Amanda's voice rose in pitch. "Do we know who?"

The sound echoed around the Phase III ward. Heads came up around the room, except for one patient who was too weak so he scraped his head across the bed to drop down in their direction. Rrelthiz swished her tail in sharp snaps and nearly rattled her throat sac in the same pitch as Amanda's voice.

Sarek spoke before anyone could answer the question. "Perhaps we should move to another room for this discussion."

McCoy bounced inside his shoes while he waited to hear from the desert party and beat Rrelthiz in saying, "I need to stay here in case those patients come in."

"Bones," Kirk interrupted. "There must be a room where we can talk but you're still available."

The doctor grumbled, exchanging a look with the Carreon who understood, but they really didn't need to wait in the ward. They jerked their heads for everyone to follow. T'Mes and Soluk had been discussing what had happened when Amanda and Sarek came in for a status report on the stasis chamber attacks. If they hadn't, they wouldn't have known about the missing people.

Rrelthiz could tell that didn't sit well with Amanda.

So a large knot of people moved into an exam room off of the main ward. The door had a window at the top where McCoy parked himself and Rrelthiz with him. They had a clear view of both rooms from there. T'Mes waited until they were all inside before she answered. "Ny'Jul, Micar, Eitan, and Kf'iskjyk are missing as well as Saavik and Mekhai -- six in all."

Amanda stiffened at Saavik's name.

"However," T'Mes continued, "we have conflicting testimonies. Mekhai informed Soluk that he was investigating Eitan's and the others' disappearances by visiting their homes. He also stated that he suspected Saavik was reporting on a conversation with the Aerfen while the nurse on duty stated Saavik took equipment intending to go to the desert herself."

The nurse would not lie, Rrelthiz thought. She is Vulcan. And we know the tricorder and emergency kit are not in the inventory. Saavik went to the desert. Nest Mother, watch over her!

She warbled, making a noise and motion with her throat while Leonard plastered himself to the window in the door. But they weren't telepaths; they couldn't reach out with their worry and bring the missing people home.

Kirk bit the inside of his lip as if Rrelthiz's warble told him something he had to consider. "So at least four of them," he said to T'Mes, "are probably in the desert. And you think you found them?"

Soluk said, "Yes. Stron is out there now."

Amanda looked at Sarek. To steady herself, Rrelthiz thought. "Are they alive?"

T'Mes replied, "We know nothing further. Stron will report soon."

It took agonizing minutes before Commander Stron did report. Kirk told everyone else about Saavik's conversation with Hunter including the unknown Vulcan who had come onboard and not only broke into her security access, but managed to make Saavik forget all about him at the same time.

Dark clouds grew over Sarek's expression as he listened, but his voice stayed clear. "The guard at the stasis chambers, he also has no memory of the security breach at his station. Is that not correct?"

McCoy grumbled under his breath, which meant every Vulcan still heard him. So did Rrelthiz. "He's lying."

"Is he?" Sarek asked, questioning McCoy's certainty as much as the guard's telling the truth. Or so Relthiz thought.

"We'd have found out," the doctor insisted, "but we got Saavik's report and came here to talk with her. We found this new crisis waiting for us."

Stron's call ended the discussion. "We have found all six. Immediate transport to the hospital is commencing."

Amanda sagged - in relief or at the breaking point?

T'Mes reached the comm panel. "Casualties?" she asked her husband.

"Four are dead, overexposure to the sun. It appears to be suicide."

Spock's head came up sharply, but he said nothing and stayed focused on listening to the rest of the report. Amanda started to say something, and Rrelthiz wondered if they had the same question: Which four are dead?

Stron kept talking; he couldn't see the room's reactions. The dim sound of voices issuing and acknowledging orders on his end of the line came through as background noise. "Despite the deaths, the hospital asked for the immediate transport in the event we missed a life sign."

"Not her," Amanda whispered. It was so low that Kirk and McCoy missed it. "Please, not her."

Saavik. Rrelthiz wanted to argue that her friend would never choose to do such a thing. After all, when she and Saavik had met, the Vulcan had saved her honor and her life by talking Rrelthiz out of committing such a suicide. All those people on the Enterprise, ill and dead, because she had made a mistake with the replicator, cutting herself on a glass causing her blood, mixed with her emollient, to get into the protein matter used to create meat. It formed an agent that acted like a virus in the crew. Some people died because of her and she went to commit an honorable suicide to make reparations. Saavik had stopped her.

Rrelthiz, your solution will harm us all. You will hurt the trainees who are ill because, logically, you are the one most capable of helping us. We need you. We don't leave our friends behind to struggle without us.

