The admiral leaned over her. “But you can’t remember what that life was. Who were you back then, Nyota Uhura? Do you even know? Do you know what you believed? What you stood for?”

“I knew her at the time, Admiral,” Spock pointed out. “I never found her to be less than an exemplary officer.”

“But what about off duty? What about that life beyond Starfleet she just talked about? Did she ever reveal anything about that to you?”

“I respected her privacy. While she was outgoing and friendly toward her crewmates, she possessed a reserve regarding her personal life that, as a Vulcan, I understood and respected. She spoke freely of her family, evincing great pride in their accomplishments, but on the subject of her own off-duty activities, she was considerably more private. While she occasionally initiated interactions with me in a manner that my human colleagues perceived as flirtatious, I never took them to be seriously intended. After all, I was her superior officer.”

Uhura blushed a bit. She had learned from the Enterprise crew about the teasing songs she’d infamously regaled Spock with in the rec room in those early years, and she preferred to think they had been the mere amusements that Spock had taken them to be. But how could she ever really know? How different a person had she been before Nomad?

“In any case,” Spock went on, “she never gave me any reason to question her loyalties to the Federation or her commitment to Starfleet’s principles. I would assess the probability of her voluntary participation in anything harmful to innocent lives as negligible.”

“People can hide their true selves, Captain. Put on a façade for their crewmates to cover their true goals.”

“Theoretically. However, Admiral, if you are proposing that Commander Uhura’s younger self was complicit in some act of sabotage against the Federation, I would question why she would do so in a way that would take twelve to fourteen years to come to fruition.”

Cartwright crossed his arms. “I’ve encountered spies and sleeper agents playing longer games than that.”

Spock raised a brow. “Logically, any stratagem put into effect so far in advance would be meticulously planned and directed. It is inconsistent with the haphazard nature of the vacuum flares.” He continued with what Uhura recognized as a hint of wry amusement. “Not to mention that any such devious spy or saboteur would surely take care not to encode her own voice in the disruptions.”

The admiral hesitated, clearly unable to answer that. Uhura took the opportunity. “Permission to speak freely, Admiral?”

“That’s what you’re here for, Commander.”

“Then with respect, sir, may we cut to the chase? I can hear in your voice that you don’t actually believe I was some kind of saboteur or sleeper agent. You’re flailing for answers like the rest of us. You fall back on interrogation tactics like these because it’s what you know.”