For the first time, Kirk saw Blakely’s expression falter. “Admiral Janeway was killed on the Sovereign…”
Kirk hid his surprise. He’d just let slip information he’d assumed a Starfleet officer would already have. He tried to cover. “She gave me the orders before she returned to the Sovereign.”
“Then the admiral wasn’t aware of the difficulties we’ve encountered with our warp drives.” Blakely put her hand on Kirk’s shoulder, a strangely familiar gesture. “I think we can safely say the admiral would change her orders in light of the current situation.”
Kirk knew that was not the case, but didn’t want to jeopardize Janeway’s plans to keep her survival a secret from whatever enemy Starfleet faced.
“I need to speak to your commander,” Kirk said.
“My commander’s dead.”
Kirk wondered if the woman had taken too many stress tabs. “Where did your orders come from?”
Blakely smiled again as if Kirk were an old friend. “I need the Belle Reve.”
Kirk had no intention of giving up his ship.
“So do I.”
Blakely placed her hand on Kirk’s chest, more the touch of a lover than a Starfleet officer determined to put a civilian in his place.
“I need you,” she said. Then she grabbed the back of Kirk’s head and forced him forward, kissing him.
Kirk instantly pushed at her, to make her step away, but her strength was—
Inhuman.
“No!” Kirk twisted his face away from her but could not escape her grip.
“James, please….”
His eyes widened in horror. He knew that voice.
That voice still whispered to him in his dreams.
The voice of a woman who had died five years ago at Halkan.
Teilani…
It was his beloved wife, mother of Joseph, who embraced him now. The Starfleet uniform of Captain Blakely evaporated like mist, leaving this creature unclothed, unthreatening, incredibly desirable in his arms.
“I love you, James….”
Kirk pushed and struggled but her arms drew him closer. Fingers like duranium talons twisted the back of his head, forcing him to gaze into eyes he’d known so well.
He saw his own face, distorted in fear, reflected there.
“And I know you love me….”
Millimeter by millimeter, the creature with Teilani’s form, Teilani’s voice, Teilani’s scent, forced his head forward to her lips.
“Accept…” she whispered, and her intoxicating breath was warm and sweet and stirring.
“Norinda!” Kirk shouted, struggling to break the creature’s spell.
Then he gasped as Teilani’s face webbed with a mesh of fine dark lines and her skin fissured along those lines into cubes and he felt the hand at the back of his neck flatten and spread.
“Be loved,” the creature said.
Kirk gasped for air as that face smothered him in a wave of choking darkness.
And then there was a flash of light.
The sting of heat.
A familiar numbing of his fingers, arms, and legs.
He felt himself fly backward to land jarringly on the deck.
His face was suddenly clear. But he swatted and rubbed to get rid of the sensation the darkness had left on him, as if he had walked through a spider’s silk.
Then he saw the darkness, separate and distinct.
A mound of it, cubes of different sizes, slowly folding into themselves and shrinking as if melting into the deck, as phaser beams splashed over it, causing the shadows that textured it to jump and flash.
With great effort, Kirk turned his head away from the abomination that had tried to claim him, to see a Vulcan security detail in the doorway, three of them firing phasers, a fourth rushing to his side.
“James Kirk?” the fourth Vulcan asked. He was in a red uniform, the color of the Vulcan desert. He helped Kirk to his feet.
“I am,” Kirk said. He could still feel his heart racing.
The dark mound was now a powdery stain, all traces of it slowly fading.
“How did you get here?” the Vulcan asked.
“You beamed me in,” Kirk said indignantly.
The Vulcan shook his head. “This is a restricted defense installation. Your beam-in was unauthorized.”
Kirk would not accept that. “Is this installation protected by shields?”
The Vulcan was about to answer, then stopped as he realized what Kirk was implying. “Logical” was all he said. Obviously, if Kirk had been transported aboard the space station, someone with authority had adjusted the shields to let the beam through.
“I’ll start at the beginning,” Kirk said, then rapidly filled the Vulcan in on everything he had done since Joseph had vanished. When he reached the point at which Prefect Vorrel had contacted the Ministry of Planetary Defense, the Vulcan security officer blinked, signaling disturbance.
“That’s when,” Kirk concluded, “I was beamed here.”
“A moment,” the officer said. He walked over to his three companions who were continuing to take handheld sensor readings of the now unmarked deck where the dark residue had vanished.
Kirk was not inclined to wait until the Vulcans had reached a consensus. He tapped his communicator pin. “Kirk to Belle Reve.”
Scott responded at once. “Captain, where are ye?”
“On a Planetary Defense space station, geostationary orbit.” Kirk didn’t like the sound of the engineer’s voice. “What’s happened, Scotty?”
“The prefecture office was just bombed. We thought ye were in it.”
Kirk felt off-balance. He wondered if the bomb had been meant for him. But then, why had he been allowed to be beamed out of the building?
The answer came to him.
Norinda wanted him alive.
Norinda had just attempted to do to him what she had done to Spock. And if that act of dissolution was fatal, then there was no sense in allowing him to escape the bombing. She could have killed him in the prefecture office much more easily.
That confirmed it for Kirk.
That meant Spock was alive. Norinda herself had just confirmed it.
The commander of the Vulcan security team returned to Kirk.
Renewed with hope for Joseph and Spock, Kirk tapped his communicator again. “Stand by, Mister Scott.”
The Vulcan’s face was unreadable, even for Kirk. “Your story is troubling. It implies that the security of our planetary defense and local peacekeeping organizations has been compromised.”
“I agree,” Kirk said.
The Vulcan glanced back at the deck. “And the phenomenon that we have witnessed…”
“Is known to Starfleet,” Kirk said. “And I have no doubt it’s got something to do with the kidnapping of my child.”
The Vulcan considered his next words, and the longer the silence lasted, the more Kirk knew he wasn’t going to like what the Vulcan had to say.
“As a civilian, you cannot remain on this station.”
“I understand,” Kirk said. “If you beam me back to the Gateway, I– “
“No,” the Vulcan interrupted. “You cannot return to Vulcan, either.”
“Why not?”
“A state of emergency exists. As an alien, you must apply for a landing visa through your embassy.”
