-Part 4-
There were exactly four-point-five seconds of stunned, shocked inactivity on the bridge of the Enterprise before Spock exploded into action. All of them had seen the portable transporter in use. There was no logical explanation for the way they all just sat there, like shocked little aylaks.He ignored the crew's gaping mouths and spoke, his voice clear and concise.
"Spock to Lieutenant Hendorff." He ignored the way his stomach clenched as the memory of Jim's moniker of 'Cupcake' floated to the forefront of his consciousness.
"Comman-?"
"Report immediately to the Bridge. Spock out." Spock's words almost flew over themselves in their haste to escape. "Commander Scott, ready an away team for an expeditious extraction of the Captain. He is currently being held hostage on that planet, and requires direct retrieval."
Scott barely had time to turn in the chair before Spock was walking quickly across the floor to Uhura's station. The man, clearly flummoxed, raised his hand to stop Spock's movement.
Spock found that he had no patience for these humans and their tedious verbal platitudes. The last visual of Jim's face swam unpleasantly in his mind, and Spock found himself feeling a certain measure of disquiet as the image refused to exit his eidetic memory.
Jim had looked... lost somehow. Spock gave his head a small shake. He had no time for such sentiment.
"Spock..."
"Lieutenant, establish a secure communication with the planet's..."
"Spock!"
Spock did not even acknowledge the awkwardness of standing on the Bridge, giving orders with his hands still secured behind his back. He felt impatience thrumming under his skin with how intolerably slowly everyone was moving. Did they not understand the urgency with which they must perform? Jim had once again acted in haste; refusing to heed Starfleet protocol when he deemed that Spock and Leonard were in danger. A sacrifice. The fatted calf. He tugged again on the meticuffs with his own impatience, ready to lean over Uhura's station and make the modifications himself when he realized that Scott was still speaking.
"-interference. I'm afraid, sir, that..."
"Stop." Spock attempted to go back through his memory to recall what the Lieutenant Commander had just said, but he could not access it. His own mind was in such a turmoil, he could not seem to retrieve the information, although from the way Leonard's shoulders had snapped to attention, Spock quickly inferred that he would not care for what the Chief Engineer had to say.
Scott took a fortifying breath. "Commander, I'm sorry to tell ye, but tha' is nae possible. The interference that caused the Beagle's hull damage is linked t' the planet's rotation-"
Spock blinked, a terrible suspicion causing his own heart rate to increase. His extremities felt hot, then cold as the arrhythmia disrupted his body's normal patterns. It took him an inordinate length of time to right his body's malfunction.
"It's nae the Prime Directive, sir. It's the bloody moons. Each of the planet's moons have a natural ionic barri ... " Scott stopped, frowning. " It's that we canne get close enough to the planet for our transporters to work, not without scrambling this Lady's atoms to kingdom come. Yet." Scott jerked his chin up. "I have nae doubt tha' I c'n figure something out eventually, sir."
Spock actually felt light-headed for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was not his own. "That is not possible." A whisper. A breath of pure shock.
Leonard sucked in a sharp breath. "That son of a bitch! Spock! He knew. That bastard Merik knew that we wouldn't be able to come back. That's why we were able to leave; why there was such a fuckin'show down there! Goddamnit!" Leonard whirled and kicked at the casing behind the Captain's chair with such force that the sound echoed around the eerily silent Bridge.
There was the soft wooshof the lift doors opening, and Hendorff stalked out, took in his two cuffed senior officers with a tilt of his head, and went for his phaser on his belt. Spock was so stymied; running possibility after possibility over in his mind that he did not react to the heat of the phasers ray as it cut cleanly through the alloy of the meticuff, falling to the deck with a small clank. Absently, Spock brought his hands to his front and rubbed his wrists, eyes flicking endlessly over the Bridge crew- Scott's frown at having to impart such dire news, Nyota's tear-bright eyes as she stared at him, throat working as she swallowed down her emotions, Sulu and Chekov staring at him with varying expressions of wariness, as though waiting for Spock to erupt into rage.
