Summary : Peter Kirk has been rescued after ten years. But before James Kirk can be told this, Sarek must shuttle him and Saavik to safety on Vulcan. The corrupt Admiralty and the enigmatic Q will make sure this is a flight to remember.
Aegyptus
By Rob Morris
1
It is so cold, now. Before that, it was pain, red and raw. Some of it was my pain. Some of it I caused, when I was made to be in pain. I asked them to stop. When I start hurting back, it doesn't happen in a way I can control. Something wants out of me, then. It's my responsibility to never let it, until the last battle. I don't know when that is.
I cannot remember the morning anymore. I cannot remember my name anymore. They try and tell me I never had a name, but I know that isn't true.
I can't hold out much longer. As bad as what's inside me is, there's something else, something worse, and they want me to call to it.
Then, the long nightmare ends. Just like that. The most beautiful girl I've ever seen pulls me out of that place. She says her name is Saavik, and that one day soon, she'll take me to see-a great man-was his name Jim? Was he someone important? First, we have to see Mister Spock's father.
Please, God, let her be real.
-----------
2
Sarek of Vulcan had lived through a dozen nightmare scenarios in his own mind, before the message came through.
*Father, I have him.*
Sweet, wonderful Saavik, patient and obedient child, had achieved her objective. Sarek fought to regain his composure, lost imagining his unacknowledged granddaughter added to Admiralty Hall's sub-Terran trophy room. Before her voice was heard, Sarek heard Cartwright's taunts, Amanda's wails of mourning, and the rage of Captain James T. Kirk, for risking another child of his while keeping silent on the fate of another.
A private transporter chamber was one of many privileges afforded to an Ambassador, particularly one of Sarek's standing. But it was rarely used, and Sarek had no intention of making its use a regular thing. The day he could not leave the embassy by the front gates would be a very sorry one, he had always reasoned. While a sorry day was not at hand, it was yet a day of dread. Sarek calibrated the chamber to the arranged upon signal, then activated it.
Materializing within the beam were the adopted daughter and son of a man who was like a brother to Sarek's second son. The girl was wearing a black jumpsuit, and it took Sarek a moment to realize that her features had reverted to her true Vulcan appearance, rather than the nanoprobe-induced Human disguise he had given her. She was holding the boy, who was wearing only a pink robe and was shivering, his face containing a look of both wonder and terror.
"Father, we must get him proper clothes. This robe is filthy-or rather its true owner is."
Sarek ignored her until he had wiped the transporter records on multiple levels, including sending a self-destruct signal to the transport boosters that had seen Saavik and her charge out of Admiralty Hall. They would still be of use to any investigator who found their residue, but only in the long term. In the short term, Sarek planned to be off Earth and on Vulcan.
"Father?"
"Fa-the-r? Is Jim here, Saa-vik?"
"Saavik, be patient. We must move with alacrity."
Sarek contacted one of his most loyal aides, a Human woman of decades' service to his embassy.
"Emily, I need you in my private chambers."
Emily Harrison emerged, carrying a shopping bag she had been asked to quietly fill.
"Ambassador, who is that boy with Saavik? He looks hurt."
Saavik's look grew sharp.
"He has been hurt. By experts. I will clean and dress him."
"Saavik, Emily has raised three boys. She knows how..."
"Father, I will not defy you, but nor is this a matter for debate. I will be quick. You may find he does not trust anyone besides me. Peter? Will you let me take care of you?"
The boy nodded, only speaking halting but telling words.
"Trust you. Love-you."
As Saavik withdrew with the boy, Emily turned to her employer.
"Sarek, is that boy Peter Kirk?"
The Ambassador sighed.
"Emily, it is best for all of us if I do not answer that question. There are concerns here that trump even the trust you have earned and deserve."
She looked at the doorway where the children had stood, only moments before.
"It is him. I remember holding my grandson when the news of his disappearance came. I was haunted by that face when they showed on it holovid. Was he on Earth all this time? Why isn't he any older? I..."
She stopped herself.
"Thirty years working with Vulcans, and I know nothing of privacy. My apologies, sir."
