DISCLAIMER: What? You mean I don't own all of Star Trek, including Spock, tribbles, and all merchandising stock options? Well… damn.

CATEGORIES: Action/Adventure/Angst/Romance, Spock/OFC

SUMMARY: A young woman accuses Spock of killing her sister and captures him to seek revenge. However, they accidentally time travel back to the year 2004 and now have to work together to stay alive.

STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET

By: Hallospacegirl

CHAPTER ONE

The fist flew at Commander Spock in a blur of speed, smashing into his left cheekbone and sending electrifying fireworks bursting into his vision. The pain of the punch had barely registered when he was grabbed on the shoulder by a fierce hand that yanked him out of his bed and onto his feet. He tumbled forward in the darkness, his legs tripping over the pillow that had fallen to the floor; the hand set him straight with a brusque jerk. Now the agony exploded over his face in earnest and he hissed sharply through clenched teeth, only to taste hot coppery blood pulsing into his mouth and down his throat. A molar had been knocked loose, he realized. He found the lost molar with his tongue and spat it out, hearing it land muffledly on the carpet of his quarters.

                "Good evening, Mr. Spock; I hope I didn't wake you?" a contralto voice strained into his ear from behind him. A arm tightened around his neck and the hand that had grasped his shoulder now moved to capture his torso. His back pressed against a compact, human figure, distinctly shorter than him and undeniably female.

                He twisted his body in the woman's ruthless grip so that he could reach the base of her neck, but his fingers were batted aside, and suddenly the business end of a phaser was jammed at his temple, and the arm around his neck tightened enough to choke him. "Try the nerve pinch one more time and I'll shoot your brains from here to the other side of the ship," the woman gritted, "so don't move."

                Spock assessed the situation quickly in his mind. The woman was holding him immobile, crushing his windpipe, and in possession of at least one weapon, while his only protection was the boots, trousers, and black sleeveless undershirt he was wearing. He considered calling for help, but most would be asleep at this hour, and response would be slow. Too slow compared to a phaser firing at point blank. He decided it was rational to do as she commanded. He didn't move.

                After a few seconds the woman loosened her hold at his throat by a fraction, and Spock caught his breath. "Who are you, how did you get aboard the Enterprise, and why do you want to kill me?"

                "Who said I wanted to kill you?"

                "It is the most logical assumption, since you are holding a phaser to my head --"

                She choked him again, squeezing off his words. "Logical and emotionless to the last, Mr. Spock. Aren't you even afraid that you're going to die?"

                "Being afraid will not assist me from this situation," Spock replied raspily when she permitted him to breathe.

                The woman let out a short laugh devoid of amusement. "Okay, you have a point. But your logic was wrong about my wanting to kill you, because I don't. At least if you hold still and don't try any damn Vulcan tricks. Right now I only want you to come with me."

                "Where to?"

                "My ship. I've set the computer to automatically beam us up about now. Then we'll fly to my home planet, where you'll have some explaining to do to my mother."

                "I do not understand. I do not know you, nor your mother."

                "You will," the woman said shortly.

                A moment later, an orange glow filled the room as a transporter beam enveloped them in its light. "Say goodbye to the Enterprise, Mr. Spock," the woman whispered. And then they were gone.

-------------

                The dim interior of the woman's ship, Spock saw, was small and haphazardly crammed, as though someone had taken parts from a junkyard and pieced together a ship from scratch. The transporter in which he stood was of Romulan design and was crammed into a niche in the wall, while the majority of the computers were standard, though outdated, Klingon issue. It was only from the peeling letters on a low iron bar that he identified the ship to be a personal Earth fighter fifty or sixty years old.

                "She's not the prettiest ship," the woman said grimly from behind him. She still held the phaser firmly to his temple. "But I can assure you, Mr. Spock, that the Esmeralda is one of the fastest and can outrun the Enterprise many times over."

                Spock's lip lifted marginally at the irony of the name. "May I suggest re-naming this -- eclectic -- ship the Quasimodo, as the word means 'half-formed' in --"
                "Oh, shut up!" she snapped, digging the phaser barrel into his skull. "Quasimodo was a greedy, ungrateful fool and hypocrite, and if you read the damn book you'll see that!"

