Standard Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek or make any money from this.
My apologies for taking so long with this. I didn't realize that it took almost a month! EEK! I'm doing too many things at once. Bless those of you who can write multiple stories at the same time. I am working on a one shot of the Carol Marcus part of Jim's story. It's pretty long and not nearly through.
Thank you so much for your patience with me!
Charles Tonne is my original character, so please don't use him without asking first.
Chapter 11 - No Way, Not Again
Jim's communication with Spock had been broken by Burkhart slapping him across the face to get his attention. When he was satisfied that he had it he kicked Jim in the groin.
During the instant of reaction Jim's knees buckled. The cable with the least amount of give, his body included, until he came to rest against it was the one around his neck. As soon as he felt it he scrambled to get his feet under himself until after a couple attempts, he was standing again.
Jim was just happy at that moment that his gonads were protected, being internal, because that shot hit him just in front of his ch'la (1); just about the spot where a males testicles are located.
Burkhart got right up in Jim's face, so close Jim could smell his nasty breath. He said in a breathy whisper, "That was for being a chatterbox freak. Now shut the fuck up!"
Quiet was fine with Jim because he needed to think. Spock had said they were planning on taking him back to Tarsus IV. Now that he knew that, everything was different. James T. Kirk was NOT going to allow himself to be taken back there. He had to keep them from going to warp, no matter the cost.
Spock felt the pain in his groin and gasped. When he opened his eyes he found Nyota leaning over him.
"Are you okay Spock? Is Jim okay?" She asked anxiously.
Spock nodded to indicate that both of them were 'okay', that being a word of indeterminate value. Nyota moved back to reveal Pike and the view screen featuring a very worried looking Winona Kirk.
Before Spock could even form a word in his mind Winona was badgering him with questions. "Well Spock? What happened to make you gasp? How is he? Did you tell Jimmy where they were planning on taking him? What was his response? Did he say anything about other men?"
Spock stood, hands clasped behind his back. Only Nyota could see how tightly he gripped them. He looked at Winona, cocked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow then quietly waited for her verbal deluge to stop.
When she finally took a breath Spock decided to answer. "I do not understand the first question. I gasped because I felt James was kicked in the groin. He seems relatively unharmed. He is now aware of the deduced destination and his response was 'now I understand the comment Burkhart made about me going to hell'. And there was mention of another man named Schmidt. James said he was Burkhart's assistant in everything.
"I would not be surprised, if knowing the deduced destination of the ship would cause James to take some kind of action on his own to prevent that from happening." Spock answered.
Jim used his TK and clipped the cable behind his neck, at each hand and each ankle. He stood as he was while he waited for his moment. Burkhart and Schmidt started a conversation about their favorite methods of producing pain in another person and had stopped paying any attention to Jim.
Burkhart had his back to Jim as they talked. Schmidt was turned partly away from him as well, as if he wasn't worth their attention.
He decided to disabuse them of that notion.
Jim gathered himself as best he could while maintaining the facade that he was still attached to the wall. In one fluid movement he spun from foot to foot kicking each one in the head. Burkhart he hit in the back of his head at the occipital bone snapping his head forward where he fell heavily into the he hit in the temple dropping him on the spot.
Jim checked to make sure they were both alive them moved to find a method of securing them. Looking around he found he was in a cargo container inside a larger cargo hold. He had been secured to the wall using magnetic cabling meant for holding individual pieces packed into the crate.
'Turnabout is fair play.' Jim thought, chuckling as he secured his captors the way they had him secured. However he gave them enough cable to sit against the wall.
On the way out he spied a phase pistol on a table and grabbed it. He decided to make his way toward the 'bridge'. Moving out of the container into the hold Jim closed the door.
The ship was relatively small, he had a two choices, left or right. He had a 50/50 chance, turned right, passed several other cargo holds until he reached an open doorway. Holding the phase pistol at ready he peaked around the frame. Sitting with her back to him was the Mazarite pilot.
As Jim moved stealthily into the compartment he heard the comm come alive. "Mazarite transport 05496, this is Starfleet control, you may proceed to warp after you pass beacon x72390 charlie. At your current speed that will be in 2 minutes mark... confirm."
The pilot pressed a button. "Starfleet control, this is Mazarite transport 05496 confirm." She hit the button again and as she sat back she felt the cold of Jim's phase pistol press up against her temple.
"Hi there sweetie. How about this? You turn this ship around. Call Starfleet and get me in touch with Captain Pike. And I'll make sure my Vulcan bondmate doesn't tear you apart, like he will with Burkhart and Schmidt." Jim looked her in the eyes and grinned winningly.