She produced a second shopping bag.
"These baskets are for you and Saavik. There's one for Amanda, too."
Sarek shook his head.
"Baskets, Emily?"
She nodded.
"Yes. After all-its Easter morning."
Sarek worked hard to put any associations or implications well out of his mind. He found he had to do this again, later that same week.
"Of course--the Easter Holiday. I had forgotten your Earth customs."
"Do you want me to report back here after services, and breakfast with my family?"
"No. All staff is on standby. The consulate here must be shut down for a time. Your salaries will continue to be paid."
The longtime employee breathed in.
"It's really that bad?"
Sarek felt he owed her an answer, however indirect.
"Adjacent to Starfleet Academy Proper, there is a structure of fifty years endurance. Officers of very high rank work and congregate there. It is a place of note."
Emily knew, then. Admiralty Hall was the only structure Sarek could be talking about.
"I'd-heard that it was noteworthy. I'll try and make sure my grandchildren never breach its security perimeter. You know kids."
"Yes, I believe that children would do well to give these noted officers a wide berth."
Saavik returned, also wearing a change of clothes. Peter Kirk looked at her.
"Sor-ry."
"It was not your fault, Peter. I should have anticipated your need for relief. The jumpsuit has been recycled. Father, we are ready."
Peter ran forward, and shocked all by embracing the Ambassador.
"Thank You! Thank You for getting me out-out of that place! THAT PLACE!!!"
The boy pulled back, shivering.
"Do I have to go back now? Please don't make me go back! I hate it there."
Saavik responded.
"That will never happen. It will never be permitted."
Sarek was taken aback both by the embrace and by the fierceness of Saavik's response. He was to be taken aback one more time. Emily kneeled before Peter. The older woman tenderly touched a finger to his nose. The boy did not flinch, but nor did he look comfortable.
"Don't be afraid, Peter. We've been waiting for you to arrive."
She removed a pendant with a small rock from beneath her blouse, and held it as she kept on.
"Blessed Rock Of Prophecy, your small arms hold the burden grown men shrink from. It falls to you, to slay that old dragon, and it is upon you that those horrid teeth will shatter like merest glass. He who is The Rock-"
Saavik saw a woman she had known for years look at her with reverence.
"-and She who is The Rock join together, and together they are The Rock. You will rise, a face seen as though over a hill, and when the last hope has failed, and the shell is again broken, then and there you will make your stand."
She then took the pendant off, placed it in Saavik's hand, and then placed Peter's hand in hers.
"Emily, what is the meaning of this?"
The Human woman smiled.
"A common thread among many faiths and legends is the presence of the rock. Mount Olympus. Simon Peter, who was a Rock for Jesus Christ. The Mosque Of The Rock. The Stone Tablets passed to Moses. The stone that was rolled away from the tomb on the first Easter morning. The stone into which Excalibur was drawn from, and then placed back into. Some say even the Grail itself was a stone. In the Far East, a Stone Monkey became a godlike being after a long hard journey."
Peter spoke words that belied his muddled state.
"Sun-Wukong. Son-Goku. Monkey King."
Emily smiled.
"The Order Of The Rock doesn't worship you wonderful children. But in all people who believe in a better universe free of hate, there exists those who wait to follow you against the Ancient Destroyer."
This was a wrinkle Sarek had not known of. But after dismissing Emily, he knew there was no time to wait any longer. The Shuttle Surak took off ten minutes later.
Ten minutes after that, armed soldiers violated every treaty imaginable as they searched the Vulcan embassy. Finding no one and nothing, they returned empty-handed and were ordered executed by an enraged Grand Admiral Cartwright. This had the happy benefit of destroying the scans they had made, preventing them from being analyzed further by Hall scientists. Sarek had already erased his staff lists.
The hunt for Peter Kirk was on.
----------------
3
I am free.
I am with her.
I will not be taken again.
Uncle Jim, where are you?
Why did Mister Spock's father come for me, instead of my own?
It hurts to think.
But I saw the morning as we left Earth.
There is still a sun in the sky.
I wish we were aboard the Enterprise.
God, help us. Because the devil's servants are after us.
