Chapter Twelve: Leaving
Disclaimer: This is a labor of love, not profit.
Sarek almost never answers the subspace console when Amanda is home. Most of the messages are for her anyway—either her sister Cecilia or Spock, who calls her every week.
Occasionally Amanda calls Spock before he can call her—to spare him the expense, she says, though Spock suspects that her real motive is impatience to talk to him, not that their phone calls are ever very long or fraught with serious matters.
"I just need to hear your voice," she sometimes says, and he allows himself to feel her affection and amusement when he lifts his eyebrow in silent response.
So when his parents' registry number flashes on the small subspace unit in his apartment in San Francisco, Spock is momentarily startled as he opens the connection and sees his father's face on the screen.
"Is Mother there?" Spock says at once, aware that this kind of greeting would have garnered criticism from his mother—or from Nyota, who teases him when he forgets to answer his comm with an established social nicety.
"She has not returned from the university but should be home soon," Sarek says. "I wish to speak to you alone first."
At once Spock is wary. On her recent trip to Earth for radiation treatment to counteract the toxic wavelengths in Eridani's light spectrum, a hazard for humans living on Vulcan, his mother had taken longer to recover than normal. A complication since then?
Or his father's heart surgery several months ago—Sarek had assured Spock that the valve replacement had been successful. Could that optimistic assessment have been in error?
Sarek's expression is as impassive as always, his tone of voice even. Cautiously Spock reaches out for a sense of his parents through their family bond, something he usually keeps muted. His father's presence is there, like the steady thrum of an idling engine. His mother's brighter, lighter essence is there, too—like some grace note in the distance.
But underneath everything, he feels his parents' combined concern about him.
They know.
The upcoming disciplinary hearing.
Since the notice three weeks ago that the Judge Advocate General's office is investigating a report of fraternization, he's been anticipating this moment.
He had hoped to spare his parents.
"Someone has contacted you."
Spock says it as a statement of fact rather than a question, and his father inclines his head a fraction.
"Two days ago," Sarek says. His gaze is impenetrable, even to Spock, who watches him closely. "An officer who said an inquest has been scheduled."
"A hearing," Spock says, correcting him. "To determine my guilt."
To Spock's relief and gratitude, Sarek does not ask him to explain. Nor does his father ask what will happen if he is found guilty. It would be like Sarek to have already looked up the regulations and assessed the consequences.
Just as Spock has, many times. Even before deciding to break them.
Especially before deciding to break them. He can hardly claim ignorance, even if that were some sort of defense.
"The officer mentioned your teaching assistant. He asked what I knew."
Now it is Spock's turn to resist asking for an explanation. As he expects, Sarek waits a moment and then continues.
"Your mother and I both said that we have met the cadet in question but know of nothing untoward in your behavior."
Another statement, but this time Spock recognizes the question behind it. He weighs how much to tell his father.
On one hand, confirming what both his mother and father surely suspect would be a relief. On the other hand, they will be disappointed—and worried.
Not that he isn't. Article 73 of the Starfleet code of conduct states that for a relationship to cross the line into fraternization, it must somehow advantage the junior party or show favoritism. Since his relationship with Nyota began after she was no longer his student, he could offer her no academic advantages.
At least technically. He still has a position of power over her as a professor supervising her assistantship. Article 74 deals with the power differential, forbidding coercion. As far as fraternization goes, this charge is the more damning, but how to convince Starfleet the relationship is mutual, consensual?
"I want this," Nyota had said, and he recalls the moment with perfect clarity—how a sudden rainstorm had sent them wet and shivering to the shelter of his apartment eight months ago; how her words were an answer to his unasked question, to his spoken warning.
"We could be censured."
At that moment she hadn't cared—nor had he, months of fretful longing overwhelming his ability to reason.
That confession is what stops him now as he talks to his father—not the sexual but the emotional nature of his relationship with Nyota—the very real need he has to see her, to touch her, to know her mind.
Saying nothing for a beat too long is an answer in itself. Something in Sarek's gaze flickers and he says, "You have counsel?"
Spock shakes his head.
"I have no need," he says, and again the odd flicker in Sarek's expression catches him by surprise.
