Enterprise High

being a high school AU of ST: XI

with many hijinks

and much angst

x

Chapter Thirty-Three: Requiem for Methuselah

x

At Bones's house, Kirk had a hard time convincing him to leave.

"You're tellin' me Spock just got warned—by a mask with a phaser—not to look into this?" Bones laughed nervously and closed the front door so that all Kirk could see was a single eye. "And you want me to get involved anyway? Sorry, but fuck off."

"Come on, Bones," said Kirk impatiently. "I have to go get Christine after you. She won't take any convincing. You're just afraid."

"Damn right I'm afraid! I'm a downright coward and I'm willin' to admit it! If you say my grandmothers are involved, I'll go disown 'em right now!"

"Bones. Seriously. This is real. Hikaru's sister is a special agent. And Nyota's mom was probably killed by these people. My dad definitely was."

"Well, I'm real sorry for Nyota, and for you, o'course, but that makes me even less interested in comin' with ya."

Kirk finally had to drag Bones bodily from his house, a difficult proposition. Since Kirk, as a swimmer and soccer player, had much more stamina than Bones, he finally won. Bones gave in by the time Kirk got him to his truck and went back into his house to get a blackout jacket and (Kirk suspected) a steak knife. He also came armed with hand sanitizer.

Kirk gave him a look.

"You never know," Bones muttered, burying the bottle in his pocket and pulling the hood of the jacket over his head. Kirk just rolled his eyes and got into Bones's truck, leaving his motorcycle at Bones's house.

They picked up Chapel and motored to Uhura's house, where Spock, Chekov, Sulu, and (unexpectedly) Scotty were waiting for them.

Kirk drew Spock to one side. "Why is he here?" he asked in a whisper.

"He is in the hovercar club, is he not?" said Spock. "I suspected that he might know how he is involved, and even if he is not, it would be unfair to keep him uninformed."

Spock had a point.

"Before we go into Nyota's," said Kirk, coming back over to the group, "I have a question. Scotty, do you know anything about the Rihanh?"

"Are these th' Romulan fellows you lot have been talkin' about?" said Scotty.

"The very same."

"Ah don't," said Scotty, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Me dad's a cook and me mam's a lawyer, and ah don't think either o' them had a thing t'do with any Romulans. But ah can ask."

"That'd be wonderful," said Kirk. "Alright. Let's go talk about this."

They filed up to Uhura's front door and rang the bell. She answered it promptly, blinking at them.

"Uh," said Kirk awkwardly, realizing that he had been informally elected leader. "Hey. Can we come in?"

"Yes…" said Uhura, gesturing them inside. "What's up?"

"Well, there was an incident," said Kirk, entering first. "Where's your dad?" He settled down on the floor of Uhura's living room.

"Errands," said Uhura, sitting down across from him. Her eyes were narrowed.

"Okay, good," said Kirk. "We… well, we have some news about your mom."

Uhura's eyes went wide, then sad. "How could you?" she said. "She died, you know."

"Yes—I mean, news about her death. I think you should read this." Kirk handed her the original printout he had ordered from his mother's computer.

Uhura began to read it, then stopped.

"I'm going to go in here," she said, gesturing towards the dining room. Everybody nodded. Kirk noticed that Spock's legs twitched; the half-Vulcan started after her, real concern in his eyes. Kirk put a steadying hand on Spock's thigh.

In the dining room, Uhura read. … leak in phosgene storage tank… security breach suspected; unproven… Admiral Kabwegyere collapsed… effectively saved lives of Lt. Cmndr. Chapel and Ensign Hiaasen… … pronounced dead… body released to family at 8:00, 2221.10.27.

