First Light - Part 3-NC-17

First Light

by HopefulRomantic

Rating: PG-13, except for Chapter 10, which is rated NC-17 for strong sexual situations.
Disclaimer: see Part I.
Series Summary: The Reconnecting series is a reinterpretation of certain events of Season 4 that went AU shortly after “Home.” It focuses on the relationships of Trip and T’Pol and their extended family, and features characters introduced in Season 3, as well as original characters.

A/N: Apologies for the delay; I’ve had my hands a leetle full with RL the last couple of months.

Thanks to my fabulous betas boushh, Jenna, TJ, and Stephanie.

Date: 2-23-07

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Part III (Chapters 9-12)

Chapter Nine: Soong

As the chronometer clicked to 0600, Arik Soong sat cross-legged on his bed, gazing at a patch of blank wall at the opposite end of his cell. Soong had performed this activity every morning, at the same time, for several weeks now. To any observer, he appeared to be meditating. Jordan, the guard stationed in the corridor during the graveyard shift, hardly paid attention to him any longer.

Soong wasn’t meditating.

This morning, he was running through the myriad calculations he’d accumulated, selecting the specific bits of information he wanted and committing them to a page of his photographic memory earmarked for retrieval when Dr. Phlox of the good ship Enterprise came to visit him later today. For that conversation, there could be no written list for Soong to simply hand over to Phlox; that was prohibited. Besides, Phlox was the only “official” researcher on this project; Soong was merely the great and powerful Oz hidden away behind the curtain...or in this case, the security doors. Thus the clandestine assistance. Fortunately, Soong had become accustomed to figuring everything out in his head. It was a bit more cumbersome, but no less effective in the end.

He couldn’t help but wonder how Commander Lorian had known so far in advance that there was any point to working out a safer method for creating a human/Vulcan hybrid child. Weeks ago, when the commander and his delectable Lieutenant Archer had paid their first visit to Soong to query him about the matter, T’Pol was already married to her tradition-bound (i.e., boring, from what Soong had seen of him) Vulcan, with Tucker relegated to perpetual platonic status.

Soong had never heard of Vulcans possessing precognitive abilities. Lorian might simply be extraordinarily insightful, making use of a blend of Vulcan logic and human intuition. Whatever it was, he had somehow anticipated that T’Pol’s husband would have a change of heart so profound that he would be compelled to release her from their marriage, thus opening the door for her and Tucker to take up where they’d left off.

It was the second time Commander Lorian had surprised Soong, which irritated him quite a lot.

He supposed it was the duty of all children to defy their parents at some point...though Lorian’s Terrible Twos had lain dormant for a century, until he’d shot his father, betrayed his captain, and almost destroyed the earlier incarnation of his own ship. Eh, no one was perfect.

Not even my children, Soong thought with a sigh. Even when they were convinced of their perfection.

He still remembered his sharp, sickening shock when he had seen Malik on Cold Station 12. Why hadn’t he realized it earlier? Oh, there had been signs, even on Trialas IV, when Malik was a child. The boy had always suffered from a distressing lack of compassion for his brothers and sisters. And even before Soong had been captured and forced to abandon the children, he had noticed young Malik going about achieving his goals, whether scholastic or extracurricular, with a ruthlessness that was chilling.

Soong hadn’t wanted to believe Malik was a hopeless cause. He had been determined to teach away the boy’s flaws, love them away, deny them away. He spent ten years with those children, their formative first years, passing on all the positive values he could. Still, Malik and so many of the others grew up to become cold, empty monsters—superhuman, but not humane. Why? Was there a genetic marker for evil? Had Malik and the others been missing the genetic markers for kindness, or empathy?

And why not Persis or Udar? They showed sympathy and mercy, and were murdered for it. Soong could still feel the ache of their loss.

Perhaps it was as simple as...every individual had the potential for good or evil, and the free will to choose.

Soong had thought himself capable of designing a better human being than nature could. Malik and his ilk, though, twisted their superiority into hubris...and all of Soong’s delusions of godhood had drained away when he saw what such notions could do to a man without the temperance of morality, or a worthy goal.

Natural selection occurred for a reason, after all...tiny steps, a bit of adjustment here and there to determine what worked best in the large scheme of things, rather than a sledge hammer of evolutionary overthrow to effect change in one fell swoop.

