Summary and disclaimer see chapter 1

Summary and disclaimer see chapter 1

CHAPTER 4

The Alliance Dictar strode from behind the mass of Klingons. The doctor could almost admire him for the way he seemed to command the respect of the savage crew, striding among them unafraid. Almost.

"Take that one, and do not damage him more than you must," the Rodt'hir said, pointing a slender finger at Chekov. "He is quite mad." Two of the dark-skinned warriors nodded and moved to grab Chekov by the arms, unmindful of his protests and his apparent pain. They escorted him through the door and out of sight.

"You, Doctor, will come with me," he said, ignoring the Klingons and Chekov.

"Do I have a choice?"

"No," the Dictar told him, "but it is better for all of us if you come willingly." McCoy shrugged and followed him from the room.

"It is really quite inconvenient that your ensign escaped. If he had died as planned, you would not be here now. You could all be on your way back to your Federation, safe and sound."

"And two crewmembers less. I'm a doctor; I try to save people."

"But. . . I do not understand. They were not officers. Why should you care?" For the first time, the Rodt'hir looked confused. "Were they not expendable?"

McCoy stopped and stared at him incredulously. "Expendable?! Nobody is expendable."

The Dictar shook his head. "I do not understand how your military can function at all if no one is expendable."

"People are more willing to work for the military if they join it willingly; it makes people want to join Starfleet."

He looked even more confused. "Why must people wish to join your military? Is it not customary to assign citizens to their positions in your society?"

The doctor shook his head. "No. People choose what they want to do."

The Rodt'hir nodded thoughtfully. "I believe I understand now. I have seen this system before, but I had not believed any space-faring race naive enough to employ it."

"I didn't believe there could be any space-faring organization ruled by despots," McCoy returned smoothly.

"It is the only way. Your precious Federation will eventually break down while our Alliance prospers. You will see; force is the governing rule of life, and the only constant in the universe." He was irritatingly polite.

"Oh, I don't know about that. Democracy seems to be working pretty well so far."

The green-haired alien shook his head wonderingly. "How naive you are, Doctor! You believe anything short of total control can govern a people?" He started McCoy forward again.

"Yes, I do. Perpetual martial law will only make your people unhappy, and they'll eventually revolt against you."

"And letting them govern themselves? It will make your people lazy, soft, and they will eventually be conquered. At least having revolted, they will still be free and in control."

"That's right; your people are the conquerors. How forgetful of me." The doctor adopted his best sarcastic air.

The Dictar turned cold and motioned McCoy into the detainment cell he'd stopped them by. "I'm afraid I must cut short this enlightening discussion," he said. "Feel free to talk to the walls."

McCoy looked at him defiantly for a moment, then stepped into the cell, having nowhere else to go and to chance to fight. It appeared to be one of the larger ones, but the Klingons obviously had no use for comfortable prisoners. There was a hard bunk to sleep on, bare grey-green walls, and nothing else.

He sat on the bunk and sighed, staring at the metal walls as the Dictar activated the force field. The perfect end to a perfect day. Eventually, he fell asleep.

The doctor was awakened by a the small hiss of a hypospray. His eyes shot open without his consent, making him stare up at the dark face of a Klingon.

The Klingon bared his teeth -a gesture not meant as a smile- and stalked out of the doorway, reactivating the force field. McCoy sat up and absently rubbed his arm, even as his eyelids dropped.

Musta been some sorta sedative he thought. He was out cold before his head hit the bunk.

Kirk and Spock stepped down from the transporter platform, heading directly to the bridge via the 'lift.

Uhura glanced at them as they stepped out of the lift, then returned to her work. It occurred to the captain that the first duty shift had just begun.

He took over the command chair from Scott.

"Report."

"The Klingon ship sped in here like a bat outta hell, and left the same way," Scott told him. "They only stayed for a second, then went right back the way they came."

Kirk looked at him. "Long enough to transport someone off the planet?"

"Aye."

"That would have to be at least three point six three seconds," Spock told him reprovingly. The engineer regarded him with a long-suffering look.

"Ye dinna have to quote the details to me, Mister Spock. I know that piece of machinery like the back of my hand."

"An inadequate metaphor, at best, Mr. Scott."

Scott turned back to the captain. "It was at least three point five seconds, then, but we barely knew they were there before they were gone again. The shield around the planet disappeared for exactly that long." Spock seemed about to correct him again, so he did it himself. "Three point six three."

