Argentum Cygnus: Act III

"She killed Alex, Jim! What am I supposed to tell his wife?"

"Bones, you're not gonna tell her anything, you're gonna breathe for five seconds and sit down."

"Don't you tell me to calm down, Jim!" Diana winced as Doctor McCoy's voice reached a raw growl. She certainly did not blame him. She had spent the last half-hour watching the security detail as they set up positions around Vanessa and erected a localized force field with small beacon-like devices. It reminded her of the similar fields that Bruce had utilized on the Watchtower satellite. Needless to say, she did not have the most confidence that it could prevent Vanessa from acting on the cold compulsion that had forced her to strike out.

Forced her to kill… Diana's heart sank, her mind haunted by the pale, suffering expression that had frozen on the nurse's face.

It did not shock her in the slightest that the tragedy meant the captain called his senior staff to the briefing room. Diana had followed quietly and if anyone took umbrage with it, they were wise enough to remain silent.

Vanessa was Themysciran. She was not a machine.

But, she had no way of knowing if the Enterprise crew would see it the same.

Worse, she was growing more convinced by the moment that this was in fact Darkseid's legacy. She did not know how or why, but the God-King lived on. If not directly, then in these Borg who had assimilated – such a cold, surgical word – the mother box technology. If one victim of such horrors could be so easily corrupted, then there was only one solution: Vanessa had to be saved.

It reminded her of so many meetings between generals of Man's world she had witnessed in her life. With Steve, in London, hearing the callous dismissal of soldiers on the frontlines of their border disputes. In World War II, pleading with the joint chiefs of staff in the United States to involve themselves in the defense of the victims of Hitler's megalomania. Later, in 2032, begging the UN to take action against Lex Luthor's war crimes so that Bruce's death would not be in vain. They all ended the same.

"Doctor," Spock's voice cut in between the two men. "Given the fact that you have sedated her, is it reasonable to assume that if she awakens, she will be a danger to the crew once more?"

"Certain as the sun rises in the east. Whatever these Borg did to her, they scrambled her noggin. She's a machine for them to use. I don't even think she was trying to kill Alex. She was trying to, uh, assimilate them, make him one like her." The way McCoy eased the timbre of his voice suggested that he knew Vanessa was a victim. "But, whatever's runnin' through her veins don't work the way the Borg want it to. That's probably why they cut her loose anyway." She got the impression he disliked being helpless or without options. To combine such an emotion with grief was to invite anger. She had done it herself.

You stopped me from killing Ares! It isn't just the Germans he corrupted, he's corrupted you, too. I will save all of you.

Diana inhaled sharply as the memory struck her with full force. It had been so long since she had thought of the massacre in Veld. She had locked those memories away with much of her others surrounding Steve. But, while she had thought of the happier times, bittersweet as they were… she had buried those moments. The moments when she had thrown her blame on Steve. She knew so little, then.

Her eyes darted to Jim at the head of the table. He was listening to his crew, eyes on the reflective surface of the polished black table. She could not know his mind, but she knew his expression. Where Steve's had been haunted, hollow… Jim was determined.

"If this woman is indeed a machine based on the cybernetic implantations," Spock had steepled his fingers together, speaking with the cold, calculated logic he relied on. If anyone had noticed Diana slipped into her memories – her mistakes – they had not said so. "Then, is it a reasonable assumption that you could deactivate her until we can return her to Starfleet for examination?"

"You mean kill her?" McCoy, to his credit, balked at the Vulcan at the same time as Diana. "Good god, man, are you nuts? You cold-blooded bastard, she's a victim, not a weapon!"

"You said yourself that the Borg can utilize her body however they wish. To minimize potential danger, deactivating the cybernetic implants – and by extension, her – may be our only option." Spock didn't seem pleased with the suggestion. Of course, as Diana understood it, it was very rare that Spock showed any sort of emotion, and he would not have betrayed his discipline now.

"Spock, what you're suggesting is - " Uhura began, reluctant to entertain the idea as well.

"It may be our only way to mitigate risk while she is sedated. If we allow her to awaken once more, we do not know how well our weapons and technology may work to stop her."

"I don't care if you think it's the only way, I'm sure as hell not doin' it." McCoy snapped. "First rule is Do No Harm!" He turned to the captain at his left. "Jim, tell him you're not seriously considering this – "

Kirk finally rose a hand up to silence his chief medical officer. Again, she had seen the subtle shift from friend to captain. It was the way his jaw set, the way his eyes lost their softness. It reminded her of Antiope. One always knew where they stood with her. Once the room had quieted again, he exhaled, gathering his thoughts. Finally, he asked, "Bones, can you take the implants out of her? Maybe that'll help us break through the conditioning."

