A/N - This will be a multi-chapter story, somewhat continues from my previous story but reading that is not necessary. Anyway Enjoy!
"All clear in this quadrant Sir, no Vulcan life signs."
Pike sighed and wiped his face wearily; after hours of searching there was still no sign of Spock and it was all looking rather hopeless. Spock should have been easy to find, he was the only half-human half-Vulcan being alive but that hardly mattered whilst he was on Vulcan. The planets atmosphere messed with Discovery's scanning equipment so terribly that they had been forced to take a more practical approach.
Discovery's Captain was leading one of dozens of search parties spread all over the planet performing a sector by sector sweep. It was a time-consuming task which involved the team setting up relays to boost the signal to Discovery's sensors; every resource was being put into finding Spock before someone rather less friendly did.
"Alright, pack it up." Pike eventually replied to his team of three. "I'll update Discovery and we'll move out to the next zone."
This had been the 5th zone that he and his team had scanned so across all their landing party teams they had already covered a sizeable amount of Vulcan; it wasn't going quickly enough though. Discovery couldn't be the only one who knew Spock was on Vulcan by now.
Chris went for his communicator and updated the ship of their failure; no other teams had had any success either. The team soon packed up their equipment and headed back towards the entrance to the cave, their footsteps echoing in the dimly lit space.
Pike followed on behind and completely missed whatever had made two of his officers freeze. His eyes followed something that clunked and was rolling towards his feet, something that suspiciously looked just like a canister of some kind. Stun grenade…
His mind screamed danger and his hand flew to his phaser a micro-second before the canister exploded in his face. His ears were assaulted by a deafening ringing and blinding light assaulted his vision. He staggered backwards and stumbled as his senses remained disorientated; somehow he managed to pluck his phaser from his holster but that was hardly going to be any good if he couldn't damn well see beyond the end of his nose.
Chris coughed and blinked out the tears from his eyes whilst raising his weapon to face whatever threat this was. He could just make out the shapes of the two officers in front of him and heard they were having just as much trouble as he was with seeing and breathing. Without further warning two red phaser blasts slammed into the officer's bodies and they both went down with a strangled cry, Pike's brain belatedly informed him that those weren't stun blasts.
"No!" He shouted belatedly at the two officers who now lay dead at his feet; how had things gone wrong so fast?
A huge force punched into his chest sending him flying backwards several feet. He landed on his back painfully hitting rocks and felt all the air rush out of his lungs with a groan. It took Christopher a few seconds to realise he wasn't dead and even though it felt like he'd been hit by a car he hadn't been hit by a fatal phaser blast. He registered a yelp to his left and guiltily remembered he had another crew member down here with him; well another one besides the two officers he had just seen brutally murdered.
Knowing his officer needed him Pike shook the fog from his head and made to rise to fight the threat head on; sadly he didn't get very far. The Captain yelled out with surprise as a boot crashed into his ribs and he fell back hitting his head harshly once again. He felt blood start to trickle from the resulting wound and his vision exploded into stars. Chris went to bring his phaser up to aim at the mysterious attacker when a foot stamped down on his wrist and pinned his limb to the ground.
He groaned and was about to try and roll out of his perilous position when his eye sight finally adjusted and he realised he was staring straight up into the barrel of a phaser rifle, set to kill. His mind froze and he felt defeat well up in him, who knew after all this time he would meet his end on Vulcan of all places.
"Let it go."
Pike forced himself to look past the vicious blaster's barrel and his mind reeled when he saw who was holding the deadly weapon, who had killed his people and would likely kill him. Captain Philippa Georgiou of Section 31 dressed all in black like a god damn devil.
When he refused to do anything Georgiou ground her boot into his wrist brutally and he heard his bones scrape under the pressure. It was successful in that a muscle spasm forced him to lose grip of his phaser; not that the weapon would be much use in his position.
Christopher wasn't a spiteful man and hatred didn't come naturally to him but Philippa had murdered two of his officers in cold blood, so right now he hated her more than anyone he could remember. His disdain was clearly plastered all over his face as he stared up into her callous face, she didn't care what had happened here.
"Get it over with." He spat and shocked himself with the defeatist attitude, this wasn't like him but he could scarcely say he had been in this position before and he was not about to beg this traitor who was still wearing a starfleet badge for his life.
She seemed to consider him for a second then surprisingly removed her boot from his arm and kicked his phaser out of reach. "I don't want to kill you Captain"
He felt sickened as the scent of scorched flesh assaulted his nostrils. "Why not? You murdered my crew." He spat the last part putting all of his loathing into the words.
What made matters worst was her grin. She then indicated to his left and pointed her blaster that way. "I haven't killed everyone yet."
Pike followed her gaze and he spotted his other crew member, a young Ensign who had only been aboard Discovery for a few months. It seemed so unfair that this was her first away mission and something so hateful and tragic like this had happened. A Captain was supposed to protect his crew and he had failed them. If it weren't for the slight chest movement he would have guessed from the blood on her face that his officer was already dead; he had half expected to be staring into lifeless eyes and was incredibly thankful that he wasn't.
Georgiou stalked over to the fallen officer causing Pike to sit up abruptly his protective instinct taking over. He couldn't just sit back and let the last of his landing party be brutally cut down. Philippa noticed his sudden movement and he stopped immediately when the blaster pointed at his officer's head.
"Ah, ah. No sudden moves there Captain, we can still add to the body count."
Pike swallowed down bile and forced his tense body to remain perfectly still as Georgiou reached his officer's side. He couldn't take his eyes off the insignia identifying Philippa as one of them. How could starfleet have let this women become one of their own after her history in the mirror universe? When Michael had told him the story he had been shocked Philippa had been allowed free reign in their universe, how could starfleet not have seen this treachery coming?
