Though the detour would take him through a section of space in which communications would temporarily cease, Sarek deduced it to be the most logical course on his return to Vulcan, not experienced enough in navigations to attempt a more direct route when scans picked up subspace turbulence. His ship's computer calculated only a 1.82-hour delay in doing so. He opened a message from the President from the flight control computers after imputing the new route.

"Ambassador Sarek. I have good news for you to take to Vulcan; well, not for the Algeans. The senate agrees with your findings that the initial attacks were from a rebel group and the rest were clean ups from Algea's government. Therefore, they have elected to enforce sanctions and to put in place a blockade for the duration of their internal conflicts. Their homeworld's location was cited as an unacceptable risk for Federation members. Though, as you said, Councilman Exton was in favor of war, we managed to take that off the table entirely. Let Perrin know she's free to go about her business, wouldn't worry about anything further; we'll be sending a copy of actions we'll be taking against Algea within the hour. And thank you again Ambassador Sarek, for your handling of this investigation."

Sarek forwarded the President's report to Kavik, deleting it from his personal files. He set the computer to idle also; the panel screens all reverted to a graphic of the IDIC and the lights in the bridge dimmed as he went to the bedroom and sat on the edge of his bed, bringing Amanda's copy of Alice in Wonderland onto his lap from the nightstand to skim through as he waited to return to Vulcan.

In their years together he had caught words and sentences from it as his wife had read it. Sarek admitted to himself he had not acquired any increased understanding of its illogical contents despite her having read it quite often- 1,456 times he had personally noted. There were portions he found satisfactory, however. He opened up the book towards its latter end rotely.

"I cannot go back to yesterday because I was a different person then." He whispered over the pages. Sarek turned to a few more of Amanda's favorite passages before he set it back wearily to lie down and rest. He never dreamed, but a flittered memory glided into the room, filtered through a haze, though he couldn't discern what it was, just it was human and had a warm smile. It passed and he had no habit of reading into illusions of a tired mind not properly registering visual stimuli; he drifted off.

The computers alerted him that the ship was entered Vulcan space. Sarek rose to a second alert—a hail from the USS Dresden.

"Ambassador Sarek." He replied through the comm system as he went to the bridge for visuals.

"Ambassador; live long and prosper. This is Captain Edwards. Sir, I'm afraid we'll have to escort your ship away from Vulcan for a bit, there is a situation." The man's worried face appeared on the viewscreen as Sarek stepped onto the bridge and took a seat at flight control; his touch brought the controls back online.

"What is the situation?" Sarek asked Edwards.

"An Algean ship stole a Vulcan exploratory vessel three hours ago; the Ferengi have only now informed us. We were told by higher ups to find you when the news was received."

Sarek did not understand this development. "Then Algea does not yet have word of the Senate's conclusions? What is this ship's last known location?" he questioned.

"This all happened before we informed the Algean government. The ship was last seen near 40 Eridani A, heading towards Vulcan space." Captain Edwards explained.

Perrin, Sarek thought.

"Has Perrin Landover been informed?"

"Yes, Vulcan High Command has been alerted, as well as her guards; I'm sending down two teams to assist. Now Ambassador—we need to move. I think they want you dead more than her anyways." About to agree, Sarek saw his ship go to red alert as another vessel dropped from warp, quickly sidling his, opening fire.

"Shields at 60%." The computer announced. The viewscreen went blank—the bridge dimming to emergency lighting—though audio with Edwards continued. Sarek's small vessel was not equipped with weapons.

"Ambassador, move behind our shields!" Ordered Edwards. Phasers from the USS Dresden fired on the smaller attacking ship; ruptures in their hull appeared instantly.

Imputing navigational commands, Sarek noted the stolen ship running parallel to his as he curved around to the stern of the USS Dresden. Attempting to lose the other ship, he engaged the warp engines to cover the distance to allow the USS Dresden a clear shot. But his attacker turned in sharply and disrupted the warp fields before they could stabilize; Sarek would not be able to escape their parallel momentum without warp.

