Chapter Four – Like Gravity, Responsibility Never Wavers
…Even in Space.
A/N – Thanks again for the reviews you lovely people. I've been trying to reply to my reviews more as I don't think I do enough, so if you review this chapter you'll definitely get a little thank you note from me. :)
I realise I've been pretty mean, keeping the action away from Chekov to create a little suspense, so in the next chapter you're going to find out what's happened to him. In this chapter when I mention he's eighteen – it's not a mistake. The events on Into Darkness take place in 2259, a year after events of the first film, and this story is set later in the same year.
I'm also still deliberating about whether or not to change the title of this fic, so any thoughts on that would be great. Enjoy!
Announcing over the comms to the whole ship that they had lost both a crew member and the fleeing ship was one of the more testing things Kirk had had to do in his time so far as Captain.
He felt as if the gold of his command shirt had taken the form of its true metal and was weighing him down, dragging his heart towards the ground.
The crew of the Enterprise faced potential kidnap, torture and death each day, but often these were a result of events moving beyond their control, or intervention against hostile forces.
This had been orchestrated.
"Spock, run the physical makeup of that species for analysis. I want to know what race they are, where they come from, and any weaknesses. Uhura. As soon as we have that information contact Starfleet, explain what happened and tell them our course of action is still pursuit. Request permission to postpone the rendezvous with the Martian flagship indefinitely. Finding Chekov is our priority now. Sulu set a course to the coordinates we have of the other ship's last known location before it disappeared."
"I want Karida and Hailson" he continued, gesturing to the two officers sitting at the engineering station, "to analyse the remaining energy trail once we're there. Spock, take over command until I'm back."
The orders were given with none of the usual spark or flare, but instead had a note of unyielding frostiness to them. Kirk stepped into the lift and left the bridge with the same eerie calm that descends before the blossoming of a thunder storm.
~ST~
McCoy had finished his ministrations and was just about to discharge his patient when Kirk walked in.
"Cap'n!" He heard Scotty exclaim, making him turn from where he was cleaning up.
Jim stood still in the entrance to the medical bay for a beat, acknowledging each of them with a nod, before moving across to the engineer's bed and enquiring about his health.
McCoy and Scotty, like everyone else, had heard the Captain's announcement. The doctor knew Jim would take the blame entirely upon himself.
Even before he'd become a captain, he'd always deemed himself acutely responsible for the lives of others; an accountability of such conviction that McCoy had yet to see in anyone else.
In a tactics simulation exercise at the Academy, Bones remembered hearing that a cadet on Jim's team had disobeyed protocol and ended up getting himself shot in the shoulder. One of the medics Bones knew had patched the guy up, and, while he wouldn't disclose too many details, said it was nothing serious.
McCoy had asked Jim about it the next day and, under the threat of an unnecessary hypo, the younger man explained that the other cadet, their team leader, thought he'd found a shortcut through the exercise course. Without consulting the rest of the team on whether or not it could be a trap, he took them straight through it.
Jim, it turned out, had practically carried the guy out and almost single-handedly saved the team from failing, although he appeared to play down these elements of the story.
Instead he chose to focus on how close the team had come to failing, blaming himself for the other cadet's rash actions and for not getting them to the end point quicker. McCoy could in no way see how it was Jim's fault – he had saved them from disaster - and told him this at the time, yet he still spent the next three days being resentful of his perceived shortcomings.
It took Bones crossly threatening to reassign Jim to another doctor if he didn't snap out of it for the Iowan to return to his usual self.
That was the first time McCoy realised Jim had a more ardent sense of his own responsibilities than most people. Even in a team he wasn't leading, everyone was his responsibility. He was also resolutely displeased every time someone risked their own life, yet had no trouble doing it himself for others.
Just a month ago he'd knocked Bones out of the way of falling debris on a moon expedition, resulting in a dislocated shoulder.
The doctor had berated him all the way back to the Enterprise, but Jim had just grinned foolishly – even when he'd set the joint.
