Snatch 'n' Grab

After reaching the runabout, a narrow rescue and narrower retreat from attacking ships, Paul felt too exhausted to think.

Slipstream engines enabled the frenzied, multi-sector dash.  April told him how to disguise the ship's trail, mask its warp signature from the Federation's most advanced sensors.  Starfleet had been waiting near Sig Draco – cloaked, hidden.  The Noram and Now's pursuit of the runabout was a ploy, using the lone, small craft as bait.  Were they expecting another ship or ships, maybe?  Paul felt too tired to ask.  With April directing him, guiding the ship through battle, that made it the second time they owed the disembodied voice; the second time Arcadia would not have survived, without April's help... a greater number of ships than the first time.  Yet they knew Arcadia was coming.  In light of that, the Universe-class ship's escape, with little more than minor damage, was even more miraculous.

Paul felt an urge to fall to his knees in prostration.  He had no illusions about his own faults.  Starfleet had pulled out tactics he didn't know existed, and he was a former tactical officer.  April was right: This ship could do things Paul never imagined, in the right hands... under the right commander.  But how did they know he was coming?  Did someone in Starfleet also hear voices from beyond, warning them, advising them as well?  Just what the hell was going on?  He felt like a pawn in a complex game.  Well, April did say there were bigger forces involved.

Other than the obvious mystery, another stared him in the face: Exhaustion.  He had been awake only... three ship days?  It was difficult to remember.  Centuries ago, people needed sleep for health's sake.  Sleep was a choice, nowadays, not a requisite.  Drugs, medicines and technologies existed to overcome it.  Paul skipped sleep if he had a choice: Sleep was a waste of time.  People could waste a third of their lives sleeping.  Some people had themselves surgically altered, and genetically modified their children before birth, to never sleep.  Paul took prestims, sleep replacements, designed to overcome the body's natural tendency to shut down after a number of hours.  He could go for days without rest.  He should have been good for at least another thirty, forty hours.  But he felt exhausted.

It's this communication, he thought.  Somehow, April, acting through him, counteracted the drug, wore him out faster.

A vision taunted the makeshift captain: Trudging back to his quarters.  He didn't bother to check on the people they'd rescued.  He'd do that later.  April could share the battle particulars, how Starfleet caught them, if April chose, when Paul awoke.  He always had a hard time getting to sleep when he stayed up too long, but this time, after stripping off his uniform jacket, Paul would tumble into bed, and be out before his head hit the pillow.  He would sleep, dream about sleep, as he was doing now, and nothing else.

Instead, he found himself at the nearest rail terminal, arriving as they stepped from the turbocar, from the flight deck.  After beaming aboard, in their runabout, they had demanded to see him, ASAP – or, as it turned out, one of them did: The young woman who was April's daughter, and an older, heavier man, sported thick, insulated clothing, as if they'd been camping in the cold.  Paul had seen such attire – places like Yggdrasil, Andoria, Rigel Ten.  Dressed for arctic weather.  Made sense: They had been in Antarctica.  The twentysomething girl was exactly as April showed him, in her holo: Blue eyes, hair dyed reddish blonde, slender, more attractive in person than her image.  The man had dark hair, fair complexion, Mediterranean physique; Greek, or Balkan.

"Are you the captain?" Stephanie asked.

"Paul Thu–"

"Can you go back?  My mom was with us.  She got left behind.  Maybe you've heard of her; she–"

"Steph," the man started.

She silenced him with a gesture.  "She used to be in Starfleet.  Her name is Brenda Shoemaker."  SHOO-mah-kur.

Shoemaker, Paul thought.  The admiral?  "I'm sorry, ma'am.  That's not possible."

"You have to.  Please... You have to save her.  She's my mother.  My mother.  Do you have a mother?"

Not anymore, Paul thought.  He waited for April to jump in.  Silent, again.  What did a voice between... life and death, or however he put it... do, in these in-between times?  "We can't."

"She's important.  She's a Humanist leader.  If they–"

"Stephanie," her companion interrupted, "if she isn't dead, they've captured her by now.  I told you.  And again, I'm sorry.  I'd like to save her too, kiddo, but it's too late.  You know she wouldn't–"

"How could you, George!" she snapped.  "She wouldn't leave you behind."