Soong chuffed under his breath in disgust. He recalled running across evidence, while researching different fertility treatments, of far too many people mucking around with “unconventional” methods...the more unsavory individuals, the less successful techniques. There were always corner-cutters scuttling around in the shadows, choosing “faster” or “cheaper” over “best.” Sloppy results, usually.

His thoughts strayed back to the records he’d seen of the painstaking years of research done by Phlox—the other Phlox, from the alternate timeline. Even that upstanding Denobulan, armed with his comparatively advanced skills, had encountered difficulties and heartbreaking failures before bringing Lorian to term. It would be different, of course, now that Soong was spearheading the research. He would make certain that a reliable method of human/Vulcan reproduction was perfected. He would do it for the sake of the other Tucker and T’Pol, and the children they had lost...and for his own lost ones, especially Udar and Persis, and Malik, even Malik. A part of Soong grieved for him most of all.

With an effort, he refocused. Where was he?...oh yes, the T-cells. Tricky, those rejection mechanisms. The other Phlox had had trouble with the human and Vulcan systems treating each other as enemy invaders. How utterly poetic, considering the sniping Soong had seen between Tucker and T’Pol. You only hurt the one you love... It would be a challenge, finessing the genetic instructions to recognize the alien cells as friendly, without compromising the immune system.

Soong knew he wouldn’t be permitted very much time with Phlox, but it should be enough to pass along a sufficient amount of preliminary “feedback” to keep the doctor plenty occupied while Enterprise went gallivanting off to the Barrens, at the beck and call of Emory Erickson.

Soong had already heard that Hero Of The Universe Archer was quite out of sorts about being robbed of the chance to return to the emancipated ex-Expanse and parade through the streets of victory, as it were. He wouldn’t have the opportunity to act as the Great Diplomat with his former enemies the Xindi, and whip up some kind of détente; the job had gone instead to the captain of the NX-02, Hernandez. That must smart.

So Enterprise was headed for the Barrens—and for what? “Sub-quantum transportation”? Utter nonsense. Anyone with half a brain could do the math and see that the concept was flawed. Soong wondered what old Erickson was really up to, and why he needed an NX-class to do it. The Barrens was where his son had vanished, and where Erickson had had his own horrific transporter accident. Apparently Soong wasn’t the only man mourning the loss of a child. A pity the old man didn’t see what was right in front of him. Soong had seen news photos and footage of Erickson with his daughter over the years; the girl was invariably focused on her father, while he rarely acknowledged her at all. The old fool must be blind, or blinded, by whatever awaited in the Barrens.

Maybe Erickson would have better luck than Soong had. Beginning with lies, though, didn’t bode well for the man. Soong saw rough seas ahead for Captain War Hero.

Or...maybe there was something to it, and Enterprise was preparing to make history. Perhaps Erickson had made some sort of breakthrough that hadn’t occurred to Soong...

The geneticist laughed out loud. He couldn’t help it—the notion was too, too funny. He opened his eyes and saw Jordan looking curiously at him from his post in the corridor. Soong raised an eyebrow in casual challenge, and the guard quickly found a corner of the floor inordinately interesting. Soong went back to his placid contemplation of the wall, returning his attention to his calculations...and his musings.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Chapter Ten: Shran

Even after so many years, Shran still missed his brother.

As he strode through the Kumari’s empty corridors in the early-morning quiet, Shran reflected on the remarkable tenacity of grief and injustice. Solas had died decades ago, but his loss seemed no closer to being laid to rest. Shran had idolized his brother—a natural leader, a brilliant tactician, possessed of potential that would have led to a stellar military career in the Imperial Guard, and likely to the Governorship itself...had he lived.

Shran entered the observation room, crossing to a low table in front of the forward viewport and setting out the items he had brought: a simple ceremonial candle, a bottle of Andorian ale, and two glasses. From underneath his uniform, he pulled out a small vial of blue liquid he wore on a thin lanyard around his neck. After Solas had been killed, his companions had borne home a measure of his blood for the Wall of Heroes...and they had given this vial to Solas’s bereft younger brother as well. Shran wore it as a talisman, a piece of the warrior he would always idolize.

As soon as he was of age, Shran had enlisted in the Imperial Guard, taking it upon himself to carry on in his brother’s name. He had worked twice as hard as the spoon-fed commissioned officers, clawing his way up the ranks, earning a field commission, then his own command. He didn’t feel he’d come close to filling Solas’s boots until he was awarded the Kumari—the flagship of the Imperial Guard.

