Dolls Chapter 2

Sorry if some things are a little out of character. I realize that. Please R&R!

McCoy woke up to his familiar quarters, inhaling the air and slowly sitting up in his bed. He was still tired from getting up as he put on his shirt and washed up. He was about to open up the door when he realized something. Something was missing.

Quickly, he checked his clock. It read nine twenty two. His eyes went wide with fear as he bolted out the door and punched the communicator, an eerie silence meeting his ears. A cold sweat ran down his spine. Oh god…oh my god…Spock hadn't called him this morning.

If this was Jim who told him he had the early shift, he wouldn't be freaked. This was Spock. The uptight, logical, punctual Vulcan. This was weird and the absence of noise in the hallway was scaring him. "Bones to bridge. Come in bridge." He pleaded. Something in his gut knew something was seriously wrong here.

Dead air. Just dead air. "Jim?" more silence. "Spock! Spock! Respond you pointy eared hobgoblin!" He yelled, his voice withering into that of a small child's.

He ran to the elevator and the normal, annoying music had been shut off. Even that would be comforting now. It reached his stop and he scuttled out the door to see the entire bridge…frozen.

Jim sat in his chair…but it wasn't frozen. Everybody's face was twisted in fear. Kirk couldn't turn his neck. McCoy scurried in front of his friend. "Jim! What in the devil's name happened?" he yelled, shaking.

"You were right." He vocals were strained as if it was difficult to speak. His normal authority had been stolen away and cast into the endless space below them.

"What?" Bones held Jim by the arm, begging for an answer and for him not to have the responsibility of a star ship. That was Jim's job, not a doctor's. Not a doctor's job.

"Its her. She's-" his voice was so injured it was hard to hear and his jaw was then forced up. Cahili was doing this. What could she possibly want with a star ship?

McCoy turned around to see Spock and his chair was empty. "Where's Spock?" he almost whimpered.

No response, but Kirk's eyes seemed a little shiny…wet? No. It couldn't be. McCoy nodded and took a deep breath. "It's okay." He assured his friend. "Everything's going to turn out alright." And left for the princess's quarters.

Xxx

The door opened and the doctor had to squint. There had somehow been lights applied in the room and it was now hot pink, like her doll's dress. Cahili sat in the middle along with a certain frozen Vulcan. This had stopped being funny. Now it was just plain creepy.

The princess turned her head and smiled. "Do you like it?"

The color from McCoy's face drained. "Let them go."

"Will you join us for tea?" Little girls…not at all like Joanna. He had always had nightmares as a kid about creepy dolls…lifeless eyes…not like teddy bears. There was that girl in 2nd grade…he shivered a little.

"No. Cahili, you need to put everything back."

"That's impolite to ruin someone's fun." She pouted.

Bones was beginning to wonder if coming in here had been such a good idea, because now the tug was stronger than ever and there was no room for resisting. If he did, it felt like the carbon in his bones would shatter. He helplessly sat in a chair, at the mercy of a little five year old girl. Why had he applied for Starfleet med school anyway?

Spock sat in a chair, facing the corner. "He wasn't any fun at the tea party!" She said, got up and flicked one of his ears. Normally, McCoy would find this amusing, now he felt extremely defensive for his friend.

"Let him go." He said, anger building in his chest. She could do whatever she wanted to with him, but not mess with his two closest friends in the universe. If anyone was going to twang Spock's ears, it was either going to be a doctor by the name of Leonard McCoy, or nobody at all.

"No." She grinned mischievously and stuck out her tongue.

"Now, Cahili!" He yelled. She laughed more, amused at the situation.

"Use your inside voice, Bones!" Now this was just plain annoying.

"Release this star ship or I'm going to call your parents." He threatened. Please, please work!

News for him.

It really didn't work.

Bones was beginning to move, totally against his will. He lay on the floor, a small child standing above him. This was humiliating. Alright, if he really wanted his friends back, he would have to act.

"May I have some tea?" he asked kindly, hoping the total insincerity wouldn't show through.

"Sure!" she released her grip and he sat up, relieved. He paid attention to Spock, sitting in that chair. Somehow, she had gotten a hold of pink paint, and now everything was blindingly colorful. Somehow it really didn't look right, seeing a Vulcan in a frilly pink chair. Almost comical.

McCoy noted that from the time he had come in and the time he had tried to defend them, Spock seemed less tense. The situation was totally irrational, obviously melting his mind right about now. But he seemed to calm him, now that one of his few friends was here. He wasn't a completely helpless hostage. Well, that's an overstatement. He was still under a five year old's complete control.

"Do you want biscuits?" she asked, handing the doctor a plate with nothing on it.

"No thank you." He pushed back the tray. Now if he could find a way to get them out of here.

"Your friend's funny. He looks green. I hate that color. Is he sick?" Jackpot. Sometimes, after hard work of saving multiple redshirts from certain doom, you have to get some reward, right?

"You know what? He does look a little green."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I have an idea. You stay here, and I'll take a look at him in sick bay."

"Can I come?" She looked at him hopefully.

