Saavik watched the other, saw the attempt at defiance and knew where it came from. As long as she needed Valeris' signature, the woman thought she held the upper hand. "Know that one way or another, I will not leave here with this matter unresolved. You do better to sign the document now."

"I will not."

Saavik shoved at the table and it flew a few feet. Valeris jumped back out of its way, her back bumping up against the long window. It was her turn to look wide eyed, and Saavik struggled for control. Better to harness the driving blaze than let it consume her.

"Valeris, see the trouble you're in."

That chin came up again. "I promise you I do."

"No, you don't." Saavik kept herself in check, but it began to grow harder to stay that way. "I speak only of what you professed to tonight. If you go forward with these charges against Spock, I will bring charges against you for much the same accusation that you make against him. You confessed to using a meld for stealing information from his mind -- you confessed to computer tampering in two different counts. With the crimes you already have against you, what little chance you have of escaping tal'shaya will be erased."

The edge of the spotlight cut a swath across Valeris middle, hiding her face and upper body but revealing how fiercely her hands pressed against the wall. "Tal'shaya?"

"You are charged with treason, multiple counts of murder, accessory to murder, conspiring against innocents--"

"I know the charges against me."

"Then you know what possible penalties you face. You may, may receive life with rehabilitation instead of a death sentence, but the odds are low. Murder is the highest crime on Vulcan along with abuse of a meld which I will bring against you if you go against Spock!"

She watched the other's dark eyes flick back and forth, and then come up heatedly. "You manipulated me well. How very Romulan of you."

How dare she! "Is this more of your friendship, Valeris? Another example of your hurting me to help me? Like everything else you've done, I fail to see what I gain by your insults!" The heat pounding in Saavik's veins, escaping out of her fingers clutching the table, out of her eyes, out into the air as she exhaled through flared nostrils. It was consuming, a fever demanding a mate's answering passion and without that hunger satisfied, she was left with being riled by a… rival until blood was claimed. "You want to list my flaws, by all means do so. But remember, Valeris, I am not the one under arrest. I am not the traitor. You are."

"I told you, I did what I believed necessary for the safety of the Federation. We swear to do so when we become officers."

"I hope that brings you comfort when you face a death sentence."

Valeris pushed away from the wall, ignoring the table pressing against her and refusing to push it back. "You will not intimidate me."

But she was. She was glancing out the window behind her and through the door: no guards. Saavik had excused them.

She came around the table, shoving it again, making room. Valeris stood ground, and then broke. They circled, Valeris backpedaling until she couldn't move any further with the Carreon behind her.

"Saavik… why did you bring Rrelthiz here?"

"I knew you would not admit everything to me."

Valeris was an arm's length away and the same distance from Rrelthiz. She was trying to watch both of them. "No, earlier you said it was because she was Carreon. What did that mean?"

"One way or another, Spock will be safe."

"Spock will be safe?" Valeris suddenly resurged with renewed vehemence like she had never backed away. "Spock will be safe! With what he's done, you stand there as if he was the innocent victim, blind as you've always been where he is concerned! All I hear is how I deserve the repercussions for what I've done, and he is to come away blameless for raping me? No, Saavik!" She found the padd and stabbed the other woman's abdomen with it. "He was wrong and I will never say otherwise."

Saavik's chest rose and fell as though she was the one crying out, her throat raspy. "I never said he wasn't to blame for what he did. I never said he was right to do it. I only know enough damage has been done, and you are far from innocent yourself. What do you gain with more destruction?"

"If I am destroyed, what do I care if I take him with me?"

She stiffened. "Don't, Valeris."

The chin came up scornfully, but the question was asked silently.

Saavik's hands half-curled into fists. "Don't make me choose between you. You will not win."

The single lamp caught the trauma festering under the younger woman's skin. "You keep saying one way or another you will have what you want. What does that mean?"

Saavik glanced behind Valeris to Rrelthiz who as an outsider gained more perspective. The lidless, black eyes reflected the light fixture as they narrowed before she shook her head.

It took will power called from somewhere Saavik didn't know she had to seize herself under control. She wrenched away, putting her back to Valeris. The room was too small, but at least removing the sight of her gave a mental distance. "It means I know you too well to believe you casually dismiss the possibility of being executed. Understand I offer the opportunity of saving you from it."

"You made a threat to not make you choose between Spock and I... that clouds whatever benevolent offer you'd have me believe."

Saavik didn't trust herself to turn around and see that disdain. "Valeris!" The need to strike out washd over her along with the wearying effort of holding that need back. All made worse by this stale, stark, utilitarian cage with its harsh lighting and watching eyes that sooner or later would check the security monitors.

The tendrils of her control strained. Her teeth were already clenched. "Grow up, Valeris."

"Do not--!"

