Akaar smiled thinly but without any evident humor. “Then perhaps you had better come inside.” He stepped back from the doorway and gestured toward the interior of the wide VIP quarters he occupied.

“Sit. Be comfortable,” Akaar said, taking a seat on a sofa after the door had closed, ensuring their privacy.

Tuvok took a seat near the far wall. “It is time for us to set our differences aside.”

Akaar regarded him impassively for several moments before replying. “Why now, Commander? Do you anticipate that we will be forced to share one another’s company for an extended period?”

“Given some of my previous experiences,” Tuvok said, raising an eyebrow. “I must acknowledge that as a distinct possibility.”

The huge Capellan chuckled, a great rumbling sound that reminded Tuvok of better times. “It must be getting tiresome for you, constantly being catapulted thousands of light-years from Federation space.”

“That is something of an understatement,” Tuvok admitted drily. “After three such events, I have begun to wonder if my presence aboard a starship should be considered a warning to its crew.” His former friend’s laughter gave Tuvok hope that their old enmities might finally be laid to rest.

A look of something that resembled sadness crossed Akaar’s weathered features. “I tried to save your life, Tuvok.”

“And I will always appreciate that, Leonard.”

Akaar’s eyes narrowed. “Can you explain how denying a Capellan warrior his honorable death constitutes ‘appreciation’?”

Tuvok had rehearsed this conversation for years. Despite that, he found it difficult to govern his rising anger. “Perhaps. If you can explain how ritual suicide is an action befitting a Starfleet captain.”

Akaar rose, his eyes blazing as they had just before Tuvok’s abrupt transfer off the Wyomingall those years ago. The rapprochement the Vulcan had hoped for had suddenly become as remote as his home planet. “Leave now,” the Capellan said. “While you still can.”

Tuvok slowly rose. With as much dignity as he could muster, he nodded, turned, and withdrew back into the corridor.

DAY 12—STARDATE 26815.4 (25 OCTOBER 2349)

Tuvok pounded his hands onto the chest of his captain with as much force as he could muster, then pulled the other man’s mouth open and breathed into the Capellan’s still, supine body yet again.

He didn’t know how long it had been since Akaar had attempted suicide, since Tuvok had awakened only a minute earlier, and had found the note outside his tent.

Akaar’s skin was cold, and he had no pulse, but Tuvok continued breathing into him, willing his old friend back to life. How could this have happened? There were no apparent physical causes; Akaar’s body bore no mark save those this planetoid had already inflicted upon them both.

Another minute passed.How long has it been now? Another ten breaths, another five chest compressions.

And nothing.

Tuvok put his arm behind his friend’s neck and pulled his rag-clad torso up to him, cradling him close. Acting on equal parts desperation and instinct, he extended the fingers of his left hand and placed them against Akaar’s temple.

He spoke directly into the essence of his dying friend.My mind to your mind. Deliberately constructed barriers lay in his way. Tuvok’s will crashed right through them, though he knew that the intensely private Akaar would not approve of the intrusion. Tuvok did not care; he would not permit Akaar to die if there was anything he could do to prevent it.

Tuvok’s will encountered that of Akaar, which sat in the center of a cyclone of honor, love, and loyalty. Tuvok realized then why his friend’s imminent death had left no physical marks on him: it had come as a result of some form of self-induced biofeedback. A ritual, psionic suicide?

He also saw that the proximity of death had blunted Akaar’s usual ferocious determination to carry out his decisions. Akaar’s fading consciousness drifted aimlessly, spiraling ever downward toward final oblivion. Therefore the Capellan was unable to put up a fight when Tuvok’s mind reached out, gasping Akaar, straining to drag him back from the abyss the way a drowning man might be pulled out of Vulcan’s Eastern Sea.

The mind-meld abruptly dissolved, and Tuvok found himself sprawled across the hard ground beneath Akaar’s tent. He turned his head and saw that Akaar lay beside him, utterly still.

Failure.I have failed to save my friend. And he killed himself because of me.

Despite every bit of Vulcan training he’d had, and every iota of power he had used to block his emotions, Tuvok was overcome. His bellow to the sky was followed by tears of shock, of shame, and of sacrifice.

Then came the anger.

Tuvok turned his back on Akaar’s body, stood, and exited the shelter.

Another wail passed his lips unbidden, and the loss poured down his cheeks. But as his anguish echoed across the desert landscape, he heard something behind him.

A cough.

Then another.

Whirling, he tore open Akaar’s tent and saw his dead friend raise his hand to his throat, his motions shaky and tentative.

Tuvok knelt beside him, his grief turned to a smile that he would never have recognized on his own face.

“Leonard?”

Slowly, Akaar opened his eyes. They were intensely bloodshot, and this gave his glare a strange, ruddy cast.

Minutes later—or was it hours?—Akaar finally spoke.

“Why did you stop me?” It was barely more than a whisper.

“Because it wasn’t your time to die,” Tuvok said.

“I had decided that it was.”

“You were wrong,” Tuvok said. “They will find us. We will be rescued. We will have many years to continue our friendship.”

Akaar stared at him in silence, blinking once, then twice, then a third time.

“No,” he said, finally. “You disrupted thew’lash’nogot . You have dishonored me. You have betrayed our friendship.”

Akaar turned on his side, away from Tuvok. The Vulcan sat still, unable to respond.

Though he wanted to, Tuvok would not leave Akaar’s side for the next day. No matter the cost to their friendship or himself, he would not allow his captain to die.

A short time later, a shuttlecraft from theWyoming landed on the planetoid. Rescue had arrived. Finally.

But aboard the shuttle, and in theWyoming ’s sickbay, and later still, Tuvok felt the chasm between himself and Akaar growing ever wider. The captain would only speak to him when duty required it.

During the ship’s next starbase visit a week later, Tuvok learned that he was being unceremoniously transferred off theWyoming . His trajectory would not intersect again with Akaar’s for another three decades.

UntilTitan brought them together again.

Chapter Five

IMPERIAL WARBIRD VALDORE,STARDATE 57023.5

Donatra heard the voice, but only barely, as though it was coming from a considerable distance. She felt as though she were floating at the bottom of a well, her eyes swaddled in a heavy blanket of darkness.