A/N: Thank you to all of you who are reading and following this story. A special thank you to those who take the time to review. Reviews make my day, so please keep them coming. Before I forget, I don't own Star Trek and I don't write for any type of profit. Original characters and situations are mine. Enjoy, and thanks again for reading.
Chapter 12
Mr. Scott was in the pilot's seat again, while the Captain had moved back to the back of the shuttle to sleep. McCoy was seated in the co-pilot's seat next to Scott, and Scotty was trying to ignore the fact that he was there. They had been in flight for twenty hours, and after he had awakened, McCoy had slept for awhile, and now it was the Captain's turn. Dr. McCoy was better than the Captain. Scott felt so awkward around Kirk after his nightmares that he barely said two words, except to answer tactical or engineering questions. Somehow, it was all right that McCoy had seen that side of him. McCoy had kept up a steady stream of banter ever since the Captain left them alone, but so far he had not mentioned Scotty's nightmares. The Engineer had no doubt that he'd come around to the subject eventually, but was grateful that he had not mentioned it so far.
"We've been following their ion trail all day and most of the night. Any ideas when we might intercept them, Scotty?"
"Within the next four hours. They keep changing direction to try to throw us off the trail, but so far, we've managed to follow them easily."
"Scotty, is there anything you want to talk about while we are alone?"
"Nae." Then he said, "Why can't I shake off what happened? Why am I still dreaming about it?"
"You are the one with the answer to that question. All I can do is help you bring it out. Have you been dreaming about it since it happened?"
"Nae. I dreamed about it for two weeks after it happened, and then I started dreaming about it again three or four days ago."
"So, something sparked a memory of that time, and that's why you started dreaming about it again."
"I don't want to do this anymore, Dr. McCoy. I just want it all to go away like it never happened."
"I can't make it like it was before, but I can help you learn to live with what happened, Scotty, so that the nightmares stop. When we get back to the ship, I want to do some tests in sickbay, and I want you to meet with me once a week for a while. Can you do that?"
"Aye. Much obliged, Doctor McCoy." The engineer turned toward his viewscreen, not wanting the doctor to see his face, and suddenly noticed a star sized speck that appeared to be moving. But stars don't move in space. He turned on the magnification screen, and at magnification six, he could make out the outline of a medium sized ship.
"Dr. McCoy, I think we're about to intercept. You might want to wake the Captain."
"You think that's the ship we're after?"
"If it's not, we've been chasing it for no reason for twenty one hours."
"That's a Tellarite ship. I remember seeing one like it when we picked up the delegates for the Babel conference. Let's see what the Captain wants to do about it." Muttering to himself, he moved back and woke Captain Kirk. There was a brief, muffled exchange, and the Captain moved forward and sat in the co-pilot's seat while McCoy crowded in behind.
"Mr. Scott, match course and speed. We want to parallel, not to intercept. I want to try to get in, get Lady Amanda, and get out before they know we've been there."
"How do ye plan to do that, sir?" Kirk reached into his pocket and pulled out a data tape, which he inserted into the computer. He typed in a few simple commands.
"The Commodore offered us a little help. Dr. McCoy, you are with me. Amanda may be injured. Mr. Scott, you will pilot this vessel and be prepared to leave and report to Starfleet Command and the Enterprise if something goes wrong. Is that understood?"
"Aye, sir." McCoy had been watching the program run, and he gathered that the program had to do with the transporter, but could not see the screen enough to tell what it was meant to do. "What are you doing, Jim?" he asked, hoping the Captain did not hear the note of anxiety in his voice.
"Reconfiguring the transporter, Bones. We want to get in without being detected, and get out before they know we've been there."
"What will that program do exactly?" Kirk took the measure of his friend's question for a moment, then smiled thinly, and said, "Don't ask, Bones. You probably don't want to know."
"Captain!" McCoy exclaimed, alarmed. Kirk smiled wickedly before he answered.
"The program apparently hooks our transporter into their cargo transporter, disables alarms, and makes the machine read our pattern as cargo so that it will beam us aboard. Lighten up. If we don't rematerialize, we won't care."