"Spock," his father says, "if you are accused, you have need."
Again the struggle to know what to say. Spock looks down briefly to collect his thoughts. When he looks up again, his father's expression is cloudy, his brows knit in an unmistakable frown.
"I do not believe," Spock says slowly, "that I have violated the rules governing fraternization. At least as they are delineated in the code of conduct. However—"
He pauses, gauging his father's reaction. Sarek's frown remains.
"—the prosecution may interpret the prohibitions in such a way that I am…guilty."
There. It's as close to a confession as he can give his father, and he sees him take a breath as he sits back stiffly.
"I see," Sarek says. "Then you plan to admit your guilt? That is why you have no counsel?"
Spock blinks and moves one shoulder forward—his approximation of a shrug.
"I am uncertain what I will do."
His father's disapproval buzzes across their bond and Spock tamps the mental connection down.
"When you decide," Sarek says, "inform me."
Spock says nothing, but he knows his father doesn't expect him to respond, expects Spock to comply.
Which he may—or he may not. His father might try to communicate with his contacts in Starfleet on Spock's behalf. His mother might want to come to the hearing.
Either possibility is unwanted.
Is the conversation over? Spock waits for his father to end the connection, but when Sarek leans forward again toward the viewscreen, instead of reaching out to hit the power button, he steeples his fingers under his chin, a signal that he isn't through speaking.
Silence for a few moments, and then Sarek says, "There is no need to face this alone."
Advice to take Starfleet's offer of counsel? Or a statement of support? Spock isn't sure, but he says, "I understand, Father."
"No," Sarek says, tilting his head slightly, looking even more intense than usual. "I do not think you do."
"Then what—"
"Your mother may want to tell you more when she gets home," Sarek interrupts, "but in the meantime, you may find my own experience instructive. If you have a few minutes?"
Because his father's words are so unexpected, Spock can only nod as his father settles back and begins to tell his tale.
X X X X X
"He's hot again," Amanda said, brushing Spock's feathery dark hair back from his forehead. It was a gesture so human, so unlike any he'd ever seen a Vulcan mother do, that Sarek almost missed the significance of her words.
Not that Vulcan mothers weren't attentive to their children—obsessively so, in fact, keeping detailed data of their growth and progress, painstaking spreadsheets of developmental mile markers anticipated and achieved.
Amanda's attention was just as obsessive but with a different purpose. Any Vulcan mother of a six-month old infant could reel off his physical benchmarks and give an accurate description of his behavior, measuring his progress against other children his age, all in the interest of truth—or competition, Sarek suspected. Amanda's goal in running her finger over Spock's swollen gums when he was teething, for instance, or noting the number of hours he slept—or more accurately, didn't sleep—was to make him more content.
"It tears my heart out to hear him cry," she explained once when Sarek suggested she was too quick to attend to his needs. "Don't worry. I'm not going to spoil him."
Although he wasn't sure what Amanda meant by spoil, he surmised it was an issue in rearing human children.
Indeed, watching Amanda interact with Spock was surprisingly pleasurable, if Sarek was honest with himself. Somber, warm-eyed, quiet, Spock was such a mixture of his parents' features that teasing them apart—his mother's eyes, his father's intensity—occupied Sarek's attention more often than he would have admitted to anyone.
"I'm sure it's a fever," Amanda said, cupping her hand under Spock's chin, laughing softly when he grimaced and turned away.
"Shall I call T'Para?" Sarek asked, naming the healer who had been following Spock's care since his birth. Amanda shook her head.
"Let's wait," she said. "It might be like the last time—nothing they can pin down. I hate to put him through more tests for nothing. We can call later if it gets worse."
What she didn't say was that this fever was just another in a series of alarms—a tendency to bruise, mild fevers that left Spock listless for a day or two—that individually seemed innocuous but added together frightened her. Most Vulcan babies—indeed, Vulcans of all ages—were notoriously hearty, their constitutions protecting them from the miseries of bacteria and viruses that plagued humans.
Could Spock's minor health issues be the result of his human heritage? The healers weren't sure.