Solas would have reached the same heights in a fraction of the time, of course. Shran smiled at the thought as he fingered the vial in his hand.

Outside the viewport, he could see the ice-blue orb of Andoria’s parent planet in the distance, bisected by its majestic rings. Soon the Kumari would be in orbit around her homeworld, after being on patrol for months. The time had come for Shran to pay tribute to his fallen brother, as he did each time he returned home.

He lit the candle, poured a glass of ale, then held the vial up, over the ritual flame, in sight of the moon where he and Solas were born. “We are near the ice of home, brother,” he said into the silence. He raised his drink in solemn salute to the empty second glass, toasting the man who was not there to drink with him.

Behind him, the door to the observation room slid open. Shran paused, surprised and a little annoyed at the intrusion; he had not expected any of the crew to be stirring at such an early hour.

He turned to find Lieutenant Talas standing in the doorway, her antennae hanging low in chagrin. “Forgive me, Commander,” she said hastily. “I’ve disturbed you.” She was already turning to leave.

“Wait,” he said.

Talas stopped. Shran noted that she wasn’t dressed for duty; she was wearing a bodysuit of soft, clingy material that hugged her every curve in a way far different from her form-fitting uniform. Her hair was uncharacteristically tousled, as if she had just risen from her bed; it made her already uncommon beauty even more pleasing.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she replied. “Coming here often settles me.”

He gestured with his glass. “Come in, then.”

She stepped into the room, letting the door shut behind her. She reached for the locking mechanism and secured the door. “So no one else will intrude.”

Shran nodded, saying nothing. He could not ever remember being alone with his tactical officer while off-duty. Even with the expanse of the room between them, he felt vaguely intimidated by her. He knew part of the reason was because she was highborn; likely he would never get over his self-consciousness regarding his working-class roots. But he had crossed paths with patricians in the Guard before, countless times. Typically, highborn families sent their sons for a short stint in the military; the youths could then boast to females of having been warriors, as they went on to much safer, cushioned lives in politics. Patrician women, though, were uncommon in the Guard, and highborn women who made careers in the military were as rare as a warm breeze.

Talas’s family, however, was crowded with them. Men and women of her house had been a staple in the Guard for generations, serving out of a sense of duty and honor. Talas had proven herself to Shran as a superior warrior from the moment she had joined the Kumari’s crew. Her combination of intelligence, resourcefulness, and beauty made him feel a fool around her, except in matters of the Guard. If he let her, she would captivate him. But he knew that such an extraordinary female could never see any worth in him, an unsophisticated working-class soldier, other than his skills as a fighter and a leader, perhaps. He was a bull while she was a banta bird, her graceful snow-white wings noiseless in flight, never touching the ground he slogged on.

Talas indicated the flickering candle and the vial in Shran’s hand. “Whom do you honor, Commander?”

Shran had told few others of his loss—and never subordinates. However, Talas had performed well these last few months, and had shown cunning and bravery in the Expanse. “My brother,” he replied, turning toward the viewport once more. “He was a lieutenant in the Guard. He was killed when I was a boy.”

She came closer. “May I join you in paying him respect?”

Shran passed his glass to her, pouring a second measure of ale for himself. Then he tipped the vial over the candle, letting a single drop of Solas’s blood fall into the flame. “You are remembered this day, Solas,” he intoned softly. They both watched the blue drop sizzle and disappear into the fire. As Shran raised his glass to his lips, he muttered, “Someday I shall be a fit sibling to you.” He tossed back his ale in a single swallow, feeling it scald its way down his throat.

Beside him, Talas, also drinking her toast, lowered her glass in surprise. “You are already a worthy successor to your brother, Commander.”

“No,” Shran said irritably. Whether because of memories of Solas, or the nearness of Talas, he was feeling particularly inadequate at the moment. “I lack his instincts, his finesse. I am but a pale, clumsy shadow of him.”

“You’re wrong!” she exclaimed.

Shran scowled at her. “Excuse me, Lieutenant?”

Talas blushed bright blue under his intense gaze, but she did not turn away. “Forgive me, Commander, for my bluntness, but...I’ve watched you since the first day I came aboard the Kumari. You have the quickest mind of any leader I have followed. Your boldness is thrilling to witness.” Her eyes began to shine, and her voice took on a ring of admiration. “Your courage and sense of honor are standards to which I aspire.”

