RoH 21

Stars Paint This Story, Cover Our Eyes With Mercy

Stardate 2260.330, 1000 hours, Bridge, USS Enterprise 1701

The Enterprise was speeding towards the second, more distant star of the Lytasian binary. Jim watched the fiery orbs of the two yellow G type stars grow larger outside the observation window of the bridge. He still had a hard time coming to terms with the Lytasia incident.

Of the eleven V’tosh ka’tur they had saved, nine survived. Four men (Stephen, Atek, Prehnik, Rhodon), three women (T’Peri, Iolite, Tourmel), and two children (the toddlers T’Mir and Solok). Prehnik and Tourmel were still in sickbay, but at last on the road to recovery. The little girl – Ripau – she’d been eleven, Jo’s age – had died first, not even an hour after the rescue. An older man – Tipak – her grandfather – had hung on for a few more hours before slipping away.

Eight people had been killed on the bridge of the Dionysus; ten additional casualties could be confirmed on the rest of the ship, including T’Mir’s parents – Kiron and Seleia – and Solok’s mother, T’Sol. After the bridge had been taken out, the shields of the Dionysus had gone down long enough for the pirates to snatch twenty-seven people from the ship, just beaming them away. It was very likely that all of them had lost their lives when the Enterprise had blown up the pirate vessels – only one pirate had escaped. There was no way to tell if prisoners had been on board of that ship. Perhaps it was better to imagine they all had died.

At least that would have been fast; it had certainly been a quick death for Lieutenant Dave Bailey, Thomas Clarence and Abasi Shenzi from Security, Nurse Sven Thorensen, and Petty Officer Oliver Thule. Jim would have to take over the training for shuttle pilots himself now, although he wasn’t really sure when he was supposed to accomplish that on top of everything else.

Jim stared at the screen, reviewing the records of the critical moments on the bridge once more in his mind. No. No, there had been no way to tell that there was one more pirate ship lurking behind the moon, using the damaged Dionysus as a cover for a stealthy approach. He almost wished he had found a mistake, an error of judgment – that it could have ended differently. The inevitable provided less solace than he’d been led to believe.

After the Nero incident he’d ended up writing the letters to the families, although technically he hadn’t been in command during the battle with the Narada. Twenty-seven letters. He still remembered every single one.

Spock had written the letters after the Marcus conspiracy. All forty-one of them. Jim recalled each of them, too. The quiet dignity of Vulcan philosophy he’d discovered in those condolences, the careful warmth. Spock had composed the letters while he’d been waiting for Jim to wake up. Thanks to the Bond, Jim’s memory of those letters now mingled with Spock’s dark recollections of these days, with a sense of disorientation and volatile emotions barely kept in check.

And now, the subspace transmissions sent to Starfleet Command so they would be passed on to the families of Bailey, Clarence, Shenzi, Thorensen, and Thule. Jim wondered if he’d remember all the letters, always. Then he shook his head; that was not a healthy line of thinking. Kaiidth, as Spock would say. What is, is.

“Sulu? How’s the Dionysus doing?” Jim forced his attention to their current job.

The ancient Normandy class starship could not be salvaged. When the debris of the destroyed pirate ships and Shuttle One had dispersed, Shuttle Two and the shuttle of the V’tosh ka’tur were retrieved as well as the personal possessions of the survivors and everything Scotty had wanted to salvage.

Today the Enterprise would finish towing the wreck with its damaged and dangerously unstable warp core away from the planets and shipping routes of the Lytasian system and towards the second star of its binary. When they had reached a safe distance, they would release the tractor beam and let the ship pass on into the star, fuelled by its own inertia. Once the star’s gravity pulled the Dionysus in, the end would come quickly in an explosion of the antimatter fuel pods.

“Tractor beam stable, impulse power on full and steady,” Sulu responded promptly.

Scotty had held word; impulse power had been back online on the day of the battle. But he and Lieutenant Amell hadn’t been quite satisfied with some readings, so they – and Ilya, the Barque cat – had spent the following days taking the impulse engines apart and putting them together again. And the cat had managed to find a problem no one else had been able to locate. Now everything was running perfectly again.

Or maybe “purrfectly.” Jim smiled, thinking of the huge Barque with tiger stripes that was currently the queen of Engineering. The cat had certainly proven her usefulness, and her three kittens had acquired quite a fan club. Most of all among the children on board, of course. But Jo had tattled to him about the time she’d found her dad asleep in his office with one of the kittens on his lap, and Jim himself had surprised Spock cuddling the black kitten, Pash-yel. Another thing to add to his list of things he hadn’t known about Vulcans. They loved cats. Or at least Vulcan space gypsies did. And Spock. And Thorby. In other words, most Vulcans Jim had encountered so far.

