CHAPTER 20

You are beginning to believe the impossible. It is, after all, almost unprecedented. But on this occasion Leonard McCoy may have been correct.

"But goddammit, Spock. You don't actually have to go over there. It's enough that they believe you're on the board the Demeter. Leave it to Giotto and his team."

The reasoning you presented in the face of the good doctor's advice was supremely logical. It touched on your familiarity with the warped personality and motivations of the former commander from Deneb III - whose shuttle is even now coming within tractor beam range of the colony ship, apparently still unaware of your subterfuge - on the unavailability of Mister Scott whose expertise is required on board the Enterprise, and on the necessity for a senior command figure to accompany the team. Captain Glover, you heard yourself argue, is compromised as team leader due to her familial relationship with one of the potential hostages. You note, however, that you have somehow been able to ignore your own equally compromised position regarding the second potential hostage.

It is this compromised position which is now causing you to re-evaluate your opinion of the good doctor's advice. Because, as the shuttle approaches, as you run through the likely outcomes of the multiple scenarios now playing out behind your eyelids, you find yourself favouring the options which result in serious injury to the current occupant of the pilot's seat.

This is unacceptable.

Yet you find yourself unable to imagine the scenario where you would have remained on board the Enterprise while the man responsible for poisoning her captain and removing you from his side approached co-ordinates within the range of a moderately ambitious space walk.

Kaiidth.

You are relatively certain that those around you are unaware of your compromised position and you intend to keep it that way.

Which makes it essential that, as you scan the numbers which inform the sine waves on the screen in front of you, sensor readings diverted from the Demeter bridge to her shuttle deck, you resist the unexpected temptation to make firm physical contact with the console interface.

However, the man at your shoulder does not have the benefit of a lifetime reading the Vulcan masters. Commander Giotto swears softly.

"Dammit. Still too far away."

"Indeed. However, I estimate the shuttle will be within scanning range in three minutes forty six seconds."

Two hundred and twenty six seconds of uncertainty. Before 'potential' decouples from 'hostages' and becomes either one word or an irrelevancy. Meanwhile, although you know there is no need to remind the Enterprise's chief of security that the narrowing of the distance between the two vessels enables a two way process, you are unable to stop yourself clearing your throat and stating the obvious.

"It is time, Commander."

Giotto nods and pulls out his communicator.

"All teams switch coms on my mark. Short range only until you get the all clear. We're on silent running."

The Demeter now floats in a geostationary orbit enclosed in a bubble of silence and static while below a world continues to turn. For another one hundred and ninety seven seconds you can pretend that Dr McCoy was unnecessarily emotional in his analysis of the placement of command personnel. After that you suspect reassessment will not be a priority.

-oOo-

Despite his reputation as a miracle worker the Enterprise's chief engineer doesn't actually believe in miracles. He's well aware that every bypass rigged, every circuit re-engineered to function outside its design brief, every decimal point of additional warp speed squeezed from protesting engines, is simply the result of sifting the laws of physics through the sieve of a cerebral cortex which may be unique in its engineering ability to join the dots, but for which he claims little credit.

He has been in no hurry, however, to disillusion those who apparently believe he harnesses a higher power every time he pulls the Fleet's flagship back from the brink certain destruction, if for no other reason than it's been a long time since he had to pay for his own single malt in any bar frequented by members of the service's engineering corps.

But today his atheism regarding miracles is meeting its most serious challenge yet.

He stares accusingly at the speaker mesh on the control panel in front of him and draws a breath.

"Captain... Captain Kirk...is that you?"

"Scotty...?" The voice is soft, wondering. It lacks the bass notes of command he's expecting, and for a brief moment the engineer thinks of ghosts in the machine and over active imaginations. But when the voice comes again it is stronger and more familiar.

"Scotty - yes, Kirk here. Can you pinpoint our signal?"

A brief glance at the console confirms the impossible. Two strong life signs, at a surface location he recognises. And weaker signs too - just a few metres away.

"I can, Captain. And if you dinna mind me asking, how the blazes did you end up...?

"Long story, Scotty. No time. We need a medivac now."

"Are you hurt, Captain?"

"What? No... it's not for me." The voice grows muffled for a moment. Something about a pulse. Then it's back. "We have four casualties here. Two Deneb security. And two from the Enterprise. Kingley and Yamamoto. They're in a bad way. Unconscious."

There's a crackle of static before Kirk continues. "And once the medivac's on its way raise shields - Spock's on the Demeter but -"

Scott spares no more than a passing thought to wonder how on earth his captain knows the location of his First Officer, any more than he wonders how his CO has somehow managed to regain possession of a working communicator; some things, like the Captain's ability to emerge unscathed and smiling just as his senior officers are starting to silently rehearse their contributions to his eulogy, just aren't worth questioning.