"That's not funny," McCoy snapped, but without heat.
"It wasn't intended to be funny," Kirk said, then abruptly stood, frowning, and turned to Scott.
"Scotty, check my work. We cannot afford to have anything go wrong." He changed places with his Chief Engineer, who tinkered with the device, and then pronounced himself satisfied.
"Aye, Captain. That's a sophisticated wee beastie, that is. She'll nae put ye down in the wrong place."
"Thank you, Mr. Scott. Doctor, are you ready?" McCoy grumbled something that sounded like a diatribe of well chosen insults, but he slung his medical ready pack over his shoulder, and took his place next to the Captain. Kirk nodded to Scotty, and then the familiar tingling sensation of the transporter took them, and they rematerialized in total darkness.
McCoy heard a sharp intake of breath across the room, and then silence. A hand lamp flared to life and, as his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, he saw the source of the indrawn breath, lying on a bunk in the corner of the room. Less than two seconds later, he was kneeling next to the limp and semi-conscious form, tricorder in hand. He took a bright red hypospray out of his ready pack, and held it to the person's neck.
"Well, Doctor?"
"Human female, upper middle age, in bad shape. From the looks of these readings, I'd say she's been tortured."
"Is it Amanda?"
"Hard to say, without seeing her face, but I would imagine so. She seemed to recognize the transporter effect."
"Can she be moved?"
"Not yet. As soon as she's stable."
"We don't have much time, Doctor." He injected her with two more hypospray solutions, closed his bag, and turned to Kirk, smiling widely as he did.
"There. She's stabilizing. We're going to have to carry her. She's too weak to walk, and may have an injury to her legs. Hard to tell until I can see."
Kirk opened his communicator, and signaled Scott to beam them out, while Dr. McCoy positioned the limp form in front of him.
When they rematerialized inside the shuttle, Kirk helped McCoy lay the woman out over the back seat. McCoy set to work and Kirk moved up front with Scotty. The woman slowly became aware of being touched. Gentle hands examined her injuries and applied dressings or used a protoplaser to close any cuts. When she struggled to sit up, gentle hands pushed her back into the softness she read as pillows, and she felt a tingly sensation on her upper arm.
Kirk seated himself in the co-pilot's seat, and occupied himself with looking through the viewer. Then he straightened and speared Mister Scott, who was avoiding him, with a hazel stare.
"Mr. Scott, how are you feeling?"
"Fine, sair."
"Good. We've a long trip back. Did you sleep well?"
"Aye, sair." Scott winced.
"Scotty," Kirk whispered, "Are you ready for an apology? I think I owe you one."
"Ah, no sair."
"Hear me out, Mr. Scott. I am not apologizing for ordering you to sleep. The health and safety of my crew is my responsibility. I am apologizing that my decision, however necessary it was, caused you pain." Kirk paused, wanting to help his friend, and glanced behind him to be sure that McCoy was nowhere around. "You know, not every ship has its own personality. I have only served aboard two ships that seemed almost alive. The Enterprise does, and she lives, as any of the sentient beings inside her live. I credit you with her life."
"Ah, no sair," Scott protested, realizing what Kirk was trying to do. "Have ye nae figured out the secret, sair?" He smiled.
"Enlighten me, Mister Scott."
"She lives because every single crewman aboard her breathes life into her. Even those that have gone leave a piece of themselves behind. It's a symbiotic relationship." That was true. In Starfleet circles, the joke was that a Starship Captain was the bridegroom to his ship. If that were the case, then in Kirk's experience, the Chief Engineer was her clandestine lover, and the affair was a passionate one as far as Scotty was concerned. "What aboot the other one, sair?"
Kirk pulled his attention back to the present. "What?"
"You said you served on two living ships, sair. I asked aboot the other one."