And oh, the rage was there. Boiling and swirling under his skin like metal pooling under the heat of a torch.
"How long is the cycle." Spock's voice was so low that Scott had to lean in slightly to hear it. Hendorff stepped back as unobtrusively as possible, keeping a clear and obvious eye on both Spock and Leonard.
"That's the thing, sir. We just don't know."
Spock had not slept for over eighty-seven-point-two hours. Vulcans regulated all of their bodily functions with a near-perfect aptitude. Perhaps it was his mixed heritage, or the fact that he had become progressively more and more worried for Jim's safety as the hours slowly passed, but Spock found himself unable to sleep.
He had forced Leonard to administer hypos of stimulants on two different occasions, and when the good doctor flatly refused a third, Spock had acquired and administered his own. Regardless of the technological advances available to them on Starfleet's flagship; the geniuses that Jim had assigned to his ship, the crew that would do everything in their power for their captain... there were no options. The facts had not changed.
Merik had outplayed them at every turn. It was clear now that he knew exactly how the odd little planet's natural defenses worked. Perhaps he had known before the Beagle was destroyed; perhaps it was after. It did not matter. There were no options left to them.
Spock forced himself to his feet, ignoring the weary drag of his muscles. He had no time for this. His body would adjust. He could sleep once he was certain that his captain was safe. Spock crossed to the replicator and stood there, staring blankly at the keys, before turning and crossing back to his chair. His berth on the Enterprise had a small couch and chair, obviously meant for entertaining. Spock had never used it for this purpose, although Jim had sat here no less than thirty-three times going over ship's business.
"Computer. Show model NC-01."
"Acknowledged."
The image was burned into his memory. The fairly innocuous-seeming class M planet, still unnamed except for its numerical designation, surrounded by eleven moons of varying sizes and shapes. An oddity of moon rotation had four moons rotating in one direction, four moons rotating in the opposite direction, and three moons orbiting even more slowly, with an even more atypical pattern under the previous line. When viewing, Scott had scratched his head eyebrow and likened it to combination tumblers locking into place.
The atmosphere of the moons' chemical compounds made up a natural barrier against planetary communications. The probes Spock had sent to investigate were destroyed when they got too close. The abundance of compounds, when mixed with the radiation inherent in the core of any sort of mechanical device, caused the device to be instantly obliterated. They knew that there was a small window of safety as the rotations of the moons lined up so that none of the caustic atmosphere reacted with any of the radiation.
Simple chance had their away team beaming down during this window. Scott's report stated that all communications had ceased shortly after, only to come back slowly as the moons continued their rotation around the planet. Ensign Chekov had noted that other signals would slowly appear as the various moons rotated, until they could read the entire planet's communications. They would have twenty Earth minutes before their window was up.
Spock blinked, watching the 3D image continue to rotate. He was not sure what it was about the ancient television signal was strong enough to pierce the rather formidable planetary defenses, but he found himself impatient for any news. The rotund man had spoken excitedly of ratings, and Nyota assured him that given the other newscasts that she had been able to access, Jim's battle would be televised.
Hisbattle. After enduring... whatever Merik had done to him, Jim still had to battle to the death. Spock's research into ancient Terran Roman culture added to his... disquiet. There was no guarantee that Jim would have only one opponent. Spock knew that Jim would struggle with the ethics of such a ritualized, senseless murder. Yet, if Merik orchestrated events to where there were several other opponents, Jim could easily be overpowered. Surely they would all band together against the interloper. The battle tactics of two-hundred and eighty-seven different warlike cultures all had that same similarity; a united front in the face of an unknown enemy- however brief that front might be.
And they would not know Jim's fate for another... forty-two minutes.
This was intolerable.
Spock stood and walked to the small window in his quarters, looking out into the black. Normally this had a calming effect. Now though, Spock found himself taking no comfort in the sight. Something was missing.
Someone was missing, and Spock did not care for this... sensation... at all.
His door chimed.
"Enter."
Nyota walked in, paused briefly as her calm gaze took in both the 3D model Spock had left up near the settee, then walked to stand beside Spock, shoulders very nearly brushing.
