Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek or any of the characters mentioned here except for it and Emily Eprouve (please read disclaimer in previous chapter for notes on Èprouvé.)

Warnings: Violence

Thanks for all the reviews!

Reminder that any typos or syntax errors in the native's dialogue is on purpose.


"Scotty! Chekov!" Kirk yelled as it bellowed a laugh. "Let them go now! I am the Captain of a Federation Starship and I order you—"

"You order me?" It repeated, shaking its head. "No, no, no, Caption. If you try to transport your men aboard, we'll just kill them before you have the chance. Leave now. If you bring anyone else down to our planet we will kill them brutally. Allow me to demonstrate…" It made a series of clicking noises, and the two officers were forcefully thrown to the ground, gasping in pain after a sharp thud. Three of the guards proceeded to whip the men, beat them with sticks, kick them, and shoot them with what appeared to be lasers. The other remaining guard went off screen.

Sulu was standing up now, staring in horror at the screen as his two best friends were torn apart. Kirk's mouth hung half open, McCoy and Uhura had long since looked away.

"That's enough." The Captain said, but they did not cease. "Alright, stop it…stop!" Kirk shouted. "Leave them alone!"

It cackled. "You are to leave orbit immediately." It said, orange eyes glistening with excitement.

"Not without my friends," Jim growled. He saw both Scott and Chekov freeze, then try to push themselves up, their bloodshot eyes staring at the Captain with both pride and sadness. He probably didn't tell the Engineer or the Navigator how much they meant to him as often as he should have. Kirk mentally slapped himself for not saying it before they were on their deathbeds.

"Friends?" The imp hissed. "I know no such word."

"You know…people that you care about. People you love?"

"Love?" It said skeptically. "I'm afraid I do not understand that term, either. No matter…"

Damn it! Why did the Enterprise always end up facing off against some immoral, barbaric alien race that had never heard of love? Why couldn't some other starship be saddled with it for once?

It was Spock's turn to step in. "I fail to understand why you wish to keep Mr. Scott and Mr. Chekov on your planet while you seem to hold a hatred of humans and wish to rid your planet of them." He provided, stepping toward the Captain's chair now so it could see him. Its face crinkled in confusion.

"Sumple, really." It replied. Kirk noted their common mispronunciations…Standard was certainly not their first language. He wasn't surprised. "We detest filthy, disgusting humans and we don't want any more on our planet." It explained. "…But why waste these two when they're just so much fun to watch suffer?" Jim growled and opened his mouth to say something, but it went on. "…You are not a human, I can see. I am smart. What are you?"

"I am a Vulcan." Spock stated simply. Out of the corner of his eye, Jim saw McCoy cross his arms in annoyance. Kirk knew that Spock had made a…logical decision of leaving off the "half-human" part, though, and unlike McCoy, did not take offense to it.

The guard who had left the scene returned, a vial in one hand and…something else in the other. It took the objects, looking excited. It filled the thing with liquid in the vial as Kirk turned to Spock.

"What is that?" He muttered. Spock was about to answer, but to his surprise, McCoy said something first.

"My God…" Leonard whispered. Kirk and Spock stared at the terrified doctor.

"What is it?" The Captain pried. "Bones, what is it?"

"It's called a syringe, Jim. A very, very old medical tool. Y'know, used to give shots?" McCoy quietly explained, accent lightly coming through in his voice due to his horror. "Before hyposprays. Oh, the pain…" The doctor trailed off and Jim bit his lip as it spoke again.

"Last chance, Caption. Leave now." It said defiantly.

"No!" Kirk hissed. "I'm the Captain of the USS Enterprise, I should be ordering you around, not vice versa."

"I do not give a clock who you are!" It yelled. Clock? Probably one of their expressions, Kirk decided. It held up the syringe and stepped over to Chekov. Scotty had last consciousness and Pavel was pretty close. "This was your decision, Caption. You could have just left and not had to watch this, but you made your choice."

It drove the syringe into Chekov's arm, injecting the liquid into his bloodstream. The Navigator's eyes widened, slowly beginning to change to a shade of red. He twisted and turned in obvious agony, falling to his knees with a helpless cry.