Afterwards, when he had exasperatedly asked the blonde-haired man why he did these things, Jim said, a little more soberly, "The doctor's one of the most valuable members of the crew, Bones. If you were to be injured, who'd heal you?"
McCoy muttered an annoyed response about people dodging questions. As much as he was loathe to admit it, Jim made a valid point. While he was by no means the only medical officer on the ship, he was the highest ranking, and had the most experience in dealing with a variety of different wounds and ailments – more than a few of them thanks to Jim.
He hated the idea that his being incapacitated might result in others losing out on treatment.
McCoy's thoughts were drawn back to the present by the Scotsman's animated voice.
"It was a lot worse than it looked Cap'n. Ah was just aboot to return to engineering and finish fixing the shields."
The red-haired man sat, legs over the right side of his bed, with one trouser leg cut off above the knee. He seemed surprised by the Captain's visit. McCoy, however, wasn't; he knew how much Jim liked the outlandish engineer.
The doctor moved to stand on the opposite side of the bed to Jim.
"With everyone self-diagnosing round here it's a wonder there's any need for me." McCoy grouched.
"Sorry doc." Scotty said, having the decency to look abashed.
McCoy softened his expression.
"Whatever they were using, they weren't Federation-design phasers. They didn't burn the skin, they shredded it down to the muscle," he explained, "you were lucky they didn't hit anything more vital."
Scotty grimaced, as though reliving the experience, and Kirk looked troubled.
"Did you have problems healing it?" The latter of the two asked.
"No, it just took longer than usual." Bones responded. He was about to say more but Scotty spoke up.
"Trust me Cap'n, you don' want to get hit with one o' those. Felt like it ripped a hole right though me leg."
"It almost did." McCoy quipped. He turned his gaze on Jim. "How did they manage to outrun us?" He asked incredulously.
It was well known that the Enterprise was one of the fastest, if not perhaps the fastest constitution class ship.
"They didn't," Kirk said simply, "they just vanished without a trace. The ship didn't go to warp, it was like it just dematerialised. I'm having Sulu take us to their last known coordinates to see if they've left any form of a trail or debris."
"Do we know what species those three were?"
"Not yet, I've got Spock running an analysis now. Engineering are searching for engine vapour trails and Uhura's reporting in with Starfleet HQ." Jim reeled off. "Are you all done here?" He asked Bones.
"I've given him a bill of clean health." The doctor said by way of explanation.
"Good." He turned his bright eyes on Scotty. "Head down to deck A and finish fixing the shields." The CEO had climbed off the bed and appeared to be testing out his leg. "Once you're done there change your uniform and return to the bridge."
"Aye Captain." The Scotsman affirmed with an assured nod, before leaving the room.
McCoy noted that he appeared to have less of his usual sprightliness about him, which he attributed, not to him having had his leg sliced open, but to the disappearance of the young navigator.
The CEO was rather fond of the young ensign, having recognised his aptitude for the more complex aspects of engineering, and taken it upon himself to guide the younger man.
As it became instantly clear that Chekov was a protégé, the delighted Scotty had begun to teach him some of the more finitely tricky and specialised jobs engineering had to offer. He was even privy to parts of Scotty's solo projects that few others were,
As his red shirt disappeared through the sliding glass doors of the med bay and out of sight, Bones knew he was more fearful for Chekov's life than he was letting on.
Bones realised that Jim was saying something and quickly reverted his attention back to him.
"How could this happen?"
Bones knew that coming from Jim, this was a rhetorical question.
"He was right there and I couldn't stop them from taking him. How could I let this happen?"
That one, he could answer.
"You didn't let it happen, you did everything you could to stop them."
"But it wasn't enough was it?! Jim responded stringently. "They took him from right in front of me because I didn't follow the protocol for negotiation."
The distress was palpable in the younger man's voice, and when Leonard looked up it was also evident in his eyes, making them brittle as blue granite. The controlled anger Jim had displayed earlier toward the abductors was turning inwards toward himself.