"You really need to sleep."
"I am performing within acceptable parameters." It took more control than Spock expected to keep his voice free of emotional inflection, but there was no being on this ship that knew him as well as the woman standing next to him.
Nyota's unladylike snort was loud over the hum of the ship's engines. "Bullshit."
Spock raised an eyebrow.
"Don't give me that crap. I'm calling bullshit." Spock was aware that proximity often changed speech patterns and colloquial norms. The crew had learned this when Chekov had spent several days with the Captain on an away mission and had come back swearing, as Leonard had said, 'like a goddamn sailor'. He raised an eyebrow towards Nytoa, choosing not to comment on this. "You're exhausted, Spock. Leonard told me about the hypo. I don't know what bit of Vulcan logic signed off on stealing stimulants. And you somehow missed the fact that Leonard watches his hypos closer than some people watch their children, so that there tells me that you're not," Nyota made air quotes. "operating within acceptable parameters"... Nyota trailed off, flipping her ponytail in a move that was at once so familiar that Spock felt his throat tighten.
She must have seen something on his face, because her whole posture softened. She took that last step closer, wrapping her small arms around his waist, and leaning her head against his chest.
Spock's throat tightened even more as Nyota stood up on her toes to give him a quick brush of her lips against his cheek. "You really need to rest."
"I... cannot."
She sighed. It was clear that she had not expected her directive to yield tangible results.
"You know it's not going to be good. What we see, I mean."
Spock nodded. Weariness pulled at his limbs. He found himself borrowing Nyota's strength for a moment and was unable to summon the wherewithal to care.
"I came here for a couple things. First, you need to eat. You're not going to be much use to anyone if you keel over. I may not be your girlfriend anymore, Spock, but I do care for you." She pulled away to look up at him. "And I'm not above bullying. Leonard said he has no problem declaring you medically unfit if you don't take a break."
Spock tensed. He stepped away from her, bringing his arms to their customary position of parade rest. Nyota's whole visage had changed again, reminding him of a mother sehlat protecting her cubs. She poked Spock in the center of his chest.
"Do not doubt me for a second. Now you want me to stop nagging you? You're gonna sit your bony butt down and eat something. Drink more than two sips of water. If you won't sleep then you're going to relax until we are scheduled to pick up that signal." She crossed to the replicator and murmured something, turning and placing it on the table in front of the settee.
"Computer. Disengage model." She pointed at the seat he had recently vacated, narrowing her eyes.
It was not the first time Spock wished that Vulcans were predisposed to eye-rolling. Of the many human idiosyncrasies he was often bombarded with, that did seem the most useful at this present time. Instead he drew himself up to his full height and crossed to where she stood, her own eyebrow raised mockingly.
Spock sat and began eating rather mechanically. Once he started however, he found it difficult to keep his pace moderate. The simple soup and bread were quite flavorful, and Spock was rather more famished than he realized. Spock found himself blinking rather myopically at his empty plate until Nytoa took pity on him and took it away. Spock forced himself to drink the water slowly. His stomach felt uncomfortably full.
It was agonizing not to wonder what was being done to his capt- No, to Jim- at this very instant. He did appreciate Nyota's quiet presence near him as she sat curled up in the chair, the occasional nibbling on the end of her hair the only outward sign of her own nervousness. Spock enjoyed the brief respite of calm, feeling himself relax in minute increments for the first time in almost four days.
When his doors opened, Spock only had time for one shocked glance at Nyota before Leonard strode in with all the furious bearing of a horse leading the charge to battle.
There could only be one reason for Leonard's unannounced presence here at this moment in time, and his next words confirmed it.
"Commander Spock, designation S 179-276 SP, you are hereby temporarily relieved of duty, Starfleet order 104 Section C."
Spock jumped to his feet, adrenaline fueling the sudden and bright burst of fury.
Leonard didn't react to his sudden movement, holding his gaze calmly. Spock could see the pulse in his temple throbbing and had a wholly illogical urge to strike it, to claw at it over and over until the steady pulse of life was an indeterminable bloody mass.
