Author's Note: This AU is one I've been kicking around for years but never felt motivated to work on. Also, my first challenge entry here. I hope you all like it! 4,999 words not counting this note.
Fair Mirror
"Your move, Captain."
No response, as the monitor in the Enterprise's recreation deck showed an ever-thinning starfield on the approach to the edge of the Galaxy.
"Captain, I'll have you in checkmate in your next move."
The captain swiveled away from the monitor and thoughts of the distress signal they had picked up. "T'Sol, have I ever told you you play an irritating game of chess?"
"Irritating, captain?" the Vulcan first officer said, arching her delicate eyebrow.
Jamie Kirk quirked the corner of her lip up and leaned against the table. "It's one of those human emotions, irritation." She reached over and made her move, safely out of checkmate.
T'Sol frowned at the board. "I believe I am familiar with irritation, sir, as a side-effect of my human ancestry--"
She was interrupted by the bosun's whistle.
"Kirk here," the captain said, turning back to the tabletop monitor. "What is it, Lieutenant?"
Leah Kelso glanced nervously back at the viewscreen as she addressed the captain. "We're now in transporter range of the object transmitting the distress signal, captain."
"No visual contact?"
"No, sir. It's small, sensors report only a meter in diameter."
T'Sol mused, "Too small even for a lifeboat."
"We could bring it aboard, sir, if you'd like to risk it," Kelso said.
"Lock onto it," Kirk said, "and notify the transporter room we'll be there shortly."
"Aye, sir."
Kirk flicked off the monitor, then stood up and straightened her spring-green wraparound top and black A-line skirt. Tucking a stray piece of blonde hair behind her ear, she nodded to T'Sol to follow her.
***
In the transporter room, Lieutenant Scott was nearly done resolving the object on the transporter pad. It looked like an overgrown cylindrical air filter, mounted on a tripod and with a beacon light on top. In faded paint, one could just make out the ship's name: Valiant.
"It's an old-style ship's recorder, Captain," Scott said in her soft burr.
"The sort that could be ejected if the ship was threatened?"
"Or in this case, destroyed," T'Sol said. "The surface is burnt, pitted."
"Do you think the recorder tapes are intact?" Kirk asked.
"Oh, aye," Scott said. "They made those recorders tough in those days, not knowin' what might be out here."
"Transfer the records to T'Sol's computer, then, and we'll analyze them on the bridge."
"Aye, sir, transmitting." As Scott plied the console, the beacon on top of the recorder blinked intermittently. "Transmission complete, sir."
"Kirk to bridge. All decks on alert." She strode out of the transporter room, T'Sol in her wake.
***
Grace Mitchell squeezed between the turbolift doors as they were about to close on Captain Kirk and Commander T'Sol.
"Getting in a run?" Kirk asked.
Mitchell grinned. "Figured I'd join you, Kelso didn't sound too confident alone on the bridge."
"Eavesdropping again, Grace? And you're off-duty."
Jamie and Grace were longtime friends, having been at the Academy together. Grace's dark good looks and Jamie's farm-girl innocent image had gone a long way toward conquering most of San Francisco's young men, eligible and otherwise.
Now Grace shrugged lightly, saying, "Are any of us ever really off-duty, Captain?" Before Kirk could snap back the retort they both knew was coming, she turned to the Vulcan and asked, "Did you get to finish your game?"
"Yes. She plays most illogically. The next move should have been the rook."
Kirk smirked. "Maybe next time we should try a game of null-G ball."
"My superior Vulcan strength would put me at a distinct advantage, Captain."
"Like your superior Vulcan intelligence did in chess?"
The turbolift doors opened and they stepped onto the bridge, T'Sol's reply waiting for another time as she went immediately to her station.
On the viewscreen, a fuchsia glow indicated the barrier at the edge of the galaxy. Kirk sat down, barely registering the hovering presence of a yeoman. Attractive but not terribly bright, for some reason the yeomen stationed on Enterprise were useless save for fetching coffee. She kept meaning to do something about that...
The turbolift doors slid open once again, admitting ship's department heads. Dr. Leni McCoy, the ranking officer, spoke for them all. "Reporting as ordered, sir."
Kirk looked over the assembled officers, pointing a questioning glance at the one unfamiliar face in a blue tunic.