McCoy shook his head. He had clearly considered this question himself. "I don't have the kind of technology or medical specialists needed for that. These are invasive. I could just as easily save her or accidentally kill her if I tried to remove one of those cranial tubes."

Diana scowled. From her place at the end of the table, unobtrusively in the background, she finally spoke up. "Vanessa. She has a name. The more you continue to speak about her as if she is a gendered machine, the easier it is for you to decide what to do with her as if she is a tool, not an individual." When the crew turned to look at her, she found herself staring right at the commander. "You cannot simply 'deactivate' her, Commander Spock. She is trapped in her own mind, and I heard her cry out for help."

Spock rose an eyebrow. "Telepathic connections are oftentimes jarring and can be misleading due to the emotional intensity – "

Diana sat up abruptly, cutting him off. "This was not an overly emotional connection! I saw what she saw, and I felt what she felt, and I know the wrath of the God-King better than any of you in this room. Somehow, Darkseid has taken what is most precious from her just as he promised he would: her will to live! She is a victim and I will not entertain any other discussion to the contrary!"

It took her a moment to realize that her statement had caused a moment of confusion among the senior staff. Sulu and Chekov both exchanged perplexed glances, and Scotty paused in the midst of his sip of water. Her gaze flicked to Uhura, her brow knit with worry, and then finally back to Kirk.

She could tell he wasn't confused, as they were. He was concerned. "You keep mentioning him, but you clearly know what he's capable of. Diana, who the hell is Darkseid?"

Diana pursed her lips. Her stomach dropped, cold and unsettled. She could not keep this to herself any longer. She had already waited too long. She could not protect them if she had already helped bring the danger aboard. She had to make sure they understood the gravity. Only then could they understand why she feared him. And Diana did not fear many. But she did fear the New God.

"In order to understand Darkseid, you must first understand who I am." She began, rising from the chair and unzipping her jacket. Her shirt still covered the armor, but as she rested the jacket on the back of her seat, they could see the silver bracelets in the harsh light, glinting as the holy relics they were. "I know that most of you think me the queen of a planet, of Themyscira. But, that is only partially true." She drew herself up. "I am Diana, Daughter of Hippolyta, she who was Queen of the Amazons in the time before history. I am the Daughter of Zeus, he who was King of the Gods when man was but a dream. In point of fact, I do not know my true age. But, by your calendars, I am well over 5000 years old."

Everyone in the room was silent, dumbfounded by the revelation – or at the least, skeptical but unable to form the right rebuttal.

"For most of those years, I thought myself an Amazon. I was raised upon an island in the Mediterranean. The Themyscira you have seen, Jim, is the result of our forced migration from Man's World. For many centuries, the island was hidden from man. But, eventually, in the time that society would later call World War I, I came to Man's World. I thought myself a guardian of the innocent and sworn to uphold the Amazon's sacred duty: to kill Ares."

It was Jim who finally spoke. And she knew the words he would say before they came from his mouth. "Ares… as in the god of war?" For a brief moment, she was struck with how cruel Fate had been. They had brought her to this place with such a familiar, beloved face. Beloved voice. But, she would be forced to tell all of this to a man who had never lived it. Again, she wondered if this was a trick. Yet, she could not force herself to quiet.

"Yes. And he was real. He had fought the gods out of envy of man. We thought the gods had perished in the conflict, and by the time I came to Man's world, he had been in the midst of preparing a state of perpetual war upon the Earth. His wrath was nearly complete. It took…" Her eyes flickered for just a moment to those eyes that belonged to Steve, yet were clearly those of another. "A great sacrifice to end the war and defeat Ares. In doing so, I learned of my true heritage."

"You're saying that… killing Ares ended World War I?" McCoy sounded as disbelieving as she truly expected.

"No. The war would have always ended. All I did was stop Ares from concocting greater schemes. I thought man could be easily corrupted, as if enthralled by the god. And in a way, they were. But, the Germans were already defeated. And… a good friend stopped the last German dissident from escalating the conflict. But, as I'm sure you know…." It took all that Diana had within her not to fade back into the twilight of memory. To the dark times of the 1940s. "It was not a true peace. It gave rise to a darkness within mankind that took another global conflict to stop. But, then, it continued on. In one form or another, Ares got his wish. And I retreated from the world of man. I became a civilian and tried to resurrect the gods."

Sulu spoke up, his voice nearly lost. "And did you?"

Diana looked down at her bracelets, tracing her fingers against the fine seams. "I did. But, the gods are cruel. The gods are fickle. And most of all, they do as they will. Not as we ask."