It was that image that shocked Spock out of his rage. He actually took a step back,dropping his gaze, feeling his own heartrate spike making him dizzy from lack of oxygen.
"Shit, Spock. I'm sorry to do this to ya, but you're really giving me no choice here. You're acting... irrational. Scotty has the conn, and there's not a whole helluva lot you can accomplish here." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's temporary, Spock. Just... just til' we get him back. Can't have the both of you doing something stupid." Spock jerked away from Leonard's hand as it reached out to clasp his shoulder and stumbled gracelessly against the corner of the table. Nyota's shocked gasp was loud in the room.
Spock found himself overcome with conflicting emotions. He needed... he needed quiet. Calm. He could. It was not- Spock brought his shaking hands around to the front of his body, staring blankly at the unmistakable proof of Leonard's claim.
"Leave me." He grit out between clenched teeth, his control a mere thread.
There was a choked sound from behind him and the subtle shift of air that told Spock that Nyota had done as he asked.
"Spock-" Leonard started and stopped, quite obviously trying to work out what to say. "I just-"
"Please." The whisper was the merest hint of sound.
The woosh of his doors, and the beep signifying Leonard's locking them behind him were his only answer.
Spock forced himself to take several slow, deep breaths. Regulating his breathing forced his frantic heart rate to slow. He became aware that there was an uncomfortably cold sweat down the line of his back.
Spock gripped the table, leaning his weight into the surface. Control. He must... this was not...
Spock took one shaky breath, then another, purposefully feeling his lungs as they expanded, allowing his breath to huff out to send his bangs fluttering as he exhaled. He started at his feet, working his way up, purposefully tensing and relaxing his major muscle groups, forcing his adrenaline-fueled body to relax. It took him seventeen minutes to regain control over his traitorous body. He was not used to sweating, and likened it to cloying lachas running under and over his skin.
Spock crossed to his wardrobe and took out one of his meditation robes. The fabrics were natural, and felt less prickly to his over-sensitized skin. There was a faint scent of the incense that still smelled so strongly of home.
He knew that there was little point in attempting to meditate at this point. Spock did find himself wishing, just for a moment, that he could speak to his mother. She had been tremendously adept at ... well, she called it 'translating emotion'. A much younger Spock would often find himself inventing reasons to be in his mother's presence so that she could help him to understand some perplexing, illogical feeling . Neither of them would openly acknowledge what was happening, but both knew exactly what the other was doing.
Thinking of his mother's death was still painful, but if Spock concentrated, he could almost feel the touch of her cool, calming hand against his jaw.
He spent several moments simply concentrating on his respiratory system. He could ignore his exhaustion for the moment. Spock knelt near his bed, bending slightly enough that he could rest his head against the mattress, ignoring the way his still-tense spine popped and cracked as he moved.
"McCoy to Spock."
Spock tensed. "Yes, doctor."
"Okay, well I'm gonna be as non-invasive as possible. Your room is locked with my override, and I'll be monitoring your life-signs, but other than that, you're... are ya sure that y'want to do this by yourself, Spock? Uhura is gonna make sure you have a comm link to the broadcast."
"Acknowledged."
"Spock- I..."
"I said Acknowledged, doctor. Spock out."
The computer beeped once to signify the closed link, and again to signify that Leonard had locked the door. Some small part of his mind found satisfaction in the fact that Leonard was leaving him to his privacy as much as he was able.
There was another beep, the wall monitor showed some static before solidifying. There was the whine of feedback, then the roar of a crowd.
"-live to what is expected to be a quitesatisfying rout!"
"Yes, look there is the current favorite of the First... ÆMILIANUS!"
Spock tensed at the brutal looking human who stalked out into the center of the coliseum. He was easily close to seven feet tall. His muscles bunched and rippled under his skin as he raised his arms up, smirking at the screams and catcalls of the crowd. One hand held a mace. Spock only had a second to see how out of place it was before he noticed that the other hand held a sword that was easily as large as his leg.
"ÆMILIANUS! ÆMILIANUS! ÆMILIANUS!"