"The Farragut, Mister Scott." Kirk looked wistful. "She had a great crew, too. I was three years out of the academy when we met the gaseous cloud creature. Captain Garrovick was killed, along with more than half the crew. As I lost consciousness, my last thought was that my Captain and the crew had died because of me. When I woke up, days later, the doctor told me how lucky I was. I didn't feel lucky. I felt bad for my shipmates, and guilty that so many of them died and I hadn't. For months I dreamed about that creature and I kept seeing the faces of those who died. I dreamt of firing faster and killing the creature. The ship's surgeon repaired the physical damage, but I could not talk about what happened. I moved on and healed, and I learned to bury the pain, but it never completely went away.
"When we met the cloud creature again, it all came back, and I had nightmares again. When we destroyed the creature, I realized that firing on it sooner would not have made a difference, and I was finally able to let some of it go. The nightmares went, too." Scott was touched. He knew that the Captain was a very private man, and the gift that he had just offered Scott was the most precious he could have given. It was the gift of trust.
"Thank ye, Cap'n."
"I think it helped that McCoy stopped by to see me. You may not find it easy to talk to him, but he can help, Scott. I hope you'll let him."
"Aye, sair. We discussed it while ye wair sleeping."
"Good. I am going back to check on Lady Amanda. I will give you a few minutes."
"Thank ye, sair."
Kirk made his way to the back of the shuttle, and sat down beside McCoy. The Doctor greeted him with a measuring look. Kirk wasn't sure he liked it.
"How is she?" McCoy straightened her covers, and busied himself with other small tasks, as he always did when he was considering what to say. She was comfortable, and the voices that murmured around her were pleasant.
Ever so slowly, she began to understand the conversation going on around her."
"I don't mind telling you, she's in rough shape, Jim. She has several broken bones, a punctured lung, and some internal injuries; I need to get her back to the ship soon. I think she'll make it."
"Do what you can for her, Bones."
"That was the easiest rescue mission I've ever been on."
"I noticed that, too. It was almost too easy."
The prone form below them opened her eyes and saw two familiar faces. She tried to smile, but it hurt.
"Captain Kirk. Dr. McCoy. Is Spock here?"
"Lady Amanda," Kirk said, nodding. She tried to sit up, and McCoy gently pushed her back down. "Lie still. Rest. We'll get you to the ship as soon as we can. Spock is waiting for you there." He held a hypospray to her arm, and she slept. The doctor looked at his Captain and said, "How are you, Jim?"
"I'm fine. Why?"
"Are you sure it was a good idea to tell Scotty about your nightmares?"
"You heard that, did you? I know what you are going to say—that a Captain can't afford to be vulnerable in the eyes of his crew. I believe Mr. Scott can handle it. He knows me well enough to have seen some of those vulnerabilities before now. All of my senior officers do."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I don't know, Bones. I think it was something I needed to deal with on my own. Are you surprised?"
"Surprised? No. It explains a great deal. I am disappointed that you didn't feel you could tell me."
"Bones, it wasn't a matter of trust, I assure you." Truth told, he couldn't explain what it was.
(0o0)
Nurse Chapel had moved her work to the desk the doctors' usually used, in the main area of sickbay, where she could carry out M'Benga's orders to keep an eye on the Commodore while she worked on other things. She missed McCoy. He wasn't as even tempered as M'Benga, that was true, but she always knew where she stood, and had grown to appreciate that over the three years they'd spent working together. She had seen time and again what kind of man he was, and how that made him one of the finest medical men she'd ever known.
She had grown to regard McCoy as a friend, especially on that horrible day when she beamed down with the Captain and discovered that chivalry was, if not dead, mechanized. Horrified to learn what her fiancé had become, appalled at what he'd done with Captain Kirk, and furious that he'd not tried to make contact with her since he moved, she still hadn't known what to think when a phaser blast proved her once and present fiancé an android. McCoy had said nothing when he met them in the transporter room after, instead telling her to take off early, and sending her to her cabin so she would be spared the stares and questions of her colleagues.
McCoy had shown up at her door that evening, carrying a bottle of wine. He'd stayed long enough to satisfy himself that his Head Nurse would be all right, and cemented their friendship in the process. He'd convinced her that her decision to stay with the ship had been right. Sshe couldn't help worrying as she thought of McCoy and the Captain away on some secret mission, risking their lives for who knew what.