Through his bond Sarek felt Amanda's anxiety about the fever, and something more—her reluctance to leave Vulcan while Spock was unwell.
With a flash of disappointment, Sarek realized that Amanda was going to cancel her plans to accompany him on his trip to Alcora.
"You'll only be gone a few days," she said, shifting Spock to her other hip as she made her way into the kitchen, Sarek parking himself in a chair at the table. Amanda opened the stasis unit and speared a piece of fori, a vegetable she likened to a stubby white carrot, and held it up to Spock. He gazed at it briefly before biting down.
It was true. The trip to Alcora should be short, an emergency meeting with the incoming ruling council about setting up negotiations with a dissident group that had become vocal since losing the recent elections. Two days, three; four if the dissidents were recalcitrant—but Sarek and the three junior ambassadors assigned to travel with him would be back home by the end of the week at the latest.
It was logical for Amanda and Spock to stay on Vulcan.
Logical, yet Sarek struggled to master his disappointment.
"I'll miss you, too," Amanda said, running her hand up his arm. Sarek blinked, mentally calculating when Spock's next sleep period would begin. He lifted his eyes to Amanda's and saw a smile flash across her face as she realized what he was thinking.
"Whoever said 'parting is such sweet sorrow' was wrong," Amanda said the next morning as Sarek put his travel bag in the flitter and turned to tell her goodbye.
"Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet."
She laughed as she always did when he took her rhetorical questions literally, answering them, or explaining them, something he had done in all innocence when they first met but that he did intentionally now.
In her arms, Spock watched his father, and then, to Sarek's surprise, reached toward him, something he almost never did. Gingerly Sarek slid his hands around Spock's torso and lifted him out of Amanda's hold, marveling at the weight and heft of his son.
For a moment he recalled Sybok at the same age, though Sarek had seen him rarely then, and had held him like this only once.
Before he could stop himself, he gripped Spock tightly against his chest, causing him to fret and reach back to Amanda.
"Can't you make up your mind?" she cooed as Spock ducked his head under her chin.
Even in that short encounter, Sarek could tell that Spock was still running a mild fever.
T'Para? he asked silently, and Amanda nodded.
"I'll call in a few minutes," she promised as he sat in the pilot's seat, shutting the door of the flitter. As he lifted off he saw Amanda waving and Spock, somber and flushed.
The ride to the embassy transport station was short and uneventful, and within an hour Sarek and the staff members traveling with him were headed to Alcora. Sarton and T'Ania were experienced staffers, both older than Sarek. T'Ania, in fact, had retired several years ago but had returned to diplomatic service at Sarek's request—a dearth of skilled negotiators putting a strain on the embassy.
The third junior ambassador, Stanar, was much younger. As the shuttle reached cruising speed, he unbuckled his seat restraints and made his way to where Sarek sat alone, PADDs stacked around him.
"May I?" Stanar said, and stifling his irritation, Sarek cleared a seat for him.
Since his assignment a week ago to this mission, Stanar's interactions with Sarek had increased 137.5% over his normal working correspondence. At first Sarek had assumed that Stanar was simply being thorough, particularly since this was his first off-world mission. Amanda, however, had another explanation.
"He's nervous," she told Sarek one evening when he mentioned—or as Amanda characterized it, complained—that Stanar was asking him to read all of the briefing documents for accuracy, to discuss the preliminary arrangements beforehand.
"He does not require the level of assistance he asks for," Sarek said, a touch too emphatically. Amanda smirked.
"This is the first time he's been off Vulcan," she said. "He wants to do everything right."
Sarek came as close to a harrumph as he could give.
"His work is exemplary. His concern is obsessive and illogical."
They were sitting at the kitchen table lingering over their meal, Spock sitting on Amanda's lap, a two-pronged fork in his chubby fist—a concession, Sarek knew, to his own squeamishness about watching someone touch food. When he wasn't here, he was certain Amanda let Spock pick up his food with his fingers.
"Then give him some reassurance," she said, circling Spock's fist with her own and pressing the fork into a slice of Terran mango.
Again Sarek felt a wave of exasperation.
"I have," he said, and Amanda looked up and said, "Maybe he needs to hear it from someone else."
