Lauryna entered sickbay, and was slightly surprised to see that it had undergone refit. It looked like the Sandava’s, for the most part, far sleeker than it had appeared when last she’d been here.

“Crewmate Gwenn. Welcome back, ma’am,” Geoff said, with a curt nod. Lauryna chuckled.

“We have the same number of squares, Doctor.”

“Ah, but you’re Operations Officer now. You’d better get used to the salutes from old friends,” Geoff said. Lauryna grinned back at him; Kymie had done quite a number on him. He sounded much looser than he ever had. Much happier, too.

“Very well, Doctor,” Lauryna said, then sobered, as she handed him the small cryostorage unit.

Geen took Izzy gently, and set her on a lab bench, plugging the unit into a base station.

“She is in very good shape, crewmate. Perfect cryostasis. You must have done maintenance.”

“Dr. Jolu on the Sandava – she worked on the systems. I just….”

“I know. She told me she made some adjustments. But you were the one to recommend them. You’ve been keeping power levels no lower than 80 percent, I see?”

“If something happened to me – I wanted her to have as much time to be recovered as possible.”

“Naturally. You’ve done an excellent job, Crewmate Gwenn. Had I put her in the cryobank at Tuaut Imperial Fleet Hospital, she would be in no better condition.”

Lauryna blinked, and Geen tilted his head slightly. “I know,” he said. “I wish she was in better condition too. I am so sorry, Lauryna. For failing for so long.”

Lauryna looked at him, and shook her head sadly. “I know how much you’ve done, Geoff. I…even if Izzy never recovers, what you’ve tried to do for her….”

“Has not been enough. Yet.”

Lauryna looked at Geen; he had barely looked at her. Instead he was checking the data stream from Izzy’s biocontainer. “I asked Captain Bass to bring you here straightaway,” Geoff said, quietly. “There was something I wanted to check, an idea I had. In the last few months, my research has taken a potentially positive turn. If the data matches the simulations….”

There was a ping from the display monitor by Izzy. Geoff looked at it, carefully. His eyes widened, and he looked back to Izzy.

“It’s true,” he said, softly. He closed his eyes in an almost Titan manner, and he shivered. “Crewmate Gwenn, Corporal Ibanez…we’ve found a cure.”

Lauryna looked at Geen for a hard minute. “You…you’re serious? You’re sure?” she finally asked.

Geoff looked pale – had Lauryna been able to see in ultraviolet, he would have been glowing with exhausted relief. “It has been a very long time, I know. But yes, I am.”

Lauryna turned away. The emotion was too much for her to express it, a flood of feeling that hit her like a neutron bomb.

“How…how are you…how?” she stammered, turning back.

“It turns out, that the cure was exactly what you did,” Geen said. “The pathogen does not do well with cryostasis. Its XNA does not handle the extreme stasis – the rhamnose in the XNA…well, I will not bore you with the reasons. I could not have known seven years ago, I wish I could…it was only when I saw the last data you sent me that I realized it. In regular stasis, the pathogen’s reach has been reduced significantly. With some minor changes to the cryomatrix, we can eliminate the rest of it very quickly. Perhaps less than a month.”

Lauryna felt like her heart would break its way out of her chest. “You hear that, Iz?” Lauryna asked, tearfully. “A month. And then…you’ll be okay.”

She looked up at Geen. “Commander Geen…I can…I can never….”

“She is a member of the Gyfjon’s crew,” Geen said. “I would have done the same for any of you.”

“And that’s why I’m thanking you,” Lauryna said. “Because…because you saw her that way. Captain, permission….”

“You may hug Dr. Geen, Lauryna. I probably will too.”

Lauryna threw her arms around the Dunnermac, and pulled him close. “Thank you so much, Geoff.”

Dunnermacs are generally not much for overt physical displays of affection, at least outside of water…but he hugged Lauryna back just as tightly. “Did I ever tell you, crewmate, about the conversation Izzy and I had at Captain Bass’s wedding?”

“You’ve told me,” Aerti said. “I’m still thrilled it worked out that way.”

“I was concerned,” Geoff said, stepping back. “I had found myself in love with Kymie quite by accident. And I knew all the difficulties that would entail. Biological, yes, but sociological as well. I quite cared for Kymie. I did not want to harm her by loving her.”

He looked back to Izzy. “She told me that I should follow my instincts. That she had done so, and that she had no regrets. That she had found love – that she had found you.”

He nodded. “I owe Izzy my happiness. She is my friend. I am glad I have found this now. I wish I had found it sooner. And had I not found it, I would not have stopped looking, not as long as I lived.”