She was moving nearer, closing the scant distance between them. “I have always held you in high esteem, Commander...more than that. You have a fire in your belly that too many men lack.” Her voice dropped, becoming low and intense. “I would see more of that fire.” Her eyes were burning with an unmistakable fire of their own now.

Shran could hardly believe what was happening. Could Talas actually find him attractive? Desirable?

“You forget yourself, Lieutenant,” he said, his voice hoarse in the stillness.

She didn’t flinch. “Then reprimand me.”

They were close, so close now. He could feel her heat. He had dreamed of this woman—restless, erotic dreams that left him shaking with their intensity. He had never dared to believe the dreams could become reality. “If this is some sort of game, Talas, you will pay dearly.”

“No game.” She brought a hand up, stroking one of his sensitive antennae with her long, graceful fingers. The sensation nearly drove him wild with desire. “Show me your fire,” she whispered against his mouth.

He seized her in his arms and kissed her, feeling her hot mouth eagerly opening to his. She tasted rich and exotic to him as their tongues battled each other. She twined her fingers through his hair, tickling the base of his antennae, as she nipped and sucked at his bottom lip.

He swept the low table clear and lowered her onto it, continuing his assault on her mouth. She wrapped her legs around his thighs, trapping him against her as he ripped the flimsy fabric of her bodysuit open from neck to groin. She was naked underneath. As he cupped her firm breasts in his hands, she moaned into his mouth, squeezing the bulge in front of his uniform trousers, drawing an answering groan from him.

Shran stood up, stripping away enough of his uniform to get his trousers open. Talas lay on the table, propped up on her elbows, smiling invitingly. She was an exquisite sight, her dark nipples erect and waiting for him, her face flushed soft blue with desire, her legs splayed wantonly open. As she watched him, she slid a hand down to the patch of white curls between her legs and idly stroked there, and the sight was almost too much for him to bear. He tore open his trousers, freeing his stiff, engorged cock. Talas licked her lips in anticipation as he lowered himself over her.

He entered her hard, thrusting deep, and she cried out with unbridled satisfaction, wrapping her legs tightly around his waist. He began a swift, steady rhythm, driving in and out of her as he worshipped her breasts with his lips and tongue, nipping the hardened tips with his teeth. Growling with pleasure, Talas took his head in her hands, stroking his antennae, sending jolts of raw lust through him as he continued to pound into her.

She sat up, pushing her weight against him, and Shran fell to the deck, taking her with him. Then he was flat on his back and she was riding him with abandon, her hair flying around her flushed face in a lovely tangle, her breasts swaying in rhythm with her rocking body. He thought she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. He pulled her down for a long, wet kiss, thrusting his tongue deep in her mouth as his cock continued to plunge deep inside her body.

As she lay atop him, Talas drew her legs together, tucking them between his. He was tight inside her now, every sensation magnified as he moved within her. The pleasure was indescribable. She gripped his shoulders for leverage, her erect nipples scraping across his chest as she moved, her face poised over his, her expression one of sublime ecstasy.

They panted in unison, their breath mingling, their pleasure rising together. Shran slid his hands underneath Talas’s shredded bodysuit, around her hips, gripping her smooth, muscled backside as he pumped in and out of her. Then he slid a finger down the crack of her ass. With a moan of delight, she began to move faster. He moved his finger lower, to her after opening, and pushed inside her. She screamed with pleasure, moving faster, whimpering, then wailing. He pushed his finger in further, feeling her so tight and hot around his cock, feeling himself moving inside her, under his finger—and then she exploded, thrashing uncontrollably on top of him.

As she came down from the heights of her orgasm, Shran rolled her on her back, pulling her legs up, propping her ankles on his shoulders, thrusting even deeper. Her rhythmic cries began to rise again, taking his own desire with them. He rammed relentlessly into her as he feverishly kissed her mouth and breasts, then reached up to fondle her antennae. Talas stiffened, her back arching—and she climaxed again, bucking wildly beneath him. Shran felt himself tumbling over the precipice as well. With a bellow, he came, shuddering powerfully through his own release.

He collapsed on top of her, spent. He hadn’t had a lovemaking experience this exciting in years. As he caught his breath, he raised himself up to look at her...hiding his apprehension, wondering if he had met her expectations. Talas smiled up at him, then pulled his head down to kiss him slowly, sensuously, her tongue sliding along his, sending aftershocks of pleasure rippling through him.

