“Die!”
As she moved to repeat the attack, Sten snapped upright, regaining his feet in a single, fluid motion. Green blood streamed from the wounds in his head, and sand stuck to his face, and T’Prynn saw the fires of hatred burning in the eyes of her betrothed.
“I will die,” he said, his words echoing above the howling wind, “but not before I take what is mine.”
“No!” another voice called out above the mounting storm. “You will die defeated, broken, and alone, with my hands on your throat and my blade in your heart.”
Surprised, T’Prynn turned to see Anna Sandesjo, her long red hair billowing about her face, her pale, soft features contrasting against the dark leather of her formfitting Klingon warrior’s uniform. In her hands, she held what T’Prynn recognized as a bat’leth,a ceremonial Klingon weapon. The curved sword, with its trio of grips along the blade’s outer edge, seemed almost too large for Anna’s hands, though she wielded it with the strength and confidence of a practiced master.
Anna.
Love, anguish, remorse. T’Prynn was awash in a sea of raw emotion as she beheld her former lover. How could she be here, now, in this place? Like everything else here, Anna’s presence made no sense.
Before T’Prynn could react, Anna twirled the bat’lethin her hands, the blade slicing through the thickening clouds of sand blowing about her, before lunging forward and charging up the hill toward Sten. She loosed a fierce battle cry, spittle flying from her lips as she raised her weapon above her head.
Drawing a knife from a scabbard along his left hip, Sten held the blade before him and beckoned Anna with his free hand. “Yes!” he shouted, welcoming the new challenge.
“Wait!” T’Prynn called after Anna, but there was no response as both she and Sten faded into the blinding sandstorm.
The sound of one of the medical monitors beeping jolted Pennington from his fitful slumber. He had fallen asleep sitting in one of the chairs in the room designated for T’Prynn’s quarters, and now he had a crick in his neck.
“Damn,” Pennington whispered as he rose from the chair, his right hand pressing against the side of his neck as he crossed the room to T’Prynn’s bed. Studying the bio monitor behind her head, he recalled what Dr. M’Benga had taught him about the different indicators. One small arrowhead traveling along a column of numbers—the one labeled as monitoring a patient’s brain-wave function—had ascended to the top of its scale, indicating a sudden increase in activity. According to the readings, T’Prynn’s mind was churning at something approaching warp speed.
“Good Lord.” His eyes widened as they alternated between the monitor and T’Prynn. As far as he could determine, there were no outward signs of change in the Vulcan woman’s body. He saw no muscle spasms or even a telltale movement of eyes beneath their lids, which might indicate dreaming. She remained completely inert, with only the machines and her slow, shallow breathing to indicate that she was anything other than dead.
M’Benga had mentioned similar events having occurred since T’Prynn’s collapse, but this was the first time it had happened in the five weeks following the U.S.S. Yukon’s departure from Starbase 47. The doctor had told Pennington to be on the watch for such changes in monitored activity, stressing that such instances were irregular, infrequent, and impossible to predict.
“What’s going on in your head, lady?” Pennington asked, wondering, as he had during his other visits, if she might be able to hear him when he spoke to her. As always and as he had come to expect, there was no response. After a moment, the gauge began to settle, dropping three-quarters of the way down the scale before coming to rest at what Pennington had learned was T’Prynn’s “default level,” the monitors recording her elevated mental activity even while in the grips of her coma. The tone that had awakened him also fell silent.
Pennington heard the door slide open behind him and turned to see M’Benga enter the room. The doctor was frowning as he inspected the readouts on the assorted displays around the bed. Beyond the doorway, Pennington saw one of the Yukon’s security personnel standing guard. One of the conditions of T’Prynn’s release to M’Berga’s custody was that she remain under watch at all times.
Looking to Pennington, M’Berga asked, “A spike?”
“Yes,” replied the journalist, rubbing his stiff neck. “Craziest thing I’ve ever seen. How can her mind jump into overdrive like that and she not twitch the slightest bit?”
Crossing his arms, M’Benga said, “Her mind is in a state of chaos. According to what Sobon told me, it’s been divided into two parts, thanks to the mind meld she shared with her fiancé all those years ago. It was forcibly interrupted for reasons unknown, and she’s been suffering the effects since then.”
“After so long,” Pennington said, “do you think this Vulcan healer can really help her? Wouldn’t the damage be too great, after all these years?”
M’Benga shrugged. “I really don’t know. Sobon seems to think that he can help her, but to be honest, I never bought into everything some of their doctors tried to teach us about Vulcan mental-healing techniques. That said, at this point, I’m willing to try anything.”
There could be no faulting the doctor’s commitment, Pennington decided. Only someone so dedicated would undertake a nearly nine-week voyage through space with his patient in order to attempt a controversial course of treatment, which, according to M’Benga, was not even recognized by the sizable faculty of the Vulcan Science Academy.
Dedicated or crazy,Pennington reminded himself. And look at the pot calling the kettle black.
“I feel so bloody helpless,” he said, shaking his head. “I just wish there was something I could do.” It was an odd sensation, especially considering the lingering anger and distrust he still felt toward the stricken Vulcan. He wondered what she might say to him if and when she ever awakened and was able to confront him about their joint sordid past and the conflicted feelings raging within him.
She’d tell me I was being illogical,he guessed.
As he stuck his hands into his pants pockets, the fingers on his right hand brushed across smooth metal, and he extracted the mandala. Its burnished surface reflected the dim lighting and the multihued indicators from different bio monitors, casting an odd kaleidoscopic pattern of colors across T’Prynn’s face. After a moment, he reached out and laid the medallion on her chest, just above where her hands rested.
“Here,” he said, his voice low. “I bought it for you, anyhow.” Looking up at M’Benga, he shrugged, offering a sheepish, humorless grin. “Stupid, I know.”
“Every little bit might help, I suppose,” the doctor replied.
Pennington nodded. “I suppose.” He looked down at the comatose T’Prynn, whose outward peace belied her relentless inner struggle.
21
“Admiral on deck.”
Cooper issued the command with snap and precision as he stood next to Jetanien, and he and the officers from the senior staff—Lieutenant Haniff Jackson and Dr. Fisher—came to positions of attention just as the doors leading to the docking port’s access gangway parted. Standing alone in the foyer just beyond the doors was a slender Asian man of shorter-than-average height, dressed in the standard-duty uniform of a Starfleet flag officer. His once-black hair was liberally streaked with gray and styled in a brush cut, and his face was tanned and lined. Despite his obvious advanced age, his deep blue eyes seemed to miss nothing as they took in everything around him, and when he stepped through the doors and onto the station, it was with the confident stride of a man comfortable with his own abilities.