DEGUELLO - Chapter 10
by Trish Bennett
The entire bridge crew was in a state of shock.
McCoy felt sick to his stomach as he watched Spock sink back into the command chair. It was a sight he was going to have to get used to. It was over. Jim Kirk was dead.
He laid a quaking hand on Uhura's shoulder. "Have the medical team stand down, would you?"
"Yes, Doctor," she replied. Her voice sounded as shaky as he felt.
"It's my fault," came a voice from the Science station. The Doctor moved to Chekov as he continued. "I couldn't find them. It's all my fault."
"Pavel," McCoy said in his best fatherly tone. "You did your best. You can't blame yourself..."
"Indeed, Ensign," Spock interjected, his voice remarkably steady and calm. "Self-recrimination will not help us get the Captain back."
The crew turned slowly to face him, almost simultaneously. My God!, McCoy thought. He's lost his mind!
"What are you talking about?" he said. "The Captain is dead, Mr. Spock."
"No, Doctor...he is not." Spock finally turned to face him, ignoring the stunned gazes of the rest of the bridge crew. "Mr. Chekov could not locate the landing party because there was nothing to locate. They were not aboard that vessel."
"But, Mr. Spock..." Scott said from behind him. His voice was hopeful but wary. "They had to be on that ship. We've been scanning them the whole time. If the Captain and his party had been transferred somewhere else, we would have known."
"Would we? Mr. Chekov, you said you lost the Klingons' image briefly when they entered the star system. How briefly?"
"Just over eight seconds," the Ensign replied, confidence slowly returning to his voice.
"Long enough to activate a transporter beam," Spock said.
"Just barely, Sir," the Scotsman protested. "We lost them in the gravitational pull of the second planet. Timing and execution for a maneuver like that...well, it would be next to impossible."
"Precisely." Spock's position did not waver. "They knew we would consider their disappearance an unavoidable result of the laws of physics. They wanted us to believe the Captain was still aboard."
"But why?" Sulu asked.
"Mr. Scott said himself that a single Klingon cruiser is no match for the Enterprise. Clearly they did not expect us to launch an attack against their vessel if it would endanger the Captain." Spock hesitated thoughtfully. "It is also clear that they have something more in mind for Captain Kirk than simply using him as bait. Mr. Chekov, begin surface sweeps of the second planet."
McCoy patted the Ensign's shoulder as he turned happily back to his task, then made his way down to stand beside the command chair.
"Spock," he whispered, knowing full well that the Vulcan could hear him clearly. "Are you sure?"
"He is still in pain, Doctor," Spock replied almost as quietly. "And I am now sensing a great emotional turmoil. But he lives. I am quite certain."
"And if we do find him? Then what?"
Spock remained silent. Apparently he was still wrestling with that obstacle himself."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Kirk had been sitting on the cavern floor, the young Lieutenant nestled against him, for how long now? A day...a year...a lifetime? It really didn't seem to matter anymore.
Kor had stripped everything from him. All he had worked for, his hopes and dreams, his struggles and sacrifices, had all been for nothing. His ship was gone. His friends were dead. His friends...did they truly know how much they had meant to him?
And the Federation. The Federation didn't even exist, at least not here in the Neutral Zone. There was nothing left. Nothing but the uniform on his back and the woman in his arms.
This woman, he thought, was all that was left of the finest crew ever assembled in Starfleet. A crew he had personally selected. A crew that he had personally led to destruction.
Girard began to stir, and he reluctantly released her. He had thought for a while that she was asleep, but when he looked into her eyes, he realized he was mistaken.
She seemed to be searching his face for something, a small bit of hope, perhaps, that she could hold onto. At the moment, though, he could find none to offer her.
"A year or so ago, I guess it was," Kirk began unsteadily, raising his shackled hands to rub the stiff stubble of beard that covered his face, "the Enterprise answered a distress call from the Constellation. We found it drifting, dead in space. It had been attacked by a robot weapon, some kind of doomsday machine."
The Lieutenant listened intently, unsure where the story was heading.