McCoy again interjected, "This is Doctor Frasier Dehner, Captain, the new psychiatrist."
"I am... pleased to meet you, Captain," Dehner said, his high forehead gleaming under the bridge lights. "I am assigned to study the crew's reactions in stressful situations. I would also request permission to study the recorder logs recently brought aboard. That crew's stress response might also prove enlightening."
"Welcome aboard, Doctor. You can coordinate with Ms. T'Sol on those logs."
A glance at T'Sol confirmed that there was no information yet from the Valiant's recorder log. Dehner, meanwhile, had stepped down to "study" Kelso and Mitchell at their stations.
Grace, having little else to do than hold the ship at station, half-turned in her chair. "Trying to improve the breed, is that your line, Doc?"
"Records indicate it's more your line, Lieutenant," Dehner said dryly.
"Not at all," Grace grinned. "My parents achieved perfection; there's nothing left to improve."
Kirk rolled her eyes and made the decision to proceed with their mission to penetrate the galactic barrier. "Helm, ahead Warp One into the barrier."
"Ahead Warp One into the barrier, aye," Mitchell repeated. The pink barrier swelled on screen as they advanced.
T'Sol had just turned to report on the recorder's contents when the ship began to shake.
"Mitch--"
"Encountering resistance, sir, attempting to compensate--"
As Mitchell gradually increased speed to Warp 1.5, the ship shook even more uncontrollably. Undeterred, perhaps logically so, T'Sol called loudly over the groaning metal, "Captain, the Valiant did attempt to breach the barrier. They were unsuccessful, and seven--no, six crewmen were killed. The seventh resuscitated, but he was changed--"
The unmanned auxiliary engineering station erupted into flames.
"Inquiries were made into ESP," T'Sol continued.
"ESP? Extra Sensory Perception?" Dr. Dehner shouted back.
"Yes, esper ratings and such. The tape then deteriorates..."
Kirk tore her focus away from the screaming ship. "What's that about esper ratings?"
Dehner answered, as T'Sol was still concentrating on deciphering the degraded recording. "A human with a high esper rating will have a better chance of predicting random occurrences, what card will turn over next in a deck, that sort of thing. I myself have a particularly high rating--"
T'Sol interrupted urgently. "The changes in the crewman--he seemed to have developed telepathic and telekinetic powers, and--and used these powers against the rest of Valiant's crew. The captain ordered the ship's self-destruct to destroy him."
Kirk braced herself. "Helm, full rever--"
Before she could finish the order, a bright flash seared the bridge, and she saw Mitchell collapse to the floor.
Kirk dove forward, slamming commands into the helm control herself, putting the ship into reverse until they were safely away from the barrier again. T'Sol slid into the chair and brought Enterprise to a stop.
"Stationkeeping, Ms. T'Sol. Don't move a nanometer until we know what's going on. And get damage reports."
"All stations, damage reports!" T'Sol snapped on the all-call. Reports started flooding in.
Kirk knelt next to Grace Mitchell, as McCoy scanned her thoroughly. "She's alive, James. Seems to be all right, but knocked out for a moment."
"Thanks, Bones."
"Dr. Dehner dropped out, too." They walked to the back of the bridge, where Sulu and Scott were helping the psychiatrist to stand.
"Doctor, how are you feeling?" McCoy asked.
Dehner held a hand to his forehead. "Enervated. As if I had been run over by a cargo liner. But I'm sure I'll be fine."
"Just the same, I want you and Ms. Mitchell in sickbay for monitoring."
Kirk nodded. "Jones, do you think you can carry Lieutenant Mitchell to sickbay?"
"It's Smith, sir," the yeoman said, lifting Mitchell off the floor as if she weighed no more than a child. "I can do it."
"I'll be down once the repairs are underway, Bones." Kirk turned wearily back to the helm. "T'Sol, casualties?"
"Nine dead," T'Sol intoned. "And the warp drive has been seriously damaged. We'll have to put in at a starbase."
"Let's stabilize as much as we can before we start limping away. And send my apologies to Scotty."
"Aye, sir."
***
Kirk approached the private room in sickbay cautiously, badly shaken by what had happened to her friend. Bones had said nothing was wrong with Grace, that in fact she was healthier than at her last physical. Except for the eyes.
