"Sir? Sir. You're awake. That's good. That's very good."
I slowly turned my head towards the voice. I was awake... but I couldn't see who it was. All I could see was a blur of blue and black and white. I blinked, attempting to clear the mist from my eyes. It didn't seem to want to release me.
"Do you remember anything?" Another voice. "Anything at all?"
Honestly, I had a vague feeling that I ought to be glad to be alive... Still, something about this whole situation put me off. In fact, I actually felt... off. "No," I answered curtly.
LIAR, a voice in my head shouted at me. You remember EVERYTHING. Admit it. That put me off, too. No, I retorted mentally. They don't need to know any more than they already do, and they know plenty.
More calmly, I said, "I don't remember anything... I was... on a shuttle, I know that much," I reaffirmed the statement to the blurs in the room, and suddenly felt an unreasonable stab of guilt.
I could actually lie without excruciating pain. That wretched little Centaurian Slug wasn't latched onto my brainstem and laying my head out like a map for the taking. It felt so good... and yet... so... not good as well.
"Well, that's at least a start. Do you remember who you are?" That same voice- the one belonging to the black blur.
I paused. Christopher Richard Pike. Born in Mojave, Earth. Captain of the USS Enterprise... except that... I didn't feel like Captain Christopher Pike. I felt... different. As if nothing were ever going to be the same. Knowing my luck, that was probably true.
The black blur repeated the question. I knew the correct answer, even if that was a lie as well.
"Pike; Christopher. Captain of the USS Enterprise."
Saying those words... I knew they just weren't true anymore. They were outdated information. Non-applicable. Obsolete. Because I felt so hollow... so... lonesome. Even if I were surrounded by people, which I quickly deduced by their concerned voices were friends, I felt so alone... so much like a shell of myself, as if I could never bring a mirror to my face again without unbearable shame.
The blue blur spoke again. A name flashed in my mind: McCoy. "Do you— I have something for any pain you have, if you need it."
"No," I rasped, suddenly realizing that my throat was parched, and again disregarding my conscience, which told me that I was lying to my friends again—my legs, (not to mention the rest of my body) hurt like hell. Still, there was no need to concern them with something that I could bear. "But... I can't see—everything's blurry."
"Oh. Hmm." A beat. "That may be a reaction to the medication to get the toxin out of your system."
I blinked, mostly in disbelief, and partially in liking the silence.
The black blur—must be Kirk—spoke again. "You've been in heavy detoxification for the last couple of days, so that isn't a surprise. McCoy's been trying to get all of the poisons out of your system... we... uh... we were pretty worried about you. You were screaming a lot, and you looked pretty miserable."
I grit my teeth and bit back a cutting reply. Of course I was miserable. I hated what had happened, and yet... a near-irresistible urge was there to get down on my knees and beg them to put the bug back in. That was a strange request, but...I suppose that it takes a bit of explanation...
Some time before...
"Christopher."
Pike hated that voice. It meant pain and humiliation. It meant shame and failure. He cursed Nero internally with gritted teeth. Then he remembered what would happen when his pulse spiked.
He tried to calm himself, but before he could dispel his thoughts, intense pain lit his body alight. He screamed, and before he could stop it, his mouth roared his exact thoughts. The series of nasty expletives reverberated around the room.
Suddenly, a cool, refreshing feeling flowed over him, beginning with the back of his neck, and spreading to the rest of his body. He felt so... nice. For a moment, he was so happy, he forgot about the whole situation.
It felt like everything in the whole universe was set right. He knew that was obviously untrue, but the feeling sure felt good while it lasted.
Nero simply gave a crazed laugh. "Well, glad to know you'll speak your mind. What do you really think of me?"
This time, Pike didn't even try to stop his words as they tumbled out in monotone. "I hate you. I always will... You've taken so much from me and I want nothing more than for you to die."
Pike bit his lip and a tear slowly traced down his cheek. He knew full well that he, in essence, had just intentionally shot up on narcotics. The shame crashed back down on him—he was better than that. He was!... Then the toxin washed into his bloodstream, and he suddenly didn't care anymore.
