Ch.2
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"Whoof, Spock, you could have warned me it was going to be this hot down here," Kirk gasped as the party rematerialized on the surface of the planet. The warmth beat down on them in dry waves; Kirk fancied he could already feel his eyeballs drying out. "If I'd known it'd be like this I would have worn shorts…"
"Spock, my friend, I just felt a rare wave of gratitude for you," stated McCoy, staring around suspiciously.
"Me too," said Uhura.
"You guys don't know how to appreciate good things when they come knocking," declared Kirk, as he checked the radio signal back to the Enterprise. "Alright. So we're gonna go around this big boulder and there's three buildings over there. Hopefully the Orions will be smart enough not to fire; best case scenario, they clear out peacefully. McCoy, you and I are going to not let ourselves be affected by those female pheromones."
"Captain," said Spock, "I'm not sure that a simple preemptive mindset will be affective against such potent chemicals."
"Affective, maybe not, but it's better than going in there completely unprepared. Just in case, if we encounter any females, you and Uhura will deal with them, McCoy and I will hang back. We're going in defensive." With that, he led the way around the rocky protrusion.
The buildings that came into sight were alarmingly nondescript. Simple to the extreme, they were obviously made for packing up and scramming at the drop of a pin. Or the drop of a Starfleet crew, as it were. Kirk couldn't see anybody outside the buildings, not that he'd expected to, in these temperatures. He wondered, as he noticed that twilight appeared to be creeping towards them over some shallow mountains in the distance, if it would cool down any once night had fallen. He could only hope; the heat was coming up through the rock and turning his shoes into veritable ovens.
They were mere meters away from checking out the first building when a green head popped out from behind a door, stuck on a green neck, which topped a most voluptuous green torso that was minimally clad in –
"AAaah, haha," he said, taking a rapid step back, catching himself.
"Something wrong?" asked the she-Orion innocently.
"May I, Captain?" Spock said, stepping forward in Kirk's place. The Captain gratefully waved him forward, and stood by McCoy. The doctor was carefully averting his eyes.
"Greetings," began Spock. The Orion watched him expectantly. "We come to respectfully inquire as to your business on this planetoid. We have reason to believe an operation of dubious purpose may be taking place here."
Oh geez, thought Kirk. He doubted courtesy was going to get them anywhere. Maybe he should have had Uhura deal with the Orion. He watched the green female size up Spock, her eyes lingering on his ears. Kirk smirked.
"Are you accusing us of illicit conduct?" she asked incredulously, which made her sound completely inane, as 'illicit conduct' was precisely what Orions were known for.
"That would be correct, miss. If you've nothing to declare, we'd like to have a look around."
"Well, I do have something to declare, actually." She slipped out from behind the door, revealing her entire minimally-clad self; McCoy and Kirk backed up as nonchalantly as they could. Uhura stepped forward, blocking the Orion's further advance, a no-nonsense look on her face.
"Don't even try it," she snapped. "What are you declaring?" The Orion gave Uhura a look that probably would have killed part of Kirk's soul.
"Cool down, cool down. I was going to say; we've got precisely nothing illicit going on. We were on our way to Rigel, our ship needed some repairs, we landed here for a few days. And by the way, I find it offensive that you assume we've got some shady business going on down here."
"We're very sorry that we offended you, miss," said Spock sincerely. "Would you mind if we take a look around?" he asked, completely shattering the authenticity of his last statement. Spock did, in fact, have a sense of humor. Kirk was learning to appreciate the subtleties of it.
The Orion paused at this, staring at Spock's ears once again, then giving them all a kind of poisonous look of poorly disguised I'm measuring you up to see how easy it will be to kill you all.
"I'll let you talk to my… husband," she said, glancing behind her to the doorway, where a large, green monster had materialized from the shadows. Kirk, relieved to be dealing with a male, spoke up from behind Uhura.
"We have reason to believe you're conducting illicit business here. Why don't you just let us take a look around? If we don't find anything we'll leave you guys in peace. If you are, though, you could make it easy on yourselves and tell us what's going on here."
"Nothing is going on here," the male grumbled, his deep voice echoing from his cavernous chest. Kirk sincerely hoped it wasn't going to come down to hand-to-hand combat. This guy could probably break Kirk's ribcage with his earlobe.
"In that case, we'll just check things out quick and then leave. Sound good?"
