Part VI: Living
"We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us."
– Joseph Campbell
Stardate 2261.40
"Where were you?" asked a Gorn soldier who was sporting an eyepatch and a broken canine tooth.
"I- I was caring for a patient."
"Do you care for that pup?" He was nodding to Christopher and picking his teeth with some kind of utensil.
Dagny could barely hear him through the blood thumping through her ears. She nodded, unable to get the image of Khel out of her head and only vaguely aware that she'd managed to walk through the clinic doors and was now standing before six Gorn troopers. She looked down at Christopher and it began to dawn on her that this little boy was now an orphan. She wanted to cry.
"Speak when the marshal speaks to you," grumbled one of the soldiers who brought her in.
"Y-yes. I care for him quite a lot."
"My lieutenant is injured. I am told you are a doctor. You will fix him or I will roast that pup of yours over a spit and make you watch as we eat him."
Dagny's knees started to buckle but she managed to stumble forward and ask, "W-where is your l-lieutenant now?"
"In there," he said, pointing to the surgical suite with the stick he'd been using to pick his teeth.
She began to walk toward the suite but one of the officers behind him joked, "You can leave the pup with us."
Dagny shot a wild-eyed glance at Anja, who frowned and said, "I am sure the junior marshal is only trying to frighten you."
The soldiers howled with laughter. Dagny did her best to calmly walk through the door of the surgical suite, but she was frantic to put as much distance between herself and these killers as possible.
"Give the pup to the Orion," one of the officers called to her. "You do not need the distraction."
Dagny turned on her heel and shuffled Christopher into Anja's arms, doing her best to casually shove the hat down further over his head as she made the transfer. She began to feel dizzy but she turned and walked back toward the surgical suite and when the door shut behind her, she began to hyperventilate.
An unconscious Gorn officer in a red and yellow uniform lay sprawled over the biobed, his face ruptured and bloody. She had seen worse injuries before, but something about the sight of him sent stomach acid surging through her throat and soon she was dry heaving into the waste bin as silent tears raced down her cheeks. Someone kicked the door so hard it left a dent clear through to the other side. Dagny jumped and fell backward.
"This door will remain open!" snarled the voice of the lone female officer.
Dagny wiped her face with her hands and hit the door release, but with the newly dented metal, it refused to fully open. When the Gorn soldier saw Dagny's face and the spittle on her shirt from attempting to vomit, she sneered and muttered, "Weak."
"The door will remain open," called the marshal who had threated to rotisserie Christopher.
"I- it's a sterile room with negative pressure ventilation," she tried to explain. It was true, but that feature was only necessary during surgery and Dagny was hardly qualified to perform neurosurgery on the unconscious lieutenant. All she could hope for now was that his injuries looked a lot worse than they actually were.
"It is to dissuade you from sabotage," replied another soldier sitting in the chair by the computer. His universal translator was slightly out of phase, giving it a weird echoing quality.
"You have already threatened to flay me alive and eat her child if she does not save your lieutenant," Anja said quietly, her eyes locked on Dagny. "I think she has enough incentive to see that he lives."
Dagny gulped. Anja was right: she'd never wanted anyone to live half so badly as she wanted the Gorn on the surgical biobed to live. She gathered any last shred of courage remaining to her and stumbled toward the supply cabinet, grabbing a tricorder, some hyposprays, bone knitter, dermal regenerator, a PADD, and random sedatives and pain killers. When she was back in the suite with the door shut behind her, she took several deep breaths, desperate to hold it together.
Voris wouldn't go to pieces like this. He would be calm and say logical things. He wouldn't have vomit on his shirt or shaking hands.
She approached her patient, hoping against hope that most of the damage was cosmetic. He was enormous even for a Gorn—the biobed was 2.25 meters long, but the top of his head was at the edge of the bed and his feet dangled off the other end. She stretched out her arm and activated the bed's computer, trying to keep as much distance between herself and this hulking unconscious person as possible. 121.4 kilograms?
He had a steady pulse and his breathing was slow but steady. He was alive; that was something. Now what?
She thought of the time Apras brought in her flock of hellions and how Eury, a boy only a fraction of this lieutenant's size, had nearly taken Voris' arm off in a matter of seconds. What would happen to her if he woke up while she was trying to piece his face back together? In an effort to have just a tiny fraction of control over the situation, she referenced the PADD for proper sedatives and dosage for a Gorn of his weight and administered 500 mg of azaprozamine. Then she got to work.
The bones in his skull and along the right side of his face were cracked, which was impressive in a way, considering the incredible density of Gorn bones. It gave her the impression someone had smashed him across the head with a very large, blunt object. It took her nearly an hour to straighten out the mess with a bone knitter and she was just about to turn her attention to making sure he didn't have any other obvious injuries when another dent appeared in the door with an angry thump.