“I know,” Lauryna said. “I know.”

* * *

One Month and Two Days Later

Lauryna watched as the lights shifted from green to red. They had been solid green for so long. It was jarring.

The red lights began flashing, and the datapad began showing a stream of information. Dr. Geen looked it over carefully, and nodded. “Very good,” he said. “Stand by, we’re going to inject norepinephrine and glucose into the reanimation matrix…now.”

The flashing red lights turned amber, and then they turned blue, and the matrix desolidified.

For one horrible second, Lauryna thought it hadn’t worked. That Izzy was not waking up. That it had been too long. But just as she began to panic, Izzy’s head snapped up, and the tiny human spoke.

“…swear to God, I’ll never forgive you!” she shouted, then stopped, a confused look on her face.

It took Izzy a second to get her bearings. Lauryna had suddenly appeared to jump from one side of her to the other, and she’d switched uniform color from academic yellow to operations blue. Her hair had changed style too; it was shorter, more of an efficient cut.

“Don’t move too much,” a familiar voice said. “You will probably feel dizzy, and a bit disoriented. This is normal.”

“I cannot believe you did that, Red,” Izzy muttered. “There better gorram be a cure.”

“You are cured. Completely,” Dr. Geen said. “The pathogen has been destroyed. In fact, it was destroyed by the cryogenic process. Had Crewmate Gwenn not overruled you, we would never have been able to cure you.”

Izzy heard the words, but she couldn’t focus on them. She was focused on Lauryna’s face. Lauryna was looking at her with tears in her gorgeous, gray-green eyes, eyes Izzy knew better than her own.

There were wrinkles around them. They weren’t deep, but they would be noticeable even if she wasn’t billboard sized.

“It wasn’t just a few weeks, was it.”

Lauryna shook her head. “No, Iz. It was longer. A lot longer.”

Izzy closed her eyes. “How long?”

Lauryna took a deep breath. “Seven years.”

“I’ve been in there seven years!? So you’re a Titan year older, then?”

Lauryna looked at Izzy, and said nothing.

“Oh, my God,” Izzy said. “Seven Titan years?”

Lauryna nodded. “Izzy, I’m so….”

Suddenly, a klaxon sounded. “Condition Amber,” Lemm Tam’s voice intoned. “Captain and Operations Officer to the bridge.”

“Shaka. Not now!” Lauryna said, slamming her fist into her palm.

“We go to amber every day. And they didn’t call you, they called the Ops Officer. You….”

Izzy’s eyes locked on to Lauryna’s rank pin. “For God’s sake, you’re the ops officer?”

Lauryna nodded. “I’ll call Captain Bass, he’ll let me….”

“Go to the bridge, Senior Crewmate Gwenn,” Izzy said, stiffly. “Apparently I’ve been sitting around forty-odd years, I can wait for a bit more. Unless you want to freeze me again?”

Lauryna shook her head. “Izzy, I’m sorry. You probably hate me, but…gorram, it’s good to hear your voice,” she said. “I’ll be back as soon as I….”

Lauryna had reached out to stroke Izzy’s hair, but Izzy had put up her hand to block the finger; it would never have stopped Lauryna had she wanted to force her way through. But Lauryna stopped dead. She nodded, and sighed. “Like I said…you probably hate me. Dr. Geen, please, take good care of her. I’ll be back as soon as whatever’s going on is done.”

Lauryna walked out, double-time, giving one last look back at Izzy before she left.

“You were hard on her,” the doctor said.

“Geoff, did I ask you?”

“No. But I am your friend, and I do not care.”

Izzy looked over at the Dunnermac doctor. He had aged too, she thought, though she didn’t see it as well as she had with Lauryna. He sounded a bit looser than he had yesterday – or seven years ago – or forty-five years ago.

“I told her I didn’t want to go into cryosleep, and she declared me her possession, and…and that was five minutes ago, and it wasn’t…it’s a long gorram time later. You don’t think I have a right to be mad?”

“Of course you do,” Geoff said, looking over her vital signs. “But then, if she had not done that, you wouldn’t be feeling anything at all. You would be slowly decaying. Her action saved your life. And do not think for a moment that she did not recognize the potential cost of it.”

Izzy shook her head. “Well, good. I hope she was miserable,” she said, folding her arms.

Geoff shook his head. “She was. For seven years. Every moment of it. She was.”

Izzy looked up at him, and then looked down. “You’re boring. I’m gonna go talk to Engine-Fixer.”

“No, you aren’t,” Geoff said. “For one thing, you are definitely not cleared to leave sickbay. For another…Engine-Fixer retired three years ago. We can call her later, perhaps.”