Saavik had to see, she had to, that if she committed suicide now, she left behind all the people who worried about her -- yes, even Vulcans worry for her -- to fight alone against the killer without her. She must see it.

Human ears missed what Amanda had said, but not the Vulcan ones. They heard as much as Rrelthiz did and Amanda finally realized she had spoken out loud. Her face turned sickened. "I'm sorry. I never should single out one person when others are suffering too. Stron, which four are dead?"

She still begs that her favorite was spared. She cannot help it.

Amanda's question was answered as Saavik burst through the ward doors, drawing everyone's instant attention. Green blood darkened and caked in a rivulet by her eye and raw marks disfigured her throat. Her stained clothes were torn and scraped. She cast her eyes around and latched on to McCoy as he barreled out of the exam room, but she stopped him before he got far. "Doctor, they request your help in the Trauma Room One."

He blew out an explosive breath when he saw her and stopped to examine her dried cuts. She avoided his hands. "These are minor. However, the other four -- if you have never seen such a death, you should prepare yourself."

He pointed to a couple nurses to come with him and they disappeared out the doors. Rrelthiz backed up into the exam room – she and all the others starting to pour out after her – and motioned Saavik to follow. She grabbed a small kit from her belt pouch and began working around her friend's eye. Saavik tried to shake off the Carreon too with, "They need you as well, Rrelthiz", but the healer wouldn't have any of it.

"I will go, friend Saavik, but they can spare me while I examine you. They have many to help them already." She had worked on Vulcans for quite a while now, so the hot and dry feel to Saavik's skin wasn't a surprise to Rrelthiz's cool, moist touch.

Amanda yelled, "What you were doing out there!"

Sarek said quietly, "Amanda". She made a sharp gesture that cast his eyebrows up his forehead, but he said nothing else.

Rrelthiz worked on the head wound, so Saavik could not turn around. She never once blinked or fluttered her lashes, not even out of reflex, at the seven deadly talons that fingered her eye.

That is her deep trust in me and Rrelthiz gave a low trill as a smile.

"Amanda, clearly I needed to investigate if my theory regarding Micar, Ny'Jul, Eitan, and Kf'iskjyk was true. What other reason would I have?"

Amanda opened her mouth and something like a small sob sneaked out. She clamped her mouth shut, lines gouging hard traces around her lips.

Saavik jerked her head at the sound, and Rrelthiz bit back on her first impulse to snap. She had almost stabbed the eye. "Saavik, you must stand still. Also, stop your healing processes. Let me fix these wounds. They then will heal without scars."

Not that you would care about another scar, my friend.

That left Saavik with nothing but her voice to address Amanda since her body language was silenced by the exam. So she spoke very carefully. "Amanda... did you believe I was one of the four dead?"

A fine quiver ran down the suddenly old woman's body or was Rrelthiz imagining it? Sarek answered for his wife. "We had few details including a lack of names."

Rrelthiz dropped bloodied wipes on an instrument tray and whispered, "Your eye is fixed. Move your head if you wish, but I will work on your throat."

Saavik looked at Spock.

"No," he answered the silent question. "I did not know your purpose in the desert. However, I calculated that it was to find the others, not to commit kalifee v'rekor yourself. As I said before, I do have most of my memories. One of them is, you 'do not go gently into that good night'."

A corner of her mouth almost -- almost -- lifted in a smile. "Rage against the dying of the light?" she quoted with him. "Dylan Thomas. It does sound like me."

He lifted an eyebrow in agreement and somberly nodded out towards the ward. "We also have four collections of belongings and you would not leave your personal affects here."

She sobered. "The way they left their the personal belongings by their hospital beds - they left their clothing in the same way to mark their trail into the desert. I followed it."

A bad death. A sad one – no, I can make no judgment when I did not live the life that caused such a decision.

Out loud, she said, "What other injuries do you have, Saavik?"

"Rrelthiz--"

"Do not argue. Tell me. You need to be in the best health possible." The year until Phase III would pass soon enough, and the better the shape Saavik was in when it struck, the better she would fare until they had a cure.

But that wasn't making the Vulcan give in, so Rrelthiz leaned forward and whispered in her friend's ear. "Let me actually heal someone, my friend. I have not done so since I arrived on your planet."

Saavik gave her a quick look, but then listed where to check for any injuries.

The ward doors opened for Mekhai this time and T'Ahiyya at his elbow. Rrelthiz glanced up from scanning Saavik's lower back where a nasty mark and a bloody scrape -- from the sand? -- covered from the base of the spine out to the kidneys. Mekhai had a bruise on his temple, but that was it and T'Ahiyya already led him to a second exam room. The Carreon healer glanced up and caught Saavik watching him through the door as he stared back until he was out of sight.