She jumped back, her heart slamming against her ribs.
"What is taking so long?" growled a voice on the other side.
"His injuries are pretty bad," she called back with a shaking voice that sounded more like that of a frightened child than a competent medical professional.
She heard a baby start fussing through the door and froze. Of course Christopher would choose this moment to throw a fit. The tension of the moment was just another thick weight on her already buckling shoulders. When was the last time he'd eaten? Would Anja know to check upstairs for the bottles of Vulcan formula they kept for Safi? Would the Gorn even let her go up there?
She turned back to her patient, desperate to make him well. The dermal regenerator felt heavy in her hand as she began patching up the bruised and split flesh. It was slow going thanks to his thick and scaly skin and she wondered if the Gorn had a dermal regenerator better suited to the task of caring for their own species. Only then did it occur to her how strange this whole situation was.
Why would the Gorn ask her to heal their lieutenant? They hadn't walked here from their own home planet—they must have come on a ship, and any ship that could carry the number of Gorn soldiers currently stomping around the colony would surely have some kind of medical facility. Wouldn't it?
When she was all done doing everything she could, she stood back and made another assessment. His vitals were relatively unchanged and as far as she was concerned, his face was still ugly but at least it was no longer inside out. Now if he would only wake up. She wanted to kick herself for giving him enough azaprozamine to sedate an elephant—he would be out for hours and there was no way to know if it was because of the sedative or the head injury. In any other patient she could make a preliminary determination based on brain waves, but so little was known about Gorn physiology that there was really no way to tell.
If Voris were here, he'd use it as an opportunity to collect data. All Dagny wanted to do was collect Safi and Voris and run for the nearest exit. How could she go back out there and face all those soldiers with no news to report? She felt safe in the surgical suite, but she felt incredibly uneasy too. There was a wall separating her from her captors, but they had Anja and Christopher, not to mention they had the rest of the colony by the throat.
She was working up the courage to go outside and try and spin her efforts to repair their lieutenant with some kind of professional yet upbeat update when the door was ripped halfway open.
"Are you hiding in there, little vole?" called the marshal from the other side of the room.
"No. I was just finishing up. Your lieutenant is resting."
The female soldier came in, unnecessarily body checking Dagny out of the way. Pain ripped through her shoulder as she tumbled into the wall, but she didn't dare cry out. The soldier glared at the biobed's readings, though Dagny got the impression she couldn't understand the words. She leaned over the man's body and began to sniff near his face.
The seconds stretched on clear to eternity but when she was done she stood and called to the marshal, "He is sleeping."
"Good," he called back. "Let's eat."
Dagny's heart sank all the way down to her knees. Eat what? The Gorn weren't exactly famous for their vegetarian lifestyle. When was the last time she'd heard Christopher cry? Surely they were just engaging in some light terrorism when they talked about eating him and besides, if they had killed him and were preparing to sit down to a meal of locally sourced infant, they would have realized he wasn't human and she'd have definitely heard about it. Still, when she turned the corner out of the surgical suite and found Anja sitting on a still by the door with the baby in her arms, it took everything she had not to laugh out loud in immense relief.
Most of the Gorn were huddled around a centrally located exam table, leaning against it or casually draped into chairs. A human woman in her early twenties who looked vaguely familiar stood off to the side, looking as terrified as Dagny felt.
"Get us four more of these tomorrow morning," the marshal barked, and when the woman backed away, Dagny could see what was on the table.
There were four tunnel voles sitting atop two plates. They had been skinned and their brownish-red muscle caught the overhead light in a way that almost made them look like they were glowing. Not for the first time that evening, Dagny wanted to vomit.
"That is all," the marshal said, glowering at the girl.
She uttered a squeak and ran from the clinic. Dagny inched toward Anja, doing her best to hold a conversation about how things were holding up with only a series of facial expressions.
"Is he going to live?" asked Anja's eyes, flicking toward the door of the surgical suite.
Dagny's shoulders shrugged but her eyes looked hopeful as if to say, "I think he should be ok."
Dagny made a motion to take Christopher back, but Anja shook her head and mouthed, "He's sleeping." As bad as she felt for burdening her with possession of a half-Romulan baby, there was no sense in waking him and running the risk of him crying and drawing attention.
"Join us!" called the marshal.
Dagny turned her horrified face to the table where the six Gorn soldiers were currently devouring the tunnel voles. She was already doing everything in her power to avoid looking directly at them and to block out the sights and sounds of the Gorn's razor sharp teeth tearing the flesh away from the rodents' bodies.