It was absolutely wonderful. He hadn't felt so good in ages. It felt like he was in a nice warm shower after a well-completed mission. For him... that was basically the best feeling in the whole universe. He grinned broadly and laughed gleefully in drug-induced stupor. That bliss didn't last nearly long enough.
"Well, I didn't come down here to watch you drug yourself out of your mind. I have questions."
Pike went silent. There was always something more. Something else he had to say to avoid agonizing pain. Some other secret that should be kept, and wasn't, because he wasn't strong enough to resist. But then, the chemicals and toxins currently coursing though his veins made him look like an addict, so... well... enough said. He closed his eyes and shook his head slowly.
"When you first came here, you seemed so... resigned to your fate. Defiant, perhaps, but still resigned. If you had not, you would never have come here aboard my ship." Nero circled the table menacingly. "You had accepted it. You were ready to die, yes?"
An interesting aspect of Centaurian Slugs—they don't actually force their victims to tell the truth. Pike had heard all sorts of rumors about the creatures, whether from his father or other space adventurers who had lost men to the vile things. Now, however, he could honestly say from (albeit unwanted) personal experience that they didn't force you to tell the truth... they just made you desperately want to surrender the information.
The toxin they release functions as a highly addictive depressant. It is automatically released into their host's system, and the more relaxed the host is, the more the toxin will be released into the bloodstream.
As a parasite, this is so that, eventually, the host (Victim.) will overdose on the toxin, and the slug can happily devour its victim from the inside in peace. However, due to the very nature of that issue, and considering the current situation, that did not constitute what Christopher Pike wanted to think about in the slightest.
Used as a torture tactic, when the host (Victim.) tells a lie or withholds information, various biological functions (for example, heart rate and endorphins) signal the Centaurian Slug through the brainstem to stop the release of the depressant. Detox began immediately and was absolutely excruciating.
Pike didn't know how long detoxification actually lasted—then, of course, he really didn't want to try.
"Yes," he mumbled. "I was ready to die."
"Why were you ready to die? You weren't facing the destruction of your world. What was it?" Nero put his hands on the table and leaned in imposingly. "I want to know, Christopher."
Pike gritted his teeth as the flow of chemicals slowed and he felt detox beginning to set in. "Don't try to be nice to me. It never does anything." He grit his teeth, and steeled his jaw for the onslaught ahead.
"Christopher, you know it will only get worse as you hold back. The toxin always works." Nero was so relaxed about the entire situation, and Pike found himself being even more resentful to Nero's lack of concern as the pain intensified.
"NO! I am not going to... to—" His body spasmed involuntarily as he drifted in and out of delirium.
...
A hutch wasn't enough to keep out the rain. Blankets were not enough to keep out the cold. The smell of mold and rot hung heavy in the air, accentuated with the residual smell of fire and chemical smoke.
Twelve-year-old Christopher shivered in his chair and cradled his burned face as he looked out at the muddy beach and the ghostly, blackened land mass beyond. Just two days ago, fires had raged across the fields, and it was only by coming here that anyone had survived. As soon as the fire had hit the slick, dark water of the river, it had ceased its tireless hounding of the colonists. It still burned there angrily, seemingly hoping that the easterly winds driving it would carry it to the island in the middle of the river, so that it could continue its arbitrary judgment of the colonists' wrongs.
Panic of whether sparks and embers would ignite the dry forested island remained for only a little while. Not half an hour after the first few colonists escaped over the river, a cold, heavy rain had descended by the wings of a westerly wind upon the valley— the first substantial rain in four months. The rain was equally as filthy as the river as it cleansed the heavy, smoke filled air. The fire had hissed and flickered in defiance as the Mercies of the Sender of the rain put it out.
It came a late for those who had been injured, or lost their lives in the fire, Christopher reminded himself bitterly. It was too little, too late.