Izzy looked at Geoff, and laid down. It was too much. All of it – it was too much. Two days ago she’d been exploring a planet. Two days. Seven years.

It was too much.

* * *

“Aren’t these Jono’s quarters?”

“They were, before he got transferred to the Troji to serve as its XO. He’s captaining it now. Ran into him when I was on the Sandava, he’s doing well. Married, he and his husband have a kid.”

Izzy shook her head. Lauryna set her on the table off the kitchenette; her quarters were three times the size of the ones Izzy was used to. She suddenly stopped, and turned. “You were on the Sandava?”

“The Tez Magilna, then the Sandava. You were with me, not that you’d remember it,” Lauryna said. “I took you with me wherever I was.”

“The Tez Magilna, that’s one of those dumpy little ships, Magilna class, right?”

Lauryna stiffened. “I don’t know how you can say that,” Lauryna said, then caught herself. “Actually, I do. You don’t know. You were asleep.”

“What, you have some kind of magical adventure on the Magilna?”

Lauryna looked distant. “My captain and XO died, ops officer was incapacitated, and first line officer was killed. I ended up in command of it.”

Izzy blinked. “God damn.”

“I was terrified. I remember telling you that they didn’t have a chance with me in the captain’s chair.”

“You didn’t believe that, did you?”

“No, but I knew they didn’t have as good a chance as they would’ve if Captain Thop or Captain Tam had survived, and I’d died.”

“You wouldn’t have had as good a chance,” Izzy said.

“No, I wouldn’t,” Lauryna said. “And thankfully, we made it through. But I had to sacrifice two crewmates to get us back home safe. There was one point…I almost woke you up. To say goodbye.”

Izzy shook her head. “How’d you get out of it?”

Lauryna smiled. “I ejected the warp core.”

Izzy sighed. “No, really.”

“Really,” Lauryna said. “I can’t tell you exactly what happened, but…it worked perfectly. Star Trek was right, I guess.”

“You ejected the warp core. Damn,” Izzy said. She’d just joked about that the other….

Izzy shook her head. “So, after the Magilna, you ended up on the Sandava?”

“Yeah, as Ops Officer. They…they move you up quick when you get the Imperial Clade.”

Izzy’s eyes widened. “You don’t say.”

“Still have days I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. But….”

Lauryna’s communicator chimed. “Dolu to Crewmate Gwenn.”

Lauryna sighed. “Gwenn here.”

“Ma’am, we’ve got an issue with this Drazari translation.”

“Mr. Dolu, you are not interrupting my reunion with Izzy to tell me you’re having a difficulty with verb order, are you?”

“No, ma’am…well…aye, ma’am.”

Lauryna sighed. “Mr. Dolu, for the love of the Emperor – what code is this?”

“Aquamarine.”

“All right, play it for me.”

Lauryna listened as a minute of Drazari language spooled through. She sighed. “I can see where the difficulty is. Z’Gknana means to deceive when it follows T’nkrana, not to play.”

“Gorram…I knew that. Sorry, ma’am.”

“It’s okay, just be happy you have another linguist on board. I used to have to email Azatlia Alpha when I ran into issues.”

“Aye, ma’am. I’ll try not to bother you again.”

“Mr. Dolu, bother me if you need to. Just…make gorram sure you need to.”

“Aye, ma’am. Dolu out.”

Lauryna sighed. “Junior Crewmates…swear, Izzy, some days….”

Izzy watched Lauryna carefully. She was still Lauryna, she supposed. Her speech, her mannerisms, they were the same.

But some parts of her were utterly unfamiliar.

Lauryna sat down at the table, and sighed. “Izzy…I really am sorry,” she said, finally. “If I could have taken your place, I would have. And if you hate me, if you never want to see me again…I couldn’t let you die. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Harder than sitting down in the chair after LerDrrntr passed out…if I had any other option, Izzy, I would have done it. And I want you to know, no matter what I had to say to make them freeze you…you are not my possession. You will never be my possession. Never.”

Izzy looked up at Lauryna, who looked down on her with those big, gray-green eyes, full of tears. “I don’t know, Lauryna,” Izzy said, after a long moment. “I don’t…I don’t blame you for doing what you did. I might have in your place…but I don’t know…it’s gonna be hard to trust that if the going gets tough, you won’t pull rank on me.”

Lauryna nodded. “I know,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “Izzy, if you want to leave me, I won’t stop you. The Gyfjon is going to the Tarsuss System in two days. We’re escorting Senator Tarsuss and Rep. Dosorovitz on a diplomatic mission to the Tusola Homeworld. If you want to get off there…I will not stop you.”

