Foul Intent

Cora and Spock looked up as the lift doors opened to allow Kirk inside with them. Their time in Yorktown had been cut short very quickly. She had only just managed to calm herself enough to discuss with Spock about how he felt some more when they had gotten a call to return to the Enterprise, Spock being given more details of the mission as they made their way back. Neither of them were pleased to have to postpone their conversation again, but for the crew to be called back so soon, they both knew it was something truly serious.

"Cor," Kirk greeted with a nod, "Mr. Spock."

"Captain Kirk," Cora returned as Spock went with a simpler, "Captain."

"I was thinking..." Kirk started at the same time that Spock continued saying, "Perhaps there..."

"No, please," Kirk nodded, intending for Spock to speak first.

But he disagreed, "Captain, after you. I insist."

"After this mission, we should uh, we should sit down, all of us," he looked to Cora for that as well, "There's something I need to talk to you both about."

Kirk's gaze drifted to Cora a moment, seeing her looking at him with sorrow, understanding, and knowing. It didn't surprise him, he was aware she'd been feeling something off about him for a while given the looks he would catch her giving him every so often. She probably could sense his…not relief, because it wasn't a true relief he felt after the conversation he'd just had, but something close, like a resignation mixed with bits of relief and also a reluctance and desire for change.

"I, as well, have something to share," Spock offered, pulling Kirk's attention to him, "Something I wish to discuss with you."

"As do I," Cora spoke up too, though both men looked to her for her words, Spock seeming a little confused.

"Is it pertaining to the surprise you mentioned?" Spock asked. She had mentioned she was working on presenting him with a surprise earlier, yet she had made no other mention of it when they had had the chance to talk, granted the topic of conversation did not create much room for word of a surprise.

"More or less."

Spock nodded, not about to pry and taking care to keep from letting his thoughts drift to her thoughts. The mental connection he had to her mind made it easier for him to understand things she sometimes could not verbalize, whether due to being overwhelmed by emotion or not knowing the words to put to her thoughts. There were times she felt she could not or should not speak, and in those cases being able to hear what she thought but didn't say was necessary. It was with a great amount of ease that he could reach out to her mind after three years of being mates. Sometimes he found himself privy to her thoughts without realizing he was actively seeking them. She would often warn him if she had something she wished to keep secret for a time, so he would be more aware and cautious of his thoughts. Now was such a time.

Kirk looked at the two of them a moment, a silence falling between the three of them before he spoke once more, "We make a good team. Right?"

"I believe we do," Spock agreed.

Kirk's smile was bittersweet at those words, though the doors opened just then. Spock gestured for Kirk and Cora to go first, but Kirk shook his head, "Ladies and their mates first," he remarked.

"Many thanks, Captain Kirk," Cora offered as she stepped out, followed by Spock.

"Jim, Cora, it's Jim!" he called back to her as he moved past them to enter the Bridge. Cora and Spock following him as he immediately moved to sit on the command chair, calling out, "Lieutenant Uhura, open a ship-wide channel."

"Yes, Captain," the woman replied, opening the comm..

"Attention," Kirk called out, "Crew of the Enterprise. Our mission is straightforward. Rescue a crew stranded on a planet in uncharted space. Our trajectory will take us through an unstable nebula, one which will disable all communications with Starfleet. We're gonna be on our own. The Enterprise has something no other ship in the fleet has: you. And, as we've come to understand, there is no such thing as the unknown, only the temporarily hidden. Kirk out."

"Cora?" Spock questioned when he noticed that Cora hadn't seemed to be paying attention to what the Captain had been saying, but, instead, staring at another alien that was accompanying them on the Bridge.

As the Commander of the Enterprise, he had been informed of the situation, which meant Cora had been made aware as well. The alien was Kalara, a female who had come to Yorktown in an escape pod begging for help to find her crew which had crashed on a planet found within the nebula. As the Enterprise was the most advanced ship in the vicinity, they had been called upon to assist and help rescue the crew. He had explained this to Cora, she knew there would be a non-crew member on the Bridge, yet the woman was frowning and looking at Kalara with no small amount of confusion.