"Explain."
"Ask him if he wants to bring T'Nia with him. And the baby. I'd like to have her company."
Six months ago after a difficult pregnancy, Stanar's wife T'Nia had delivered a premature girl shortly after Spock was born. Although she had been confined to a neonatal unit at first, the baby was doing well—or so Stanar had told Sarek the last time he remembered to ask.
"He would find such a suggestion…odd," Sarek said immediately. "No Vulcan would make such a request."
"You did," Amanda said, helping Spock spear another piece of mango.
Sarek said nothing—he knew when he was being teased. Long ago he had given up trying to convince Amanda that traveling with him on diplomatic missions served no practical purpose. He had lost that argument the first time he was assigned a lengthy posting off Vulcan after their marriage.
"Of course I'm coming with you," she had announced then, looking at him as if he were mentally deranged. "I didn't sign up for some weird long-distance relationship. There's no rule that says you can't have your family with you when are working—especially when you will be away from home for months at a time."
He had opened his mouth to retort but she had sat on his lap, thrown her arms around his neck, and whispered in his ear, "Besides, I can be useful. Just try me."
And that was that.
Stanar, however, wasn't married to a human. That changed the equation considerably—so Sarek had ignored Amanda's advice and said nothing.
"Ambassador," Stanar said, holding up a PADD to show Sarek. Unlike most Vulcans, Stanar was fair-haired and gray-eyed, often wearing light-weight cloaks and muted colors that set him apart. "You might want to read the historical research I compiled about Alcoran elections. This dissident group has accused the ruling coalition of voter fraud consistently in the past. I have juxtaposed that with a psychological assessment of them as a species. An excessively emotional people."
"Thank you," Sarek said, trying to keep the weariness from his voice, "but in my experience, most people are excessively emotional."
Stanar nodded, and when Sarek held out his hand, slipped him the PADD, unbuckled his restraint, and returned to the back of the shuttle.
Dutifully Sarek scanned the PADD but his attention wandered. He kept seeing Amanda, her hand raised in farewell, and Spock winking into the sun as the flitter flew away. If anything was seriously wrong, surely he would know by now—but all he felt from Amanda was a mild distracted worry, nothing more. He closed his eyes and tried to rest for the last fifteen minutes of the journey.
Three armed guards and the Alcoran council representative met the Vulcans when they landed at the capital city. The Alcorans were tall, willowy humanoids with a thatch of bright orange fernlike hair along the sides of their faces—which Amanda had called mutton-chop whiskers, an appellation Sarek found mystifying.
"You expect violence?" Sarek asked, motioning toward the armed guards, and the representative adjusted the universal translator pinned to his tunic and said, "Why are you wasting my time with useless commentary? You should already have been briefed on the situation."
Inwardly Sarek bristled—partly because the ambassador wasn't entirely wrong. His attention to the briefing papers had been less than optimal. If he was going to be effective here, he would have to remedy that.
"I apologize," he said with more equanimity than he felt. "I may have overlooked some details."
"We were told your party would be larger," the representative said, darting a glance over at the four Vulcans following him across the tarmac to a low-slung building ahead. "The council will see this as an insult."
Again Sarek bristled. An overly emotional people. Perhaps Stanar was not exaggerating after all.
"My wife and son were scheduled to accompany me," Sarek said, "but my son fell ill. They were forced to stay on Vulcan."
Stopping inside a large room just inside the building, the representative said, "Forgive my rudeness, Ambassador. We understand the importance of kinship here. Please, this station has a subspace console if you wish to contact your family. There may not be an opportunity to do so later. I will take the others on to the council chambers, and Armitre can bring you after your call."
At a signal, one of the armed guards stepped to Sarek's side and ushered him to a wall where a bank of subspace transceivers were mounted. Moving toward one that had familiar controls, Sarek tapped out his home registry number and activated the unit. Almost at once Amanda answered.
"He's the same," she said, and Sarek felt a paradoxical mix of relief and despair.
"But no worse," he said, and Amanda said, "No. T'Para says to let her know if the fever goes any higher. He's sleeping right now."
