Shout out to MaryChodan for informing me of the strange formatting of when I initially posted this chapter =) Thanks lady!
"I have something to ask of you, Captain."
The air in the room stilled, the statement it spoke melting into the tiles, the floor, the matter of the atmosphere. Kirk swallowed and kept his eyes confident, alert. His breathing was even despite the resounding request. Chekov, sitting only a few feet in front of him, could not take his eyes off the creature.
His young heart racked against his ribs, a subconscious gulp from the memories of his science mentor strung up in torture jutted down his throat. The ensign had joined Starfleet for many reasons — a challenge was one of them. And a challenge, quite obviously, he had found.
He was frightened, but only as frightened as he was expected to be. There was no overwhelming desire to leap from his chair and sprint for the turbo lift, but there was also no undeniable peace at seeing the glowing entity before him. His vision quaked with each hammering heart beat. A wise choice may be to look at his captain, or his friend Sulu, to distract his locked gaze. But the image of the being held his eyes like a starship tractor beam and he found he could not look away. He was a young man who was scared, but he was also an officer of science who was filled with amazement. He barely registered Kirk shift his stance in the corner of his eye.
"You saved my friend," said the captain. "I can only repay you in hearing what you have to say."
"I understand." It's voice echoed quietly.
Sulu could not help but recall when something disturbingly similar had happened to them almost a solar week ago. A creature — a powerful, breathtaking, mysterious creature — demanding something of the captain and his ship. Yet this one did not demand…
The first alien, the dark being of shadow and malice, had thrown violent shivers down Sulu's spine with every decibel of it's abysmal voice. It did for all the crew. This one, strangely, gave him awe. It was just as the captain had described.
"After what you and your companions, your ship, has endured…" it continued, it's sincerity unalloyed, "I do not wish to bring you to any further harm."
"I'm anticipating that what you have to ask me might bring us to harm," said Kirk, dismayed. Were it his perceptiveness or simple connection of events, Kirk could easily surmise what it would ask of him. He already knew. The alien swayed, slightly, and the small movement blurred the light of it's edges like a slowly composed photograph.
"Captain. I wish to know your name."
Kirk's face softened, and his eyes felt weary.
"Jim Kirk."
"Captain Kirk. Your friend, the Vulcan…I sensed, I felt, the condition he was in physically and mentally. Near dead on both accounts."
Kirk clenched his fist and drifted his eyes downwards, the memory still fresh in his mind. Spock had moved past that, he was alive, and Kirk couldn't allow himself to look backwards on it.
"Jim Kirk, you understand what they could do to others. What they would be willing to do. What they would enjoy doing." It turned it's head to study each individual in the room. "The souls in this room know. You have seen. The word 'dangerous' could not possibly suffice to describe them, the word 'unstable' paling in comparison to the truth. They will kill not one, nor thousands. Millions. Perhaps more. Of beings, civilizations, planets." It turned it's palm upwards, and in a soft sizzling and pop, a cluster of crystals hovered above it. A visual invitation to what it needed from the Enterprise. "I fear I need your help, Captain."
Kirk exhaled in resignation, slowly and with a heavy weight upon him. This question that this being before him was asking could not be ignored, but it would bring his crew back to a place of absolute peril. Yet, as the alien said, something must be done. He met it's eyes.
"What's your name?" Kirk asked suddenly, reciprocating the earlier question. The being seemed almost taken aback, surprised by the redirection.
"It is not translatable in your speech."
"I must call you something."
"…If that is something you wish to do."
"Must I make a name for you?"
It answered only in silence, it's light giving off a faint pulse. It was a remarkable being, extraordinary not only in it's form but it's intellect and vivacity. A strange kindness that brushed souls, rather than a fierce hatred that stripped them. Commandeering, yet asking…
"You remind me of an old Earth philosopher. Someone too old for his time. Hahv."
It continued to merely observe the captain, and Kirk nodded.
"Hahv. Are there others who know of your existence? You were deliberately hidden from us."
"We are not wholly isolated."
Kirk finally ran a hand over his face, constructing a mental wall against the fatigue that now would inevitably have to wait. The magnitude of the conversation had woken him, regardless.
"Well, then. Hahv." He exhaled in grave preparation. "What are you asking me to do?"
"I am asking that you return to that planet."
The dread in the room permeated at the words. Each person and their deepest desire was to never return to that chthonic planet swathed in ledger, to never again witness it's swashed grey color backsplashed with wickedness and savagery. Kirk's heart dropped to his feet. He, arguably, was the most vehement against such a thought. Yet he undeniably understood this new ally would not ask such a thing on a superficial junction, and as a human and captain, he knew he must hear this.