The rain put out the wildfire that had ravaged what the adults had said was most of the planet, but it didn't stop. It pounded the remaining survivors incessantly, soaking and ruining supplies. They had no food. They had hardly any medical supplies. The best they could do was build lean-tos and makeshift shelters out of tarps to shield the wounded from the elements.
The tarps could only do so much. They didn't keep out the sudden cold that had arrived with the storm, because the shelters weren't closed, but they couldn't keep out all the rain, either, because the stupid tarps leaked.
He heard footsteps of hurried boots outside, and the crash of a felled tree as it splashed into the mud. The mud was a strange combination of dirt and silt, so much so that it nearly acted like quicksand. He heard angered shouts of desperation as the tree settled into the mud with groans of suction and pops of unsettled air pockets. The trees from the thickly forested island would have been used to build more permanent shelters... but with the rain, and the impossibility of the building surface, that was likely quite a long time in coming.
The boy gritted his teeth against the discomfort as he shifted, and the bandages stretched against the burns on his chest.. He hoped that Starfleet would arrive soon to take them way. Take the colonists away from this terrible, terrible place. This place where he had striven... and he had failed. His failure.
...
It was all his fault. It was his fault, and his failure that led to George Kirk's death—the death of his best friend.
Christopher Pike and George Kirk were almost inseparable. Practically joined at the hip, most people said. That may have been because they were roommates, but more likely the fact that, where one was, you were likely to find the other as well. They did everything together—and they were made a good team.
They were young and mischievous and brash, George Kirk was impulsive but harmless (mostly) and generally considered 'sweet' by most of his associates. Christopher Pike was the quiet, friendly, and up-and-coming lawyer who could get himself and his best friend out of detention or expulsion with a lot of reason and a little personal charm. It stayed that way for all four years of their Academy training.
The young cadets were practically brothers. It wasn't as if they didn't have families of their own... but still. Chris was the Best Man at George's wedding. He took the one picture of George and Winona that made it into the 'Most Memorable Moments of Our Lives' classification for both of them, and would still be in Chris's home in Mojave in an old wood box more than twenty five years later...
In the end, Chris only wished George could have returned the favor. George never met Vina, or Chris's parents.
For that matter, George never met his own son.
Instead, he was killed during a battle between the Kelvin, and a massive ship of unknown origin. He sacrificed himself to allow his son and wife to live, as well as several hundred other people. Still... Chris blamed himself for his friend's death.
At that time, they were both officers aspiring for Captaincy. Christopher Pike was an undergraduate Commander on the S.S. Exitorn, and George was a Lieutenant Commander—one close to promotion, at that. It was at Chris's suggestion that George accepted the post on the Kelvin, because, the commander had said, an assignment to the brand-new ship was a promotion just waiting to happen.
George Kirk died before that dream came to fruition.
If wishes were fishes, there'd be no room for the water, Chris had reminded himself as he continually punched the wall of his quarters in rage and grief at learning of his friend's death that he had unwittingly helped to orchestrate. In truth, he succeeded at nothing other than breaking his hand in a compound fracture.
It didn't hurt nearly as much as he expected, but it had been more than worth it. The physical pain distracted him from the emotional pain (but you would never hear him say that).
The blood that spread across his fingers and smeared on the wall was the pain and anger, in his mind, displayed for him to see and to scrub away when the time came.
Christopher Pike was transferred back to a Terran posting while he finished getting his PhD... How fitting it was for his dissertation to be on the S.S. Kelvin.
After all, it was his second failure.
...
There was nothing left of the fleet. Just... nothing. Wreckage. Mere wreckage that threatened to destroy them as they struggled through the debris field.
He knew that it was unlikely that anyone had survived.
Chris had been so close to being among them...
It was because of Kirk—who wasn't even supposed to be here—that they even knew to expect danger.
It was only for the forgetfulness of an inexperienced helmsman that they weren't in the fray itself.
He saw the wreckage—he knew many of the people who had been on those ships, cadets included in that number. He knew that there was little chance of survival for them outright, and even less chance for rescue.
