Chapter 44: Regulas I

Buffy held her breath, waiting for Kirk's guess to be wrong, waiting for solid rock to resolidify around her, leaving her and Dawn to a lingering slow death for the rest of the millennium. The instant she finished transporting, lights blazed on around her.

"Well," Jim said as the rest of his party solidified, "if anybody's here, now they know we're here, too."

They were in a small cavern: several tunnels led from it.

The caverns were definitely dug out, not naturally formed. The chamber was haphazardly piled with stacks of notebooks, technical equipment, peripheral storage cells. It had all obviously been transferred from Spacelab in terrible haste.

"Admiral-" Saavik said. She gestured toward the next chamber. In it was a massive curve of metal.

They followed Saavik into the second cave. It, too, held piles of equipment, but a great torpedo shape dominated everything.

"Genesis, I presume?" McCoy said.

"That would be my guess," said Buffy who held Dawn close to her.

Kirk moved farther into the cavern complex. Suddenly someone lunged at him from behind a stack of crates, plowing into him and knocking him to the ground. A knife glittered. Jim felt it press against his throat, just below the corner of his jaw, at the pulse point where the carotid artery is most vulnerable. When he tried to fight, the knife pressed harder. He could feel the sharpness of its edge. If anyone tried to draw a phaser, he would be bleeding to death before they could finish firing.

"You son of a bitch, you killed them-"

Kirk recognized David Marcus. "I'm Jim Kirk!" he yelled. "David, don't you remember me?"

"We were still there, you dumb bastard, I heard Zinaida scream-"

"David, we found them, they were already dead!" said Kirk.

"David-" Carol's voice.

"Go back, mother!"

"Jim-"

Kirk strained around until he could see her. The knife dimpled his skin and a drop of blood welled out. He felt its heat.

"Hold still, you slimy-"

"Carol," Jim said, "for gods' sake, you can't believe we had anything to do with-"

"Shut up!" David cried. "Go back, mother, unless you want to watch me kill him the way he killed-"

Carol Marcus took a deep breath. "I don't want to watch you kill anyone... least of all your father."

David looked up at her, stunned.

Buffy felt how stunned both father and son were at the revelation they were related.

Jim slid from beneath the knife and disarmed the boy.

~ You can feel it now, can't you. ~

Buffy looked around for the source of the voice and then at Dawn. "Did you say something?"

"No," said Dawn.

Clark Terrell step forward and take the phaser from the Deltan- Jedda Adzhin-Dall. "I'll hold on to this," Terrell said.

~ Ignore what comes out of my lips, Buffy. Captain Terrell and I are still being controlled by Khan. My mind is free but that's it. Anything that comes out of my mouth is likely something he wanted me to say and anything I do Is at his command. So, when did this happen, when did you gain my gifts? ~ came Dawn's thoughts.

"Carol-" Jim said as he went toward her, and she met him.

~ On the Enterprise, Fate came to me. Said there had been a change that you were slowly being driven mad. That if something didn't change then they would need someone to replace you since the next Millennial won't be born for centuries. ~ Buffy replied in her mind.

Carol smiled, reached out, and gently stroked a fingertip across the hair at his temple. "You've gone a little gray-" She stopped.

~ What can we do to break his hold on you? ~ Buffy asked Dawn.

Kirk put his arms around her. They held each other for a long while, but finally he drew back to look her in the eyes, to search her face with his gaze. "Carol, is it true?" She nodded. "Why didn't you tell me?"

~ I don't think you can, Buffy, at least I don't know if it's possible. There is an eel like creature wrapped around my cerebral cortex. As it grows it slowly drives people mad till it eventually kills them. At least that's what Khan said it did to Lieutenant McGiver. ~

"It isn't true!" David shouted. "My father was-"

"You're making this a lot harder, David," Carol said.

"I'm afraid I must make it harder still, Dr. Marcus," Clark Terrell said as Buffy felt Dawn pull away from her.

They turned and looked at Terrell who had his phaser pointed at them.

"Clark, in heaven's name-" McCoy said.

"Please, don't move." Terrell glanced toward Dawn, who nodded. She pulled away from Buffy and raised her arm and pointed it at Buffy.

"Dawn-" Jim said.

"I'm sorry, Jim."

Terrell opened his communicator. "Have you heard, your excellency?"

"I have indeed, Captain. You have done very well." said Khan.

"I knew it!" David whispered, low and angry. Jim turned, but not in time to stop him. David launched himself at Terrell.

Saavik instantly reacted, catching David and flinging him out of the way with all the force of muscles adapted to higher gravity. They collapsed in a heap as Jedda, too, sprang forward after David.

