2292
“Forever young…”
A vintage melody from Earth’s past played softly in the background as Doctor Kesh, once known as Siroth, strapped Cyloo onto a customized biobed boasting extensive modifications unfamiliar to Saavik. An oversized monitor was mounted on the wall overlooking the bed while an elaborate sensor array occupied the ceiling directly overhead. The restraints were merely to hold Cyloo still during the scanning process, Kesh had assured them; nevertheless, the nervous Osori had insisted on retaining her phase gloves for this first procedure, which was intended to analyze her anatomy, metabolism, and assorted other life functions down to the atomic level. In his haste to begin examining the Osori, Kesh had chosen not to argue that point, for the present at least.
“You’re certain this isn’t going to hurt?” she asked again.
“Perfectly painless and noninvasive.” Kesh adjusted her positioning on the bed; Cyloo had traded her mesh poncho for a formfitting white bodysuit embedded with sensor nodes for the procedure. “Just a bit time-consuming, which is why I want to get started promptly. These scans will provide me with a full, comprehensive survey of your unique physiology that will help narrow down the focus of any subsequent tests and experiments. We’re just mapping the terrain for now.”
“I’m not sure I like being treated as a piece of geography.” Cyloo turned her head toward Saavik, who stood beside the bed providing moral support. “You’ll be here the whole time, won’t you? You won’t leave me alone with them?”
“I am not going anywhere,” Saavik promised.
Kesh and his accomplice had wasted no time escorting the two women from the living quarters upstairs to the lower-level laboratory facilities. Saavik was impressed by how state-of-the-art the labs were; the various components appeared to be modular in nature, perhaps accounting for how Kesh managed to establish this hidden base in time to intercept the Lukara’s voyage from Osor to Nimbus III. Wight was on hand to operate the equipment, after placing Taleb in cold storage, although it seemed Kesh’s pet rat was not allowed in the labs. Saavik approved of that restriction since it gave her one less variable to plan around as she plotted their escape. She had no intention of letting Kesh use either her or Cyloo as guinea pigs any longer than absolutely necessary.
“Is everything set on your end?” Kesh asked Wight, who was manning a rather complex control panel a few meters away from the biobed. The Rhaandarite’s yellow eyes were fixed on a battery of illuminated indicators and displays.
“Yes, Doctor. Systems green across the board.”
“Excellent.” Kesh placed a protective visor over Cyloo’s three eyes. “Lieutenant Saavik, please step away from the bed.”
She did as told, still feigning compliance. “I am not going far,” she assured Cyloo.
Kesh backed away from the bed as well. “Proceed.”
An intense white spotlight shone from the sensors above Cyloo. Multiple streams of data, orders of magnitude beyond that reported by a standard biobed, began scrolling across the monitors. While Kesh treated himself to a fresh mug of raktajino from a convenient food synthesizer, Saavik covertly inspected her surroundings, planning her next move.
What would Kirk do under these circumstances?
He would not wait for an opportunity to act. He would create one, by guile if necessary.
“How long is this procedure estimated to take, Doctor?”
“Three hours at least. Do you have someplace you need to be, Lieutenant?”
“I am merely considering how best to occupy my time for the duration,” she said mildly. “A thought: I was admiring your library earlier. Might I fetch a book to pass the hours? Perhaps The Photonic Eternity by Lilyan Colbert?”
She had in fact noted that, in addition to a wide variety of nonfiction tomes on matters scientific, medical, historical, and philosophical, Kesh had an entire bookshelf devoted to Terran literature involving immortality: The Epic of Gilgamesh, “The Mortal Immortal,” Orlando, The Picture of Dorian Gray, She: A History of Adventure, “Rip Van Winkle,” Tuck Everlasting, Methuselah’s Children, The Endless Andorian, Bid Space-Time Return, and others. Kesh’s enduring obsession, it seemed, extended even to his recreational reading material.
“And you just now thought of that?” Kesh frowned. “Can’t you simply meditate like a proper Vulcan?”
“As you are fond of pointing out, I am half Romulan. This results in a certain innate… restlessness.” She started toward the turbolift outside the lab. “You need not trouble yourself. I will return promptly with the desired volume.”
“No!” Cyloo called out from the bed. “Don’t leave me.”
“I will be only a few minutes. Just up to the study and back.”
“Not so fast.” Kesh put down his coffee mug. “You’re being a tad presumptuous, Lieutenant, assuming you can come and go as you please.”
“You have hostages to compel my cooperation,” she reminded him, “and took pains to explain that there is nowhere to flee to.” She turned back and settled onto a stool next to a work counter. “Yet if this poses too great a difficulty…”
“Fine. I’ll get you the book myself.” Kesh sighed irritably and turned toward Wight, who was conscientiously monitoring the readouts from the sensors. “Watch yourself, Wight. Don’t let yourself get nerve-pinched while I’m raiding my library for a certain bored spectator.”
“That is not my intention,” Saavik stated. “Perhaps I will meditate in your absence, like a proper Vulcan.”
“See that you do.”