"-aye, Captain. We know. Giotto's there too with a security team. And there's no need to send a shuttle."

As he embarks on an explanation of his latest modifications to the Enterprise's transporter array he's aware of a certain impatience at other end of the communication link. Just as he's about to explain the finer points of quantum level manipulation required to counteract the ore's effects on the pattern buffers he's interrupted.

"- all right, Scotty. I should have guessed you'd manage something like that. In that case, five to beam up. But don't bring me back to the Enterprise. I want to go straight to the Demeter. Can you do that? Transfer me straight over there?"

"Aye, Captain. But do you no think you should get back here? Dr McCoy won't -"

"- Bones, will get his chance to have a good prod at me. All in good time, Scotty. But I need to..."

The hesitation is uncharacteristic, and Scott frowns down at the console.

"Just get me to Giotto's team on the Demeter. Rawlson's on his way but there's still time." An audible protest in the background and a sigh. "No, Jake, you can't come..."

It's only later, much later, that Scott thinks back over that conversation and realises what was missing.

-oOo-

It is still true that Vulcans do not sigh in relief. So the breath of air that escapes before your lips clamp firmly shut is no more than required respiration.

The Demeter's tractor beam is powerful enough to guide several hundred cubic meters of cargo from planetary orbit into its storage bays. It has, therefore, been a straightforward task to lock onto the bulky sub orbital shuttle emerging from the clouds of Deneb's stratosphere. It has proved a little less straightforward to finesse the controls so that a vehicle never designed for prolonged exposure to the vacuum of space does not disintegrate into several tons of orbital debris before it can be manoeuvred into the correct position for embarkation.

Yet the nod you give to the screen before you owes less to the safe capture of the shuttle than it does to what else those numbers indicate.

At this distance the sensor readings can be trusted. And none of the bio signatures on board match those of either a small boy or the youngest starship captain of the Fleet. There are a myriad of possible reasons why Rawlson has apparently abandoned his trump card on the planet surface but you refuse to consider the most obvious.

You would know. It is not possible for the universe to subtract the captain's presence from the sum total of life forms in your vicinity and for you not to know.

No hostages.

No need for a rescue plan which involved high precision targeting and a high risk of casualties.

The possibility looms of a conflict free resolution. You turn to the man at your shoulder but Giotto can read a screen as well as his ship's science officer and is already gesturing to his team to melt into the shadows behind the empty cargo nets leaving you alone at the console.

You have approximately thirty seven seconds before the shuttle hatch opens.

Thirty seven seconds to prepare for...

You are not thinking of Christmas. That would be an illogical use of the time remaining.

You are focused on the task at hand, on the cool metal of the phaser in your hand and on the changing pressure in your ears as the external doors begin to open and the forcefield shimmers.

So you are not thinking of an arcane human festival and the scent of spiced wine and the echo of laughter.

"But Spock, this year you'd be perfect. You'll learn the script in no time and it's not that big a part."

"Lieutenant Uhura, I fail to understand why you would continue in this endeavour when my answer this year remains the same as it was when you asked me to participate in a similar venture 367 days ago."

The captain's smile is bright enough to eclipse the fairy lights which have appeared in irregular loops around the ship's refectory courtesy of under-employed members of the engineering department and are now apparently serving no purpose other than to offend your sense of geometry.

"Give it up, Lieutenant. Our First Officer is never going to tread the boards in the Christmas review. He's no actor. Whatever made you even contemplate the possibility? "

The look the Enterprise's communications officer gives you is a touch too shrewd for your comfort.

"I think you do him a disservice, Captain. I have a hunch our first officer plays a part every day of his life."

A choked guffaw from the ship's CMO while Kirk becomes unusually interested in the citrus fruit which appears to have achieved a state of negative specific gravity within his mulled wine. You see him shoot a warning glance across the table but inevitably Leonard McCoy is enjoying this conversation far too much not to participate.

"I'm afraid I agree with Jim, Lieutenant. You're fighting a lost cause."

"But..."

"Although of course with those ears you might consider him for a walk-on...not sure where you'd get an elf costume that fits though."

The memory of laughter drowns in the hiss of closing shuttlebay doors.

And now, as you carefully shift the phaser from your hand to its holster, as you straighten your shoulders against a fatigue that is disproportionate to the length of time since your last sleep period, you use the remaining eleven seconds to wonder why it is a surprise to discover that Lieutenant Uhura was right all along.

-oOo-

I'm so sorry for the ridiculous length of time since my last update. I haven't abandoned this story although you'd be forgiven for making that assumption. And I know you've probably forgotten what's happened in the preceding 19 chapters so none of this makes sense. Sorry. If it helps, I still know how it ends.