Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek.
Chapter Fifteen
The Attack
Ap-Lau Stardate 2259.172
Roslyn rubbed her temples tiredly as she absently accepted a cup of coffee from a young girl in the uniform of Yeoman who looked vaguely familiar. From the age of her, she was a new intern or something. She dismissed the familiarity however, as she was too busy concentrating on her work. (Or trying to anyway.) She had probably met the girl in her own universe at some point.
The numbers seemed to swim in front of her eyes, and a pounding headache had sprung up in her forehead.
She sighed, putting down the PADD and taking a deep gulp of her steaming coffee. She wasn't going to be able to focus on anything properly until Kodos had been sentenced to some terrible penal colony where he would waste away to death. A dreamy smile slipped over her features as she contemplated the thought of her most-loathed enemy suffering a prolonged death. It was very bloodthirsty of her, far more so than usual, but she hated Kodos more than anything. She didn't even hate Khan as much as Kodos, though it was close.
She frowned slightly as she took another sip of the drink she held. Something about it tasted strange. Almost minty? She looked down into the cup, moving it from side to side as if she could see the ingredients within.
"Rose?" Bones' voice interrupted her study of the coffee. "What're ya doin' in here darlin'?"
"The coffee has mint in it," she replied blankly. The statement was very ditzy, and unlike the normally composed Admiral. McCoy's worry ratcheted up yet another notch.
"Okay," he agreed carefully, reaching out to take the cup from her unresisting fingers. Her arms fell down limply to her sides and hung there for a moment before she reached for her PADD again.
"Darlin', you know you're not gonna get any work done until this is over," he told her gently. She cast a blank-faced look at him before turning back to her work, tapping away at the tablet, though he could tell she wasn't actually working, merely flicking through her things.
Leonard sighed. The thing was, even decades (for her) after the Massacre, Roslyn was still traumatized by it. She suffered everything from physical effects such as food problems, to mental ones such as vicious nightmares. Roslyn preferred to suppress things until she was ready to deal with things, and Leonard didn't think that she was ever ready to deal with Tarsus. Despite that, her entire moral system had been based on the one she developed on the colony.
Now, Roslyn was in the position of having to acknowledge what had happened before she was prepared, and she was coping as well as her younger counterpart. That is to say, terribly. As far as Leonard could tell, she was alternating between acting like everything was normal, and planning Kodos' 'accidental' death in prison.
She also seemed to be completely ignoring the teenage Lenore Karidian, who had threatened everyone involved in the case multiple times and who was the younger counterpart of the woman who had killed several of Roslyn's close friends and tried to kill her and Kevin.
"Oh, Darlin'," he sighed, taking the PADD from her and putting it down on the desk after turning it off.
"Hey!" she objected. "I need to-"
"Rest," he interrupted firmly. "You need to come home with me, have something to eat (she flinched) and cuddle with Spock, Saavik and I." His gaze softened and he reached out to clasp her hand. "You aren't Atlas Darlin. You don't have to carry the world on your shoulders."
"Fine," she sighed. It was the easiest she had ever given in to him, and that worried him almost as much as her lifeless look. She stood up, and started to sway.
"Rose!" he yelled. He lunged to grab her as she slumped to the ground, the coffee falling to the ground. "Help!" he cried. "Help! Medic! Blue Alert, Blue Alert!"
A yeoman stuck his head around the corner and instantly withdrew to start calling for a medic too. The base now alerted, Leonard laid his wife down on the floor and started to give her chest compressions as he registered she wasn't breathing. Only years of experience tending to Rose when she was hurt kept him from panicking too much to help her. Despite that, when the medics came rushing in and took over, he let them without protest.
Once they were gone, he buried his head in his hand and felt his shoulders shake with his heavy, ragged gasps. He stayed there until Spock, worried by the emotions flowing through the bond and lack of response to his mental queries came looking for him. He didn't respond to his increasingly worried husband, and eventually Spock gave up and ushered him to the medbay. No one payed attention to the coffee cup on its' side on the ground, its' liquid spreading across the floor.
"So what happened?" Rose asked Selek as they waited for the doctor to come out. They were in the waiting room with Spock, Selek holding Saavik carefully. For once since the week had begun, she was able to concentrate on something other than her memories of Tarsus IV.
He glanced at her briefly before turning back to Saavik, cradled in his arms. McCoy, who had regained his senses, was harassing the hospital staff alongside Bones for news on Roslyn.
"Apparently she stood up to leave with him, and simply collapsed," he explained softly. "No warning at all."
"That is very odd," Spock noted with a hint of a frown in his dark eyes. "I would not have expected for there to be no signs at all, even in the pallor of her skin. And Admiral McCoy is a very experienced doctor. Why would he not have noticed she was ill enough to require surgery?"
"Probably 'cause she was poisoned," he was interrupted. They all looked up to see a haggard looking Bones. "She ingested some form of poison within an hour of her collapse. We think it was in the coffee she was drinking, because she mentioned to him that it tasted like it had mint in it, and she doesn't put mint in her coffee."