                Spock raised a thin eyebrow. "A fascinating observation."

                "Males," she responded, "no matter of what species or home planet, and no matter how handsome or grotesque, are all the same. Even Vulcans. That's why I'm taking no chances with you."

                The phaser slid from his temple to the back of his head and her arm left his neck. "Now hands up and walk forward slowly until you reach the seat in front of you," she ordered. "If you try to fight, you will die, Mr. Spock."

                He raised his hands and obeyed her, stepping out of the tiny niche that housed the transporter and walking through the narrow, jumbled passageway until he reached the passenger seat in what seemed to be the cockpit of the Esmeralda. She jammed him into it; he heard her kneel and fumble through some objects on the ground, and then his hands were grabbed and wrenched behind the back of the seat. A length of rough, thick rope cut into his bare skin as she began tying his wrists and forearms together.

                "Vulcans are famous for their ability to escape," the woman said, knotting the rope with painful jerks, "but I think this should hold you for the time of our journey. And if it doesn't, the phaser should."

                Spock resisted the urge to move his uncomfortably bound hands; she would interpret the action as hostile. "I do not wish to escape. I only wish to know why I am here and what it is you want."

                "I'm going to tell you," she said, giving the knot one last pull. She leapt lightly to her feet and stepped in front of him.

                She was indeed small, grazing only five feet tall, and looked young enough to be twenty to twenty-five standard years old. Her face was of a mixture of at least two different Earth races. Her eyes were light hazel, her skin warmly tan, and her lips full. Her dark brown, wavy hair was tied crudely back in a convenient rather than aesthetic fashion.

                Most Earth men would find this woman intriguing and appealing to look at, Spock observed distantly. But the phaser, the belt of assorted weaponry hanging from her narrow waist, and the promise of additional weaponry hidden inside the numerous pockets of her hunter green trousers immediately wiped his mind clean of the weak, human thought.

                He noticed that her features were registering surprise.

                "So it's true that Vulcans have green blood," she was saying, looking at his mouth.

                "You knocked out a tooth," Spock reminded her.

                The young woman's gaze hardened and darted up to meet his. "Did I? Good," she bit out. She turned to sit in the captain's seat beside him and pressed a few buttons on the control panel; he saw the crimson blood streaking the knuckles of her slightly shivering right hand.

                "You are hurt," he said simply.

                She suddenly froze and glared at him with a shocked and furious expression as if he had just found her with her clothes off. "No, Mr. Spock, I'm not!" And she balled her bloodied hand up into a fist and punched him in the abdomen. "You are! Don't forget who's in charge here!"

                The punch was not as hard as the one she had given his left cheek, but it knocked the breath from his lungs. He inhaled slowly though his nose before he was able to speak again. "I was making an observation."

                "Next time, keep your observations to yourself," she snarled, slamming her phaser into its holster at her hip. "No one wants to hear your infinite Vulcan wisdom and logic."

                "Was that a compliment?"

                She looked as though she was about to punch him again, but her hand was shivering even worse and her eyes were wet, and Spock realized that she showing pain. This time, he knew it logical to refrain from speaking further on the issue, and "keep his observations to himself," as she had said, to save both himself and his highly illogical abductor from further injury.

                The woman spun back to the control panel and wiped her knuckles on the the front of her scant white shirt. "Computer, set course for Wuthrin."

                The Esmeralda shook, clattering loudly, and the image of the stars on the viewscreen blurred with motion as the ship picked up speed.

                "We'll be at Wuthrin in half an hour at warp four," the woman said.

                "From the rattle of the engine, I do not believe this ship can survive past warp one."

                The woman let out an exasperated, disbelieving sigh and glanced sidelong at him as she eased the accelerator forward. "Do you like getting hurt, Mr. Spock? You're under my command, and you're not going anywhere, regardless of whether we go at warp one or ten!"