"We need you to move now, we can't fire on them this way!" Screamed someone over the ship's communications; Sarek switched to back to impulse, considering a new course of action, watching his attacker continue to move closer as though their intention was to ram his ship. Shields began to constrict and yield against their encroachment. Sarek left the bridge and ran for the engine room, remembering something Spock had spoken of to him when he first taught Sarek to pilot a starship.

Around the room were numerous screens, each offering control over different functions; he steadied himself in front of the plasma injector's and entered his command code. Ignoring a warning as he unfastened the container that stored the plasma injector, Sarek reached for the device and pushed it slightly to offset it over its housing. As he re-secured the container, an alert followed him back to the bridge.

"Warning, plasma injector malfunction; warp engine overload is possible." It was written out as well across the displays of flight control.

"I am aware." Commented Sarek as he blotted the alert. From the window he could see his attackers still bearing down on his ship. He contacted the USS Dresden.

"I will be dropping shields in 12 seconds. Can you have a transporter locked to me then for immediate beam out?" They acknowledged after a short silence.

Shields dropped; Sarek ran his earlier imputed command.

He was beamed from the bridge as his engines sent out an unstable warp field. It burst over the attacking ship and sent it, with its engines and any other functions made unoperational by the force, drifting away from the USS Dresden and the planet of Vulcan.


Perrin set a few of the photos from the mantle in her father's cottage's living room next to her bed; they propped up her Vulcan Medical College flyer, and a small rectangular space was left to the side for when Sarek returned with the box from her loft. She knotted her hands remembering it. Perrin then moved back to look over the guesthouse, relieved to finally have a space of her own again, complete with the pictures. Her stand next to the wide French doors facing the cottage was covered with sheet music—her mother's copy of Ciaccona that Perrin had been practicing, trying to remember how she'd seen her mother play it in the library before bedtime as a child. And her clothes were neatly folded into the chest at the foot of the bed, her mismatched pajamas folded on top like at her loft in Paris; Perrin had slowly arranged the room to match its layout. She leaned down and prodded her shoes into a straighter line under the bedframe with a slight smile that came and went with the remembrance of why she was there, both her wish and her reality of it.

Nearly forgetting to, she stopped and opened the message on her PADD that Sarek had sent the night before.

She was pleased to see the investigation was over but now that fact made little difference. Lying in bed at dawn earlier, she had sent out a definitive answer to the Palais Garner Orchestra: she was humbled by their consideration but filling in the seat was no longer feasible. Perrin was going to remain on Vulcan and care for her father. After that, she leaned onto the handle of one of the doors as she thought with gaunt certainty that that wouldn't take long, Perrin hoped she could return to medical work.

When the caretaker challenged her over how to handle her father's increasingly severe symptoms, Perrin found herself standing down out of genuine trust; she trusted the other woman to take care of her father. She avoided the caretaker's personal questions when her father fell asleep, but Perrin didn't think she would ever be fully rid her gravitation towards secrecy. She felt like what had held her back for so long was changing since she had started to take care of her father; maybe she could actually return to her life that had been put on hold the day Safik, her last patient, died. Maybe—an image of Sarek flashed in her mind; she held her hand up to her lips and went outside.

Walking back to the house, she went over the coda of Ciaccona again, seeing her mother's bouncing bow backlit by an old lamp on the floor as she did so. But there was something off, she felt. Perrin stopped, listening, and followed around to the front of the house where a group of Starfleet security forces materialized.

"We've sighted her commander." One of the officers spoke to the communicator in his badge. All of them moved forward. The younger officers in the back coughed to cover up their fear-filled faces, which caught Perrin off guard, bring her heart up to her throat. She rushed into the cottage and for her father upstairs sleeping in his room. Slamming the door against the wall with her reckless momentum, Perrin rallied the caretaker, half asleep and confused as Perrin clapped her hands to get her to focus, to carry him into the chair. Perrin fought down her worry and molded it into alertness. The caretaker grabbed her father's legs as Perrin reached behind his shoulders, questioning Perrin as she did so.

"Something's happening, we need to move him." She answered commandingly. Both carried him into his chair across the room—he did not wake; a row of empty sedative hyposprays were on top of the dresser. To keep him straight, Perrin swaddled him in a blanket, tying the ends to the back of the chair. She pointed to the door and the caretaker moved him out. Perrin went back down the stairs to check outside as her father was taken down the lift.