Winona got a chill when she heard Spock make that pronouncement, it having a prescient feel. "What do you mean by that Spock?"
Spock fixed his gaze on the visage of Winona on the view screen. "Simply that I believe James has less desire to return to Tarsus IV than any of us can conceive. And that he will avail himself of any of his mind, as need be, to keep that from happening."
Pike had been observing the exchange between Winona and Spock and noticed that the two were quickly becoming comfortable with one another. He let the two talk and decided to spend some time getting to know how Cadet Uhura was tangled in all of this mess.
Since Nyota knew that Pike recruited Jim she began her story with current time and worked her way backwards to when they first met. When he realized that she had been at the center of circumstances that lead to Jim being recruited into Starfleet he laughed. Just as he was about to thank her Dianne commed him.
"What do you have Dianne?" Pike asked.
"A comm from Jim Kirk for you sir." Dianne said wryly. She had figured out from the inclusion of Spock and Winona that this meeting was likely about Jim.
"Put him on split screen with his mother."
Jim's eyes got big when he saw so many people with Pike, including a split of his mother.
"Wow, hi everybody. You guys putting on a party just for lil' ole' me?" Jim smiled his eyes going right to Spock's, sending feelings of relief and love through their bond.
"Indeed." Agreed Spock, not necessarily speaking about the 'party'.
"Jimmy, you okay?" Winona asked, pausing to look at him as best she could over the comm. She then turned suspicious. Her eyes narrowed, barely perceptibly, and very tactlessly, Winona asked her son. "How'd you get loose?"
Jim gave his mother an exasperated look, fists on hips. "They are fine mother. Senta net, vi schto nasapaln! Artin, ves dostenen et vi. (2)"
He was hoping he had given Spock enough Veenan to get the gist of that so he wouldn't have to remember the details of the conversation. Jim also hoped his mother would chill out.
"I cut my bonds then waited until their backs were turned and knocked them out. They were actually easy to take out. Now they are tethered in the same cargo container. Which, by the way, we will have to cut them out of because I melted the lock just to make sure it wouldn't be easy for anyone to get them out from inside the ship here.
"Me, I'm just peachy." He pointed to the pilot with his phase pistol held, what would have appeared to be careless to most people, but Jim never did anything careless when his life was on the line.
"Our pilot here really didn't think you'd take my call..." Before Jim could finish the sentence the pilot tried for the gun unaware, like Uhura had been, that Jim was not the 'pretty boy idiot' that he could appear to be.
As she moved for the gun he elbowed her in the face hitting her right in the nose. She slumped to the ground unconscious.
"Guess she really was un trustworthy." Jim said sadly, shaking his head. "I was really hoping it would turn out otherwise because Mazarite is not one of my languages. If it was Vulcan or Klingon I wouldn't have a problem."
Pike chuckled at that comment. "Yes, I think we all know of your love of the Klingon language Kirk."
"P'Tok!" Jim said laughing. (Spineless human child)
"I am not spineless, nor am I a child Jim. Watch your language around your betters." Pike replied also laughing.
"Excuse me." Spock broke in, irritated with the lighthearted conversation when his mate was stuck on a cargo ship in the outer solar system with hostiles. "Would it not be wise to have our rescue in line for James before we begin with the illogical humor?"
Jim and Winona started to laugh. Pike looked at them smiling before turning to Spock, but Uhura beat him to the punch.
"Spock, us illogical, emotional beings tend to use humor in intense situations like this to diffuse our own angst. I'm sure we'll get it all worked out pretty quickly." She reassured him.
"And here is where I finally pay my dues. Mazarite is one of the languages I entered the academy having studied because I have a fascination with runic alphabets and theirs is stranger than most.
"Jim, can you draw me the characters at each control? You would need to be very specific with every line." Nyota informed him.
"Well I guess I lucked out to be on this ship than. I can do better than drawings my dear, they have this," Jim reached forward into the camera, then it started moving. "Primitive camera here that is only clipped on the top of the monitor."
"Excuse me." Winona broke in. "I'm needed here and now that I know things are under control I feel a lot better. Jimmy, you get back safe now. I'll be in touch." She broke the connection. The split view screen automatically became full view of Jim's camera which he was attempting to orient on the controls in front of him.
Uhura felt dizzy while she watched the various permutations of the control panel on the view screen. When it finally settled it was upside down.
She smiled as she commented. "Hey farm boy, you've got the camera upside down."
Being a complete wise ass he flipped it over so it gave a view of the ceiling of the compartment. "Is that what you wanted honey?" He asked sarcastically before righting the view.
"That was for the farm boy comment Ny." Jim said as the motion settled.