"How is she, nurse?"
"Hmm?" She looked up, straight at Doctor M'Benga.
"How is she?" he repeated, amused.
"Oh, she's growing stronger. Her life signs are near normal now, Doctor."
"Good. Please come and assist me for a moment, Nurse Chapel."
"Yes, Doctor." She followed him toward the medical lab, where continued testing of the Lugubrians' blood was taking place, as they tried to isolate a new vaccine. Either the disease had mutated, or the planetary officials who had asked for help hadn't known what it was they were looking at with this disease. The vaccine they developed on the way to Lugubria wasn't working, and they had yet to come up with an effective treatment plan for those already affected.
(0o0)
The Commodore suddenly became aware that someone was choking her. She tried to put her hands up to loosen the grip around her neck, but they would not move. Trying to sit up also proved unsuccessful. Mild panic welled in her as she realized she was alone. Forcing herself to evaluate the situation as her military training required, she willed herself to calm and looked around as much as she could, being unable to move more than a few inches in any direction. She recognized the beeps, whirrs and chirps on a level beyond conscious understanding. She was in a sickbay, and judging by the fact that someone was trying to choke her, she decided that she was being held prisoner on a hostile vessel.
Focusing all the strength of her ancestry, both Andorian and Vulcan, she loosened the straps that held down her arms, and then began to work on the others. With a mighty yank that took almost all of the strength she possessed, she finally dislodged the last strap, the one that choked her, and sat up coughing and rubbing her throat. It was only then that she realized she was still on the Enterprise.
Just at that moment, the Red Alert Claxon sounded. Her first duty was to take command of the ship, but she was not steady. Closing her eyes, she focused on what she had to do, and willed her body to cooperate. Her medical bag was on a shelf above her bed. Placing it on the ledge beside her, she pulled out a hypospray filled with a stimulant. With a frown of concentration, she held it to her neck and winced as it delivered its load. She made her way to the bridge before it had time to work.
As she strode out of the turbolift doors, Lieutenant Sulu rose from the center seat and moved back to the helmsman's chair. She might be mistaken, but she thought he looked relieved to let her have it.
"Report, Lieutenant," she snapped, in a tone that made Sulu wonder why he'd ever found it difficult to report to Kirk. Next to her, making a report to the Captain was easy. He swallowed hard.
"I'm not sure, sir. We've just hit something and stopped." Trying not to show the relief she felt when she sank down into the command chair, she spoke with more confidence than she felt.
"All right. Call Mr. Spock to the bridge." Sulu looked as though he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him.
"I can't sir."
"Why not?"
"He isn't here. He left with Sarek in a shuttlecraft about twelve hours ago."
Had she really been out that long? She said something in Andorian, and Sulu marveled at how curses sound the same, whatever language they are in.
"I will address that situation with Mr. Spock later. Right now, the immediate concern is to determine the scope of the problem. Who usually backs Mr. Spock up on scanners?" Pavel Chekhov turned slowly to face her. "All right, Mr. Chekhov, please take over on scanners."
(0o0)
"Captain!" Kirk rose and moved back up front, concerned with the tone of Scott's voice.
"What is it, Scotty?"
"A sensor ghost, sair."
"Where, Mr. Scott?"
"There," he said, motioning to a speck on the screen. "Do ye want me to try hailing them, sair?"
"No, Mr. Scott. Not yet. Let's see what they are up to first. It may be a second Tellarite ship, or it may not even be a ship, and in that case, we don't want to give our position away to the Tellarites. So far, we must seem like a sensor ghost to them."
"Aye, sir."
The question of whether they should try hailing the ship became moot a moment later. Kirk watched in disbelief as the Tellarite ship turned and fired on their 'sensor ghost'. After a moment, the small ship fired back.
"Mr. Scott, it is our responsibility to help, especially since they might be firing on that ship thinking that they are the ones who took the Lady Amanda. Ready phasers."
"Phasers armed and ready, sair."
"Fire phasers, Mr. Scott."