She waited patiently as Kesh departed, appearing distinctly exasperated. In theory, her plan would work just as well if he’d dispatched Wight to retrieve the book instead; she merely needed to get one of their captors out of the way long enough to carry out her strategy. Despite this, she was not displeased to see the back of Kesh, if only temporarily.
“Cyloo! Phase through your bonds… immediately!”
Unfortunately, she’d had no opportunity to share her plan with Cyloo in advance. She had to trust that the captive Osori would follow her lead without hesitation.
“Wait! What are you doing?” Wight spun away from the control panel in alarm, reaching for the phaser at her hip. Her anxious gaze swung back and forth between Saavik and Cyloo. “What’s happening?”
“Saavik?” Cyloo asked.
“With alacrity, please, Cyloo. Time is short.”
“All right.”
Saavik’s trust in Cyloo was vindicated as a rosy glow enveloped the Osori, causing the readouts on the screens to fluctuate erratically or else zero out completely, much to Wight’s distress. “Stop it! You’re spoiling everything!”
Cyloo sat up, passing effortlessly through her restraints, and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Wight impotently waved her phaser at her.
“Get back on the bed!” the flustered Rhaandarite ordered while lifting the wrist communicator to her lips. “Doctor, we have a prob—”
A quantum microscope rested on the countertop next to Saavik. Moving swiftly, she hurled the heavy instrument at Wight, whose large domed cranium made an easy target. Saavik had once been the star pitcher on her class’s baseball team back at Starfleet Academy, and her accuracy had not diminished since. The impact knocked the Rhaandarite to the floor, and Saavik pounced like the feral hunter she’d been as a child, administering a nerve pinch to the stunned technician in what struck Saavik as an effective combination of Hellguard instincts and Vulcan technique.
“By the Endless Tapestry!” Cyloo gaped at Saavik through her protective visor. “You took her down in mere instants! That was terrifying… and amazing!”
“Merely necessary.” Saavik relieved Wight of her phaser and headed for a computer console. “We must act quickly to bar Kesh from these compartments.” She scanned the control panel. “Presumably there is a lockdown protocol in place for emergencies.”
“Allow me.”
Phasing back into solidity, Cyloo took off the visor and flung it away. She eased past Saavik to lay her gloved hands on the panel. The liquid metal flowed from her fingertips to interface with the circuitry beneath the panel. Warning lights flashed on throughout the lab.
“There! I’ve tricked Hiberna’s computer systems into thinking that its lower levels are experiencing a biohazard outbreak and a radiation leak. Force fields and safety doors are in place at all entry points, including the turbolift. The transporter is also disengaged.” Cyloo grinned at Saavik. “Doctor Kesh is not the only one who can fake a catastrophe.”
“Poetic… and impressive.” Saavik admired the capacities of the Osori’s gloves, and the formidable scientific prowess they implied. “I did not realize your attire was quite so versatile.”
“Multipurpose smart fabric, neuro-controlled. Our civilization is much older and more advanced than yours, remember. We’ve had ages to develop and refine our technology. It’s not as though we’ve spent all those millennia frolicking in fields of flowers… or at least not all the time.”
“Duly noted.”
“What the devil do you think you’re doing?” Kesh’s outraged features appeared on the screen above the vacated biobed, as well as on a number of smaller monitors around the lab. “You don’t truly expect me to believe this nonsense about an emergency lockdown?”
Cyloo gulped. “Shall I disable internal comms as well?”
“Not yet.”
Saavik reasoned that there might be an advantage to knowing how Kesh was reacting to their insurrection. She addressed the main screen while simultaneous binding Wight to the now-empty biobed, using the same restraints previously employed on Cyloo.
“I would not insult your intelligence thusly, Doctor. The fact remains, however, that we no longer desire your hospitality and are taking measures to remedy our situation.”
“Damn it, I should have known better than to trust you or any of Kirk’s people, but I foolishly expected even a half Vulcan to be more logical. This entire exercise is pointless. I’ve already explained how and why. You’re not going to be able to lock me out forever. I’ll blast my way in if I have to.”
“You are free to try. In the interim, we will pursue options other than surrender.”
She did not wish to spend too much time sparring verbally with Kesh while there were more urgent tasks before them. She signaled Cyloo to cut off the transmission at their end. The myriad screens went dark.
“Now what?” Cyloo asked. “He’s not wrong. We can’t get away.”
“Not on our own. Therefore, we must endeavor to make contact with the Enterprise or any other nearby vessel, provided they are still within communications range.”
It seemed not improbable that the Enterprise, or possibly the Lukara or the Harrier, was still in the vicinity, investigating the theft and destruction of the escape pod. There was also a substantial probability that some or all of the ships had already engaged in battle—or were doing so at this very moment. Whether such a conflict would help or hinder her and Cyloo’s odds of being rescued from Hiberna was difficult to estimate.
“Right! I should’ve thought of that.” Hope lit up Cyloo’s scaly face. “And I may have some ideas about how to accomplish that.”
Withdrawing her smart-fabric finger extensions from the control panel, she scampered over to the biobed and commandeered Wight’s wrist communicator. She slid it onto her own wrist, where her glove began to interface with it.