"Why would you need us, humans, for this task?"
"Because to them, you are on such an inferior level that their entire defenses would be not only deficient, but wholly unaware."
"That's…reassuring," he mumbled lowly. It was, however, in a morosely irrefutable way, a sound theory.
Logical.
He found that he desperately wanted to put his face in his hands, to take a moment to wallow in this somewhat celestial war he'd found himself in. This treacherous combat his crew was forced into. His command nature fought against the weak action, and he instead straightened himself. Friend, foe, stranger, ally…he must stay alert and assertive in the presence of most.
"Continue," he said, as not a command.
"You would return to the planet, the crystals in hand, and make to offer the exchange as you would have otherwise. The crystal's for your Vulcan's life. Myself and —"
"No, no, that won't work." He shook his head and pressed his hands on his hips, the stress beginning to line his face. "Spock is supposed to be dead. They originally said that should we find him to be dying, it would be because we'd left course for that moon. To convince us of their omnipotence. We, of course, later discovered it to be a lie. They did not possess the controller to Spock's life, because they had deliberately venomized him from the beginning. He'd die regardless of if we retrieved the crystals of not. That's why, when you found us in the forest, he was…" His voice trailed off.
"I assumed he was so near death because they had miscalculated the amount of Nvandian injected within him. That they would want him alive upon return, as an incentive for you to follow through."
"No. They knew exactly how much was needed to kill him. Slowly. He would be dead before we ever came back. If we go there, they will know Spock is alive. Your kind can sense that, I know. They'll realize that we've met you."
"I can mask him."
Kirk growled inaudibly in his throat. The idea of putting Spock back in that kind of danger, on such a thin thread, settled extremely uneasily in his mind.
"Can you guarantee that?"
"I can, Captain. I can mask him, just as I can mask myself and my companions can do the same for their own. The others, of this banished colony, cannot do so with themselves nor can they sense us so readily. They're far weaker than us, worn. Distanced for a great time from the Nvandian's that fuel us so. Abilities natural to our species have diminished from them without it's energy."
"So…" Kirk couldn't help but feel his unwilling apprehension. "We go, we tell them we've got the crystals…and?"
"The moment that hollow betrayer is convinced it's won, my people will contain them planet-side, as whatever you met days ago was not a physical form. My people are linked through a complex, indescribable connection through mental seeds. We can use this to detain them and keep them from harming you in any way. You will be in no danger."
"You would travel on my ship? With us? There and back?"
"With a power such as ours, starships are obsolete. Withal, on our journey to this planet, we will be with you. We must be with you in proximity to mask your friend, and to eclipse ourselves effectively to fool them. However, once we arrive and control the situation…you will leave."
Kirk flexed his jaw nervously.
"What will you do?"
"Do not bother yourself with questions that would only bother you more," it replied softly. "I only ask you to transport my people and I, to act oblivious for only minutes and to turn their own tricks upon them. Convince them of their victory. Then continue on your voyage, repair yourselves, reform your unforgiving memories, and journey on to explore this magnifying universe. Make progress, discover things you couldn't before imagine, and forget what has happened to you here."
It's wish was sincere, genuine, in the abhorrence experienced on this ship to be washed away entirely. Why, though, Kirk could not figure.
"We will never forget what has happened to us," he said simply as he looked around him, searching the eyes of his crew for their consent. They answered unanimously.
"Well. It seems like this is something we have to do."
….
"Well crivvens, weren't they something to look at?" exclaimed Scotty astonishingly, his eyebrows dancing as he and the captain strode down the corridor. Shortly after Hahv and Kirk's bridge-side discussion, the two others formed from the ether to it's side. "Where the devil did ye put them?! In the walls?"
Kirk chuckled. "They said the greenhouse was fine."
"The greenhouse! Agh. Strange things, aren't they then? That creature saved Mister Spock and the lot of you?"
"It did, yes. Hahv." He chuckled quietly at his own impulsiveness. If the good doctor were present, he likely would have boggled his eyes at the captain and later scowled at him for the diversion from the seriousness of the exchange. But, truly, a being like that needed a name.
They were on an accelerated path back towards D684, Hahv inexplicably able to strengthen the dilithium power source to splice them through the stars. They had mutually agreed a full solar day to be most reasonable and least suspicious, to coincide with the lost time spent on the Nvandian moon.