"The only survivor was her commander, a man named Matt Decker. He was convinced that his ship would be destroyed by this thing, so he had beamed his entire crew down to a nearby planet in an effort to save them. He was determined to be the only one to go down with the ship. But it didn't work out that way." Kirk drew a shaky breath. "The thing ignored the Constellation and destroyed the planet instead."
Girard's hand moved instinctively to her lips, muffling an involuntary gasp.
"When we found him, he was in shock, horrified by the knowledge that he had sent his entire crew to their deaths...and that, by some cruel twist of fate, he survived. He ended up giving his life in an attempt to destroy the machine."
The Captain closed his eyes, trying to erase the images from his mind. It didn't help.
"At the time, I was too busy trying to destroy the thing to really think about it much. But after it was all over, the thought of Matt Decker haunted me. I would lie awake at night, trying to imagine the anguish and the torment he must have felt." He finally looked back into her eyes. "Now I am Matt Decker. And the one feeling I never imagined was this overwhelming sense of...emptiness. And I keep hearing his voice over and over again...A commander is responsible for the lives of his crew...and for their deaths. I should have died with mine..."
It was obviously not the uplifting pep talk she had been hoping for. She bit her lip as she looked back into his face.
"Please don't give up," she said earnestly. "I don't want to die here."
Suddenly the Captain was deeply ashamed. He hesitated only a moment before reaching for her hand.
"I've been sitting here feeling sorry for myself. I guess I wasn't thinking about how you must feel."
He had lost nearly everything he had ever cared about in his life, but he still had her. And when he spoke again, his voice was filled with more conviction than he even thought possible.
"There has to be a way out of this. We just have to find it."
She stared at him sadly. "I wish I could have met you under different circumstances," she said at last. "I think I could have fallen in love with you."
Her words caught him by surprise. He gazed into her dark eyes.
"I think I could have been happy if you had."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"But what are we to do, Commander?" the centurion asked as Kor re-entered the makeshift control center. "Our vessel is destroyed."
The Commander steadily ignored him as he lowered himself into his chair. He had to think. The plan was coming apart. He had to adapt. He had to improvise. He had to...
Suddenly the image on the viewscreen caught his attention. He gazed at it curiously a moment. "The Enterprise is still here," he said finally. "What are they doing?"
The centurion checked the scanners quickly. "They are running sensor sweeps, Commander. They appear to be looking for something."
Kor's face twisted in a smile. Keeping Kirk alive had apparently worked to his advantage.
"Perhaps we should give them something to find," he said, his fingers deftly working the controls before him. "Get me a channel to General Kalakh. This isn't over yet."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Surface sweeps of the second planet had uncovered nothing. Spock ordered subsurface scans to be initiated before settling back in the command chair to consider the possibilities.
Kirk was alive. That much was certain. If he had died on the Klingon vessel, Spock would have known. And his presence was still quite strong in the Vulcan's subconscious.
The second planet of the star system was the only place he could have been transferred without the Enterprise's knowledge. Therefore, if he could not be located somewhere on the planet surface, the only logical conclusion was that he was beneath it. Very much alive. And in enormous peril.
The sound of Lieutenant Uhura's voice from behind him brought him out of his contemplative state.
"Mr. Spock?"
"Yes, Lieutenant?"
Her head was tilted to one side as she listened intently to something from her earpiece. "There's something here, Mr. Spock," she said at last. "It's mostly static...it seems to be scrambled somehow...but it's a definite transmission frequency."
Spock was out of his chair in an instant. He moved quickly up the step to join her on the upper deck.
"Can you filter out the interference?"
"I think so, Sir." Her fingers moved gracefully over the controls. "If I can just get this..."
But in that instant, her voice was eclipsed by a cry of alarm from the Science station.
"Mister Spock!" Chekov said, heavily accenting each syllable.
Spock glanced up at him, then turned his head to follow the Ensign's startled gaze. His eyes, as well as all the others on the bridge of the Enterprise, fixed upon the image on the main viewscreen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
James Kirk was in the throes of a nightmare.
The pain was becoming unbearable. His vision was a blur of color and darkness, his ears filled with the deafening sound of his own screams. He had tried to control the pain, tried desperately not to cry out. But soon the agony was overwhelming.
