Sharp: A move which attempts to grab the initiative, involving both commitment and bridge-burning

Dawn broke warm and arid the next morning. He hadn't slept at all, only lay there watching the winking stars above them and with every flicker of bright light had imagined another piece of debris from the Enterprise hitting the atmosphere. He looked around him at his ragtag crew, what was left of them, as they gradually woke up and began moving about, smiles in place and business-like efficiency characterizing their movements.

He'd never been more proud of them.

He and Spock conferred over breakfast (which consisted of half a lukewarm energy drink and half a protein bar – veggie medley flavored, because he was sharing with Spock, and he would be glad to never taste that flavor again) and decided to split up in an effort to discover more about their locale.

"We need a water source, and a suitable place for semi-permanent shelter," he'd agreed, when Spock mentioned the growing need for fresh water, both for health and hygiene purposes. "Much as I'd like to think Starfleet's efficiency would be good enough to rescue us once they realize we never showed up at Delta, I know the system too well to think it'll ever be that easy. Murphy's Law loves me."

True to form, Spock ignored the reference in favor of more pressing matters. "I would suggest attempting to locate Lieutenant Uhura and her landing party, as at last check-in they had reached a suitable place for camp along one of the planet's rivers. However, based upon what data we could gather from triangulating the position of the tricorder, they are at least four days' walk from out current position."

"I don't want to leave this random mysterious transporter unattended, really," he said slowly. "But if you think it's best for morale that we move –"

"Negative," Spock assured him. "Lieutenants Uhura and Riley and Ensign Vro-Hath'wa are in no immediate danger, and crew morale is best served by remaining in your presence, sir."

Huh. "I think there's a compliment in there somewhere, Commander. Not going all human on us, are you?"

He heard a mutter under Spock's breath that sounded suspiciously like Surak forbid, and laughed as he went back toward their dwindling fire, where Sulu was seeing if the chalky taste of the energy drinks could be improved by heating them to a coffee-like temperature.

They couldn't.

"If I left it out all day d'you think the sugars in it would ferment?"

"Don't," he warned dryly. "Last thing I need is a crewman with food poisoning from amateur hooch." Scotty would have found a way, though, he thought fondly, and was somewhat relieved to find that the sharp, glaring agony of thinking of their dead friends was somewhat dulled this morning.

That could mean his mind was adjusting, or it could just mean that he was pulling a Vulcan trick and firmly shoving anything which could distract his focus into a locked box in the closet which was his mind.

Or it could be the fact that he was watching Anderssen try to get into his left shoe while balancing on one foot, hopping about like a rabbit on steroids until he collapsed on his backside in the pebbly ground.

Sometimes he really felt like he was dad to a bunch of kids.

Did that make Spock the mom, or the no-nonsense maiden aunt?

A dark look told him that while Spock might not be able to read his mind, he could take a good guess, and didn't like the direction of his thoughts.

He cleared his throat, employed his most innocent expression, and hastily began to divvy up the group into exploratory teams.


Twelve weary, hungry, hot, and otherwise thoroughly unpleasant hours later, they all met back at the campsite in varying degrees of frustration and exhaustion, with little to nothing to show for their efforts.

"I think we may take this day as proof that Q is the entity behind the design of this planet," Spock reported, in a tone that on a human would indicate utter hatred for the person in question.

Jim was sprawled on his back on the ground, heedless of the rocks in his hair (at this point what was another batch of dust and grime), rubbing restlessly at his sunburned nose. "Explain," he sighed, trying to blot out the mental daydreams of a cold iced tea and a real water shower.

Not to mention his silver lady.

"Lieutenant Anderssen's tricorder picked up the signs of leafy vegetation and running water, at three separate points during our exploration," the Vulcan explained. "On each of these occasions, when we reached the location in question, said vegetation and the river were nowhere to be found."

"He's toying with us, in other words. Sulu, Chekov, knock it off!" he bellowed toward Spock's left, where the two crewmen in question were on the verge of turning from friendly sparring into a knock-down, drag-out fistfight. "You really think we have time for that? Both of you cool it, or separate until you want to act like adults!"

Suddenly shamefaced, both men blushed a bright red and stepped back from each other, muttering embarrassed apologies. He waited until they'd elbowed each other once or twice and then moved toward the camp together, before turning his attention back to his First.

"Sorry. But we've got to keep it together – we're all on thin ice right now and all it'd take is one wrong move for someone to explode."