Cora didn't respond to his call verbally. She reached out to place a hand on his forearm as she moved to step past him, heading for the Captain.

He stiffened at the touch, not from the action, but the small burst of emotion she had transferred to him as she went. Caution. It was a warning, to him, to be on guard. And that instantly set him on edge. There was nothing different about the Bridge besides Kalara and Cora had not reacted with any air of caution after learning about the mission on the way there, until she was in the same room as Kalara. And for Cora to be warning him about her, there was a reason for it.

"May I have a moment of your time, Captain Kirk?" Cora spoke quietly as she approached the chair.

"We're about to enter the Nebula, Cor," Kirk murmured, his gaze fixed on the windows as they began to make their way past the floating rocks and gases.

"Jim."

Kirk looked at her instantly for that, serious at the single word, at his name, coming from her lips. He nodded, getting up and calling out to Sulu and Chekov, "Keep her steady, boys."

Cora let out a breath, following him to a room connected to the Bridge, spotting Spock moving over to Kalara, likely to distract her or keep the woman from trying to listen. He was clever like that.

"What is it, Cor?" Kirk asked as soon as the doors shut.

"She is lying," she stated, looking through a small set of windows on the doors to the alien on the Bridge.

"About what?"

Cora turned to him, "Everything," Kirk grew even more serious and tense at that, "I have felt the fear for my crew, she exudes none of that. She exhibits a fear, but not borne of concern but…" she shook her head, trying to phrase it, "A plan falling apart, of…a fear of failure," she glanced at the alien once more and back to him, "She is eager. She wishes us to reach this planet. She is determined as though…" she tried to place the times she had felt the same emotions as Kalara, either herself or from one of the crew, "As though this is a mission for her as well. And...she is...she does not wish to be here, but not…not here as in going to the planet but here as in the Bridge. There is…something she seeks, something she desires to possess. I know not what, but…do not believe anything she says, Captain Kirk. There is a danger."

Kirk nodded, letting out a breath, "I knew we should have called you in."

He had been called by the Fleet official in charge of Yorktown Base, Paris, to help assess the distressed Kalara. A part of him had thought to call Cora, having gotten so used to having her beside him whenever he or one of the crew faced a non-crew member. They had never been surprised by a trap with Cora there. But he had taken a chance this one time, wanting to give her and Spock some time to themselves. Cora and her abilities, they were nonstop. As Bones had once described it to him, she couldn't NOT feel. She couldn't turn it off, she couldn't block it out, if she wasn't actively using her abilities, she was still feeling the emotions of others. Being confined to the ship, it was small compared to this base. He thought it might be a welcome relief, offer her more space.

He'd taken the risk to not call her, Paris hadn't seemed to think an Empathic was required either. There was no reason to think Kalara was lying.

And thus was the reason Empathics were such an asset.

Kalara had fooled him, fooled Paris, had fooled everyone on the Bridge. But not Cora.

"Does she know?" he looked to her, "That you know?"

Cora glanced out quickly, but Kalara seemed focused on watching the nebula, "I sense no suspicion. Captains are spoken to by their crew at all times. She…I do not believe she knows I am an Empathic."

"If she even knows what those are," Kirk muttered. Hell, HE hadn't known what an Empathic was till he'd been put on trial for sabotaging the Kobayashi Maru simulation and faced her himself. Empathics had only recently been reintroduced in the Fleet, just after the Kelvin. And Kalara bore no Starfleet Insignia, she wasn't part of a crew recognized by the Fleet. There was a chance the woman had no idea of Cora's abilities.

Kirk let out a long breath, "This is a trap."

"That would be the logical conclusion."

"Don't channel Spock right now," he remarked, though there was no bite or command in it. He ran a hand through his hair, "If we go out there and turn back, she'll know we know. And if she's gone through this much trouble to get us moving, there's no way in hell she doesn't have some sort of plan to keep us going."

"I can compel her to sleep," she offered.