Izzy nodded. “I don’t know yet, Lauryna. Maybe. I just…it’s like…it’s worse than waking up in a world full of giants, you know? It’s waking up in a world where everyone’s moved on, Jono’s married, the captain has kids, Darren is up to, like six kids at this point? And you…you’re the ops officer now. I just…I’ve gotta think about it.”

“I understand. And Izzy, if you’re not ready to decide when we get there…I mean this. If you ever want to leave, leave the ship…leave me…you can. I did what I did to save your life…but Izzy, I would never make you stay with me if you didn’t want to. Never.”

Izzy nodded. “Lauryna…I do believe you. About that. I just…it’s a lot to take in. I just…I can’t….”

Izzy sighed, and shrugged. “Just…imagine you woke up one day and Aerti Bass was a Navarchos, and I was in command of the Gyfjon….”

Lauryna smiled – it was a bittersweet smile. “I know, Iz,” Lauryna said. “I mean, I don’t…but I know it’s hard. Anyhow…Geoff said you should rest, and I got you a bed printed out. I…you probably don’t want to share mine right now.”

Izzy smiled, just a bit. Part of her very much wanted to share a bed with Lauryna. She had gained a few wrinkles, but she was still as lovely as she’d ever been. If anything, they made her look tougher, prouder. She wore them well.

But she couldn’t, for that very reason.

“It’s…probably for the best,” Izzy said.

Lauryna nodded. “Okay. You…get some sleep. I’ve got the bridge in a few hours, but I’ll leave you some food, and I printed out some uniforms….”

“I’ll be fine, Lauryna,” Izzy said, laying down in the bed Lauryna had offered. “I haven’t forgotten how the ship works. I haven’t forgotten anything. It’s only been a day or so.”

Lauryna smiled, and nodded, and waited for Izzy to drop off before walking into her bedroom and crying.

* * *

Izzy awoke eight or nine hours later, stretched, and hoped for half a second it was a nightmare.

It wasn’t, of course.

She set about exploring Lauryna’s quarters – there wasn’t much else to do. She thought about trying to call someone – Engine-Fixer, or Darren, or Alex – but she didn’t know what she’d say. Hi, I’ve been frozen for the last four decades, what are you up to? Besides, while Jax would have put her straight through, Lauryna had mentioned that she was comms and ops officer now – which meant that Jax was on another ship, or out of the fleet….

She didn’t want to think about other alternatives. Instead, she hopped Lauryna’s desk. It was no longer the relatively ordered desk of the junior officer. There were massive briefing books, some marked “HARD COPY, NO DATA TRANSFER.” Izzy fought the urge to look through them, and instead turned her attention to the pictures in the corner. There were two of her, she noted. She fought down jealousy as she surveilled the other photos there – though there desk sported a cute redhead, cute blonde, and cute brunette among the pictures, she couldn’t help feeling that they weren’t paramours. The old captain and the Dunnermac with a – a security rating? Well, whatever. Not Lauryna’s type.

Izzy shook her head. As if that was the thing to be upset about.

Izzy hopped down to the floor. She had been bored before, many times. And she had a routine.

It took her a moment to get into the walls – she actually had to pry a panel loose a bit – but once in there, she barely had to think. She followed the paths she’d laid out – though occasionally, she’d run into a nasty surprise, like when she came across the desiccated remains of a candy bar she’d stashed on Gama deck.

She’d stashed it five days ago.

She kept climbing. She hadn’t really intended to, but she was heading for the bridge. It wouldn’t be the first time. There were a few good lookouts – places to watch the action. Sometimes it was deadly dull, but it was something to do.

She would never admit that she wanted to see Lauryna. She was too upset.

It took her a bit – she realized fairly quickly that there’d been a refit on the bridge. It took her a while to work her way through to a new perch, up and above the comms station. Izzy nodded to herself; they’d gone with the new Grelau Cybervid system she’d been reading about. It was a good choice. The bridge looked a lot cleaner.

Lauryna was in the captain’s chair, leaning back, studying something on her pad. Izzy never dreamed she’d see that. Lauryna looked comfortable, like she’d done it a million times. Which, Izzy realized, she probably had.

A klaxon sounded. “Ma’am, we have a contact, 212 carom 108,” the junior tactical officer said. “Configuration of a Drazari runabout.”

“A runabout?” Lauryna said, rising. “What the hells is a runabout doing here?”

“Don’t know, but it’s turning to run.”