"Eyes aren't supposed to look like that, James," she'd said firmly. Bones had a habit of calling her "James", as if two syllables would be too many. "Not human eyes. Like sapphires dipped in chrome."
Besides that, Dr. Dehner had been persistently nagging Grace to talk to him, requests which Bones reported were rebuffed with increasing irritation. She'd never been a fan of shrinks, Jamie knew, but Grace was even less of a fan of Frasier Dehner.
"Jamie, come in here already!"
Kirk smiled at the familiar voice, and stepped inside.
"About damn time I got a friend in here, instead of another doctor to poke and prod and question me. Can't you order them to let me out?"
She couldn't--as Grace well knew, doctors had privileges that could override any order Kirk could give. She ignored the question, answering with one of her own.
"Obviously something did happen to you, Gracie. Do you know what it was?"
Grace frowned in thought. "Not yet," she said. "I'll know soon, though. I can feel it. Jamie Rose, why do you feel guilty?"
Kirk blinked, startled. She did indeed feel guilty. "Captain's prerogative," she answered briefly. "Tell me how you're feeling."
"Something's happening--inside me. It's like..." She gestured for Kirk to come closer, then grasped her hands. "It's like I imagine it would be for a blind man, gaining sight for the first time. Bewildered by the brightness, by color and shape--the brain can receive, but not process. You understand, Jamie?"
"I'm trying, Grace."
"Except for me, it seems to be... empathy. I could feel your guilt, and now your confusion. And I..." She got a far-off look in her glittering eyes. "Yes. I can even feel what Commander T'Sol feels."
"T'Sol... feels?"
"Don't be obtuse, Jamie, everyone feels. Some just hide it better." Her grip on Kirk's hands grew almost painful. "I feel physical changes, too, but slower. Is this what happened to the man on the Valiant? Am I turning into... what he became?"
An intense wave of fear nearly knocked Kirk off her feet. It wasn't hers--strangely, she could feel it coming from outside her.
"Oh, God! I'm sorry, so sorry Jamie Rose, I didn't mean to--"
Kirk sat down hard on the edge of the bed, gasping for breath. "No, it's--" She couldn't get the words out, it's all right, you didn't mean to, it's not your fault--
"I can't control it yet, Jamie, it is my fault--"
Kirk's head snapped up to meet her friend's gleaming eyes. "Gracie..."
"I can't help it, I'm trying but I'm not there yet."
Still confused, and now frightened herself, Kirk slipped out of Grace's grasp and bolted for the door.
This time, Grace controlled her urges, and listened in sadly as Dehner confronted the captain.
***
"What happened?" Dehner demanded.
Kirk shook her head, unable to form the words.
"Commander T'Sol has been through the records of every casualty of the barrier, as well as Lieutenant Mitchell and myself. She concludes that the common thread is a high esper rating."
The cold ball of fear in Kirk's stomach tightened. "She could feel my emotions, read my mind."
"And that frightened you."
"Of course it did!" Kirk snapped, her infuriation with the meddling psychiatrist taking over. "I'm not used to having my mind probed, and certainly not by Grace Mitchell."
"Do you feel that she is a threat?"
The captain narrowed her eyes. "Not at all. Grace is my friend first, and my helmsman second. We have known each other for more than a decade. She can be... rambunctious, but she is utterly harmless."
"Well, then. Perhaps you should tell your Ms. T'Sol that. She seems to think we'll meet the same end as the Valiant unless you do something immediately."
Kirk breezed past Dehner coldly, then turned on her heel to regard the psychiatrist warily. "If ESP is the common link, then why are nine people dead, Grace developing godlike powers, and you entirely unaffected?"
Dehner stared blankly, and shrugged. Dissatisfied with that response, Kirk spun around again, and left Dehner to his own fruitless musings.
***
The news was no better on the bridge. Scotty was up there reporting to T'Sol in person, and both were looking grim.
"There ya are, Cap'n. I was just tellin' the Commander here, the warp drive's completely down. All the crystals are fractured, even the backups. We've just barely got impulse."
T'Sol picked up the thread. "And with only impulse, the nearest starbase is years away."
Kirk stifled a groan. "I don't suppose there's a Class-M planet around here that we could set up a colony on?"