"Are you suggesting that you are some form of long-lived alien species?" Spock was ever the voice of logic and science.

Diana scoffed quietly. "No, Commander Spock. I am telling you that I am a goddess. I have not aged since I reached adulthood. And I have many gifts that you have not seen, nor do I think you will."

Uhura muttered something, an oath in her home tongue that made Diana's heart skip a beat.

"Mimi sistahili ibada yako." Diana breathed in return, resting her hand on the lieutenant's shoulder. "But, thank you for the prayer all the same."

Uhura's hand barely shook with emotion, but she clenched it and Diana watched the moment pass.

Again, she turned to the crew. She had to complete the narrative. They had to understand. If they didn't, then no one else would ever know her story. "In the time that was called the Golden Age of Heroes, the late 2010s, I met Kal-El, son of Krypton. I met Bruce Wayne, a billionaire who had turned his fortune to eradicating crime and violence in his city. It was through their insistence that I left my sabbatical. I returned to the world of heroes and I fought alongside them against a great enemy. The God-King of Apokalips, a planet far from the reaches of space that we had at the time. I do not know where this planet may be now, but I do know that it was a place of terror and mayhem. Darkseid was the only creature I ever encountered more craven and power-hungry than Ares.

"We defeated him, sent his parademon army back through the wormholes – boom tubes – they had created to reach Earth. I have always thought that we had slain him in our conflicts." Diana crossed her arms over her chest and made her way to the viewport, watching the stars flicker outside. "But, I fear I was wrong."

She was not surprised that the room had fallen silent. When she glanced back at them, Jim asked, "Because of what you saw on the sphere?"

Nodding, Diana let her arms drop to her sides, hands clenching into gentle fists. "Yes. And also because of what I… felt… in Vanessa's mind. Darkseid had one goal. He sought a cosmic formula called the anti-life equation. And I have never felt anything so close to what he described until I touched Vanessa's mind. It is possible that these Borg have accomplished what he could not."

McCoy slowly stood. "That's what spooked you so bad."

"Yes. And that is why we cannot simply deactivate her, or throw her in the brig. We must find a way to reverse the damage. It is the only way to prevent more suffering." Diana made her way over to the captain. "I will speak with her when she awakens again. Perhaps I can determine – "

Kirk's jaw had set once more. His eyes had gone cold. Such as when he faced the Romulans. A man pushed past his courtesy. "Senior staff dismissed. I need to talk to Ambassador Prince alone." His tone was casual, but she could tell there was a dark edge underneath it.

Immediately, a flash of defensive anger rippled through her as the rest of the crew filed out of the room. He was angry with her. He would find that she was not so easily commanded as his staff. Perhaps she'd misjudged him after all.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" Jim barked, practically jumping out of his seat the moment the doors closed behind Chekov. "I have spent the last three weeks vouching for you with Starfleet, with my crew, with every new planet that we've come across, and you've been holding that back since the moment we found the Borg sphere?" He stormed towards her, closing the distance between them and squaring off with her. "If we had known that, we never would have woken her up!"

"I warned you of the danger on the sphere and you encouraged that we take her back to your ship!" Diana snapped back. In an instant, her hands went to her hips as righteous anger began to bubble up within her chest. "I had no way of knowing what exactly had happened to her, but if you expect me to leave someone who is clearly a victim in the hands of her captors, than you are less than the man I thought you were and you claim to be!"

"I completely support you wanting to help her!" Jim's voice was laced with exasperation, but that dark edge still hadn't left. When he next spoke, his tone was more measured, as if he were thinking through his words carefully, "Look, I never pushed you about your past, but I would at least think you would have told me about something this important!"

"My past is just that: mine! I am not your subordinate, you cannot order me to tell you everything of my life before I met you, Captain!" She spat the title, wishing for a long moment that she had never come here at all. She had been wrong. All he cared about was what he thought needed to be done. "What I do to defend these people is not up to you, and if you cannot trust me – "

"It's not about trust!" Jim shouted, seemingly at a loss. "It's not about trust, it's about what I need to do my job! To help you do yours!" The argument somehow felt new and ancient at the same time. She felt the same tone, the swell of much the same argument all those years ago at Ludendorff's command center. But, she would not be swayed. Her faith in humanity was not shaken – just in Jim's understanding of how their relationship needed to work.

"What are you talking about? You never even cared if I told you any of this!"

"I've been asking you for weeks to tell me more about yourself, Diana." Jim had met her eyes, but she found that he couldn't seem to keep the connection. He turned away, rubbing his mouth as he tried to think of – presumably – his next move. "You say you want to protect humanity, to help us, but then you go and you shoot us in the foot!"

