“I am alive.”

“You are alive. Welcome back, Commander T’saath,” Lieutenant Ada Josephs sat on a hover stool, monitoring the Vulcan’s vitals as she spoke. “You’re safe aboard Montana Station. I’m Doctor Ada Josephs. You’re safe, Commander.” She motioned over the gaggle of orderlies who went to work with soft purring tricorders and whispered words of comfort. “What was the last thing you remember?” She watched T’saath’s eyes blink as her mind stumbled out of the coma stupor. An orderly lifted a bottle of water with a straw, and T’saath drank hungrily.

“I was here…and then I wasn’t. Something had…taken me.” She closed her eyes, trying to remember what had come before this moment in time. Ada could see T’saath’s eyes moving behind the eyelids as if trying to shake memories loose. “I fell,” she said flatly, and her eyes gingerly opened, wincing at either the lights above or the sudden return of her memory. “I crashed through a roof and slammed into the floor.” Another wince, this time Ada was sure it was the jogged memory that was responsible. The Vulcan continued, “They captured me, tied me up. Tried to figure out who I was, what I was…the beatings started soon. I don’t remember. I just have sounds. My bones would crack and crunch. The sound of layers of caked blood on my body. I could hear it leaking from the cuts and wounds.” Ada watched her vitals, aware of the relative calm with which T’saath was handling the revisiting of the trauma. “It all blurred together. Then he came for me.” T’saath visibly shuddered, and her vitals spiked. Ada stood from the stool, watching as the heart rate and breathing monitors beeped in alarm.

“Commander, you don’t have to-”

“No,” she interrupted firmly. “He’s still alive, isn’t he?” Ada shared with her the status of Tougun and his permanent berth in the high-security brig on Montana Station. The vitals slowed slightly at that revelation, and T’saath continued. “I don’t know how he found me. He killed them all. He thought I’d be thankful for the rescue. That I would run into his arms.” A quiet snarl crept across her lips. “I knew who he was. I wasn’t going to go quietly or give him what he wanted. Almost killed him. Missed him by just enough.” Her lips relaxed, eyes staring unblinkingly at the ceiling above. “He tried to break me. I think I broke him, just a little.” The Vulcan let out a long sigh, grimacing at the dull remnants of pain. “He told me he would continue with his treatments until I told him what he needed to know. I told him nothing. I gave him nothing.” She spat out the last sentence, her face tightening in silent fury. “He can never be free again.”

Ada nodded, her face masking her profound empathy for T’saath. The woman had suffered horrors at the hands of Tougun. “He’ll never see open space again, Commander.”

T’saath closed her eyes, feeling the weight of tiredness pulling her down. “Let him die in the deepest, darkest hole.” Her breathing slowed, and sleep took her under. Ada turned the lights over the bed off and sat down on the hover stool. She began compiling the report on T’saath’s injuries, which would eventually feature in the case against the Orion. She made a note for counseling.

T’saath had come back to them physically; Tougun had shattered the rest.