A slightly raised eyebrow and a slow blink told her what T'Sol thought of that idea. "There is a Class-M planet a day's travel away," T'Sol said, "and it happens to host a lithium cracking station."
Scotty grinned. "Ya didn't tell me that before!"
"I did not have the opportunity."
"I'll be back in Engineerin', Cap'n," Scott announced cheerfully, "gettin' ya as much impulse as I can."
Kirk waited until the turbolift doors had closed, then sat in the empty navigator's chair next to T'Sol at the helm. Leah Kelso was taking a turn visiting Grace in sickbay.
"T'Sol, I ran into Doctor Dehner downstairs. He told me you think Mitchell is going to become a liability."
"Not a liability, Captain," T'Sol said. "A threat."
"I talked to her, and she's fully aware of what changes are happening to her. She's... frightened by them," Kirk said, feeling like she was betraying a confidence, but knowing full well that this was ship's business just as much as it was an illness that had befallen her friend. "But she's learning to control whatever... powers? Extra senses? Whatever it is that she's getting. She's a good person, T'Sol, a pain in the ass sometimes, but a good person. A good officer." Her voice dropped from confidential to barely audible. "A good friend."
T'Sol inclined her head. "I have only logic on my side, Captain. Logic, which takes the evidence of the only other person known to have suffered these symptoms, and who subsequently became so dangerous to the crew of the Valiant that her captain ordered the destruction of the ship. It is possible, although we cannot know for sure, that the man was already mentally unstable and violent, and was only controlled by his relatively weak position in society and on the ship. With virtually unlimited, godlike power, his control was lost and his darker nature prevailed."
"Do you think Grace is evil inside, T'Sol?" Kirk asked, struggling to keep her voice neutral.
"I have no basis for such a claim," the Vulcan demurred. "You, however, are her close friend of more than a decade. I am inclined to adjust the odds in favor of your... gut feeling."
Gratified, Kirk relaxed infinitesimally. "Thank you, Commander. Set a course for the lithium cracking station, best speed."
***
Grace Mitchell was bored.
She had been confined to sickbay for what felt like an eternity, and for someone who could now actually understand the magnitude of "eternity", that sort of relativistic sense was quite the feat. McCoy checked in rarely; Dehner hovered much more frequently.
Grace had read through every book in the ship's library at incredible speed, about six pages every second. Every engineering manual, every scientific treatise, every best-seller and torrid romance. And she was retaining every word, and comprehending all of it.
She had found that she could fetch a glass of water from across the room just by thinking of it, and had entertained herself by juggling various small objects in the air over her bed, until Nurse Chapel had walked in. He was a small, nervous man, and had fainted at the sight of several lightpens and a coffee mug zipping around the room.
So she had then run her mind over the entire ship, noting anything that required repair, and sent a report to the chief engineer. Scott had complained to the captain, and Jamie had come down to ask her to "refrain from doing that again." She'd added, "You did find a few things we missed..."
Desperate to keep her friend there for a while longer, desperate for entertainment or anything to remind her of her own waning humanity, Grace started bringing up all of her memories--eidetic, now--of Jamie and their adventures together.
"I remember the first day I saw you," Grace said, wistfully. "A stack of books with legs. Nice legs, but who wants to converse with a stack of books?"
"Thanks," Jamie said wryly. Her mind, Grace noted, was still half on the repairs underway.
"It's a good thing I'm a creative person, or I'd never have passed your class."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, if I hadn't gotten that hunk of blond lab assistant to distract you..."
"Wait--you set us up? I almost married him! You could've destroyed my entire career!"
"And you would've thanked me! I wonder whatever happened to him?" She didn't, actually, but it did keep Jamie nearby.
"Probably still buried under a pile of theories and formulas," Jamie said. "He always did live too much in his head."
"Not like us," Grace grinned. "Remember that time on Deneb IV?"
"I wasn't sure if you were talking to them or just in a staring contest!"
"Meanwhile, you were charming the... uh... gastropod off of that one guy. While I was busy conducting interspecies research."
Jamie snorted. "Uh-huh. I'm sure that's what you were doing, and why you disappeared for a few hours."
"Trust me, you were smart to stay at the bar," Grace said, pulling a face. "Humans and Denebians--absolutely not sexually compatible."
"Good to know. Grace, I hate to leave, but I've got a ship to run."
"All right, have fun with the love of your life," Grace joked.