"Winner of thirty-eight challenges, Æmillanus looks to be ready for his thirty-ninth! His challenger is the slave, Bor."
The announcer snorted. "Doesn't look like much of a fight. Still, a lesson to be learned. Stealing anything from your betters, even something such as a crust of bread will get you one thing and one thing only."
Indeed, the small boy was almost emaciated, frozen in fear at the sound of the crowd. He couldn't be more than nine years of Terran age. The camera zoomed in to show his large, tear-filled eyes, then panned back to show how the boy clutched a small wooden practice blade.
Æmillanus crouched down, whirling to face his opponent. The crowd roared its approval when he snapped and barked like a large canine, moving forward to stalk his prey.
The boy was too terrified to move, and the small, wet stain of urine sounded loud as it pattered on the packed dirt floor.
The brute tensed his muscles, ready to pounce. Before he could a voice rang out, a note of command so familiar to Spock that his hands fisted at his sides without him being aware of it.
"I will fight in his stead!"
There was a deafening silence of hundreds of thousands of voices stopped as one in complete shock.
Then the booing began.
Jim stumbled forward, favoring an ankle that was clearly fractured. He took the practice blade from the small boy and stood so that he was protectively in front of him. The boy fell back onto his backside, then scuttled back out of the way of the two men.
Spock wanted to freeze the image so that he could better take in each nuance of Jim, but felt that each contusion and bloodied mark was engraved on his his memory. He felt as though he had just emerged from weeks of Vulcan's desert heat, only to be offered the coolest, cleanest water with which to quench his thirst.
Jim was squinting into the blazing sun with obvious signs of a concussion. His knuckles were bruised and bloody, and Jim had split his lip at one point. More worrisome (and Spock firmly refused his mind to dwell on the particulars of this) his knees were scraped and raw, with obvious, finger-shaped bruises ringing his neck like the most macabre jewelry.
Jim swayed a bit, flung his head back to get his sweaty hair out of his eyes and advanced.
The brute's eyes narrowed as he feinted with the blade. Jim, no fool to hand-to-hand combat, quickly began using his smaller stature to his benefit, maneuvering the bigger man so that the sun was directly in his eyes.
The crowd did not like this at all, and began throwing things at the two fighters in the pits. Spock watched with a strange sort of lassitude as Jim scurried to and fro, using everything from the rotten food to the sand they fought on as weapons, until the bigger man slipped, clawing the refuge out of his eyes.
Jim was on him in an instant.
He wrapped his legs around the man's torso, tightening his arms around his neck from behind, using his own center of gravity to help strangle Æmillanus by throwing his weight back so that only his arms were clamped around the trunk-like neck, contorting his body into a 'C' shape. The crowd gasped as Jim's toes scrambled against the broad expanse of the larger man's back, digging in for purchase as Jim used his strength to cut off his air.
Spock heard himself make a small, negative sound as the boy, perhaps finding courage in Jim's foolishly brave actions leaped on the man's side, kicking and clawing at the tender flesh stretched over the side of his rib cage. Out of weapons, the boy bit at him, clawing at his bulging eyes with his tiny, underdeveloped hands.
Spock barely had time to tense before the inevitable happened.
Æmillanus, drawing some last remnants of strength despite the furious dark purple hue of his face, flung out one of his meaty arms. The boy flew through the air with a reedy cry, only to strike his head on the stone barrier near the slave entrance. The wet,meaty sound drew Jim's fevered attention, and Æmillanus was able to use the momentary lapse of concentration to throw back his head, then his body in a last, feeble attempt at fighting back by grinding Jim into the sun-baked floor of the ring. Spock heard Jim's grunt of exertion, but his face was hidden from view until Æmillanus slumped, his windpipe crushed by Jim's tenacity. Jim kicked him off with a gasp of air, holding onto his ribs as he slowly stood up, looking down at his opponent.