She remembered that. She remembered standing next to her father. It was a cloudy morning—still dark, still cold. Just four days before Halloween. He had dressed her formally, slowly, hours ago, and all of her family was there. He looked… Uhura covered her eyes, breathing. This was so clear in her mind's sharp eye. He looked nonplussed. He looked confused. Everyone else was sad, but he was just baffled. How sudden it was. How unexpected. She remembered the coffin itself, draped in the Federation flag. It had never been opened. She did not remember the last time she saw her mother alive. But she remembered the white-gloved soldiers, eight of them, and the twenty-one phaser salute at the funeral (the days blended together when she was four). She remembered the smell of everyone else's salty tears. She remembered her father's most common pose: his head tucked into his hands, his feet spread apart, the back of his neck bare and open.

Tears leaked down her cheek. Air moved differently around her; it always did when she cried. But she was not really crying. She was recalling, vividly. Who was that woman? Impressions of wide hands, and a voice she loved; sitting in a car and watching the big shape in front of her turn around and tickle her nose. And that was it. That was all she had of Itidal Kabwegyere. The name, like a familiar taste, like a food you ate too much when you were little and were only just now beginning to try again. And a few gray memories.

She brushed the tears impatiently aside and bit her lip. Then she looked at the printout again.

Suspected sabotage; unproven. Security breach suspected; unproven.

Like a pouncing cat, like a comet, her anger moved. It swamped her. Nyota Uhura had always had a temper. But this—this was beyond temper. She couldn't remember her mother. Not a damn thing. And whose fault was that? She had read the rest of the report. The Rihanh. The Rihanh. These Romulans, with motives unknown. She didn't give a fuck about their motives. She gave a fuck about the sound their necks would make when they were snapped.

She composed herself only slightly and went back into the living room.

"So," she said, "what's the plan?"

x

And therein laid their problem: they couldn't come up with a plan.

Uhura, strangely, was the strongest voice for patience. "They'll do something wrong," she said. "We'll catch them in the act. Until then, we just have to lay low; we don't want Spock to get killed, do we?"

Scotty glared at her. "You're th' one that wanted a plan," he said. "You really think just sittin' around will help?"

"In retrospect, I do," said Uhura calmly. She had locked the anger from before into a tight box that blazed in a corner of her brain. "We don't know what their goals are. We're not completely sure they exist. But we do know that they know a lot about us, and we're not sure how much. And Miko said they have a cloaking device, which means that they could be anywhere. For now, we should wait and watch."

The discussion went on for a long time. Everyone expressed surprise and confusion at their connections to the Rihanh, and tried to figure out what Scotty's connection was. Finally they decided that he didn't have one, or if he did, then it was too hidden to dig up. Most of them had huge issues with their mutual connections being a simple coincidence, but there was nothing to be done about that problem.

Finally, Kirk said:

"Here's what we'll do. We watch Nero. We do some independent research on the Rihanh. We talk to the people we're related to who are connected to the Rihanh, if we can. And then we try to figure out a pattern." He looked around. "How does that sound?"

Everyone said that sounded good enough.

x

For everyone involved, the inaction was beyond frustrating, no matter how often they told themselves it was their only real option. Real spying was beyond them. All they could do was wait for Nero to do something wrong.

December passed quickly. Kirk came up with an idea for a present for Spock and started working on it. Bones bought tickets to see his grandmothers offplanet. Uhura tried to talk with her grandmother. Chekov and Sulu kept studying physics together. And Scotty and Spock spent an unusual amount of time in the garage with the Enterprise, keeping the hovercar warm and ready for the next race in January.

Christmas came and went. Kirk delivered presents to Spock. Uhura couldn't get her father and grandmother to reconcile, much to her despair, and remained at home with her father for the holiday. Sulu's sisters (and Sh'Ragh) showed up at his home for the holidays, making things marginally less explosive. Chekov talked to his mother, and she told him all about the Rihanh she could remember. It was quite a lot.

A week later, James Kirk celebrated the new year with his family in a distinctly Kirk fashion.

It was eleven at night and Winona had just finished making Sam put up the dishes when Jim, who was reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead on his PADD, heard Aurelan say, "Ow," very softly, in the next room.

He frowned at the PADD and clicked it off. She said "Ow" again, but it was now more of a hiss.

