LADY AND THE HAWK         

PROLOGUE

Uhura sat on the stone balcony enjoying the Vulcan sunset high overhead.  Since her room was located halfway down the cliff face of the logically entitled Deepway Chasm (or Pilla un Chaini as the locals called it), she did not see much of the hot Vulcan surface as the sun went down.  For that she was grateful.  After spending the day in the blistering heat repairing the Klingon battle cruiser that they had “liberated” on the Genesis planet, she preferred the breezy twilight of her chasm home.

With a sigh, she reached for her glass of herbal tea and tried not to think what Starfleet would do to her and her crewmates when they returned to Earth.  Since Starfleet wasn’t going to come get them, they’d decided that they might as well fix up the Klingon cruiser, renamed the Bounty by Dr. McCoy and see if they could go home again.

The ship refit was coming along nicely.  She had up graded the communications equipment and was helping Scotty with the life support repairs.  She just wished that Mr. Spock’s healing process was going as well.  He had good days when he seemed his old self.  On those days, he’d come to visit the Bounty or have dinner with them.

Other days, he was confused and bewildered, not knowing anyone except his parents, Sarek and Amanda.  To Uhura, it seemed like his bad days were becoming more frequent, and she didn’t like the worried way Dr. McCoy looked at his old friend.  The Vulcan physicians were doing the best they could, but—

Unexpectedly, the door chimed softly and Uhura left the balcony for the cool interior of her room.  She was surprised to find Amanda, Spock’s mother, standing patiently as she opened the door.

“May I come in?” the older woman asked and Uhura bowed slightly, a Vulcan sign of acceptance and appreciation.

“Please have a seat,” Uhura said, indicating one of the large woven shells that were far more comfortable than they looked.  “Tea?”

It was Amanda’s turn to bow slightly.  Uhura studied the small earthwoman as she poured the tea.  The attractive woman wore a beautiful blue tunic and a matching shawl that covered her head and shoulders.  Amanda looked surprisingly youthful, appearing decades younger than her chronological age.  Apparently, the Vulcan lifestyle was beneficial to her.  Only the occasional cautious step and the slowness of her movements hinted at her true age.

“What can I do for you?” asked the communications officer, carefully handing the woman the glass of tea.

Amanda took a sip before setting the glass down and looked at Uhura with her startling blue eyes.  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I was never very good at subterfuge, even before I came to Vulcan.”

“Subterfuge?” asked Uhura as she sat opposite the woman.

“Yes, I need your help, more help than you and the rest of Spock’s friends provided when you returned him here for his katra.”

Uhura sat up straight.  Something had happened to Spock.

“Spock,” continued Amanda, “has been … unable to fully integrate his katra.  With each passing day, the pieces he has integrated lose cohesion.”

“What can I do to help?” Uhura asked.  “You know we’d do anything for Mr. Spock.”

Amanda stood and smiled.  “Such loyalty toward my son please me.  You must let Spock go into danger without you, and you must help me distract your friends while it occurs.  This is no small gift I ask of you.”

“What!” Uhura exclaimed, jumping up.  Perhaps grief had unbalanced the old woman’s mind.  “I can’t--“

“You can and you must,” said Amanda, “or my son will die.  Jim Kirk and Leonard McCoy cannot go where Spock must.  They are men of action, unwilling to let even Starfleet stand in their way.  But this is something ships and phasers cannot correct.  This requires someone who will put Spock’s spirit before his safety.”

“Why come to me?” Uhura asked.  She didn’t like hearing that she was a pushover.

“The music,” Amanda said simply.  “Spock told me many times that making music while you sang was one of the few times he felt human.  If you do not help me, he’ll never experience that again.”

Uhura felt her eyes water.  Spock had never shared his feelings with her in all the years they had been friends.  She’d give him a stern talk when—

“What do we have to do?” she asked.

Amanda hugged her.  “Well, I think a downed shuttle with Spock supposedly onboard on his way to a distant rehab center would get his friends busy a safe distance away.  Especially if there was a faint communications signal that mysteriously fades in and out and changes location.  Kirk, McCoy, and the others will insist on being part of the rescue team.”

Uhura sighed.  “And I will, of course, be the one detecting this mysterious signal.  How long will you need?”

“Until I give you the real signal that all is well or until you hear otherwise.”

“You will send the signal?  You’re going to this dangerous place?”

“Of course,” said Amanda.  “When the danger is a woman, only another woman can hope to succeed.  Besides, I have a history with the woman who holds Spock’s well being in her hands.

THE STORY

The runner was swift and silent as he crossed the burning sand, his muted clothing blending perfectly with the red dunes.  High overhead the morning sun was already too hot for unprotected flesh, and the dangerous gusts of wind caused the desert hawks to fight their way across the orange sky.

