Sten recovered his stance, twirling his lirpain his hands until its blade was near his left hand. Lunging forward, he swung the weapon up and over his head, bringing it down straight at her head. T’Prynn was only just able to lift her lirpain defense, every bone in her body trembling from the force of the onslaught. Their blades locked, she kicked at him, her boot stomping into his midsection with all of the strength she could muster. It was enough to push Sten back and gain her some maneuvering room, but the respite lasted only seconds, as he recovered, adjusting his grip on his lirpaand renewing his attack.
He thrust the weapon forward, and T’Prynn reacted, dropping her arms in an attempt to block, failing to see that his maneuvering was a ploy. At the last instant, Sten pulled back the lirpa,dropping its blade and pushing forward yet again, this time getting inside her reach. T’Prynn felt the sting as the finely honed metal sliced across her abdomen. Gritting her teeth and releasing an audible groan at the sudden pain, she brought up her lirpaonce more, swinging around its blunt end and catching Sten just above his right elbow. She heard the sound of bone cracking beneath the force of the blow. Sten staggered to his left. He loosed his grip on his weapon and let its blade fall to the sand as he lost his balance and dropped to one knee.
T’Prynn lurched forward, sensing her opportunity and ignoring the pain in her belly as she readied for another swing. Sten jerked himself upright, his right hand extending toward her, and at the last instant, she realized what he had done. Sand showered her face, stinging her eyes and catching in her nose and mouth. Gagging and spitting to clear her throat, T’Prynn reached up with one hand to wipe her eyes, backpedaling away from Sten and trying to keep him in her line of sight. When she looked up again, Sten was nowhere to be seen. Rubbing sand from her face, T’Prynn searched but could find no sign of him. Even the sand where they had fought appeared undisturbed, with no footprints or tracks to tell the story of their brief skirmish.
“Submit,” she heard his voice call out, carrying over the wind.
Gripping the lirpain her hands ever tighter, she screamed her reply. “Never!”
Dr. Jabilo M’Benga sat alone in Isolation Ward 4 of Starbase 47’s sickbay, which was darkened save for the feeble illumination offered by the work light over his desk. So engrossed was he in the stack of reports that he had allowed to accumulate in his office—paperwork for which there never seemed to be sufficient time except for late at night, well after his normal duty shift had ended—that several seconds passed before he became aware of the telltale string of beeps echoing across the room. Their volume was subdued, barely carrying over the music M’Benga had set to play over the room’s internal communications system.
Turning in his seat, M’Benga’s gaze shifted to the ward’s only patient and the biofunction monitor positioned above her bed. Bathed in the soft crimson light cast down from a small lamp he had found in her quarters, T’Prynn seemed almost regal as she lay unmoving on the bed, covered with a thermal blanket designed to offer a semblance of the desert warmth she might experience on her home planet. The Vulcan’s expression remained as vacant as it had been when M’Benga and Dr. Fisher found her, collapsed near Vanguard’s main hangar deck.
From where he sat, M’Benga could make out the one indicator on the bio monitor that deviated from the others. Unlike those designated for a patient’s pulse, blood pressure, respiration, and other autonomic actions—all of which hovered just above the minimal levels needed to sustain life—the gauge denoting the detection of brain-wave function had spiked, bouncing up and down along its column of status markers as the monitoring equipment detected heightened activity.
“Hello,” M’Benga said, rising from his chair and crossing to the biobed. He watched as the indicator rose to its highest level, remaining there for several seconds, as though fighting to free itself from the constraints of the monitor’s display. Based on the readings, T’Prynn’s mind, or at least a portion of it, was working overtime.
As part of his routine examination of the equipment overseeing his patient, M’Benga also checked the small, shallow clay bowl he had set on the nightstand next to her bed. A thin wisp of smoke drifted up from a coil of incense resting in the bowl, releasing a pleasing, earthy fragrance that reminded M’Benga of Vulcan’s arid climate. It also did a wonderful job of masking the smell of cleansing agents used to disinfect and sanitize the sickbay patient areas. Knowing that incense was often used by Vulcans as a means of facilitating meditation, he had placed the bowl near T’Prynn in the hopes that she might sense its presence even while locked in her deep coma. So far, he had detected no reaction from her to this or any other external stimuli, but M’Benga figured there could be no harm in continuing the holistic regimen.
He activated a computer interface terminal at the side of T’Prynn’s bed. “Computer, this is Dr. M’Benga. Begin recording.”
“Recording,”replied the feminine voice of the station’s main computer system.
M’Benga cleared his throat before reciting, “Personal log, stardate 1573.9, time index 2137 hours. Notes on patient T’Prynn. Medical scans indicate increased mental activity, similar to that recorded on three earlier occasions. Computer, append links to appropriate entries from my log, using keywords ‘T’Prynn’ and ‘coma’ as search arguments.”
There was a momentary pause before the computer replied, “Acknowledged.”
“As before, I’m unable to determine the cause of this latest spike in activity,” M’Benga continued, watching as the gauge began dropping until it came to rest at one of its lowest levels, an indication that T’Prynn’s mind was returning to its state of near-catatonia. “Duration of latest active period was just less than two minutes. REM sleep has been ruled out, because of patient’s current condition. Dream state is possible, perhaps even probable, as a consequence of the trauma the patient seems to have suffered. I have not yet ruled out the possibility of this being the effect of a healing trance, as would be normal for Vulcans who have sustained significant physical or psychological damage.”
He had paused, considering his next comments, when he heard from behind him the door to the ward sliding open. He was not surprised to see Ezekiel Fisher entering the room. The station’s chief medical officer seemed preoccupied, which M’Benga could not fault, given that Fisher likely was returning from one of his frequent visits to see Commodore Reyes.
“Good evening, Doctor,” M’Benga offered as Fisher strode toward him.
Fisher nodded. “Evening, Jabilo,” he said, his attention on the bio monitor above T’Prynn’s bed. “No change, I take it?”
“You just missed another spike in mental activity,” M’Benga countered, nodding toward the monitor. “It only lasted a couple of minutes, but it was just as intense as the other occasions.” Sighing, he reached up to wipe grit from his eyes. The first mild protests of fatigue were calling, but he ignored them. “I’ve racked my brain trying to figure this out. I’ve run through every kilo-quad of data in the computer’s medical banks, both here and at Starfleet Medical, and come up dry. The doctors I’ve been able to reach on Vulcan haven’t been of much help, either.” He shook his head. “According to her file, she was suffering from those episodes for decades.Someone on Vulcan had to examine her at some point, if not offer some course of treatment.”
“We both know how tight-lipped Vulcans can be,” Fisher said, crossing his arms and reaching up to stroke his beard.
M’Benga released a mild chuckle. “You don’t know the half of it.” During his medical internship on Vulcan, he had come to learn a great deal about not only Vulcan physiology but also the shroud of secrecy that seemed to permeate so much of their culture. Only after working in such close proximity to Vulcan physicians had he begun to penetrate the opaque veneer that protected Vulcan society from the peering eyes of “outworlders.”