Spock nodded, not commenting on the choice of metaphor nor on Jim's breaking up the fight well before it had gotten out of hand; why would he, when they both knew better than most exactly what might happen in that eventuality. "I concur."

"Go ahead with what you were saying, then. Mind walking with me so we can see about the evening ration situation?"

"Affirmative."

Jim hauled himself to his feet and grimaced as a cloud of dust settled behind him from his grimy clothing. "Boy, do I really need a shower."

"Affirmative."

He grinned, and elbowed the Vulcan, who somehow still ended up looking the best out of all of them (he wouldn't have been surprised to see the guy's hair still stay immaculately in place in the middle of a tornado). "So, what were you saying about the shelter and fresh water situation? Q's made this planet's resources a shape-shifter?"

"An imprecise and not entirely accurate analogy, but the elements are not dissimilar. Obviously the Omnipotent does not intend for us to reach a place of possible semi-permanent shelter or running water until he so chooses – at least not under such means as we have been attempting."

"Lovely." He dug through the communal rations pack and sat back on his heels, looking up at Spock's towering height. "If we continue small rations, we've got enough food for another ten days, give or take. But the sport drinks will be gone in two, and though we have enough powdered electrolyte/nutrient mixes and purification tablets for another two weeks that doesn't help if we have nothing to dissolve them in. Did you check in with Uhura again?"

"Mr. Greco did, at the scheduled check-in time. She reports no change; they are as powerless as we are, and have gained nothing from exploring as we have."

"No signs of other survivors?" It was a vain hope, but he had to ask.

"Negative." Spock's voice was gentle. "However, should malfunctions have occurred in escape pods, or should the navigational systems not recognized this as an actual planet due to its questionable existence, that does not mean many of the crew did not survive. They could simply be awaiting rescue outside the planet's atmosphere. Also, there could very well be more crewmen stranded planetside who simply do not have a method of communication."

"Right." He blew out a deep breath, and stood as the rest of his crew began trickling back, looking none too excited about the evening meal. "Dig in, guys. Your choices are…bacon or mint mocha flavored."

He noted with amusement the mumbled "Ew" coming from their burly security detail, but tossed the bars to Anderssen to divide up amongst themselves.

"Sir?"

"I'm not hungry at the moment, Ensign; I'll have something later if I feel like I'm starving," he assured McDonnell. Spock's sharp look informed him that he'd better not be trying to pull another self-sacrificing Tarsus IV act, and he rolled his eyes. Honestly, the drama. "I'm legitimately not hungry, and I really don't like mint," he protested, arms folded.

"Who does?" Sulu muttered, nobly taking the bar since everyone else was eyeing it with trepidation. "And who in Medical stocked these emergency ration packs, anyhow? I'll bet it was Chapel getting revenge for the stunt with the rubber gloves last month. Remind me to –" he froze, realizing what he'd said, and rubbed a hand over his eyes. "Sorry, sir."

Jim smiled, pulling the young man into a one-armed hug around the shoulders. "Listen," he directed, encompassing them all with his eyes, and making eye contact with each. "We can't stop correcting ourselves and censoring our conversation just because it reminds us of what happened. It – it makes the event less meaningful, and cheapens the memory of the people we love – loved – who aren't with us. Don't stop yourselves from talking about the ship, guys." He swallowed, proud of the fact that his voice was only just the tiniest bit shaky. "They deserve to be remembered by us, and remembered with a smile."

His voice softened, roughened. "Did you know after that mission on Artemis II, where we were stranded for forty-eight hours with no rations other than the two bars and purification tablets Mr. Spock keeps stashed in that tricked-out tricorder of his, Bones actually filled out a requisition form for fried-chicken-flavored ration bars?" Sulu snorted with laughter, and the others cracked watery smiles. "For real, it showed up on my desk along with the usual requests for medicinal supplies and equipment." He mimicked checking off a list on a data-padd as he 'read' each item. "Test tubes, cryo-stasis units, vaccination tables – fried chicken ration bars. Try explaining that to Admiral Komack." More laughter, genuine this time.

"What was more remarkable was that the form was filled out in triplicate and sent to me as well, no doubt so as to not be overlooked,'" Spock added with bone-dry humor.

"So now, the question is," Jim continued, grinning at his helmsman as they sat around the small fire, "what, exactly, are we talking about when we say 'stunt with the rubber gloves?"


"Captain. Captain."