"Firing sir." They scored a hit. Good, Kirk thought. That ought to keep them busy a while. The Tellarite ship swung back toward them, and Kirk ordered evasive maneuvers as the larger vessel fired at them. They easily dodged, and while they were occupying the Tellarite ship, the other vessel fired, and scored a direct hit that barely damaged the Tellarite ship. The bigger ship was at a disadvantage because, though her firepower was equal to theirs, her size made her sluggish. Swinging back around, she scored a direct hit that disabled the other small vessel out there. Scott fired again, and the Tellarite ship started spinning wildly from side to side, firing with reckless abandon. A moment later, the space around their shuttlecraft filled with a blinding white light, as the large craft destroyed itself. Kirk felt a stab of guilt that some cultures still found suicide preferable to surrender, although in certain cases, he could not honestly say that was a philosophy with which he disagreed. The Federation would have made sure they were treated fairly, though, and the Tellarites were Federation citizens, so there were laws that governed how they treated their prisoners. It all just seemed a senseless waste of life to him.
Kirk felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to find McCoy standing next to him, concern for his friend in his eyes. McCoy knew that Kirk always took things like this hard. "Are you all right, Jim?"
"Bones, I didn't want it to end this way."
"I know, Jim. Sometimes, there's no choice. At least we got Lady Amanda off the ship before they destroyed it"
"How is she, Bones?"
"Well, shaking the ship around didn't do her any favors, but I don't think there's anything wrong that a little rest and some rehabilitation exercises won't help."
"That's good."
"Captain, what do you plan to do about the other small ship, sir?" Kirk looked at the forward viewscreen, where Scotty had transferred the sensor readings, and saw that the ship was floating derelict in space, completely disabled. "Have you tried hailing them, Mr. Scott?"
"Aye sir. I think their communications station must have been destroyed in the blast."
"Let's have a closer look at them. Magnify, Scotty."
"Aye sir. Magnification four."
"Well, she appears to belong to our side. Is the transporter operable?"
"Aye."
"Lock on to the passengers and beam them aboard. We'll put a tractor beam on the craft and tow her with us."
"Aye."
A moment later, the familiar sound of the transporter rose to a loud whine, and the telltale sparkles outlined two figures. Kirk was busy with the tractor beam while Scott ran the transporter, and so he did not see the two figures that materialized on the transporter pad. He heard a gasp and some chatter, and then a shushing sound as McCoy defended his patient's sleep. Mr. Scott returned to check that the tractor beam was not too large a drain on their engines. They might be all right.
"Mr. Scott, take over. I want to talk to the passengers who just beamed aboard. I want to know what they are doing out here."
"Aye, sir."
Kirk walked to the rear of the shuttlecraft, around the wall that separated the cockpit from the rest of the ship. He was surprised to see Spock and Sarek standing with their backs to him, talking to McCoy about Amanda. He cleared his throat, and both Spock and Sarek looked up.
"Captain," the Vulcans said, in greeting.
"Mr. Spock, what are you doing here?"
"I intended to rescue my mother, but it seems you have already done that, so I am currently discussing her condition with Dr. McCoy."
"Perhaps the better question is why are you not on the ship? I left you in command."
"Actually, you did not, sir. You left me confined to quarters until Dr. McCoy cleared me to work. You left Mr. Sulu in command. Perhaps we can discuss this later, Captain. I have something more urgent that requires your attention." Kirk's eyes narrowed, but he knew that tone of voice. And he trusted his First Officer enough to know when to defer to him. Nothing said he had to like it, though.
"Sir, if we could discuss something privately?" They moved back to the back of the shuttlecraft, near where Bones was tending Spock's mother. Recognizing a private conference when he saw one, he rose to leave, but both Kirk and Spock bade him stay. "This concerns you, too, Doctor."
"All right. Let's have it, Spock."
"I was registering a sensor ghost during most of our journey, at the extreme far range of the shuttle's sensors. I had no reason to think it was anything else, as it never moved until the Tellarite ship destroyed itself, and then, I think the smaller ship panicked. They passed through our sensor range for a time, in their haste to warp out."
"What do you think this means, Spock?"