Those marks – she couldn't shake the thought that they were familiar, but she couldn't grasp it. Saavik's neck, for instance, had four darker spots on one side and one on the other side... but why? Most of her work was with her own species... would that help? She tried imagining her friend was a Carreon – and the image snapped into place. If someone like Rrelthiz had done this, puncture wounds from the talons would dot the darker marks. A hand had grabbed Saavik's throat! The darker marks where fingers had dug into the skin. And the other places... the worst contusions covered vulnerable areas on her body.

But before the healer could say anything, Spock asked Saavik, "How were you hurt? Is this from your attempt to rescue Ny'Jul and the others?"

"No. Mekhai attacked me."

"What?" Amanda shouted before thinking about it. "Check her!" she snapped at Rrelthiz.

"I already am," the Carreon nearly snarled, not at Saavik or Amanda, but at Mekhai in the other room. She would heal any wounds her friend had, and then – her tail thrashed hard.

"How badly are you hurt? Rrelthiz! What do you see, how bad is she?"

"Amanda," Saavik said, although not as indulgent as before, "I have already stated that I am well. The injuries are extremely minor. Mekhai did not succeed in his attack. I overcame him before he could inflict any serious damage."

Soluk and T'Mes had exchanged a glance when she first said Mekhai had attacked her. Rrelthiz demanded to know what happened, but it got buried in Sarek, Amanda, Spock, and everyone else calling out the same thing.

"You overcame him? How? Are you sure you're all right!"

"What reason did he give for this attack? Is it part of the deaths in the desert?"

"Why did you not call for help immediately?"

"Saavik!" Kirk finally got out above the others. He took a breath when everyone else subsided to let him talk. "Report."

She explained everything, from the moment she decided to come to the Phase III ward to Mekhai's attack and her finding the first marker. It turned out to be Micar's clothes and three more carefully piled robes had been further along the path. Micar had led the other three and proved his commitment to dying by disrobing first. Eitan, Ny'Jul, and Kf'iskjyk had followed him without hesitation.

Soluk listened without comment and then informed T'Mes he would guard over Mekhai.

Kirk spoke, "Saavik, Stron said they thought it was suicide?"

Spock added, "Kalifee v'rekor. However, in the manner you once described to me."

She nodded although he hadn't asked a question. "They exposed themselves to the sun in order to die. The emergency team speculates their weakened conditions speeded their deaths or we would have found them alive."

Kirk shook his head. "I don't get it."

Spock replied, "It means 'battle with the desert'. It was once a way a Vulcan brought a quicker death so they would not be a burden to their clan. However, on Hellguard, certain Vulcans chose it rather than die by the Romulans' means. It is noted in the reports you read, Captain."

"The clothing piled that way? You called it a marker," Rrelthiz asked, but with one look at Saavik, she wished she had said nothing. How could she forget the way her friend had talked about her horrible colony?

But of course, Saavik was Saavik and she answered. "On Hellguard, a Vulcan would meld with another to transfer their katra. They stacked their clothing and anything personal they still had in the place where they stepped into the desert. I do not know if was true in the nomad times or if it has symbolic meaning. I only know each Vulcan who chose this death on the colony did it. It is why Micar did it here and in the desert itself, to mark this place as where he made his decision to commit kalifee v'rekor and the site where he did it."

Kirk took a sudden step forward. "You think this is tied into the disease? Another attack?"

Saavik looked at a blank spot on the floor and saw something in the past that only she could see. She came back to the present. "I do."

Sarek asked her, even as Amanda drew closer and hovered in orbit with Rrelthiz around Saavik. "Why do you say so?"

"Whether or not leaving belongings behind is symbolic in kalifee v'rekor, Micar gave it symbolism. It was deliberately meant to represent how certain Vulcans died on Hellguard, the same way the entire disease represents them." Sarek started to respond, but Spock, who had never stopped watching her, held up a hand to forestall his father from interrupting. "And yet..."

Spock's hand still held in the air, so he was the one to gently probe. "And yet?"

"... I would not have said they would have taken this course. After the presentation, they each spoke of their plans for what remaining time they had to live. These plans were integral to them."

Kirk said, "Maybe they only said it to keep people from guessing the truth."

"They did not lie, Captain."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Saavik, people, even Vulcans, can do something they wouldn't normally do when they're in these kind of circumstances."