Kirk looked out the window at Kalara, at the nebula, and shook his head.

Cora frowned at that, "We are…continuing with the mission?"

He tried to muster a smile, "The first step in avoiding a trap is knowing it exists."

Cora just seemed more confused, "But if you know it is a trap, why go into it?"

"Because if we turn back, they'll try again. Kalara can't be the only one. And the next crew they try it on may not have our resources," even though he put a hand on the wall, implying the ship, he looked to her, meaning her as well, "And they may get hurt. We go into this, knowing something's wrong, maybe we can avoid it. Maybe we can stop whoever Kalara's working with to keep them from trying this with anyone else. You disagree?" he added when she was silent.

"As always, I defer to your judgement, Captain Kirk."

Kirk let out a long breath, "I hope I'm making the right one."

"As the humans say, only time will tell."

Kirk gave her a nod, "This stays between us until you can find a time to warn Spock."

"I already have."

Kirk nodded again, opening the door, though Cora was sure she heard him mutter, "Thank god the Pon Farr's four years away."

Cora couldn't help the small smile at the mention of Pon Farr, when she and Spock had finally completed their mating. It had been…concerning when it had been happening, to not truly understand what had Spock so out of sorts. But when she looked back on it now, it was amusing to her. Spock's emotions had begun to overrule his logic then, and above all was his desire to protect her. He would not have fought against the Pon Farr had it not been for his care for her. He had gotten quite growly and possessive when others were around her, quite protective. If they were heading into a trap while he was in Pon Farr, this would not end well for their enemies.

Not that it would end well now. Cora was certain of it, no matter what was about to occur, her crew could face anything and stop the threat to the universe.

"Mr. Chekov," Kirk called out as they resumed their positions on the Bridge, "Status report."

"Readings indicate cloud density diminishing, sir," Chekov replied as they began to come to the end of the nebula, they could even make out a somewhat Earth-like planet ahead.

"This is Altamid," Kalara's translator spoke for her, a feminized computer voice from a device attached to her shirt as she did not speak the common tongue, "My ship is stranded here."

Spock looked over at Kirk, noting the smallest of details that indicated Cora's warning had gotten through to him as well. He tensed more than appeared relieved. He shook his head, focusing on his duty, "Approaching Altamid," he stated, bringing up the information on a scanner near him, "Class-M planet. Massive subterranean development. But limited to no life forms on the surface."

"Proximity alert, sir!" Chekov shouted suddenly, "We hawe an unknown ship heading right for us."

"Lieutenant Uhura, hail them," Kirk commanded, "Cora, get ready."

"Yes, Captain Kirk," Cora replied at the same time that Uhura said, "Yes, Captain."

Uhura was quick to do as requested, "No response. I am picking up some kind of signal…they're jamming us!"

"Magnify, Mr. Sulu," Kirk looked to the screen as the image magnified to reveal it was not just a single ship approaching, but thousands of small ones. He fully intended to act as though he hadn't expected some sort of trap, but even so, seeing something like that would be more than enough to prompt any captain to turn and demand, "What is this?" of Kalara, before shouting to the crew, "Shields up! Red alert! Fire at will!"

Alarms began to blare throughout the ship as the Enterprise fired at the swarm of ships, but they were easily able to evade the blasts.

"Sir, our phasers are hawing minimal effect and our torpedos can't track their mowements!" Chekov warned.

"Fire everything we've got!"

"Captain," Spock called out, "We are not equipped for this manner of engagement!"

"I do not think that will matter!" Cora shouted, pointing at the screens where they could see the swarm was aiming directly for their weapons array, half diverging to try and take out the lower dish of the ship where the shields originated.

"Shield frequencies hawe no effect, sir!" Chekov confirmed.

"They took out the dish!" Sulu added, "Shields are inoperable!"

"Warp us out of here, Mr. Sulu!" Kirk commanded, starting to realize he had either overestimated the ship or underestimated Kalara and whoever she worked with. They should have turned back. He should have let Cora knock Kalara out, moved her to holding, taken her back to Yorktown for interrogation.