Terrell fired.

Jedda fell into the beam. He vanished without a sound.

"Jedda!" Carol cried.

"Oh, God..." David said softly.

"Don't move, any of you!" Terrell's hand clenched hard around the phaser. "I don't want to hurt you..."

"Captain Terrell, I am waiting."

Dawn started violently at Khan's softly dangerous voice. She was deathly pale and sweating. She began to tremble. Her arm slowly began to shake.

~ Dawn? ~ Buffy thought worriedly.

~ I'm trying to fight, but it's so strong. ~

"Everything's as you ordered, my lord," Terrell said. "You have the coordinates of Genesis."

"I have one other small duty for you, Captain," Khan said. "Kill James Kirk."

On the ground beside David, Saavik shifted slightly, gathering herself.

"Khan-" Terrell said. He wiped his forehead on his sleeve and pressed his free hand against the side of his face. "I can't-" Wincing, he gasped in pain.

"Kill him!"

Terrell flung down his communicator. It clattered across stone. Terrell groaned as if he had been struck himself. He gripped the phaser with both hands, shaking so hard he could not aim.

Dawn's whole body trembled. She aimed at Terrell. She tried to fire. She failed.

Terrell screamed in agony. He forced his phaser around until he had turned it on himself.

"Clark, my God," McCoy whispered. He reached out toward him.

Terrell raised his head. Buffy felt the intensity of his plea to McCoy in his horrified gaze.

McCoy groaned and turned away, his face in his hands.

"Kill him, Terrell!" Khan said again. The damaged communicator distorted his voice, but still it was all too recognizable. "Fire, now!"

Terrell obeyed.

He disappeared.

Dawn shrieked. She clutched at her temples as her knees buckled. She quivered and convulsed on the hard rock floor.

"She's got something in her, wrapped around her cerebral cortex," said Buffy.

McCoy nodded as he hurried to Dawn, pulled an injector from his medical pack, dialed it, and stabbed it into Dawn's arm. Dawn struggled a moment more, then went limp as blood gushed down the side of her face.

"Terrell!" Khan said. "Dawn!"

The Ceti eel probed blindly from inside Dawn's ear as it crawled out of her. "Out of the way, Doc," said Buffy as she raised her arm. As McCoy moved out of the way Buffy waited until the creature flopped on the stone, leaving Dawn free. She fired a blast of energy, and the creature disintegrated.

"Terrell!" Khan's voice was low and hoarse. "Dawn!"

Buffy spun and grabbed the communicator. "Khan, you're a miserable bloodsucker," she said angrily. "Your little pet killed Captain Terrell, but Dawn she's free. Free of you! And believe me when I say you are next. I am coming for you."

After a moment, a terrible sound came from the communicator. Khan laughed. "Buffy, my old friend, so you are alive. And I would assume since Dawn and Terrell failed to do what I wanted that James Kirk is as well."

"I will make you pay for the hurt you caused my beautiful wife," growled Buffy.

Khan laughed again. "I think not. If I was powerful before, I will be invincible soon."

"He's going to take Genesis!" David rushed toward the next cavern.

Saavik and Kirk both sprinted after him. As they rounded the corner, a transporter beam enveloped the Genesis torpedo. Jim raised his phaser. If he could at least damage it before it dematerialized-

David Marcus was directly in his line of fire.

"David, get down!" Jim yelled.

Saavik caught up to David. He struggled with her.

"Let go- I've got to stop him!"

"Only half of you would get there!"

"Get down!"

Saavik dragged David out of Kirk's way.

Jim fired. The phaser beam passed through the empty space where the torpedo had been, and sizzled against the stone.

Kirk returned where Buffy, Dawn and McCoy remained. He snatched the communicator from Buffy's hands. "Khan, you have Genesis, but you don't have us! You'll never get us, Khan! You're too frightened to come down here to kill us!"

"I've done far worse than kill you or Buffy, Admiral. I've hurt you. I wish to keep on hurting you. I will leave you, as you left me. Buried alive in the center of a dead planet!"

"KHANNNN!" Kirk screamed.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

"Saavik to Enterprise," Savvik said into her communicator for about the twentieth time in as many minutes. "Come in, please."

Dawn let out a soft moan as McCoy ran his tricorder over her.

"It'll be rocky for a while," McCoy said.

"It usually is," said Buffy as Dawn was trying to sit up. "Dawnie?"

"It's okay, Dawn," McCoy said. "Your body is still working on healing itself. Just try to rest now."

"Admiral," Saavik said, "I am sorry, I cannot get through to the Enterprise. Reliant is still jamming all channels."

"I'm sure you did your best, Lieutenant," Jim said.