"I don't think it would have made a difference if you had followed the protocol down to the last line." Bones said dejectedly. "You saw the way they abducted him; it was cold and ruthless, and you know there's no way they would have listened to reasoning. Plus there were four other officers present, and none of us managed to do anything to salvage the situation." He finished, not unkindly.
"I'm the Captain, Bones. It's my job to keep the situation in hand, so other officers don't have to salvage it."
"You're acting as though you could have prevented this if you'd had the foresight to see it coming." McCoy declared incredulously.
"I knew something was amiss with those explosions Bones. They fired on us, but missed all the vital areas that could have put us out of commission. Our shields were down – they could have been blindfolded and still hit something crucial - but every shot struck hull plating, or storage decks. It was a diversion so they could beam aboard. They admitted the probe we detected was theirs, and I'm willing to bet they were responsible for the shields going down – without our shields in place they had a way in."
"But where did the probe come from?" McCoy asked, startled that Jim had deduced all this so quickly, but curious in spite of himself.
"There's only one place it could have come from."
"You don't think…the station?"
"Where else?"
"But we were barely there for a few hours and everyone signed in and out. We would have been alerted if someone had tried to stow away."
"I don't think anyone came on board to plant it Bones. If their ship was cloaked, why not the probe?"
"So they got in onboard invisibly?"
"They couldn't risk being seen at the station as they knew we'd tighten security. They must have planted it on something that came aboard the ship."
"Even if this is all true," Bones said trying to rationalise the situation, "you couldn't possibly have known they were going to abduct a member of the crew, much less Chekov."
"I recognised the type of probe – I knew they scan life signs, yet I still didn't make the connection. And why him?" Jim responded immediately, pouncing on that line of argument. "Why Chekov? What do they want with him? He's got a clean record, no enemies, and if they'd wanted one of his possessions they clearly didn't take it. The only thing they got away with was him." He rubbed a hand through his blonde hair, frustrated.
"Maybe it wasn't that kind of possession." Bones said quietly.
Jim's head snapped up, eyes taking on something of an azure quality in the sharpness of the medical lights.
"You think they want him for what he knows about Enterprise?"
"Maybe," Bones said uncertainly, "it wouldn't be the first time a member of Starfleet has been taken hostage and tortured for information. And he is an eighteen year old prodigy."
In his mind, the doctor flashed back to the Romulan's capture of Admiral Pike, who had been captaining Enterprise at the time. Jim seemed vexed by this, if his darkening expression was anything to go by, and Bones realised he must have been thinking about the same thing.
"You have to face the possibility", he said slowly, trying and failing to find a way of wording his thoughts that wasn't so blunt, "that they may have taken him to get to you.
"Then why not just take me?!" Kirk exploded, beginning to pace.
"Well for one you weren't on the deck at the time they arrived." McCoy snapped back, his temper flaring to match Jim's.
"No, but I arrived soon after, and they certainly didn't pick him at random just because he was in engineering; this was calculated. They could have made a trade-off, or announced any number of demands, but they still chose to take him."
He sighed, and Leonard could almost see him visibly attempting to quell his anger. When he looked up his face was set in grim determination. "Whatever they want from him, it doesn't look good. We have to find him. Let's get back to the bridge. There are a few minor injuries I'd like you to take a look at. Sulu's got a nasty cut that needs attention."
As the two men headed out of the medical bay, Jim's thoughts returned to the youngest member of their crew.
In his past, he had seen other teenagers' lives taken from them before they could reach their next birthday. So much untapped potential gone in an instant. So much life and fire and energy, that constitutes a person's future, dissolved from one moment to the next.
Bones had no knowledge about him being on Tarsus IV, although Jim knew he suspected something from the first time he'd his medical file, and so couldn't voice his thoughts out loud. But he vowed unequivocally, there and then, that he would not let the same thing happen to Chekov. No-one else with their whole future ahead of them would die if he could prevent it.
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