"Yes, sir," Sulu moved to do it, but it was as though the swarm knew their next course of action and moved for the warp drives next.

"Why the hell aren't we moving?" Kirk demanded.

"I can't engage the warp drive, sir!"

"Scotty!" Kirk moved to the comm., "I need warp now!"

"I cannae sir!" Scotty replied, "The nacelles, they've..." the crew on the Bridge could only stare in horror at witnessing his next words with their own eyes, "They've gone!"

And indeed they had, the swarm had targeted the nacelles, and now they were disconnected from the ship and floating in space before them.

"Security, engage all emergency procedures!" Kirk called throughout the ship, "Active protocol 28, Code 1 Alpha 0. All personnel to alert stations."

Cora looked over her shoulder as Spock and McCoy moved into the turbolift to go down to the main levels as was part of the protocol. The med-bay would need to be prepped, the chief medical officer on the alert for injuries, while the First Officer confirmed the ship was secure from within. She caught Spock's eye as he turned in the lift, a phaser at the ready, and he gave her a nod of reassurance before he was gone.

She closed her eyes for a moment, the protocol required her to be on the Bridge, to maintain the calm, so that was what she focused on, breathing calm into the room, though she made sure to move herself in front of Kalara so the woman wouldn't be affected. The longer the alien was unaware she was an Empathic and what she could do, the better for the crew.

"Sir!" Chekov shouted, though he sounded more focused than frantic when the ship shook, something striking below them, "I hawe hull breaches in lewels 12-15, 6, 9, 31 and 21, sir."

"Captain!" Scotty called over the comm., "There's a chance I can reroute the energy reserves from the warp core to the impulse engines."

"If we can get back into the nebula, maybe we could lose them," Kirk agreed, "Do whatever you have to, Scotty."

Cora gasped, sensing a presence throughout the ship that was slowly warring with the feelings of her crew as they were injured by the latest attacks shaking the ship. The new presence was one that was not what she recognized of the crew. New emotions introduced that should not have been there, more present than there normally was, "We are being boarded!" she called out in warning, thankfully being near enough a monitor that she could make it appear to Kalara she was merely reading it off a screen.

Alarms began to go off as reports came over the comms. from the crew, calling out how there were hostiles inside the spikes that had slammed into the ship, they were invading, their weapons were doing little.

"…Spock," Cora breathed to herself, feeling a spike of alarm shoot through her that was not her own emotion nor those on the Bridge, she was still managing to exude calm through the room, so this alarm was somewhere else, someone else.

Only a moment later, Spock's voice came over the comm., "Captain!"

"Go, Spock!" Kirk called.

It was clear from the noise coming over with his words that Spock was running through the ship and being fired at while he did so, "I have identified the individual who appears to be leading the attack party. He infiltrated the archive vault and removed the artifact from our mission on Teenax."

"Hold your distance until..." Kirk began, when the comm. started to fail, static overcoming it, "Spock! Spock!" he spun around, pointing to two nearby crew members, "You two with me. Sulu, you have the comm.. Cora, maintain the Bridge!"

Cora looked over at his words, knowing he had not included maintain 'the calm' due to Kalara, but she understood his order nonetheless, "Yes, Captain Kirk."

"Yes, sir," Sulu called as he moved to the captain's chair while Kirk ran out with the two other crew.

Cora closed her eyes for a moment, her hands curling into fists as she tried to focus on the Bridge. This was exactly what Spock had feared would happen and what he had been working with her to push past. That she would be needed to do something, but the situation around her made it difficult to do so. This was not the same level as when Vulcan had been destroyed, but she could feel her crew, some of them dying, around her, she could feel their pain, she could feel their emotions being cut off so suddenly with their demise. And yet she needed to maintain the calm in the Bridge.

She wished Spock was still there, even in such tense conditions he was always a source of calm, an anchor she could use to stabilize herself. But he wasn't, he was down below, running down the halls to escape the enemy.

