Chapter 6: Fire Everything We've Got

Spock, of course, insisted on Jim accompanying Sulu at the vanguard of the evacuating prisoners, along with the worst of the wounded. It was only logical, after all, to enable the Doctor to see to his injury as soon as possible, that the Captain might be in best form should they run afoul of the Romulans in orbit.

Between the set of his jaw, and the impressive scold building up in Uhura's expression, Jim hadn't been inclined to argue-- just the once. He'd have to remind the Lieutenant later that she wasn't actually the boss of him, but he didn't have the energy to fight her on it at that moment, never mind Spock. The guy could be a real mother hen when he was in the mood for it.

They emerged into a moonless, star-speckled night with little more than an hour left to go on the bomb's timer, and Sulu wasted no time hurrying to the boulder that marked the edge of the dampening effect. Spock hadn't been able to shut it down internally without killing the entire generator, and they hadn't been sure what effect doing that prematurely might have had on the caverns. If, for example, there were any structural integrity fields incorporated into the tunnelwork as part safety and part security measure, shutting off the power might have entombed them there along with the Romulans.

"Dr. McCoy," the pilot called over his communicator. "Dr. McCoy, please respond."

"It's about damned time!" Jim heard Bones respond, and heaved a sigh of relief as he picked a rock to sit down on a few yards past Sulu's position. Behind him, the rescued Vulcans began emerging from the tunnel and clustering together; out of the confined, dim space of the caverns, they looked both better and worse than he'd been expecting. Better, in that most of them still had life in their eyes; worse, in that there was evidence of prolonged abuse to be seen, especially on the pregnant women. Jim didn't even want to ask about that; the echoes of implications he was getting from the fragment of the older Spock's memory were ominous enough. He hoped Bones could help them; that their own healers would know what to do, and be able to provide a safe, non-prejudicial environment for the children.

He also hoped, for some reason, that one of the women was named T'Pren. That seemed terribly important to him, somehow.

He rubbed at his forehead; he'd have to check the Vulcans' names against the crew rosters of the vanished ships later, when they were all aboard and on the way back to Federation space. "Bones," he said into his own communicator, "we have several people in need of your services. Have Chekov standing by; we'll be waiting. And be advised-- there is a Warbird up there somewhere, and if it hasn't pounced on you yet, it's sure to once you get moving in this direction. We won't have much time."

"Oh, great," Bones replied. "Just what we need to round this little adventure off. We haven't got any defenses, Jim!"

"We'll make do," Jim snorted. "Now get your ass over here."

"Acknowledged," Bones grumbled. "And so help me, if you're one of those people in need of my services..."

"See you when you get here," Jim said, mock-cheerily. "Kirk out."

Sulu began distributing transponder patches among those in need of immediate medical attention while they waited. The colony was just distant enough that they couldn't quite see the ship, nor the effect of its takeoff, but the noise of its approach was soon audible. Bones wasn't the smoothest pilot in existence-- it didn't take a Sulu to tell that from the uneven firing of the atmospheric engines-- but he could manage a quick trip from A to B, and he was landing again less than five minutes after the communicator call ended.

The last of the Vulcans were emerging from the caverns, followed by Spock and Uhura, when Bones called again. "Opening the cargo bay doors, now; get 'em on in here. See you in a minute, Jim."

"Acknowledged," Jim replied-- then froze as the transporter effect caught him.

So much for him 'getting them on in there'; Sulu must have tattled on him. Jim nodded at Chekov as he materialized aboard ship at the pilot's side, then stepped off the platform to make room for the tagged refugees. "Did you get the cargo bay clear?" he asked, ignoring the concerned look on the Ensign's face.

"Yes, sir," Chekov assured him. "All but the medical and relief supplies."

"Good," Jim grinned back. "Speaking of medical supplies, I think I'll just--"

"Damn it, Jim!" Bones rushed through the door, scowling like thunder, medkit in hand.

"Too late," he whispered conspiratorially to the ensign, as Bones shoved him off to the side and ripped his tunic off with quick, savage movements.

Sulu rushed past them toward the bridge, nodding to Jim as the hiss of an anesthetic hypo pressed against his neck. "Just enough to keep me going, Bones, you've got a lot of other patients arriving."