Then Jamie left, and so Grace was bored.
Fair Mirror
"Your move, Captain."
No response, as the monitor in the Enterprise's recreation deck showed an ever-thinning starfield on the approach to the edge of the Galaxy.
"Captain, I'll have you in checkmate in your next move."
The captain swiveled away from the monitor and thoughts of the distress signal they had picked up. "T'Sol, have I ever told you you play an irritating game of chess?"
"Irritating, captain?" the Vulcan first officer said, arching her delicate eyebrow.
Jamie Kirk quirked the corner of her lip up and leaned against the table. "It's one of those human emotions, irritation." She reached over and made her move, safely out of checkmate.
T'Sol frowned at the board. "I believe I am familiar with irritation, sir, as a side-effect of my human ancestry--"
She was interrupted by the bosun's whistle.
"Kirk here," the captain said, turning back to the tabletop monitor. "What is it, Lieutenant?"
Leah Kelso glanced nervously back at the viewscreen as she addressed the captain. "We're now in transporter range of the object transmitting the distress signal, captain."
"No visual contact?"
"No, sir. It's small, sensors report only a meter in diameter."
T'Sol mused, "Too small even for a lifeboat."
"We could bring it aboard, sir, if you'd like to risk it," Kelso said.
"Lock onto it," Kirk said, "and notify the transporter room we'll be there shortly."
"Aye, sir."
Kirk flicked off the monitor, then stood up and straightened her spring-green wraparound top and black A-line skirt. Tucking a stray piece of blonde hair behind her ear, she nodded to T'Sol to follow her.
***
In the transporter room, Lieutenant Scott was nearly done resolving the object on the transporter pad. It looked like an overgrown cylindrical air filter, mounted on a tripod and with a beacon light on top. In faded paint, one could just make out the ship's name: Valiant.
"It's an old-style ship's recorder, Captain," Scott said in her soft burr.
"The sort that could be ejected if the ship was threatened?"
"Or in this case, destroyed," T'Sol said. "The surface is burnt, pitted."
"Do you think the recorder tapes are intact?" Kirk asked.
"Oh, aye," Scott said. "They made those recorders tough in those days, not knowin' what might be out here."
"Transfer the records to T'Sol's computer, then, and we'll analyze them on the bridge."
"Aye, sir, transmitting." As Scott plied the console, the beacon on top of the recorder blinked intermittently. "Transmission complete, sir."
"Kirk to bridge. All decks on alert." She strode out of the transporter room, T'Sol in her wake.
***
Grace Mitchell squeezed between the turbolift doors as they were about to close on Captain Kirk and Commander T'Sol.
"Getting in a run?" Kirk asked.
Mitchell grinned. "Figured I'd join you, Kelso didn't sound too confident alone on the bridge."
"Eavesdropping again, Grace? And you're off-duty."
Jamie and Grace were longtime friends, having been at the Academy together. Grace's dark good looks and Jamie's farm-girl innocent image had gone a long way toward conquering most of San Francisco's young men, eligible and otherwise.
Now Grace shrugged lightly, saying, "Are any of us ever really off-duty, Captain?" Before Kirk could snap back the retort they both knew was coming, she turned to the Vulcan and asked, "Did you get to finish your game?"
"Yes. She plays most illogically. The next move should have been the rook."
Kirk smirked. "Maybe next time we should try a game of null-G ball."
"My superior Vulcan strength would put me at a distinct advantage, Captain."
"Like your superior Vulcan intelligence did in chess?"
The turbolift doors opened and they stepped onto the bridge, T'Sol's reply waiting for another time as she went immediately to her station.
On the viewscreen, a fuchsia glow indicated the barrier at the edge of the galaxy. Kirk sat down, barely registering the hovering presence of a yeoman. Attractive but not terribly bright, for some reason the yeomen stationed on Enterprise were useless save for fetching coffee. She kept meaning to do something about that...
The turbolift doors slid open once again, admitting ship's department heads. Dr. Leni McCoy, the ranking officer, spoke for them all. "Reporting as ordered, sir."
Kirk looked over the assembled officers, pointing a questioning glance at the one unfamiliar face in a blue tunic.
McCoy again interjected, "This is Doctor Frasier Dehner, Captain, the new psychiatrist."