Jim glanced over to the communications console. Stephen, Spock, and Uhura were busy over there, sending out carefully coded transmissions to the other V’tosh ka’tur ships, warning them about the pirates in this sector and relaying the message from the Vulcan High Council. Even Vulcan’s most wayward children were invited back into the fold in this hour of need. It was only logical. What Jim couldn’t quite wrap his mind around was how the Vulcan outcasts he’d met so far reacted to that dispensation. That they were so willing to give up their alternative lifestyle at a moment’s notice … for the good of the many, just so Vulcans as a people would have a better chance of survival. One of the latest bulletins from Starfleet had even mentioned a Romulan sect – Romulans clinging to the Vulcan ways of their distant ancestors, sort of like Terran Amish – relocating to New Vulcan.

Jim rubbed his chin. The planet formerly known as Cestus III was going to be one fascinating place. New Vulcan would end up the strangest cultural melting pot, with traditional Vulcans, Sybok’s people, V’tosh ka’tur, the Romulan equivalent of Amish, the human women volunteering as surrogate mothers, as well as the other helpers flocking to New Vulcan from all over the Federation. Jim couldn’t imagine how those diverse elements would come together to create a new Vulcan society. He knew it would be years before they would get around visiting New Vulcan again, but he was already looking forward to it.

“When will we reach our target position?” Jim asked, turning to Sulu again.

“At approximately 1600 hours today.”

Stephen looked up from the communications console at that. Jim caught the pain in the juggler’s dark eyes. The Dionysus had been his home for many years, ever since he’d split from Sybok’s group ten years ago. Jim remembered the moments in the warp core chamber how, besides saving everyone on the Enterprise, the desperate need to save the ship herself had spurred him on. He wondered if the V’tosh ka’tur would want to witness the end of their ship. Perhaps he could offer them an observation lounge to gather in when the time came. He frowned, unsure if that was an appropriate idea – like a funeral – or callous cruelty. He’d ask Spock at lunch.

“Good.” Jim broke eye contact and consulted his PADD. “Chekov, how’s your plotting coming along?”

The year was almost over, and the next part of their mission lay ahead: to scout the edges of the Black Cluster in order to discover a suitable location for a new starbase. Their next destination, however, was Zaran II, the second planet of the Byrdica system, a diplomatic mission on behalf of the Federation Council.

“Traveling at an average speed of warp five based on our current position, we should reach Zaran II in one month and twenty-seven days on a straight course, Keptin,” Chekov reported and promptly brought up the star chart of that sector in a corner of the window screen.

“Great,” Jim said and concentrated on the chart. That was much better than to get all morose about the demise of the Dionysus. “The course looks good, but I don’t think we’ll make that speed, Chekov. We’re going to cross the Marie Celeste sector, so we’ll have to waste a lot of time dropping out of warp to check for pirate activity.” He exhaled thoughtfully. “I’d prefer giving that sector a wide berth, but that’s not an option. We’d lose even more time that way …”

He knew chances were that they’d never see the pirate ship again that got away, knew that the odds of catching and boarding that particular vessel were even less favorable, and he was perfectly aware of the fact that the likelihood of rescuing any more V’tosh ka’tur was approximately zero, perhaps less than zero. Still, he couldn’t not try. And it wouldn’t hurt to collect some intelligence on pirate activity in the infamous Marie Celeste sector.

“Ve vill still manage to reach Zaran II in the second half of January, Keptin,” Chekov insisted.

“Good enough,” Jim replied, poring over their projected itinerary for 2261 on his PADD. The distance they would have to cover during the next year was somewhat intimidating. “Thank you, Chekov.”

The chart dissolved, leaving behind the fiery yellow orbs of the Lytasian binary, already much closer than before. Jim leaned back in his chair and pulled up the information on Zaran II.

Official first contact with the Zaranites had been made in 2257, but thanks to Nero and Marcus, the follow-up visit had been delayed until now. The Zaranites were one of those weird mysteries that made the universe a fascinating place according to Spock. They were a matriarchal species of psionic predators, and their culture was based on hunting, with little indigenous agriculture and industry. Their rise to a warp-capable society had only started when a group of Terran Augments had ended up on their planet after the Eugenics Wars. How in hell that had happened was everybody’s guess, given that Earth had only made warp over fifty years later. But somehow those refugees had made it to Zaran II. They had been granted asylum on the planet. In the following decades their influence had sped up the technological development of the Zaranites by centuries. The last of the Zaranite Augments had died just a few years ago, and for some reason he’d been a huge fan of the Federation.