Unfortunately, some small part of him knew that this wasn't a nightmare. It was real. The pain was real. The images were real. There was no shred of hope that soon he would wake up, and it would be over.
So he screamed, hoping beyond hope that it would somehow help the pain. But as the club crashed into his bruised flesh and shattered bone, he realized it wasn't that at all. Screaming just reminded him that he was alive, and if only for that reason, it served a purpose. He had a good life, a meaningful life, and he wasn't ready to let go of it. Not here. Not yet.
It couldn't last much longer. He just had to hold on, just a few more minutes...just a few more minutes...
And finally he was there. He had braced himself for a blow that never came. He waited for it, was ready for it, but it never came. It was over, and he had lived through it. And suddenly, he had the irresistible urge to laugh.
It was an inhuman sound even to his own ears, but he had earned it. And even the painful racking in his chest could not diminish his satisfaction. He sagged against the restraints which held him upright and laughed until he no longer could.
After a moment, Kirk felt a hand in his hair, roughly forcing his head back. He struggled to open his weary eyes. Kor was glaring at him with mild curiosity.
"Something amuses you, Captain?" he said.
The laughter was gone now, but the weak smile had not left his face. Where's a tribble when you need one?
"What could...possibly amuse me, Kor?" he croaked.
"I can think of nothing," the Klingon conceded. "It is possible that you have lost your mind. And what a pity...I did so enjoy your insolent banter."
He released Kirk's hair as roughly as he had seized it and reached up to unlatch the shackles at Kirk's wrists. The Captain fell hard and hit the damp stone floor with a grunt.
Kor knelt beside him. "We can end this any time you like, Captain," the Klingon purred. "You have but to ask."
"Go to hell," Kirk groaned.
Kor shrugged absently. "Have it your way, Captain. It makes little difference to me."
At that moment, Kirk was filled with rage. He wanted desperately to tear at Kor with savage fury, to kill the gloating Klingon with his bare hands. He wanted the sheer, barbaric pleasure of watching Kor die.
And at that moment, Kirk realized that he was truly no better than his enemy.
by Trish Bennett
The entire bridge crew was in a state of shock.
McCoy felt sick to his stomach as he watched Spock sink back into the command chair. It was a sight he was going to have to get used to. It was over. Jim Kirk was dead.
He laid a quaking hand on Uhura's shoulder. "Have the medical team stand down, would you?"
"Yes, Doctor," she replied. Her voice sounded as shaky as he felt.
"It's my fault," came a voice from the Science station. The Doctor moved to Chekov as he continued. "I couldn't find them. It's all my fault."
"Pavel," McCoy said in his best fatherly tone. "You did your best. You can't blame yourself..."
"Indeed, Ensign," Spock interjected, his voice remarkably steady and calm. "Self-recrimination will not help us get the Captain back."
The crew turned slowly to face him, almost simultaneously. My God!, McCoy thought. He's lost his mind!
"What are you talking about?" he said. "The Captain is dead, Mr. Spock."
"No, Doctor...he is not." Spock finally turned to face him, ignoring the stunned gazes of the rest of the bridge crew. "Mr. Chekov could not locate the landing party because there was nothing to locate. They were not aboard that vessel."
"But, Mr. Spock..." Scott said from behind him. His voice was hopeful but wary. "They had to be on that ship. We've been scanning them the whole time. If the Captain and his party had been transferred somewhere else, we would have known."
"Would we? Mr. Chekov, you said you lost the Klingons' image briefly when they entered the star system. How briefly?"
"Just over eight seconds," the Ensign replied, confidence slowly returning to his voice.
"Long enough to activate a transporter beam," Spock said.
"Just barely, Sir," the Scotsman protested. "We lost them in the gravitational pull of the second planet. Timing and execution for a maneuver like that...well, it would be next to impossible."
"Precisely." Spock's position did not waver. "They knew we would consider their disappearance an unavoidable result of the laws of physics. They wanted us to believe the Captain was still aboard."
"But why?" Sulu asked.