"It wouldn't make any difference," McCoy said. "If Spock obeyed orders, the Enterprise is long since gone. If Spock couldn't obey, the ship's finished."

"So are we, it looks like," David said.

Carol stood up. "Jim," she said, "I don't understand. Why did this happen? Who's responsible for it? Who is Khan?"

"It's a long story, Carol."

"We've got plenty of time," David said angrily.

"You and your daddy," McCoy said, "can catch each other up on things."

"Maybe he is my biological father," David said. "But he sure as hell is not my 'daddy.' Jedda's dead because of him-"

"Because of you, boy!" McCoy snapped. "Because you tried to rush a phaser set on kill. And it isn't one dead, it's two, in case you've lost count."

"It's more than that, Doctor," Carol said. "In case you've lost count. Most of them were our friends. Jim, I think you owe us at least the courtesy of an explanation."

Kirk looked at Buffy, Dawn and McCoy, the only people who knew the whole truth of what happened fifteen years before. He looked back at Carol as he decided it was time to reveal the truth. "I'll trade you," he said.

Carol closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out very slowly. "Yes," she said. "You're right. Commander Summers, Jim, Dr. McCoy... we may be down here for a while-"

"We may be down here forever," McCoy said sourly.

"- so, can we please call a truce?" Carol asked.

"I just watched an old friend commit suicide!" McCoy said. "I stood by and I let him do it!" He turned away. "You'll have to forgive-" anger and grief cut through the sarcasm; his voice broke, "- my bad humor..."

"No, your grief," said Buffy. "Dawn and I can feel it. Just as we can feel it from Carol and David for their friends. Everyone here right now is grieving for someone."

"Yes," McCoy said slowly. "Of course. I'm sorry."

When McCoy had composed himself, he returned to the group. They sat in a small circle, and Jim tried to explain.

Carol wished he could give her some reason to hope, but when Jim finished, the implications of Genesis in the hands of Khan left her only despair.

"Is there anything to eat down here?" Jim said suddenly. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm starved."

"How can you think of food at a time like this?" McCoy said.

"Well for anyone who isn't Buffy and Dawn, the first order of business is survival," Kirk said.

"Hunger is still a problem for us as well," said Buffy. "Just because we can't die doesn't mean something bad won't happen. For us I expect we would slip into a coma if we didn't eat. Then we would be constantly bombarded by the emotions of everyone around us."

"There's plenty of food in the Genesis cave," Carol said absently. She shook her head in surprise at herself- she should have led them all there long ago, instead of staying in these cold and ugly chambers. She got up. "There's enough to last a lifetime, if it comes to that."

"We thought this was Genesis!" McCoy said.

Carol looked around her, at the dark rough caves piled messily with equipment and records and personal gear. "This? No, this isn't Genesis. David-will you show Commander Summers, Dr. McCoy and Lieutenant Saavik our idea of food?"

"Mother- there's a lunatic out there with the torpedo, and you want me to give a guided tour?"

"Yes."

"But we've got to- We can't just do nothing!"

"Yes, we can," Jim said. He casually removed a bit of equipment from his belt pouch and unfolded it. It was not till he fitted its lenses in front of his eyes that Carol recognized a pair of reading glasses- one of her professors in graduate school had worn the same things: apparently, as far as Carol had ever been able to tell, to enhance his reputation as an eccentric. Jim Kirk wearing glasses?

He looked at his chronometer, took the glasses off again, and put them away.

"Is there really some food down here?" he said.

David scowled.

"David, please," Carol said.

He glared at Kirk. "Keep the underlings busy, huh?" He shrugged. "What the hell." He gestured abruptly to Saavik and McCoy. "Come on."

Saavik hesitated. "Admiral-?"

"As your teacher Mr. Spock is fond of saying: No event is devoid of possibilities."

"Doc," said Buffy. "Bring us something back." McCoy looked back at Buffy and saw that she cradled Dawn's head in her lap while Dawn lay sleeping.

"Okay," he said as he followed David out of the cavern. Saavik stood gazing at the floor in thought, then abruptly turned and left with them.

Carol glanced over at Buffy, who had closed her eyes in attempt to maybe sleep or at least rest. She then looked back at Kirk as she sat on her heels next to him. "Sisters or married?" she asked.