"Mr. Sulu, take us within transporter range. Uhura, try to hail them." Kirk got "Aye"s all around and sat back as Scott retreated to the engineering station. He tried to relax even a little, but all the stress of the past few days was finally catching up to him. He settled for simply massaging his forehead, where he was getting the beginnings of a headache.

The hum of the ship's engines increased a level for a few seconds, then faded away again.

"We're within visual range, Captain," Sulu told him.

"On screen."

The Klingon Bird-of-Prey appeared on the viewscreen, massive against the stars.

"Any luck?" he asked, turning to face Uhura.

"No, Captain. They're still ignoring us."

"They've raised their shields," Sulu reported.

"Shields," Kirk ordered automatically.

"Incoming!" yelled the new navigator, an ensign Kirk didn't know.

The bridge was lit by the red light of the phasers- disrupters, the Klingons called them- of the Klingon ship. The Enterprise lurched with the hit, shaking the crew in their seats.

"Damage," Kirk demanded when it stopped.

"Minor damage to forward deflector screen two, all else negligible," Spock reported.

"Captain, they're hailing us," Uhura told him.

"On screen."

The dark, somewhat glossy face of the Klingon commander appeared on the screen.

"Withdraw your ship, Federation captain," he growled. "We have claimed this system and its planets for the Klingon Empire."

"We have every intention of doing so, as soon as we recover some of our missing crewmen," Kirk said diplomatically, not feeling very diplomatic.

"Pah!" the Klingon spat. "Federation lies. You wish to possess this planet. Leave immediately!"

"We have reason to believe that you are holding our people," he bluffed, then paused, letting it sink in. "I demand that you return them immediately."

The Klingon snorted. "What use would we have for two Earthers? Leave our space immediately or face the consequences!" Kirk glanced at Spock and saw his eyebrows climb.

"I'll. . . consider it." He motioned to Uhura to close the channel. "Well, Spock?"

The Vulcan didn't hesitate. "The Klingon commander has unwittingly incriminated himself with his statement of 'two Earthers', but it still remains to us to retrieve Doctor McCoy and Mr. Chekov; I doubt very much that the Klingons will willingly hand over their prisoners when confronted with the evidence. It is more likely that they would be killed."

"Agreed. Course of action?"

"I submit that further negotiations would be illogical, and we cannot beam anyone to or from the Klingon ship."

"That's all very helpful, but it only tells me what I can't do."

"I am merely pointing out that since those plans are illogical, we must find an alternative course of action," Spock told him.

"Such as. . . ?" Kirk prompted.

"We must get them to lower their shields."

"They're charging their weapons, sir," Sulu reported.

"Brace for impact!" The ship rocked with the impact of the Klingon disrupters, flinging Uhura and Sulu from their seats.

"Cut all power, everything except life support and transporters!" Kirk ordered. The crew obeyed his orders, and soon it was dark and silent. The ship hung dead in space. "Kirk to transporter room."

"Kyle here."

"Can you get a lock on the humans onboard the Klingon ship?"

"Yes sir, just barely."

"Good. Do it."

"Done."

Kirk left the channel open, but no one spoke; it seemed sacrilegious to break the silence.

"They've lowered their shields," Spock reported.

"Beaming over a search party," Kirk mused.

"Beam them back, now!" he said urgently into the speaker on the arm of his chair.

"Aye." They heard the hum of a transporter over the speaker, then Kyle's triumphant but worried voice. "Got 'em, sir. Doctor McCoy's out cold and Ensign Chekov's. . . well, I think he's crazy, sir."

Kirk cut the connection and ordered Sulu to raise shields, then called the sickbay."

"Sickbay here."

"Get some people to the transporter room You've got work."

"Aye sir." Christine Chapel clicked it off.

"Get some people from security down there," he told Uhura. She nodded and called security.

"Lay in a course for Starbase Two," he told the ensign at the navigation station.

"Course laid in, sir."

"Warp two, Mr. Sulu."

"Aye aye sir." Kirk noticed the ship humming faintly louder, then it faded into the background as the ship flew away from the planet and the Klingons.

"I'll be in sickbay," he said to no one in particular, and left.

McCoy awoke to find himself on the wrong side of a bed in sickbay. He sat up against the will of his head and tried to figure out when he had been brought there.

"Lie down, Bones," he heard, his head floating a couple of feet above his body. He wondered why he wasn't seeing anything, then decided it might be helpful to open his eyes.

The first thing he saw was a Rodt'hir, standing over him like a mother hen.

"Oh, it's you," he said, recognizing Jim Kirk. "My compliments to your surgeon."

"Well, it's nice to see you're your usual cheerful self," the captain commented. "It was Christine chapel."