"I am... pleased to meet you, Captain," Dehner said, his high forehead gleaming under the bridge lights. "I am assigned to study the crew's reactions in stressful situations. I would also request permission to study the recorder logs recently brought aboard. That crew's stress response might also prove enlightening."
"Welcome aboard, Doctor. You can coordinate with Ms. T'Sol on those logs."
A glance at T'Sol confirmed that there was no information yet from the Valiant's recorder log. Dehner, meanwhile, had stepped down to "study" Kelso and Mitchell at their stations.
Grace, having little else to do than hold the ship at station, half-turned in her chair. "Trying to improve the breed, is that your line, Doc?"
"Records indicate it's more your line, Lieutenant," Dehner said dryly.
"Not at all," Grace grinned. "My parents achieved perfection; there's nothing left to improve."
Kirk rolled her eyes and made the decision to proceed with their mission to penetrate the galactic barrier. "Helm, ahead Warp One into the barrier."
"Ahead Warp One into the barrier, aye," Mitchell repeated. The pink barrier swelled on screen as they advanced.
T'Sol had just turned to report on the recorder's contents when the ship began to shake.
"Mitch--"
"Encountering resistance, sir, attempting to compensate--"
As Mitchell gradually increased speed to Warp 1.5, the ship shook even more uncontrollably. Undeterred, perhaps logically so, T'Sol called loudly over the groaning metal, "Captain, the Valiant did attempt to breach the barrier. They were unsuccessful, and seven--no, six crewmen were killed. The seventh resuscitated, but he was changed--"
The unmanned auxiliary engineering station erupted into flames.
"Inquiries were made into ESP," T'Sol continued.
"ESP? Extra Sensory Perception?" Dr. Dehner shouted back.
"Yes, esper ratings and such. The tape then deteriorates..."
Kirk tore her focus away from the screaming ship. "What's that about esper ratings?"
Dehner answered, as T'Sol was still concentrating on deciphering the degraded recording. "A human with a high esper rating will have a better chance of predicting random occurrences, what card will turn over next in a deck, that sort of thing. I myself have a particularly high rating--"
T'Sol interrupted urgently. "The changes in the crewman--he seemed to have developed telepathic and telekinetic powers, and--and used these powers against the rest of Valiant's crew. The captain ordered the ship's self-destruct to destroy him."
Kirk braced herself. "Helm, full rever--"
Before she could finish the order, a bright flash seared the bridge, and she saw Mitchell collapse to the floor.
Kirk dove forward, slamming commands into the helm control herself, putting the ship into reverse until they were safely away from the barrier again. T'Sol slid into the chair and brought Enterprise to a stop.
"Stationkeeping, Ms. T'Sol. Don't move a nanometer until we know what's going on. And get damage reports."
"All stations, damage reports!" T'Sol snapped on the all-call. Reports started flooding in.
Kirk knelt next to Grace Mitchell, as McCoy scanned her thoroughly. "She's alive, James. Seems to be all right, but knocked out for a moment."
"Thanks, Bones."
"Dr. Dehner dropped out, too." They walked to the back of the bridge, where Sulu and Scott were helping the psychiatrist to stand.
"Doctor, how are you feeling?" McCoy asked.
Dehner held a hand to his forehead. "Enervated. As if I had been run over by a cargo liner. But I'm sure I'll be fine."
"Just the same, I want you and Ms. Mitchell in sickbay for monitoring."
Kirk nodded. "Jones, do you think you can carry Lieutenant Mitchell to sickbay?"
"It's Smith, sir," the yeoman said, lifting Mitchell off the floor as if she weighed no more than a child. "I can do it."
"I'll be down once the repairs are underway, Bones." Kirk turned wearily back to the helm. "T'Sol, casualties?"
"Nine dead," T'Sol intoned. "And the warp drive has been seriously damaged. We'll have to put in at a starbase."
"Let's stabilize as much as we can before we start limping away. And send my apologies to Scotty."
"Aye, sir."
***
Kirk approached the private room in sickbay cautiously, badly shaken by what had happened to her friend. Bones had said nothing was wrong with Grace, that in fact she was healthier than at her last physical. Except for the eyes.
"Eyes aren't supposed to look like that, James," she'd said firmly. Bones had a habit of calling her "James", as if two syllables would be too many. "Not human eyes. Like sapphires dipped in chrome."