She could almost hear him in her mind as she thought on him, trying to use the memory of him to stir up the same meditative properties she worked so hard on before. She was trying to block out the death and pain she felt around her and focus on something that could help the rest of the crew. It was not made easier by her fear and concern for Spock.

She could almost picture him in the halls, rushing back to Leonard McCoy as he tried to help the crew, shouting out to him to run.

She forced her eyes open, looking at the Bridge, they all appeared relatively calm despite her struggles, all of them were professionals, trained to remain calm when they faced their enemies. She was meant to be an added precaution. But with the sense of others invading her ship, attacking her crew, she couldn't help but feel like her abilities would be better spent dealing with the invaders.

She glanced over at the door to the turbolift, sensing a small shift in the invaders, in the emotions she felt off them. She could feel small ones, like pinpricks in a black surface, going away, abruptly cutting off. It had to mean the crew were fighting back.

She looked down, hearing a growl over the comm. that had been left open when Kirk rushed out, "Captain…Kirk…" a voice was growling, clearly not one of the crew.

She had nearly called out to Sulu for permission to assist the captain when the ship suddenly tilted on its side. It was clear Montgomery Scott had been able to reroute the power to the impulse engines. But, instead, she gasped a moment later when the ship shook as the swarm of ships struck it again, feeling as though she couldn't breathe, feeling a chill seep through her. She knew what happened, even before they started to see the bodies of crew members floating in space, having been sucked out by the vacuum of the strikes.

And then they saw the inertial dampeners had broken off entirely.

"Kirk to Bridge!" Kirk shouted through the comms..

"We are losing ze inertial dampeners!" Chekov reported.

"Systems are failing ship-wide, Captain," Sulu added, "Emergency bulkheads are sealing but structural integrity is at 18 percent and falling, sir!"

"The crew are dying," Cora spoke, though her voice was softer, shaking with the effort to keep the deaths from affecting her focus.

"…abandon ship, Mr. Sulu," Kirk gave the command.

"Sound the alarm!" Sulu ordered.

Cora was out of the Bridge the moment the order was given. It was a technicality, that her order had been to maintain the Bridge yet now the order was to abandon ship. It meant she could leave the Bridge with the change of order, and she felt like she had to get to the other levels. When she had heard that voice on the comm., realized the enemy had gotten hold of Captain Kirk, she had wanted to help. She could sense a distress off the Captain, a pain.

She could sense her crew. But there were different levels to it. She felt Spock more than anyone else, he was her mate. She could sense he was safe at the moment, relatively speaking. She could sense more of those she was close to, like Kirk, Uhura, Scotty, Chekov, Sulu, and McCoy. Not specifics, but she was more aware of them, more able to determine them in the flow of emotions in the ship. In a general sense, she could sense the rest of the crew. But when one of them was suddenly cut off or experienced a sudden pain, she could usually catch it depending how close she was. When it happened en masse, such as an attack where a number were injured or killed at once, she felt it.

Right now she could tell her Captain was in pain and needed assistance. She could tell where a few remaining injured were in need of a boost to get to their pods and eject.

"Abandon ship," a computerized voice called over the speakers, "All personnel."

Cora let out a breath when she turned a corner, able to hear Kirk speaking softly, still a distance away from her but she was heading in the right direction, "We need to give those pods a chance to escape. Can you lead those ships away?"

"Impulse engines are still trying to draw power from the warp reserve," Sulu was saying over a comm., "We cannot move until the saucer is separated."

"I'll handle it."

"Aye-aye, sir."

She gasped when a crew member stumbled in front of her, falling from another hallway and rolling down it. She hurried towards him with two other crew members rushing to help.

"Abandon ship," the speakers continued to blare, "All personnel evacuate immediately."

"You are alright," Cora knelt down to help the fallen man up, Syl, an alien crew member with cranial appendages like very spiked fingers on the back of her head, hurried to assist her.

"Oh my God," Syl murmured, "Get him up. Help him up. Got you…"

"Cora!" Kirk shouted, spotting her by her bright red hair as he rushed over, "What are you do…" he shook his head, priorities, "Never mind. We've got to get you guys to an escape pod. Go," he urged the male crew member off with the injured one, "Go! Ensign Syl," he reached out a moment later to stop her, "I need your help."

