Saavik was quiet for most of the rest of their visit, and Spock could not ascertain the reason why. It concerned him; she had always been able to tell him anything – and everything – she was thinking. Perhaps during our voyage back to Earth she will be more talkative, he thought to himself as they made the walk from Sarek's home to the spaceport.
"Have a safe journey," Sarek told his son once their small ship had been loaded and prepared. He raised his hand in the traditional splayed-finger gesture. "Live long and prosper."
"Peace and long life," Spock replied, mimicking his father's sign. Saavik did the same.
Soon, they had left the colony behind and were faced with nothing but open space. "I find it difficult to believe that there is something so utterly fascinating on that console," Spock commented after Saavik had spent a good hour intently focused on her terminal.
She glanced up at him, one eyebrow raised, but she said nothing before looking back down. Spock sighed, reminded of their days in school in Shi'Kahr. She'd always been masterful at the art of shutting out people or things that she didn't want to deal with. Her teachers had mistaken stubbornness for a lack of intelligence, but he had been able to get past it.
Spock ensured that the autopilot was set and then turned to her. "Saavikam – "
"Do not call me that," she finally spoke up.
He frowned. "I have called you that for years."
"I am no longer a child."
Of that, he was aware. "It merely denotes affection," he replied. "But I will discontinue its use if you prefer."
She gave a single nod. "Thank you."
"May I ask what is troubling you, Saavik?" Her name was slowly and deliberately pronounced.
"I am fine," she tightly replied.
"I find that difficult to believe as well."
Saavik reached into the small bag that was beside her seat and retrieved a PADD. "I have reading that I should complete," she said, hoping that Spock would leave her alone if it was for the benefit of her education. However, her wish was not granted.
"We have a long journey ahead; I believe that it can wait."
Saavik sighed, putting down the PADD. "I have nothing to dis – "
She was abruptly cut off as the ship rocked violently; the interior lights flickered and alarms began to play. "Warning!" the computer announced just a little too late. "Unidentified vessel on an intercept course."
"Shields are at 81 percent," Saavik reported as she turned back to her console. "Can we outrun them?" Their small craft had limited shielding and even more limited armaments – it didn't stand a chance in a fight.
"We will attempt to do so." But they didn't get very far; their attackers were just as quick.
"Shields are at 54 percent," she called out when another hit jolted them.
"Transfer power from secondary systems," Spock ordered.
Her fingers danced over the keys. "No effect."
Spock attempted to get the ship's poor excuse for a tactical system to lock onto their target, but they were hit once more before he could complete the task.
"Shields at 12 percent!" Saavik called over wailing alarms.
"Weapons are offline." They met each other's gaze for a moment. Out here, between solar systems, they were on their own.
A final blast of enemy fire collapsed the shields. Moments later, the whine of a transporter filled the ship's small cabin as three tall, armored aliens appeared, each holding a gun. "Play nice and no one gets hurt," one of them claimed. "The girl is coming with us."
Spock had tried to reach for the phaser that was in a small compartment beside his seat, but it had been too late. They must be pirates, he realized as he studied their appearance. Or bounty hunters… Their clothing was similar, but not uniform enough to be official wears. "I would ask that you reconsider," he told them. "She is merely a Vulcan student, and likely of no value to you. Take me in her place."
Saavik shot him a look that he could clearly interpret as a question of: What are you doing? However, she was smart enough not to say a word aloud.
The hunter laughed, a harsh barking sound. "'Merely a Vulcan student'?" he repeated before signaling to his men with a tip of his head. One of the lackeys roughly yanked Saavik to her feet while the other pulled out a scanner. He waived it in front of her, and then nodded to his commander.
"She is a genetic match," he confirmed.
He smiled an ugly smile. "She is DEFINITELY more than JUST a Vulcan," he told Spock. "Isn't that right, pe'hlai?" he asked Saavik. She instantly tensed at the term, which meant 'little bird' in Romulan. Where she had heard it before, she wasn't sure, but she knew that very bad things lay ahead.
Spock tried to take advantage of the fact that the man's attention was on Saavik and raise his weapon, but he wasn't quite fast enough. A bolt of energy arched through the room as the commander fired his gun. Spock slumped, unconscious, in his seat.
"No!" Saavik cried, trying to go to him, but she was firmly held in place by two pairs of hands.
"Now, now," the commander told her. "A second shot will kill. You wouldn't want that, would you, pe'hlai?"
Everything in her was screaming, but she was forced to back down, shaking her head. "Please, do not harm him."
He laughed. "All right – since you asked so nicely." And without warning, he shot her as well. His smile grew as Saavik's body went limp in the other men's arms. "Oh, I'm going to make such a fortune off your little head," he proclaimed before toggling a device attached to his belt. All four of them disappeared as they were transported away.
When Spock regained consciousness, he was at first unaware of where he was or what had happened. It all quickly came back to him a moment later. She had been right there – right there in front of him – and now…
"Saavik?" he called, though he was not truly expecting to get a response. One did not come; he was alone in the ship. Spock had been responsible for her safety, and he had failed, just like with… He did not allow his thoughts to continue down that path.
A quick check of sensors showed that there were no other vessels in the area. His engines were still functional and all other critical systems were still powered. Spock re-plotted the course for Earth (the ship had been adrift during his few hours of unconsciousness) and reset the autopilot to use every drop of speed that the tiny vessel had.