They had already wasted a few precious seconds being disgusted and terrified by the proposition and Dagny could tell it wouldn't bode well for them if they had to be told a second time, so she crossed her arms tightly around her body and shuffled toward the table. The Gorn rearranged themselves and fetched two more of the chairs from the waiting area and soon Anja and Dagny were sitting across from the marshal. His one good eye was trained carefully on Dagny, which set the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck standing up. What was the point of this exercise? Wasn't it obvious she was terrified enough?
"Are you hungry?" The marshal smiled.
In truth, she was literally starving, but there was no way she would be able to stomach a meal of raw tunnel vole. "No, thank you."
His gaze slowly shifted to Anja and he asked, "Did you like our little display at the tunnel entrance?"
Anja's jaw tightened. "No."
Dagny balled her hands into fists to keep them from shaking. She wanted to be brave and defiant like Anja but she had too much to lose. Awkward silence settled over the table for several seconds until the marshal burst into raucous laughter. Meat particles flew from his mouth, some of which hit Dagny in the face.
"What can we do to change your opinion? Add a few more Klingons?"
"The Klingons here were no longer with the Empire. Neither were the Romulans with the Romulan Star Empire. These people were not your enemy. It was not necessary to kill them and maim their bodies."
The marshal's eye swiveled around the gathering as tense silence settled over the room. Suddenly he smashed his fist on the table, rattling the dishes and leaving a small dent in the stainless steel surface.
"Do you know what the Klingons have done to us? They have raided our moons for centuries, enslaving and terrorizing my people! And you say I should show them mercy! Where was mercy for the inhabitants of Zalalh?"
"I cannot speak for what happened at Zalalh," Anja said patiently. "I can only speak for these people, and I can assure you none of them were perpetrators tof a massacre that happened nearly ninety standard years ago."
While Dagny was impressed with Anja's cool demeanor, surprising knowledge about Gorn-Klingon relations, and apparent utter lack of fear, she wished she would keep it to herself while Christopher was still nestled in her arms. It seemed like any moment the marshal would fly over the table and snap the Orion's neck like a twig. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, picked up the skeleton of one of the voles, and began to nibble at the bits of meat left on the carcass.
"You are not like most Orions I know," the marshal said, sizing her up as he tossed the vole skeleton over his shoulder.
"Thank you," Anja replied.
The Gorn found that hilarious and soon the clinic was echoing with the awful breathy, hissing sound of their laughter. It ceased only when another Gorn officer, dressed similarly to the marshal, entered the clinic.
They said something in a strange language that Dagny couldn't understand, which prompted the marshal with the eyepatch to disengage his universal translator and say something in return in his native language. Soon all the Gorn soldiers in the clinic stood up and filed outside.
Dagny started to give Anja a confused look, but Anja clutched her forearm and said, "Go upstairs and get me all the infant formula and food you can spare."
"Why?"
"It's for Voris and your daughter. Go."
Dagny nearly tripped several times trying to race up the stairs and when she got to the preserver, she tossed the eight bottles of replicated Vulcan breastmilk and roughly half the vegetables into a bag. When she made it back downstairs, she found Anja talking to a wide-eyed Zernon.
"What's going on?" she asked.
Anja snapped her fingers. "Get me medicine. Anything you can spare."
She was about to ask what kind of medicine, but then she decided there was no point: anything suitable for Klingons or Vulcanoid species would probably do. She suddenly thought of Safi. Even if she were being a perfect angel—which Dagny doubted, considering she probably hadn't eaten in many hours—she would eventually start crying. It almost seemed cruel to sedate a baby, but it was better than letting the Gorn find her.
She opened up Voris' medical bag and stuffed the bag of food into it, then tossed in a hypospray and anything she thought might be useful to a population of people trying to hide directly under the nose of an invading army. Sedatives for babies and small children, milder sleep aids for adults, cough suppressants, antihistamines, medicines for diarrhea and migraines and anxiety.
"Are you taking this to Voris?" Dagny said, handing the bag to Anja, who turned around and handed it to Zernon.
"Not only Voris," she answered darkly. "We have people hidden all over the colony."
"So Voris and Safi are safe?"
"For now, yes."
"Is there any way you can smuggle Christopher into hiding too?"
Anja paused, then shook her head. "The Gorn already know he's here. If he suddenly went missing, it would only arouse suspicion."
"How much longer do you think I can keep up this charade?" Dagny rebutted. "Days? Hours? If they find him they'll kill him and probably me too. If you can get him into hiding, at least he'll be safer than he is here."