"Yes, sir," Syl nodded.

Cora could only look at the Captain in confusion as she felt the desperate hope and reluctance inside him when he reached into a pocket of his uniform…

~8~

Kirk gasped as Cora pulled him back moments before he could round a corner where she sensed two of the invaders lurking, "Two."

He nodded, readying his phaser and spinning around, aimed, and took the two out before they could turn. He let out a breath, looking at her, "Spock is going to kill me," he told her.

"Spock would not commit murder unless…"

"Yeah, yeah, Pon Farr," he muttered, "Regardless, I'm not risking another punch to the face from him. You get back to the Bridge, leave this to me."

"Captain Kirk…"

"Go, Cora," he turned to her, "Don't make me order you."

Cora was reluctant, "I can assist…there are more…"

"I know," he cut in gently, "I know you can, and I know there are more of these hostiles onboard. But they work for someone. And if we use you now, we can lose an advantage later. The ship's already torn to hell, the crew is escaping. You need to escape too. You need to get yourself away from this."

He said the last part so meaningfully, that Cora knew he'd noticed. She was barely holding on as it was, she was feeling the death of her crew around her, she was feeling their fear, there was no point to use her abilities on those who remained when they would be away from the ship soon enough and out of her range. But she was struggling to maintain herself with the chaos around her. Being away from the concentrated area of the Bridge was not helping. Sooner or later the impact of all of this, the stress of the crew around her, would send her crashing.

He was hoping if she got away now, it would not be as bad.

"Go, Cora," he told her, before he turned to head towards the mechanics that would allow him to disengage the saucer from the ship.

Cora stood there a moment longer, watching him go around a corner and down a hall. She moved back shortly after, ducking around the corner she was standing by when she saw one of the intruders rush after Kirk. She took a step forward, wanting to help, but she looked over her shoulder. She could sense the rest of the crew ejecting themselves, the emotion around her slowly moving away from her. But there were still a few she could feel struggling in the halls.

She had to trust her captain, trust her crew, so she turned to go help those fallen behind on her way to the Bridge.

~8~

Cora made it back onto the Bridge just as the ship jolted, nearly sending her falling into the edge of the doorway.

"Impulse engines drawing power from auxiliary generators!" Chekov was shouting.

Cora let out a breath of relief to hear that, to know that it meant Kirk had succeeded, the ship was turning and heading for the nebula, drawing out the swarm. She opened her eyes to watch, making sure that the other non-essential crew were getting to their escape pods until it was just her, Chekov, Sulu, and Kalara left on the main Bridge. She gasped softly, spinning around when she felt two hostiles approaching, about to attack. She threw up her hands, ready this time, and forcing waves of exhaustion out of her and into them. They fell to the ground to reveal Kirk behind them, his phaser ready to fire.

He gave her a quick wink and rushed into the Bridge, a hand on her arm to pull her after him, tightening his grip when he felt her trembling and tense in his hold.

"How many of the crew are still aboard the saucer?" he demanded, rushing over to Sulu as Cora began to urge Chekov up.

"None," Sulu reported, "But if I'm reading this correctly the intruders are taking them."

"Captain, we are caught in ze planet's grawity," Chekov told him.

"We cannot pull away?" Cora looked at them in alarm.

"No," Chekov agreed.

Kirk looked out the large window, watching as the planet grew large as they drew nearer to it, all the efforts of engineering for nothing as they would never reach the nebula now, "Get to your Kelvin Pods."

"Yes, sir," Sulu moved to the pods, making sure the last few other crew members were getting in first.

"Aye, Captain," Chekov turned to Kalara to urge her on, "Come on, let's go!"

"You too, Cora," Kirk added, glancing back at her.

"I will not go until you are," she stated, trying to lift her chin instead of bow her head when he looked at her, "I…I will…" she struggled to find something to say to her Captain, "I will…make you sleep if you refuse."