Jim frowned at his PADD, thinking of Khan and his men. Perhaps it was juvenile, but the injustice of Khan’s story still got to him every time. The Augments had been bred as superhuman cannon fodder. Their treatment had been inhuman. They had been used and exploited as lab rats, breeding stock, slaves. When Khan and his friends had managed to escape, they had fled into the Gobi desert and stayed as far away from civilization as they could manage. Yet when the other Augments and their makers had attempted to enslave humankind (and almost succeeded, too), Khan and his men had emerged from their voluntary exile and turned the tide of the Eugenics Wars. After the war they should have been celebrated as heroes. Instead, the aftermath of atrocities committed by Augments and Humans alike led to a climate of such hostility that Khan and his people decided to leave Earth for good. Suspended in stasis in the cryogenic units of three space ships, they had chosen the elusive hope of eventually reaching a habitable planet far from Earth and their painful past. One of the ships had made it to Zaran. One had been found by Admiral Marcus. No one knew what had happened to the third vessel …

Jim wondered what he would have done in Khan’s place. Pre-warp space travel came really close to his worst nightmare – to end up utterly helpless … They could have died so easily without ever waking up again. He’d hate that. His own death, in the warp core chamber, at least he’d known what was happening and why, right up until the last moment.

With a grimace, Jim shut down the PADD. “Lieutenant Marcus? Anything interesting?”

Of course she’d have told him at once if she’d caught so much as a blip of activity, suspicious or otherwise. Sometimes he was still surprised at how boring a shift on the bridge could be.

“Nothing, Captain,” she said. “Just the usual traffic on the shipping routes between Lytasia and the surrounding systems.”

And that was the most exciting thing that happened throughout the shift. Jim was pretty bored throughout, but that was okay. Better than a space battle with pirates any day.

♦♦♦

Stardate 2260.330, 1600 hours, Deck 10, Observation Lounge

After consulting Spock, Jim had made arrangements, and then they informed the V’tosh ka’tur that the observation lounge on deck ten would be at their disposal to bid their ship farewell. Now, moments before the proximity to the Lytasian secondary would cause the Dionysus to explode, the space gypsies had gathered in the lounge. Even Prehnik and Tourmel. The man was in an electric wheelchair, while Tourmel lay on a stretcher, with M’Benga at her side. Guinan and Dr. Elbrun were present as well, taking seats in the background to the left of the door, ready to provide support in case they were needed. Spock and Jim chose two armchairs to the right.

With the Enterprise at a safe distance from the Dionysus, the ship of the V’tosh ka’tur was barely visible without zoom, a small dark spot in front of the yellow star behind it. Spock adjusted the view screen, filtering the glare of the Lytasia binary to acceptable levels, zooming enough that the dot turned into the distant outline of a spaceship. They had released the Dionysus to pass on to her fiery grave at 1600 hours. It wouldn’t take long now until the star claimed the starship as her own.

The door opened with a soft hiss, and Bones entered with Thorby and Jo. Wordlessly, the children crossed the room to sit with T’Mir and Solok and T’Peri on the floor in front of the window screen. Someone had spread out a blanket for them. Ilya jumped down from Stephen’s lap and joined the kids on the floor. Soon the soothing purr of the Barque filled the room.

Jim felt uncomfortable. Out of place. His discomfort must have transferred through the Bond, because Spock suddenly leaned over and lightly placed his fingertips on Jim’s meld points. Jim felt his mind open up as Spock manipulated his psionic centers, emulating the effects of Spice and kindling his latent telepathy.

»Why?« Jim thought, surprised. But Spock shook his head and remained silent. Jim could feel him ache, and he knew that Spock wanted him to see something, to understand something. He had no idea what, though.

Only minutes now. The V’tosh ka’tur huddled together, holding hands or hugging, openly expressing their need for comfort, forming a close-knit half-circle. To see how naturally Thorby and Jo belonged with the gypsies in this moment of grief and loss and solace was … strange. Suddenly Jim could – see/feel/hear – sense in his mind – the connections between every person in the room. He couldn’t quite describe the impression. Beacons, perhaps, lights and their reflections, signals and answers, bright in the minds of the Vulcans. Or maybe silvery strands, thoughts, minds reaching and joining and clinging, forming a web … a consciousness beyond the individual, removed from time and space: T’Khasi. Oh. Jim’s breath hitched. So that remained of Vulcan, always, even among outcasts and nomads. A connection of the soul, of the katra.

