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I stumbled stepping off the transport pad, and Jim grabbed my arm. I felt disheveled, disoriented. I barely registered his motions as Bones did a quick sweep with his scanner.
“Are you okay?” Jim asked. “Bones, is she okay?”
“I’ll need to do a thorough exam, but… she’s good, Jim. Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t fix.” Bones smiled at me and I smiled back, a little goofy at the warmth of his voice.
I wasn’t quite honing in on the discussion. But here was Jim, again, taking me by the shoulders, with a consideration, a naturalness I knew he wouldn’t ever have had… before. He put a hand to my hair – I hadn’t done much good with it – and looked at me sharply, but tenderly, too; that’s the only way I can describe it.
“If I’m right, we’re going to need you again, Hani, and soon. Can you do it? Can you face down the Magna one more time?”
I was still in whiplash, caught between the afterglow of lovemaking – I couldn’t possibly think of it as anything else, then or ever after – and our precipitous escape. His closeness still made my heart rise. I was only partly aware of Scotty’s keen, curious gaze, or the transport technician, respectfully pretending not to stare. I could feel all the attention on me. It was a lot to handle in my state.
I nodded. “I just need a minute to …put myself together,” I said.
“Come on,” Jim smiled. “You can use the facilities in my ready room.” He gestured for me to lead the way, but it was Bones who realized I could use a little support, and whose arm came around my waist as we walked out.
These are the things they never tell you in the epic tales. Jim’s private head just off his ready room had a hairbrush, a man’s brush, not at all up to the task of my shoulder-length tangle. Still I did my best, and splashed a little water on my face, which only brought back the sense memory of the last time water touched my face so softly, a memory that already felt lifetimes away, and yet so real, so real.
No time to think about the state of my body beneath the gown I carefully smoothed out. No time to dwell on the scents that lingered on my skin. The only stab of regret I felt was when I realized I owed Uhura a new pair of earrings. Hers, I supposed, would float indefinitely on the floor of an abandoned escape pod in illegal orbit around the planet Ardros.
In the ready room, they were waiting for me, the three of them, and Scotty, ready to debrief me on the plan they’d come up with.
I just hoped I could pull it off in my dazed condition. I thought about all those TV shows from the old days. How inevitably, impossibly, someone always claimed they could spot it; all those smirking accusations: You’ve had sex!
I hoped the Magna wasn’t that perceptive. It would really blow our cover story.
Jim was betting the Magna would follow up, especially after the explosion of the freighter, and he was right. She already had.
Scotty had already fielded the initial exchange, as the next in command, managing to come across as both angry at the tragic fate of his captain, and terrified at the cold-blooded power of Elder Surat, who had (so the story went) ordered the three infected men sealed away to die.
The explosion itself, he’d explained to the Magna in deliberately tedious detail, was likely the result of the crew obeying a standing Federation order to destroy any site that was contaminated. There were protocols programmed for that contingency, which must have been set on a timing delay, only destroying the ship when no one was left to countermand the automated order.
Still, the Magna had demanded a final word with Elder Surat, no doubt to make sure her message had come through loud and clear.
Frankly, I’d almost forgotten that we were originally sent on a diplomatic mission. Diplomacy had taken a real nose-dive, hadn’t it, what with our hostess trying to kill off her male guests, and us beating a hasty and slightly unauthorized exit, covered by a whole web of lies. Listening to Jim’s scheme as he unfolded it, I belatedly realized that all of this was going to have to be explained somehow not just to the Magna, but, more dauntingly, to Starfleet and the Federation.
I wouldn’t want to be in Jim’s shoes for that.
Come to think of it, though, I was kind of the one wearing the Big Girl shoes at the moment. Right now, it wasn’t Captain Kirk, but Elder Surat who had to face the Magdena Magna for one more conversation. I collected myself as Uhura petitioned for contact with the planet. I stood waiting, feeling myself weaving a bit, my head light, my body full, my heart… well, there’s no way to describe the state of my heart right then.
But in the end, I managed to snap into character as the screen flashed the Magna’s image, with a sense that I’d somehow been imbued with the courage of my friends, along with everything else that had been exchanged between us this day, notwithstanding the fact that the back of the chair I was gripping would bear permanent marks from my dug-in fingernails.
I didn’t wait for her to speak but jumped right on the offensive. “I am most unhappy, Magna,” I said, not having to pretend that at all. “As my Chief Engineer explained to you, Kirk, Spock and McCoy have been ordered sealed off to suffer their fate alone. I can report that they are already feeling the effects of your weapon. I doubt they will make it through the night.
“It is a gratuitous waste of my resources, and I do not appreciate the fact that you made this decision without my express agreement. I could have easily provided you with… less highly functioning crew members on whom to test your skills.”