I won't let them touch her.
------------------------------
4
We're going to Vulcan.
I always felt a connection to it, but I don't know why.
I remember seven great heroes, who sailed the stars, and made me feel at home.
Or were they just a holovid fantasy that I got lost in?
The Ambassador, Mister Spock's father, apologized to me for the cot-bed I have to lie down in. But it feels so soft, so warm-and Saavik is here with me. Why would he apologize?
Is Ambassador Sarek in pain? And why are there two other people inside his head?
They tell me that they've been in his head all of his life, and that they have to get out.
The world doesn't make any sense.
----------------------------
5
Saavik stared in wonder at the readout.
"Father, there is a planetary body on sensors. There should not be one here."
Sarek took in the readout, then nodded.
"That, Saavik, is the legendary Sol-X, or Sector 001-10."
The girl was not the scientist her unacknowledged birth-father Spock was, but she understood this well enough.
"A tenth planet in Earth's solar system? Why does no one know of it?"
Sarek looked in on the sleeping boy Peter Kirk, so deprived for over a decade that the cot-bed in Shuttle Surak seemed to him like a downy mattress in a luxury hotel.
"Because, as with your brother, the Order Of The Ancient Destroyer did not wish anyone to know of its existence."
Saavik Brianna Kirk seemed to become nervous.
"Father, I have yet to inform Peter of our family connection. In his fragile state, I feared his mistaking my adoption by Uncle Jim for his being replaced."
This was not the whole reason, and perhaps Sarek sensed this, but he did not question her given reason.
"You will need to inform him, eventually. Perhaps when his sense of self and time passages is clearer."
Saavik also presented Sarek with the recording of Hall activities as regarded Peter Kirk. The Ambassador winced openly at the record of the boy's brutalization, and subsequent retaliation before his final capture.
"Father, if this Colonel West is to be believed, Peter's acts of fierce resistance ended plans for a political coup and a general purge of Starfleet officers not loyal to the Order. They apparently had plans to target Uncle Jim and his crew, first and foremost."
Sarek looked over at the boy. He then thought of Spock, so savaged on Hellguard that he could not recall having become Saavik's father. The Vulcan and master of peace-making fought back the urge to feel joy at Peter Kirk's retaliation.
"Then, it is life-kind itself that owes him a debt, Saavik-kam. A debt he will be owed again, I fear."
Saavik nodded.
"I also came to the conclusion, Father, that this Colonel West must have been your contact within Admiralty Hall."
Sarek gazed upon his unacknowledged granddaughter with appreciative eyes. He had never told her he had such a contact.
"He would be in such a position. Tell me-were you forced to take a life, as I feared would become necessary?"
Saavik looked down.
"Their means of holding Peter was a blood-simple one. Doors of great mass and density were situated along the sloping downward path. At one of them were perhaps two hundred armed guards. They saw past my technological disguise and attacked me. While they could not kill me, any one of them could have sounded further alarms. I was forced to act decisively."
Sarek felt regret at this, but the stealth of their effort was its paramount asset.
"Were there any other casualties?"
"I cannot imagine that the lobby guards that allowed me in will do very well in a short time. Then there is Admiral T.E. Bunson. She-had draped her nude form over Peter's cryo-chamber. She very nearly defeated me. Peter awoke, and used his abilities to de-limb her. Those limbs proved to be cybernetic, something she had done to herself. She is alive, but until they find her, she is in no condition to give them information."
Sarek recalled accepting this loathsome woman's handshake at a ceremony, and sensing no thoughts at all from her. This now made sense.
"Though a hateful sort, her life guarantees the stability of the Hall's structure and power. In this, our Colonel West was correct. Saavik, I will guide the ship manually through the cloaked fields surrounding the tenth planet. I will be in the cockpit area. Will you stay with Peter?"
Her simple answer gave him pause.
"Always."
*What had passed between them?*, thought Sarek. Perhaps, he mused, Saavik simply liked having someone to care for, a not uncommon thing for a child as lonely as her. When the two were alone, Peter woke up. On the floor on a futon next to him, Saavik took note of this.