The comm clicked. “Sixteen-thirty. We expect the warp core to detonate momentarily,” Mitchell announced.

With the added dimension of extra-sensory perception, the scene in the room took on a completely new meaning. Thorby truly belonged. Jim could also see – sense – how Thorby pulled Jo into that circle of belonging, just how deep and instinctive the connection between the two children was. If he hadn’t been so fascinated, he’d have been scared. It’s knowing something and seeing it for yourself, he thought. Not the same thing. Not the same thing at all.

Jim turned to look at Spock and froze, shocked. Because Spock did not … he did not belong. Not like Thorby. Spock regarded him patiently, his expression and his mind carefully blank. Jim caught only the wisp of a memory: “You will always be a child of two worlds.” And an almost-thought in its wake, painful, and instantly controlled: “Or none.”

“Get ready for fireworks. It’s going to happen any second now.”

Jim suddenly wondered about Guinan and Elbrun. Obviously, they wouldn’t be part of the Vulcan connection, but would they appear differently to him now, in this sensitive mental state? He glanced to the left. Oh, yeah. Definitely different. Elbrun’s black eyes were – magnetic – black holes – Jim was drawn into their darkness, sinking into their depths, his mind and his turbulent emotions. With a gasp he broke contact, looking away, at Guinan. The sensation stopped. However, the El-Aurian felt even stranger to his mind, if that was possible. As if she was there and not there at the same time. The effect made his skin crawl so much that he had to suppress a shudder, that he ended up staring at Bones – and Bones … Bones met his eyes and for a second he allowed Jim to see just how angry, and how torn up he was.

Somehow Jim managed to focus on the view screen again.

“And that’s it.”

Explosions in space were never spectacular. Fireworks need oxygen. Not much of that was left in the damaged Dionysus. A brief, blinding flare, white-bright before the yellow-orange backdrop of the Lytasian binary. For a second, the screen automatically zoomed in on the debris, tiny black spots dancing in front of the star. Then the screen flicked back to the vista of actual space outside. Perfect black emptiness lit up with pinpricks of silver light. For a moment Jim remembered a vision from the Bonding. A hallucination of silver threads tying him to Spock, and connecting them with two distant stars, one golden and one silver.

Jim had no idea what he did, but suddenly he was – back – back in his body, back in his mind. In his normal frame of mind, that was. Spock raised an eyebrow at him, and a sense of surprise filtered through the Bond. Jim shrugged. No idea how I did that, he thought, shutting off my telepathy like that. More than before, he realized that they had no fucking clue what they were messing with, with telepathy he wasn’t supposed to possess, that it was dangerous, that it was too late to stop, and that he didn’t want to.

Time to be captain. He rose to his feet. That simple act brought its own kind of awareness of identity and community, of belonging and never belonging. Part of the job description. He wondered why he felt it now, that old cliché – the loneliness of command. Shouldn’t that be impossible now that he was Bonded? But Spock had never been a part of that particular equation. Up until very recently, Bones hadn’t been, either. Perhaps that was the explanation. And Spock’s revelation just now.

“The following will be recorded in the captain’s log of the Enterprise: Stardate 2260.330. The damaged V’tosh ka’tur starship Dionysus was towed to the Lytasian secondary and left to drift into the star. At 1625 hours the antimatter fuel pods exploded at a safe distance from the planets and shipping routes of the Lytasian system. The orbit of the resultant debris will decay over the next years until the star consumes the remains.” He paused. In a few years nothing but memories would be left of the small ship and far too many of its passengers. “Tushah nash-veh k’dular,” Jim said softly, “I grieve with you.”

“Cha’i t’naat,” Stephen replied formally, and the other V’tosh ka’tur silently inclined their heads in respectful agreement. “Thank you. But what is to become of us now? We are far from Federation space, and I have been given to understand your itinerary will take you only further away from it.”

Jim nodded. “That is correct. And I’m afraid unless we meet up with another ship of your people, it will be impossible to arrange safe transport for you. I’m sorry, but you will have to stay on board for the time being. Are you okay with your quarters?”

Iolite, a lithe woman with auburn hair, stepped next to Stephen and offered a grateful smile. “The rooms are more than adequate for our needs. We are honored, Captain. And grateful, that you would offer asylum to a traveling circus in such manner. But … while we are here … what are we to do? I understand that your mission will only be concluded in five years.”