Finally he drew away, savoring her taste on his lips. Talas regarded him with a raised eyebrow. “Am I to be reprimanded, then?” she asked.

He studied her through narrowed eyes. “Upon further reflection...I find your bluntness to be quite stimulating.”

Talas chuckled low in her throat, and Shran smiled.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Chapter Eleven: Braax

As the airlock hatch of the Illyrian research vessel Rykos rolled open, Braax stepped forward to greet the rotund cargo ship captain who emerged. “Welcome,” Braax said with weary relief. “We’re grateful for your assistance.”

“Greetings to you, friend!” the other man replied in an amiable, booming voice. “Captain Braax, is it? I’m Jholli. We Xythians are always glad to help a ship in need.”

Braax was somewhat taken aback. The Rykos had not had an easy time of it, but she hardly looked as if she were ready to fall apart. “How did you know that—”

The Xythian cut him off with a wave of his meaty hand. “A lone, tiny vessel in this barren stretch of space so far between systems, limping along at a sludgeworm’s pace? Such a sight is akin to an emergency distress call.” He peered into the dimly-lit corridor. “You’re in a bad way, I see.” He smiled wryly. “Actually, I can’t see much at all.”

Braax realized that Jholli must be practically blind in the low lighting. The passengers and crew of the Rykos had long ago become accustomed to it. “We’ve been conserving power as much as possible,” he explained, “to ensure enough for our journey home.”

“Surely you must not be far, if you’re traveling at impulse,” Jholli said reasonably.

Braax’s expression darkened. “We have no choice in the matter. Our warp coil was stolen.”

The Xythian harrumphed. “Conscienceless vermin, these marauders.”

The Illyrian hesitated. “They weren’t marauders...exactly,” he admitted. “But they might as well have been. We’ve been traveling at full impulse for months, and we’re not even a third of the way home.”

“My sympathies!” Jholli exclaimed. He clapped Braax on the back. “But you need worry no longer about getting home. We’ll give you a lift the rest of the way, eh? We have plenty of food to spare, and room for you and your crew to stretch your legs. I imagine you could use the change of scenery.”

Braax nodded gratefully. “And a change of diet.” He grimaced. “Everyone is sick of those ration packs.”

Jholli squinted at him in the dimness. “Ration...?”

“Those bane-swine who stranded us,” Braax said irritably. “They left food and supplies when they stole the warp coil.”

The Xythian looked bemused. “Odd thieves indeed, to leave payment for what they stole.”

“They cannot pay back the six months they robbed from us!” Braax declared forcefully. “We were cast adrift, cut off from our families! My first officer, Rossa—his wife has had their child by now, but she doesn’t know if her husband is alive or dead. Seeria, one of our research assistants, was on her first assignment—her parents must be consumed with worry for her. Dulow has been ill for weeks, but our medic hasn’t been able to determine the cause. The infirmary doesn’t have the facilities for proper testing—”

“Easy, friend,” Jholli said reassuringly. “I meant no offense. Of course you’ve had your share of suffering.” He pulled out a small hand communicator and spoke into it. “Chandra, this is Jholli. Have Lyro and Dr. Sola come over here.” As he tucked the device away again, he explained to Braax, “My engineer and crew physician. Perhaps they can help with your power problem and your sick crewman.”

“Thank you.” Braax took a deep breath to compose himself. “Our mission was only supposed to last for three weeks.” He rubbed his bleary eyes. Spirits, he was tired...so tired. “Three weeks, but we’ve been out here for six months now.” His voice hardened. “If I didn’t need to get my people home, I’d take a warp coil from you and go find that bastard Archer myself.”

“Archer?” Jholli said in surprise. “The human? Commander of Enterprise?”

Braax nodded. “You’ve heard of him this far out?”

“Everyone in the region has heard of him.” Two of Jholli’s crew emerged from the airlock at that moment. He signaled them to wait, then drew Braax off to one side. In an uncharacteristically low voice, he said, “If Archer is the one who marooned you, I can understand your disgruntlement with him. But a word of advice: consider keeping it to yourself, at least until you know you’re among friends.”

Braax regarded him quizzically. “Why?”

The Xythian shrugged, almost apologetically. “Because virtually every race for two thousand light-years and more regards him as something of a hero.”