"Without the charges I could bring against you," Saavik ground out, "you stand a stronger chance of receiving a living sentence, even rehabilitation."

In the quiet, she pictured Valeris eyeing her back – in arrogance? In alarm or supplication?

"It is not enough."

Arrogance, of course. Perhaps not. Valeris had her own demons. Saavik remembered long nights of the other struggling to speak of her nightmares. "What is not enough?"

"Having only a possibility of not being executed. I need you to... ensure I am kept alive."

I need you. So, some alarm was mixed with the arrogance, and she was expected to once more provide a rescue. "How am I to accomplish this?"

"As you said, you made contacts here."

"I do not know if they are the type you need."

"You misunderstand. I want you to use your influence over Sarek and Amanda. They are the type of contacts I need."

Saavik now understood how emotional species managed to laugh in their anger. The release would be welcome. "Only you, Valeris -- You once said the singular good thing about Amanda was she learned to mask her inadequacy by accepting Vulcan's ways. And now you want her help? You expect me to abuse the privilege of their association?"

"I don't want to die."

This yaw between Valeris' self-centered focus to her sincere appeals was draining, and Saavik didn't know how much more she had to give. She was prepared for the arrogance, but not the pleas; they stole her anger and brought the guilt that she was supposed to do something. Surely even a Vulcan was allowed to turn aside cries for help from someone who betrayed her?

Amanda never warned her of the penalties for taking on strays. "If I agree to petition your sentencing tribunal, do you agree to sign that waiver?"

"I... want to see him."

Spock? "I do not have the power to make that happen." She risked a glance. "Or have you forgotten what you accomplished?"

Valeris' eyebrows drew together. She was honestly puzzled. "I do not understand why you continue not to speak with him if you know the letters came from me."

And she stands there saying that so blithely to my face. She never understood if Valeris' twisted logic came from her father or because of her father and his melds fanatically justifying his failures. Either way, it was there, looking at the wreckage she caused and reacting only with curiosity.

To know Spock once more... And possibly lose him a third time? Never could she bear that. Better to stay outside of his life than to feel this agony again.

Valeris spoke, completely oblivious to the other's torment. "I never thought you would really reject him on the basis of – wait, if you are not talking, do you even know what his letter says?"

Thin lipped, Saavik answered. "No."

"And you do not ask me to tell you. Interesting." Dark hair fell into Valeris' eyes as she shook her head. "No, I do not understand that either."

"Can you understand this about your letter?" Saavik quivered with pent up rage and heartbreak, too many tendrils in her control snapping from the tension. "I died that day! As much as I did the day when he died on Enterprise!" She turned away, grabbing the back of a chair to dig her fingers into it as a choked sob shook her.

The voice came from behind her. "I apologize."

Her fingers further dug into the metal.

"But I am better for him."

With a strangled scream and bared teeth, Saavik flung the chair, not seeing or caring that it almost struck the window but instead crashed and bent under the force of hitting the wall. She dug her nails in her palms. She didn't dare turn around, not to look at Valeris, not to look at Rrelthiz in case she might say she changed her mind. If Rrelthiz made such a signal, the last meager threads of Saavik's hold over herself would break.

She was aware again of the cameras. So far her violent moves went uncaught. How much longer -- before they looked at the cameras or came back to the door?

Haughty, Valeris said, "You are losing your control."

The final kindling to flame the blaze. At last Saavik turned, swinging on the smaller woman, driving her back until she could go no further and her personal space was violated. Saavik didn't care anymore. She didn't care! The fires burned too hot, fed by Valeris' antagonism, and that was going to end.

"That is not all I lost." She grabbed Valeris' prisoner tunic roughly, hoping her touch scorched. Her words were barbed with all the pain of the last years, and her teeth clenched together. "Damn you, you stole my life. What I built, what I achieved to earn that position on the Enterprise, you robbed. You took Spock, killing everything I had with him so it would be yours instead! And never once with all your patriotic excuses did you explain how your destroying me helped the Federation!"

She shoved into Valeris' face. "So I must be one of your byproducts. You kept me close until I trusted you. You learned my vulnerabilities, and then struck me there. How very Romulan of you." She shook hard once. "And now you stand here demanding anything from me?!"

Astoundingly, Valeris gazed back defiantly, speaking her assumption of which one of them had the right to Saavik's life. "You want reasons for what I did to you? You forget I was forged this way. If I had the chances that others--"

"You dare blame your childhood? Your parents wanted you, didn't they, Valeris? One of them didn't rape the other, did they, Valeris? You spent the first ten years of your life with a family that wanted to give you everything. They didn't abandon you to kill and starve and die, did they, Valeris?"