"But what will he eat?" Zernon asked, sneaking a look at Anja. "We can't hide people in the tunnels for months."
"Especially not babies," Dagny added, thinking that she and Voris were barely keeping Safi fed as it was.
"It's not going to come to that. The Federation-"
The sound of the door opening stalled Anja's sentence. Two new Gorn soldiers appeared in the clinic, smaller and younger-looking than the others had been but still definitely large and intimidating. The shorter one was average in every way, but the taller of the two was unlike any Gorn she'd ever seen, not that she'd seen all that many. His eyes were a shade of glowing scarlet and his skin was very nearly tar-black.
"What is the swine doing here?" the shorter one asked, crossing the clinic in several swooping strides and striking Zernon hard in the chest with the butt of his phaser rifle.
It seemed impossible that Zernon could take such a blow and remain largely silent, but he slumped to his knees, his eyes transfixed on the ground. In what might easily be described as the most reckless thing she'd ever done, Dagny pounced into the space between Zernon and the barrel of the soldier's rifle.
"We were told there were only two women and a pup here," said the soldier with the red eyes as he approached the scene.
"He came to get medicine," she blurted, her voice loud but oddly calm.
"This area is off-limits."
"We were not informed," said Anja.
"It should have been evident," the red-eyed Gorn growled. "Our lieutenant is here."
"It won't happen again," Dagny breathed. She was desperate to turn around and see if Zernon was ok. "He'll leave without any trouble."
His red eyes narrowed, making him look even more terrifying. Despite the slow curl of his lip, he gave a single nod of his head in the direction of the door and said, "Go."
The shorter Gorn soldier finally lowered his rifle and Dagny stepped aside to help Zernon to his feet. He was shaking, but so was she. He started for the door and Dagny slipped the medical bag into his hands as casually as she could. Unfortunately, her actions didn't go unnoticed.
"Stop!"
They both froze.
"Open the bag," the smaller trooper ordered, lifting his rifle again.
Zernon set it on the ground and pulled the top open, letting the sides slide open along the floor. The red-eyed Gorn sniffed the air as he scanned the bag's contents. He plucked one of the bottles of formula from among the vials of medications and turned to Zernon. They had been caught. They were going to kill both of them, she was certain.
"This is for you?"
Silence punctuated the tension. It took her a few seconds to register that the soldier didn't seem to know what the baby bottle was, but then it occurred to her that Gorn didn't nurse their young. Dagny would have laughed if there weren't weapons trained in her direction. Rather than let Zernon's fear betray them, Dagny quickly answered, "Yes, it is."
"This is a lot of medicine. You must be very sick."
Zernon gave a tiny nod. "Yes. But Dagny is a very good doctor. I am getting better."
"Then take your medication now," the soldier replied. "If it is really all for you."
"He can't take it all at one time," Dagny interjected. "That's meant to last him for several months."
The soldier shoved the bottle into Zernon's hand without ever taking his eyes off Dagny. "He can take some now."
Zernon swallowed hard and without a moment's hesitation, stuck the nipple of the bottle in his mouth and began to drink. It was just one more thing that would have been hilarious under any other set of circumstances.
"Zernon, remember the dosage?" she said nervously, desperate to not only stop this cruel performance but also to keep Zernon from consuming food that her baby needed.
He yanked the bottle away from his mouth and began to retch. The soldiers sneered.
"See, he's really very sick," Dagny's weak voice insisted. She gave Zernon the most apologetic look she could muster.
"Go," the red-eyed soldier said, waving his hand. "Get out of here."
Zernon tossed the bottle into the bag and scurried out of the clinic in record time. Dagny breathed a little easier for about three seconds, until the red-eyed soldier turned to Anja and said, "You are to report to the captain."
"Did he say why?"
The red-eyed soldier took a menacing step in her direction. "You will do as you are told, Orion."
Anja gave a small smile and deferential nod before turning Christopher over to Dagny. No words passed between the two women, but it was clear Anja's eyes implored Dagny to stay calm and Dagny's gaze urged Anja to stay safe. The soft thud of the clinic door behind Anja moments later left Dagny feeling like a wild animal caught in a cage with two predators.
The Gorn soldiers took two of the seats that had been occupied by their counterparts only minutes earlier and proceeded to sit in stony silence. Was she free to go upstairs or were they expecting her to join them? Were they here to guard her, or to sit with their lieutenant and report to their superiors when he regained consciousness? If he regained consciousness.
"I'm going to go check on your officer," Dagny muttered, nodding toward the surgical suite.
The red-eyed Gorn shot her a lazy, disinterested look. "Go then."