Self-consciously, Jim rubbed his neck. “Look, it’s no big deal. It’s not like you can walk to New Vulcan. And we have more than enough space. Also, what you can do … I guess, just what you always do? We’re not an ordinary Starfleet vessel – we’ve got civilians on board, families, kids. They, and actually, all of us, I think, will appreciate some entertainment. Food for the soul? Can’t replicate that,” he said, feeling somewhat out of his depth. “And if you want to do more than that, report to Commander Paul. He’ll figure out what to do with you. But really, right now, I think you just need to take some time to recover.” He glanced at the toddlers, still sitting on the blanket in front of the window with T’Peri, Jo, and Thorby. “Take care of yourselves and the kids for a while. Don’t worry about anything else.”

♦♦♦

[51 days ago]

Stardate 2260.297, 0500 hours, New Vulcan

In a small dwelling on the main continent of New Vulcan, the man known as Ambassador Selek sat in front of his comm unit in deep contemplation. He had not slept or meditated. Instead he allowed his mind to spiral in and out of focus. On the screen in front of him, the picture of his younger counterpart and his Bondmate was frozen in a smile, a soft gaze, and two ta’al.

“We are star-met
We are joined …”

In another time Spock would not meet James T. Kirk for another five years. In another universe, it had taken him and his captain two years to realize there was more between them than friendship, and seven years to take the next step. Seven wasted years. Not a long time, compared to the lifespan of a Vulcan or a half-Vulcan. Precious time he could have shared with his Bondmate. If he had been able to accept himself … But Spock had to fail kolinahr, had to face V’Ger before he could even confront questions of the heart long denied – and find the courage to answer them.

“Is this all that I am? Is there nothing more?”

Spock breathed deep into the k’rawhl to center himself. For ninety-six long years those questions had turned into their own answers now: Yes, that is all that you are. No, there is nothing more. To be reminded of the short twenty years of his life when his heart held different answers was bittersweet. No, it is not: With you, I am hope, I am desire. Yes, there is more: Together we are love, the dream of all our ages.

Again Spock focused on the screen, on the vision of a life he never lived. How to reply to their message in an appropriate and beneficial way? How to convey his thoughts and emotions without expressing too much?

♦♦♦

Stardate 2260.348, 1800 hours, Deck 5, Captain’s Quarters

Jim and Spock were in their quarters, playing a game of chess before dinner, when the comm sounded. Barry Milekey’s deep, beautiful voice poured out of the speaker: “Subspace transmission from New Vulcan for you and Mr. Spock. A vid message marked private, sirs.”

Jim needed a second to calculate subspace lag. When he realized who this message must be from, he smiled and rose to his feet. “Pipe it down to our quarters, Milekey.”

Spock followed him, and together they stepped in front of the screen on Jim’s desk. Because Jim knew that any encounter with his older counterpart tended to unsettle Spock, he reached for his Bondmate’s hand.

A second later, the screen flickered to life and coalesced into a close-up of an ancient Vulcan. Judging from the perspective, he must have been kneeling on the floor in front of the camera. For a long moment old Spock gazed at them in silence. His dark eyes glistened strangely in the dim light of the room. Jim’s breath caught when he realized that the old man had tears in his eyes.

Finally, old Spock swallowed and inhaled, a rasping, painful breath. But when he spoke, his voice was perfectly even, though much softer than usual.

“You are indeed star-met,” old Spock told them. After a pause, he added, with a smile that somehow made Jim’s heart ache, “And you are more than joined: You are t’hai’la.”

Then his Bondmate’s counterpart reached out to switch off the camera with a sigh. No, Jim thought, not a sigh, a whisper – words.

“As I once was.”

The screen went dark. With a harsh inhalation, Spock drew away from Jim. Without a word, he crossed the room. The door opened with a soft hiss, and he was gone.

♦♦♦

Stardate 2260.348, 2100 hours, Deck 5, Officers’ Mess & Captain’s Ready Room

Nyota and her friends had claimed a table in the officers’ mess for an informal meeting of the ship’s knitting circle. Informal, because Barry Milekey was on shift today. But apart from him the other members were present and accounted for: Carolyn Paul, Gwaloth Canningham, Carol Marcus, Gaila, and Elena Amell.

The room was already decorated for what Starfleet regulations defined as “politically appropriate, culturally neutral end-of-the-year celebrations” and what everyone else in the Federation called “Christmas”. Fake mistletoe adorned every other doorway, there were fake garlands in ludicrous colors on every table, along with LED candles and plates with replicated sugar cookies, nuts, and tangerines. There was even a Christmas tree in the main mess, dragged there from the botanic gardens by a dozen burly Maintenance workers, and decorated in a joint effort by all of the Enterprise children.