                "No, I do not like your punching me," Spock answered, "and I know I am not going anywhere, but my comment was logical in the situation. Do you like the very real possibility of this ship falling into ten thousand pieces at warp two?"

                "I don't appreciate your insults. I'm sure your parents never told you, if you can't say anything nice, then --"

                "-- don't say anything at all," he finished. "It is a quote from an old Earth animated motion picture called Bambi. I most highly suggest we fly below warp one."

                She gaped at him, silent and wide-eyed. "Yeah," she said at last, softly. And her hand steadily pulled the accelerator in the reverse direction. "We'll go at warp point eight."

                "A logical decision," he agreed.

                "Praising me will not change the fact that I hate you, Mr. Spock."

                An eyebrow shot up at the unexpected remark. "Why do say so? Hate is an emotion and therefore not a fact. Also, it's illogical for you to hate me, because we are hardly more than strangers, and I have done nothing to warrant your hatred."

                The woman did not reply as she locked the accelerator in place with a press of a button; once the ship steadied and ceased its noises she swiveled the seat to face him and crossed her arms over her chest. "I'll tell you why I hate you and why you're here. You killed my sister."

                He frowned. "I do not remember doing such a thing."

                "I didn't expect you to," she said bitterly, shaking her head and giving a grieved grimace. "Two years ago she was only a cadet under your command. Her name was Lavinia. She was so beautiful, like a goddess, and she was so kind to everyone, and everyone loved her. But you didn't understand any of that, of course. You're a Vulcan."

                "I remember Lavinia. She was the most resourceful of the cadets. She died on the planet Artico."

                "Because of you!" the woman shouted. Her eyes glistened with tears, but this time it was more from emotional pain than physical. "She died because of you! I know what happened! You and five cadets were in a cave collecting plant specimens frozen in the snow when a bizzard struck and the temperature shot all the way down below zero. Lavinia got stuck in the cave and all that snow on top of her was interfering with the transporters so Enterprise couldn't beam her up. The rest of the cadets wanted to dig her back out but the temperature was dropping too fast. You told them it was not logical to go save her. Yes, that's what you said, Mr. Spock! And she heard you and she agreed with you, because that's just the way Lavinia was! And all of you beamed out of there without even trying to do otherwise, and she stayed on Artico and died -- because of you."

                "Lavinia was right; it was not logical to save her, because the temperature was dropping at eight point two degrees a minute, and the fastest all of us could remove her from the cave was in seven and a half minutes, by which time it would have been too cold for the remaining human cadets to live. Lavinia made the best decision under the circumstances."

                The woman's tears had fallen from her eyes and were streaking down her face. She hastily swiped them away. "Damn it, Spock! Damn your logic! I loved Lavinia more than anyone in the world and she's dead now! Don't you know what love is?"

                "Love is an emotion, and we Vulcans do not perceive emotions as --"

                "-- logical," she spat, treating the word like a profanity. "Yes, I know that. I don't care what you feel or don't feel. I want my revenge. My mother wants her revenge. Once we arrive at Wuthrin my mother wants to spit on you in the manner of the ultimate insult and torture you so you die the most painful death."

                "Do you think killing me in your act of revenge will bring your sister back from the dead?"

                She shrugged angrily. "No. But she's dead and it hurts me! Call emotion a curse."

                "Emotion is not a curse. It is simply --"

                "I get it!" she interrupted venomously. "I get it! Can you stop saying the word 'logical' for one damn minute?"

                The request sounded reasonable to him. With a nod, Spock affirmed, "I believe I can."

                The woman gave him a glare that reminded him of searing lasers, and scowling, turned to the control panel and punched several buttons. "I've just sent a message to my mother. She'll be expecting us within a Wuthrin day."

                "I look forward to negotiating peacefully with your mother over the issue of my impending death. Perhaps she'll see the uselessness of killing me and instead settle for a talk with the Enterprise, or with the Federation courts."

                The woman scoffed. "No chance. My mother's had it with talking and negotiating. Decades of marriage to a complete and total fucker can do that to someone, you know."