He jerked upright from where he'd been sort of half-leaning against his First Officer, half-drifting in and out of a light doze. Darkness was falling, and the stars were beginning to twinkle overhead. Their second night spent on this godforsaken ball of rock, not even knowing if anyone in the galaxy knew where they were or how many of them were left.

"Sorry," he rasped. Spock silently handed him the half-drunk bottle of energy drink. Ugh, cherry flavored. He was allergic to the blue one, unfortunately, so it was all he could drink. "Thanks. What's up?"

"I have been meditating on our current predicament, and I believe I have come to a somewhat startling, though inescapable, conclusion regarding Q's interference in this matter."

Sleep and cough-syrupy aftertaste forgotten, he bolted upright. Spock's eyes were glinting in the dim light, alert and in a state of suppressed energy which usually signified a massive breakthrough in his departments aboard ship. Here, Jim knew it meant he'd figured it out, at least enough to get them started. Thank everything, someone had some small control over this mess. And judging from the hopeful looks the rest of his men were giving them, they were of the same mind.

"We're all ears, Mr. Spock. Er, no offense."

Spock's lips quirked briefly, and they both silently acknowledged an absent friend and his caustic insults. Then, "Consider," Spock said, and he could tell from the way the words began getting clipped into a staccato pulse that the Vulcan was more exited than he would ever show. "The manner in which Q brought his initial arguments before us."

"A game," he supplied.

"Correct. Every bent of his conversation lent itself toward that same metaphor – a game. Complete with players, rules, gambits, and the ability to win."

The lightbulb didn't just flicker into existence, it illuminated every shadow in his mind. "You're saying you think that's the key – that Q was basically foreshadowing with us, that there's a game metaphor hidden in whatever tests he was going to throw at us. We have to play the game."

Spock nodded, eyes bright with satisfaction which accompanies knowledge of truth. "We are all of us a part of his great game, Captain."

Jim remembered reading an old Earth literature story once with about that same title, and shivered. "So he's toying with us, putting us into place as game pieces, basically."

"I believe that is the logical conclusion."

"And then how, exactly, am I supposed to win if I don't even know what the game is or what its rules are?" he snarled, running a hand through his hair.

Spock's eyes gleamed. "There I believe I may have a possible solution, Captain."

He raised an eyebrow, and made himself comfortable. "Shoot," he said with a wave.

"Consider. Ensign, your tricorder and its three-dimensional diagrams of this planet." Across from them, Chekov scrambled for the instrument and handed it over, wide-eyed. "When we consider that we have no real record of this planet's existence, we may take it as a working hypothesis that it was created by Q for this specific purpose. And while the Omnipotent does seem to be illogically predisposed to wreaking havoc in a childish manner unbecoming his omniscience, he does however have a history of leaving indications among his victims of the solution to their problems."

"What sort of clues?"

"When scrutinizing the data regarding this unusual planet, I was struck by how impossible the topography is, given the density readings and geological readings we have taken. Besides the fact that this planet has apparently had no history of any such traumatic ecological crises which would produce the unusual topography, there is also the startling discovery that the entire planet is actually laid out with what appears to be mathematical precision. In other words," the Vulcan continued, glancing significantly at him from the depths of his program, "quite coincidental, impossibly so, to have been formed naturally."

"Show me," he demanded, scooting closer.

Spock retrieved the program and activated the diagrams. Bluish holographic images popped into existence, detailing the topography of the planet.

"The planet exists primarily as divided into seven separate areas, from what data our scans can retrieve," he said, indicating such. "The rivers which were mentioned previously divide the flat lands into three sections – nearly equally proportioned sections, I might add. There is this raised area here, which Lieutenant Anderssen explained to us was impenetrable to human climbing skills. At the opposite side of the planet, exist two other such plateaus, though not as high in elevation, and here along the planet's southern pole exists another such. All of these four raised areas are also the same basic size, as well as uniformly smaller compared to the lowlands."

"Three large flat areas, four raised areas. That is weirdly systematic," he agreed, frowning in thought.

"Far too systematic to be anything but designed that way," Spock countered. "But that is not the most significant portion of this analysis."

"Go on."

"The most significant factor, Captain, is that each of these regions has an area measurement which is a square number."

He blinked. "I don't follow you."

"Is simple mathematics, sir," Chekov interjected, his young face more animated than he had been thus far. Spock was silent, allowing the ensign to proceed, which Jim took to mean that it had been Chekov's observation initially. "Length times height equals area, and each of these area measurements is a square number."

"In other words, even though the areas are not precisely squares themselves, they could be reshaped to be," Spock added pointedly.