That was a surprise, since Spock almost never slept during the day.
"I may take a nap, too," Amanda said, yawning. "Since he'll probably keep me up most of the night."
When he hung up, Sarek felt more frustrated that he had before. And more torn. Hearing Amanda's voice had only strengthened his awareness of her worry. He should have given this assignment to someone else and stayed with her.
Tapping his pinned translator, the guard said, "Is something wrong?"
With a jerk, Sarek shook his head and mentally scolded himself for letting his mood show this way.
"Shall we go?" the guard said, and Sarek leaned over to grab the handle of his travel bag right as the ground shook under his feet.
"Down!" the guard said, shoving him hard. Immediately Alcorans were shouting and making a high-pitched keening noise painful to Sarek's ears.
"Go!" the guard said, pulling on Sarek's sleeve, and he stumbled to his feet and followed him out the door they had entered earlier. Twenty meters away was the shuttle from Vulcan, the flight crew still onboard.
The guard rushed Sarek across the tarmac and up the open shuttle hatch.
"Take off!" the guard yelled to the startled attendant in the narrow aisle of the shuttle. "We're under attack! The Ambassador could be in danger!"
Heading to the cockpit, the attendant paused when Sarek called out.
"No!" he said. "We have to wait for the others!"
Another explosion rocked the ground, shaking the shuttle with a sickening notion. A heavy cloud of smoke rose from the low building.
"Sir," the communications officer said, holding the shuttle comm in his hand, "the Alcorans are demanding that we move immediately. They believe we are a target."
"My staff—" Sarek began, but already he could hear the wail of ground-to-air missile alarms. If the shuttle didn't leave right away, it never would.
"Where's the nearest transport station?" Sarek asked the guard who brushed one hand through his whiskers before answering.
"There's one at the military base fifty kilometers due east," he said.
"Signal the authorities," Sarek said to the communications officer sitting behind the pilot, "and tell them we are heading to the next transport station. Find out what has happened to my staff members."
The officer's reply was lost in the whine of the engines starting. With a lurch that nearly toppled Sarek over, the shuttle lifted up and he moved to the window to survey the damage to the building below.
By now the air was so hazy with smoke that the building was difficult to see. Sarton and T'Ania both had years of experience in hostile situations. They were probably already negotiating a ceasefire with the dissidents, if that was who was behind the attack.
As the shuttle made its way to the next transport station, the communications officer relayed what ground control had pieced together. The dissident group was believed responsible, though their purpose was unclear. After all, the Vulcans were on Alcora at their invitation as a liaison to the ruling council. Why attack now as the delegation was arriving? It made no sense to Sarek. He let his frustration flood his bond with Amanda and wished he could communicate with her more directly.
"Where are my staff members?" Sarek said when he disembarked the shuttle a few minutes later. This station was much smaller than the one at the capital city, but he counted twenty guards carrying weapons and a dozen Alcorans dressed in council robes. One with especially bushy whiskers answered him.
"Ambassador Sarek? I'm Councilor Armitor. We weren't sure if you had been taken or not. The dissidents told us they have three Vulcans and our council representative."
Sarek's heart sank. Suddenly what had started out as a relatively simple investigation into voter fraud had escalated into a dangerous hostage situation.
"Where are they?" he asked again, and Councilor Armitor bobbed his head.
"Unknown. They were abducted from their ground transport as they were leaving the station. Security is tracing the communication signals, but so far all we know is that they are still in the capital."
"You say they have been in communication," Sarek said, following the councilor down a shadowy corridor. Behind him he heard the heavy footfalls of the armed guards.
"One call," Armitor said, motioning to Sarek to enter a large room ahead of him. "They said they would contact us again soon."
"Did they make any demands?"
"Not anything new," the councilor said. "They want the sitting government dismissed and elections held immediately."
Entering the room, Sarek noticed more Alcorans crouched on large round cushions on the floor or standing in groups of two or three talking. All were wearing the same asymmetrical robes woven from dark nubby material. All had bushy whiskers, most in various shades of orange or red. A genderless species? Another detail Stanar had probably included in the briefing that Sarek had missed.
Such inattention was uncharacteristic and troubling.
