Kelowitz obediently followed Daphne through the maze of ducts, silent until she appeared to take a wrong turn.
"Lieutenant! The way to Deck 9 is straight ahead," he said.
"I know, but I need something from my quarters," she answered, glancing over her shoulder at him, "You can go ahead if you want. I will meet you there."
Kelowitz shook his blond head emphatically. "No, Commander Scott would have my hide. He said to stay with you. No one goes alone."
Daphne made no acknowledgment. She continued forward, resolutely ignoring the sounds of gunfire and screams echoing through the ship.
The corridor that led to her quarters was eerily quiet when they finally reached it. They undid the fastening on the vent closest to her door and dropped silently to the floor. Keeping their backs to the wall and every sense alert they crept to the door. She keyed the security code and they slipped inside.
The slightly elevated temperature and altered gravity washed over her. Kelowitz staggered as he hit the shelf where the gravity changed. She caught his arm and smiled a sad apology.
"Should have warned you," she said.
He shrugged and flashed a smile full of charm and youth. For a moment she was sharply reminded of the handsome and irrascible Ensign her brother had been when they first met. Her breath ached in her lungs for a moment at the memory.
"Should have known," he said.
Daphne went to the wall on which they displayed the impressive set of weaponry native to Vulcan and Thrace. She opened a panel on the wall and keyed the security code that would release the field around them. She took down a lethal looking short sword hanging from a decorative belt and handed it to Kelowitz. He eyed it as if it would change into a cobra and strike him.
"Take it," she said, "You don't have to be elegant with it. If you can chop up a steak dinner, you can use that. Be careful. It's kept sharpened."
With great reluctance he fastened it around his waist. Daphne took down another belt and secured it around her own waist. It was dripping with daggers, sharp as dinosaur teeth. The way she put it on was enough to tell Kelowitz she knew what she was doing with them. Next she took down the long strip of weighted leather and then put up the security field again.
Kelowitz nodded towards the lirpa she had left hanging there.
"What about that? It looks like it could be pretty deadly," he said.
"It is," she answered, "I doubt either of us could lift it. It's made for Vulcan gravity and Vulcan strength."
She studied the ancient weapon for moment and swallowed against the dry ache in her throat. Tears threatened her eyes. With little effort she could produce a vivid image in her mind of watching Spock go through the ritual practice with it - naked from the waist up, the ahn-woon tied around his hips, the muscles in his chest, arms and shoulders rippling as he whirled the weapon through intricate and precise movements.
Spock. She cried out to him mind, body and soul and found only silence. Her knees threatened to buckle under the weight her own grief. Her hand gripped the handle of one of her knives to keep from shaking, so tightly the bones showed white beneath her skin. Her heart was torn open by the loss. With great effort she tore her gaze from the wall and concentrated on the utilitarian grey carpet at her feet.
At the moment she had a ship to help defend. To honor the memory of her husband and her brother she would defend it to the best of her ability; and when she was done, if she lived, she would go home to Thrace and try to figure out how to live without Spock.
With any luck, she wouldn't live.
When she looked up again, Kelowitz had climbed up onto the desk and released the bolts holding the vent on the ceiling in place. He tossed the vent cover to the floor and looked at her pointedly. Daphne draped the ahn-woon over her shoulder and across her body, tying it loosely over her hip. With grim determination she climbed up onto the desk and let Kelowitz drag her up into the vent after him.
They dropped to the floor once again just outside of Auxiliary Control. It was risky, but it was shorter to take the ladder system to the floors below, and to the Science labs, than to navigate the twisted ducts between here and there. Keeping their backs once again to the wall, they rounded a curve and stopped short. In the center of the hall was an armored intruder bringing his weapon to bear on Uhura and M'Ress as they made their way to Auxiliary Control. Instinct made Daphne act. With no conscious thought, the ahn-woon was suddenly flying through the air and with lethal precision it wrapped itself around the attackers throat. He - It? - staggered clutching at his throat and then fell, lifeless, to the deck.
Her eyes met those of both Uhura and M'Ress. The Caitan's fur was standing on end, her claws unsheathed.
"He called for assistance," M'Ress hissed, and how she knew that Daphne couldn't guess.
"Go!" Daphne ordered, as they heard the sound of pounding footsteps coming their way.
"We need to work in Auxiliary Control," Uhura's face was ashen, but calm.
"Lock yourselves in," Daphne said, "Kelowitz, let's go. Up the ladder."
Her devoted companion had gone to the alien body and picked up its weapon. He slung it over his shoulder just as the door of Auxiliary Control hissed and sealed shut. They disappeared down the ladder set in the wall just as the running footsteps above them came to a halt, presumably beside their fallen comrade. Daphne moved with stealth downward to the Science floor and then to the Labs. She was frustrated by the loss of the ahn-woon, but unwilling to go back to try to retrieve it. There would have to be time later to get it and then she could return it to Spock's Clan.
About a dozen people were waiting in the lab. Her own personal assistance, Ensign Sarah Michaels, was ready with a report. They had communicators and there were fourteen science team members in Science Two and Three waiting for instructions. The rest were aiding Security in the defense of the ship, ready to take supplies where they would be needed.
Daphne found solace in discipline, and in the fierce eager expressions of the Science team Spock had forged. She set aside the memory of having just killed another sentient being. Like her grief for Jim and Spock, it had to wait.
"Lieutenant?" Michael's asked, timidly, "Commander Spock, sir? Is he?"
Daphne carefully schooled her features to stillness, imprisioning her own emotions with enough force to cage demons. They were all looking at her anxiously. She'd been shielding her empathic abilities since losing her bond with Spock on the Bridge, but their feelings were plain on their faces. They love him too, she realized.
"He is MIA," she said, gently, clinging to her husband's mantra that an untold truth was not a lie, "There has been no contact from him or the Captain."
"Does that mean?"
Daphne cut her off shortly, "At the moment all it means is that no one can contact them. You all know your Captain and your Commander. If they can act they will. In the meantime, we make them proud, " she gave them all a stern fierce look, "All right, everyone. We're making explosives. If it can be safely handled, transported and won't blow out an exterior bulkhead, make it. Notify the other labs. Get busy!"
They scrambled into action and she watched with satisfaction. Taking Spock's chair at his science station she began running an inventory of everything they had on hand that could be made to blow up.
"Commander?" Kelowitz had come to stand behind her. He looked uncomfortable.
She turned and looked up.
"With all respect," he began, "I'm a biologist, and not a very good one. I only transferred as part of the rotation for the command track. I came from Security..."
Daphne cut him off, understanding what he was asking. "Go on," she said softly. "You managed to capture one of their weapons. It could be valuable. Get it to Engineering if you can. Keep the sword. My family would be honored."
Kelowitz stood taller. She nodded to him and he turned on his heel and walked sharply out the door of the Science Lab.
Somehow, Daphne knew she would never see him again.