"Why don't you leave now instead?"
"You're not making a case for yourself, buddy." Hand twitching in anticipation, Kirk let it float near his phaser. "We don't want to arrest you."
"Dear," said the female Orion, hanging on the hulk's arm, "let them look. We have nothing to hide." After a few tense moments of eyebrows narrowing into murderous slits, Kirk was relieved to see him nod in agreement.
"Alright," he said, rather louder than was probably necessary, "go ahead, look around. But I want you out of here in ten minutes, or I reserve the right to force you out."
"Fine. McCoy, Spock, check out this building, then go over to the little one. Uhura and I will cover the last building and the ship."
"You won't be entering the ship."
"Why not? Don't you have nothing to hide?"
"The ship is unstable. Nobody but our engineer is allowed on."
"We'll just look. No touching, okay?"
"The ship is off-limits!" Clearly, the big Orion had lost whatever cool he had had.
"Well, maybe your engineer would like to walk us through, just to set our minds at ease. Swear we won't touch anything."
"That would be fine. Let's walk them through," the green woman said, giving her man a pointed look. He managed to nod, although Kirk could see he was clearly ready to rip someone's thumbs off and stick them in their eye sockets. Managing to catch Spock's eye, Kirk nodded pointedly at the two Orions who had started off towards the ship. Spock caught the message and went up to start chatting amiably with the aliens, Uhura joining in. Kirk hung back to walk next to McCoy.
"Bones," he whispered, "I've got a plan."
"Great, we're doomed."
"We're gonna go in there, and assuming they don't jump us right away, I'm gonna distract them up front once we pass the cargo hold. You see if you can get into the cargo hold. That must be where they're keeping the slaves."
"You may be getting a bit ahead of yourself…"
"By then I'm guessing the Orions will have noticed your absence. We'll tell them we're confiscating their slaves, join you in the cargo hold, then we'll contact the Enterprise and beam up. We don't really want to arrest them."
"Jim, you're insane. Do you know what the chances are that this'll work?"
"Got a better plan?" Kirk loved being able to say that. They never had a better plan. McCoy, looking doubtful, nodded. Spock and Uhura were busy keeping up a lively discussion with the Orions about the viability of what was apparently wrong with the ship's impulse drive. The Orions halted conversation once they'd entered the ship, and their walking pace picked up considerably. Kirk made his way up to the front, giving McCoy a reassuring look.
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Bones returned Kirk's look with his best glare. The Captain was obviously out of his mind, if he thought this was going to work. Kirk was assuming that the Orions wouldn't kill them, but McCoy was fairly certain that taking a more cautious approach may have been a better idea. Knowing his luck, these Orions probably were innocent. They were probably keeping extra pairs of skimpy clothing in the cargo bay, next to canned pickled onions and other such trivial objects. The distress signal that Uhura hadn't been able to identify was more than likely a weird little frequency that was being given off by this malfunctioning ship. Jim was just getting excited. He wanted some adventure.
Fortunately or not, he wasn't given very much time to feel grumpy about the situation, as presently they passed a large door that read 'Cargo Hold'. There was a corner ahead of them, and the second the two Orions rounded it, Bones could hear Kirk start to yammer about how this ceiling panel looked suspicious, what's up there, anyways?
The party successfully jammed around a corner, Spock and Uhura giving Bones fleeting glances, he backtracked to the cargo hold and, taking a deep breath meant to calm his nerves (subsequently failing), he pushed the button to open.
Having expected it to be locked, he was a bit shocked when it slid easily open. Having a male Orion staring him in the face on the other side of the door was also a bit of a jolt.
His arm drew back and his fist hammered the alien across the jaw. Catching on to what his body had decided to do, he threw another punch, and the Orion teetered unsteadily before falling. He'd have to reflect on the chances of that actually working for anyone other than Jim later on. The gun came easily out of the Orion's limp grip, and after closing the door behind him, he turned around.
"Oh my."
So maybe Jim was right, now and again, about these things.
There were people. About a dozen of them, he supposed. About half of them looked like kids, and the other half were so strange-looking that he couldn't tell either way. He didn't recognize the species of any of them. They were clearly frightened, backing away and staring.
"We're here to save you," he said lamely, holding his hands out, palms up, in a calming manner. "We're going to beam you back aboard our ship, where you'll be safe. Do you understand?"
They stared.