"Aurelan?" he got up and went in to her.

"Hey," she said tightly. She was in the dining room, sitting awkwardly in a chair and holding her stomach. Her mouth was in a tight line.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she said, nodding. "Yeah. Fine." She pushed her fine brown hair out of her face, and he saw that her brows were narrowed in pain.

And then her eyelids flickered and she went completely limp, and fell heavily off the chair.

"SAM!" screamed Jim. "MOM! Aurelan—she's—" He ran to her and kneeled down, fumbling with his communicator. "SAM!"

Sam crashed into the room, heaved Aurelan easily into his arms, and dashed for the door. Winona had taken one look at the situation and gone for the car. By the time Sam got Aurelan outside, Winona had it waiting for him.

"Call the hospital, tell them to have a doctor ready," said Winona tightly to Jim, who had leapt into the front seat. "And hold on."

Neither Jim nor Sam had experienced Winona's best driving before that night, but now they did, although they were in no mood to appreciate it. Spock would have hired her on the spot to pilot the Enterprise, and it was easy to see where Jim got his natural skill. Winona got them to the hospital in two minutes. It was a drive that would have taken any other human, even one that was in a hurry, five, and ten for someone just rolling along at speed limit.

The hospital staff had barely gotten a stretcher together by the time Winona roared up. It took three nurses to load Aurelan onto that stretcher and two (plus Winona) to restrain Sam from following them so closely that they couldn't examine her. Jim went to park the car, which he did quite messily, but it didn't matter. He slammed the car into a space, put it in park, and leapt down onto the pavement from its height, locking it remotely as he ran flat-out across the parking lot. He dodged a gurney and a few lab-coated technicians before literally running into Winona, who was clutching Sam's arm with white-knuckled hands and trying to get him to sit down.

"News?" he panted, catching Winona so that she didn't stumble.

"None," growled Sam, boring a hole in the wall. "They took her back." He tore at his hair and refused to sit down. The three of them paced in the hallway outside of the examination rooms for several lengthy minutes.

When a doctor came out, Sam pounced on him.

"Ms. Swift is fine," said the doctor carefully. "The baby is as well, although we have not examined it as thoroughly. Ms. Swift has Rhyett's disease." Sam let out a long breath, and would have followed it with a cheer . "As you know, it's not serious, but during pregnancy Rhyett's has been known to cause complications. We can anticipate these and help Ms. Swift and her child to overcome any problems that may arise." The man smiled at Sam. "You are one of the child's parents, I assume?"

"Yes," said Sam, smiling.

"You can come back," said the doctor. He turned to Winona and Jim. "I'll come get both of you once Ms. Swift is completely stabilized."

"Thank you," said Winona passionately.

The doctor shrugged. "It's our job. If you'd like to come back, Mr…?"

"Kirk, Sam Kirk," said Sam. The doctor gestured him towards the door. "You can call me Sam…"

"Sam, you can call me Julian," said the doctor. They disappeared into the back. "Ms. Swift is going to be just fine," they heard him say.

"Oh thank God," said Winona, finally collapsing into a chair. "That was just horrifying."

Jim couldn't even speak. He went and found water and brought some back for Winona. Soon enough, the doctor came back for them. Sam and Aurelan were in a small room. Aurelan was asleep, and Sam was staring intently at her heart monitor.

"Everyone's fine," he whispered, standing to hug Winona. "They're going to keep her for a day for observation." He hugged Jim too. They sat down as quietly as they could, but Aurelan woke up and turned over, smiling blearily.

"I'm so sorry," she murmured. "I'm just fine, Winona, you and Jim can go home if you want. And Sam, you should go home too." She glanced upwards, and smiled as she looked back at them. "And happy new year."

Everyone's head whipped around to eyeball the clock. Indeed, it was five minutes past twelve. There was general consternation that they had missed midnight, but also an air of relieved celebration. And then, to everyone's horror, Winona actually started crying.

