Chapter 10

The first three forays were straightforward, and Kirk directed those skirmishes from a console in Sickbay. Landing parties rounded up the smallest and most isolated groups of individuals, twenty-eight of them, all from the Troika. They could barely stand, let alone resist.

The news was good. His men on the ground informed him that the treatment worked within seconds of administration and had no noticeable side effects beyond an initial spell of faintness and disorientation. Kyle, who was leading the effort, reported that the captives were all in bad shape, some critical, but that they would all survive.

"And Captain," came Kyle's voice, "they instantly forget. They don't remember a thing."

Kirk closed his eyes. Chapel, next to him, squeezed his hand.

"Only two will remember" he said, as much to her as to himself. "Thank God, only two."

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Despite the Doctor's strenuous protests it wasn't long before the Captain released himself from Sickbay. He insisted that the beds were needed for the incoming casualties and that he was needed for the next phase.

The next phase was the containment of the Enterprise crew, which was in much better shape than the wreckage from the Troika.

"Chief Security Officer Kyle," Kirk ordered, formidable at the head of the briefing table. "We're going after the Alpha target next. Meet me in the Transporter Room in five minutes."

Chapel intercepted him in the corridor.

"You can't go down there! You're in no shape!"

Kirk stopped and turned to her, laying his hands lightly on her shoulders.

"Chris," he pleaded, "we're going after Spock now. He's their leader. We take him out, we disorganize all of them. And you know as well as I do that the formula might not work on him, or might take longer to take effect. I can't trust Kyle's team to… to take Spock out, if they need to. I need to be there."

"And you would take him out?" she asked, a frown of confusion between her eyes.

It was a genuine question to which he lacked an answer.

He let go of her shoulders and continued his march. She had no choice but to follow him. He entered the transporter room and walked straight onto the platform. There was to be no further discussion.

Kyle moved to join him on, but Chapel touched him on the arm.

"Stay to his left," she whispered. "He is blind on that side."

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This place again.

It was no less depressing because it was daylight and the fog had not yet risen from the mud. The sky was still gray, the broken buildings still stood around them like jagged, rotten teeth, the rats still scurried among the rubble. And there was that song again, sung by a demented Robin.

And here was one of his men, lying on his stomach in the dirt. The angle of his neck was wrong, his face too white, his eyes too open, horror-struck and alert. As if the disease was lifted just before death.

Kirk knelt beside him.

"It's Kiva, Sir," someone informed him.

"Yes," said Kirk simply. He remembered Kiva, an orderly on McCoy's Sickbay shift who had helped him several times. "Yes," he whispered again, a quiet affirmation of his gratitude and his grief, as he gently closed the dead man's eyes.

"Captain! Captain, it's the Doctor!"

Kirk sprang up and rounded the corner to find Singh and Kyle kneeling next to a man, also clad in medical blue.

Alive?

"I got him, Sir! The antidote is working!" Kyle called out.

They made way for their Captain.

"Bones!"

Kirk took McCoy by the shoulders and helped him sit up against the wall.

"Jim! Jim? What in the blazes is going on? What's this dart sticking in my chest for? Why do I feel so-"

The Doctor's eyes widened and latched onto Kirk. For a moment, the Captain was very afraid that McCoy remembered.

"Jim, you're hurt!" McCoy cried out. He tried to get up, but Kirk held him down.

"I'm better, Bones," he laughed, trying not to shake the good Doctor too much. "M'Benga and Chapel patched me up. You relax now, we'll take you home-"

McCoy shook off Kirk's hands and gently touched his chin to move his face to the side, so he could take a better look.

"You're sure you're fine, Jim? Any pain?"

Kirk drank in his friend's scrutiny, his compassion and kindness.

I have it all back, he thought. It has been given back to me.

"I'm fine now, Bones."

"Looks fine…" McCoy murmured, ready to make a comment, but his hand fell back, and he fainted.

Kirk reluctantly surrendered him to the Ensign.

"Beam up with him, Singh. Kyle," he called, standing up. "Have you located Mister Spock?"

"I have, Sir. He is retreating to the west, with the last ten others. There are only seven of us, Captain. Maybe we should wait till more men are available."

"There's no time, Mister Kyle. If he retreats into the forests we'll never catch him. We have the tricorders, the phasers and the darts. We have the advantage. We have to go after him now."

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Hours later he wished he did have the luxury of waiting for more men. They had captured all but Spock and Chekov, but the cost had been high. Spock's group had been well-organized and had consisted of the security men, who were robotically faithful to their ruthless leader. His own men were exhausted from effort and the pain of seeing their comrades' unfeeling cruelty towards them. They had suffered injuries and Kirk had had to send up all but Kyle.

He himself wasn't doing so well either. The painkillers and stimulants that Nurse Chapel had administered were wearing off, and the jarring pain each time his foot landed on the ground sliced through his fatigue. His halved vision was beginning to trouble his balance, and the stress of having that blind spot in his defenses wasn't helping his mental balance either.

But Spock was very close to the edge of the city, where the endless forest of this continent began. And Kirk could not let him go.

"Watch out!" Kyle yelled.

Kirk spun to his left just in time to deflect the hurled rock with his forearm. A flash of yellow moved away among the broken rubble. Chekov!

Kyle fired.

Kirk cursed when the Russian went down, a dart between the shoulder blades, and hit his head on a rock. Not even bothering the check for Spock, he ran to the fallen man. He was unconscious and bleeding heavily from the gash at his temple.

Kyle ran up, stumbling as he looked over his shoulder. The man was exhausted.

Kirk stood.

"Beam up with Chekov."

"But Captain, you can't go after Mister Spock all by yourself!"

"That was an order, Mister Kyle," Kirk snapped.

He knew he was being reckless now, but he no longer cared.

Kyle looked away from his Captain's disturbed glare. Obediently he stood and ordered two to beam up. Then they were gone.

"Come on, Spock," Kirk whispered. "It's just me now. You and me."