"Either someone is colluding with the Tellarites to kidnap my mother, or they were after father and me."
"Perhaps both. Do you have a heading for this sensor ghost?" Kirk's tone was thoughtful.
"Heading three four three, mark 12."
"All right. Opinions, gentlemen?"
"If we are going to chase them, Jim, I'd rather do it with the Enterprise. She's bigger and has more fire power."
"I agree, Doctor." Jim Kirk looked up in surprise. He did not hear that statement often. "Why, Spock?"
"The origin of the ship was Orion, Captain. They are pirates. Even on their smaller ships, they have heavy firepower. We would be hopelessly outgunned if we were to meet them in the shuttlecraft."
"Your logic is stellar, as always, Mr. Spock. All right, gentlemen, we are looking at 16 hours of travel time back to the Enterprise at maximum warp. I don't wish to lose this ship just to secure the Enterprise's help."
"Engaging them in the shuttlecraft is a suicide mission."
"Perhaps, we can lure them back to us. They haven't fulfilled their mission. They will try again."
"Agreed, Jim." They walked back around the bulkhead to the front of the back of the shuttlecraft, and Kirk continued his previous statement as though he had not been cut off.
"The point is, Mr. Spock, I left you on the ship, and you did not have orders from me to be anywhere else. Did the Commodore send you?"
"No, sir."
"Then you shouldn't be here, Spock. I will not discuss this with you now. Your mother will wake soon, and she does not need the distress. I will want to hear your explanation when we get back to the ship, and it had better be a good one." Kirk's eyes were flashing. He felt betrayed on some level, and he could not explain why.
"Captain Kirk, I ordered Spock to accompany me on a rescue mission. I must recover some evidence from my wife's person. I left it with her while I was on the frontier, so that it would be safe. Otherwise, my testimony to the Federation council will mean nothing, as there would be nothing to back it up. I believe regulation 6915.—"
"I don't need to hear the regulations, Ambassador. I am familiar with diplomatic authority in such cases. Were you aware, sir, that there is no one to command the Enterprise in Spock's absence, none with any real command experience?"
"You are forgetting that Commodore Thavalan is aboard, Captain. Her record speaks quite highly of her command experience. The ship that she commanded before was an instrumental part of the Blushing Dawn incident out on the frontier." McCoy whistled. He had heard the Captain talk about that incident. It was the thing of interstellar legend. If he remembered correctly, the CO of that ship had received the Silver Palm with Cluster for that affair.
"Really? I suppose she can keep the Enterprise safe until we can get back there." Kirk looked like he wanted to say something else, but decided against it, and instead looked as though he would quite like to throw something.
"All right, Mr. Scott. Let's see if we can find that ship."
(0o0)
The Captain of the tiny ship, Thak, could not believe his eyes. How did two tiny shuttlecraft overcome a huge Tellarite ship? He twisted the arm of the slave girl he was holding until she cried out in pain and terror. Then he shoved her roughly back against the wall. He watched in horror as the last vestiges of the bright light that signaled the end of the Tellarite ship faded into the all encompassing darkness of space. The slave girl, Barin, huddled in the corner, afraid to move lest she test the wrath of the Orion captain. She wondered what would happen to her now, knowing she had been brought along as cargo for trade to the Tellarite ship in exchange for Ambassador Sarek's wife. Now that the ship was destroyed and the mission failed, she knew her prospects were not good. The ship she was on could not afford for her to be found in the event they were raided, and she knew that Thak would kill her as soon as he tired of her.
Right now, he was pacing back and forth on the bridge of the tiny ship, debating whether to stay a sensor ghost or run away. It was doubtful he had fooled the shuttlecraft into believing he was a sensor ghost, and with two of them here, his chances were not good if they decided to see what he was. He had plenty of firepower aboard the small craft, but then, so had the Tellarites, and they had been defeated. He would not make the same mistake that captain made. He would not underestimate his enemy. Throwing out a command to his bridge crew to withdraw, regroup, head back for Orion territory, he suddenly strode forward, grasped Barin by the hair, and dragged her toward his cabin.