                "By 'fucker' I assume you mean Lavinia's and your father," Spock deduced, recognizing the archaic English word for reproduction.

                "Yes," the woman said tightly. "I hate all men, regardless of whether they're related to me or not."

                "I do not understand what sexual intercourse, a biological act, and hatred, an emotion, have in common."

                "You -- you can't be serious!"

                "I am."

                "Oh, God." She held up her hands and buried her face in them. "A couple more hours stuck here with you. If I don't kill you right now, I think I'm going to go crazy."

                He was going to ask her how insanity related to his murder, but the human half of him held his tongue against it, and for once he listened to instinct. He asked instead, "What is your name? You have not yet told me."

                The woman rubbed her reddish eyes and slid her palms from her face. "Ophelia. I assist my mother, who is a -- bounty hunter or assassin, you could say. So was my asshole of a father, but he betrayed us and got himself killed at the hands of the United Federation while we were fleeing Earth. Apparently someone had tipped off the officials about us, so we had to escape to Wuthrin."

                "And Lavinia? Was she a bounty hunter?"

                Ophelia lowered her head. "No," she said in a subdued and weary voice. "She was kind. She wanted to believe... in the goodness of people, whatever that means. She wanted to travel peacefully in space with the Enterprise on scientific missions in hopes of improving the galaxy. But..." Her head snapped up with renewed animosity. "A mistake. If I had known about her death, and if I had known about you, we would have never let her go. I would have killed you right then."

                "Not a logical act," Spock objected.

                "I thought you weren't going to say that word!"

                He tilted his head an inch to the side and smiled, as much as his Vulcan half would allow. "One minute and thirty two seconds has passed since you have made your request, Ophelia. I had been able to say the word 'logical' for the past thirty two seconds."

                Ophelia's face flushed scarlet and her mouth opened in indignation, and at that moment she seemed to him very young and petulant, like a child. "How dare you, you green blooded Vulcan! How dare you! Don't forget I could kill you! I really could!"

                And as if in response, the Esmeralda gave a jolting lurch as a loud explosion sounded and smoke hissed in from the back corner of the cockpit. An alarm began to wail; red spinning lights twirled frantically above and a recorded metallic monotone repeated a syllable in a foreign language.

                "We've been shot at! Computer, show damage on viewscreen!" Ophelia shouted, already activating shields the instant an image of the burning section of the ship flickered across the screen. "Computer, twenty percent power to repair stern, twenty to return fire, auto-aim, and sixty to bring into warp three! There's a Klingon warship behind us!"

                Spock could not deny that he found her instantaneous reaction to danger most impressive, but he calculated that the damage on the screen had but a ten percent chance of surviving warp three. "Computer, negative," he said in Vulcan. "Cancel warp, lock in command, respond only to my voice."

                "What the hell do you think you're doing? What did you say?" Ophelia shrieked as another shot jostled the ship. She coughed and batted smoke away from her eyes. "Computer, warp three!"

                A string of foreign words blipped back from the tinny speakers.

                "You can't warp? Why not! Computer, warp three, for God's sakes!"

                The response was repeated; Ophelia spun to Spock in fury. "How did you do that? We're going to die if we don't go into warp!"

                "I can't explain now. Untie me and let me manually steer."

                "The hell I will! Get my ship back to normal!"

                This time, Spock did not hold his feeling of impatience in check. With a twist, he freed himself from the knot that held his hands behind his back and rushed to the controls. He grabbed the steering stick and pulled it to the left, just as a fiery missile grazed the starboard. "Computer, put enemy on viewscreen." He saw a winged, birdlike Klingon fighter through the static, and it was rapidly gaining.

                Ophelia ran up beside him, shoving him roughly to the cluttered ground. "That was an inescapable Mobius knot! How did you do it?" she panted, taking control of the steer.

                "You must have forgotten that Vulcans invented what humans call the Mobius knot, Ophelia." He jumped to his feet, only to be thrown down again as a missile hit home.

                "The why didn't you get out in the first place?"

                "I would have angered you and risked your hurting yourself and me even more."

