because you knew deep down that this had to be done, that it wasn’t your mother, you knew it, but what if you’re wrong, what if you just helped kill your own mother… my God, how many times do you have to lose her…? And this time you can’t blame anyone but yourself…
“I’m… I’m going to need to teach her,” Morgan said. She almost toppled over but righted herself at the last moment. “Look… look at my beautiful baby girl… so much to teach her…”
The red alert klaxon blared and then almost as quickly went off. The Excalibur slowly began to turn in a complete barrel roll. The lights went out entirely, plunging the bridge into darkness, and then the emergency lighting slowly crawled back.
“Let’s hope we don’t lose gravity,” said Burgoyne worriedly.
“I… honey… we need to teach her… teach our Robin.” Morgan was speaking as if she were in a dream. “Laws. She needs laws to live by. Like… that… that you can only count on…”
“… on yourself,” Robin whispered.
Faster and faster Morgan spoke. “What… what do I see in him? Well… he’s not much of a conversationalist, but… but what a lover… here… look… I made this for you… it’s plomeek soup… I was sure you’d like it… I… yes… I would like offspring… offspring as in… he’s Adam… Madam… I’m Adam… Madam… I’m… isn’t… does not… compute… compute…”
Morgan slumped over and this time her arms were too weak to keep her upright. She fell to the floor with an oddly hollow sound.
“Mother,” whispered Robin, and Burgoyne tried to hold her back, to remind her that this thing wasn’t her mother, that it was just a freak of technological nature. But she pulled away from Burgoyne and went to cradle her head. “Mother…”
Morgan’s face felt cold to the touch. The skin seemed plastic.
“Mother…” Her voice was hoarse, choked with emotion.
And Morgan looked in the direction of her voice, and she reached up and caressed Robin’s face. “Don’t look away… from Cwansi… don’t blink… if you blink… he grows up… my God… Robin… so much beauty… so much… to show you… so… much…”
Her hand fell away and then slowly, ever so slowly, it began to fade. The rest of her did as well. Her face went slack, and her mouth remained open in the midst of forming an incompleted word.
Throughout the ship there was the sound of systems going down, crashing, energy being leached from every part of the vessel. The tactical array in front of Kebron flickered and went out. So did the ops and conn stations. The constant hum of equipment operations that were so much a part of the bridge’s ambiance ceased, giving the bridge an eerie, almost mausoleum-like quality.
The only sounds left were the snuffling of Cwansi, calmed by the gentle rocking of Xy, and the sobs of Cwansi’s mother, whose arms were still cradled in the position of holding Morgan’s head even though the last vestiges of her mother had disappeared into nothingness.
And then Soleta was at her side, and with an agonized sob, Robin threw her arms around her and held her tightly. Soleta’s face was a mask of dispassion, easily recapturing the Vulcan detachment that she had effected for so long before ultimately embracing her mixed heritage.
Soleta made no effort to calm or console Robin with words. Her presence was enough as she held her tightly and let Robin sob into her shoulder.
iv.
Burgoyne wanted to give everyone a chance to absorb what had just happened, but there wasn’t time. “Report, people. Tell me what we’ve got.”
The bridge was mostly illuminated by the glow of the viewscreen. There wasn’t much else on. Tania got up from the conn station, saying, “Basically I’m sitting in front of a brick. Conn’s out, navigation’s out…”
“Nothing on tactical,” Kebron reported.
Tania had crossed over to the ops station, sidling past Soleta, who was still holding Robin. She went over the ops station systematically.
“Do we have anything?” said Burgoyne. “Communications? Engine control? Computer access…?”
Tobias was still running checks through ops. “Be grateful we still have life support. When Morgan went, she crashed the mainframe. Anything beyond rudimentary survival is locked up until we can… wait… hold on… ah!” said Tobias.
“Ah what?”
She turned and squinted at him in the darkness. “I can turn the lights on and off.”
“Well, turn them on, then! Up to full.”
“Not these lights. The running lights.”
“You mean the lights on the outside of the ship.”
“Yeah.”
“Fantastic,” said Burgoyne. “That’s going to be very helpful. Soleta…”