She found the gargantuan lieutenant much the same as she'd left him, out cold on a biobed made for a much smaller patient. She paced around the suite, rubbing Christopher's back and trying to make sense of these past hours. When Christopher started to squirm in her arms, she tried to breastfeed him but he wasn't interested in feeding. Soon he was pawing at the doll's hat, his uncoordinated arms trying in vain to remove the annoying garment from his head. Less than a minute later, he was shrieking at the top of his lungs. When the red-eyed Gorn suggested she "silence her disruptive pup," Dagny found herself forced to sedate him to avoid drawing any more attention, though it took a lot of effort to avoid saying, "You think he's unruly? Have you ever seen the way Gorn children behave?"
Eventually she synced one of the PADDs to the surgical biobed to alert her to a change in the lieutenant's vitals and settled down in one of the beds in the convalescent ward. She set Christopher in one of the portable children's cots they kept in the closet and hung the canopy over it, which had the two-fold benefit of blocking out the light and shielding him from view, just in case the hat came off his head while he slept, not that she really expected the soldiers to check in on them.
Her new jailers could hardly be classified as friendly, but neither were they like the terrorists who had relished in intimidating her and Anja just hours earlier. As long as Dagny communicated to them what she intended to do before she did it, they mostly let her go about her business without any hassle. Still, she gave herself constant reminders to not get too comfortable around them.
Despite her deep exhaustion, sleep eluded her. How was she supposed to sleep without knowing where her baby was? How could she sleep when she needed protect Christopher and keep an eye on the Gorn soldiers posted in the clinic? How was anyone supposed to sleep knowing the bodies of their friends and neighbors were hanging in the tunnel entrance because hostile soldiers had occupied the colony?
She closed her eyes and tried breathing slowly. Voris had always made mediating look so easy. What she wouldn't give to have his warm body pressed against hers, his hands resting on her face as their minds melded, his patient voice telling her everything would be ok.
"Dagny?"
She twitched. "Voris?"
His voice sounded so far away. Her eyelids flickered. Was she awake or asleep? Perhaps she caught in that in between stage when she was conscious enough to direct her dreams but not so conscious that she could open her eyes.
"Dagny, this isn't a dream, listen to me."
She was unexpectedly standing and whirled around, wondering how she had come to be standing in a pitch black room. She spun around again and suddenly, Voris appeared out of the darkness.
"Dagny, please listen."
"Voris? Where are we?"
"In your mind."
"So this is a dream?"
"No. You are asleep but our thoughts are connected, much as they are when we meld. I have tried to reach your mind for hours, but you were too preoccupied with fear for me to be able to make contact."
"How is this possible? I thought we had to touch-"
"The details are unimportant at the moment. I need you to know-"
He winced. His eyelids fluttered and a shudder rippled through his body. He was hurting and in some vague, unspecified way, his pain was her pain.
"Voris, are you hurt?"
"No," he gasped. "Communicating this way is very taxing. I need you to know that Safi and I are safe."
"Anja told me," Dagny replied, trying to keep from crying. "Zernon was going to take you food and medicine. Oh Voris, where are you?"
"I cannot tell you that. In the event the Gorn should become suspicious that you have information about my whereabouts-" He choked and began trembling.
"I understand," she breathed, racing toward him. With every step she took, he seemed to move a step further away. "Please stay safe. Keep Safi safe."
"I will do that," he replied with a ragged voice.
"Did you get the food and medicine?"
"No."
"I don't understand! I gave it to Zernon hours ago."
"I am certain he will deliver it when it is safe for him to do so. Did you send formula for Safi?"
"Everything we had but it was only enough for maybe a day and a half," Dagny said bitterly. "I don't know how long it will be before I can get more to you. How-"
"The Federation is coming," he blurted. His breathing was becoming labored now.
"What?"
His image began to fade and Dagny broke into a sprint in his direction. He called out, "A Federation starship is due to arrive in less than seventy-two hours. If we can endure until then…"
Then he was gone and Dagny found herself lost in a swell of deep sleep.
A hard slap startled him back into consciousness, but his mind was hazy and unfocused. Kor'la stood over him with a grim smirk on her face. He had been talking to Dagny, but apparently he'd also been talking aloud.
"Doctor's losing his mind," grumbled a Romulan man named Aen from behind Kor'la's massive frame.
Voris blinked several times and scanned along the wall of the dimly lit cave. Flames from a handful of candles cast an eerie glow on the ragged rocks of the narrow cavern. His head was pounding, but he didn't care. He'd finally managed to communicate with Dagny. He hadn't even been certain it was possible—she was human and they didn't share a formal bond.
"Are you alright, doctor?" asked the Rigelian woman.
He took a deep breath and replied, "Yes. I am quite well."
