Author's Notes: Pretty angsty.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek.

those who are cold and are not clothed."

-Dwight D. Eisenhower

Cold

It is three hours past alpha shift, and the fourth observation deck, located in the bowels of the ship, is entirely silent. There is not a whisper or a

tread of feet across the floor, pacing as they so usually do on nights similar; the air is still, and the silence is tangible. The quiet is cold and clean,

but heavy; and somehow cruel.

The deck's lights are off, and the only light, however small, comes from the tiny pinpricks of stars outside. The wall is entirely one great window.

In warp, the stars go by so quickly that they cannot be individually seen. They are visible only by streaks of light in the darkness of space,

thousands upon thousands flashing by. But here, in orbit, each star remains stationary, omnipresent in the dark. Here, space seems to surround

him, in a glittering expanse of stars and black velvet sky.

He wishes he had space's silence, the lack of any noise, the impossibility for there ever to be a sound. His own peace, his own quiet, is never

really complete. Always controlled, always tempered, his thoughts now are savaging themselves, twisting, snarling, throwing themselves at the

walls he has carefully constructed to keep them at bay. The words keep coming back to him. He remembers each pause, every inflection.

"The revolution is successful…"

He wishes he could scream, if only so that it would drown out the noise of a not-there voice of many years ago, that refuses to be vanished.

Another whisper crawls across the icy floor to him:

"…but survival depends on drastic measures…"

A chatter of children, and the crush of the crowd at his elbows, this he remembers. And then, how the voices faded down into only the shifting of feet, and a thousand whispers as

the multitudes of people listened, listened to the voice booming down at them from all sides.

"Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony."

He remembers the heat on his face and neck from the planet's sun, and his loose cotton clothing. But he is lost now, shaking, his heart beating

frantically against his ribs, seeing only speakers set into the high walls. He does not come in person. Only four mechanical speakers deliver the

verdict.

"Therefore, I have no alternative-"

Jim's fingers tighten, trembling, on his knees. The stars look on, bright and blank and pitiless.

"But to sentence you to death."

The words, unlike space, will not be kept silent. The words are like music so familiar to the ear that the mind can remember every nuance of voice,

every shifting beat. They crawl through his mind, linger in his ears, speak themselves so loudly, so clearly, it is almost as if they are being

spoken in the same room. Jim leans his face into his hands, slowly. He is sitting, there, at the base of the window, his knees up, hands folded

loosely over them. Barefoot. His feet are cold, but he does not notice. He is recalling a different time, a different coldness. He recalls cruelty.

And when the voice, the voice of the executioner, rings through his mind once more, he no longer bothers to block it. The stars are as eternal as

the voice inside his head, and so, he finishes the speech, the last words of the governor turned executioner; he speaks it, word for word in tune

with the memory that refuses to die.

"Your execution is so ordered, signed Kodos, governor of Tarsus IV."

For the first time in many years, he longs for the emptiness of the stars, and their indifference. And although the reinforced glass shields him from

the extreme temperatures outside, the coldness of space, long denied, once again settles into his heart.

The bitter chill emanating from the glass crawls its way through his hand, resting on the window, and curls into his chest where it makes itself a

home.

He had hoped never to feel this cold again.

The cold that allows no joy, no reconciliation, only the acidic taste of fear and emptiness.

The cold of death.

Time passes on, but he does not stir. It has ceased to have any meaning for him. The faces of the dead blossom in the darkness of the inside of

his eyelids, and he sits there unmoving, unseeing, the stars now forgotten; and he, he is frozen inside.

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