"What's the significance of that?" he asked, still somewhat mystified.

"Nothing in itself, but it is indicative that this entire planet is, in reality…a game board,"
was the slow reply.

Of course! "A game board! Q created the whole thing as our playing field!" he exclaimed. "And we're the playing pieces!"

"Precisely," Spock agreed. "The only question remaining to be answered now is, what exactly is the game?"

"Chekov, can you reprogram this thing so that we can see the proportions of each of the six areas beside each other? And revamp them into squares while you're at it," he ordered, watching as the navigator's fingers flew, re-sketching the diagrams in the air. "Good. So, we have three large playing fields, and four considerably smaller ones – what is it, Spock?"

The Vulcan's eyes had suddenly narrowed. "Ensign," he instructed, and Chekov relinquished the instrument again. "Observe, Captain. If we keep as constant the elevation of each area from what functions as this planet's sea level…" he quickly re-arranged the fields into their respective heights, "they are nowhere near the same level of height. We have, literally, five playing 'levels,' seven playing 'fields.'"

"Five levels, seven fields," he murmured, brain thinking furiously. "Possible pattern?"

"It could be a vid-game, Captain," Sulu interjected thoughtfully. "Advancement to the next level? We are, after all, currently on the lowest one."

"If that is the case, then why haven't we encountered any sort of test to advance, in the last thirty hours since we've been stranded? A vid-game has constant movement, constant requirements or else you lose. And then wouldn't each level be the same size?"

"Not necessarily, but I do agree that the lack of immediate visual testing is contradictory to the idea of a virtual reality game," Spock added thoughtfully.

"And if that were the case," Jim said morosely, picking at a loose thread on his tunic, "Q wouldn't have had to destroy the Enterprise to get us here; we were already on the planet when it – when it blew."

Spock sat up just that fraction straighter, which was a clear indication that an idea had occurred to him.

"Spill it, Spock!"

"Two possibilities. One, that the ship itself was Level One; we are now on the second level."

"I dunno…"

"I am more inclined to the second possibility, sir," the Vulcan agreed, nodding, "which is that Q, quite simply, removed our most effective and powerful game piece from the playing field. I believe it would qualify as a particularly devastating opening gambit."

The jumped-up communicator dropped with a crash on the rocky ground as it fell from suddenly nerveless hands. Ignoring the looks of surprise and worry, Jim rocketed to his feet and began to pace furiously, mind going a thousand kilometers a minute.

"Gambit. Gambit…GAMBIT, Spock!" he suddenly shouted, whirling on his startled crew.

Spock's eyebrow inched upward. "Sir?"

"Seven playing fields, five levels," he said excitedly, gesticulating wildly in the air. "And remember, Q doesn't know you and I as well as he wants to think he does; but he does know Old You."

The eyebrows frowned.

He skidded back toward the bunch, flinging himself on his knees and appropriating the tricorder without asking. "If we re-arrange these playing fields," he muttered, almost to himself, fingers flying along sketch pathways. "And…computer, keeping locational properties, export diagram to three-dimensional sketch pad…and if we then add some supports and a base…curve the supports thusly…and rearrange again…"

Beaming, he sat back on his heels, holding up the diagram before his stunned audience. "And here, gentlemen, we have a very functional tri-D chess board."


Six pairs of eyes stared at him.

"A chess board! But of course!" Anderssen then exclaimed. "It makes complete sense now!"

"I know how to play, but I don't really love the game," Jim said, glancing at Spock's expression, "but you're a chessmaster and our parallel counterparts didn't play much else. And even I know the game's the easiest one to make metaphors out of."

"Holy cow," Anderssen mused suddenly. "I just realized."

"What, Lieutenant?"

"Anderssen, Greco, McDonnell, Riley, Vro-Hathwa," he informed them, eyes lighting up. "Adolf Anderssen was the winner of the very first chess tournament, back in Old Earth's 1851. Gioacchino Greco was an influential writer in the strategizing genre during the Terran 1400s. Michael McDonnell was the first non-Terran to win a chess tournament when Tri-D Chess was just coming into play during the Galactic Chess Olympics, two hundred years ago. A guy named Bruce Riley was the pioneer of the computerized version of Tri-D chess, and Lars'sn'Vro-Hathwa was the last grandmaster of the GCO. No relation to our Vro, but it's not a common name."

Jim looked askance at the young man, and was aware that his crew were bug-eyedly doing the same – even Spock, who looked like he was going to squee with pride in an entirely Vulcan way. "You were one of those Chess Club geeks the Linguistics Club liked to drink under the table on Friday nights at the Academy, weren't you."