"Well, you have to invite more people to the tea party." So maybe crewmen were going to be sacrificed, but it wasn't like she was going to kill them at least.

"Alright fine." She huffed, her brown eyes sinking to the floor, and then springing to life just as well. "Bye!" Spock got up almost mechanically and walked to the door. They were in the elevator by the time Bones dared to speak.

"Spock? Can you move?"

The Vulcan's eyes were a shining brown, grateful and almost…smiling. "I do believe I have some of my own will power back, but parts of me are still being controlled."

"We need to get to sickbay. It could be our only safe haven."

They got off and with some difficulty, Spock staggered in to the medical room. The door to the main area was barricaded with chairs. "Great. Lets go to my quarters." Spock seemed to be recovering quickly and soon they were in the Doctor's quarters.

"Now how in blazes are we going to fix this." Bones sat down on his bed and put his head in his hands.

McCoy's question was not supposed to be rhetorical. But instead, Spock just down on the bed like him and did not speak. His eyes searched the blank floor, his logic seeming to fail him. "We can't just wait…she can kill us. She can do whatever she wants with this entire star ship."

"Do you suppose she can control the communications out of the ship?" Spock asked, turning his head towards the doctor. He was on to something.

"I don't know. She could have…wait, no six year old girl could ever know about communications and the entire electrical system."

"I do believe you mean contact to starfleet would not be impossible."

"Correct." A wave of relief spread through Bones's back. He was not now responsible for 427 lives, not counting his own. He had Spock there. A stubborn, logical Vulcan.

"So how should we go about doing this?" McCoy asked hesitantly.

"Logically." Spock offered offhand.

"That's not helpful."

"I was merely suggesting that the approach should not be a random surge of emotion." Now he was just jabbing.

"At least I have emotion!" Bones yelled, louder than he needed to.

"And what aspect of intelligence does that help you achieve?"

"The ability to understand humans, or something very much like them! Between you and me, we are the only ones who can save this entire star ship from a very human captor!" Spock shut up, realized what a waste of time this was, when very little may be at hand.

"If I could ask again, how are we to contact star fleet?" Spock asked coolly.

"I don't know, I'm a doctor, not a communications engineer…" McCoy grumbled.

"You would need to go down in the subsection level 5 on deck three, into the engineering quadrant and then set up the safeguard field, and then you can open communications from there."

"I don't know how to rewire things, Spock. I was trained in medical, not electrical." McCoy couldn't do that. There was no way he could do this. This was why Spock was here…wasn't it? He needed to not be in charge. No matter what happened, Jim was always there. Always telling him everything was going to work out, even when certain death was sure as the morning sun. He could always rely on his friends to pull them through. He would always be the healer, not the leader. Safe in his own job. Spock was always there too. His immovable logic was always right. Always right. Their arguments, although only Jim seemed to get, were just them expressing their friendship. Even if it came out as Bones throwing something and Spock commenting on his rage.

"Doctor, I can go, but I have done research on psychokinetic abilities. Unlike the platonians, their existence sets up a field. Some of them have bigger fields than others, Cahili and the royal family having the largest spreads. If she tunes her mind in to the field she can feel everything. In this case, it seems as her field is as big as the enterprise." Spock laid down his information.

"Could there be a lapse in her field? Like, a spot it doesn't work?"

"That would seem impossible. Every time she moves, the field shifts."

"Can we track it?"

Spock pulled out a tricorder from an equipment drawer. "If I can adjust to the atoms, I can find any malfunctions or irregularity. If there is any, your theory of tracing the control on the ship could be indeed possible." The tricorder whirred as Spock held the thingy, waving it through the air and readings coming up on the screen.

"So, is it working?"

"It appears so." He raised and eyebrow, obviously pleased with himself. The eyebrow fell as quickly as it rose. "But there are no gaps and it spreads farther than the enterprise…"

"Excellent." Bones remarked.

"No, it is not excellent. This is a problematic-"

"I was being sarcastic…" Bones sighed.

Spock looked at him in a Vulcan rolleyes and continued with his report. "If one of us can distract her long enough, that could be enough time to arrange completion of the safeguard and block her transmission."

Bones nodded. "I'll do it."

"Doctor, I am the most dispensable of the two of us."

"Spock, I am going." He said firmly.

"It will be an extreme defect if Starfleet loses one of it's best surgeons. I am merely a first officer." Spock seemed unperturbed in his voice, but something flickered in his eyes.

The Vulcan's heart was underneath his mind. He would not let the doctor go. There was no way he would allow not just the CMO, but his friend to be…well, what ever Cahili would do.

But Bones would never tolerate Spock to go.

"I am going. If your stupid logic fails to see why I should go to distract her, the reasons are quite clear. You know how to wangle this whole force field in to working. You're smarter. She likes me, and unlike you, I can manipulate kids better. She's not going to kill me."

Spock looked on disapprovingly. They exchanged eyes, bright shining blue ones to caramel brown ones.

"I'll be fine." Bones stared at Spock, seeming so in control. So calm, serene, and composed. All of his ground in which he normally stood was being shaken and these things if on the outside looked standard, it was all crumpling indoors. "Good luck, Spock."