There was a heartbeat of silence, then the fickle crowd began to chant their approval. The sound was the sinuous hiss of a million snakes. "Sss-sss-sss-servus!" "Sss-sss-sss-servus!" "Sss-sss-sss-servus!" It was eerie as the hiss grew to a din, crescendoed to a roar then became so deafening that the cameras used to televise the event shuddered under the impact of several hundred thousand pounding feet on the infrastructure, cheering for the slave that had bested their fallen champion.
Jim took strength from this, as he had always done from approval and took a staggering step back from Æmillanus, blinking up at the crowd as though confused. He took another step, then visibly seemed to gather himself and whirled to check on the boy, scooping up Æmillanus' sword as he did so.
It was very obvious that the pitiful creature was dead. Part of his skull had caved in, and at least a liter of blood had spread underneath his pallid body. Jim still checked his pulse, and the camera panned in on the way he attempted to remain stoic, clenching his jaw so that he would not speak, yet utterly unable to keep the pain out of his eyes. It caused Spock's throat to tighten painfully. He had to force himself to breathe slowly in order to work through the sudden blockage. He was shocked at his own sudden, visceral pulse of want. He wanted desperately to be there with Jim, to share this pain with him, to help relieve him of this burden that was so obviously hurting his heart.
Jim only allowed himself a brief moment before straightening his shoulders, visibly assuming the yoke of responsibility that he handled so well. There was only a minute twitch of Jim's wrist before he moved- as though a spring had been suddenly and violently uncoiled. Spock heard himself make a small, hurt sound. It seemed loud in the quiet of his quarters, echoing around as Spock watched the sword spin through the air in a lazy, spiraling arc. He was dimly aware that he had jumped to his feet. The weapon had no chance of reaching its target, yet knowing that fact was somehow even more painful than observing it through the screen.
There was an almost comical-sounding cloooong! as the weapon hit the side of Merik's box, the metal causing sparks on the stone, the butt of the sword actually striking the proconsul's arm. There was a gasp of shock from the avid crowd, and Spock loathed them in that moment, for their stupid, petty humanity. They had received their bread for this circus, and greedily cried for more.
Jim stood tall and proud as Merik smirked down at him. His chin jutted out, stubborn defiance in every line of his body. The camera panned away from Jim and showed several shots of the crowd's complete shock. Striking the proconsul, aiming for one of the First citizens... they knew Jim's life would be forfeit.
What they didn't know, was how.
The camera panned slowly back, showing a still smirking Merik whispering into the proconsul's ear. The other man looked almost bored. He nodded once, raised an eyebrow, and Spock went cold at the completely wicked grin that stole over his features. The crowd held their breaths as one, watching solemnly as Merik raised his fist in the air.
Merik obviously loved having the crowd's attention. He held the pose for several heartbeats before bringing his fist down in one abrupt movement, turning it downwards so that his thumb was pointed to the ground.
Spock felt a jab in his neck and all at once became fully aware of his surroundings, as though his sight and hearing focused with perfect precision at the same time like a bone being popped back into its proper place. He had been so intent on the drama unfolding from the planet that even his superior senses had not realized that Leonard had come into his room and gotten close enough to administer a hypo to his neck.
Spock had one heartbeat of pure and utter fury before the drugs took effect, forcing his body into the sleep it so desperately needed. Leonard caught him and eased him down onto the settee, his face pinched with worry that even Spock had no trouble reading. When the doctor spoke, the sound was distorted, as though he was speaking in an odd octave down a long tunnel. Useless, pithy words. Spock did not much care. He should have realized that Leonard had left too quickly, that he would do something such as this to ensure Spock's mental and physical health. He kept his eyes on the screen, trying to fight the drugs in his system as he watched the guards capture a fiendishly fighting Jim. It took seven fully-armored men and still Jim fought. He was barely aware of his own whisper of Jim's name, or of the way his muscles tensed towards the screen, as though everything in his body was yearning to be near Jim.
Leonard noticed though. He shook his head and made sure that Spock was comfortable, watching as the blinks became longer and longer. The stubborn hobgoblin managed to hold onto consciousness three-point-six minutes longer than expected, given the dosage.
Before sleep claimed him, Spock was aware of only one thing: He would do everything in his power to bring Jim Kirk back to this ship, or die trying.