"Are you well?"
"Guess."
His tone clearly indicated that he meant ‘I Guess' rather than challenging her to some riddle game.
"Peter, I could sing a song Aunt Nyta taught me."
"Okay."
Recalling the words and tone Uhura had shown her, Saavik began.
"Maybe far away; Or maybe real nearby; He may be pouring her coffee
She may be straightening his tie. Maybe in a house; All hidden by a hill;
She's sitting playing piano, He's sitting paying a bill."
She saw his tired eyes already closing again.
"Good night, Peter."
"Saavik?"
"Yes?"
"Aunt Nyta drinks tea. Uncle Jim doesn't wear ties."
"Go to sleep, Peter."
"Good night, Saavik."
6
In the control area, Sarek found he could not bear to watch more than a few minutes of the footage of Peter Kirk's brutalization by the Admirals. This boy was the son of his son's brother, and the brother of Sarek's own granddaughter. Emotions he had spent decades telling Spock Vulcans did not have now assaulted him mercilessly.
"I am a Vulcan. There is control. I am control."
Yet suddenly Sarek no longer felt in control of his own memories.
-----------
2222, Vulcan
"I stand before you today to proclaim that the last words of Surak are fulfilled in me. I am The Rock Of Prophecy, meant to bring low the beast Gh'draeh and his hateful Order Of The Ancient Destroyer. I will begin my..."
Sarek felt the touch of his grandmother, the Lady T'Pau, and then he felt immense pain. He saw the face of his new bride, T'Rea, cold and impassive, and he saw the face of his grandmother, heavy with contempt and disgust. Before losing consciousness, he realized she had used a forbidden technique on him. This was his last conscious thought for five years.
-------------
2278
When he awoke after those five years, he had been told that the heretical T'Rea was gone, his marriage annulled. Sarek could not help but feel true rage at the manner in which Sra Sra T'Pau had summarily shut down his mind, to prevent him from ‘spouting on' about the Rock Of Prophecy.
*You and I are not so different, Peter. Lost time, followed by awakening to a world no longer the one you knew.*
He was dispatched as junior consul to the Vulcan Embassy on Earth. Staven, who had almost allowed the use of General Order Seven to go unchallenged some decades ago, was still Ambassador. Sarek found him challenging, and now he would find him difficult. Perhaps even insuperably difficult.
Sarek would face a choice.
---------------------
2227
"I merely believe, Ambassador, that, while necessitated on a practical level, the Kzinti Containment Area called by some The Dead Zone may in fact be incompatible with nothing less than IDIC itself."
Staven dismissed Sarek's words nearly before they were said, and it was not the first time.
"You may find, young one, that IDIC itself is incompatible with reality. The idea that all things may even be combined has largely proven to be an idealistic fantasy."
In an absurdly challenging tone to use on an underling, Staven asked Sarek a telling question.
"Will you now report this to your lady grandmother?"
Sarek shook his head.
"I was reminded forcefully of protocol during the Koren case. I will not violate it again."
Staven nodded in apparent triumph.
"Yet I would have you report to her on other matters, Sarek. Go to my aide, Sunel. He will deliver to you an attaché case, and you will then take a shuttle and pilot it back to Vulcan with all haste. There are matters in those files that may not be transmitted."
"It will be as you say, Mister Ambassador."
---------------------------
2278
Staven's openly mocking tone and virtual invitation to report his anti-IDIC, very nearly Anti-Cthia, diatribe raised Sarek's hackles. So when handed the attaché case in question, Sarek noted that the one Sunel kept for himself was identical. A quiet switch was made. Sarek's shuttle made it to Vulcan, the switched case containing evidence of attitudes far worse than the one Staven spoke of openly among many of his senior staff, not to mention the Ambassador himself. Staven and Sunel also left Earth by shuttle.
That shuttle exploded for reasons no one could discern. Newly appointed Ambassador Sarek tried to reassure himself that he had not assassinated, he had avoided assassination and had only handed back Staven's own property to him. It was a hard sell, and over fifty years later, he still didn't completely buy it.