"Do any of you understand me? We need to go." We need to go, he said in his head again, realizing that about now would be a good time to contact Scotty. He raised the radio to his lips, pressed call.
"Mister Scott, are you there?" There was only a slight pause before the reply came.
"Yes, doctor."
"Be ready to beam us up. We've got about a dozen extras coming back up-" The sound of raised, alarmed voices echoed through the walls into the cargo bay. They'd been found out. Kirk would be telling them to surrender their cargo about now.
A phaser blast made McCoy's blood pressure jump. That wasn't supposed to happen. That also hadn't been a phaser set to stun; the Orions were aiming to kill.
"Dammit. Ok, kids, gather 'round, time to go."
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"Scott! Got about six here ready to go, beam 'em up!"
"Got it, doctor." McCoy's first transmission to Scotty had ripped him from a quite interesting article about a new transwarp theory, but as the sound of the phasers came back to him via the doctor's radio, Scotty's mind had all but forgotten the magazine. His fingers fairly flew across the screen, found the six targets, and started the transport sequence. One second later, six smallish beings rematerialized on the pads. He couldn't afford a glance in their direction.
"Off the pads, please," he barked at them, hoping they understood him. A few moved off, the others following. Scotty was already trying to lock on to the next group as McCoy's radio shrieked at his side.
"They're in the cargo bay! They're firing at us, Scotty, get us out!" He could hear more shots being fired, and quite a few high-pitched yells.
"There are too many transmissions, I cannae tell which one of you is who, hold still!" he said helplessly into the radio.
"Just get us out!" Hoping he hadn't picked up an enemy, Scotty locked onto six more signals, started the transport sequence –
The room shook and a blast assaulted his ears – a knot of dread appeared in his ribcage – the new arrivals shaken off their feet and Scotty barely managing to keep his hands on the control panel. Alarms started shrieking, Chekov's voice yelling incomprehensibly over the intercom, the sound of McCoy's radio cut off sharply, a horrible, sinking feeling welling up in his chest –
The static sounds of a failed transportation, the worst sound in the universe. The collective gasp of the kids huddled against the wall as they saw what had appeared on the transport pads, NO, thought Scotty. But he had mere seconds, and he had to be sure. He raised his eyes, but stopped before they came into focus. Sidevision told him all he needed to know.
"Memory files, memory files…" he mumbled feverishly, forcing his brain to remember where they were stored.
"Scotty! Meestir Scott! Come in!" He finally registered what Chekov had been shouting.
"What!" he yelled, not taking his fingers or eyes off the screen.
"We are being hailed! You are the commanding officer!" The fact that they'd just been fired upon by another vessel, and that that vessel was now asking to speak with the commanding officer, dawned upon Scotty and he found that he couldn't possibly care less.
"Did you put the shields up?" he asked weakly, finally finding the correct command to fix what had happened on the transporter pads. God help him but he thought he could hear one of them moaning.
"Yes, of course-"
"Take them down."
"But-"
"I need to operate the transports, take them down!"
"Yes sir. Sir, you'd better get up here quick, they're…" Chekov's voice faded from Scotty's attention. All he cared about was confirming the 'access memory file and transport' command. And he did. The sound of the transport filled the room, the things on the pads disappeared, and he sat helplessly, fingers clenched around the radio.
The radio fizzed to life. He jammed his finger at the call button.
"McCoy! Hello, are you alright?" He released the button, feeling numb, still not hearing Chekov's voice coming to him urgently over the intercom. McCoy's radio had reassembled, where was McCoy?
"McCoy!" he tried again, anxiety making his voice crack. And then, from the radio,
"… Holy shit, man-"
"Are ye alright? Are ye whole?"
"Yeah…" Relief flooded his system and allowed his ears to tune in to other things besides his radio, namely the intercom, where Chekov was barely keeping himself from panicking.
"… fire again. I repeat, come to ze bridge asip, Meestir Scott, zey are getting ready to hit us again-"
"Shields up, Chekov!" Scotty yelled. "I'll be there in a second!" He interrupted the disbelieving mutterings of McCoy and the chaotic background noise that came with it as he sprung to his feet and made for the bridge. "McCoy, I cannae beam ye up now. There's somethin' wrong with the transporter and we're bein' hailed by a hostile vessel that's firin' at us. Can ye hold yer ground?"
"Guess we'll have to."
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