Author's note: Sorry it took so long. Life, activism, all that. By the way, I don't own, I don't earn… But I *do* enjoy!
Chapter 26
"Our minds are one."
Spock shields almost gave to the anger and sadness that welled up in him. He had watched hours of Jim Kirk's body being wounded, but all of that paled to what had been done to his beautiful mind.
The strong, pulsing glow that so attracted Spock to Kirk's mind was gone. What was left was a grey wasteland, a landscape still under attack from above and below. What little steadiness remained was cracking, caving in. What radiance remained was leaching away. Ripped and torn edges bled, frayed ends wafted, loose, unconnected, lost…
This had been going on for months now. This was still going on.
Spock did not hesitate. He plunged in deep, struggling in pitch black, claustrophobic passages where earlier there had been airiness and wholesomeness. As he went deeper, seeking the source of this demolition, the dank darkn turned into suffocating mental sludge, thickening like wet cement. It was a barrier, and Spock knew he was close. He forged on, shaping his mind into a wedge, a needle. There it was. A cyst, pumping poison.
He stopped before it.
All around him Jim Kirk screamed.
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McCoy was vaguely aware of others entering, but it was seconds before he could look up. When he did he recognized Scotty, and the witch.
"Why d'you bring her here?" he yelled.
"Well, Doctor, she said she could help-" Scotty began.
But McCoy cut him off with a withering glance. What with monitoring Spock's haywire vitals and Kirk's nascent seizure, and the feelings of alarm and guilt bubbling up around his memory of the other Vulcan – stark stone dead against the wall, mere feet away – melding with Kirk and doing who knows what damage-well, he had his hands full.
And things spun out of control real fast. Kirk, prone on the floor next to the Spock – kneeling, or rather bent over in pain as his slender hand trembled on the Captain's face – let out a keening sound of great pain. McCoy's sensor instantly went wild, and Kirk began to shudder.
"O God," McCoy whispered. Still no medkit! What a fool he was to have let them think this would work. Why couldn't they have waited, moved to Sick Bay-
Suddenly he was thrown clear, or rather, he violently withdrew from the energy that had jolted him, through his hands and arms pressing Kirk down to the deck. Scott caught him before he fell.
"Let me go-" McCoy protested, but then stopped and saw what Scotty was seeing.
The witch had contorted herself between the wall and the two men in the meld. She had one hand on Spock's shoulder and the other on Jim's. Her eyes were closed, her face contorted with concentration. The effects were instant and visible. Spock's breathing settled, Jim calmed.
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Air. Light. A suffusion of strength. Kirk stopped screaming. Spock drew breath and courage.
He approached the source of all the pain, the fist of torment and distrust. His mind probed it, all over. The pain went deep, and wide, but flooded with IlnZahi's strength, Spock waxed deeper, wider. Soon he had enveloped it, disengaged it from Kirk's mind.
Moaning with the effort, he took it into his own mind. Zahi was there with him, not so much a mental but a biological entity with the vise grip of titanium and the surging heat of molten lava. Together they held it, crushed it, until all that was left of it was dust.
And a kernel, a hard kernel of truth amid all the lies and deceit. Spock studied it, then pulverized it too.
When he returned to Kirk's mind, it was still in ruins. Spock could see the Captain's will, almost exhausted by his last effort against the enemy's forced meld, struggling to rise up.
All is well, Jim.
Kirk could not respond, could not formulate a clear thought in his mind.
Alarmed, Spock searched. There it was, where the cyst has trampled and buried it. Alive.
He rejoiced and lowered his shields to let all of that joy infuse the link. It lit up and for a moment illuminated the entire field of the ravaged mind. All the ruins became painfully stark, undeniable, and Spock carefully shielded his despair and anger at the destruction. But as his light faded to a small, bubbling spring, another light rose up around it, from the field, all around.
That glow!
Spock dwelt in it for a few seconds longer. He would have stayed longer and helped Jim heal, but later. He had one very important task ahead of him.
Spock! The bomb!
The whip crack of Jim Kirk's mind.
I know where it is, Jim, and how to defuse it. I must go now. I will succeed!
Spock opened his eyes and found the Doctor and Engineer Scott gaping at them. He turned to Zahi. She had let go. She was pale, but unhurt.
She nodded, and Spock rose.
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"Mister Scott, with me!"
Scotty didn't question the Vulcan. He followed him out into the corridor.
"There is an explosive device hidden inside the port warp engine nacelle behind cell three."
Scott's pounding heart skipped a beat.
"It would take a small explosion, Mister Spock, at that location, to blow us all to Kingdom come!"
"Indeed, Mister Scott," said the unflappable Vulcan, entering the waiting turbolift. "Deck Ten! Varek suspected that it was we who were docking under code 2-10. He moved up the detonation."
"How much time, Mister Spock?"
"We have twelve minutes and four seconds to disengage it."
Scott swallowed. The lift seemed sluggish as it hurled them to the top deck of the Engineering Hull from which they could access the nacelles. From the lift they were in, at the front of the saucer, it would take them at least five minutes to reach the nacelle control room, far aft on Deck Nine. Spock's order to stop at Deck Ten made sense, though. Deck Nine was a warren of corridors and rooms. The more orderly laid-out Deck Ten would allow them to run straight through, then a quick climb up Jefferies Tube 36, which would land them right in front of the port nacelle control room. Then through a hatch and a tight crawl to the third cell…
Spock shot out of the turbo lift. Scott feared his lungs would burst trying to keep up with him, but he succeeded. Then Spock disappeared in the Jefferies Tube, and when Scott arrived in the control room, he found the Vulcan raising his phaser.
""You cannae shoot it, Mister Spock!" Scott exclaimed, lunging forward to stay Spock's hand.
One look at the hatch, however, told him it was welded shut.
"It's only superficially fused," Spock said, "Pay release my hand. We have forty-five seconds left, Mister Scott," Spock informed him with cool logic.
Scott let go of the Vulcan's burning hand and stood aside. Spock aimed his phaser and the blue beam hit the hatch, which glowed orange, then red, until its structural integrity finally relented, and it fell out of its opening.
Disregarding the hot edges, Spock propelled himself inside the horizontal tube. Scott grabbed the emergency tool box from the control room console and plunged in after him.
"I see it," Spock announced, one body length ahead.
The tube was barely wide enough for both of them, but Scott elbowed himself next to him.
A small device, wedged between two casings, out of reach.
Scott handed the forceps from the tool box. Spock grabbed for the device missed, finally gripped it and yanked it out, none too gently.
Below a small keyboard a simple screen counted down.
Seven seconds.
Scott was about to give in to despair, thinking that at least they'd be dead within a matter of seconds.
Spock's nimble fingers keyed in a number faster than Scott could track.
SC937-0175CEC.
"The Captain's serial number!"
The countdown rolled over one more second. Then it stopped.
Two seconds left.