"I did not say they would not lie because they were Vulcans, sir. I said it because I was there. I heard how important these plans were to them. They did not have to say anything, they could have said they did not know what choices they had made. They did not lie."

"And yet," Spock said, Rrelthiz wondering if he deliberately used Saavik's words to make his point, "shortly afterwards, they decided to commit these suicides."

"I cannot explain the sudden change in judgment."

Rrelthiz asked, "Could not have someone convinced them?"

"You refer to the killer?"

"Or someone working with him. "

Saavik frowned. "If this was so, it would have happened either as they left the presentation for the ward or right in the room. Either way, anyone here or walking with them would have seen it."

T'Mes grabbed her tricorder. "I will interview them" and with no other preamble, she went to the first filled bed.

"Saavik, Spock," Kirk said. He glanced in the direction of the exam room next door. "Could Mekhai have done this?"

Saavik answered, "They would not have listened to him, Captain."

He took his lip between his thumb and forefinger and rubbed it for a minute. "All right, let's see if Stron has any news for us."

Spock turned away from them as they left the exam room. "I cannot accompany you, Captain. Mekhai and his attack need my attention."

"Spock," Saavik called out and when it didn't work, "Captain. I will deal with Mekhai."

"No further discussion, Saavik." And with only that, he simply walked off into the second exam room.

Kirk smiled at Saavik's strangled expression. "I know exactly what you mean. Come with me."

He strode hard and fast out of the ward doors and crashed against a gurney. Someone lay on it, but was covered by a sheet. A hand dropped limply and banged on the metal rungs. One finger was missing from it.

"Jim!" McCoy yelled and started running around the gurney to put the dead man's hand back under the blanket. But Saavik was suddenly there. McCoy fumed at his captain. "We wanted to keep them out of sight from everyone else."

Kirk mumbled an apology, especially as the other covered bodies got ahead of Micar's. Stron was at the side of the first gurney. "Go, Bones. We have this one."

"I will, Captain." Saavik stood by the body, making no other move.

"Saavik--"

"Sir... I... prefer it this way."

He nodded and caught up with McCoy. Rrelthiz came quietly to Saavik's shoulder and wasn't surprised to find Amanda on the other side. Sarek stepped around them.

"Their families need to be informed," he said quietly and left.

Rrelthiz and Amanda said nothing and let Saavik take her time.

"He wanted to speak with me," she finally spoke. "Before the presentation. I do not know why. ...But I think it was an apology."

Amanda drew closer. "Then it was a good thing."

"I didn't let him talk. I am only surmising." Rrelthiz didn't ask her why she hadn't let him talk and neither did Amanda. The question asked itself. "What was its point? Why say anything? We had all agreed to leave the past alone."

Amanda's voice sounded very tender. "You know as well as anyone, maybe better than anyone, that it doesn't always work that way."

Saavik didn't look at her and said nothing else.

"Friend Saavik, did this Micar harm you in some way?" Rrelthiz thought she'd get no answer and she was right. "Then perhaps his point was to be responsible. To make reparations at least in words."

"After all this time?" Saavik asked. She still looked down at the covered body. "And why to me?"

"I cannot know," Rrelthiz said. "Perhaps the disease made him need the apology as much as you. Maybe he had a reminder of you in particular? Even you coming here to Vulcan at this time?"

Saavik's head swung sharply. "A reminder?"

"Yes, something that made him focus on you. Or maybe he did speak to the others and you do not know. He would not die without making that responsibility to anyone he wronged -- or to you specifically."

"But he did die." Amanda and Rrelthiz didn't have to say it for her. "And I refused him." Saavik picked up the lifeless hand, cupping hers into the palm so the empty finger socket became even more prominent. "I refused him, even with the reminder."

"Friend Saavik..."

Saavik tucked the hand under the cover again. Her shoulders were up and she was back to her normal bearing. "Amanda, remain here with Rrelthiz. I must deal with Mekhai and his attack."

"Let Soluk and Spock take care of him! I don't want you getting anywhere near him again!"

"Amanda, if I am correct, he is not a danger to anyone else and what I will do will neutralize the danger to myself. However, if I am wrong, I do not want anyone else involved."

"You are not going in there alone!"

"As you stated, Amanda, Soluk and Spock are there as well as Nurse T'Ahiyya. Remain here." She left before any more arguing could happen.

Amanda shot a look at Rrelthiz who forestalled whatever the woman was about to say. "You need not say it." She scurried after Saavik whose head turned at the sound of talons on the floor.

"Rrelthiz--"

"Save your strength, friend Saavik. I am with you."

She tried to get one step ahead, especially as they entered the exam room where Mekhai was, but Saavik's strides never allowed it.