The thing with Christmas: Every species exported porn, alcohol or drugs, and music. However, a few species had contributed something unique to the universe they would forever be associated with. Vulcans had provided a philosophy that sustained more than the Federation with IDIC. The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition were the galactic equivalent of the Bible. Orion would always remain a synonym for slavery. And there was a reason that Gwaloth Canningham’s most successful naughty shirt came with the slogan “A Vulcan in the streets, a Klingon in the sheets”. Earth’s interstellar legacy even consisted of two things. Christmas, and towels. Of course, “Christmas” among aliens had not much more to do with the classic Terran holiday than a Klingon brawl with an Orion dance. But the essentials had survived – the tree, the gifts, the weird red-and-white Santa hat, and a vague idea that it was about family, friends, and light in the darkness (which was why the Yovians celebrated “Christmas” by lobbing nuclear bombs at their neighboring planets – that kind of light could be seen three solar systems over). The thing with the towels was easier to understand because towels were so useful that literally every species in the known universe had adopted the custom. Fluffy towels embroidered with the mythical number “42” or the slogan “Don’t Panic!” could be purchased in every spaceport from the Romulan Empire to the Cardassian Union and beyond.

As a result, the members of the infamous Enterprise “stitch ‘n’ bitch” club were making merry tonight with traditional Christmas drinks: with eggnog, mulled wine, and even mead. They were slowly moving beyond casual chatter to outright gossip but hadn’t quite reached the stage of bitching yet.

“So it’s been a while since our last meeting,” Nyota announced, grinning. Four weeks had passed since the last meeting. It was good to hang out tonight. “Therefore, the first order of the day is updates, ladies. Relationship status. Bring it on.” It was a cherished ritual. The girls giggled and cheered and raised their glasses.

Nyota grinned at Amell. “The one who whined at us last gets to spill first.”

“All right, all right,” Len muttered, her gaze fixed on her mead. “We’re good. That fight we had about the away mission to the Dionysus was mostly a misunderstanding. We’re working on our communication skills.”

Nyota sniggered. “Does that mean our Chief Engineer has a talented tongue?”

“I bet he knows how to use his tools perfectly,” Gwaloth put in.

Carolyn promptly inhaled her drink and started coughing violently, while Len flushed scarlet and hid her face in her knitting. Her muffled reply sounded a lot like “affirmative”.

“Details, details,” Gaila urged, not that easily distracted. “We need details!”

“You’re horrible, all of you.” Len offered them a red-faced glare. “If you must know, Scotty apologized. It helped that the captain talked to him. Told him that I’d done well on the Dionysus. And … when I had a nightmare afterwards, Scotty was really sweet, even though I’d been kind of awful to him.”

“Awww.” Carol laughed at her flustered friend. “I think we can let that stand. Even if she won’t share any juicy specifics. Nyota, your turn.”

Nyota heaved a sigh. “I’m actually beginning to wonder if it’s possible to revert into a virginal state if you go long enough without.”

“So it’s that serious with you and Kh— John?” Carol asked.

“There are toys for that!” Gaila put in helpfully.

Carolyn sighed, full of sympathy. “I hear you …”

“Toys may save my sanity, but it’s just not the same,” Nyota replied. Then her brain caught up with the conversation, and she gasped, pressing her hands to her cheeks. It shouldn’t come as a such a surprise. But it did. “And yeah, I guess we’re really serious.”

Gaila shook her head. “You realize it’s a pattern now for you, do you? Going for serious relationships with difficult and dangerous men …”

“As if you’re in a position to comment,” Len put in.

Gaila just giggled and leaned into Carol, who blushed fiercely, before she steered the conversation away from that particular topic. “I heard that sigh, Carolyn. How’s Doctor McGrouch today?”

Carolyn groaned. “Same as yesterday. And the day before. And the day before the day before the … Why?”

“The first straight man I’ve ever known who has managed to turn sulking into an art form,” Gaila said, admiration in her voice. “He needs to get laid, Carolyn,” she added with conviction. “It would be community service. A mental health thing. A sexual emergency due to alien interference. There’s a regulation for that!”

Mortified, Carolyn muffled another groan by hiding her face in her crossed arms. “It’s not that I’m unwilling …”

Nyota snorted simultaneously. “That’s the alien sex pollen paragraph, Gaila. I don’t think that’s applicable when the problem is a future alien son-in-law. Or the alien husband of your best friend.”

“I wouldn’t have expected Doctor McCoy to be such a xenophobe,” Gwaloth commented, suddenly serious.

Carolyn raised her head. “He’s not. That’s not it. The problem isn’t Thorby, or Spock. Not really. Leonard … He’s just scared, and yes, he has issues, okay? And also, that is really private, so I’d appreciate it if we could change the topic now.”