Besides that, Dr. Dehner had been persistently nagging Grace to talk to him, requests which Bones reported were rebuffed with increasing irritation. She'd never been a fan of shrinks, Jamie knew, but Grace was even less of a fan of Frasier Dehner.
"Jamie, come in here already!"
Kirk smiled at the familiar voice, and stepped inside.
"About damn time I got a friend in here, instead of another doctor to poke and prod and question me. Can't you order them to let me out?"
She couldn't--as Grace well knew, doctors had privileges that could override any order Kirk could give. She ignored the question, answering with one of her own.
"Obviously something did happen to you, Gracie. Do you know what it was?"
Grace frowned in thought. "Not yet," she said. "I'll know soon, though. I can feel it. Jamie Rose, why do you feel guilty?"
Kirk blinked, startled. She did indeed feel guilty. "Captain's prerogative," she answered briefly. "Tell me how you're feeling."
"Something's happening--inside me. It's like..." She gestured for Kirk to come closer, then grasped her hands. "It's like I imagine it would be for a blind man, gaining sight for the first time. Bewildered by the brightness, by color and shape--the brain can receive, but not process. You understand, Jamie?"
"I'm trying, Grace."
"Except for me, it seems to be... empathy. I could feel your guilt, and now your confusion. And I..." She got a far-off look in her glittering eyes. "Yes. I can even feel what Commander T'Sol feels."
"T'Sol... feels?"
"Don't be obtuse, Jamie, everyone feels. Some just hide it better." Her grip on Kirk's hands grew almost painful. "I feel physical changes, too, but slower. Is this what happened to the man on the Valiant? Am I turning into... what he became?"
An intense wave of fear nearly knocked Kirk off her feet. It wasn't hers--strangely, she could feel it coming from outside her.
"Oh, God! I'm sorry, so sorry Jamie Rose, I didn't mean to--"
Kirk sat down hard on the edge of the bed, gasping for breath. "No, it's--" She couldn't get the words out, it's all right, you didn't mean to, it's not your fault--
"I can't control it yet, Jamie, it is my fault--"
Kirk's head snapped up to meet her friend's gleaming eyes. "Gracie..."
"I can't help it, I'm trying but I'm not there yet."
Still confused, and now frightened herself, Kirk slipped out of Grace's grasp and bolted for the door.
This time, Grace controlled her urges, and listened in sadly as Dehner confronted the captain.
***
"What happened?" Dehner demanded.
Kirk shook her head, unable to form the words.
"Commander T'Sol has been through the records of every casualty of the barrier, as well as Lieutenant Mitchell and myself. She concludes that the common thread is a high esper rating."
The cold ball of fear in Kirk's stomach tightened. "She could feel my emotions, read my mind."
"And that frightened you."
"Of course it did!" Kirk snapped, her infuriation with the meddling psychiatrist taking over. "I'm not used to having my mind probed, and certainly not by Grace Mitchell."
"Do you feel that she is a threat?"
The captain narrowed her eyes. "Not at all. Grace is my friend first, and my helmsman second. We have known each other for more than a decade. She can be... rambunctious, but she is utterly harmless."
"Well, then. Perhaps you should tell your Ms. T'Sol that. She seems to think we'll meet the same end as the Valiant unless you do something immediately."
Kirk breezed past Dehner coldly, then turned on her heel to regard the psychiatrist warily. "If ESP is the common link, then why are nine people dead, Grace developing godlike powers, and you entirely unaffected?"
Dehner stared blankly, and shrugged. Dissatisfied with that response, Kirk spun around again, and left Dehner to his own fruitless musings.
***
The news was no better on the bridge. Scotty was up there reporting to T'Sol in person, and both were looking grim.
"There ya are, Cap'n. I was just tellin' the Commander here, the warp drive's completely down. All the crystals are fractured, even the backups. We've just barely got impulse."
T'Sol picked up the thread. "And with only impulse, the nearest starbase is years away."
Kirk stifled a groan. "I don't suppose there's a Class-M planet around here that we could set up a colony on?"
A slightly raised eyebrow and a slow blink told her what T'Sol thought of that idea. "There is a Class-M planet a day's travel away," T'Sol said, "and it happens to host a lithium cracking station."