The scientist blushed. "I majored in Botanical Sciences, minored in Tactical Strategy – used the game as the basis for most of my theses," he muttered, obviously embarrassed. "But it's a little weird that the five non-command-chain people you have down here, Captain, are all named after famous figures in the chess industry over the centuries."

"Then it is a giant game, and ve are the playing pieces," Chekov muttered, sketching a quick set into existence in the art program. "But who is vhich?"

"More importantly, how many do we have left, and are we both black and white or just white?" Sulu added morosely. "Does that mean everyone except sixteen, or thirty-two at most, of us died when the Enterprise went down?"

Jim felt the color drain slightly from his face, and ignored the feeble flash of sheer terror which threatened to flicker again into existence. He would not give in to panic again – because if this were indeed a game, then there was the possibility that all was not as it seemed. Surely Q wasn't going to kill off his entire crew for keeps.

Even if he was more than capable of doing it.

Unless this exact scenario was what Q had been referring to when he said if Jim didn't change his ways then he'd lose everything that mattered to him.

He bit his lip. "Okay, so we have two possibilities. One, that we're both sides of the game."

"Meaning half of us are black pieces, half are white," Greco interjected.

At his elbow examining the tricorder, Spock nodded. "Correct, Ensign. Although I am not convinced that is the scenario; it would mean that half the survivors are on opposing sides. It seems more likely that Q is simply functioning as our antagonist or that our opponents are as yet unseen."

Unless he's saying that I'm a one-man team, that would fit with the problems here, he thought miserably. Me against my crew? Do I really have to make them checkmate me to get us out of here?

"In addition, factors as we know it would indicate that we are all on the same team," Spock continued, "simply based upon chess logistics. If one or more of us were on an opposing side, each of us as playing pieces would have been in jeopardy long before now, and we would not be clustered on the lowest of the tri-d levels."

He felt the tension leech from his shoulders at the sensible explanation. Wiping his brow, he nodded. "So we're all…what, you think black, probably?"

Spock nodded. "Since Q undoubtedly made the first move, I would agree so. In practicality, however, it matters little."

"Okay, so there's seven of us, and three more – Uhura, Riley, and Vro-Hathwa," Jim ticked off on his fingers. "But…who's what?"

"Mr. Spock's probably the queen," Anderssen offered thoughtfully, "since he's the most powerful one of us."

One eyebrow lifted. "I disagree, Lieutenant; my methodology and processes of thinking are far too linear and predictable to be categorized as that playing piece."

"Then it's you, Captain," Sulu interjected. "First into the fray, last out, most unpredictable, most important playing piece…it fits."

He wasn't so sure, but he didn't have a better idea at the moment.

"So you think Mr. Spock's a rook, then? It's the most powerful piece after the queen, and it only moves laterally," Anderssen said.

"Nyet, nyet," Chekov said suddenly. "Not if Keptin Kirk is the queen."

"Why would you say that, Ensign?"

"If Keptin is the Queen, then you must be King, sir," the young man replied, shrugging. "Is obvious. How many times does the keptin, how to say, leap in front of a bullet for you?"

"Ah, Chekov…"

"Ensign, that is somewhat irrelevant, as there are no bullets involved in the playing of tri-D chess."

"That's a misdirection if I ever heard one," Sulu muttered, grinning.

"I do not just randomly throw myself into the line of fire!" Jim sputtered, finally finding his voice. "And besides that, he's not my freakin' king!"

"Awkwarrrrd," McDonnell chirped from behind them, causing his Security mate to break out in a fit of laughter.

Spock's look of death stabbed decapitatingly over the others. Jim rubbed his forehead, repressing a moan. "This is ridiculous," he muttered.

"I think, sir," Anderssen not-so-smoothly changed the subject, with a glance at the helmsman and navigator, "that Mr. Chekov and Lieutenant Sulu are in all probability either your knights or bishops. Both sets of pieces work together almost symbiotically to cover every space on the chess board, and both play off each other's strengths in reaching a checkmate."

Jim nodded slowly. "And the other set?"

Anderssen shook his head. "No idea, sir."

"Who do you suppose are the rooks, then, if you don't think Spock is one?" Sulu asked, nudging the blond beside him.

"Vell," Chekov began, blinking thoughtfully, "one of the functions of a Rook is castling, vhich is designed to keep the King safe."