Noted, and set aside for now.
Armitor led him to a very tall Alcoran standing at the far end of the room. From the way the other Alcorans deferred to him, Sarek assumed he was the council leader.
"Mak-ab Armalon," Armitor said with a sweeping gesture. "This is the Vulcan ambassador, Sarek."
The mak-ab inclined his head slightly.
"We have brought trouble to your people," he said, the universal translator giving his voice an eerie inflectionless tone that was a jarring contrast to the obvious distress in his expression.
"The delegation must be released at once," Sarek said, and the mak-ab held out his hands in what Sarek surmised was the Alcoran equivalent of agreement.
"We have told them so," the mak-ab said. "The dissidents do not listen, not to anything."
"You have dealt with this group before?"
"Always the same," the mak-ab said. "Each election cycle they contest the results."
Sarek remembered Stanar telling him the same thing on the shuttle. It didn't excuse the violence, of course, but it helped explain their desperation if they habitually lost the elections.
"I will need to contact the Vulcan High Council," Sarek said, "but until the hostages are released, I cannot negotiate with the dissidents. In the meantime, however, if your election overseers can arrange to meet with me—"
"I do not take your meaning," the mak-ab interrupted, and Sarek said, "The officials in charge of your elections. Once the hostages are released, I hope to resume our investigation. Such chronic dissatisfaction among the electorate must be addressed."
"The dissidents are violent radicals," the mak-ab said. "Alcorans with a history of violence are barred from the elections. We need no election overseers. The dissidents are well-known."
Now it was Sarek's turn be confused.
"Are you saying, " he began slowly, "that the dissidents are not allowed to run for office?"
"We do not condone violence," the mak-ab said.
For a heartbeat Sarek felt a stab of irritation. Was the mak-ab being deliberately vague? This was the sort of misdirection that was especially baffling to Vulcans. If Amanda were here, she would have an easier time getting what she called a read on the Alcorans.
"Excuse me, Mak-ab Armalon," Sarek said, waiting for the universal translator to catch up with him, "but my question is a simple one. Are the dissidents part of the election process? Can they run for office?"
"Violent people are not allowed to participate," the mak-ab said.
"Then they do not run for office?"
"They are violent. They are not allowed."
"Do they vote?"
"They would not vote for those who are not like them," the mak-ab said, shifting from side to side.
"But it is allowed?"
"It is not necessary," the mak-ab said, making the same shifting motion. Irritation? Uneasiness? Again Sarek wished Amanda were here. She would know.
For a moment he and the mak-ab stood eyeing each other and finally Sarek said, "Our discussion about your election practices will have to wait. When the dissidents contact you, you must make it clear to them that until the hostages are released unharmed, we will not proceed."
Suddenly the representative who had introduced him to the mak-ab was at his shoulder.
"Ambassador," Armitor said, "we have quarters arranged for you. If you will follow me?"
Shaking his head, Sarek said, "I need to contact the Vulcan High Command. If you have a subspace console nearby, take me to it."
From the corner of his eye, Sarek saw Armitor dart a glance at the mak-ab, some nonverbal communication that seemed pregnant with meaning.
"Our off-world communications are inoperative at the moment," Armitor said. "A result of the attack, no doubt."
"Indeed," Sarek said dryly.
"As soon as communications are working, I will alert you," Armitor said, holding out his arm toward the door and taking a step forward. Repressing a sigh, Sarek followed him.
They didn't go far. At the end of the corridor Armitor palmed open a door to a small room furnished with a narrow cot and a metal basin on a corner table, looking like something from a Terran prison movie. Sarek raised an eyebrow in undisguised skepticism.
"How long am I to remain here?"
"I will return soon," Armitor said with an awkward bow. Sarek stepped into the room and the door slid shut immediately. Pressing his fingers onto the release button, Sarek wasn't surprised when the door didn't open.
Settling on the cot, he closed his eyes and searched for Amanda. She had once described how it felt when he called her this way, like standing waist deep in the ocean as the tide began to turn—a gradual but persistent—even insistent—pressure to be swept out to sea. Thrilling and scary—and irresistible, she had told him, running her fingers up the line of his jaw until his eyes closed of their own accord, a shameful lack of control on his part—except that he wasn't the least bit shamed by it.