Sulu jolted up from out of his seat, mouth open wide. "Pavel!" he shouted in terror for his best friend.

"Bones!" Kirk addressed urgently.

"It must be whatever liquid that was in that vial that's hurting him," McCoy said, voice low. "Injections hurt but they didn't hurt that much."

It rolled it's eyes, having heard everything that was said. "Stupid humans. Do you want to know what I just injected into your pressious—" Precious. "Officer?" No answer. "Arsenic!" It cackled.

Kirk slumped down into his chair, face buried in his hands so he didn't have to watch Chekov writhe in pain. Emma did something similar, but simply looked away instead. Sulu stared in shock.

"Arsenic," Bones repeated. It was an ancient poison, but it got the job done if used correctly, and therefore throughout the years it remained a feared substance. It finally stopped laughing and looked to the Captain.

"Unless you wish to view—" Watch. "The other one die, you shall leave orbit immediately and notify your leader that this planet is not to be contacted under any circumstances!" It's orange eyes glistened with anger. Chekov was doubled-over on the ground, gasping with much effort. "I will attempt to contact you in three days—if you are still here, you watch him die!"

"What kind of argument is that—he'll die anyway!" Kirk shouted. Suddenly, the screen went black.

"…Transmission terminated, Captain." Uhura said in a shaky voice.

Kirk stood solemnly, staring down at the ground as the images of what had just happened flashed back over and over again. They'd been in situations like this before. His two close friends were dying—Chekov would be dead soon. Would they really not succeed this time? Was it really the end? Were Chekov and Scotty really going to be killed?

"Lieutenant?" Bones's voice cut into his thoughts. "Lieutenant Sulu. Sulu, are you alright? Snap out of it!" He commanded, voice sounding more and more urgent by the word. "Sulu!"

Bones was behind him now, holding the helmsman by the shoulders and lightly shaking him. Hikaru stared at the blank screen unblinkingly, mind in a type of trance. "Dammit," muttered McCoy. "This is bad, Jim. I'm taking him down to sickbay." Mental breakdown? Shock? Some messed up combination of the two? The commander only nodded and watched as the CMO pulled his distraught friend to sickbay.

Kirk's throat was tight, he didn't think he could have spoken if he wanted to.

"Captain?" Spock said, breaking him out of his thoughts. "I suggest we devise a plan, as soon as possible."

Kirk swallowed hard and took a deep breath. "Yeah, Spock…Èprouvé, you have the conn. Alert me if it…she…tries to hail us again."

"Yes, sir." Èprouvé said quietly, making her way over to the Captain's chair as Kirk and Spock left the bridge onto the turbolift. Jim put a hand through his hair, exhaling deeply as he contemplated what just happened.

"I shouldn't have sent them alone. I should have gone with them. We should have scanned the planet more efficiently. Oh—we should have known when there were no life forms detected at all, including the Colony…"

"Jim." Spock said, exasperated. He gave Kirk a look that said 'holy crap, Jim, you're out of your mind. Shut up.', but instead he said: "There is no logical reason to dwindle over illegitimate mistakes of the past. We must focus on creating a plan, if we are to save Mr. Scott and Mr. Chekov."

Kirk nodded numbly, staring off into nothing. He had to rescue his officers. He just had to.


They were thrown back into their cell. Literally. Chekov hit the stone floor with a crash, a few of his ribs snapping in the process. He didn't mind. The only thing he could think about was whatever that thing had shot into him. It hurt like hell—and he couldn't think straight and could barely move. The Navigator found himself thinking in Russian instead of Federation Standard, memories of days past with his family flashing before his eyes. His mother. Father. Grandmother. Sulu. Sulu.

Sulu had seen him, Chekov knew. He had seen him be beaten and was now either homicidal or suicidal. He heard the Japanese man shout out his first name during its little display, and—

Chekov grabbed his chest, gasping in pain. It had to be poison. That was the only thing it could be. Was he going to die? Damn, the Enterprise really wasn't coming to get them this time. In his mind, he made a little prayer thanking them for that. No more than two lives need be wasted over such a stupid affair. Only the skeletons of Chekov and Scotty need rot on the planet alone, where no Starfleet officer would ever journey again. The world would be off limits to everyone, marked dangerous, and no one would go near it to suffer as they did.