"You think I don't know that?" Bones shook his head, whipping a sonic cleaning wand out and waving it over the deep gash. "I'll run a quick muscle-knitter over this and bandage it, but I'll have you back later for dermal regen and a thorough scan, you hear me?"

"Got it." Jim braced himself and nodded to Chekov. "Keep 'em coming, Ensign," he ordered, as the timer continued ticking down in the back of his mind. "Fifty minutes to detonation, and that Warbird's going to stick his wings in sooner or later."

"You sure about that, Jim?" Bones asked, stowing the sonic wand and bringing out one of the buzzy little emitters Jim had learned to fear. "Why didn't they challenge us before, then? We've been here for hours, bumbling around like idiots."

"Watch it!" Jim cursed, struggling against the doctor's iron grip. "I don't know, Bones; maybe they had to respond to a distress call, or were only supposed to return for the pickup-- use your imagination. It happens to Enterprise often enough. But I don't think we can count on them staying away."

Bones frowned. "Not with our luck, anyway. Now, hold still!" He ran the knitting tool over Jim's shoulder, the noise of its operation drowned out by the whine of another transporter beam.

Jim felt a strange, shivery tugging sensation deep under the skin, but nothing else thanks to the anesthetic, and when the tool shut off a lot of the tension seeped out of his neck and torso. He worked the arm a little, decided it would do-- though he wouldn't want to lift his arms over his head anytime soon-- and waved off the bandage. "I'd better get up to the bridge-- see to your other patients, Doctor."

Bones scowled, but turned to help the incoming patients down off the platform. "Put a shirt on-- you don't want to blind our guests, now do you?"

"Ha, ha." Jim rolled his eyes, nodded at Chekov again, and made for his quarters. There wasn't time for a sonic shower, but a shirt was probably a good idea, though putting it on should be an interesting challenge.

"Captain Kirk to the bridge! Romulan ship decloaking in orbit!"

--Or not. Jim sighed and sped up as he hurried down the corridor. "Sulu, report!" he barked, bursting through the door into the cramped room. The pilot did a double-take at Jim's bared, bloody chest, but didn't pause in his answer.

"It just appeared, sir. ID reads the Bhath. They aren't firing yet, but their shields are up and they're attempting to hail; I haven't responded. Commander Spock reports that it will take another five to ten minutes to finish loading our passengers, and we can't seal the airlock and raise our own shields until they're aboard."

Jim glanced ruefully down at himself. "No point answering the hail like this; I think our cover is well and truly blown." He crossed the room to Uhura's station and hastily keyed the frequency for Spock's communicator, ignoring the incoming call. "Mr. Spock: any chance you picked up something else useful out of that Romulan commander's memory, like, say, the command codes for his ship?"

There was a pause; then Spock replied. "Affirmative, Captain. Do I understand that you wish to attempt a takeover of the Romulan vessel?"

Jim chuckled. "We've already been smugglers this trip; might as well play pirates, too. Chekov!" he ordered, flipping a switch to tie ship's intercoms into the channel. "Beam Spock in, immediately; Lieutenant Uhura will have to finish organizing the boarding on her own. Then turn the transporter controls over to one of the Vulcans and get your ass up here, we need you."

There was another pause, then: "Aye, Keptin! Locking on to the Commander now!"

Jim chuckled tiredly as he switched the speakers off again, then stepped away from the communication station and sank down in the captain's chair. "Day's not over yet," he mused aloud. "Chart out a course back to Federation space, would you, Sulu? None of this darting around from ion storm to ion storm; I want to be in range of backup as of yesterday."

"Aye, sir," Sulu replied, fingers darting over his console. "That path will take us across several projected Romulan patrol routes."

"I'm aware," Jim assured him. "I think speed's more important than stealth at this point, though, and I have reason to believe that none of the patrol routes we have are accurate, anyway. Chekov, Mr. Spock," he greeted the other officers as they arrived. "See what you can do."

"Mr. Chekov, if you could establish a connection to the other ship's computer?" Spock ordered.

Chekov sank into Uhura's seat, running a hand through his wild curls as he inspected the controls. "Yes, yes, I think--" He flipped a few toggles, then started keying commands at a high rate of speed. "If I use their own signal to disguise--" He trailed off, as the hailing frequency light continued to blink. "I've got it! If you could enter the command code, Mr. Spock?"