She made as if to talk but I was on a roll. I held up my hand and glared at her. “Make no mistake, I will relay your message, and report your … accomplishments… to Starfleet and the Federation. But I will also add my …personal assessment of the situation. And I assure you my words carry weight there.” Where did that come from? I was really tired. I think I was getting a little carried away with all this method acting.
I paused for effect, then played our last card. “Now, just what should I tell them about your dealings with the Klingons?”
She was cool, I’ll give her that. She didn’t even blink. “Unlike your Federation, the Klingons are open to dealing with us on our terms. They are not subject to the so-called moral qualms of your people.”
“You mean respect for life? For both genders, equally?” I asked, not bothering to mask my disdain.
“We have honored for millennia the sacred tenets that dictate the functions of male and female. The Klingons do not judge us. They have proven their willingness to accommodate to – and respect – our culture. We, in return, respect their commitment to building a potential partnership. Where the Federation dissembles and makes excuses, the Klingons have shown they are willing to follow our ways.”
“So you prefer to deal with the Klingons because they’re more… ruthless?” I asked.
The Magna’s smile chilled me, but not as much as her reply.
“Our dealings are made possible by their ruthlessness, as you put it. We prefer to deal with Klingons, though, because they respect our cultural traditions of …sacrifice. And, I admit, there are… personal preferences as well, a, insignificant thing, I know, but still…”
“Magna, surely a woman of your intelligence does not conduct negotiations on the basis of …appearances?” I asked sternly, thrown a bit by what looked to me like merriment in her expression.
“Elder Surat, your lapses in understanding would amuse me, if it would not show disrespect for your exalted age. The appearance of males of any species is of no interest to me. I have simply found that, all other factors being equal, we find Klingon males… tastier.”
I felt my knees start to buckle, and steadied myself, gripping the chair back even more tightly. It was a final absurdity, a final bit of insanity in an impossible day. I didn’t want to think about it, and yet, thinking about it made everything else fall horribly into place. There you had it, and she wasn’t even sugar-coating it.
Oh, god. Really unfortunate choice of words, considering the message. My worst suspicions confirmed, the hideous truth of what the “second function of males” really was.
They were dinner.
I might have stood there indefinitely, stunned, had not Jim held up a tablet, just out of the Magda’s line of vision. On it was written: “What’s their business with the Klingons?”
I let the shock fall to the wayside – for the moment – and found my voice, which came out with an unfortunate choking cough. I had to wrestle the force back into my words. “And just what business is it that you have with the Klingons, Magna?”
She eyed me coolly. “Ah, Elder,” she curled her thin, elegant lips. “Surely you do not expect me to believe you do not know. Please tell your superiors our communications are complete.”
The screen went blank.
If someone hadn’t placed a chair behind me, I would have sunk right down to the floor.
Good thing I didn’t have to be the one to face down the Klingons. I really didn’t have it in me.
I’m sure my best shot, on my best day, wouldn’t have been enough to intimidate those guys, anyway. But I was more than happy to hand back the charade to Scotty, who played his part brilliantly, with even a kind of perverse glee.
The next step in Jim’s plan was to hail the Klingon ship on an open frequency. Sure enough, the Klingons responded to the hail.
The story Scotty spun was more or less what I’d told the Magna. The ranking officers of the ship had been poisoned by the Magna, and were even now dying a horrible death. He left out the part about Elder Surat. Jim had decided it was an unnecessary complication, and I was more than happy to remain unknown to those scary looking dudes, though no one thought to dismiss me from the far corner of the room, where I’d more or less collapsed, out of view. I couldn’t believe I’d once been scared by Spock’s comparatively benign alien appearance. Then again, I was looking at him now through vastly different eyes, wasn’t I?
“The Captain of the Enterprise was Kirk, correct?” The fierce Klingon asked with some evident enjoyment. “His death will not be mourned by our people. But tell me, Mr. Scott, do you think we are foolish enough to believe that the Federation will simply leave Ardros alone, that your precious Kirk’s death will be enough to distract the Federation from the prize at hand?”
Scotty, playing for time to draw him out, said, “The Federation has officially placed Ardros off limits, with the specific exception for our diplomatic mission here, which has ended so tragically. We are prepared to leave orbit immediately. I will personally file a report to recommend the quarantine of the planet be kept in effect. I suggest the Klingon Empire do the same, for your own protection.”
The Klingon snorted derisively. “The galaxy’s biggest source of dilithium, and in purer structure than anything yet discovered elsewhere, and you expect me to believe you will simply turn and run because of the deaths of three men? Even Starfleet cannot possibly be so faint-hearted.”
There it was. The hidden agenda.
Scotty didn’t blink. “You do know they find Klingons… delicious?”
The Klingon commander smiled a savvy, chilling smile. “ My crew has learned to regard that fact as an object lesson for the unmotivated. Safe voyaging, Scott.” And he terminated the connection.