"If she had no choice?  Yes, Stephanie, she would," he said, gently.  "We don't have a choice either."

"We can't just leave her."

"She stayed for you, so you'd be safe.  I promised her I'd help get you out.  I swear, you kids... Don't be in such a hurry to throw your life away.  Don't dishonor her sacrifice."

"I'm not your daughter, George."

The one called George looked like he wanted to flinch.  That hurt him, Paul could tell.

"Go back," she ordered Paul, as if she was in charge.  "Now."

Paul thought he saw, perhaps, some of her father's fire... what must have made him a natural captain.  Even in his sleep-deprived, take-all state, he wondered what it would have been like, to serve under such a man.  April must have been hell on wheels when he was her age – or Paul's.  Stephanie Shoemaker had the eyes Paul recalled from images of Stephen April: Gleaming, crystalline, like ice... hard, like blue steel – determined, drilling into him with uncompromising resolve, an expression on her face, in her poise, to match.  A command presence.  Purely out of instinct, he felt inclined to obey.

But unlike her father, she didn't have... whatever it was, which compelled Paul to heed her father's advice, and instructions.  Nor was he in the mood.  Right then, the floor looked good enough to sleep on.

"I'm sorry, ma'am.  Truly.  But it's too dangerous.  We took a big risk, retrieving you."  Obviously they didn't know who was calling the shots, here.  He looked them over.  They appeared unharmed, but he asked anyway: "Are you hurt, or injured?  Do you need a doctor?"

Stephanie glared at him, torn, turned around and gave him an eyeful of her back, staring down the turboshaft.

The one called George offered his hand.  "We're fine.  George Moussakis.  Thank you for coming to our aid, captain."

Paul took it with a nod.  "Paul Thunder.  Call me Paul."

George made a show of looking around.  "This is a big ship."

"That was pretty serious flying back there."  He'd expected to find them in the Sol sector, based on April's warnings.  But they had made it almost to Sigma Draconis, under pursuit.  "Starfleet training?"

"Maquis."

"Really."  Not many of them were still kicking these days.  Probably explained why he worked on the side of the Humanists, if he wasn't Humanist himself.  A lot of Humanists were anti-Federation, by definition, as the Maquis were... and like the Maquis, Humanist activists had been branded traitors and terrorists.

As Paul stifled a yawn, flexed his shoulders and rolled his head, George asked the question he'd anticipated: "How did you know we'd–"

"Little bird," was Paul's curt response.  He wasn't sure how to explain, or that they'd believe him if he tried.  He wouldn't have believed it.  How would the girl react, if he claimed the voice of her dead father spoke to him, and brought them here?

Especially if the voice didn't say anything about rescuing her mother?

"You're taking us to Meloc?" George said.

"We call it Arcadia.  I don't know yet."  He thought of his sister.  "Conditions might not be stable there right now.  But you're safe here."  Paul glanced again at Stephanie.  "We'll do our best to protect you, and get you where you need to go."  To the ensign escorting them, he said, "Get them quarters, clean clothes, whatever they need," then turned to head off.

"Aye, sir."

Stephanie stopped him.  "Who told you to rescue us?"

Paul froze in his tracks, and stared.  You've got to be kidding, he thought.  She eyed him, waiting.  Were all these Aprils mind-readers or something?

That would have been the time for April to 'step in'.  But if being in communion with a voice from another dimension wore Paul out, already, another interlude might prevent him from making it down the hall, let alone to the bed in his quarters: Maybe why April had clammed up.

"You weren't supposed to be there at all, were you?" she pressed on.  "We didn't tell anyone where we were.  How did you happen to be in the right place, at the right time?  And don't say a 'little bird' told you."

"We'll talk later," Paul said.  He hoped by then he had a sensible answer.

She didn't give up.  "Why did you save us?  Because we're Humanists?  You have to save my mother!  You owe it to the movement!"

Paul restrained a sigh and forced himself to walk away.  He heard them arguing, and felt bad.  She was devoted to her mother.  As devoted as he would be, if his had lived.  But April's girl also had a few things to learn about how things worked.  Unless her dad's voice spoke up and said 'Go get her mother', he wasn't doing it.