                "Damn you to hell, Spock -- oh, God, it's less than a mile away! We have to warp! We can't dodge it!"

                "We have a ten percent chance --"

                "I don't want to hear your logic! I've done this before!" She reached into a hatch above her and yanked on a handful of wires. The wires snapped, showering sparks into the cockpit, and Ophelia immediately slammed the accelerator forward with both hands. Then she forced down the lock with her elbow and fell back into her seat as the Esmeralda surged ahead at rapidly gathering warp speed. "I disconnected the computer lock system. My trusty Esmeralda will handle it from here," she called over the desperate squealing of the engine. The pride was unmistakable in her satisfied tone.

                "What did you warp to?" Spock demanded, clambering into the shaking passenger seat.

                "Warp ten. We'll take a loop around the Earth's Sun and lose them that way."

                "This ship has a two percent chance of surviving warp ten, Ophelia! Not to mention your path is the trajectory for time travel --"

                "We're at warp seven and still alive!" She grinned at him. "I'll take my chances with this ship!"

                "Stop this recklessness! You do not understand!"

                "Are you afraid, Mr. Spock?"

                "Your action will incinerate both of us!"

                "Warp eight point three..."

                The sun, previously a dot on the viewscreen, now grew into a fiery yellow fireball. Ophelia leaned forward and took the steering stick in an iron grip. "Warp nine point two. We're almost there..." She gradually eased the ship to starboard, following the curve of the Sun. "Nine point eight!"

                Spock decided the most logical thing to do right now was to sit and not interfere with the woman; he wondered whether she had been telling the truth when she had said she would go crazy if she didn't kill him.

                "Warp ten!"

                The sun filled every fiber of his being like a blinding colossus of flame, and he realized his death was now inevitable.

-------------

                Spock awoke to the sound of quiet machinery humming. He blinked open his eyes; he was staring up at the low, rusty ceiling of a spaceship. This was the Esmeralda, he remembered. He was still alive and uninjured except for the dull ache at his left cheek, the ship was still intact, more or less, and if he was not mistaken, he and his abductor had just successfully accomplished time travel in this rattling bucket of discarded junkyard parts. Interesting. No -- this feat deserved to be called truly fascinating.

                "Computer, give full status report," he said. "Report in English."

                The voice warbled as it rattled on in a Klingon accent, "Bow, seventy-two percent damage. Stern, ninety-eight percent damage, starboard side..."

                The numbers were enough for Spock to command, "Computer, shut off all engines and run on lowest power mode," before the report had finished.

                "Affirmative," the computer beeped and all the screens fizzled to black.

                The silence that followed, devoid of any ominous rattling, was encouraging.

                Fascinating indeed.

                Spock peered at the woman slumped into the seat beside him. Ophelia was limply lying with her head tilted back, her body covered in dust and smoke, and her face smeared with blood that pulsed steadily from a gash above her eye. He eased himself to a standing position, walked to her, and leaned over her unmoving figure.

                She was still breathing, but shallowly.

                "Ophelia."

                She didn't answer.

                He moved to give her body a gentle shake, only to change his mind when he thought of the possibility of damaging a possibly broken spine.

                "Ophelia," he tried once more in vain. He placed a light pressure on her wound with his fingertips to stop the bleeding; suddenly, he knew what he had to do in order to communicate with her. Heaving a deep sigh of concentration, he put his other hand on her head and shut his eyes.

                The mind meld with Ophelia was surprisingly simple to open; most beings with whom he had melded had erected mental walls he had struggled to climb past. Humans were usually the worst; even when they willingly agreed with their words to meld minds, their subconscious barriers, their attempts to hide lies and secrets, and their mountains of denial were often impossible to surpass. And on the occasion that he did, their facades and false projections of what they wished he see would completely block out their true minds.

                Ophelia was different; he saw only a clear channel that he easily slid into, and now he was standing inside her mind, unobstructed.

                But where was she? Where was Ophelia?

                The space was dark and endless. He realized this black eternity was the place where her numerous walls had once stood. He probed forward, searching. It was quiet and unfeeling and neither hot nor cold in the perfect nothingness.