"Kind of both. But in the here and now… Married, I actually married them myself," said Jim as he glanced at Buffy and Dawn. "They mean the world to each other. They've been through so much over the last two hundred plus years." He saw Carol look at him quizzically. "Officially I can't tell you as their files are classified at the highest levels of Starfleet. But I doubt your going to tell anyone, as their story is almost unbelievable. I was hesitant to believe it myself at first but I realized it had to be true otherwise Starfleet wouldn't have classified their files. They are what are called Millennials. They are supposed to live for a thousand years feeling the weight of Earth's emotions. They leave Earth on occasion when it gets to be too much for them, that's how I met them. They came onboard the Enterprise over fifteen years ago. Buffy was assigned as my first officer when I first took command from Commodore Pike over my own recommendation of Gary. They were born to be sisters. But their love over the centuries has grown beyond that."

"Their life must be pretty lonely," said Carol. "Watching everyone they know grow older and die while they remain the same."

"I think you're right," said Jim. "I think that was why they fell in love with each other. To ease that loneliness." He looked at Carol and decided to bring their conversation to David. "Why didn't you tell me about David?"

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Buffy opened her eyes and saw she was alone with Dawn, who she saw was sleeping peacefully. She got up to see where everyone had gone to. She followed the sound of voices toward the Genesis cave.

The overhead light-plates ended, and she proceeded into darkness. She slid a hand along the cave wall to guide her. She soon realized that it was not as completely dark as it should have been, underground and without artificial illumination. She could see reflected light on the cave wall.

The light grew brighter. Buffy found herself walking into a very bright cave with a glow that was that of a star very like the Sun. As the light intensified, as its quality grew clearer and purer, she found herself running. She plunged from the mouth of the cave and stopped. She gasped.

"Dawn," she whispered to herself. "I wish you were awake to see this."

A forest stretched into the distance, filling the shell of the lifeless planetoid that had been Regulus I. It was the most beautiful place she had ever seen, a storybook forest from children's tales. The gnarled trees showed immense age and mystery. The grass in the meadow at the foot of the cliff was as smooth and soft as green velvet, sprinkled with wildflowers of delicate blue and violent orange. Where the shadow of the forest began, Jim half expected to glimpse a flash of white, a unicorn fleeing his gaze.

She spotted McCoy, Kirk, Savvik, Carol and David ahead of her. "Doc," she called out. "Care to help me move Dawn in here?"

McCoy looked around nodded in understanding. This would be more comfortable. They left and within minutes they brought back Dawn on an improvised litter.

They made the climb down the cliff with some difficulty, but arrived safely in the meadow below. Buffy made a bed for her and Dawn and she laid down curled up next to her wife.

"That's what I call a meal," Kirk said sometime later.

"This is like the Garden of Eden," McCoy said with wonder.

"Only here, every apple comes from the tree of knowledge," Carol said; then added, "with all the risk that implies." She leaned forward and put a bright red flower behind Kirk's ear. He tried to stop her, but not very hard, and finally submitted.

"Jim," said Buffy, her eyes closed. "You might talk to Savvik. I can feel she has questions for you."

Kirk motioned for Savvik to join him and Carol. "What's on your mind, Lieutenant?"

"The Kobayashi Maru, sir," Savvik said.

"What's that?" David asked.

Dr. McCoy explained. "It's a training simulation. A no-win scenario that tests the philosophy of a commander facing death."

"Are you asking me if we're playing out the same story now, Lieutenant?" Jim asked.

"What did you do on the test, Admiral?" Saavik asked. "I would very much like to know."

Dr. McCoy chuckled. "Lieutenant, you're lookin' at the only Starfleet cadet to ever to beat that simulation."

"I almost got myself tossed out of the Academy, too," Jim said. He thought about the time, took out his glasses, and looked at his chronometer again. Not quite yet.

"How did you beat it?"

"I reprogrammed the simulation so I could save the ship."

"What?"

Jim felt rather amused to have startled Saavik so thoroughly.

"I changed the conditions of the test." He smiled. "The instructor couldn't decide whether to die laughing or blow her stack. I think she finally flipped a coin. I received a commendation for original thinking." With a smile, he shrugged. "I don't like to lose."

"Then you evaded the purpose of the simulation: you never faced death."

"Well, I took the test twice before I decided to do something about it, so I suppose you could say I faced death. I just never had to accept it."

"Until now."

"Saavik, with the exception of Buffy and Dawn, we each face death every day we're alive. And how we face death is just as important as how we face life."

Now it was time. He picked up his communicator and opened it.

"Kirk to Enterprise. Come in, Mr. Spock."

"Enterprise to Kirk, Spock here."

Saavik started violently and leaped to her feet.

"It's two hours, Spock. Are you about ready?"

"On schedule, Admiral. I will compute your coordinates and beam you aboard. Spock out."

Everyone, with the exception of Buffy and Dawn, was staring at him in shock. Kirk shrugged contritely. "I told you," he said. "I don't like to lose."