With nothing to do but wait, the captain was able to succeed in a three hour nap — but he awoke with his exhaustion converted to anticipation. It was his kind engineer who invited him for coffee in the briefing room at the sight of his tapping thumb, tap, tap, tapping against the command controls in choreography with his foot. The Scotsman had looked at him sympathetically and easily persuaded him into the break.
They sat, Kirk plopping eagerly, in the empty room and Scotty flashed him a grin.
"You'd-a better drink this up, Jim." He pushed the coffee towards him. Kirk smiled back and lifted it in a toast.
"Drink this I will." He took a hearty sip. "Mmm…! Italian creamer! You know me too well, sometimes, Scotty."
"I was tempted to douse it with something Scottish."
"I'm sure you were."
"Jim. I've gotta admit…though I know we've gotta do it, I'm feelin' mighty nervous 'bout goin' back there."
"I am too, Scotty. I'm nervous. But, like you said…we have to go. They need us. By helping them, we could invariably prevent the loss of countless of lives." He slowly spun the mug around under his fingertips. "What if someone had the option to help them do this, long before we ourselves came across the planet, and that someone had said 'no'? Their denial of that request would have been solely responsible for that hell Spock went through. For the imminent danger the Enterprise has been in the past week. I can't be that hypothetical person, Scotty. I can't say no and let this happen to someone else."
He watched an unmixed swirl of cream twirl into the coffee, wheeling gracefully into the browned caffeine. "I'm just so sorry that it's dragging you and everyone else along with me."
"Oh, Jim. There innit a soul aboard this ship that would rather follow any other captain, Captain."
…
"You're sure you've tried?" pressed an annoyed doctor.
"You are wasting your breath with such an incredibly vapid question, Doctor," replied an equally annoyed Vulcan.
"I just don't get it, Spock. I've seen you go through this healing process before, and back then, you didn't even think you could because of your human half. Now, we both know you can, but suddenly you can't manage to pull it off?"
"Doctor, it is not a matter of 'pulling it off'. Something has changed. I do not entirely understand it either."
Spock still felt exhaustively weak, hardly able to stand without the help of the doctor. The shock of his body coupled with the slow strengthening of his once derogated cells had settled a fragility in him. He was a physical, element-based body, and would take time to heal — but he was increasingly irritated with it. The severity of his cells make-up could call for a trance, if only he could access it. But, at the moment, that ability seemed quite debilitated. Intermittently.
"Whattya mean something's changed?"
"You yourself said my body essentially died in one way or another. You tell me one of the aliens…did something. Extracted the venom, somehow, which inevitably resuscitated me. However, I theorize that whatever action was performed, it changed something within me. Reorganized my variabilities, or perhaps disorganized them. A more than equitable trade, however it does define my failure in accessing the trance."
"But you need to!"
"Exclamations cannot cheat the truth, Doctor." McCoy crossed his arms and pouted at the science officer's monitor.
"And rather," continued Spock, "I do not need to. I am quite alive, and well. On the steady progression to regaining my strength. Rather unfortunately…" he almost uncharacteristically growled that last word, "it will take longer than preferred."
McCoy huffed and plopped down into his chair beside the monitor. He switched the crossing of his arms to his legs, and rested his elbow upon his knee with a chin pensive in his palm. He stared at Spock.
"Doctor?"
The southern man thought back to Spock being in that biobed, so many times before, in such grave scenarios in which labelled the biobed to be his deathbed. It had almost seemed like a nightmare, something that had felt so real at the time but was now in the grateful past. Like a distilled reality he knew existed, but he could not clearly relay. It was difficult to now imagine Spock being the way he was, a shell of a Vulcan dying horribly, as his sharp mind had returned with his sharp tongue. The relief of it was beginning to edge away as McCoy crept closer upon the familiarity of wanting to chop it off.
It was only the simmering grey complexion that was hidden under his far healthier skin, the slight hoarseness of his voice, and a slight jumpiness to him which gave proof to the events.
"Doctor McCoy, you are staring at me."
McCoy raised his head from his palm, realizing he did have the Vulcan in his crosshairs, and plopped his hand to down to his knee.
"Sorry, Spock. I'm a bit tired, zoning out, ya know. I've gotten rather blunt in the past day."
"Only this past day, Doctor McCoy?" batted Spock dryly.
"And apparently for another! 'We're going back'." He scoffed. "Jesus Jim. What a thing to say to me at a time like this." His mouth was sour with disdain.
"It is logical, Doctor."
"Shut up, Spock."