"Darkseid is not the Romulans. He does not care for territory, only death, and I was more preoccupied with keeping you out of danger, not satisfying your need to control the situation!"

Jim finally shouted. "You're damn right it's about control!" Immediately, she could see that he regretted the words. If nothing else, the look of genuine disgust on her face probably had something to do with it. So, instead, he turned back to her and tried again, more earnest. "Don't you get it? I have an entire crew complement to worry about! Four hundred and thirty people! Men and women! They have families, they have children back in the Federation! And I know all their names, their faces! Hell, I know most of their hobbies! Diana, they are my responsibility, and you put all of them at risk by not being explicitly clear with me from the beginning! Not a day and a death later but the moment you have your first inkling of what's happening." Jim's hands went up as if he wanted to grab her, but instead they clenched into desperate fists as he tried to explain. "This could have gotten them all killed! And I'd be the one writing the letters to their families, so the least you could do is believe me when I say that if you know of something as devastatingly dangerous as an anti-life equation, then for the love of God, tell me so I can help!"

Diana's anger stuttered, then failed her all together. "You… you wouldn't have tried to stop us from bringing her on board?" She felt shame color her cheeks in place of her anger. She had been so used to being the monarch, holding information to her chest that no one else need know… she was always trying not to burden others with the sorrows she had witnessed.

Jim shook his head, honest disbelief plain on his face. "No. Of course not." His mouth moved wordlessly for a moment as he tried to formulate a satisfactory response to convey what he wanted. "You think I'd let Spock convince anyone to deactivate her, either? You said it yourself, Diana. She's not a weapon, she's not a machine. I wanted to bring her onboard. Hell, I would have carried her onboard myself if you hadn't. But…" He held his breath, biting back some retort or another before finally managing. "I said it and I meant it. I see you as a friend. I trust that what you want for humanity is in their best interests. You're Wonder Woman. The few records we have of you are incredibly flattering. But, if you can't extend the same trust to me, then I can't help you and I can't help my crew. And that's not how this can work." He shook his head and paced the circumference of the table before bracing his hands on the back of one of the chairs. "I'm on your side. But, if I'd known what you just told me, Alex Yetron might still be alive. I sure as hell wouldn't have let her have free run of Sickbay. We would have supervised her. I would have had Bones see what implants he could remove under sedation." Jim sighed, the anger spent. In place of it was frustration and disappointment. Disappointment that she had not extended the open hand he had given to her. "Just… I meant what I said: I wanted to be your friend. What possible benefit do you get from not being honest with me?"

Diana opened her mouth to reply, then clamped it shut. It was such an odd way to ask the question. He didn't ask if she didn't trust him. He didn't ask if she respected him. He was asking what perceived benefit she had seen in her course of action. He was trying to see her point of view.

Perhaps Jim Kirk was not such a mystery. Perhaps he could be defined.

He was an open, honest man. Both as Captain Kirk… and as Jim.

"I…" Diana found herself searching for words. She was always so careful with them, but she couldn't seem to find the right ones. "I am… sorry." She finally settled with. It seemed so hollow, such a bare minimum of how she felt. "I was… I have been so accustomed to knowing Kal has been by my side, and as queen…. I did not wish to visit my burdens upon others." Her dark eyes finally drifted from her bracelets – she had been playing with the buckles – back up to Jim.

And damn the gods, he was smiling.

"Okay, well…" He had somehow found amusement in all of this. Pushing off of the chair, Jim strode back over to her and reached out, resting his hand on her shoulder. "For the record, you've made it very clear you're not a queen anymore. You're an ambassador and my friend. And friends share burdens. It's what we do. If you want to do that over a drink, I will always make time for you." His hand squeezed gently, and she realized his eyes were not on her face, but perhaps her neck or collar. "But, please don't hold back anymore. There's so much you know that we don't. And I can't help if I don't know what's coming."

In a moment, feeling his eyes on her had sent her heart racing. It had been a very long time since someone had been so close to her and open with her. Even the Amazons held her at arm's length now. But, he didn't.

The two of them didn't speak. They had said all they planned to and had come out on the other side buoyed. They had both been right, but… he had made the stronger point. She could not keep all of her past to herself, not if it could endanger the people he cared about. And he cared so deeply, so openly for his crew. He had stood his ground against her, not for his ego, but for the safety and welfare of his extended family.

Barry had one told her she had the biggest heart of anyone he had ever met.

She felt like perhaps she had found her match to rival.