"I'm just so glad you idiots are my family," she sniffed, throwing her arms around her two boys. "I hate both of you. I do. You're terrible. And Aurelan, I don't know what you could be thinking."

"I don't either," said Aurelan, and her voice trembled worryingly.

"Quit that!" Sam protested. "Stop crying! You people are crazy!"

Of course, the doctor chose that moment to come check on Aurelan. Jim sighed and wondered what it would be like to have a normal family.

After the doctor left, an on-edge Jim went out into the hallway to breathe a little. He buried his face in the scarf he was wearing—the blue and gold scarf Spock had made for him. He felt better immediately.

x

Bones was at his grandmothers' house for the new year. They lived on Horca, a colony close to Earth. It was a tiny moon within the Solar System, near Pluto. It was an ordeal getting to Horca: since Bones hated space travel, beaming, and small spaces, and this was what travel to Horca involved, by the end of the journey, he was in an absolutely horrible mood.

Bones greeted his grandmothers at the spaceport by holding up his hand, solemnly, to stop them from hugging him, and proceeding into a bathroom to throw up.

"Kid needs to get used to space travel," said Rosie, slinging Bones's bag over her shoulder. "He does this every time."

"Give him a break," said Penny, peeking into the bathroom and then shutting the door hastily; Bones wasn't quite done yet. "He doesn't go offplanet very often."

Lesley just rolled her eyes.

After a while, Bones came out, trembling slightly and very pale. Penny cooed over him all the way home.

Looking at the three women, you could never tell that they had nearly two hundred and ten years of life between them. They looked like they were fifty, although they were all around seventy.

Horca was a small, icy planet with a Rocky Mountain-esque environment, appropriate for retired Southerners. Bones had spent a majority of his summers and winters on Horca, and no matter how airsick he felt, he was glad to be back.

The Dawes lived on the opposite side of the planet from the spaceport, but it did not take them very long to get to their ranch. Bones watched the small mountains slide by, the snow gleaming all around him. What green of the trees was visible shone like emeralds, and Bones rolled down the window a little to smell the air.

Lesley forded a little, icy river easily. Bones noticed as Lesley turned the wheel that her left hand was in a brace.

"What happened?" Bones asked.

Lesley glared at Penny, who grinned back at her. "Your gran dropped a stack o' wood on my hand," she said. "I told doc to put it in a brace so I wouldn't have to do dishes."

"I wasn't even involved, and now I have to do the dishes," said Rosie forlornly. Bones laughed.

Bones tried to stay awake for dinner, he really did, but he was tired out. Lesley had to nearly carry him to bed, which was difficult for the old woman, since Bones was about a head and a half taller than her. "We'll go see the river and go hikin' tomorrow," said Lesley, patting Bones's quilted legs. "Lights," she added, and the room became dark. Bones pulled the covers up to his neck. "We're glad to have you, Leo."

"Glad t'be here, gram," Bones muttered, and fell asleep.

x

Bones staggered downstairs the next morning and peered blearily out the window. The snow nearly blinded him. A cave-bird, a feathery lizard with wings that was native to Horca, flitted past the window. It flitted back, got close to the glass where Bones was standing, and flicked its tongue at him. Bones glared at it.

"Quit antagonizin' the wildlife," said Penny from the kitchen. "I made breakfast. Hungry?"

"Starvin'," said Bones. "Good mornin', gran. Where's gram and grand?"

"Lesley and Rosie're on a walk," said Penny, flipping a few strands of bacon onto an absorption-platter and turning off the gas stove. "They're gettin' warmed up for our hike."

"Where're we goin'?"

"Probably 'round Ape Peak." Penny pushed a plate in front of Bones. It was beautiful and steaming: round, sparkling fried eggs were nearly covered in shredded potato spiced with pepper and ch'rann, five marbled strips of bacon curled on the plate's left edge, and three thick slices of oat bread had been doused in butter and eglontir jam.

"Steamed some tomatoes, too," said Penny, sitting down next to Bones with a plate of her own. "Lemmie know if you want one."