                Then he became aware of her katra, a tiny, flesh colored speck in the distance. He projected himself to her in an instant and saw that she was completely nude and curled in a fetal position. She was crying softly. And she did not know that he was here.

                Ophelia.

                She murmured something he didn't hear.

                I am Spock, Ophelia.

                A spark of recognition emanated from her being, a flash of golden light. Spock?

                I need to see if your body is injured. He coursed his awareness through her, through every limb and joint. Nothing was broken or cried out in pain, save for the bruised knuckles of her right hand, her bleeding forehead, and a few superficial scratches of the skin. Ophelia, you are unhurt. Wake up, he urged.

                To his puzzlement, she didn't. She only drew herself tighter in and continued weeping.

                Spock strengthened the mind meld, searching deeper than he had ever gone.

                Ophelia, wake up, he called as he dived. Wake up, wake up, wake --

                A burst of pure agony rippled through him. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He screamed silently, images exploding like bombs through every fiber of him: a beautiful girl with long black hair and a gruff, angry face of a heavy-set man and a frown of a stern old woman and the yawning isolation of space.

                The smiling girl was Lavinia; he suddenly felt an overwhelming wrenching in his heart that he knew could only be called love. And the wrenching grew worse and more painful and he felt it twisting into grief as he saw her face turn blue and frozen and dead amidst the planet of ice.

                The man -- father. Hatred boiled up like bile. And suddenly the echoes of physical pain and of violation and of alcohol breaths and shocking words thundered through him and he couldn't take it anymore and ran on.

                The woman stopped his path, thick arms crossing in front of her massive chest. Mother... oh, Mother, what can I do to make you love me? Orders rolled forth from her tongue, along with words of disappointment and hope, and suddenly he was stuffed inside a tiny ship with a slip of paper in his hand. The only word in his brain was to kill; he determinedly revved up the ship and flew into the depths of space.

                And space was so cold! He shivered and wrapped his arms about himself, but there was no blanket to keep him warm. All around him was the darkness. The universe was so infinite and he was all alone with his thoughts -- what if he were the only sentient being in the entire universe? Fear and panic welled up inside of him, but there was nowhere to go, no grassy mountaintop to which he could run, nor busy city in which he could see and touch his fellow man and feel secure that he was not alone.

                And then.... he saw himself. Spock. He saw himself in her mind. And he saw Ophelia's body uncurl from her ball and slowly stretch out and cease crying.

                A thousand emotions flickered on and off like fireflies. Curiosity, uncertainty, fear, hatred, attachment, fury, amusement, companionship. He saw his ears -- strange, pointed things they were -- and he smiled at his words of Vulcan naiveté, and he burned with anger as he knew that this was the bastard who had killed Lavinia! He deserved to die!

                Reluctance. If he died, there would be no more companionship, no more conversations in space, and once more there would be the blackness of solitary existence --

                Spock! Ophelia shouted.

                He gasped. She was there. She sensed him reading her thoughts. And she was angry.

                Spock, what are you doing! Get out of my mind! She jumped at him, her body morphing into the body of a red wolf, sprinting after him and clawing at him with razor nails. Suddenly, walls began shooting up from the ground and pushing him out, tossing his mind like a rag doll out of its depths.

                Out! Out! Out! You can't be here! Get out!

                Ophelia, wait!

                But a thousand sets of iron doors had already closed and the mind meld snapped like a dry twig.

                Spock's fingers flew from her forehead at though he had been electrocuted. He stared into a pair of accusing hazel eyes, and staggered backwards, steadying himself at the edge of the control panel. His entire body was damp and wracked with shivers and his face felt wet from not only perspiration, but tears.

                "What did you do?" came Ophelia's voice. "What kind of drugs did you inject into me?"

                He licked his dry lips and answered, slowly, "I performed a Vulcan mind meld to see... to see if you were injured from... the ship. You are not."

                "A mind meld? It did not feel that way to me!"

                "I'm -- sorry," he said.