The young man ignored the sweltering heat that sucked the moisture from his body and pressed against his labored lungs.  He stopped to search for landmarks before he disappeared behind a sandy slope.  The guards surrounding the hidden entrance let him pass; they recognized their leader's personal scout.

Storn stopped briefly inside the entrance to remove his hood and continue down the sand tunnel to the honeycombed bedrock below.  He stopped outside her chamber and rapped once on the precious wooden door.

"Come," came the response and he entered the Shreeka's small room without ceremony.  Shreekans, members of the Shreeka's community, were equal in all ways and did not bow to any one, even the woman who had founded the organization of desert exiles, a small group of hardy Vulcans ostracized from society, content to be guides and guards for hire.

"What is it?" the slender woman asked from behind her stone desk.  She looked up at him with eyes as dark as the shadows behind her, but her face was strong and hadn't changed in the twenty years Storn had known her although others said that she had become an entirely different person since she had given up the name of "T'Pring."

"The visitors have requested an audience," he reported, referring to the Vulcan group camping a short distance away.  "They fly the ancient flag of truce although we have not known war for centuries."

She stared at him for a moment.  "There are different kinds of war, my son." She referred to the early days when she had collected her secluded exiles, built her society of outcasts, and waited for the Council to declare her encampment "unhealthy."  But she and her fellows had been ignored by the First Families of Vulcan for decades.

She wondered if they had finally considered them too dangerous to exist?  She had sworn never to return to the cities when she'd began her journey into the desert, so at last they had come to her.  Why?  "Are any of the Council represented?"

"Not directly," he said, "but there is an older Human female with them from the house of Sarek.  They had to make the last part of their journey on foot due to the erratic air currents over the deadly desert."

"Are you sure about the female?" The Shreeka rose to her feet.

"Yes, she wears the robes of a Vulcan lady and she is treated with great respect."

The Shreeka inhaled sharply.  "Lady Amanda!  If she dies from the journey, I shall be responsible.  Tell her men that I will see her immediately.  She is a very old woman in Vulcan years and her need must be great for her to travel this far.  I am surprised that Sarek permitted it.  Send for her now.”

"Yes, Shreeka," he said and started to leave the room.

"Wait," she said.  "Tell my husband I wish him and the children to be in attendance.  And, Storn--" she paused briefly, "I want you to stand with me and my family when the Lady Amanda arrives."

Storn smiled.  "Thank you, m'lady."

Soon a handful of Shreekan guides escorted Lady Amanda into the main chamber.  She walked alone, graceful and splendid in her soft blue robes.  Her extreme weariness was barely perceptible as she stopped before the Shreeka's chair.  Behind her came a healer and her men, carrying no weapons but eyeing the Shreekans with suspicion.
Formal introductions were made and the Shreeka introduced her family and Storn.  Amanda smiled at the small children wistfully, but if she held any ill will toward Spock's former bride, she did not display it.  She settled down on the soft cushions and accepted the refreshments offered to her.  She was obviously relieved by the coolness of the underground caves, and she sat up straight and gazed directly at the Shreekan leader.

“T'Pring," she began, but the Vulcan woman stopped her with a sharply upraised palm.

"T'Pring is no more, Lady Amanda.  To my people I am the Shreeka, the desert hawk."

The older woman looked at her with wise eyes.  "Yes, I have heard the tales of the wild woman of the desert and her wonderful desert guides.  I had also heard that she had once been T'Pring, and I could only hope you still lived when I made this journey."

"Such a journey could be death to one of your age," Serot, the famous Vulcan poet and husband of the Shreeka, said gravely.

"A life for a life," Amanda said cryptically.  "I could do no less.”

"Why have you come, Amanda?" The Shreeka asked.

"It is my son, Spock.  He has undergone the fal tor pan, but he is very ill.  I come to ask you to save his life."

The Shreeka remained silent as she considered the woman's request.  Few knew the details of her betrothal to Spock, and even Serot did not know how deeply she had been hurt by Stonn's subsequent rejection.  To return to that life would be to admit personal defeat and her life of struggle would have been for nothing.  It could be a trap designed by T'Lar and the others of the Council, and attempt to convince her of the illogic of her ways.  She had no right to endanger the Shreekans for the life of one man.

The Shreeka stood up slowly.  "No," she said flatly, "I cannot do it."

Amanda stood also and gazed worriedly at the younger woman.  “You are his only hope.  Since he was very young, he has tried hard to be a Vulcan, ignoring his feelings, and rejecting affection.  As he grew and passed his rite of passage, he felt he had finally succeeded in becoming a complete Vulcan, but nothing had really changed.  He secretly sought the approval his father was unable to give.  Inside he was still a frightened little boy, afraid that he was living a lie."

