Kobayashi Maru - Michael A. Martin [17]
As she returned Denaks weapon to him, she saw him holding one of the sharpened sehlat bones over the back of the Frislen who lay atop Vekkr. The creature hadnt even noticed that anyone else was nearby, much less the danger that loomed above. Under its form, a bloodied Vekkr lay unconscious, or worse.
Denak stabbed the weapon down through both figures, piercing through their hearts almost simultaneously. The creature atop Vekkr thrashed for a moment, then twitched in its death throes; TPols ravaged comrade hadnt moved at all.
“Even had Vekkr lived, he would have been infected, Denak said simply to TPol. “He would have become one of them .
Ycha came over with torches, and the dry fabrics ignited quickly.
Weapons in hand and torches held aloft, the trio swiftly plunged into the caves and, TPol hoped, toward their freedom. Should they make it, TPol knew that Denak would probably call in a military air strike on the region, to bombard the caves with some kind of contained plasma fire. Nothing that lived down here would survive such an attack, nor would any trace of the Frislenor their crimesremain.
Sparing one final glance backward as they departed, TPol pondered exactly what the cryptic words of the Frislen woman had meant.
“They would tell how we were once you.
How different was the statement from Denak?
“He would have become one of them.
Even from her brief time in the Vulcan Security Directorate, TPol knew that the Vulcan people had buried many dark secrets in their past. As they moved through the blackness, she understood with perfect clarity that the Frislen woman had believed herself to number among those secrets.
What other secrets have we hidden? And when will another one come out of the darkness to consume us?
TPol shivered, telling herself that she might never discover the answer to that question if she didnt concentrate on getting out of this place, now .
Sunday, July 13, 2155 Enterprise NX-01
Though she knew it was illogical, TPol shivered slightly. She finally moved over to her bed and pulled the neatly folded gray blanket from the end of it, wrapping it around her shoulders. She returned to stand near the viewport, outside of which the blackness of space and the bright streaks of stars had become almost monotonous in their constancy.
Although the temperature in her quarters was certainly high enough that she neednt have bothered with the blanket, its presence around her provided an immediate and undeniable sense of comfort. The feel of the finely woven synthetic fabric between her fingers evoked a vivid tactile memory of Trip and the time they had lain together on her bunk, the sweat cooling on their naked bodies after they had made love; Trip had pulled this same blanket up, over the pair of them, though hed smilingly lamented all the while having to remove any portion of her beauty from his vision.
The Vulcan science officer and the human engineer, the High Command and Starfleet, a highly unlikely pair. “The ice princess and the good ol boy were among the nicknames she had heard whispered more than a few times, as they walked through the corridors of Enterprise , though she thought that the Starfleet and MACO personnel who had uttered them would have been both appalled and embarrassed had they known that she had heard them. And she sometimes wondered whether they might have been more appalled and embarrassed still had they known that she and Trip had actually consummated their now-undeniable mutual attraction.
The self-absorbed direction of her own ruminations surprised her, though she couldnt deny having had similar thoughts before. But today she could identify no convenient infirmity or injury upon which she might blame this private lapse, no obvious reason behind her increasing fixation on the irrecoverable past. She knew that her emotions were always close to the surface, however deeply she had meditated last evening. She could only wonder whether that night with Trip had had a far more profound impact upon her than she could have known.
Is this what humans experience when they “fall in