His hair was slick with blood and plastered to his forehead. Rips and tears decorated his body, along with a few broken bones. He assumed he must have had numerous failing organs, maybe his circulatory system in danger of collapse…Chekov coughed a few times. Yeah. It was over.

The Navigator of the USS Enterprise fell silent, giving up his struggle and succumbing to whatever would happen. Darkness swallowed him.

Scott woke up around a day after the incident with the transmission to the Enterprise. He didn't like what he found when he woke.

He didn't dare move. Or, rather, he didn't dare attempt to move. All he saw was darkness. All he felt…pain. Worry. Chekov. He must be just as bad, if not worse, by now. The poor Ensign was probably just as massacred as he was—maybe even dying, if not already dead. Scotty tried to let out a groan, but instead a hoarse, raspy, choking noise came out, followed by a coughing fit of liquid rubies. The Engineer gasped, only to be put into even more agony.

Darkness. All he saw was darkness. The cold, damp cellar he was trapped in and the hard brick floor he was chained to wasn't helping his recovering process at all. Scott wished only just to move a few inches away, so one of his chains wouldn't be digging into his already broken ribcage. Now, he wasn't a doctor, but he knew very well everything that was wrong with him. If he even had one rib left unbroken, he'd be shocked, and that led him to believe that he had also punctured one of his lungs. Breathing was near impossible. His collarbone, too, had snapped during the struggle. Scott didn't have to be a genius to know that he wasn't going to make it through this time. The only thing separating his martyred body from the stone floor was the thick pool of his blood, and a good amount of it. He was numb. The cuts on his face stung from the tears. Sure, the Engineer was tough, but after a certain amount of pain is endured there comes a point that a human's eyes begin to tear—whether it is legitimate crying, or just a natural reaction to physical suffering. Scotty's had been the latter.

Time. There wasn't much left. The mission failed. The Enterprise would not be coming to rescue them. As amazing as she was, her transporter beams couldn't reach them so far below the planet's surface. Not that they would even try. Scott had managed to issue a code green before he and Chekov got into the serious trouble they were in at the moment. Code green: The landing party was in grave danger, and the ship was not to do anything about it. It was so unlike Scotty to lose hope. Then again, he'd never been hurt as badly as he was before. Sure, he had once gotten a concussion from a woman that gave him random bouts of amnesia, almost leading to his own demise to be punished for murder's committed by Jack the ripper…

Scotty let out another gasp, cut off by what should have been a yell of pain but didn't come out right. His voice. Was gone. His chest wrenched in protest as he tried to catch his breath. There was two sharp, sudden surges of pain originating in his chest cavity and instantaneously spreading to his extremities, and he winced. He could barely hear his heart beat, and Chekov, oh, the poor navigator, he hadn't made a sound in at least two hours. No gasp of pain, no small little attempt to move. Montgomery didn't even want to try to determine the reason for that. The Engineer couldn't help it. Oxygen deprived, he began to take in a deep breath that swiftly turned into an asthmatic wheeze, an acute pain generating in his side from the sudden movement. He felt helpless and weak. Why had they even sent the Chief Engineer on this kind of mission? Or the navigator?

His thoughts started fading. 'No, no…' Scotty said inside his mind, beginning to slip out of consciousness again. 'Stay awake, they'll come again, you'll both get it, don't…'

Too late. The Scotsman passed out, only to be slightly roused again twenty minutes later by the sound of a door being unlocked. He was still slipping away, and he tried with all of his will to stay awake. Scott managed to get his eyes to open ever so slightly, only to reveal a blurry, spinning room that was only slightly illuminated by a new torch, held by a man, no…a thing, who was now the Engineer's worst fear.

