2295: Cedar Junction, Iowa

The Justice of the Peace was presiding at the front of the room. Before him stood our son Grant and his best friend and best man Danesh, waiting for the arrival of Amy, his sweetheart since childhood. They had moved to this small town straight out of college and now taught together at the local elementary school. Across the aisle from us were members of the bride's family while on our side there were only Janice and me with Grace and her latest girlfriend seated a couple of rows behind us. It was that girlfriend that had Janice and I in urgent, whispered conversation.

"A Klingon!"

"Clearly, Grace has changed her mind about them," I said. "I didn't realise they'd already started allowing Klingons to serve in Starfleet."

"There are only a few so far, and they're being watched very closely."

"And one of them even more closely by our daughter, apparently. What's the Klingon position on homosexuality?"

"If I remember correctly, they don't care who you have sex with. One of their most renowned generals had a string of young male lovers and no one thought anything of it. Their big thing, for both men and women, is sexual prowess and your number of conquests."

"Huh. Given their culture, I suppose that figures."

I heard the door behind us open and I turned, expecting to see the bride, but it was Uhura.

She looked terrible.

Haggard, emaciated, and supporting herself with a cane, she hobbled down the aisle and collapsed onto the chair next to mine.

"Sorry I'm late," she wheezed.

I wanted to ask her what had happened, but the organist chose that moment to strike up 'Here Comes The Bride', the door behind us opened, and Amy entered. Wearing a simple but elegant white dress and carrying a bouquet, she walked down the aisle on the arm of her proud father. My thoughts should have been focussed on my son, but instead all I could think of was Uhura. She had been delighted when Starfleet Intelligence recruited her last year, shortly before Grant and Amy moved to Iowa to take up high school teaching positions. Uhura's linguistics skills were just what they needed in an analyst, and working for them had put a new spring in her step after a couple of months where she had been at a loose end. It had been several months since we'd last all been together, so to see her like this now was a shock.

A short while later, after Grant and Amy had gotten hitched and then been whisked away to the restaurant where we were would shortly all be joining them, Janice and I collared Uhura.

"What happened?" I asked. "Are you alright?"

"Not really, no. I have Regellian polymyositis. I picked it up during the Enterprise's original five-year mission. Not being a human disease, it can't immediately act on our biology, but it stays in your body and eventually adapts until it can attack your cells. I always knew it would get me one day, and now, finally, it has. There is no cure."

"How long do you have?"

"Five years, maybe six."

Seeing the dismay on our faces, she gave a little smile.

"Don't be sad," she said, "I've had a good life."

""""""

2296: Cinnamon Cove, Maine

"It's a boy, moms! We're calling him Steven Arthur Coleman."

Janice and I looked at image on the wallscreen of the newborn child Grant was holding up to the camera and my heart just about melted with love. It seemed only yesterday that Grant himself was that size, now here was my baby with a baby of his own.

"He's beautiful!" I said.

"He truly is," said Janice, "and his grandmothers will be travelling over to Iowa to see him for ourselves just as soon as we can get away."

Grandmother. Of course, I was a grandmother now. That was going to take a bit of getting used to. I didn't feel old enough to be a grandmother, though I was delighted to have a grandson. I was still smiling at the news when, an hour or so later, someone knocked on our front door.

"Were you expecting anyone, honey?" asked Janice, frowning.

"No, I wasn't," I replied. "Computer, show visitor."

An image from our external cameras instantly appeared on the wallscreen. Our visitor was a young woman - tall, thin, black, and in her early twenties - dressed in a Starfleet lieutenant's uniform and toting a large bag.

"Hmmm," I said, heading for the door, "I wonder what she wants?"

"Hi," she said, a big smile appearing on her face when I opened the door to her, "it's good to see you both again."

"'Again?'" I said. "Do we know you, miss...?"

"Zoe Nyonga, and we've been friends for more years than seems possible. It's me, Janice, it's Uhura!"

"If this is some sort of joke..."

"No, it's Camus II," she said, and I felt my stomach lurch.

"You'd better come in."

Zoe did so, and seated herself at one end of our sofa. Janice and I eyed this young woman suspiciously.

"So you know about Camus II," I said. "That doesn't prove you're who you claim to be."

"No, it doesn't, so throw questions at me about times you've shared that only Nyota Uhura could answer."

For the next five minutes we did just that. Then we knew.

"It is you, but how...?"

"Zoe Nyonga was part of the Khitomer conspiracy while still a cadet - it ran deeper than any of us suspected at the time. As more and more names were uncovered, hers came to light and she was arrested. Unable to face the shame this would bring on her family, she attempted suicide. Knowing her people and the culture she comes from I can confirm that the shame would be real. She insisted that if what she had done came out she would attempt suicide again and that this time no one would stop her. So she was given a choice. Public shame and life imprisonment with restraints to ensure to ensure suicide wasn't a possibility, or she could swap bodies with someone else who would then continue on as her but with a clean record. She chose the latter, even when told she would be swapping with me and would remain secretly imprisoned until the Regellian polymyositis kills her. And here we are. I was chosen for this because Starfleet Intelligence considers my skills and experience too valuable to lose."

"So they didn't destroy the machine on Camus II after all," I said.

"No, instead Starfleet Intelligence took over the whole planet. The machine was considered to be of potentially incalculable value to their work, and it can't be moved. Its operation is tied into the magnetic field of the planet in ways Starfleet doesn't understand and hasn't figured out how to duplicate despite decades of trying. So it remains a one-of-a-kind asset."

"What's in the bag?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

Zoe lifted a glass-fronted wooden box out of it, one containing a hefty chain-link fixed to a board with a small brass plate beneath bearing an inscription. I read the inscription out:

"'This is a link from the anchor chain of HMS Endurance, the vessel which carried Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton on his ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1914'."

I turned to Zoe.

"I don't understand," I said.

"Next year, Jenna Sarkesian will be promoted to Admiral, and Grace will take her place as captain of the Endurance," she explained. "At twenty- seven, she'll be the youngest starship captain since Jim Kirk, but she's earned it. When that happens, I'll be assigned as her Communications Officer - I seem destined to end up in that seat no matter what I do. As you know, it's traditional where possible for starships to carry artefacts from earlier vessels that bore their name. Starfleet Intelligence supplied me with that chain-link so I can ingratiate myself with Grace when I take up my assignment."

"What exactly is your assignment?"

"Since they seem opposed to peace, we've given the group responsible for the Khitomer conspiracy the codename 'Ares'. Their numbers include Klingons, Vulcans, Romulans and humans, an almost unheard of alliance. Every last one of them has to be rooted out."

"You think there are members of Ares on Endurance?"

"We don't know, that's the point. Starfleet Intelligence is getting an operative assigned to every ship in the fleet. On top of our surface duties each of us will also be responsible for ferreting out any conspirators there might be in their crews."

"Sounds like a tall order."

"It is, but it needs to be done."

Janice then asked the big question.

"Why are you telling us this? If you're working for Starfleet Intelligence you must have been sworn to secrecy."

"I was. I took an oath not to tell family members or my fellow officers from the Enterprise that I was now Zoe Nyonga, but you two are neither. It's a technicality, I know, but I needed someone to know, just in case. Who better than my closest female friends?"