The tunic was balled in her fists, and she yanked violently on it, pulling Valeris off her feet on to her toes so she fell, Saavik catching the weight on her forearms. "You claim all is forgiven because you cannot overcome your past? Shall we see what childhood forged in me?"

Saavik bore all her rage out through her blazing stare, channeling the throbbing injury from the other woman's treachery as she pictured how she at last was going to strike, give in to the flame, and pay her betrayer back.

She stopped when she saw the look rise in Valeris' eyes. The knowledge that the blow was coming...

Aghast, she let go abruptly and backed away. How many victims on Hellguard had that same look? How many of them seared into her memory until she got her knife and could kill from a distance?

Rrelthiz was behind Valeris, watching, ready to interfere. She said nothing, and she didn't judge even knowing as she did the worst things Saavik was capable of. But she reminded her long time friend of the line they agreed upon, the line deciding where lay honor and what was ugly revenge.

The heat of plak tow screamed once for release then ebbed, yielding to her too worn willpower, but it remained simmering under the surface. Worse, it might bring the madness pulsing into her veins, and then she'd be lost. I will not allow Hellguard to dominate me!

All three of them panted from the moment for different reasons, but Saavik didn't dare wait any longer. She needed to get what she wanted before Phase II consumed her totally. "You were right. I am losing control. Rapidly. And I am running out of time."

Valeris was confused, feeling her way through the sudden change. Too much had happened now for them to talk as anything more than opponents. "Then agree to my terms."

Go to Amanda and Sarek? Beg for their help? Saavik refused to violate their relationship. They were two of the very few people she had left after Valeris' manipulations, before she rebuilt her life on the Aerfen. She refused to give Valeris access to them as she had once done with Spock. "I will do what I can," she said shortly.

"I will not sign until you promise to remove the threat of tal'shaya."

She thought of the contacts she had made here on Vulcan. Would they be enough? Starfleet and the Federation had cleared Spock on the grounds of national security. Vulcan might, might, be convinced to think the same. Good people sometimes did terrible things. No one knew that better than Saavik.

But she had no guarantees that Vulcans would agree not find against Spock, so she needed to bring up Valeris' violating a meld. Once she did that, what did she have to save Valeris? Should she even bother?

If only she could think clearly! She silently vowed to find a way. Somehow, she must. "Agreed."

And almost howled in rage when Valeris still hesitated.

The command came from her throat low and deadly. "Enough." She snatched the padd, shoved it into Valeris' hand, and clasped her own over it so the other woman couldn't throw it down. "Sign. You do not want to know the other choice."

The dark eyes looked up, and she thought she felt a tremble in the fingers under hers.

Valeris spoke, the ghost of their friendship rising from the remnants. "I thought… you might understand."

Some part of Saavik surfaced as well through the building Fire, and she managed to relax her grip, at least minutely. She even managed to speak in a semblance of the person that took Valeris in that day in ShanaiKahr. "I do understand your motive. You feared for the Federation's safety with a people who brought you nothing but pain. But your actions were wrong, Valeris. You must understand that. You hurt and killed many innocents by what you did, so I cannot give you my acceptance. The difference between us means… I will never share that cell with you, Valeris. You will be alone there, even if Spock seeks an alliance with the Romulans."

The younger woman abruptly looked away. Everything that terrified Valeris came to be through her own fault. Her place on the Enterprise, gone. Her closest friendships, used. Her only company now, her fellow conspirators. And for both Saavik and her, no Spock because of her actions.

"Valeris… If he was ever important to you, let him go. Let some good come out of all this. And save yourself by doing it."

Their gazes locked, the moment dragged, until Valeris drew strength, drew bearing, and pulled Saavik's hand away so she held the padd alone.

Stasis! The figure stared at the screens. They goaded – insulted — ruined everything! What if they put all the hybrids in stasis? How to remove the new barrier! Think! The half-breeds had to die, they were behind schedule! Oh the ache to think twenty-one could be dead instead of being robbed by the healers of these ten! Think, think!

And the katras! How did the importance of that ritual escape notice for so long? Was the goal really reached if the katras went on after death?

At least some things moved along like they should: Saavik in Phase II – With no mate! Yes, good! How risky it had been to create the second stage when the half-breeds might conceive their own children.

Relief flooded the figure on the thought that the disease was working. And now it was honed nicely.

Such as Phase II not having the fertility of pon farr. Only a few hybrid females sought pregnancy during it -- Pekhi for example -- and the core element of the disease caused them to miscarry. For those hybrid males bonded to non-hybrid females… well, it had been easy enough to cause those miscarriages as well, until the hybrids feared the disease was killing their children and stopped seeking conceptions.

The last three hybrids... no worry that they would seek children. And the question of katras didn't occur with them.

Ten in stasis, twelve others awake, four of them over a year before death.

Think, think!