It was the last scene in the galaxy that Kirk wanted to see: Spock looking utterly worn and defeated, face dirty and bruised and tightened into a harsh grimace as a masked guard trained a disruptor rifle at the center of his back. He could feel his heart sinking, his hopes falling even as his legs refused to carry him forward toward his captured first officer.
Then the masked figure swung his disruptor to the left and a bolt floored the guard behind Kirk. A phaser appeared in Spock's hand and a second later the guard to Kirk's right dropped to the floor as well, stunned.
He tried to call out Spock's name but the implant kept his mouth from moving. But Spock was already crossing the space between them. "Jim!" Spock said, stopping right before him and gripping his arms. Kirk could see the almost-smile on his face and fought the paralysis, wanting to reach out, to touch Spock, to show his gratitude and relief and just how damn happy he was to see him… to see the both of them. For Bones had pulled off his mask and stepped forward as well, medical scanner in one hand.
"Jim," Spock said again, more urgently this time. Kirk fought to at least acknowledge his friends and managed a small smile as he locked eyes with Spock. But he quickly froze it into a frown as he lifted his hand to point toward the implant scar in the back of his neck. It seemed all his arm was willing to do.
Neither of his officers seemed to understand. Spock's expression had shifted from pleased to plainly worried. Bones had been looking at the felled guard, but now focused all of his attention on Kirk. If it were possible, his frown only deepened.
"He might be drugged," McCoy said to Spock. "Jim, can you hear me?"
When his neck refused to move his stretched his mouth into another smile.
"Doctor, we must free him," Spock said, producing a small metal cylinder from one of the many pockets in the coat he wore. Kirk resolved to ask him where he had gotten that jacket… later. "The bonds appear to be the same," he added thoughtfully. Kirk noticed for the first time just how worn he really seemed, and in how much pain. Bones, too, was clearly weary. He wondered what they had been through to get to him. He had a feeling he didn't want to know.
Spock held the cylinder to his bonds, and when the metallic material loosened he pulled it away from Kirk's unresponsive hands. "Doctor," Spock said, looking Kirk up and down as if he weren't sure how to proceed. "Your assistance. Please."
Bones had walked the length of the line of slaves behind Kirk. Now he shook his head. "We can't leave the rest of them." The slaves were staring at them, fidgeting though their own implants kept them from speaking or moving forward. Kirk wanted to free them too. Then they had to get out of here.
"We do not have the time," Spock said.
"We can't just—"
"Doctor." This time Spock's tone brooked no argument, and he broke eye contact with Kirk and looked to the turbolift with a grimace. When he spoke again his voice was ragged. "We should return the way we came."
"Come on, Jim," Bones said softly, placing a hand on Kirk's arm to guide him. Suddenly Kirk's legs were willing to move, propelling him in the direction that McCoy had indicated. Good, Kirk thought. He might not be free, but at least if he could move by his officers' blessing they might have a chance of getting out of here alive. Still, they were far from out of danger.
More guards. He tried to push the words out, but the implant still held him silent.
Once in the turbolift, he tried to speak again but still his mouth refused and he had to fight down frustration that he had no way to express. McCoy was now whirring his medical scanner by Kirk's ear. Spock had fallen back against the wall of the turbolift as soon as they were inside and stood with his eyes closed and his fists clenched, breathing shallowly. Kirk ignored the scanner and fought down a new wave of worry.
"Spock!" McCoy had looked up from the results of his scan and addressed the Vulcan as soon as Spock met his gaze, seemingly oblivious—or perhaps simply used to—his obvious pain. "There's a chip," he said triumphantly. "A chip in his brainstem and it's interfering with his brainwaves. If we can get him to the Enterprise I should be able to—"
He was interrupted by the blaring of an alarm that began to flash yellow above their heads. The turbolift doors slid open, apparently unexpectedly, for Spock's head jerked up and his eyes widened as he read the floor number on the opposite wall.
Then pain that made yesterday's torture pale in comparison slammed through Kirk and he fell boneless to the floor, the implant holding his limbs in place where they landed. His head was tearing itself apart, ripping straight down the center and he couldn't take it any more than he could move and all he could do was scream. Spock dropped to his knees beside him, and he was aware vaguely disruptor bolts searing into the wall above them as the Vulcan touched his face and seemed to concentrate on something, something, and for a moment Kirk thought the pain was lessening, and he could almost think again. At the door Bones was returning fire but falling back, and then someone was pulling Spock up by the arm and yelling at him words of urgency that for some reason Kirk could not quite understand.
And then his two friends were gone, replaced by a group of men in black who hauled Kirk upright and touched something to the back of his neck so that as suddenly as it had come, the pain was gone. Seconds later, the alarm ceased, the lights returned to normal, and he was left slumped between two guards who regarded him silently.
"Stand," said a third, and Kirk cursed his legs as they straightened to obey.
The guards led him back to the others, and though he fought will all his will his body would not resist. Finally, his head hung forward, and he closed his eyes against bitter disappointment.
They had been so close, he thought. So close, but they had never really stood a chance.
McCoy pulled Spock around a corner, blasted the two remaining guards to hell, then dragged the hobbling Vulcan down several blissfully empty corridors and into a small storage room and shut and locked the door. He didn't think anyone had seen him, and though he knew he'd regret losing Jim and the deaths of the guards later, he couldn't help but feel relief. Still, he realized, they wouldn't be able to stay in the storage closet indefinitely, even though he felt giddy with pain and adrenaline and Spock had slumped against the corner next to a shelf of spare replicator parts, his leg held up in stork position once more.