"Tch." The thing clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "Weak, filthy humans. How many times do I have to tell you to stay awake? Looks to me like you need another lesson. What do you say, human?" It had a dark smile on it's face, and laughed with the utmost contentment. It reached into it's pocket, and pulled out a long, leather rope…

Scotty's eyes opened wide, though it didn't help his vision. He opened his mouth to protest, to plead, but to no avail. It was not a risk that proved worth taking. Pain shot through every injury in the Engineer's body, his chest and his side feeling the worst of it. Scott coughed maniacally as it began to strike him with the whip. More cuts. More pain. He was dying. Scott quietly cried out, no where near as loud as it was supposed to be, as it's whip sliced into his skin. He twisted and turned in agony, but his broken bones didn't like that one bit. Scott's hands were flexed, his arms shaking in shock and ached. Each little crack of the whip pushed him farther and farther toward the edge. There was no way anyone could lose as much blood as he did. It kicked him hard, knocking him into a different position, his head twisted in another direction. He managed to get a slight glimpse at Chekov's mangled body, only to regret it. Indeed, the lad was worse than Scott, but he was awake.

One arm wrapped around his chest and grabbing his side, the other arm folded and attempting to push him upward, Chekov's teeth were grinded together in obvious torture. Scott noticed how extraordinarily pale he was, covered in sweat from a fever he had contracted. The navigator's eyes sparkled a dark red. A line of blood at the corner of his mouth down to his chin, where the blood he had coughed up had been over-flowing. Bruises and cuts everywhere. He, no doubt, had numerous failing organs and broken bones as Scott did.

It, after giving Scott one last kick to the chest (causing his breathing to temporarily cease and his heart to convulse in anguish), took four menacing steps toward Pavel, the reverberating sound of it's feet—feet? No, hooves—causing both the Engineer and the Navigator even more panic. No, no! Please, leave the lad, he's so young…Montgomery couldn't get the words out. He couldn't breathe anymore. He wouldn't. Too much torment. It had no mercy on the Ensign.

It grabbed Chekov's neck in an impossibly tight grip and forced him to his feet. His eyes forced themselves shut and his jaw clenched to reveal his teeth as he struggled, grabbing it's arms in a weak attempt to save himself, but it was futile. It used its other arm to open one of Pavel's bloodshot eyes and examine it. It seemed satisfied after that, grinning to reveal its set of two hundred thin, pointed purple teeth. It threw Chekov back to the ground with strength and speed that exceeded even a Vulcan, gave him four licks with the whip, then proceeded to leave, muttering something while doing so.

"Damn, that poison is working so slowly. Oh, well, disgusting thing won't last much longer anyway. Don't understand why I can't just be rid of them now." It murmured to itself as it walked to the door. It fiddled through its pockets for some keys, then stepped outside of the room.

"Filthy humans. This time, stay awake." It hissed as it slammed the door shut, leaving the two officers in complete darkness again. Scott heard the sound of the exit being locked several times, then footsteps that grew more and more faint as time went by. When he was certain it was gone, he tried to catch a view of Chekov, but it was no use; he could see nothing.

Chekov, as it left, had been on his hands and knees, attempting to gasp for air. His labored breathing rapidly became quieter and slower, so quiet that the Engineer could no longer hear it. Pavel fell to the side without a sound.

Scotty waited five minutes. He waited for some sort of noise, anything, any kind of sign that the boy was still alive. There was none. Oh, God…He mustered up the last of his remaining strength, but still only managed little more than a raspy whisper.

"Ch-Chekov, lad…" The Engineer addressed breathlessly. "Are…you still…" That was it. His lungs couldn't take more than that. He fell into another violent, bloody coughing fit, Scott's suffering becoming worse to the point that he no longer had any will to live through the day. Again his eyelids fell shut and breathing slowed as Montgomery Scott, Chief Engineer and Second Officer of the USS Enterprise, lost consciousness.

Did he hear something about poison…?


"Captain's log, supplemental. We received a transmission from the planet below. We were ordered by the Natives to leave orbit immediately or watch the death of our Engineer. We have already witnessed our Navigator and Security Chief, Mr. Pavel Chekov, be injected with a deadly poison. Doctor McCoy estimates a few more hours before his death, and we may be able to save both of the officers if we hurry. Mr. Sulu has been confined to sickbay and Ms. Èprouvé has command. Mr. Spock, Ms. Uhura, Mr. Reilly and I are currently discussing a plan of action in the conference room…it would be much easier if we had Scotty and Chekov and Sulu to help. Kirk out."

James sighed, putting a hand through his hair as he sat down at the table of three other people. Uhura gave him a consoling smile, and then they began coming up with a plan.