Chapter 2
Kirk, still at the head of their party, first smelled it. He glanced over at the Vulcan, who nodded briefly to his unasked question.
"Stay," Kirk ordered quietly. "Spock, with me."
Staying low, they advanced twenty feet to a gap in the crumbling stonework of the rampart they'd been following. Kirk looked through.
His lungs drew a sudden, uneven breath as he pulled back behind the wall, his head spinning.
"Captain!"
Spock's whispered alarm brought him back to himself. Setting his jaw he managed to keep control over his breathing. Spock swiftly moved around him, took a look, much longer than his, and proved much better at containing his reaction.
"He has been dead for several days," Spock whispered when he returned to Kirks' side. "Tattered, but unmistakably a Starfleet uniform. A Lieutenant. Crucified, Captain, and half burnt."
Tortured and left to rot, Kirk thought, still shaken. He looked back at the others. McCoy especially was giving him a worried look. He pulled his phaser and jerked his head to call them over.
"What the blazes is going on, Jim?" McCoy cursed under his breath. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
Kirk ignored him.
"We're moving on. Phasers ready, on stun. Don't -" he stopped, then continued with more composure, "-don't look through the hole in the wall. Just ignore it. That's an order."
He let Spock and the others pass and closed the rear behind McCoy. He knew full well that the headstrong Doctor wouldn't obey his order.
He put a hand on McCoy's sleeve just as he glanced through.
"We have to-," McCoy started.
Kirk held him back.
"He's beyond our help, Bones. Stay calm. Move on."
Kirk gently pushed the Doctor past the awful vision. He didn't look again when he passed it himself.
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"Who would do such a thing?" McCoy growled. It was too loud to Kirk's ears.
"Going by our scans, Doctor," Spock said calmly, "the crew of the Troika. There seems to be no one else."
"Impossible," the Doctor retorted.
Kirk was about to tell McCoy to keep it down when he stopped.
"We'll find out soon enough," he muttered through clenched teeth.
He nodded ahead.
Thirty feet away, blocking their path, stood a man. His clothes were rags held together with ropes. His boots, though ripped and grimy, were unmistakably of Starfleet issue. He held a crude knife to his side.
Kirk motioned for the others to stay as they were and slowly stepped forward. The man responded by lifting his knife and wiring his body to spring. His bloodshot eyes roved their ranks, the knife point trembled in his white-knuckled hand. But there was a tiredness to his aggression, as of a wild animal caged for too long.
Kirk halted and slowly and deliberately returned his phaser to his hip. He advanced again, more slowly, with empty hands outstretched in a conciliatory gesture.
"I am Captain James T. Kirk of the Enterprise. We're here on a rescue mission. Are you from the Troika?"
The man frowned. In his eyes Kirk could see the effort it was taking him to concentrate. Saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth into his grubby beard. Kirk approached to within ten feet. It was as close he cared to come to this miserable creature.
"T-Troika," the man stammered. He lowered the knife. "Ye-es. The Troika. R-rescue mission?"
The spark was quickly dying.
"What happened here?" Kirk asked quickly, trying to keep the man's attention. "Is Captain Sidorov still alive? Can you take us to him?"
At the mention of Siderov's name the man again overcame his sullen confusion.
"Yes. Yes, the Captain. Yes, he will want to see you. Come!"
He abruptly turned to go.
"Wait!"
The man turned back, questioning.
"Is it safe?" Kirk asked.
"Safe?" He seemed not to understand Kirk's concern.
"What happened to the man in the square," Kirk asked, pointing behind him. "Who did that?"
"The others. They're not here. It's safe. Come quickly!"
They had no choice but to follow their guide, who moved with a furtiveness that seemed to Kirk instinctive but not due to their present situation. Still, he motioned to the others to keep their phasers raised and ready.
They moved quickly now. He tried to keep track of their tortuous, haphazard route, but soon he lost all sense of direction. He liked it less and less, following this wreck of a man into a place that bore more and more signs for concern. Phaser blasts now scorched the walls. The rubble increased, not from decay but from violent demolition. Here and there it was piled up in defensive reconstructions.
War zone.
He was about to order them to stop when their guide halted. Alarm bells going off, Kirk stopped in his tracks. He scanned the small, deserted square while also keeping an eye on the man.
The man turned around and in a sing-song cackle that sent shivers up Kirk's spine said,
"Captain Siderov is he-ere."
Kirk spun around.
In the blink of an eye.
They were surrounded.
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"Hold your fire," Kirk warned the men behind him. "Stay calm."
At a glance he counted twenty of them, drawing closer in a tightening circle. All men, many in worse shape than their first encounter. They had the same dull viciousness on their faces. Their weapons were equally crude: knives, hatchets, clubs, and spikes.
Where are their phasers? Their communicators? Why is their clothing so primitive? What's wrong with them?
"I'm Captain Kirk of the Enterprise," he called out forcefully. "We're here to rescue the crew of the Troika."
It had the desired effect. The ring stopped closing around them. There was some muttering.
"I wish to speak to Captain Siderov," Kirk commanded.
"I am Siderov."
The circle parted. A man stepped forward.
Kirk recognized the Captain of the Troika. He didn't have that crazed look, like the others. His uniform was dirty but still intact, his face was even clean-shaven. Still, Kirk didn't let his guard down, for this wasn't the affable Gavrel Siderov he knew. The man in front of him exuded hostility. He was staring Kirk down with arrogant, burning eyes and a malicious sneer.
"Gav, it's me, Jim Kirk."
"I recognize you," Siderov declared. His very tone was an act of aggression. "You've come rescue us, Jim?"
"Yes," Kirk said cautiously.
Siderov's laugh was mirthless. No one joined him.
Kirk considered frantically what to do next. He senses his men, forming a half circle behind him, their phasers drawn and aimed at the crowd.
Too many of them, too close…
"Order them to drop their phasers, Jim," Siderov barked.
The circle started closing in again.
"Do it," Kirk hissed.
"Yours too, Jim."
Kirk pulled the phaser off his belt and dropped it with the others.
"Your communicators," Siderov said.
"Gav, what's going on?" Kirk asked, failing in his effort not to plead.
They were only five feet away now.
"Your communicator, Captain," Siderov insisted.
The point of a long, thin blade came to rest on Kirk's collarbone.
He took the communicator off his belt and gripped it tightly, feeling in its substance his tenuous hold on their lifeline to the Enterprise. Giving it up meant surrendering himself and his crew to these mad men.
The sword shifted half an inch and pricked him in the neck.
"Drop it, Jim," urged Siderov, a hint of amusement in his voice.
Kirk dropped it. The sword stayed where it was. Kirk could feel a trickle of blood run down into his uniform collar. For a couple of breathless seconds, nothing happened.
Are they going to butcher us here and now?
"Lock them up. Bring Kirk," Siderov ordered.
Suddenly alive with movement, the circle disintegrated around them, and in that chaos, in the corner of his eye, Kirk saw a flash of bright red.
"Don't!" he yelled, spinning around.
Too late. Forbes lunged.
Many hands held him from getting to his man, and he screamed as Forbes was viciously cut down. He roared and struggled in vain. A vice grip around his neck tightened and his vision blurred to the others being dragged away and the spray of blood as his crew man was hacked to pieces in front of him.
"Stop it! Stop it!" he croaked, gasping for air when he was finally released and dropped to his knees into the bloody mud.
"Bring him!" he heard Siderov bark. Hands lifted him, and he was dragged away.