*Yet for all such drama, Staven's death paled in significance to two more meetings that same year. One I did not recall until recently. The other, I pray that I am never so feeble as to forget.*
Aegyptus
By Rob Morris
1
It is so cold, now. Before that, it was pain, red and raw. Some of it was my pain. Some of it I caused, when I was made to be in pain. I asked them to stop. When I start hurting back, it doesn't happen in a way I can control. Something wants out of me, then. It's my responsibility to never let it, until the last battle. I don't know when that is.
I cannot remember the morning anymore. I cannot remember my name anymore. They try and tell me I never had a name, but I know that isn't true.
I can't hold out much longer. As bad as what's inside me is, there's something else, something worse, and they want me to call to it.
Then, the long nightmare ends. Just like that. The most beautiful girl I've ever seen pulls me out of that place. She says her name is Saavik, and that one day soon, she'll take me to see-a great man-was his name Jim? Was he someone important? First, we have to see Mister Spock's father.
Please, God, let her be real.
-----------
2
Sarek of Vulcan had lived through a dozen nightmare scenarios in his own mind, before the message came through.
*Father, I have him.*
Sweet, wonderful Saavik, patient and obedient child, had achieved her objective. Sarek fought to regain his composure, lost imagining his unacknowledged granddaughter added to Admiralty Hall's sub-Terran trophy room. Before her voice was heard, Sarek heard Cartwright's taunts, Amanda's wails of mourning, and the rage of Captain James T. Kirk, for risking another child of his while keeping silent on the fate of another.
A private transporter chamber was one of many privileges afforded to an Ambassador, particularly one of Sarek's standing. But it was rarely used, and Sarek had no intention of making its use a regular thing. The day he could not leave the embassy by the front gates would be a very sorry one, he had always reasoned. While a sorry day was not at hand, it was yet a day of dread. Sarek calibrated the chamber to the arranged upon signal, then activated it.
Materializing within the beam were the adopted daughter and son of a man who was like a brother to Sarek's second son. The girl was wearing a black jumpsuit, and it took Sarek a moment to realize that her features had reverted to her true Vulcan appearance, rather than the nanoprobe-induced Human disguise he had given her. She was holding the boy, who was wearing only a pink robe and was shivering, his face containing a look of both wonder and terror.
"Father, we must get him proper clothes. This robe is filthy-or rather its true owner is."
Sarek ignored her until he had wiped the transporter records on multiple levels, including sending a self-destruct signal to the transport boosters that had seen Saavik and her charge out of Admiralty Hall. They would still be of use to any investigator who found their residue, but only in the long term. In the short term, Sarek planned to be off Earth and on Vulcan.
"Father?"
"Fa-the-r? Is Jim here, Saa-vik?"
"Saavik, be patient. We must move with alacrity."
Sarek contacted one of his most loyal aides, a Human woman of decades' service to his embassy.
"Emily, I need you in my private chambers."
Emily Harrison emerged, carrying a shopping bag she had been asked to quietly fill.
"Ambassador, who is that boy with Saavik? He looks hurt."
Saavik's look grew sharp.
"He has been hurt. By experts. I will clean and dress him."
"Saavik, Emily has raised three boys. She knows how..."
"Father, I will not defy you, but nor is this a matter for debate. I will be quick. You may find he does not trust anyone besides me. Peter? Will you let me take care of you?"
The boy nodded, only speaking halting but telling words.
"Trust you. Love-you."
As Saavik withdrew with the boy, Emily turned to her employer.
"Sarek, is that boy Peter Kirk?"
The Ambassador sighed.
"Emily, it is best for all of us if I do not answer that question. There are concerns here that trump even the trust you have earned and deserve."
She looked at the doorway where the children had stood, only moments before.
"It is him. I remember holding my grandson when the news of his disappearance came. I was haunted by that face when they showed on it holovid. Was he on Earth all this time? Why isn't he any older? I..."
She stopped herself.
"Thirty years working with Vulcans, and I know nothing of privacy. My apologies, sir."
She produced a second shopping bag.
"These baskets are for you and Saavik. There's one for Amanda, too."
Sarek shook his head.