"Mr. Scott said himself that a single Klingon cruiser is no match for the Enterprise. Clearly they did not expect us to launch an attack against their vessel if it would endanger the Captain." Spock hesitated thoughtfully. "It is also clear that they have something more in mind for Captain Kirk than simply using him as bait. Mr. Chekov, begin surface sweeps of the second planet."
McCoy patted the Ensign's shoulder as he turned happily back to his task, then made his way down to stand beside the command chair.
"Spock," he whispered, knowing full well that the Vulcan could hear him clearly. "Are you sure?"
"He is still in pain, Doctor," Spock replied almost as quietly. "And I am now sensing a great emotional turmoil. But he lives. I am quite certain."
"And if we do find him? Then what?"
Spock remained silent. Apparently he was still wrestling with that obstacle himself."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Kirk had been sitting on the cavern floor, the young Lieutenant nestled against him, for how long now? A day...a year...a lifetime? It really didn't seem to matter anymore.
Kor had stripped everything from him. All he had worked for, his hopes and dreams, his struggles and sacrifices, had all been for nothing. His ship was gone. His friends were dead. His friends...did they truly know how much they had meant to him?
And the Federation. The Federation didn't even exist, at least not here in the Neutral Zone. There was nothing left. Nothing but the uniform on his back and the woman in his arms.
This woman, he thought, was all that was left of the finest crew ever assembled in Starfleet. A crew he had personally selected. A crew that he had personally led to destruction.
Girard began to stir, and he reluctantly released her. He had thought for a while that she was asleep, but when he looked into her eyes, he realized he was mistaken.
She seemed to be searching his face for something, a small bit of hope, perhaps, that she could hold onto. At the moment, though, he could find none to offer her.
"A year or so ago, I guess it was," Kirk began unsteadily, raising his shackled hands to rub the stiff stubble of beard that covered his face, "the Enterprise answered a distress call from the Constellation. We found it drifting, dead in space. It had been attacked by a robot weapon, some kind of doomsday machine."
The Lieutenant listened intently, unsure where the story was heading.
"The only survivor was her commander, a man named Matt Decker. He was convinced that his ship would be destroyed by this thing, so he had beamed his entire crew down to a nearby planet in an effort to save them. He was determined to be the only one to go down with the ship. But it didn't work out that way." Kirk drew a shaky breath. "The thing ignored the Constellation and destroyed the planet instead."
Girard's hand moved instinctively to her lips, muffling an involuntary gasp.
"When we found him, he was in shock, horrified by the knowledge that he had sent his entire crew to their deaths...and that, by some cruel twist of fate, he survived. He ended up giving his life in an attempt to destroy the machine."
The Captain closed his eyes, trying to erase the images from his mind. It didn't help.
"At the time, I was too busy trying to destroy the thing to really think about it much. But after it was all over, the thought of Matt Decker haunted me. I would lie awake at night, trying to imagine the anguish and the torment he must have felt." He finally looked back into her eyes. "Now I am Matt Decker. And the one feeling I never imagined was this overwhelming sense of...emptiness. And I keep hearing his voice over and over again...A commander is responsible for the lives of his crew...and for their deaths. I should have died with mine..."
It was obviously not the uplifting pep talk she had been hoping for. She bit her lip as she looked back into his face.
"Please don't give up," she said earnestly. "I don't want to die here."
Suddenly the Captain was deeply ashamed. He hesitated only a moment before reaching for her hand.
"I've been sitting here feeling sorry for myself. I guess I wasn't thinking about how you must feel."
He had lost nearly everything he had ever cared about in his life, but he still had her. And when he spoke again, his voice was filled with more conviction than he even thought possible.
"There has to be a way out of this. We just have to find it."
She stared at him sadly. "I wish I could have met you under different circumstances," she said at last. "I think I could have fallen in love with you."
Her words caught him by surprise. He gazed into her dark eyes.
"I think I could have been happy if you had."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"But what are we to do, Commander?" the centurion asked as Kor re-entered the makeshift control center. "Our vessel is destroyed."
The Commander steadily ignored him as he lowered himself into his chair. He had to think. The plan was coming apart. He had to adapt. He had to improvise. He had to...