Scotty grinned. "Ya didn't tell me that before!"
"I did not have the opportunity."
"I'll be back in Engineerin', Cap'n," Scott announced cheerfully, "gettin' ya as much impulse as I can."
Kirk waited until the turbolift doors had closed, then sat in the empty navigator's chair next to T'Sol at the helm. Leah Kelso was taking a turn visiting Grace in sickbay.
"T'Sol, I ran into Doctor Dehner downstairs. He told me you think Mitchell is going to become a liability."
"Not a liability, Captain," T'Sol said. "A threat."
"I talked to her, and she's fully aware of what changes are happening to her. She's... frightened by them," Kirk said, feeling like she was betraying a confidence, but knowing full well that this was ship's business just as much as it was an illness that had befallen her friend. "But she's learning to control whatever... powers? Extra senses? Whatever it is that she's getting. She's a good person, T'Sol, a pain in the ass sometimes, but a good person. A good officer." Her voice dropped from confidential to barely audible. "A good friend."
T'Sol inclined her head. "I have only logic on my side, Captain. Logic, which takes the evidence of the only other person known to have suffered these symptoms, and who subsequently became so dangerous to the crew of the Valiant that her captain ordered the destruction of the ship. It is possible, although we cannot know for sure, that the man was already mentally unstable and violent, and was only controlled by his relatively weak position in society and on the ship. With virtually unlimited, godlike power, his control was lost and his darker nature prevailed."
"Do you think Grace is evil inside, T'Sol?" Kirk asked, struggling to keep her voice neutral.
"I have no basis for such a claim," the Vulcan demurred. "You, however, are her close friend of more than a decade. I am inclined to adjust the odds in favor of your... gut feeling."
Gratified, Kirk relaxed infinitesimally. "Thank you, Commander. Set a course for the lithium cracking station, best speed."
***
Grace Mitchell was bored.
She had been confined to sickbay for what felt like an eternity, and for someone who could now actually understand the magnitude of "eternity", that sort of relativistic sense was quite the feat. McCoy checked in rarely; Dehner hovered much more frequently.
Grace had read through every book in the ship's library at incredible speed, about six pages every second. Every engineering manual, every scientific treatise, every best-seller and torrid romance. And she was retaining every word, and comprehending all of it.
She had found that she could fetch a glass of water from across the room just by thinking of it, and had entertained herself by juggling various small objects in the air over her bed, until Nurse Chapel had walked in. He was a small, nervous man, and had fainted at the sight of several lightpens and a coffee mug zipping around the room.
So she had then run her mind over the entire ship, noting anything that required repair, and sent a report to the chief engineer. Scott had complained to the captain, and Jamie had come down to ask her to "refrain from doing that again." She'd added, "You did find a few things we missed..."
Desperate to keep her friend there for a while longer, desperate for entertainment or anything to remind her of her own waning humanity, Grace started bringing up all of her memories--eidetic, now--of Jamie and their adventures together.
"I remember the first day I saw you," Grace said, wistfully. "A stack of books with legs. Nice legs, but who wants to converse with a stack of books?"
"Thanks," Jamie said wryly. Her mind, Grace noted, was still half on the repairs underway.
"It's a good thing I'm a creative person, or I'd never have passed your class."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, if I hadn't gotten that hunk of blond lab assistant to distract you..."
"Wait--you set us up? I almost married him! You could've destroyed my entire career!"
"And you would've thanked me! I wonder whatever happened to him?" She didn't, actually, but it did keep Jamie nearby.
"Probably still buried under a pile of theories and formulas," Jamie said. "He always did live too much in his head."
"Not like us," Grace grinned. "Remember that time on Deneb IV?"
"I wasn't sure if you were talking to them or just in a staring contest!"
"Meanwhile, you were charming the... uh... gastropod off of that one guy. While I was busy conducting interspecies research."
Jamie snorted. "Uh-huh. I'm sure that's what you were doing, and why you disappeared for a few hours."
"Trust me, you were smart to stay at the bar," Grace said, pulling a face. "Humans and Denebians--absolutely not sexually compatible."
"Good to know. Grace, I hate to leave, but I've got a ship to run."
"All right, have fun with the love of your life," Grace joked.
Then Jamie left, and so Grace was bored.
Very clever! Good job, overall.