"Baskets, Emily?"
She nodded.
"Yes. After all-its Easter morning."
Sarek worked hard to put any associations or implications well out of his mind. He found he had to do this again, later that same week.
"Of course--the Easter Holiday. I had forgotten your Earth customs."
"Do you want me to report back here after services, and breakfast with my family?"
"No. All staff is on standby. The consulate here must be shut down for a time. Your salaries will continue to be paid."
The longtime employee breathed in.
"It's really that bad?"
Sarek felt he owed her an answer, however indirect.
"Adjacent to Starfleet Academy Proper, there is a structure of fifty years endurance. Officers of very high rank work and congregate there. It is a place of note."
Emily knew, then. Admiralty Hall was the only structure Sarek could be talking about.
"I'd-heard that it was noteworthy. I'll try and make sure my grandchildren never breach its security perimeter. You know kids."
"Yes, I believe that children would do well to give these noted officers a wide berth."
Saavik returned, also wearing a change of clothes. Peter Kirk looked at her.
"Sor-ry."
"It was not your fault, Peter. I should have anticipated your need for relief. The jumpsuit has been recycled. Father, we are ready."
Peter ran forward, and shocked all by embracing the Ambassador.
"Thank You! Thank You for getting me out-out of that place! THAT PLACE!!!"
The boy pulled back, shivering.
"Do I have to go back now? Please don't make me go back! I hate it there."
Saavik responded.
"That will never happen. It will never be permitted."
Sarek was taken aback both by the embrace and by the fierceness of Saavik's response. He was to be taken aback one more time. Emily kneeled before Peter. The older woman tenderly touched a finger to his nose. The boy did not flinch, but nor did he look comfortable.
"Don't be afraid, Peter. We've been waiting for you to arrive."
She removed a pendant with a small rock from beneath her blouse, and held it as she kept on.
"Blessed Rock Of Prophecy, your small arms hold the burden grown men shrink from. It falls to you, to slay that old dragon, and it is upon you that those horrid teeth will shatter like merest glass. He who is The Rock-"
Saavik saw a woman she had known for years look at her with reverence.
"-and She who is The Rock join together, and together they are The Rock. You will rise, a face seen as though over a hill, and when the last hope has failed, and the shell is again broken, then and there you will make your stand."
She then took the pendant off, placed it in Saavik's hand, and then placed Peter's hand in hers.
"Emily, what is the meaning of this?"
The Human woman smiled.
"A common thread among many faiths and legends is the presence of the rock. Mount Olympus. Simon Peter, who was a Rock for Jesus Christ. The Mosque Of The Rock. The Stone Tablets passed to Moses. The stone that was rolled away from the tomb on the first Easter morning. The stone into which Excalibur was drawn from, and then placed back into. Some say even the Grail itself was a stone. In the Far East, a Stone Monkey became a godlike being after a long hard journey."
Peter spoke words that belied his muddled state.
"Sun-Wukong. Son-Goku. Monkey King."
Emily smiled.
"The Order Of The Rock doesn't worship you wonderful children. But in all people who believe in a better universe free of hate, there exists those who wait to follow you against the Ancient Destroyer."
This was a wrinkle Sarek had not known of. But after dismissing Emily, he knew there was no time to wait any longer. The Shuttle Surak took off ten minutes later.
Ten minutes after that, armed soldiers violated every treaty imaginable as they searched the Vulcan embassy. Finding no one and nothing, they returned empty-handed and were ordered executed by an enraged Grand Admiral Cartwright. This had the happy benefit of destroying the scans they had made, preventing them from being analyzed further by Hall scientists. Sarek had already erased his staff lists.
The hunt for Peter Kirk was on.
----------------
3
I am free.
I am with her.
I will not be taken again.
Uncle Jim, where are you?
Why did Mister Spock's father come for me, instead of my own?
It hurts to think.
But I saw the morning as we left Earth.
There is still a sun in the sky.
I wish we were aboard the Enterprise.
God, help us. Because the devil's servants are after us.
I won't let them touch her.
------------------------------
4
We're going to Vulcan.
I always felt a connection to it, but I don't know why.