Spock stepped up behind him, then leaned over to type a few characters of his own. "Provided that the Bhath is, in fact, the ship on which the commander arrived," he said slowly, "this should temporarily enable our computer to override the one aboard the Romulan vessel. However, we will have only a very short window in which to act before they are able to reestablish control. Mr. Chekov?"

Chekov hit a few more buttons as Spock leaned away, then nodded at Jim. "Done, sir. Vhat vould you like them to do? Lower their shields?"

Jim snorted. "It's not like we could hit them from here, or damage them much with our little asteroid laser even if we could. No-- I want you to download the specs for that cloaking device, if you can find them; and then trigger their self-destruct mechanism. Lock it into the shortest detonation cycle possible."

Chekov paled, but nodded. "Yes, sir," he said, furrowing his brow as he turned back to the console.

Sulu drew in a sharp breath. "Captain, if this works--"

"Cross your fingers," Jim said, grimly. He didn't like the idea of killing so many in such a backstabbing maneuver, either; but it was what needed to be done, if they were ever to make it out of there.

"They've stopped hailing, Keptin," Chekov announced tensely, a moment later. "My signal has been discovered. I vill not be able to maintain control much longer. The specifications on the cloak are encrypted; I am unable to access them."

"Get what you can, then do it," Jim ordered.

Chekov swallowed. "Activating self-destruct now, on a sixty second delay." He looked up in alarm. "It's asking for another code!"

Spock leaned back over the station again and input another string of characters. "Try it now, Ensign."

Chekov did, then slumped a little in his chair in relief. "Code sent," he said, and mopped a sheen of sweat from his brow. "Losing signal-- confirmation received! It's done, sir."

"Captain! They're powering weapons!" Sulu interjected, studying his own board in alarm.

"What's Uhura's status?" Jim asked, sharply. They were sitting ducks without their deflectors, and they couldn't raise those until the ship was sealed. Even then, a minute would be a long time to hold out against a starship's firepower, even with all of an atmosphere between them to help disperse it; the cargo ship's low-grade shields were meant to deflect random space debris, not enemy disruptors.

"I have a green light on the cargo bay doors," Spock replied, as Chekov switched communications frequencies again.

"Captain! Everyone's aboard," Uhura said, hurriedly, as soon as the channel opened. "I've been trying to reach you."

"Get us airborne, Sulu, and raise those deflectors!" Jim ordered, hurriedly. "Sorry, Lieutenant, we've been a little busy up here. Warn everyone we might be about to take some fire; we're getting the hell out of Dodge, but there's a hostile Warbird in orbit above us."

Uhura gasped audibly, but her voice was steady as she replied. "Understood, sir," she said.

Jim felt, more than heard, the atmospheric engines powering up for launch; the entire ship fairly vibrated with them as Sulu worked his magic. Then the viewscreen came on, showing them a view of the planet's dark, starlit terrain falling away beneath them. The activation of the deflectors gave no such sign-- but it was immediately obvious that they had been activated when the entire ship shook violently a moment later. They wouldn't have been there to be knocked to the floor in the first place, otherwise.

"Evasive maneuvers!" Jim barked, climbing back to his feet and bracing himself against his chair.

"Trying, sir," Sulu said. "Shields at sixty percent, and dropping; maneuvering is limited at this speed. We can take maybe one more hit; I'll try to put the curvature of the planet between us. If we can break orbit--"

The ship shuddered again as clouds began to cross the viewscreen image, and Sulu corrected himself. "Shields at twelve percent!"

And about that many seconds left to go on the Romulans' self-destruct, Jim thought, clenching his hands convulsively on the back of the chair. He glanced over to meet gazes with Spock, and wished with every fiber of his being that Bones and Uhura were up there with them.

Not that he thought they wouldn't make it; he didn't believe in no-win scenarios, after all. But it didn't seem right to be facing mortal danger without them.

"That's so weird," Jim murmured to himself as the viewscreen lit up again with the livid flash of weapons fire. A near miss, this time; the ship jolted a little from the atmospheric disruption, but nothing more damaging. Jim shook his head. He'd never have imagined, four years ago, a day when he would not only willingly take responsibility for so many other lives, but share it, too. He really did have the best crew in the known universe. Or any other, Selek's universe maybe excepted.