"Shoulda guessed. Now why-" He was going to ask why he had gotten so drunk, then remembered the Klingons. "Never mind. Where are we?"

"Doctor," Kirk said reproachingly. "I would've thought you'd recognize your own sickbay!"

"That's not what I meant and you know it. Where are we going?"

"Back to Starbase Two," Kirk informed him. The doctor maneu-vered off the bed and started toward the door.

"Where do you think you're going, Bones?"

"Someplace else. Out there, technically." He didn't stop while he answered the captain and headed straight into the other half of the sickbay, not caring that his friend followed him.

As his eyes swept around the room, he noticed Chekov, restrained and sedated.

"Not any better, is he?"

McCoy saw Kirk shake his head out of the corner of his eye.

"Well, you can go back now. I'm not going to fall down," McCoy told him briskly. "Oh, and send down Spock when you can spare him."

"Sure thing, Doctor." The captain retreated to the bridge.

McCoy looked at the readings above Chekov and drew one simple conclusion: he was dying, and for no reason the doctor could surmise. He set life support equipment on automatic standby and drew a small hypospray to take a blood sample. It was only a hunch, but it was all he had at the moment.

He fed the sample to the computer in his office and sat down, suddenly tired. The pulse of the Russian's heartbeat and breathing on the monitor in the background tried to lull him to sleep, until he started coughing. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. No simple sedative could make his insides feel like lead and his lungs feel watery.

He drew a sample of his own blood and fed it into the computer as well.

"Computer, is there any thing unusual about these two samples of blood?" he asked it.

"Working," the machine said flatly. "Sample A: unusually high levels of adrenaline, concentrations of triformalhyde dicarbonate, traces of neutralized Altairian Flu, high concentrations of living micro-organisms on the level of a disease-"

"Computer, stop. Go to sample B."

"Traces of triformalhyde dicarbonate, high concentrations of unknown foreign substance, complete absence of all bacteria and living micro-organisms."

"What is the nature of the foreign substance?"

"Unknown."

"Okay, what does this substance do?"

"Foreign substance affects the walls of internal organs and causes massive bleeding and deterioration on a cellular level."

"How does the disease in sample A effect the body?"

"Disease effects nervous system, causing delusions, paranoia, insanity, coma, and death." McCoy winced, more alarmed by this diagnosis than that of his own blood; Chekov was already in a coma. The triformalhyde dicarbonate didn't worry him at all; it was simply the standard sedative used in Starfleet, and, apparently, by the Klingon Empire.

"Computer, has a disease with symptoms matching these ever been reported within the Federation?"

"Affirmative."

"Where?"

"Alpha Xi IV, Ceti Omicron II, Omega Alpha VII, Beta Ceti III, Beta Ceti VI."

"Have any been reported matching the symptoms of sample B?"

"Affirmative."

"Where?"

"Alpha Xi IV, Ceti Xi I, Zeta Xi VI, Beta Ceti III."

"How close are those systems to the Beta Xi system?"

"The furthest listed system is seventy-five point one light years distant. Each is a neighboring system."

"What is the treatment for this disease?"

"Incurable."

"What is the treatment for the disease in sample A?"

"Incurable."

"Computer off."

Jim Kirk stepped onto the bridge.

"Lieutenant Uhura, send a priority message to Starfleet Command. Tell them 'The Rodt'hir have proven actively hostile, killing one member of the Enterprise crew and leaving two others in serious condition. The solar system has been unfortunately claimed by the Klingons, after they opened fire on us. We are returning to Starbase Two'. Send them a copy of my log as well." He had included everything they'd learned about the Rodt'hir in his log, along with Chekov's story as related by Spock.

"Aye sir," Uhura told him, almost her usual cheery self. It was slightly disconcerting to look at the Captain's chair and see a Rodt'hir, but, working with Captain Kirk, you got used to these things.

"How long until we get a response?" Kirk asked.

It was Spock that answered him. "Assuming they reply immediately, we should receive a response in one hour and thirteen minutes."

"How long until we reach Starbase Two?" the captain asked Sulu.

"ETA two hours at warp two, Captain."

"Go to warp three."

"Aye," Sulu responded. The ship hummed faintly louder and the stars on the viewscreen blurred even further. "ETA one hour and five minutes."

"Spock," Kirk summoned. "Doctor McCoy wants you in sickbay." The Vulcan nodded and left.

Kirk stared at the stars, brooding.