Braax stared at him, dumbfounded. “What nonsense is this?”

“He hasn’t heard, then,” murmured the engineer, Lyro, to Jholli.

Braax began leading the trio of Xythians down the shadowy corridor, toward the infirmary. “If I’d heard that, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

Sola, the physician, spoke up. “But surely, in the past you’ve run across sections of space that would tear through your ship as if it were putty?”

The Illyrian shuddered at the memory. “Yes, when we first began our research mission. We were thankful to leave that area behind months ago.”

“You’re mistaken,” countered Lyro. “It wasn’t you that left the space; it was the space itself that changed.”

“There used to be machines all over,” Jholli continued. “Spheres the size of planets that were reconfiguring space, turning it into something unlivable for any of us. The cursed things had been here for a thousand years, from what we heard. A few hundred years more, and we would all have been wiped out, every last race of us. All because some space-hungry aliens from another dimension wanted to take up residence here. But Archer and the Xindi—you know of the Xindi, don’t you?”

“Archer spoke of them,” Braax said dismissively. “He kept going on about his mission to stop them...he said the Xindi had declared war on the humans.”

“True enough,” Jholli acknowledged. “But somewhere along the way, Archer struck up a truce with the Xindi—some of them, anyway, I’m still not clear on the details—and they destroyed the spheres. Space turned back to normal again, which got rid of those aliens who wanted to take over.”

They arrived at the infirmary. As Braax gestured Sola inside, he regarded Jholli with ill-concealed resentment. “Don’t tell me,” he said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Naturally, people all over are grateful.”

The Xythian captain looked neither defensive nor fawning. “Archer and those Xindi, they saved the region, maybe the whole universe, is what we hear.”

“That’s just marvelous,” Braax muttered sourly. “He was probably arriving home to a victorious welcome while we were still drifting in space, making repairs to the power junction he destroyed.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Jholli replied. “All I heard was that he lost a third of his crew. Twenty-six, I think it was.”

A sudden chill went through Braax. He stared at the Xythian captain. “Twenty-six...?”

Jholli regarded him with polite concern. “You haven’t lost any of your people, have you?”

Mutely, Braax shook his head. His own ship’s complement numbered all of nineteen.

“That’s a relief,” Jholli said with a smile. “But then again, you mentioned having those supplies, didn’t you...ration packs and whatnot.”

Twenty-six dead... What if Braax had lost a third of his own people? The idea was too ghastly even to imagine. “I’ve cursed him and his crew for months,” he murmured. “I’ve wished all sorts of terrible fates on them for what they did to us...but I never thought...”

“You didn’t know,” Jholli said gently. “You were thinking of your crew, which is as it should be.” He put a hand lightly on the Illyrian’s arm. “Archer wronged you, to be sure. But he was working to save his whole world. And mine...and yours.”

Braax looked away. Twenty-six...with spouses and parents and children, just as we have... He didn’t want to care. But he was Illyrian—he couldn’t turn a blind eye or a cold heart to the suffering of innocents.

“If you’ll point the way, Captain,” Lyro told him, “I’ll get started on your systems.”

Numbly, Braax waved a hand further down the corridor. “All the way aft, and down a level. Tell them I sent you.”

As Lyro nodded and headed away, Braax turned back toward the infirmary, where the Xythian doctor, Sola, stood in deep discussion with the ship’s medic at the bedside of the sick crewman, Dulow.

Jholli leaned against the doorway. “There’s another way to look at this,” he told Braax. “That warp coil Archer took from you...if it helped him to accomplish what he did, then that makes you and your crew heroes as well, in a sense. Doesn’t it?”

Braax’s view of the infirmary faded away, replaced by the memory of a dark, smoke-filled engine room, the hum of weapons fire, the distant roar of explosions...and the face of a man he had thought of for months as his sworn enemy. Their parting words echoed in his ears, across space and time...

Why are you doing this?

Because I have no choice.

Braax had assumed then that the look on Archer’s face was the cold, selfish disregard of a thief. Now he wondered if that expression had been something entirely different. Perhaps...regret.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Chapter Twelve: Khouri

Susan Khouri recorded the monitor readings from the gestation chamber, noting the time on her chart: 0602, Adjusted Lunar Time.