I remember seven great heroes, who sailed the stars, and made me feel at home.
Or were they just a holovid fantasy that I got lost in?
The Ambassador, Mister Spock's father, apologized to me for the cot-bed I have to lie down in. But it feels so soft, so warm-and Saavik is here with me. Why would he apologize?
Is Ambassador Sarek in pain? And why are there two other people inside his head?
They tell me that they've been in his head all of his life, and that they have to get out.
The world doesn't make any sense.
----------------------------
5
Saavik stared in wonder at the readout.
"Father, there is a planetary body on sensors. There should not be one here."
Sarek took in the readout, then nodded.
"That, Saavik, is the legendary Sol-X, or Sector 001-10."
The girl was not the scientist her unacknowledged birth-father Spock was, but she understood this well enough.
"A tenth planet in Earth's solar system? Why does no one know of it?"
Sarek looked in on the sleeping boy Peter Kirk, so deprived for over a decade that the cot-bed in Shuttle Surak seemed to him like a downy mattress in a luxury hotel.
"Because, as with your brother, the Order Of The Ancient Destroyer did not wish anyone to know of its existence."
Saavik Brianna Kirk seemed to become nervous.
"Father, I have yet to inform Peter of our family connection. In his fragile state, I feared his mistaking my adoption by Uncle Jim for his being replaced."
This was not the whole reason, and perhaps Sarek sensed this, but he did not question her given reason.
"You will need to inform him, eventually. Perhaps when his sense of self and time passages is clearer."
Saavik also presented Sarek with the recording of Hall activities as regarded Peter Kirk. The Ambassador winced openly at the record of the boy's brutalization, and subsequent retaliation before his final capture.
"Father, if this Colonel West is to be believed, Peter's acts of fierce resistance ended plans for a political coup and a general purge of Starfleet officers not loyal to the Order. They apparently had plans to target Uncle Jim and his crew, first and foremost."
Sarek looked over at the boy. He then thought of Spock, so savaged on Hellguard that he could not recall having become Saavik's father. The Vulcan and master of peace-making fought back the urge to feel joy at Peter Kirk's retaliation.
"Then, it is life-kind itself that owes him a debt, Saavik-kam. A debt he will be owed again, I fear."
Saavik nodded.
"I also came to the conclusion, Father, that this Colonel West must have been your contact within Admiralty Hall."
Sarek gazed upon his unacknowledged granddaughter with appreciative eyes. He had never told her he had such a contact.
"He would be in such a position. Tell me-were you forced to take a life, as I feared would become necessary?"
Saavik looked down.
"Their means of holding Peter was a blood-simple one. Doors of great mass and density were situated along the sloping downward path. At one of them were perhaps two hundred armed guards. They saw past my technological disguise and attacked me. While they could not kill me, any one of them could have sounded further alarms. I was forced to act decisively."
Sarek felt regret at this, but the stealth of their effort was its paramount asset.
"Were there any other casualties?"
"I cannot imagine that the lobby guards that allowed me in will do very well in a short time. Then there is Admiral T.E. Bunson. She-had draped her nude form over Peter's cryo-chamber. She very nearly defeated me. Peter awoke, and used his abilities to de-limb her. Those limbs proved to be cybernetic, something she had done to herself. She is alive, but until they find her, she is in no condition to give them information."
Sarek recalled accepting this loathsome woman's handshake at a ceremony, and sensing no thoughts at all from her. This now made sense.
"Though a hateful sort, her life guarantees the stability of the Hall's structure and power. In this, our Colonel West was correct. Saavik, I will guide the ship manually through the cloaked fields surrounding the tenth planet. I will be in the cockpit area. Will you stay with Peter?"
Her simple answer gave him pause.
"Always."
*What had passed between them?*, thought Sarek. Perhaps, he mused, Saavik simply liked having someone to care for, a not uncommon thing for a child as lonely as her. When the two were alone, Peter woke up. On the floor on a futon next to him, Saavik took note of this.
"Are you well?"
"Guess."
His tone clearly indicated that he meant ‘I Guess' rather than challenging her to some riddle game.