She mentally joined him at once, her alarm about the hostages like bright pieces of glass in a whirling kaleidoscope. Her worry for him was even brighter, hotter, at the front of her consciousness.
Spock? he thought, and she reassured him that he was more comfortable, the fever not gone but subsiding.
Soon he felt her becoming weary and reluctantly he dampened their connection and lay back on the cot to meditate.
He had just slipped into the second level of consciousness when he heard the door slide open and saw Armitor motioning for him to leave.
"The dissidents have contacted you?" Sarek asked, exiting the small room in two strides.
"The situation is resolved," Armitor said.
"The hostages? Where are they?"
Instead of answering, Armitor walked briskly ahead of Sarek down the corridor to the large meeting room where the same Alcorans milled around. In the center of the room stood the mak-ab. When Sarek entered the room, he waved him over.
"Ambassador," he said, "you are free to go. The dissidents have been neutralized."
"Explain," Sarek said, squaring his shoulders. "Where are my staff members?"
The mak-ab's hand drifted to his universal translator on his cloak. A nervous habit?
"We regret to inform you," the mak-ab said, "that our security forces were unable to rescue your people. We also lost three guards and a council representative."
With a jolt, Sarek realized what the mak-ab was saying, that the Alcorans had sent in a military strike against the dissidents, that the Vulcan and Alcoran hostages had been killed. For a moment he couldn't move.
"Your services as mediator are no longer required," the mak-ab said, and with a flutter of his hand, he turned and walked away, dismissing Sarek.
Sarek dutifully noted and filed with his superiors the rest of his time on Alcora—his insistence that he be taken to the site of the attack, his directions about recovering the bodies of Sarton, T'Ania, and Stanar, his attempts to interview members of the ruling council. By the time his shuttle left 27 hours later, Sarek had written a preliminary draft of his report to the Vulcan High Council, complete with his resignation.
X X X X X
Sarek sits back from the viewscreen. His normally placid face is slightly pinched, his breathing more rapid than usual. Obviously even after all this time, retelling the story evokes strong emotions.
Understandable. Without wanting to, Spock has a mental image of his former aide, J.C. Ellison, dead because Spock finagled an assignment for him on a deep space research vessel.
Not because of you, Nyota has said more than once. Because of the ion storm. Stop blaming yourself.
Impossible. Humans with their faulty memories might be able to set aside such ruminations, might be able to achieve what they called closure.
Not him. And now he knows, not his father.
"Your mother is home," Sarek says without looking back. In the shadows behind his father, Spock sees Amanda emerge, one hand tugging off her overcloak and draping it over her arm as she comes forward.
"You've told him," she says, and at first Spock thinks she means the JAG interview. But Sarek nods and says, "About the resignation only. Not what happened later."
Some unspoken conversation flickers between his parents as he watches, and suddenly Spock realizes that they had planned this, that the story of his father's resignation is one they want him to hear for some reason.
Because his own resignation is a very real possibility? The only person he's suggested that to is Nyota, shortly after he received notice about the fraternization charges. Her response had been instantaneous and furious, catching him completely off guard.
They've hardly spoken since then, not just out of caution—he's sure his communications are being monitored now, if they weren't before—but also because he doesn't know what else to say to her. If he resigns it will be to forestall an actual guilty plea—and will, he hopes, preserve her career.
On the screen, his father stands up and Spock assumes the conversation is over. As he reaches forward to click the connection closed, his mother slides into the chair Sarek vacated and holds up one finger, the symbol of human mothers everywhere about to deliver a lecture. He drops his hand and waits.
"You've only heard part of the story," she says, adjusting her robe. "Don't make any decisions until you've heard the rest."
A/N: This chapter is divided into two parts because…well, Sarek and Amanda each wanted to have their say! When a chapter gets too long, I know readers won't stick with it to the end…but don't worry. The second half is written and will be ready to post in a couple a days—a quick turnaround, I promise!
Thanks for reading—and a special thanks for letting me know you are reading!