"I thought I said not to channel Spock," he muttered, but didn't force her away, knowing she might actually go through with it.

And so he stood there, waiting till the rest of the crew were ejected, watching as the ship grew nearer to the planet, solemn…until he looked down to see Cora had taken his hand in comfort, not exuding comfort to him, but meant to just…comfort.

He couldn't muster a smile though, the two of them waiting till the ship read no other crew aboard, before they headed to their pods, just as Sulu, Kalara, and then Chekov took off.

"You first," he moved her to a pod, "No arguing."

Cora opened her mouth to do just that when the pod closed around her and she was sent hurtling not into space but already within the planet's atmosphere. She looked down, seeing another pod eject right after her, knowing it was the Captain.

She looked up, tears in her eyes as she watched the ship she had come to consider a home crash into rocks and skid into a field, destroyed.

A/N: Poor Cora and Spock, they just have no luck NOT being interrupted when they want to talk :/

It was tricky, trying to write the attack on the Enterprise with Cora there. Because, on the one hand, she would know instantly Kalara was dangerous and Kirk would realize it was a trap. But on the other hand, the movie was centered around the crew being taken and separated and the ship destroyed. So how does that work? WHY would they still go into it?

I feel like some of Kirk's feelings came not just from the routine of it all, but being so comfortable and used to everything, to not really having much to challenge him over the near-3 years in space. The Enterprise is the best ship, the crew has survived traps before, they've come out on top each time, no one's been able to take them on previously. So it's sort of that overconfidence and 'well this is just standard' mentality that I could see, in some ways, leading him to attempt to face the trap when he's made aware of it. Because he has no reason to believe Kalara's ship was attacked or taken down by something, he has no reason to think some planet no one can get to would have any sort of advanced technology to damage the Enterprise, and he think if he knows it's a trap he'll be ready for anything. But he wasn't :( He's also trying to help other people in the sense that another ship isn't as advanced as the Enterprise, they won't have an Empathic around to warn them. THEY should go in and neutralize this threat so no other ships get lured in and can't make it. Hindsight is 20-20 :(

As for Cora, she has spent three years working with Spock to try and 'filter' the emotions around her, to block out the crippling ones so she can try to help a situation or get away to a safe space. It seems to have worked for the moment, but Empathics really can't NOT feel so...I wonder what that means for Cora later? }:)

One last little note, there were a couple lines here inspired by Frank Herbert's 'Dune' book/1984 movie, virtual cookies to those who spot it! ;)

Some notes on reviews...

Spock definitely had a momentary lapse there in the last chapter lol :) I think the time apart will help sort of ram home that idea along with a few other revelations for him as well ;)

Very similar to Boromir and Menna yes :) There's an additional emotion behind Cora's feeling of being indebted to the Fleet, which we'll see more when she eventually encounters Jaylah ;) I agree, Kirk would probably be thrilled if he could go around the universe and sort of just be himself without all the rules and regulations of the Fleet imposed on him. I feel like a part of his discontent is he's sort of stuck. Now that he's been given this 5 year mission, which is a big deal, he's sort of like 'ok, I NEED to follow the rules if I want to keep this mission' but in doing so he's sort of lost himself and his spunk :(

I think Spock Prime would want him to stay too, and I can say we may actually see something of that near the end of the story ;) All very good points, some of which Spock hasn't considered yet, but he definitely will before the end ;) Oh the necklace :D He certainly will have that line, it was one of my favorites ;)

I can say we'll definitely know by the end of this story if Cora is or is not and what's up with her abilities ;) For Spock, I can see him as being a fertile hybrid. I think there was an episode of the original series, I think the one where Pon Farr was introduced, where we find out that Spock did have a designated mate chosen for him on Vulcan. I can't see his people agreeing to that if there was no chance little Vulcans (to work on minimizing the human genes by making a 3/4 Vulcan) would come from it ;)

We've definitely been waiting a very long time for this story, I agree. I went back to answer questions from the end of the last story and was like '...2013! It's been 5 years?!' O.O