"Peter, I could sing a song Aunt Nyta taught me."
"Okay."
Recalling the words and tone Uhura had shown her, Saavik began.
"Maybe far away; Or maybe real nearby; He may be pouring her coffee
She may be straightening his tie. Maybe in a house; All hidden by a hill;
She's sitting playing piano, He's sitting paying a bill."
She saw his tired eyes already closing again.
"Good night, Peter."
"Saavik?"
"Yes?"
"Aunt Nyta drinks tea. Uncle Jim doesn't wear ties."
"Go to sleep, Peter."
"Good night, Saavik."
6
In the control area, Sarek found he could not bear to watch more than a few minutes of the footage of Peter Kirk's brutalization by the Admirals. This boy was the son of his son's brother, and the brother of Sarek's own granddaughter. Emotions he had spent decades telling Spock Vulcans did not have now assaulted him mercilessly.
"I am a Vulcan. There is control. I am control."
Yet suddenly Sarek no longer felt in control of his own memories.
-----------
2222, Vulcan
"I stand before you today to proclaim that the last words of Surak are fulfilled in me. I am The Rock Of Prophecy, meant to bring low the beast Gh'draeh and his hateful Order Of The Ancient Destroyer. I will begin my..."
Sarek felt the touch of his grandmother, the Lady T'Pau, and then he felt immense pain. He saw the face of his new bride, T'Rea, cold and impassive, and he saw the face of his grandmother, heavy with contempt and disgust. Before losing consciousness, he realized she had used a forbidden technique on him. This was his last conscious thought for five years.
-------------
2278
When he awoke after those five years, he had been told that the heretical T'Rea was gone, his marriage annulled. Sarek could not help but feel true rage at the manner in which Sra Sra T'Pau had summarily shut down his mind, to prevent him from ‘spouting on' about the Rock Of Prophecy.
*You and I are not so different, Peter. Lost time, followed by awakening to a world no longer the one you knew.*
He was dispatched as junior consul to the Vulcan Embassy on Earth. Staven, who had almost allowed the use of General Order Seven to go unchallenged some decades ago, was still Ambassador. Sarek found him challenging, and now he would find him difficult. Perhaps even insuperably difficult.
Sarek would face a choice.
---------------------
2227
"I merely believe, Ambassador, that, while necessitated on a practical level, the Kzinti Containment Area called by some The Dead Zone may in fact be incompatible with nothing less than IDIC itself."
Staven dismissed Sarek's words nearly before they were said, and it was not the first time.
"You may find, young one, that IDIC itself is incompatible with reality. The idea that all things may even be combined has largely proven to be an idealistic fantasy."
In an absurdly challenging tone to use on an underling, Staven asked Sarek a telling question.
"Will you now report this to your lady grandmother?"
Sarek shook his head.
"I was reminded forcefully of protocol during the Koren case. I will not violate it again."
Staven nodded in apparent triumph.
"Yet I would have you report to her on other matters, Sarek. Go to my aide, Sunel. He will deliver to you an attaché case, and you will then take a shuttle and pilot it back to Vulcan with all haste. There are matters in those files that may not be transmitted."
"It will be as you say, Mister Ambassador."
---------------------------
2278
Staven's openly mocking tone and virtual invitation to report his anti-IDIC, very nearly Anti-Cthia, diatribe raised Sarek's hackles. So when handed the attaché case in question, Sarek noted that the one Sunel kept for himself was identical. A quiet switch was made. Sarek's shuttle made it to Vulcan, the switched case containing evidence of attitudes far worse than the one Staven spoke of openly among many of his senior staff, not to mention the Ambassador himself. Staven and Sunel also left Earth by shuttle.
That shuttle exploded for reasons no one could discern. Newly appointed Ambassador Sarek tried to reassure himself that he had not assassinated, he had avoided assassination and had only handed back Staven's own property to him. It was a hard sell, and over fifty years later, he still didn't completely buy it.
*Yet for all such drama, Staven's death paled in significance to two more meetings that same year. One I did not recall until recently. The other, I pray that I am never so feeble as to forget.*