Reality seemed to sink in all at once as McCoy stood with the disruptor still in his hands, taking deep breath after deep breath in the near-darkness of the storage closet. They had found Jim, found him and managed to lose him again. Those had been the best circumstances they could've hoped for for a rescue, undoubtedly—only two guards, alone in a basement corridor with the element of surprise on their side—but still they'd failed. How the devil were they supposed to succeed in any other set of circumstances? He resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands and looked at Spock instead. The Vulcan seemed lost in his own mind, and for a moment McCoy was irrationally worried that he'd recede into there and never come out.
"Spock," he tried. Spock didn't bother to acknowledge his voice. The Vulcan's sense of defeat was flooding McCoy's mind through the link and he found himself frustrated at it. But Spock was mourning the loss of Jim, and no matter how much he insisted he was fine there would be no consoling him for this one. He'd have to push him instead, if they were ever to get moving. "Spock," he said again more forcefully, this time through gritted teeth. Finally, Spock looked up. "We can't stay here forever," McCoy said bluntly. "At least three guards saw us run. It's got to be only a matter of time before they start searching for us."
Spock only took a deep breath that turned into a grimace. McCoy could feel his desperation now, just how close the Vulcan was to simply giving up, and he felt his own resolve harden in response.
"Spock!" McCoy snapped for a third time. He felt Spock grappling with his emotions, fighting a battle that hours of pain and stress and worry made nearly impossible to win.
"The chip," Spock said hoarsely.
"It was driving him insane," McCoy told him what his medical scanner had read shortly before the guards had come. "That's why I pulled you away, Spock. If we'd tried to take him with us…" He shook his head. "It would've made him go mad."
Now Spock closed his eyes and nodded slightly. Whatever it had cost him, he was in control of himself once more. "The implant must have sensed his location," he said slowly, then paused to clench his teeth and ride out a surge of pain. Almost reflexively McCoy waved the medical scanner over him, then pulled out one of their last painkillers and administered it before Spock could protest. The Vulcan frowned slightly but went on, "Prisoners must not be permitted beyond a certain boundary. We most likely passed it shortly before the turbolift halted and the guards appeared. Certainly," he added, "An effective means of keeping slaves within the facility."
Aboard the Enterprise, on any other day, McCoy would have taken the opportunity to jump on Spock and accuse him of callousness toward their captain's life. But here, and after all they'd been through, there seemed no point. He knew that Jim meant more to Spock than his own life, and this mission was only the latest iteration of that truth. If Spock seemed callous it was because the analysis was all that kept him from sliding into a deep well of emotions from which there might be no escape. But were these thoughts were coming out of his brain or Spock's? He was beginning to want rather desperately to mention the mental link, Spock's pride be damned, but they had more pressing issues now.
Spock was watching him with eyebrow cocked, perhaps surprised by McCoy's lack of reaction. "The chip will, of course, have to be removed."
"And how do you propose we do that, Spock?" McCoy said. "Aboard the Enterprise, with the right equipment, I could. But here? With nothing but a field medkit? Even if we do find him again, it's serious brain surgery." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Spock. It'd kill him."
Spock frowned. "Then you would see Jim driven mad."
"No, Spock, I wouldn't," McCoy protested wearily. "But if we can't remove the chip or him from his place I don't—" he stopped, and looked at the cement floor, aware that he was about to voice the words no doctor ever wanted to say. "I don't know how to save him."
Then he looked up, expecting disapproval or anger or disappointment or any of a number of emotions Spock would later deny through his teeth. Instead, he saw Spock's eyes rolling back in his head, the Vulcan sliding down the wall as his good leg buckled, and just barely managed to catch him in time to keep his head from hitting the floor when he crumpled.
Chekov knew, of course, that there was a such thing as too much hope. One didn't hope to earn a million credits for nothing, or to become famous overnight or to meet the girl of his dreams at age twenty-four on a starship. So he knew, of course, that to hope to find the captain and Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock alive and well when all evidence—well, nearly all evidence—pointed to the contrary was perhaps a bit silly at best.
Still, he couldn't help but continue to work at Spock's console on the problem of warping the planet's magnetic field with gravitational waves produced by the ship's own artificial gravity drive. If they could make communications to the planet…well, he wasn't exactly sure what then, but he supposed if there was anything left to do it was that. Several hours into the work now, he could see that he needed were a few adjustments, a tweak in an equation here, a different wavelength there, and so on. Unfortunately, he was running into the boundaries of his knowledge and Engineering had long since ceased sending him useful messages.
As it turned out, Uhura was just as eager to solve the problem and her communications expertise was exactly what they needed for the last of the subspace equations. He joined her at her communications station and they worked, pulling together the disparate bits of a program that might actually work to punch through the interference.
Chekov was actually close to congratulating them for a job well done when they were interrupted by a message from Starfleet command. Uhura's face fell as it came through her earpiece, and when she relayed it to Scott (who was still taking the charred shuttlescraft apart somewhere deep in the bowels of the ship) he understood exactly why.
"Two hours?" Scott repeated through the comm. unit.
"Yes, sir," Uhura said. "Then we're to report to Starbase 6 to receive our new orders and," she paused and swallowed, "and our new captain."
Scott's voice was grim over the intercom. "Aye. Thank ye lieutenant." Then he cut the connection.
Chekov glanced at Uhura and the progress they'd already made. He knew it was foolish. He'd know it foolish since the very start, since that fateful report of charred bodies in the lake. But still. If they could finish in time, there was a chance, always that chance—
He straightened himself up in his chair, adjusting his uniform though it didn't really need to be adjusted. "Come now lieutenant," he said. "Ve have some work to do yet."