"You were talking in your sleep," Nhael sighed. As she spoke, she stroked the hair of her son Rh'aen, who was sleeping with his head in her lap. Rh'ael was curled up beside his brother. Maera and Malen had inched toward Voris in these past hours and now were tucked up against him and snoring loudly.
Voris looked down at the baby in his arms, hopeful that the food Dagny had spoken of would make its way to them soon. Placating Safi by bonding with her would only last for so long before her hunger would make her inconsolable.
Even for Voris the minutes passed by like hours when there was so much to be concerned about and so little to do. Several people tried to pass the time by telling stories, but of the two dozen people huddled in the cramped space, none turned out to have a knack for storytelling. Perhaps it had more to do with everyone being too nervous to speak above a whisper, even though they were far enough back into the cave that it would have been impossible for someone in the main tunnel to hear.
Voris' arms were growing stiff but Maera was resting her head on his lower thigh and he didn't want to disturb her, so he did his best to ignore his discomfort and focus on getting rest. He was just drifting off to sleep when he was riveted back awake by the sounds of excited chatter reverberating through the group.
Mike Yates had arrived with Zernon and immediately both men were inundated with questions about the state of the colony beyond their hiding place. Even Rh'aen and Rh'aev, who had once thrown rocks at Mr. Yates and insisted that not only was he defective but also that he should be culled from the population, seemed relieved to see the gentle transporter operator.
Mike and Zernon came bearing gifts of food, water, blankets, and two buckets designed to be turned into makeshift toilets, all of which were very welcome but grossly insufficient for the number of people needing such things. Voris was quite pleased when Zernon delivered his medical bag, which had been packed full of a wide variety of useful supplies. Most importantly, it contained the copper-fortified formula that Safi needed. Unfortunately, there were no sanitary diapers, but Zernon had packed a pile of clean rags that could be retrofitted for the purpose.
"I know things aren't going well for you right now doctor, but since I'm here and you are a doctor, could I impose on you to look at my chest?" Zernon asked.
"I am here to serve," he replied. "What's wrong with your chest?"
"One of the Gorn hit me with his phaser while I was in the clinic. I think something may be broken."
He lifted his shirt, revealing a purplish brown bruise staining the center of his chest. As Voris got to work with the bone knitter Dagny must have packed, he took the liberty of asking, "How is Dagny faring?"
"About as good as can be expected," he replied, a soft squeal punctuating his sigh. "The Gorn have her working in the clinic, looking after one of their injured officers. I don't know how it happened, but she has Khel's baby."
Voris gave a grim bow of his head. It had not escaped his notice that Khel was not among those hiding in the cavern. Zernon almost seemed to sense what he was thinking because he added in a soft, sorrowful voice, "They killed Khel. They strung her up. Her and several others. It's supposed to be some kind of warning. It's savagery is what it is."
Nhael's scream interrupted what he was about to say next. Voris looked over to see her punching Mike Yates and screaming, "He isn't dead! He isn't! You're a liar! You can't even talk!"
Cries and demands for her to quiet down began to ring out from the anxious assembly, but Nhael only grew more violent. Rh'aen stood next to his mother, shaking his head in disbelief while his brother had slumped down onto the floor and was now crying silent tears. Maera was trying to hug him, but he pushed her away.
"Nhael, please, you're frightening the children," the Rigelian woman begged.
"My children's father is dead," she wailed.
"And none of us wish to join him so kindly shut up," Aen said.
Before her hysteria could descend into violence, Voris handed Safi to Zernon, covered the distance between Nhael and himself in a matter of seconds, and subdued her with a nerve pinch. Relief oozed from each and every person present as her cries were instantly silenced and she slumped into Voris' arms.
He had never liked Nhael, but he pitied her now. He knew what it was to lose a mate. He thought of Dagny and suppressed the feeling that always resulted in the physical tightening of his chest. Even if she was not truly his mate in any formal sense, he did not ever wish to know the pain of such loss again.
Soon Mike Yates and Zernon left and the cavern was once again filled with quiet tension and the disjointed chorus of too many people trying to be perfectly silent but nevertheless perpetrating the occasional cough or sneeze or splash upon using the toilet.
He administered a sedative to Nhael to help her sleep, checked on her sons, and then made up a makeshift bed for Maera and Malen as he fed Safi one of the bottles. When Safi had eaten her fill, he changed her sanitary diaper and took up a position between Maera and Malen since Nhael wasn't currently in a position to care for them.
By now, the Enterprise would be due to arrive in approximately three days. He grimly surveyed the scene before him. Three days was nothing, but it was also a lifetime.