The lights suddenly flickered around them, then went out entirely for a moment. When they came back up, both of them were alert and on guard.

"What the hell was that?" Jim muttered, already on his way to the bridge.

"I'm afraid we may already know…" Diana replied, following him.

"Why is my ship losing power, Mister Spock?" Jim demanded as he made it to the bridge, heading for his chair.

As the ship suddenly lost lights once more, it pitched heavily starboard and Diana had to grab hold of a railing – without denting it – to steady herself. Her eyes focused on the viewscreen ahead. If the Borg had come, if the Romulans had come, the ship could have been caught off-guard. But, the screen was still frozen on the floating sphere in space. There seemed to be no external threat.

"We are experiencing localized power failures all of the ship, primarily to weapons, shields and life support." Spock vacated the captain's chair and immediately moved to his science station. "Unauthorized access to primary systems seem to be coming from the sickbay."

"Red Alert!" Jim turned his attention to Diana. They both knew who was responsible. It hardly needed to be said.

Doctor McCoy's voice came through the comm system, clear as a bell. "McCoy to the bridge! My patient just walked through my damn force field and went on a tear through sickbay!"

Jim's expression went a bit stony as he heard his best friend's voice. "Bones, are you alright?"

"Just shaken. I don't think she even noticed me, Jim. She just woke up, spent twenty seconds staring at the force field, then walked through it."

Jim furrowed his brow. "How is that even possible?"

"I'm a Doctor, Jim, not an engineer, how the hell should I know? All I know is the moment your security detail fired on her, she knocked one of them into a wall until the other two stopped firing. Then, she just kept walking. I don't think she saw them as a threat."

"Why wouldn't she attack the others like she did Alex?" He asked.

"She wasn't talking about assimilating people. She kept repeating 'Home' over and over. Maybe she doesn't see a threat when she's following an objective."

"But, she doesn't know what her home is." Jim shook his head. "Doesn't make any sense. We saw her attack Alex."

Diana's eyebrows rose in recollection. Of course. She knew what had set her off the first time. She had been so focused on what the Borg had done to her, she had not considered what Vanessa would have heard, or how it had impacted her. "Jim." She caught his eye. "She attacked when I mentioned taking her home. The Borg must have programmed her to see their hivemind as home. When I spoke of home to her, it must have activated some sort of… of…" She struggled to find the words. "Protocol to recall her."

Jim's eyes widened. "You might be right." He glanced over at his science officer. "Spock?"

Spock took a seat at his station, carefully studying the readout. "I believe our prisoner is attempting to access the communications array. Ambassador Prince may be correct in that she will reach out to other Borg." He began to rapidly flip switches and tap keys. "I am attempting to lock her out of our main deflector control." Spock flipped a toggle on the upper console. After a moment, it was clear that he had opened a comm signal. "Mister Scott, please assist me by locking the main computer core with the Engineering command codes. The Borg prisoner in sickbay must be stopped from reaching the collective Borg communications array."

Scotty's voice crackled over the comm. "Aye, Mister Spock, I'm on it!" The signal was not as crisp as she had heard in the past. Vanessa was working quickly. Possibly too quickly for the crew.

The ship's gravity buckled and Diana felt the most unpleasant sensation of her stomach acting as though it was back in space. Life support included artificial gravity.

"Now, Mister Scott!" Jim shouted over comms, his hands white-knuckled as he clutched the armrests.

"I'm trying, captain, but she's moving too quickly for the command codes to take effect. I get one logged and she overrides it. At this rate…" Scotty's voice degraded further, adding an unpleasant shiver down her spine. "We're practically givin' her the ship."

With critical systems of the ship in danger, she knew that Jim would need to order security. But, how many of the crew on the security detail had already been injured?

"I will subdue her." Diana said, loud enough for everyone on the bridge to hear her. "She will listen to me. And if she will not, I will need Doctor McCoy to provide a stronger sedative."

The look on Jim's face told her that they were truly in sync now. The sins were forgiven, but not forgotten. They would both learn from them. "Do it. And Scotty, I want you in sickbay the moment this is over. You and Bones need to figure out what implants can be removed as quickly as possible. Every second she's under sedation and cybernetic is another second that she can wake up and try this stunt again."

"Aye, sir."

"You got it, Jim."

Knowing that she had the chief engineer and chief medical officer behind the effort to help her, Diana took the help gladly. Nodding, she headed for the turbo lift and grabbed her shirt. By the time the lift doors closed, she had pulled her shirt off and dropped the pants.

When the turbolift reached Deck 5, Ambassador Diana Prince did not emerge.

Wonder Woman did.