Spock stopped talking when they came in, but Saavik only walked to the foot of the diagnostic bed. "Mekhai."

He laid down as if he didn't even know she was in the room. Soluk began going to the computer, maybe to record what was going to happen. So they have Saavik's charges on record, Rrelthiz guessed, but her Vulcan friend held up a hand, quietly asking the Subcommander to hold off.

No one said anything, only the scanner above Mekhai's head with all its chirps and heartbeat made any noise. She waited him out and at long last, he couldn't take it. His eyes flicked down to look at her and only then did she talk.

"I am here to apologize, Mekhai."

Rrelthiz's tail banged into a cabinet, making her jump all over again. She couldn't even tear away to how Captain Spock reacted. Mekhai scrambled to sit up on the bed and stared at Saavik.

"Here in front of all these witnesses, I take responsibility for having wronged you. Each survivor vowed to stop our violent behavior once we left the colony, but I still attacked you on the Symmetry. Not only am I guilty for those attacks, I also rebuffed you're claiming it. You reminded me of this when you landed on Vulcan, but I again disregarded you. I was wrong for each count. I say this to you sincerely - I am sorry."

If she had told him the secret of the universe, he could not have been more stunned. Rrelthiz felt the same way, then she gave a happy flutter. How lucky she was to have met this fine friend.

Saavik took a step closer to the bed. Mekhai's stare turned wary.

"I suspect it could not have been easy for you in the foster home after I lived there."

He swallowed.

"Or in the school after I attended there. You said they spoke highly of me. It gave you another reminder to my attacks and must have appeared as one more source disregarding your own view of me."

He turned away, but that brought him face to face with Spock's hard look. He dropped his head to stare at the floor, nothing more than a wounded boy.

A very hurt boy, Rrelthiz thought. It's a bad bond linking them.

"If my taking responsibility and apology do not serve enough as amends, you can demand more."

Soluk at last stepped away from the wall. "Saavik can wave away the right to charge you for attacking her today."

But she shook her head. "No, today is a separate issue. It will not be a part of what we are discussing."

Mekhai's eyes glanced surreptitiously at Soluk then slid across the floor and climbed up Spock. They dropped again.

Saavik bent her head down and whispered something so low that Rrelthiz could not even guess what she said, but Mekhai's eyes came slowly up. It took a long moment during which Saavik's own head came up with him until they were looking at each other.

"I repeat," she said, "I am sincere."

Mekhai chewed on his tongue and his teeth ground together. He mumbled, "It's enough. I don' need nothin' else."

She nodded again as somber as a Vulcan elder at a tribunal. "You do me a kindness." She left it there and he got up from the bed. He got one step away before she got in his path.

"Now we will agree that we move forward from this point. Any further attacks will not be tolerated."

He clenched his hands into fists, the leather gloves creaking, and his chest rose, swelling the vest. She gave not one inch, but she didn't push that strength down against him like she had before when they confronted each other. Slowly, oh so slowly, his fists unclenched and a trace of the thug disappeared, replaced by a hint of maturity. Maybe even a peek of his Vulcan parent. "You got my promise. No more fightin'." In the next second, he grinned. "Sa'Av Ik."

Is that her true name? Rrelthiz wondered. But Saavik hadn't given it to her, so she would not use it. In fact, Saavik bristled and then gave something like a sigh along with a look that told the male his humor was infantile. His grin grew even bigger and then faded with her next words.

"One more matter, Mekhai. I have made my choice with the deaths of Ny'Jul, Micar, Eitan, and Kf'iskjyk. I will stay here."

Spock's eyebrow shot up. She didn't miss it.

"Inform Jdehn I cannot accompany her as a member of her crew."

You were going to fly with Jdehn? That does not sound like you, friend Saavik.

Mekhai didn't like it, but Spock eyed him now so he only said, "Got it."

Rrelthiz left with Saavik. They didn't get far. Spock was right on their heels. "Saavik."

She closed her eyes and spoke under her breath to the small healer, "I thought he would become suspect."

Rrelthiz had no idea what that meant, but she moved away to give them privacy.

T'Mes went from one patient to another. She caught sight of the Carreon and shook her head. No one so far had seen anything that would help. The remaining interviews wouldn't take long. The ward was bare. Only four beds were filled.

And only four others are alive outside of these beds.

All the others were gone. She had not stopped those deaths from happening.

She left to join Leonard and the other healers.

The events where Rrelthiz nearly commits honorable suicide and Saavik's quotes are from Just A Little Training Cruise by A.C. Crispin and is published in the "Enterprise Logs" anthology.