“Pursue, Ms. Gayak. Amber alert, captain and XO to the bridge. Mr. Sennai, open channel Drazari four, translation matrix off.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Open a channel? Izzy wanted to shout. That was stupid, Red. Wait for Captain Bass to get here. A runabout won’t outrun you.

But Lauryna simply stood, straightened her tunic idly, and said, “Drazari Vessel, this is Lauryna Gwenn, commanding the ISS Gyfjon. You are far, far past the border. Stop engines, and prepare to be taken aboard.”

The Drazari vessel didn’t stop, not right away. But they did respond almost immediately. “You are lying.”

“About what?”

“You are not Lauryna Gwenn.”

Izzy was following on her own translator; she gasped at the Drazari retort. It was almost as if they knew her.

“Tell me,” Lauryna said, “have you replaced the Ivvang yet? Is that why you’re here in a runabout? You haven’t? Sena Aurrol would never approve such a weak strategy. Of course, I killed zir, so….”

“We are dropping out of warp! We are not hostile – we are lost! Please, Captain Gwenn, we will not attack! You may bring us aboard!”

“We will check your systems. But before you do anything, eject your disruptor….”

“They have ejected their disruptor coils and dropped two missiles.”

Lauryna grinned. “You are not fools. That is good to see. Stand by to be brought aboard. Mr. Zultran, lock gravitic beam onto the ship and bring it in to shuttlebay four. Have a security team meet them.”

“Yes ma’am.”

The lift opened at that point, and Aerti and Lemm got off together. “Sitrep,” Aerti said.

“Drazari shuttle, sir,” Lauryna said. “They’ve surrendered, we’re bringing them into shuttlebay four.”

Aerti smiled. “Let me guess…dropped your name?”

“I’ve found it gets their attention, sir.”

“I wish my name got that sort of attention, Crewmate,” Lemm said.

“It does, commander,” Lauryna said. “Just…mostly among junior crewmates, I’ve found.”

And then, something happened that Izzy couldn’t believe. Lemm Tam actually chuckled, just a little bit, under her breath.

“Good point, Lauryna. And that’s more useful most of the time. Isn’t it, Ms. Gayak?”

“Yes, ma’am!” the junior pilot almost shouted.

Lauryna smiled at Lemm, and shook her head. “Exactly, ma’am. Sorry to get you both up.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Aerti said. “You want to go lead the investigation in four? Get ‘em really terrified?”

“Tempting, sir, but I think security can handle it. They see me, they might realize I’m not three units tall, and built like a Ler.”

“Suit yourself,” Aerti said. “Lemm, you want the honors?”

“Been a while since I scared some Drazari. I think I will.”

“Excellent. I’m going back to sleep. Crewmate Gwenn seems to have things under control up here. Call me if the Drazari put up a fight.”

“Aye, sir,” Lauryna said, settling back into the captain’s chair, as Aerti and Lemm entered the lift again. And as if nothing had happened, Lauryna picked up her pad, and began studying it again.

Izzy turned away, and headed back to the bowels of the ship.

She was amazing. Absolutely, incredibly amazing. Aerti Bass wasn’t that smooth in command. James T. Kirk wasn’t that smooth, and he wasn’t even real.

Lauryna had scared two Drazari into surrendering…just by dropping her name.

What the hell had she been up to? How much had she changed since Izzy had gone to sleep?

And how much had Izzy stayed the same?

By the time Lauryna returned, Izzy had made her decision.

“I’m gonna get off at Avalon, Lauryna,” Izzy said. “It’s not…I don’t know if it’s forever,” she said, though she thought it probably was. “I just…I need some time to figure this out. It’s so much…so much has changed.”

“I know, Izzy,” Lauryna said. “I am…I am so sorry.”

“I know,” Izzy said, softly. “It’s okay. Really. But it’s too much for me to take in. I need to unplug a bit. To go…figure things out a bit.”

“It’s okay if you hate me, Iz,” Lauryna said, softly.

“I don’t, Lauryna,” Izzy said. “Really, I know why you did it. I don’t hate you. I just…I need to get my head together. Okay?”

Lauryna sniffed back a tear, and Izzy fought the part of her that was screaming at her to leap from the table to Lauryna’s chest and bury herself against it, and tell her it was okay.

As for Lauryna, she took a deep breath, and let it out. “Okay, Iz. I told you…whatever you want.”

Izzy was alive, and she didn’t hate her. And though she was leaving…she didn’t say it was forever. There was still a chance.

Lauryna could accept that. And even if it was forever…Izzy was alive.

It was terrible. But it was a terrible that she could live with.