She glanced at the three small Vulcan children sitting quietly beside their father and then returned her attention to T'Pring's expressionless face.  "Then came his childhood marriage to you, and for the first time in his life, he wasn't alone.  You accepted him, and when he bonded with you, he realized that what others expected of him was no longer important.  Now, all that is gone.  He has no memory of his first seven years of life.  His father and I have given him external memories of that time, but, without your shared knowledge of his childhood, all his later memories have no foundation upon which to exist.  His mind will crumble and he will die.  He is dying now.  Help him, please," she begged, but the Shreeka had already turned and headed for the door.  Amanda started to follow but Serot stopped her.

"Please," he told her, "I will talk to her.  This is true, Spock will die?"

She nodded slowly, defeat plain on her noble features.

“How did this happen?" he asked, guiding her to the Shreeka's chair.

Amanda told him of Spock’s death and regeneration on the Genesis planet, of the Enterprise crew's bravery in returning the body and the katra to Mt. Selaya, and Spock's subsequent inability to arrange his mental processes.

"I understand." Serot thought of his own children, realizing that Humans and Vulcans weren't so different from one another.

Lady Amanda looked at him deliberately.  "I will not return without her.  Most of Spock's memory has returned due to mindmelds with his friends, but an essential gap exists that only T'Pring, I mean the Shreeka, can fill.  Without that essential building block, his mind falters and twists upon itself.  His body may survive but his mind..."

"I will do what I can," he said gravely, "however, she has made a vow never to return to the cities that made exiles of us here." With that he gestured to the guards to escort Amanda from the chamber, sure of one thing--the gentle Amanda was as determined as the Shreeka.

“No!" the Shreeka told him sternly in the solitude of their quarters.  "You do not know what I had to do to survive here.  I had to destroy that part of my life.  Spock was a part of me once, but he is just a distant memory now.  Our youthful mindmeld cannot save him."

Serot propped himself up on his elbow and addressed her from the warmth of their bed.  "I don't believe you," he said bluntly.  "You may wish that the memory was gone, but I know it is not.  Your mind is my mind; I have seen Spock in your memories.  Only you can return what is his to him."

"I won't do it.  What if T'Lar chooses to declare the Shreekans renegades while I am away?  Can the Shreekans survive my being rehabilitated?"

"Can you survive being responsible for the death of not only Spock, but also of his brave mother, a woman who has shown you nothing but kindness in a world where the word was never allowed to be spoken?  Would you do less for one of your own children?"

The Shreeka's face grew cold.  "But breaking my vow--"

"Will hurt no one but yourself," he finished for her.  "If you don't go, three people will be hurt--Spock, Amanda, and you.  The Shreekans will survive because they have to."

The Shreeka smiled at her husband.  "I should know better than to argue with a poet, it's futile."

"Now that's the most sensible thing you've said all day.", He pulled back the covers.  "Come here and explain these tenets of logic to me in greater detail.”

The Shreeka smiled again and complied with her husband's request.

Lady Amanda woke after a restless night to find the Shreeka waiting patiently outside her tent.  "Shreeka!" she said enthusiastically and hugged the thin woman in spite of herself.  Vulcans did not like to be touched, especially by Humans, and Amanda was surprised when the Shreeka returned the hug.

"I hope we are in time," she told Amanda as the escorts began folding up the camp.

"I'm sure we shall be," Amanda said.  "My son has many strengths.  Tenacity seems to be one of them."

"Yes," agreed the Shreeka, "I remember.  There was only one thing he gave up too easily."

Amanda looked at her knowingly.  "I know and I agree.  But we cannot dwell on our mistakes, our successes are what we must pursue.”

"Agreed," said the Vulcan woman, looking out over her sandy kingdom.  "To our successes.”

EPILOGUE

Many miles away and several days later, the relieved crew of the former starship Enterprise sat around the large dinner table at Amanda and Sarek’s home.  Spock, looking surprisingly refreshed after his ordeal in the desert, poured tea for his captain and friend.

Kirk raised his glass.  “Good to see you on the mend, Mr. Spock.”

“Yes,” added Mr. Chekov.  “Lucky for you those desert guides found that cave where you and your mother had taken shelter.”

McCoy looked puzzled.  “I still can’t believe those caves had minerals that blocked our sensors.  I’m surprised Commander Uhura could pick up anything at all.”

Sulu slapped a nonplussed Uhura on the back.  “That’s why she’s the best communications officer in Starfleet,” he said.

Uhura decided to let well enough along and not think about how many miles the best communications officer in Starfleet had made these men travel in the last several days.  Maybe she’d tell them the truth someday—after they all retired.  She stole a guilty glimpse at Amanda, sitting tranquilly beside her husband.

Amanda beamed at her rejuvenated son.  “Spock, perhaps if you feel up to it, you and Uhura could provide us with some music after dinner.”

“Commander?” Spock asked with his signature eyebrow raised.

Uhura smiled at Spock and his mother.  “I’d love to,” she said.  “A small gift given.”

Amanda smiled brightly.  “And eternally appreciated.”

The End                 October 1987                             Published in A Woman’s Place (without Prologue and Epilogue)