Dagny looked down at Christopher's round, pudgy face as he suckled on her breast. She wanted her own baby back, but after three days of caring for this little one, it almost felt as if he were as much hers as Safi was. It was early morning and she'd barely slept the night before, but sleep was an animal she wouldn't recognize even if it bit her.
She wouldn't say any of this was normal, but she was getting used to it. Three whole days had passed since the Gorn had arrived. After that first bloody night, no one else had been killed or executed, so that was something, or so she tried to tell herself. Apparently the bodies of the murdered Klingon and Romulan colonists were still hanging by the stairs, but Dagny didn't need to confirm this for herself. She hadn't left the clinic since the night she'd been summoned to treat the lieutenant with the head injury.
Fortunately, he had woken up yesterday and was no longer taking up space on the surgical biobed and now that he was gone, the Gorn apparently hadn't seen any need to post guards in the clinic. Yesterday a handful of brave colonists had visited the clinic for medical care. Each one had asked after Voris, but rather than make any statement that he was ok, she just put on her best concerned face and said she didn't know what had happened to him.
Perhaps she was being paranoid but she couldn't bring herself to trust anyone enough to tell them that he was being hidden somewhere in the colony. No food had been distributed since the Gorn's arrival and people were getting to the stage of hunger where some of them would willingly sell out their friends and neighbors if they thought it would earn them some favor with their new military government. Not that the Gorn were showing anyone much favor, from what Dagny could tell.
The dilithium mines were once again running at all hours of the day, fueled by the work of forced labor. Dagny suspected the mines were the real reason the Gorn had eased up on killing the colonists—the dilithium wasn't going to mine itself. She set Christopher down in Safi's crib and stretched her arms above her head. The clock on the wall read 0419 hours but time no longer felt relevant. She hadn't even bothered to open the clinic for its regularly scheduled hours yesterday, but no one had complained because no one had come until after 1300 hours.
She slumped onto the edge of her bed and cradled her face in her hands. Voris had said the Federation was coming and that they would be here in seventy-two hours. Hadn't it been that long already? If not, it was getting awfully close. What would happen once they got here? A negotiation? A bloody battle? Maybe it would be smart to get the clinic prepared to receive a lot of casualties, or maybe it would be pointless. She was only one person and she wasn't even a real doctor.
Her anxious self-pity was interrupted by an alarm that caused her to leap to her feet. Christopher began squalling and she moved to comfort him, but nothing she could do could silence the shrill cry of the emergency system. What fresh hell did the alarm herald? After ten minutes with no respite, she gave him a sedative and laid him back in the crib, fearful that the alarm might mean there was some kind of disaster underway and she would soon be needed downstairs. The sedative was better than trying to comfort him while she was up to her elbows in blood and guts, but still she hated herself for it.
She quickly dressed, wandered downstairs, and began prepping medical supplies until several minutes later when the clinic door sprang open. "Everyone out!" screamed a Gorn trooper.
Habit made her want to rush upstairs and grab Christopher, but instinct gave her pause. If something happened to her in the tunnel, Christopher would be left all alone in her quarters for hours or even days until someone thought to visit the clinic but then again, if something happened to her in the tunnel, having Christopher in her arms would be dangerous for both of them. She chose the least awful of the two options and shuffled into the massive crowd forming in the main tunnel without the baby.
It was the pre-dawn hours and the stench of body odor and halitosis weighed heavy in the air. Crying children, hushed murmurs, and the random bludgeoning of colonists who inadvertently blocked the path for the Gorn soldiers to move freely only added to the dread rapidly filling the scene. Suddenly, the energy of the crowd instantly died and she could hear a voice far down at the end of the tunnel shout, "I will have silence or I will start killing you."
She bit her lip and shrank into the crowd, desperate to remain as anonymous as possible. Unfortunately, she was in the second row of people standing near a large, central clearing. She was so exposed. Large figures in the red and gold Gorn uniforms strutted in her direction. They had to be at least a hundred meters away still, but that wasn't far enough as far as she was concerned.
During another quick look around the massive crowd of colonists, she caught sight of a face she'd assumed she would never see again. Nicolas was standing with the group on the opposite side of the tunnel, clearly trying to look inconspicuous, which had the curious effect of making him more noticeable. He must have sensed her watching, because their eyes met.
"Don't," Dagny mouthed. "Whatever you're planning, don't."
"Thirty minutes ago, our captain disappeared," bellowed a Gorn soldier. Dagny turned to look at the speaker and was repulsed to see the lieutenant she'd treated several days earlier. "He evaporated into thin air, or should I say, matter stream."
Dagny tried to turn her attention back to Nicloas, but he'd already melted back into the crowd. Something bad was coming. She knew it in her bones.