Suddenly the image on the viewscreen caught his attention. He gazed at it curiously a moment. "The Enterprise is still here," he said finally. "What are they doing?"
The centurion checked the scanners quickly. "They are running sensor sweeps, Commander. They appear to be looking for something."
Kor's face twisted in a smile. Keeping Kirk alive had apparently worked to his advantage.
"Perhaps we should give them something to find," he said, his fingers deftly working the controls before him. "Get me a channel to General Kalakh. This isn't over yet."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Surface sweeps of the second planet had uncovered nothing. Spock ordered subsurface scans to be initiated before settling back in the command chair to consider the possibilities.
Kirk was alive. That much was certain. If he had died on the Klingon vessel, Spock would have known. And his presence was still quite strong in the Vulcan's subconscious.
The second planet of the star system was the only place he could have been transferred without the Enterprise's knowledge. Therefore, if he could not be located somewhere on the planet surface, the only logical conclusion was that he was beneath it. Very much alive. And in enormous peril.
The sound of Lieutenant Uhura's voice from behind him brought him out of his contemplative state.
"Mr. Spock?"
"Yes, Lieutenant?"
Her head was tilted to one side as she listened intently to something from her earpiece. "There's something here, Mr. Spock," she said at last. "It's mostly static...it seems to be scrambled somehow...but it's a definite transmission frequency."
Spock was out of his chair in an instant. He moved quickly up the step to join her on the upper deck.
"Can you filter out the interference?"
"I think so, Sir." Her fingers moved gracefully over the controls. "If I can just get this..."
But in that instant, her voice was eclipsed by a cry of alarm from the Science station.
"Mister Spock!" Chekov said, heavily accenting each syllable.
Spock glanced up at him, then turned his head to follow the Ensign's startled gaze. His eyes, as well as all the others on the bridge of the Enterprise, fixed upon the image on the main viewscreen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
James Kirk was in the throes of a nightmare.
The pain was becoming unbearable. His vision was a blur of color and darkness, his ears filled with the deafening sound of his own screams. He had tried to control the pain, tried desperately not to cry out. But soon the agony was overwhelming.
Unfortunately, some small part of him knew that this wasn't a nightmare. It was real. The pain was real. The images were real. There was no shred of hope that soon he would wake up, and it would be over.
So he screamed, hoping beyond hope that it would somehow help the pain. But as the club crashed into his bruised flesh and shattered bone, he realized it wasn't that at all. Screaming just reminded him that he was alive, and if only for that reason, it served a purpose. He had a good life, a meaningful life, and he wasn't ready to let go of it. Not here. Not yet.
It couldn't last much longer. He just had to hold on, just a few more minutes...just a few more minutes...
And finally he was there. He had braced himself for a blow that never came. He waited for it, was ready for it, but it never came. It was over, and he had lived through it. And suddenly, he had the irresistible urge to laugh.
It was an inhuman sound even to his own ears, but he had earned it. And even the painful racking in his chest could not diminish his satisfaction. He sagged against the restraints which held him upright and laughed until he no longer could.
After a moment, Kirk felt a hand in his hair, roughly forcing his head back. He struggled to open his weary eyes. Kor was glaring at him with mild curiosity.
"Something amuses you, Captain?" he said.
The laughter was gone now, but the weak smile had not left his face. Where's a tribble when you need one?
"What could...possibly amuse me, Kor?" he croaked.
"I can think of nothing," the Klingon conceded. "It is possible that you have lost your mind. And what a pity...I did so enjoy your insolent banter."
He released Kirk's hair as roughly as he had seized it and reached up to unlatch the shackles at Kirk's wrists. The Captain fell hard and hit the damp stone floor with a grunt.
Kor knelt beside him. "We can end this any time you like, Captain," the Klingon purred. "You have but to ask."
"Go to hell," Kirk groaned.
Kor shrugged absently. "Have it your way, Captain. It makes little difference to me."
At that moment, Kirk was filled with rage. He wanted desperately to tear at Kor with savage fury, to kill the gloating Klingon with his bare hands. He wanted the sheer, barbaric pleasure of watching Kor die.
And at that moment, Kirk realized that he was truly no better than his enemy.