Spock turned into the more isolated part of sickbay and heard McCoy coughing fluidly. Chekov didn't move, barely breathing as Spock passed. The doctor looked up and spotted him through the doorway to his office, covering his coughs hurriedly.

"Well, you got here quick. I need you to help me look for cures for two diseases. Here," McCoy said, and played the computer's diagnoses of the blood samples.

"Who are the samples from?" Spock asked after the machine stopped.

"Chekov," McCoy answered. Spock could tell he was lying, or at least not telling the whole truth. He let it go; the doctor obviously didn't want anyone to know he was sick, though the captain already did.

Spock nodded thoughtfully. "Computer," he summoned. "Evalu-ate the effects of trioxide cylide on samples A and B."

"Tried that already," McCoy told him.

"Working... sample A: none; sample B: none."

"Dicarbon gretanide," the doctor suggested.

"Working... sample A: none; sample B: minimal effectiveness in neutralizing foreign agent."

McCoy sighed. "At least we're making some progress." Chekov's magnified heartbeat in the other room slowed, stopped, and returned stronger than before; the life support had activated. Having patients on life support always reminded the doctor of zombies; dead but artificially alive.

"Computer, analyze the foreign agent in sample B. What is it made of?"

"Working... cyclidic acid." Spock waited for more, but none was forthcoming.

"Interesting," he said. Pure cyclidic acid occurred nowhere on any planet Starfleet had ever explored, nor was it able to be made in any laboratory. Cyclidic acid was one of the most deadly biological weapons in existence; it slowly ate through almost every material at the cellular level, including living tissue, and there was no treatment for it. People who'd come into contact with even the diluted form invariably died.

McCoy paled. "I've got cyclidic acid eating through my guts and all you can say is 'interesting'?" he said, disregarding his earlier allegation that both samples were Chekov's. "It doesn't even rate a 'fascinating'?"

"No," Spock told him bluntly. "It is unfortunate, but it was not, after all, totally unexpected."

"'Unfortunate'? You do remember that there is no possible way to counteract this, right?"

"Then we shall just have to find one."

"What," McCoy asked sarcastically, "are the odds of finding one before I die in, what, three hours?"

Spock didn't hesitate. "Merely five hundred and fifty-two point eighty seven to one. In five hours."

"Uh-huh. Merely."

"Assuming we don't delay any longer." Spock looked at the doctor meaningfully.

"Fine. Let's not delay," McCoy told him. They began suggesting possible cures to the computer as they thought of them.

"Captain," Uhura called. "We're receiving a message from Starfleet Command."

"Onscreen," Kirk told her. He was surprised; they were still fifteen minutes away from Starbase Two.

"Kirk," the admiral on the screen said. "You've got to get back to that planet. We can't let the Klingons have it!"

"Admiral," Kirk told her calmly. "I would rather not."

"I'm afraid you don't have a choice, Captain." She stressed the last word, making it clear that this was not a request. "That planet must have strategic value, for the Klingons to want it."

"Not necessarily. They could want it to spite the Federation." Spock would be proud... well, impressed, anyway he thought. I'm thinking logically. "My CMO is dying and my navigator would already be dead without life support." Kirk responded with all the civility he could muster; McCoy had updated him on the situation in sickbay. "The inhabitants of that planet infected both of them, one with pure cyclidic acid and the other with some sort of disease. My responsibility is to this crew, and I can fulfill that responsibility in two ways. I can get those two to a starbase's better medical facilities, and I can refuse to risk any more crew members by going back to Nodya. Right now I would prefer to do both."

The admiral- Kirk didn't know her- shook her blonde hair and looked apologetic. Her full lips pouted outward and her greenish eyes widened slightly. He figured it was just a way to get what she wanted from him. "Normally I would respect your decision not to return to Nodya, but right now I have no choice. I will order you back if I have to, but I'd rather not. If those people are as powerful as your navigator suggests, they could be a major threat to the Federation. If they're under the control of the Klingons, it makes them twice as dangerous. If they're controlling the Klingons, they're more powerful than even you might think. If they're what we think, they're not the problem at all."

"Let me get my officers to a starbase then," he bargained. "We're only-" he looked at Sulu.

"Ten minutes."

"-ten minutes from Starbase Two. Surely you can spare that long."

Again the admiral shook her head. "I'm sorry. You have to turn back right now. Every minute we talk increases their hold on them. Kabrini out." The screen darkened as the admiral- Kabrini- closed the connection on her enigmatic statement.

Kirk slumped slightly. "Helm, reverse course. Warp four." He now had half an hour to figure out what he was going to do about the Rodt'hir.