He surveyed the cave for anything he could use as a weapon or any chance of gaining an upper hand but his search stopped when he spotted the two bodies of his crew. Their unseeing eyes stared into his own hauntingly. They hadn't even seen who had killed them.
Christopher watched numbly as Georgiou took out a pair of restraints and dragged his officer over to a structure; she then secured her arms and removed any devices from her body. Pike remained where he was knowing if he made any move the Ensign would pay for it. Georgiou was ruthless, deadly and far from stupid. She had left someone alive to ensure his cooperation.
When Philippa was done her cold eyes landed on him; his skin crawled from the chilling scrutiny. "Kneel facing the wall, put your hands behind your back." She ordered and grabbed another pair of restraints from her bag.
He hesitated for a fraction of a second too long, it was all Georgiou needed to issue another threat. "Do you need further persuasion?"
Pike eyed the weapon steadily and didn't miss that it was still pointing at his Ensign's helpless body. "No, you've done enough already." He spat dragging his sluggish body to his knees and did as instructed, not willing to risk another persons life. Philippa had more than shown she was capable of killing anyone that got in her way.
He tensed automatically as footsteps neared his back but forced his hands to remain where they were for the sake of the Ensign. A harsh grip clawed into his shoulder unexpectedly and he bit back a groan unwilling to give his captor the satisfaction of knowing she had drawn blood. Cold metal bit into his skin and soon enough both his wrists were captured securely; sealing his fate.
"Up." She accompanied the command with a tugging motion on his arm so he was soon standing as instructed.
He felt the phaser rifle rest against his lower back and walked forward as Georgiou prodded him unkindly. Pike came to a stop beside the bodies of the two fallen men, both too young to die. He sometimes wondered why the universe was so cruel.
"Unless you want another death on your conscious I suggest you move." Georgiou's harsh snarl snapped him out of it and he reluctantly dragged his feet forward and out of the cave.
"Where are we going?" He needed to start working out why the hell Philippa was here, why she hadn't killed him yet and what this crazed emperor's plan was.
He heard her dark chuckle. "To get what I want of course, Spock."
Pike stumbled and his automatic reaction was to tell Georgiou to go straight to hell, only the Ensign back in the cave stopped him from acting so rashly. He had always been afraid Section 31 would find Spock first but Philippa finding him was ten times worst as she clearly wasn't acting for anyone but herself anymore. That left the million dollar question; if not for a job then why did she need to find Spock so badly?
They soon exited the cave's entrance causing Chris to blink under the harsh Vulcan sunlight, unfortunately he couldn't hold his hand up to stave off the sun so he resorted to squinting. His eyesight didn't take long to adjust so he soon spotted their shuttle close by the cave entrance and another parked alongside which was evidently Georgiou's transport. "You're clearly not working for starfleet anymore…"
"What makes you say that?" She interrupted him in a bored tone.
He stopped walking and stared over at his shoulder incredulously at her, ignoring the way the blaster had been adjusted to his head with the sudden movement. "Starfleet don't murder people." He answered coldly.
She threw him a dangerous smile. "Don't they?"
Pike ignored the implications of her accusation and continued what he had been about to ask, he wasn't willing to play this game and there were more urgent things at hand like Spock's continuing existence.
"If you're not under orders anymore then why do you need Spock? I won't let you hurt him." He imagined his protective streak was shining through but he didn't care, he would give his life in a heartbeat for any one of his crew and was not willing to be used as a pawn for whatever crazy plan Georgiou had.
"I don't want to kill Spock." Georgiou laughed. "Why do you and Michael jump to that conclusion?"
Pike couldn't believe this woman, after what she had just done. Philippa quickly noticed his lack of amusement. "Spock knows about the red angel, I need him to help me track it down."
"And then what?" Chris noticed a slight change in his captor, she had a predatory glint in her eye and it unnerved him.
She grinned at whatever crazy vision was running through her mind. "I take the red angel's powers for my own and take what is my mine."
Chris shivered as he heard the sincerity in the promise and bloody hell she was stark raving mad. "So you want to be emperor again?"
Philippa re-emerged from her day dream and smirked at him. "I never stopped."
Pike thought it was rather ironic that just days ago he and Tyler had had a conversation about what would happen if the red angel's powers fell into the wrong hands; he had called Tyler paranoid but perhaps Chris had been too naive? Tyler had been around people like Georgiou and had seen the power hungry beings who wished to dominate the universe, maybe he should have listened to him.
As the Captain stared into Georgiou's crazed eyes he realised this was bigger than him, bigger than Spock. If Georgiou succeeded and got what she wanted then who knew how much damage she could inflict in her war on starfleet? He decided then and there she would get no further co-operation out of him. Threat or no threat.
"You're completely insane." He breathed terrified of what she dreamed of. "And I'm not having any part of it. I'm not going to cooperate with you so you'll just have to shoot me now."
Pike expected to be gunned down immediately, what he did not expect was for Georgiou to laugh at him heartily. "Oh Captain, I don't need your cooperation anymore. Not now I have you."
The Captain's mind reeled then exploded in agony when Georgiou swung her rifle at his head. He collapsed backwards harshly and cracked his head on the warm Vulcan terrain. Pike's vision turned blurry and he felt darkness approaching. He could just about make out the outline of Georgiou's sinister expression before unforgiving metal smashed into his face and the lights went out.
A/N - Next chapter should be up in the next few days :)
Until next time...