"Why would someone poison Roslyn?" Rose asked in bewilderment. "It doesn't make sense, the only high-level thing she's dealing with is the trial, and her being hospitalized won't affect it. And as for running the base, someone else can step in until she's back on her feet."
"We have not gained any enemies since our arrival to my knowledge," Selek agreed. "This is a very illogical attack." It only took one glance for Rose to discern that he was hiding his anguish behind his mask of logic and unemotionalism. She placed a hand on his arm, sending waves of comfort through the contact.
"Why don't I take Saavik back to your place?" she suggested. "She shouldn't be at a hospital for so long, she's too young."
"My mother has just called asking for me to collect her from the Council Chambers," Spock frowned. "And Dr. McCoy must stay here in case the doctors need help. You would be alone."
"I'm a grown woman Spock, I can take care of myself," Rose snapped, her temper flaring out of frustration caused by Bones and Spock's constant hovering over the past few days. She knew why they did it, and she understood they were just worried about her, but Rose was a very independent woman. She had very little tolerance for people mother-henning her.
"Alright," Selek interceded before it could escalate into an argument. "You are correct that Saavik-kam should not be in a hospital with her immune system still developing, and it is almost time for her to go to bed as well."
Carefully, he passed the small child into Rose's arms. She adjusted her grip to make the baby more comfortable before standing and resting her on her left hip whilst picking up her bag and the baby-bag in her right hand.
"I'll see you back at the house," she told Bones softly. He grimaced but nodded in reluctant acceptance. They exchanged a quick kiss before Rose said goodbye to Spock and Selek and strode away quickly and briskly.
As she passed through the now dark streets, (night came very quickly on the Vulcan colony planet and they only had a few lamps set up. Setting up the colony was taking a while.) a sense of being followed caused her spine to tingle. She looked around as casually as she could, hoisting Saavik into a better position with one arm and letting the other fall to dangle near her phaser, which was hidden under her thigh-length jacket.
She was gripped by a sudden surge of certainty. Whomever it was that had poisoned Roslyn had done so to distract their small group and separate them. Her suspicions only increased when she tried to reach out to Bones and Spock and hit a mental wall.
It was a feeling that she recognized. Psy-blockers. Small, remote-shaped devices used to prevent telepaths and empaths from using their psychic abilities. Heavily restricted by the Federation, only used by Starfleet for training and keeping psy-positive's prisoner if necessary. But you could get anything off of the black market if you had the right amount of credits and knew the right people.
She casually quickened her pace to try and get through the deserted streets as fast as she could without (a) actually outright running whilst holding the thankfully silent baby, or (b) making it obvious that she knew she was being followed and was trying to escape her pursuer.
She was plagued by the feeling of malice radiating from her stalker, but couldn't pinpoint their location at all. It was like they were in multiple places surrounding her. It suddenly clicked that her follower was trained in mental protection and broadcasting. If that was the case then they probably knew she could sense them and they were just playing with her.
Taking that into account, she was wasting her time by pretending not to know she was being watched. Wasting her time and endangering her and Saavik more than they were already. Having come to that conclusion, she adjusted her grip to hold Saavik more securely, pulled out her phaser and started to sprint as fast as she could.
The baby whimpered but still didn't cry and Rose's ears, which were more sensitive than a full human's, picked up the sound of soft footsteps starting up behind her. Whoever it was had training, Rose decided. They were too good at this for otherwise.
Who was it? Why were they pursuing her and why had they attacked Roslyn? If it was about the trial, Rose had already testified so attacking her instead of one of the witnesses made no sense. And as far as everyone save for the select few who knew of the alternate timeline was aware, Roslyn had family killed on Tarsus in the massacre (the excuse they had come up with to explain her evident distress during the trial.) but she herself wasn't a witness or involved in judging Kodos.
None of this made any sense, and Saavik's increasing cries were making it harder to try and figure everything out. Suddenly Rose's foot caught on a cobblestone and she stumbled. She lost her footing and her speed prevented her from regaining it. Instead she went flying and only just managed to cover Saavik with her body, shielding her from the impact, before she felt her head connect with the stone pavement.
Just before her vision went black, someone walked up beside her. She shifted her head just enough to see who it was who had been chasing her. Shock briefly overtook her as she peered up at them through her bloodstained vision to her tormentor. Then, as she considered it, she realized she really shouldn't have been surprised.
"Really Uhura?" she coughed out at her subordinate. "Don't you think chasing me through a dark street is a bit too cliché?"
Her sight faded to black as she looked up at Uhura's smirking face. Saavik was still crying in her slack arms and Rose could only feel regret at her failure to protect the infant. She could only hope that the mad woman (because Rose could easily spy the insanity in the other woman's eyes and she wondered briefly how Uhura had gotten through the psych evals) would leave the child be. Finally, she lost the battle with consciousness and fell into the abyss.