“It won’t be easy, but I should be able to link into Hiberna’s long-range communications array. Or, in a pinch, maybe just boost the signal from this wrist device. I simply need to figure out the best way to make that happen.”
“Acknowledged. How may I assist you?”
“In truth? After all that’s happened, I have qualms about letting our advanced science fall into the hands of outsiders like Kesh, the Klingons, the Romulans, or even your own Federation. You must promise that if anything… happens… to me, you will destroy my gloves and any equipment I may have tampered with.”
The Prime Directive, Saavik recognized, applied to us primitive, younger races.
She cast an envious look at the smart gloves, reluctant to deprive the Federation of such innovative technology, but she appreciated Cyloo’s concerns and had no time to debate them. Fortune willing, there would be time enough in the future for the diplomats to haggle over any exchanges of scientific knowledge.
“Agreed. Anything else?”
“Taleb. We can’t just leave him frozen somewhere. We have to free him too.”
Must we? Saavik thought. Right away, that is.
Naturally, they would want to liberate Taleb eventually, if and when they had matters well in hand, but defrosting him at this critical juncture had not been Saavik’s top priority. She had enough unpredictable variables to factor in at present without adding a temperamental Romulan to the equation.
“Perhaps we should concentrate on summoning assistance first?”
“And leave Taleb trapped in a tube? I can manage the comms, Saavik. You need to free him. You have to!”
She was clearly adamant on this point. And it was possible that they could benefit from Taleb’s assistance. Maybe.
“Very well. Continue with your efforts to contact the Enterprise while I attempt to locate our missing companion.”
“Thank you, Saavik! I’ll feel ever so much better once we’re all together again.”
Saavik was rather less enthused by the prospect, but embarked on the task anyway. With the turbolift disabled, she descended a spiral stairwell to the level directly below the labs, where efficient scouting soon led her to the cryogenics vault Kesh had mentioned earlier. She entered via an unlocked doorway to discover eight horizontal cryotubes installed within the notably refrigerated chamber. The tubes resembled sleek, futuristic sarcophagi, giving the compartment the impression of a burial chamber. Concealed machinery hummed in the background. The ambient temperature was such that she could see her own breath.
Six of the tubes were unoccupied, but two clearly held sleeping subjects, visible through a transparent aluminum viewport in the lid of the tube. She immediately spotted Taleb and hastened toward him, sparing only a curious glance at the other tube, its window frosted over so that only a blurry outline of a humanoid figure could be glimpsed inside the sarcophagus. Saavik recalled Kesh alluding cryptically to other “inconvenient” guests he’d been obliged to freeze for safekeeping.
Who was this individual—and how long had they been sleeping?
Such questions would have to wait until she revived Taleb. Deciphering the tube’s miniature control panel, she initiated the warm-up sequence. A toasty red radiance suffused the sarcophagus while an embedded monitor charted Taleb’s vital signs as they climbed back toward standard Romulan norms. She was grateful for her Vulcan self-discipline as she impatiently endured the several minutes that passed before the viewing pane retracted, exposing Taleb to the air, and a locking mechanism audibly disengaged, allowing her to lift open the lid of the cryotube. Gasping, he awoke with a start and glanced about in confusion.
“What is this? Where am I?” He shivered even as a healthy green tint returned to his cheeks and lips. “And why is it so absurdly cold?”
Despite their differences, she was relieved that he appeared to have come through his ordeal unscathed, his aggrieved disposition included.
“You have just been awakened from cryogenic suspension. Do not overtax yourself; you may require some time to recover fully.”
She helped him out of the tube and onto his feet, then concisely briefed him on their situation. To her slight surprise, he did not refuse her assistance or question the actions she had taken on their behalf.
“It seems I am in your debt, Lieutenant.” Condensation provided a damp sheen to his hair and features. “Perhaps I underestimated the quality of your Romulan blood.”
She elected to take that as the compliment he intended. “You’re welcome.”
With Taleb revived and brought back up to speed, Saavik’s attention was once more drawn to that other tube and its nameless occupant. Who else had Kesh relegated to suspended animation? Prudence dictated that she and Taleb rejoin Cyloo with all deliberate speed, but both curiosity and ethics lured her over to the mystery tube. Peering through the frosted viewport, she discerned that the figure appeared to be female.
“Who might this be?” Taleb asked.
“That is what I wish to determine.”
Awaking this stranger posed a risk, as Kirk had discovered when he’d brought Khan out of his long slumber years ago, but what if this was another innocent victim frozen against their will, as Taleb was? There might not be an opportunity to liberate them later, depending on how events unfolded over the next few hours.
“I mean to revive this individual,” she told Taleb. “Do you object?”
He hugged himself in an attempt to dispel the icy chill of the tube. “I would not wish such a fate on a Klingon. Do not let me stop you.”
She repeated the procedure she’d employed to thaw out Taleb. The same warm radiance melted away the frost veiling the viewing window, revealing what appeared to be a young humanoid woman with bobbed magenta hair. The pane retracted and she stirred within the tube. Groggy brown eyes snapped open as she spied Saavik and Taleb gazing down at her.
“What the freak? Are you… aliens?” asked Melinda Silver.