." Kirk looked more vulnerable than McCoy had ever seen him before. "What I'm trying to say, Bones, that in space light never fades. It just goes on and on forever."

McCoy finally returned to his own quarters just as the Alpha shift was starting. It didn't matter. McCoy had been placed on permanent compassion leave. Or at least for the next three weeks, when the Enterprise's five year mission came to an end.

He looked at the datapad that Yeoman Rand had handed him as they'd passed each other in Kirk's doorway. He hadn't looked at it then, offering instead to help move the snoring captain onto the bed, but she had waved him off as though it were unnecessary. Whether that meant Rand had plans on leaving him there or that she had her own method of putting him to bed, McCoy didn't know. Although he had begun to suspect that the Yeoman was, perhaps, a little more fond of the captain than she let on. He wouldn't be surprised if Kirk was already snoring into his pillow.

The datapad held his service contract. All that he needed to do was sign it, and he would be in Star Fleet for another five years. Kirk had already petitioned to continue as captain of the Enterprise; Spock, no doubt, had his contract on automatic renewal; and as for Scotty, he went where the Enterprise went.

But what of him? What of Leonard H. McCoy? Whether he stayed or went, the search for Aggie would go on. The cryo-unit's dimensions, along with its composite material, had been sent to every vessel in every quadrant. In a shocking discovery nearly two weeks before, a Vulcan science ship had investigated an object of similar material despite much larger dimensions, and had discovered a 1990's era, Terran sleeper ship. The ship had lost navigation power but nearly four hundred of the five hundred cryo-units were still functioning.

Star Fleet was already calling it "The Great Awakening," and had requested McCoy's presence. He'd sent them every scrap of data he'd made about stasis but hadn't given them an answer yet as to whether he'd go. If he admitted it to himself, he was feeling an irrational resentment toward the occupants of the sleeper ship. Those people had been discovered, after all, because he'd lost the love of his life.

What made all their lives more valuable than the one he cherished? Why hadn't she been found? He then thought about what Jim had said, about how Aggie's "light" was still out there, shining through the vast reaches of space. Was finding those people part of her light? Is that how she was meant to go on, through the lives of others?

McCoy sat on the foot of his bed and squeezed his eyes shut. He swore he could still catch the scent of her in the air but knew it was his imagination. The ship's air was recycled continually, and it had been months since Aggie had been in his room, in his bed, and in his arms.

"Where are you, Aggie?" he whispered, pleading with the silence. He knew that she wasn't in the room, just as her scent wasn't in the room, but he heard her voice as clearly as though she were sitting next to him.

Right where I told you I'd be—with you. Always.

McCoy rubbed the area just over his heart, trying to reach the ache there. "Did you know?"

Know what?

"What Gray was going to do?"

What do you think?

"I think you did," he said bitterly. "I think Gray made threats and you sacrificed yourself."

Are you angry?

"Yes. No. I don't know! I just miss you so much, Aggie."

I love you, Len.

"Then find your way back to me," he pleaded then waited for her response.

Silence.

"Aggie?"

Silence.

The datapad struck the wall inches from where the chronometer had. Later, McCoy wouldn't be able to recall if he'd signed the contract or not.

Just one more chapter to go. Please review.

~Coop