Awkward silence spread, with everyone concentrating uncomfortably on their drinks.

“Actually,” Nyota said suddenly, “it’s not private if it affects the community on board. And his prolonged hissy fit is definitely affecting the command team, so—”

“Speak of the devil,” Carol interrupted.

Nyota turned just in time to see the captain hesitating at the door of the officers’ mess. He was pale and looked drained. Whatever had happened now? It was almost cute how he visibly gathered his courage to approach the table. “Good evening, ladies,” he greeted them with a somewhat strained puppy dog smile. “I’m sorry to bother you, but … Nyota … if you have a moment …?”” He emphasized her first name – so this was personal. And Spock was nowhere in sight.

“Sure,” Nyota said and got up. “Sorry, girls. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“My ready room?” he suggested.

A few minutes later, they were sitting around the corner of the long table with mugs of spicy rooibos tea. “What’s wrong, Jim? Did you have an argument with Spock?” She would not get involved in a lovers’ spat between Kirk and Spock. Just no. Nope. Not ever.

“No, not an argument,” Jim said, and while he looked upset – haunted, even – he didn’t appear to be angry or pissed off. “But yeah, there’s … there’s something wrong. Only, I have no idea what. But it’s got to do with a word. A Vulcan word that I’ve never heard before. I was wondering if you could help me figure it out.”

She breathed on her tea, masking a sigh. Vulcan linguistics she could do. Maybe a simple miscommunication? “Shoot.”

“We got a transmission from New Vulcan tonight, a reply from Spock’s counterpart to the message we’d sent about our Bonding,” Jim explained. “He said we are …” He frowned in concentration. “T’hy’la? T’hai’la? After we watched the vid, Spock disappeared before I could ask him what it meant.”

“Oh.” Abruptly, Nyota put her mug down, shocked and fascinated at the same time. “Oh.”

“So you do know the word?”

She met his bright hazel gaze, and for a moment she couldn’t answer, trying to process the implications. Finally she replied, “Yes, I do. But it’s an ancient term and very rarely used nowadays, so it’s no wonder you’ve never heard of it. It’s both a myth and a linguistic phenomenon.”

Unable to resist the temptation of linguistic nitpicking, she went on, “To start with, the word is spelled ‘t’hai’la’, not ‘t’hy’la’. ‘T’hy’la’ is an old, sloppy transliteration. In Standard, the letter y can be either a vowel or a consonant. But in Vulcan the corresponding character is always a consonant. To express the vowel sound, the diphthongal ‘ai’ must be used, so ‘t’hai’la’ is the linguistically correct form.”

“Okay.” Kirk smiled. “I’ll remember that, Professor Uhura. So what does ‘t’hai’la’ mean?”

Nyota lowered her gaze to her tea, carefully considering what to say next. “The term dates back to the pre-Surakian warrior elite,” she explained at last. “In Vulcan of old, many warriors never Bonded with women, never had families. Instead, men lived and died together. The closest Terran equivalent would be the Sacred Band of Thebes. The most famous of those ancient heroes formed a Bond with each other, the rarest and most revered Bond of Vulcan culture. They were t’hai’la for each other … everything. Friend, brother, lover.” She couldn’t help it, she got sentimental and misty-eyed at her own explanation.

Kirk just stared at her, speechless.

She quickly went on, scrambling for safer, linguistic territory. “That warrior Bond was not meant to be broken, not even in death. According to Vulcan mythology, katras of t’hai’la were joined for eternity. What’s really fascinating is that the Vulcan language itself reflects that belief. You see, all Vulcan dialects as well as traditional and modern Golic have very specific terms for every possible familial and social connection – and the lack thereof. For example, there is not just a word for ‘betrothed’, but also for ‘the one hoping to be betrothed’, for ‘the one who lost a betrothed to a challenge’ or ‘the one who lost a betrothed by agreement’, and so on and so forth. Especially interesting is the vocabulary referring to widows and widowers. There are usually three kinds of phrases for that situation. A neutral one – ‘the one left behind’ – a hmm… positive one – ‘the one who chose to stay’ – and a negative version – ‘the one who couldn’t follow’. Those sets of terms exist for Bonded and Mated partners of either gender.”

Nyota took a deep breath and met Kirk’s eyes. The next part was … difficult.

“There is no such term for a surviving t’hai’la,” she said softly. “In this ancient, complex language family, with those extremely specific expressions that reflect the finest nuances of extant and broken social, familial, and telepathic connections, there is simply no word for that at all.”