"I was informed transporter capability was non-existent in these tunnels, due to the high levels of gallicite," the lieutenant continued. "It appears I have been lied to. I do not take kindly to falsehoods."
Where the hell was Nicolas?
"It has come to my attention that there are people on this colony hiding Romulans and Klingons," the lieutenant droned on. Time seemed to stop as the words flowed from his mouth. Somehow Dagny no longer cared where Ann's reckless, revolutionary teenage son had scurried off to or what he was planning to do.
"I believe I have made the penalty for hiding fugitives very clear. Do you really wish to trade your lives for these Klingon and Romulan vermin?"
Without any warning, he whipped a hand phaser off his utility belt and shot an Andorian woman in the chest, vaporizing her instantly. She had been standing only about ten people away from Dagny. This shocking act was met with a flutter of outraged cries, but no one did anything. Why wasn't anyone doing something?
"I will execute as many people as necessary until someone is wise enough to confess." He lifted his phaser again, but before he could take aim, a desperate scream rang out from further down the main tunnel.
"Silence that," he shouted to his subordinates.
"Sir, we have apprehended a Romulan," one of them cried.
Two Gorn troops, one of them the fearsome red-eyed soldier from the other night, were dragging a woman by her hair. When they unceremoniously deposited her at the lieutenant's feet, Dagny saw that she wasn't Romulan at all.
Vaksur looked up at the enormous officer with terrified eyes. A stream of green blood oozed from her mouth and nose and she muttered incoherent strings of words that were obviously intended to be a plea for her life. And still, no one did anything.
"She's not Romulan!" shouted a panicked voice. "She's not- she's Vulcan."
The lieutenant turned and the shift in his massive bulk was just enough for Dagny to get a good look at who was speaking. Pearson. Of course. The Gorn officer backhanded Pearson across his jaw, landing his knuckles with such force that it certainly must have broken something. Pearson squealed but refused to relent.
"Please, she's innocent."
"I'm not interested in talking," the lieutenant said, training his phaser on Vaksur.
"I'll tell you where the real Romulans are!" Pearson shouted. "Just don't hurt her."
The crowd began to murmur again. Dagny's ears buzzed. A tiny voice inside her begged her to take action, to step in or step up, but before she could snap out of her shock-induced paralysis, Pearson was already saying, "There's at least twenty of them holed up in a side tunnel by the main stairs. It goes about three hundred meters back!"
The lieutenant cocked his head and stroked his chin with his free hand. "Thank you."
Then he did was he was always going to do. He turned his phaser on Vaksur and shot her in the head, scattering the molecules of her body into invisible nonsense. Pearson howled like a wounded animal and charged at him, but was felled just as quickly. He had sold out his friends, dozens of innocent people, some of them children, for a lover who had been doomed from the second the Gorn had found her.
"Investigate the tunnel he spoke of," the lieutenant said, nodding to the two soldiers who had delivered Vaksur.
An unanticipated scream ripped from Dagny's mouth, metamorphosing from anguish into a battle cry. All the rage pent up from the injustices of the past days collapsed like a supernova and without any warning, she was half-running, half flying through the air. A warm spray of hypercharged molecules tore through her body, and then she was gone.
Her last thought was of Voris and Safi. No matter how this ended, they would all be together soon.
"You've finished your evening checks?" drawled a masculine voice. It was muddled and sounded far away.
"Yes, finally." The voice that answered was soft and feminine and harbored a touch of sadness. "It's been a long time since we had this many."
"Then why don't you run along and get some supper?" the man replied.
"You have everything handled here?"
"I think I can manage."
Was this a dream? Was she even asleep? All she knew was she was terribly thirsty, laying in some kind of bed, and the weight of her own body seemed to be causing her pain. She tried to open her eyes, but they didn't cooperate. It wasn't much longer before she realized she couldn't move. She couldn't even twitch muscles in her arms or legs. Panic set in.
"Miss uh, Ske-jeg-uh-stad, is it? Hold tight."
There was a wooshing sound, followed by a rush of cold air slapping her face. She sucked in a deep breath and opened her eyes, startled to find herself tucked into a biobed and staring up at a smooth metal ceiling. The curious face of a human man with dark hair and a blue tunic came into view.
"Where- what- who- what is this?"
"I know it's easier said than done, ma'am, but try to remain calm. You've been out for quite some time and I know it must be a shock to wake up in a strange place."
"What happened?" Dagny cried. "Where am I? Where's Voris? Safi? Who are you?"
He offered a patient smile. "My name is Dr. Leonard McCoy. You're aboard the starship Enterprise."