"I am being entirely serious, Doctor, with no intention of eroding your patience. It is logical to return, to end what we —" He suddenly began coughing, the small attack furtive and abrupt. In a twisted irony, it was a symptom of his recovery rather than demise. McCoy rose to inject him with a hypo, perhaps too quick to resort to the medication, and reached for Spock's shoulder. Spock quickly shot to the other side of the bed and waved him away, almost flinchingly, and said,
"It is only a cough, McCoy."
"I'm not going to beat you, Spock, it's just a hypo! Do you see what I'm saying when I say you need that healing trance? You're gonna remain weak, all your body's energy being used to fix up those damned cells, and your green ass is gonna have to stay here that whole time."
"There is nothing I can do about it, Doctor," he replied firmly. Though hardly visible, he relaxed as McCoy fell back into his own chair.
Quite simply, Spock was rather restless with his own ailments and the weakness that lined him. It was an incredibly vast welcome from what he had experienced prior, but frankly, he greatly missed the health of his body. For this doctor to have to make such meticulous care of him, constantly under his watchful and medical eye, did not suit what he favored. Spock preferred to be invisible to the universe around him, as long as the universe was completely visible to him.
For a small moment, the feeling in his chest gave Spock to believe he was about to go into another cough, but then he felt the air in his lungs suddenly go chilled. The hairs on his arms stood, the marrow of his bones hollowed and his aches forgotten. He and the doctor simultaneously turned their heads to the doorway, where an illuminating figure of an alien stood silently.
Spock's eyes widened and he involuntarily sat up in alarm.
This must be them, the beings Jim had spoken of. The ones taking place on their ship. The ones who he had not seen, but who had seen him. He barely noticed the loud thumping of his heart.
McCoy stood swiftly from his chair, stepping up to the foot of Spock's bed. He had witnessed their charity in the forest, and he himself was not immune to their awe-stopping aura — but he did not share his captain's irrevocable trust. He was so near to Spock's indispositions, at his deteriorating side second after second, on the floor of the room they stood in with his suffocating body, because of a member of the species standing six feet away.
Hahv recognized the protectiveness in the doctor's body language, and it took no further steps into the room. It seemed to merely observe them, taking long to glance at the Vulcan, and McCoy's shoulders tensed at the contact.
Spock's eyes were locked with the enigmatic figure. He could not blink as it shared the stare, it's scientifically fascinating eyes seeping into his own brown ones. The curious part of Spock lifted with wonderment, but he could not stop the apprehension that followed. He had not met these bright ones. Only the opposite.
"I am glad you are well, Vulcan."
A sudden chill coursed down Spock's spine at the sound of it's voice. He swallowed and his body held like marble.
"Thank you for saving him," McCoy answered cautiously. He did not relax from his position. It barely moved it's head, to study the doctor, and gave a single soft nod. McCoy inhaled slowly through his nose.
"So just how are you supposed to hide him?" he asked of it, bluntly and without restraint. It was a question that had been riding his mind and he would be damned if he wasn't assured.
"I simply can."
"You're sure about that?"
Spock flicked his eyes away from the alien and to the doctor, again reminded of his vapid questions. Yet, without a full recognition of it, he also wished to be reassured of the answer. He was also somewhat aware that McCoy was curiously persistent regarding his own personal safety…something to be categorized for later analysis.
"I am. The ones which we pursue, they are far less powerful than I. There is hardly a chance for them to cause any further harm."
"You're saying there is a chance?"
"You can put one of your lambs in the same cage as a lion, but you cannot scientifically state that there is a 100% chance that the lion will win."
"So does that make us the cage? The space in which the lamb and the lion will fight?" He didn't realize how angry he was until he was faced the with physical representation of their circumstances. Perhaps it was his total lack of sleep or his impedance in his control, but his patience and tact had evaporated. Yes, Jim was right - this was something that needed done. But he did not like it. Blind courage took the place of impatience, with the words thrown directed to such a powerfully capable being. He surmised he'd look back on this exchange in bewilderment of his audacity.
"You are the doctor. You are still as angry as you were on Nvandia." It sounded almost sorrowful. "I am in deep regret of this situation you've become a part of, but this is why I ask your help to deter future turmoil."
Hahv looked back to Spock, who felt a fresh wave of ice run through his body. It was an incredibly alarming effect, as Spock was rarely taken by such surprise. Something was so foreign and awing about this one, and he could not stop the icy shock that accompanied his inquisitive interest.
"I understand how unnatural those crystals are to a body like yours." It said to him. "I cannot fathom the damage it was exercising…or the effects I know it continues to hold over you."
Spock went slightly rigid. It knows…
"I will allow nothing else to happen to you or your friends."
Finally, Spock found his voice.
"I am aware."