                "You're sorry? Don't lie, Spock. Regret is an emotion, and Vulcans like you don't feel any emotion."

                "Vulcans are incapable of lying," he admitted raggedly.

                "Then what did you see! Tell me what you saw!"

                He swallowed; there was a lump in his throat. "I saw your sister," he said. "I felt your pain, and it became my pain. I saw your father. He violated you in the worst way a man could violate a woman. I felt the hatred run through me like a knife. I saw your mother. She demands so much of you; she is the only person left whom you believe could love you. And... I saw myself. You are curious about me and are attracted to me. You don't want to kill me."

                "Oh God, just stop!" Ophelia turned her head away. "You're not supposed to know all this! No one is supposed to know all this! I'm supposed to kill you -- no, I want to kill you. You're just a stranger to me, Spock. I don't care about you."

                "We are strangers no more, I suppose," Spock replied. "I know all of your memories, up until this moment."

                She fixed him with a furious, wet glare. "Thank you for the information."

                "You're... welcome." he said, hesitantly, no longer sure if he understood her outside of the mind meld. "Or did you employ a use of sarcasm?"

                Ophelia only stared at him, scowling a little. Her eyes were bloodshot from the tears, and she seemed to be grudgingly searching his face for an answer to a question. Her gaze ran over him, and he remembered through the mind meld that she found him physically and sexually attractive -- his eyes and mouth and the way his shirt clung to his perspiring body -- though she tried her best to deny it.

                "I see that you..." Spock began, then stopped. This was not something he should say.

                Her eyes darkened ominously as they focused directly on him. "Yes? I what?"

                "I... do not think I should tell you. You said for me to keep my observations to myself."

                "Oh, good. I'm glad you're learning. Next time, you don't even have to say anything."

                "I will try."

                "Perfect." Ophelia stretched, and pulled herself up to the controls. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to continue my work. And you are still my prisoner and I still intend to kill you --"

                "But you don't."

                "Yes, I do!"

                "No, you don't."

                "I do now!"

                That was entirely possible in the realm of rationality. He nodded, finding it not pragmatic to prod her further.

                Ophelia resumed, "Anyway, I still intend to kill you, no matter what you think, and I am the one with the phaser, not you. And everything is still going to plan. We have lost the Klingon ship and we will get back on track to Wuthrin at this very moment."

                "I'm afraid that's impossible," Spock said.

                "Why? Is it something you read in your mind meld?" she sneered scornfully, then addressed the ship, "Computer, turn on full power, warm up engines."

                The Esmeralda roared and clattered to life.

                "The reason we can't meet your mother at Wuthrin is not because of the mind meld, but because of what you did," Spock explained, once the noise had quieted to a bearable level. "You pushed this ship to warp ten and took a spin around the Sun. We have traveled back in time. By my calculations, we're now approximately between Earth years two thousand, and two thousand thirty, Anno Domini. Your mother is not born yet."

                The young woman, her hand loosely enclosed around the accelerator, had ceased to move. "What," she whispered after several moments, "did you say, Spock?"

                "We have traveled back in time."

                "You lie," she protested, brokenly. "I thought that loop-around-the-Sun trick was a warning to keep students from going past warp seven or getting too close to a star..."

                "No, it is real."

                She spun to him frantically, her eyes as round as saucers. "Well, what do we do? How are we going to get back to our time! We have to repeat what we just did!"

                "Absolutely not! This ship cannot stand another warp at level ten!" Spock rose, grabbed her by the slim shoulders, and removed her from the captain's seat. She treaded back limply, appearing too stunned to protest, as he stood at the controls and scrutinized the statistics in front of him. "Computer, show map of surrounding space on viewscreen."

                The snowy screen crackled dubiously with static, and a dark map speckled with multicolored dots gradually flickered into clarity. He spied a green dot near the center and pointed to it with his forefinger. "We are still within the Sun's solar system. This is Earth in the early second millennium of modern recorded time. We will need to land and repair the Esmeralda with available Earth technology. Only then can we attempt to return to our century."

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END OF CHAPTER ONE. TO BE CONTINUED.