The officers were now in the living room, one meeting her halfway up the stairs.

He shouted to her, "We need to evacuate!"

Three of her guards had joined the officers from their posts outside the guesthouse. Perrin was grabbed by her shoulder and led down to and almost outside, but at the threshold she pushed him away; a spark went flying past the space between them. It hit the mantle and snapped it off the fireplace, splintering it over where Perrin had fell to by the lift; tiny pricks dotted over her arms and face. Perrin looked back at several Algeans heavily armed with phaser rifles moving across the desert. Seeing her, they picked up their pace.

"Commander, they're too close now to beam her out." Said one of the officers, gesturing to Perrin.

"Is that the only way out?" He yelled to her.

"No; I will take her through the kitchen." Said one of her Vulcan guards. A cut on his arm oozed green.

Perrin picked herself up with the wheelchair. The caretaker was paralyzed by the sight of the Algeans and allowed her to move her father towards the kitchen.

Perrin gestured to him. "I will not leave him here." The guard did not argue but fell behind her, firing back at the Algeans as they raced through the kitchen.

None of the Algeans had made it around the cottage though their attack sounded violent and nearing as she pushed her father as quickly away as she could manage. Her guard reached around to grab the back of the chair and add his strength to Perrin's; she moved to the side of the chair to allow him more leverage.

"There!" The guard pointed to a rocky formation that offered plenty of cover. They headed for it, hearing the fight inside increase. But a piece of it followed them and Perrin heard phaser fire approaching closely.

The guard twisted back and fired; he stumbled in place as his attacker crashed into the ground. Two trailing officers tried to provide cover, more Algeans were cutting free from their defenses, but were caught returning fire. Perrin started forward as the guard continued to stumble and his eyes glazed slightly. She could she the wound pouring out green blood that made the ground look as though grass was growing up from where he stood. But she looked down at her father before she could help the guard and red blood pooled down his chest though the spirts were rapidly slowing and then stopped to just what gravity could push out. His eyes were unmoved by Perrin's collapsing in front of the chair, taking in something she wasn't prepared for.

As though she was injured, Perrin felt the wound boring into her own heart.

She shaped that agony into a steading force, to focus her efforts in finding something to do to save him. She scraped at her father's arm, pulling it to her and feeling for a pulse. Nothing. She leaned back his head and seared deeply into his eyes an impression of need for him to be alive, but they were not impressed and revealed nothing. Her agony reared itself now and she began pinching him, looking for a reaction; Perrin pinched all up his arms, his neck, his ankles. She hit the ground in frustration as he stayed lifeless.

She felt a tug; Perrin held onto the frame of the wheelchair as one of the officers who had managed to escape the fighting tried to pull her up.

"No! Please you must not leave him; there could still be time!" she shouted. He wrenched her fingers free and dragged her back towards the desert, shouting into his communicator over Perrin continuing to rebel against him.

"We have her; beam us out now man!"

She thrashed against the sand, keeping an eye on her father's body that had been knocked from the wheelchair by an ensign falling from an attack. She squirmed against the grip of the officer holding her and her perspective of the scene widened as she attempted to get back to her father's body.

Near the cottage, the caretaker had taken one of the fire pokers to disarm the Algeans bearing on her. Another group of officers and the rest of the Vulcan guards hid at the sides of the cottage, holding off another swell of attacks approaching from the front. One officer fell and a Vulcan dragged him into the guesthouse, returning to his position that favored the heaviest phaser fire. The Vulcans were unmoved and faster in pushing back against the Algeans while the officers picked off those who had attempted to circumvent them: running over the roof, breaking through the windows. The desert sand being kicked up in it all added a translucent wall between her and the fighting.

But before she beamed out, Perrin saw the guard that had come with her lying face down, his hand cradling the wound on his abdomen; she remembered the Vulcan heart was located where the human liver was. He was still.

"No." She breathed. They beamed onto the USS Dresden with the silent withdrawal of her control burning away in the glare of the similarities to a day Perrin felt she shouldn't forget but equally now saw she had.