"Sure thing," said Bones, cutting the egg yolk open and letting it mix with the hash browns. "Thanks, this looks delicious."

They ate in silence for a while. Penny was the least talkative of the Dawes, but her silences were comfortable.

After he'd polished off the bacon, Bones got up enough courage to ask.

"So how long were y'all spies for?"

Penny paused in the middle of a bite of toast. "Spies?" she said blankly.

"Yeah. Spies for the Federation. I heard y'all infiltrated the Rihanh."

Penny peered at him. "Leonard Horatio McCoy, I have no idea what you're talkin' about."

"'Course you don't," said Bones. "You're not s'posed to talk about it, are you? Listen, my friends and me, we think the Rihanh are still operating. I was wonderin' what you know."

Penny licked her lips. "Leonard," she said patiently. "Your grandmothers and I were in Starfleet, but we weren't spies."

Bones looked at her for a while. "You've got somethin' on your cheek," he finally said.

"What? Oh." Penny leaned forward so Bones could reach her face. Bones didn't blink. He ran his fingers in quick succession over the tip of her ear and the ridge above her eyebrow. Penny drew back in surprise.

"You," said Bones triumphantly, "have had plastic surgery. Implants were removed, and they gave you a face-lift in the process. That's why you look so young."

Lesley and Rosie chose that moment to arrive back at the house, announcing their presence by banging the door open and wiping their feet noisily all over the welcome mat. Penny got up quickly, whisking her unfinished breakfast over to the recycler. "Leo says he's ready for the hike," she said to Lesley and Rosie, speaking more quickly than she usually did.

"Already?" said Rosie, her nostrils flaring. "But you made eggs—"

"Yep," said Penny firmly, pushing Lesley and Rosie back outside. "But we're leavin' now. Leo, go put your boots on. We'll be outside."

Bones ran upstairs, threw on his hiking boots and a jacket, grabbed his communicator, PADD, and backpack, and shot back downstairs. He filled up his water bottle and snatched some hard-boiled eggs out of the fridge, figuring that his grandmothers would bring the rest of the food.

When he got outside they were all glaring at him. He smiled as charmingly as he could and slung his backpack over his shoulder. "We ready?" he asked brightly.

"Yes," said Penny shortly. "Come on."

Three hours later, Bones wanted to die.

"Okay," he said, sitting down in the middle of the trail and refusing to move. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry I asked. Please can we rest. I think my lungs are gonna collapse."

Penny had led her wives and grandson around the shadow side of Ape Peak and into the really rugged regions of Horca. They had walked along an icy valley for a while, forded what felt like a hundred streams (in reality, it was nine, two of which had wood bridges, four of which had log bridges, and three of which didn't have bridges at all), and finally walked up and down and over and through and across five snowy mountains, until Bones just could not take it anymore.

"Fifteen more minutes," said Penny, coming back to him and looking a little chastised. "There's a clearin' we're stoppin' for lunch in."

Bones hauled himself up and limped the rest of the way to the clearing. His grandmothers were bustling around, setting up a fire and getting out food. Lesley handed Bones another water bottle, which he drained. Finally they started eating.

By the end of the meal, Bones felt like a new man. He put his SpagBol aside and fixed his grandmothers with a beady eye.

Lesley put her hand out. "Wait." She extracted a funny-looking PADD covered in sensor-wire and tapped at it. "Okay, we're good," she said, looking up.

"What's that?" said Bones.

"A little miracle we came up with a while ago," said Lesley, passing it to him. "It senses all the technology in the region. You've got a PADD in your backpack and a communicator in your right hip pocket. The important thing is that it can sense Romulan cloakin' devices."

"Hah!" said Bones, aiming a finger at each of them. "I knew you were involved with Romulans!"

"Of course we were, how do you think we got enough money to retire out here?" said Rosie. "We were the best spies the Federation has ever seen. At least until I blew our cover."