"Jim, are you forgetting that there are others in the room." Pike said dryly. "Don't we count?"
"Sorry if I made you guys uncomfortable. I suppose if you were bothered there that would make your discomfort collateral damage for when we figure out who the fuck is behind this." Jim started to sound a little bitter as he said the last half of the sentence.
Jim could feel Spock's turmoil, which was being exacerbated by his own flippant humor. "Spock, nam-tor hayal, ek' dungi nam-tor muhl (3). I feel alive right now and humor is one way of expressing it."
In a large office in the Headquarters building The Man just sat and watched the communications between Pike's office and the Mazarite transport. Just enough to know that he had lost this round to the Kirk kid. He would have to be more prepared next time. He had to have that kid and his abilities in his corner before the endgame.
He hit a button on his desk that would summon his aid, Charles Tonne. Charles was new to his service. He seemed nice enough, but he was one of those lackeys who would never get anywhere in the world. The Man laughed at having found the perfect pawn, at least so he thought.
What he didn't realize was that Charles Tonne was a very intelligent man. He was the third child of South West North America (SWNA) Senator John Michael Tonne. Born April 15, 2212, Charles brilliance had him into the command track at Starfleet Academy when his two older siblings were killed on March 22, 2233 on the USS Kelvin.
John Michael Tonne was a very influential man and used that influence to force his son to change career paths from command to one that would keep him behind a desk for the majority of his career because he didn't want to loose another son to space. Now he was a lacky to admirals. The only way he would get into space at this time would be with one of them, as he had done when he worked solely for Admiral Archer.
Thanks to cutbacks he was now working for four of them. One thing his father had taught him was that politics could be very dirty, so he kept journals which included details on orders from each of his bosses.
He thought over his summaries of what his bosses were like on his way to his latest call. They were all very different:
Admiral Jamadish, very young for an Admiral and headstrong Centaurian woman, rather liberal, pro women and pro non-human rights, very intolerant of prejudice;
Admiral Komack, middle aged human male, also headstrong but very conservative, easily angered, extremely ambitious, doesn't like things to get in his way, slimy;
Admiral Archer, aged human male (over 100), pretends to be semi retired, most liberal of all admirals, surprising considering everything he has seen, laid back;
Admiral Nogura, middle aged human male, holds a lot of anger, seems on the surface that he would be conservative in everything, but he is very surprising, ambitious but not in the same way as Komack.
Charles was walking down the corridor when he was struck with a sudden feeling of dark arms reaching for him and pulling him down into nothingness. His vision started to become a tunnel and he had to lean on the wall to keep himself from falling. He felt dizzy and nauseous.
He recovered quickly, shaking his head, wondering what had just happened, he continued down the hall to his destination.
"Thank you for coming so swiftly Charles. That's one thing that I've always liked about you." The Man smiled as he patted Charles on the back depositing a small device on the back of his shirt, that when a trigger was pushed, would inject a small amount of the toxin used by the xi (4) 'octopus' to incapacitate prior to sifting memories.
"Charles, right now I need you more than I ever have before. Something just came to me. I need to show you and of course, I need your utmost discretion until we decide how to tell the others." The Man said smoothly leading Charles to, what appeared to be another panel in his office.
"Do you see that dark spot on the wall to your left Charles?" Charles looked and noted the spot, an "x" drawn on the wall with a magic marker.
"Yes Sir, I see it." Charles replied.
"Touch it will you please."
Charles saw nothing wrong with the request, he had complied with stranger ones since starting his job, however this one gave him goose bumps. Everything in him was telling him "NO". He felt that by touching that spot on the wall everything in his life was going to change.
Slowly, with trepidation, Charles Tonne reached up and touched the spot on the wall which triggered the release of the xi toxin. He slumped to the floor with the dark arms embracing him.
(1) Ch'la - Veenan - organ which covers the vagina in s'treu.
(2) Senta net, vi sto nasapaln! Artin, ves dostenen et vi. - Veenan - After all, you still question! Mother, I am disappointed in you.
(3) Nam-tor hayal, ek' dungi nam-tor muhl - Vulcan - Be calm, all will be well
(4) xi - Pronounced zee. Sentient telepathic cephalopods known by individual group. As they only picture themselves, they have no names. xi, small letter stressed, was the only written word with sound the first contact team was given. Planet was quarantined shortly thereafter because the 'Squids' were found to be quite powerful, able to live out of water, walk upright and impose their will on others.
A/N: Please review and let me know what you think of Charles. I really want to know because it's the first time I've made a character from scratch and I'd like to know if you have enough background to begin to feel for him.
Thanks!