♦♦♦

After he thanked Uhura politely for her time and her detailed explanation, she excused herself and headed back to her friends. Jim remained behind, clutching his cooling tea, trying to make sense of what she had told him and, more importantly, of how Spock had reacted to his counterpart’s message.

What bothered Jim was that whole mythical heroes shit. That’s not me, he thought. His tea was cold now, with flaky spots of essential oils marring the reddish surface of the liquid. He recalled a conversation with Spock about the topic: I’m not a hero; I’m a symbol.

And old Spock with fucking tears in his eyes, goddammit.

“But that’s my issue,” he muttered. “Not Spock’s.”

Okay, he didn’t think Spock was thrilled with that kind of illogical mythological baggage. But that was definitely not why he’d run away like that. So if it was not the word itself, then it must have been what old Spock had said – or failed to delete – at the very end: “As I once was.”

So old Spock and his own counterpart had been Bonded, too, had been … t’hai’la. But his counterpart was dead, and old Spock was alive.

And that’s it, Jim thought. That’s the problem. That he could be alive when he should be dead. Because death is our deal. Because death defines us in this universe. More than life ever did.

He got up. To be all alone in his mind was hard. Oh Spock.

♦♦♦

Stardate 2260.348, 2300 hours, Deck 10, Observation Lounge

The observation lounge was dark, but not empty. Spock was there, sitting stiffly on a couch near the window screen.

“Hey,” Jim whispered as he sank to his knees in front of Spock, blocking his view of brilliant stars, of colorful nebulae, of the universe. “I get it, you know.”

Spock regarded him, pale and silent.

Jim took Spock’s hands and drew them to his face, to his meld points. “I get it,” he repeated. “And it’s okay. It’s fine. No matter what happens.”

For a while they stayed like that, Jim on his knees, Spock on the sofa. Heartbeats passed into the quiet warmth of living bodies, breaths whispered away into the darkness, stars sailed by in the distance. Gradually, the terrible silence in Jim’s mind dissolved.

“Gimme your hand,” Jim demanded at last. Without waiting for a reaction or a reply, he drew Spock’s left hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss into his palm. “I have a gift for you.”

Spock still didn’t speak, but he quirked his left eyebrow and allowed Jim to position his hand between them, palm turned up.

“There’s more to us than that one word,” Jim said firmly. “More than life. More than death.

He placed one of Guinan’s white marbles in Spock’s hands.

“And that? That’s a fact.”

♦♦♦

”Just above our terror, the stars painted this story
in perfect silver calligraphy. And our souls, too often
abused by ignorance, covered our eyes with mercy.”

– Aberjhani, I Made My Boy Out of Poetry

♦♦♦♦♦♦

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Author’s Notes

• Stephen, his cat Ilya, and the Dionysus are from Vonda N. McIntyre’s Star Trek tie-in novel “Enterprise: The First Adventure”.

• Barque cats belong to Anne McCaffrey and now to Anne McCaffrey/Elizabeth Ann Scarborough.

• “Star met …” and the related references in that passage are quotes from Leonard Nimoy’s poem “We are star-met”.

• V’Ger’s questions and the relevant answers are from “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”.

• The towels with the relevant slogans are of course a reference to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”.

• The transliteration of t’hai’la vs. t’hy’la is explained in the Vulcan Language Institute’s Introduction to Traditional and Modern Golic Vulcan Grammar. The other explanations concerning Vulcan language are completely AU but highly relevant for the plot of this story.

• Guinan’s white marble is a reference to the game of questions Jim and Spock play in chapter 11. (I still haven’t made a prototype, but I really want to.)

• The thing with Christmas: I’ve had awesome discussions on LJ and Tumblr and G+ about what Earth would be universally famous for in the 23^rd century. It’s not easy to come up with what could be typical for humankind as such. Most spontaneous answers included booze or sex in some way (but really, that’s what every species will export if they have it). Someone suggested Velcro, and I still adore that answer. I’d love to hear what you think of my interpretation of the question – and if you have some ideas to add, please share!

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“Hope for Tomorrow” by Aranel Took, a tie-in for “The Resilience of Hope”

There is now a tie-in for this story! “Hope for Tomorrow” is a unique and original companion story for “The Resilience of Hope”. Written from the perspective of Lieutenant Elena Amell, “Hope for Tomorrow” relates the events from the crash of the Vengeance on San Francisco to the launch of the five-year mission. There’s adventure and romance, lots of interesting stuff that ties in directly with “Resilience of Hope”, cameos of recurring characters, and much more!

If you have the time, please take a look at the tie-in, and leave some kudos & comments love: “Hope for Tomorrow” by Aranel Took at AO3