Lesley and Penny sighed. This was clearly an old topic. Rosie looked unusually chastened.

"It was pretty bad," she said. "Anyway, yes, we know all about the Rihanh, and we have had plastic surgery, and you have got to not talk about them when the area hasn't been cleared first, okay?"

"How come?"

"Cloakin' devices, of course."

"Listen, do y'all have any proof that? That's what Miko Sulu said Jim and my friend Spock, too."

"Miko Sulu talked to Jim Kirk and Spock about the Rihanh?" said Rosie, surprised. "Well, that was a dumbass move on her part."

"Spock was gettin' ambushed in the Federation Archives. She saved his ass, from what I heard."

"That's likely. The girl was always overenthusiastic."

"Good fighter, though," Penny put in.

"Very sexy," Lesley added.

Bones did not want to hear that. "Anyway," he said pointedly. "We've started an investigation of our own." He outlined what they knew. "Can you help us out?"

"I believe we can," said Penny. "We can offer you proof that Nero killed his parents."

"What?" said Bones.

"It's legitimate," said Lesley, "but illegally obtained, and can't be used against him in a Federation court of law. It's Romulan evidence, never applied because Nero fled to Earth before he could be arrested by the Empire, and the Federation wouldn't extradite based on the evidence I'm talking about… You want to see it?"

He didn't, really, but figured that he was obligated to collect the information. "Alright," he said uncomfortably. "Where is it?"

"In here," said Lesley, and Bones realized that she was holding a very small remote control that had a very large blue button on it. Lesley pressed the button and the campfire disappeared.

Bones would not admit this later, but he let out an extremely high-pitched shriek when he saw the hole where the campfire was. He also fell hugely backwards and upended the remains of his SpagBol. Rosie and Lesley suppressed their laughter, but Penny giggled and went to help Bones up.

"We built a Batcave," Penny explained kindly.

Bones walked forwards cautiously and peered into the hole. Small lights lit up a ladder, heading straight down into darkness.

"Why?"

Penny shrugged. "We've been retired for years now. We didn't have much else to do."

Lesley went in first, then Bones, then Penny and Rosie. Lesley called "LIGHTS!" as she went, and Bones gradually became able to see the size and scale of the place.

It was indeed a cave—a huge one, long and flat and with a curved, stalactite-encrusted roof. It was wet and cold and gray-blue and Bones was inherently afraid of the vast shadows living beyond the halogen lights.

There were a few human amenities spread around the cave. One sunken area, near an actual lake, was a living room, complete with couches and a bookshelf. There was even a partially enclosed bedroom nearby. And there was a datastation, next to a well-stocked kitchen. It had a user-accessible VREE—that is, you could watch the file you chose from within the virtual reality, heightening the experience of it.

"The file is in the VREE," said Lesley, gesturing towards it. "You're nineteen, right? You're probably old enough to see it."

"What does that mean?" said Bones, some panic surfacing in his voice.

"Well, it's a bit…" Lesley tried.

"It's kind of disturbin'," said Rosie frankly. "And I don't think you should watch it."

"I think I'll be fine," said Bones, more bravely than he felt. "I've got a good stomach for violence. I want to be a doctor, after all."

"Then go ahead," said Rosie. "We're here, okay?" She hugged him loosely.

Good sign, thought Bones. "I'll be out in a bit," he said, and stepped into the VREE.

x

It was a recording of a confession, and it started in media res.

"Okay, okay, I was there, I was there," Bones heard a voice sobbing. The screen was black. The view shifted abruptly, making his stomach turn, and focused on a solitary figure sitting chained to a chair in a concrete room. Bones was horrified: he thought torture chambers such as these had died out in the twenty-first century. The figure was Romulan, and female. She had forehead ridges, a characteristic that Nero and many of his cohorts lacked, and was dressed in a prison uniform. She looked to be about forty years old. She was not beautiful, but she was striking—her long black hair was a halo around her sharp face, and she had incredibly large, expressive eyes.