"Shields at nine percent," Sulu said, shakily. "If the self-destruct sequence worked, it'll go off in four, three--"

"--two, one," Chekov counted with him, solemnly.

There was a long pause, and then: "Recording the breakup of the Romulan vessel, Captain," Spock said, heavily. "Self destruct successfully activated."

Jim drew a deep breath, held it for a moment, then released it in a long, cleansing rush of air. He pried his fingers away from the back of the chair, then took the few steps around it and collapsed into its welcoming embrace. "Take us to a safe distance, Mr. Sulu," he said. "Preferably where we won't be immediately detected if another ship enters the system; we'll stay just long enough to confirm the detonation. Then lay in our route back to Enterprise, as previously discussed."

Sulu scrubbed a hand over his face, then nodded. "Aye, sir," he said, and began programming his console. "Breaking orbit now."

Just one last stretch to go. Jim stared blankly at the viewscreen as they put the last of the atmosphere behind them, and thought longingly of the wide, bright corridors of Enterprise and the faces of the rest of his crew. Soon. Soon. And hopefully, the next time Mallory called with a mission, they wouldn't be required to leave her behind. That had been a very, very close call.

The disk of Hellguard filled the screen as the crew waited: the dark face of the planet still shrouded in shadows, stitched across by the mountain range that had produced the Romulans' deadly weapon. Chekov hadn't had time to beam up any of the dust for future antidote purposes, but fortunately Uhura had been on the ball; she'd used the ship's antigrav dolly to move a large boulder containing the altered silicon into the cargo hold as the last of the refugees had streamed inside. Hopefully, they would never see the thing so many Vulcans had died for in action, but if they did, Starfleet would have a means to counter it.

Spock had altered the screen to project the countdown timer in the lower right corner, synched to the second with the one he'd been maintaining in his mind. Jim still found it amazing that he could instantly tell the date and time, no matter where he was; it really came in handy at times.

When the countdown reached zero, a spot under the mountains flushed instantly red, glowing like a dull beacon in the night. It brightened swiftly, the effect spreading outward in rings like the ripples that formed around a pebble dropped in a pond, then began to sink inward: the colony, the mines, every part of the complex vaporizing in the face of the explosion. Seconds later, the secondary portion of the charge dropped: the entire face of the planet tore in a massive quake involving every continental plate they could see, spewing forth rivers and plumes of bright magma before vanishing entirely into a storm of dust and fire. If there had been anything left alive on the surface, it was now no more than a cinder. All traces of the mines and the research that had been conducted there were gone.

Bones and Uhura made it up to the bridge in time to watch, then solemnly returned to their duties. Bones dragged Jim with him to the medical cubby, then came back for Sulu, who'd picked up his own share of cuts and bruises in the melee with the Romulan guards. Once that was taken care of, he removed all of the cosmetic alterations; whatever happened next, Jim's crew wouldn't need them anymore.

The five hour run to the Zone was very quiet and anti-climactic after everything that had happened. Jim made sure Sulu crossed into it well away from the Khellian's last known location; he supposed it would be easy to hate all Romulans after what they'd seen, both now and in their first mission together, but he'd already been down that road with Starfleet in the aftermath of Tarsus IV and wouldn't let himself indulge in it again. Whatever his experiences with the rest of her species, he was going to remember Subcommander t'Rllaillieu as a bright spot of the mission, and would prefer not to meet his doom at her hands. It was a pity they'd probably only meet as enemies in the future.

The Vulcans in the main cargo hold had been provided with blankets for temporary pallets, bland but hot emergency rations for all but the infants, and a meager quantity of personal care necessities. He'd planned for three times the number of rescuees, though it would have been a very tight fit; as it was, there was just enough room for each Vulcan to have a couple of arm-lengths of personal space and spare blankets hung as privacy curtains, if he or she so chose. Jim steeled his nerve and went with Spock to check on their needs once he'd broken free of Bones' tender care, and spent some time talking with the officers who'd survived the year and change since the first of the survey ships had been taken.