"Computer," he ordered, "Archive all internal and external sensor data from today and transfer to handheld."
The computer beeped in acknowledgment, and a few moments later, he saw the files appear on the PADD that he'd laid down on the console. With that information, hopefully he would be able to identify the ship that had attacked them, use the Federation sensor grid to track its course, and discover where Saavik had been taken. Because he was GOING to find her, he promised himself. There was no other option.
Saavik awoke to dim lighting and a throbbing headache. As she sat up and slowly got her bearings, she realized that she was being held within a painfully small prison cell. Not much more than a square meter in area, it was defined by thick metal bars. On both sides of her were more cages; they lined the stone-walled room that she was inside of.
Where am I? It was all familiar in a haunting way, but she didn't know why.
She started to try to stand up and quickly decided that was not a sound idea; the cage was also only approximately a meter in height. Opting to kneel instead, she checked to see what she'd been left with. Her communication device was definitely gone, and she'd been stripped of her Academy uniform jacket, leaving only the black tank top that she'd had on underneath. Her shoes and socks had also been removed; her feet were bare in the cool sand that covered the floor.
She listened carefully, but heard no trace of her captors nearby. She was morbidly curious as to who had gone through all of the trouble to have her abducted and brought to some unidentified world. "Is anyone there?" she called out, but there was no response.
The walls were cracked and crumbling, but still sturdy enough that she couldn't make a hole all the way through. Sighing, she turned and decided to test the strength of the bars that imprisoned her. The entire cage rattled around her as she grasped and shook the door, but didn't open. She sat back down against the wall and, as her frustration built up and spilled over, used one foot to deliver a fierce kick to the bars. Something toppled off of the top of the cage, and Saavik stared in horror as she leaned forward and realized what it was.
A skeleton, still wrapped in dirty, tattered clothing.
Images suddenly came to her: she could remember being in that room when it was in slightly better condition. She had been standing beside a pile of broken, helpless bodies as sticky green blood soaked into the sand. Someone had been laughing. Someone else had been screaming, a horrible noise of pain and fear.
Saavik closed her eyes against the unbidden memory and turned away from the body in front of her. But it was too late; the floodgates had already been opened. More images came, from other horrible days. She remembered others crouched in the now-empty cages and menacing faces glowering down at them. Sounds echoed through her mind: crying and screaming and yelling – begging. She clamped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut, as if that would stop the onslaught.
"You remember, don't you?" a voice asked. A real voice, existing not in her tortured past, but in the present. Saavik looked up to see a man standing in the doorway to the room. He was illuminated from behind, the bright lights from another room shining in and making it nearly impossible to see his features. However, she didn't need to see him. Saavik knew that voice, a voice from nightmares that she was just beginning to recall.
The man stepped closer, into the pitifully small amount of light that was being cast from a single dying lamp in the ceiling. The smile he offered her was more frightening than reassuring. "You haven't forgotten me, little one." It wasn't a question.
"It is not for lack of trying, Centurion Izvek," she replied.
He laughed. "After all this time, you are finally home."
Saavik defiantly lifted her chin. "This is not my home."
He tsked. "You were born two rooms over. Such a fragile little thing, small and helpless."
"And yet you chose not to put an end to my existence."
"Oh, I will admit to considering it. Some of my men should have found a better way to fill their off-duty time. But then I learned that you had value: highly effective motivation."
"To do what?"
The evil smile returned. "Whatever I wanted."
Saavik suddenly remembered being held off the ground, a knife to her throat, as the guard that gripped her yelled orders to four Vulcans. They'd refused to do as they were told for their own sakes or each other's, but once her safety was in the balance...
"You used them as test subjects."
"We needed to ensure that our designs were successful. Did you expect us to use our own kind?"
Memories were still trickling in. "Designs...for weapons. That was what you were tasked with. A secret group...without the Empire's approval."
The Centurion's smile turned more forced. "We were ensuring the supremacy of our people by any means necessary."
"Means that the Emperor found abhorrent," Saavik realized. She could remember overhearing a late night argument between the officers. There were lots of raised voices talking about orders – and consequences. "When your experiments were discovered, they were ended."
"We were a two day journey from those giving orders on Romulus. There was no need to retain any of our subjects…or the little abominations that they'd borne."
Abominations. Plural. Saavik suddenly realized that the 'others' she'd previously remembered seeing in the cages were children – more savage little half-breeds like her. She had vague memories of being on the sun-scorched surface of this world with them, running and hearing guards shout in Romulan. At one point in her life, she had not been the only one of her kind.
"I was different," she absently mused aloud.
The Centurion's eyes glittered dangerously. "My weakness; a pet I had for some reason become fond of. I was going to keep you for myself, pe'hlai, when all traces of our work were…erased. But you never reached Romulus."
Saavik's features hardened. "The escort that you provided wanted to share your 'pet.' I would have preferred 'erasure' with the others."
"Your escort was my younger brother. He died by your hand, did he not?"
"He did."
He nodded slowly. "Then it is not too late for your wish to be granted. I will have you, my little bird, for one last time. And when I am done, you will have the death on this world that you desired."
TBC...
A/N: Thanks for the feedback I've gotten! Glad you're enjoying the story so far.