"There's no castling in tri-d Chess, Ensign," Jim stepped in, having already thought that far ahead.

"There is if you cheat, apparently," Sulu grumbled, glaring at the young navigator, who was now blushing a fiery hue.

"And I'm all for cheating in its place," Jim added with a meaningful laugh, "but not when we're trying to figure this mess out."

"Traditionally," Spock spoke up for the first time, and Jim could see he had been revolving the entire game around in his mind, discarding and conjecturing hypotheses until he was as undecided as the rest of them, "a castle in your Terran history was an indication of safety, of the power which comes from security."

"You're saying Security people are the rooks?" O'Donnell asked incredulously.

"I doubt it; everyone knows we're more like the pawns," Greco snorted, before tossing back the rest of his water.

Realization hit him like a thunderclap. "No, that's not what he's saying," he spoke quietly. "He's saying the Rooks are people who represent safety and protection. And keep in mind Q is aiming this whole game directly at me."

"Captain?"

"Two people make me feel totally safe," he answered, eyes tracing the outlines of the rocks in the distance.

"Who's that, sir?" Anderssen asked.

"One is Spock; probably he actually is a Rook, Lieutenant."

Spock made no verbal answer, but his eyes voiced the agreement.

"The other is – was, Dr. McCoy," he finally said, wiping a hand across his mouth.

Silence fell for a few minutes. Then, "So we have to take into consideration that we could well be missing half or more of our playing pieces, sir?" Sulu asked carefully.

He nodded. "Bones and Spock would, to me, be my castles. And if Spock's a Rook, then…" A light bulb went off. "The Enterprise is the King! The goal of all of us is for one purpose – Starfleet's purpose – to protect the ship!"

"That does not work, though, sir," Chekov protested over the wind as it whipped up around them.

"Why not?"

"Because, sir," the young man said earnestly, "if the Enterpriseis in reality the King, then the game is already over!"

Silence.

"…And on that depressing note, are you keeping an eye on the radiation levels, Mr. Anderssen?" Jim asked dryly.

The young man nodded. "Still at acceptable levels, sir. I have an alert set to notify us of any drastic change."

"Returning to the metaphorical chess board," Spock said, as his dark eyes roved the projected diagrams, "I foresee three problems."

"Being?"

"That our survival until rescue may be the object of the game, for one." Five looks of human dismay greeted him. "Which then leads into the second difficulty," he added.

Jim rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the papery dryness of sunburn. "And that is?"

"That we are incapable of even playing the game, much less of winning it, unless we know precisely which of us is each playing piece."

"Because if we're wrong and move the wrong one, we're either moving illegally which disqualifies us, or else we'll be walking straight into checkmate," Jim supplied. "Makes sense."

"Question," Sulu piped up from where he'd been inspecting a lichen-like substance plastered under a nearby rock. "I get the whole chess metaphor, and it makes sense. But one thing bothers me: if we're, say, the white pieces on a chess board…then where the heck are the opposition, the black pieces?"

Spock shot him an approving look before turning back. "Precisely the third problem I see in this, Captain," he said, addressing Jim directly now. "We are incapable of checkmating our opponent if we have no idea where his own pieces are on the game board. Granted, the entire scenario is only loose metaphor, and so we quite possibly could be over-thinking the strategy."

"Yeah, it's not a strict chess game since we've all moved together from the get-go with no repercussions," he agreed. "But you have a point, Mr. Spock. We can't beat Q's game until we at least know what pieces we are."

"More importantly," Spock answered, his dark eyes smoldering in the reflected embers of the fire, "we cannot beat his game until we know what pieces remain in play, and which are lost to us; to attempt a victory with no knowledge of one's opponent or one's reinforcements is utter foolishness."

Jim stared into the flickering embers, and the spirit-image of a fireball streaked across the sky as he watched, the whole planet shuddering and burning all around and under their feet, Bones and Scotty and Sulu and Chekov standing behind him as he watched the Enterprise burn (his choice? His authorization? Destroying his own ship? What would make him do such a thing?), not knowing where Spock was or if he was even still alive in some form or fashion –

He shook his head, shivering, as the ghost-images receded. This planet was stable, there was no seismic activity anywhere, and Spock – his Spock, not an old and wise and so-very-half-human one – was here, sitting beside him and watching him with distinguishable concern.

And Bones was…gone.

He could be forgiven, he thought bitterly, the thought that he'd already lost whatever game Q was playing with them, and that there really was nothing left for him to fight for.


End Middle Game