Another... failure. Failure to meet his fate—the dues he owed for the people who had lost their lives due to his direct or indirect involvement.
...
Nero shook his head as a primal screech tore itself out of Pike's throat. "You know... We'll never get anywhere this way. Just... just give in. It would be so much easier, wouldn't it be? Why not just tell me?"
Pike completely lost higher thought. All that he could think about was that something was hurting him, and he wanted it to stop. He knew how to stop it. Survival. Pain and agony and...
He suddenly knew that it was just too much. He wasn't willing to experience this for his own personal matters. "I've always been a private man. I... don't like to... share my feelings much," he gasped.
Nero's brow furrowed slightly.
Pike gave a blissful sigh as the wonderful numbing effect took hold of his body again. He slowly continued as his eyes unfocused and he relaxed into the table.
"I've always felt like a failure. Even when I was just a kid... My parents on Elysium. I watched as they burned to death in the Fire that nearly killed me... I was always afraid of fire after that... And I've failed a lot of other people, too."
He paused as a new rush of the narcotic chemicals entered his bloodstream. "The S.S. Kelvin. I watched it get destroyed in George Kirk's last stand against you... And here... Vulcan. Shiloh. All those cadets." A tear squeezed out of his eye and ran down his face.
Nero tipped his head in curiosity.
Pike swallowed a rising lump in this throat. "I've always felt guilty…. This makes it so much more pointed. Why should I have survived, when so many others lost their lives? I deserved to die, too—be a name on a placard. "
"So you resigned yourself to your fate at my hands, as you believed it should be?"
Pike shook his head. He knew he shouldn't be saying these things. His job was to win the mind games. But he didn't care anymore—he was so desperate to have reward instead of punishment that he didn't care. The words just tumbled out uncontrollably. "I've failed so many times. My failures always seem to bring death and pain...But now I'm face to face with you. I've a chance to right wrongs. Undo mistakes, and hopefully save a few lives in the process."
Nero gave a slight smirk of mild amusement. "So you want to be a hero. You want to be a dead hero."
Pike shook his head. "No, no. Not a hero. Heroes... are for old comic books and poorly written holo-dramas... I want to rid myself of the guilt. The failure. If I die, so be it. It should have been that way, anyways. If I live... I still know I've paid my dues." Pike smiled in his drug-induced euphoria, but only briefly.
His face turned grim again. "Seeing you... Now I know the face of the man responsible for taking so many lives. If my name is added to the list, I now have at least the comfort of knowing what kind of man is the one who... who destroyed the U.S.S. Kelvin, those ships full of cadets, Vulcan, and caused so much pain to so many."
"You're ranting."
"I honestly don't care!" Pike gritted his teeth and sat up against the restraints, coming within a few inches of Nero's face. His pulse spiked, and his body began reacting to the slowing flow of toxins. "Knowing who you are, and meeting you, I get to hate you all the more," he snarled. "And I shall carry that hatred to the day I die."
The pain was quite intense by this time, but he managed to get his spiel in before he fell back down. The narcotics crashed back into his system.
Nero gave a slight smile and circled once around the table as Pike struggled to keep him in his field of vision. "It must pain you to expose yourself so. It must feel so... so naked for you to share everything."
"It does." He closed his eyes and shook his head slowly as the slug gave him a very pointed incentive to speak. "I don't want to tell you. I've never felt so... utterly humiliated in my life."
"Well," Nero smiled in glee. "Know that it wasn't by your doing. I remember how you shook in rage before the Centaurian Slug's toxin took hold of you." He tipped his head. "And yet—you still gave in." His voice turned sickly sweet. "You told me. You cracked."
Pike blinked in shock at what the Romulan was implying. The narcotics slowed as his rage built.
Nero leaned in, less than an inch from his ear. "Chalk it up to another one of your failures," he sneered self-righteously.
Christopher screamed, whether from rage or from agony he knew not.