Chapter 7
Time to go...
His body was betraying him. He had perhaps a few minutes left before he blacked out, no matter how often this Klingon slapped him in the face to get his attention. He could hardly feel a thing anymore. All that was left were the bone weary shivers. Mercifully even those were abating too. It would be easy to slide away. So easy...
When the big hand was ready to start its downward arc toward his face again, he swung with all he had left, plunging the lancet deep into the Klingon's neck, right underneath the ear.
You've got my attention now.
The Klingon's eyes widened in surprise.
Unsure of Klingon circulatory anatomy, Kirk yanked the lancet down. It sliced cleanly. Hot, ghastly pink blood gushed, running down his arm, saturating his torn, already bloody sleeve and shirt.
The Klingon's hand, destined a second ago for his battered face, instead flew to Kirk's hand and, crushing it, pulled it away, lancet and all. The knife slipped from Kirk's fingers and fell somewhere. Kirk didn't have time to feel for it. The Klingon was opening his mouth and Kirk slapped his hand over that dreadful, blood-spilling opening, afraid it was going to cry out. Instead he felt the last desperate suck of air. It mixed, gurgling, with the blood, and the light went out of the wide-open eyes.
Kirk grabbed the chin and pushed the Klingon off of him. The body fell sideways and thudded into the dirty straw. It jerked twice, soundlessly, then lay still.
Lucky bastard, Kirk thought, his annoyance growing at his men for calling to him – not too loud for fear of attracting attention, but insistent.
They sure are insistent.
He bit down on his gag and thought for a moment to find the lancet to cut it free, so he could tell them to be quiet and let him go to sleep. But no, duty called. He rolled onto his good side, got onto his knees and left hand, then did a cripple-crawl to a nearby crate. Groaning with the effort, he raised himself to his feet, slipping in the growing pool of blood. Steadying himself against the wall he stumbled to the arched opening of the alcove.
"Jim, you can make it!"
"Captain! The force field! The button to deactivate it is to the left!"
Kirk only vaguely registered these words. A button. They were saying something about a button.
00000000000
Jim Kirk was monstrous, walking like a dead man across the aisle. He drew gasps from his people, of pity and horror. He dragged his feet, leaning sideways and back into his deformed shoulder. The imbalance enforced the impression that part of his body had been cut away, that it was impossible that he was moving, alive. He was slick with blood. It glued his shirt to his chest, dripped down his dangling left arm, his boots too left bloody tracks. Blood streamed down his face, making his teeth clamped on the gag extra white inside the swollen grimace of pain.
And his eyes. His eyes, though unseeing, were on fire.
"Jim, veer left!" McCoy cried out.
Kirk obeyed like an automaton. Had he not, he would have walked straight into the force field.
He was very close now and McCoy could see the light in his eyes going. He stumbled and reached out with his bloody hand to steady himself against the arch.
His hand was resting right above the button, but he didn't seem to know what to do.
"Push the button, Jim. It's right there, under your hand. It's right there," McCoy pleaded.
A spark. The trembling, bloody arm moved.
They were free.
McCoy caught the Captain as he fell. He gently lowered the lifeless body to the floor and cradled it in his arms.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" McCoy hissed at the others, "get him a way out of here!"
They all scurried, except for Carol Shafer.
"He's going into deep shock," McCoy told her. "He needs blankets, and something to clean off some of this blood, I can't see if it's his and where it's coming from!"
Kirk's pulse was too fast and thready, his breathing shallow and, alarmingly, slowing. His skin was clammy and his limbs were wracked with minute shivers.
Shafer returned, her arms full of fabric, but the first thing she handed McCoy was the lancet. The Doctor cut the string holding the gag in place. Together they carefully pried it from between the Captain's teeth.
"Don't you want to cut the harness?" she asked. Her voice trembled.
"No, it would just do more damage. For now it immobilizes the arm. But help me with the shirt."
Shafer peeled the drenched shirt off Kirk's chest and McCoy cut a gap at the shoulder. Then he handed the lancet to Shafer to shred the fabric she had found. It seemed relatively clean and while Shafer tenderly wiped the sticky blood off Kirk's face, McCoy briefly examined the shoulder wound. He was glad Kirk was unconscious, because the only way to stem the blood was by plugging the wound with a ball of the cloth.
In the meantime Holt and Esner had been running up and down the length of the aisle, diving into the alcoves in search of an exit. Now they jogged back to the Doctor.
"The only way out is the way we came," Holt said, breathless.
McCoy was about to curse when he stopped. "Do you hear that?"
There was a grating sound, then the obvious opening of a hole to the noise right outside the building.
Holt and Esner looked at each other, then bolted toward the sound, ready to hold off whoever was coming in. McCoy held the deathly pale Kirk as close as he dared. They'd have to go over his own dead body to get to him this time.
The two men stopped four alcoves down. Their faces lit up.
"Mister Spock!"