"Where were you," said a steely, unkind voice: it was not a question. Bones glanced quickly at the notes on the file; the entire conversation was being translated from Romulan to Standard English.

"I was in the house. I was—I was g-going to do it, I had a knife, he'd hired me."

"Who hired you?"

The woman was silent, her eyes tight shut. A hulking figure appeared out of the shadows—another Romulan, also a woman, thick and dressed in a stark gray uniform. She held a brick.

"Who hired you?" the interrogator repeated.

The woman started crying. Tears fell from her eyes like dimes. The interrogator brought the brick down on the woman's collarbone. It cracked, the sound like a gunshot. The woman screamed for a full minute, her wide-eyes bloodshot and rolling.

"Nero—Nero, son of N'Xere, son of N'Kide—Nero hired me to kill them," the woman said breathlessly. A yellow light appeared around her lips. A comment appeared to the side of the scene: Vericator in use. It meant that the woman was speaking the truth.

"But you didn't kill them," said the interrogator.

"No, I didn't, I just—I came in through the back, and was going to slit their throats while they were asleep, but I g-got upstairs, and Nero was standing on the landing. He told me to be quiet and took my knife and went into their bedroom—"

"Into his parents' bedroom?"

"Into his adoptive parents' bedroom, yes—"

The interrogator struck again, this time on the woman's kneecap. Bones wished he could close his eyes and stop his ears, but you could not do that within a recorded virtual reality.

The woman hung from her chains, sobbing. "N'Xere and Mhae were Nero's father and mother," said the interrogator. "Do not argue with me." She nudged the woman's broken knee and the woman screamed again.

After the woman had recovered herself, the interrogator went on. "You were going to kill his parents."

"Y-yes, but he t-took the knife—I'd never seen anything like it. He just walked into the room and didn't even hesitate. He slashed—he slashed N-N'Xere's throat like it was just nothing, nothing." The yellow light pulsed at the woman's ragged lips. She was still telling the truth. "I didn't expect it at all, and I screamed. Nero, he didn't even seem to notice, he just crossed to the other side and—he—he had to h-hold down his mo—Mhae, and she—" The woman stopped, evidently unable to continue.

"Selaar," said the interrogator. The woman looked up: Selaar was evidently her name. "You've killed forty-three people. How can you not describe this?"

Bones could not grasp the tone in the interrogator's voice. It was shocked, hushed, but also hateful and blunt. It was a thick web of emotions, hidden behind a bloody brick.

"I just," said Selaar, her voice hoarse, "I'd never had to watch a child kill his mother. It's different, when the person struggles, when they're expecting it." She paused. "It's different, when you see it in their eyes."

The Vericator light went green, showing that an opinion had been expressed that could not be verified. The camera moved again, then went off. The file was over. The virtual reality lifted.

Bones felt sick. He sat in the machine's darkness for a moment, listening to it cool down. He had met this boy, talked to him… Nero had done that, to the people who had raised him for fourteen years. He couldn't even—he could not possibly begin to comprehend that. Who could? It was unbelievable. It was hideous, and it was undeniable, and it was a dark thing in a deep place of true evil that somebody could do. Bones understood what Spock felt, what Uhura felt, what Kirk felt when they thought about Nero. This was violence and chaos, in a single being. This was terrifying and unstoppable and present. This was something that he wanted to run from and never stop running from; or something he wanted to face armed to the teeth and backed by a horde.

"There was a Vericator," he said dumbly to his grandmothers as he left the machine. "Wouldn't the Federation take that as evidence?"

"No," said Rosie, her voice hollow. "As I said, it was a confession obtained under torture. Even though it was truthful, it was—"

"Against the laws of man and God," said Bones softly.

"Yes," said Rosie. "There was no good there. Selaar was executed a month after that recordin' was made. The interrogator is still working for the Empire."

Bones went to sit on a sawed-off stalagmite. Lesley brought him some hot tea, which he drank slowly.

"Great way to start off January," he muttered.

x