Spock had already mentioned the destruction of Vulcan to them; Jim was very thankful that he didn't have to break that particular news, though he suspected they'd known already. He remembered the vast, voiceless cry and sudden silence from the memories Selek had shown him, and the fact that they'd found the Vulcan embassy already shut down with grief on their return to Earth, and doubted the effect would have been any less severe on those Vulcans more distant from their homeworld. They had not yet heard, however, about the reconstruction efforts on the new colony, or the shifting Federation politics affecting their people in the months since their population had been reduced to five digit numbers.

Five digits. The two hundred or so Vulcans they'd rescued that day would make up more than a full percent of the total Vulcan population. He saw that sink in for them as he talked; saw Vulcan spines acquire just that tiny bit more steel, weary Vulcan eyes narrow just that tiny bit more with intensity. Survivors of anything needed focus and purpose to help keep from spinning apart in the aftermath, James Tiberius Kirk knew that like he knew his own name, and he didn't think Vulcans were so very different from Humans in that respect. He hoped all of them took it that way; the statistics on Vulcan suicide since their planet's loss were distressing enough already.

He finally remembered to ask about a roster of names, just before Bones came down to chivvy him off to rest. They'd prepared one already; he skimmed through it quickly on his way to his quarters, scanning down the list of names on the PADD until he came to the one he still didn't know why he was looking for: T'Pren. Apparently, she'd been in labor during the escape from the mines, and had finally given birth while they'd been watching the destruction of Hellguard on the bridge. Noted next to her name was another that twanged through him with an even stronger shock of recognition: Saavik, the name she'd given her newborn. It meant 'Little Cat' in Romulan, he somehow knew; a girl-child who would-- or would have-- grown up to do great things.

He didn't understand, or remember, why she was important-- and clearly, she might not even be the same person she'd have been in the other world. But Jim already knew he'd be mentioning her to Selek.

He'd be mentioning a lot of things to Selek, the next time they passed by the Vulcan colony.

The next morning by ship's day, he had Chekov replot the ion storms in the area, and Sulu took the ship straight out into Federation space under the cover of the largest. On the way in, they hadn't wanted to be detected by either side; any kind of noise might have warned the Romulans they were coming. On the way out, however, they wanted Starfleet backup; as long as they didn't trip the Romulans' sensor satellites, it didn't matter what the ones on the Federation side saw.

Six hours later, they were being hailed by the Inaieu, one of the few Destroyer-class ships Starfleet had produced, three times the size of Enterprise and crewed largely by heavy-world Denebians. If any of them had been in dock rather than days away by warp in the Laurentian system when Nero had attacked, those first ships to arrive at Vulcan might have had a shot in hell at surviving. Jim was extremely relieved to see her, though they weren't quite as sanguine to see him. The problem with buying a nondescript cargo boat that could pass on either side of the Neutral Zone was that it wasn't immediately obvious which side they'd come from-- and Jim could hardly hail them under his own name. He was still officially at Algeron IV, after all.

In the end, he got Lieutenant T'Saeris, one of the Vulcan rescuees, to take charge of the communications under one of the one-use false identities Jim knew Mallory had established for his operatives. The name came with all the credentials necessary to request urgent transport to the system of the requester's choosing; believing they were carrying an urgent, top-secret message vital to the outcome of the peace conference, the Inaieu and her Captain gladly agreed to extend their ship's warp bubble around the Handbasket and piggy-back her to the Algeron system at Warp Nine.

It was a matter of hours, rather than the days they'd spent covering the same distance alone, before Captain Nhauris cut them loose in orbit above their destination. Jim rose from his chair as the Handbasket matched orbits with Enterprise, and stared at the clean, white lines of his great lady in grateful silence for several moments before ordering Sulu to take her down.

All hell was probably about to break loose on the planet; he had several duties to catch up on aboard ship, and a long debriefing to deliver to Captain One, never mind his ciphered report to Mallory and the Department of General Services. His shoulder still ached, he'd acquired a new set of hellish images to fuel his nightmares, the rest of his crew had begun to pick up Bones' habit of scolding him first and Sir-ing him after, and he knew none of them would ever officially be recognized for what they'd just done.

That wasn't why they'd done it, though; they'd done it because it was the right thing to do.

Jim grinned around at his crew as they sank back into atmo, and knew that all was well with his world.

-(6/6.5)-