It felt wonderful to be valued again—not simply as a CNA, though her nurse’s aide skills were part of the reason she was here—but as the bioengineering expert she had trained to be. She knew all about Paxton’s reasons for creating Terra Prime...preserving the purity of the human race, preventing the encroachment of aliens, et cetera, et cetera, and so forth. Susan had a much more pragmatic reason for throwing in with the organization: job security. She was no xenophobe; she was simply sick of being passed up for jobs in favor of a Vulcan or Denobulan for no reason other than the assumption by the people doing the hiring that the Alien du Jour was better qualified. Specialized careers such as Susan’s, in bioengineering research, took years of schooling and experience to establish. To put in the effort, only to be reduced to med tech work, forced to turn her occasional CNA gig into a backup career to supplement her income. At least there were no Vulcans competing for child-care or NICU positions.

She’d kept up her tech work, gritting her teeth as she did the scut work for the offworlders who had been handed the research positions she’d wanted, in order to stay abreast of advances in the field, just in case she saw an opportunity. When Terra Prime approached her, Susan had been practical, concentrating on the support system and job contacts the Primers provided, while politely listening to—and ignoring—their proselytizing. And when Dr. Mercer came calling, offering a unique opportunity to rejoin her field of expertise, Susan had jumped at it.

One whirlwind trip to the Moon later, she was at Orpheus Mining Colony, getting acquainted with her new assignment: a slapdash human/Vulcan clone job forced into an accelerated gestation of only five months, ready to be delivered in less than a week. Obviously, the genetic engineers had done a sloppy job, judging from the baby’s depressed lymphatic system and underdeveloped lungs.

Mercer had filled Susan in on Terra Prime’s grand plan to show the world the baby as an example of the folly of allowing the human gene pool to be diluted by interbreeding with aliens. Then, after Susan had asked for the real reason the child had been created, and she had refused to budge until she got a straight answer, Mercer had locked the lab door and told her what the rank-and-file Primers didn’t know: the details of Paxton’s disease, and his hope that the baby’s hybrid blood factors would aid in the development of a more effective treatment than the Rigellian gene therapy to which his system was growing resistant.

What an irony that the very aliens the great John Frederick Paxton preached against, day in and day out, were the reason he hadn’t dropped dead by age twenty.

Susan glanced into the metal and glassteel enclosure, where the baby floated in her artificial womb of amniotic fluid. —No, not “baby.” Creature. Unholy mutant. Vessel for generating blood. Political tool. Weapon in the war to save humanity. Expendable thing. That was the way Paxton thought of her, at any rate. Susan would have to remember that.

She wondered who the parents were. The contributor of the human DNA could be a Primer, but the Vulcan DNA had to have been stolen...from a medical facility, most likely. Susan couldn’t imagine a Vulcan cooperating with such a dishonorable scheme as this one.

Through the clear fluid in the chamber, she could see the child’s features. They didn’t have the angular lines of a Vulcan; they were more human, suggesting Anglo-Saxon ancestry. Had the baby’s makers selected for those elfin ears deliberately? Susan doubted they had known what the hell they were doing. Still, despite their obvious ineptitude, the result was delicately beautiful.

As Susan watched, the “unholy mutant” brought one tiny hand to her mouth and began sucking her thumb.

Life for this fragile pixie would be a battle for survival. Days from now, when she was “born,” a world of pain awaited, in which every breath would be a struggle, exposure to any germ a life-and-death crisis. But Susan had been surprised countless times by the determination of a tiny preemie to live, despite overwhelming odds.

Paxton wouldn’t care whether the baby lived or died, once he had his precious blood samples and he’d made his showy statement about the evil of aliens soiling the purity of humanity. Even Mercer wouldn’t care; Susan had figured out after only a day that his allegiance was to Paxton more than to his own Hippocratic oath.

Susan leaned close to the glassteel, until she was inches away from the sleeping child. I care, she conveyed silently to the baby. As long as I don’t let on to anyone, we’ll be fine, you and I.

The baby stirred, her thumb slipping out of her mouth as she turned, until she was facing Susan directly. Susan could almost imagine that the child had actually heard her thoughts, and was reacting to them.

It made Susan even more determined to watch over this tiny innocent, and do her utmost to keep the child alive, healthy, and safe. To any observer, Susan would be performing a job, like any other job. Her charge was simply a beautiful, half-alien, priceless-blood-producing, future casus belli. No problem. Piece of cake.

Floating in her liquid dreamland, the sleeping child smiled.

~~tbc~~

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