Vulcan Shadows.
By Estellio
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Spock goes missing and all evidence points to McCoy while he is following cryptic clues to find him. However, after discovering one of Spock's most shocking secrets will McCoy still be able to help or will he condemn his friend to death and commit professional suicide? First, do not harm.
A/N: After several more hours of brutalising my keyboard, over use of the delete key and enough games of minesweeper to send Bill Gates potty…I got something I didn't like and deleted it all and wrote this instead. For the sake of my sanity I'm posting this. I like it a lot better than the several hundred other drafts I wrote but makes V'au out to be an evil little fecker and leaves out the long, long conversation between her and McCoy that clears a lot of stuff up so I'll have to put that in the next chapter before…well…something iffy happens to someone (Innocent face). Not to mention Chekov doesn't feature in it at all when I most of the other drafts he played a big part (What can I say, I LOVE the Russian accent. It's just great.) Well I hope you like this one. Don't' forget to review and enjoy.
Chapter Six: The Race Begins
"SPOCK! ARE YOU NUTS!" McCoy instantly went to the downed V'au only to have her grip him by the shoulder and bring a laser scalpel to his throat.
"One false move and he's a goner." She warned, the laser scalpel dangerously close to McCoy's Adam's Apple.
"V'au, put the laser down." Spock commanded.
"YOU SHOT ME YOU EVIL SON OF A…" She suddenly went very still, her eyes moving from Spock to someone standing behind him. "You…" She hissed, an intense hatred oozing from those three letters.
"Hello Arie." Spock half turned only to have the phaser slapped out of his hand and his head grabbed roughly in a headlock. "I suggest you drop the scalpel or I'll break his neck."
"I suggest you drop the Vulcan or I'll slit his throat." V'au shot back.
"Nurse Palmas?" McCoy asked, confused. "What's going on here?"
"Please stop talking, Doctor, it's causing your Adam's to bob." V'au said carefully and McCoy could feel her hand moving for something behind him. "You called yourself Nurse Palmas? How exotic." V'au teased.
"V'au? How very…Vulcan." An evil smile crawled across Nurse Palmas' beautiful face, twisting it into something sinister.
"V'au's my real name, Arie is a rather obvious pseudonym."
"Ah yes, ironic really…the Ancient Vulcan word for emotion or passion...exactly what you are without."
"Maybe I'm just not very cordial or loving towards cold blooded killers like yourself."
"Now, now, V'au. That's just mean."
"Any more mean than gutting children in front of their mothers." A cruel laugh rose up from Nurse Palmas.
"That really stung you, what I did to Sariel, didn't it. What with you being a pathetic little orphan and all. I wonder, were you parents killed or did they dump you because you were just a pathetic little runt." McCoy watched V'au's grip tighten on the scalpel and he realised this wasn't really a safe place for him. V'au's other roaming hand stopped and he presumed she had found what she was looking for. A cold smile spread over her face.
"Maybe I killed them? Who knows? Who cares? Your pathetic insults carry as much weight as helium, Sikara." Palmas' smile began to fade.
"It isn't nice to call people names, Arie." She said in a warning tone, her grip tightening around Spock's throat.
"It
isn't nice to kill people either…Sikara." V'au spat and she
smiled coldly.
"Stop calling me that."
"Sikara! Sikara! Sikara! Sikara! Sikara!" McCoy could feel her grip tightening on whatever was behind her and as Nurse Palmas' hand closed over Spock's windpipe V'au threw something. Whatever it was hit the back of her hand and she screamed before dissolving in a silver beam. V'au laughed and disengaged the scalpel.
"Sorry about that, Doc. You know I wouldn't have hurt you." She said, moving to check on Spock "It'll bruise but you'll live." She said cheerily.
"That depends on whether I feel merciful or not." Something large impacted V'au's side, sending her flying across sickbay to impact two security guards who were just coming in.
"NO!" She screamed, reaching towards the tall, cloaked figure who was picking up a now unconscious Spock by his throat.
"You've an objection, Arie?"
"DAMN RIGHT I DO! PUT HIM DOWN! TAKE ME!" A low, cruel chuckle sounded from beneath his hood.
"Oh come now, I'll only get half for you, what I'll get for him."
"NO! KEK! NO!" She was on her feet and running but he just raised his hand, blowing her back against the wall with some kind of deflector mechanism.
"Tell you what, Arie. Since we're such good friends…I wont kill him immediately. You've one solar month to find him and save him…don't expect his precious Federation to help him. They've condemned him…and another gesture of good will…I'll leave you the good Doctor to help. My original plan was to frame him for Spock's death but you cocked that one up. Did you have to tell Kirk about my plan? Ah well, I suppose it'll all work out in the end. Thirty solar days, Arie starting…now." He tossed her a small black item. "After that he dies…and that's how long it will take the Gann-ki on your heart to kill you." A cruel, chilling laugh filed sickbay. "You pride yourself on your ability to solve any problem. Save anyone…can you save yourself?" A grey hand emerged, holding a communications device of some sort.
"Two to beam up." He disappeared but his chilling laugh hung in the air for quite some time.
"Oh no…oh no, no, no. I don't believe it!" She picked herself up from the floor, cradling her side. McCoy could tell, just by the way she was walking, that she had several broken ribs.
"Doctor, I know this may be asking a lot of you, considering my past actions but…I need you to trust me. Can you do this?"
"Why? What do you need?"
"Take my hand. Just trust me, I think you'll find the Enterprise will be quite dead in the water for the next thirty days. Kek will have seen to that." McCoy looked at her hand sceptically.
"I don't
know."
"PLEASE! My father's life is at stake."
"Take
it, Leonard." He looked over at Nurse Chapel who was standing near
where Spock had been grabbed. "Take it." She said again. "You
can trust her…I know you can."
"Alright…" The moment
Leonard touched her hand he felt the strange sensation of a freefall…
Before McCoy had even realised he had materialised, V'au was in the pilots seat and jabbing controls into the system. Through her view screen McCoy could see the saucer section and the tip of one Nacelle.
In a streak of light the familiar sight of the Enterprise disappeared from view to be replaced with the streak of stars and the stern of a large black ship.
"Sit down and strap yourself in. This is gonta be a bumpy ride." True to word, the ship jerked violently as a gruff male voice barked out something in an incomprehensible language. "I KNOW!" She screeched back and began to fire at the ship in front of them.
Bolts of yellow streamed out from unseen cannons that vibrated hard beneath McCoy's feet as he climbed into a chair that was bolted to the wall. He saw V'au pull a lever on the side of her chair and two clamps attaching it to the floor.
Clever. Thought McCoy as she fastened a X-shaped seatbelt over her, continuing firing. Wonder why she's belting down so much…
The ship gave a violent jerk and the male voice barked out something that had the word FAIL in it and the light over McCoy's head began to blink.
"HOLD ON DOC!" McCoy felt as if he was on a roller coaster as he was suddenly jolted left, then right and he hung upside down for several minutes with G-force pushing him into his chair. He could hear V'au screaming something and she was kicking a black box ferociously. McCoy clamped his mouth shut, trying not to throw up as the ship was restored to normal gravity and the voice began to bark out something else.
"Dammit." Through the view screen all McCoy could see were stars and he knew that they had lost Kek…and Spock.
"When did he get a warp drive capable of Warp Nine! Dammit." McCoy looked over at V'au whose head was resting against the console.
"I guess we lost him?"
"Ya think?" She sighed. "I only have a Warp Drive capable of Warp Five. I scrounged it off an old Klingon battle cruiser like pretty much everything else on this ship." She got up and walked into a room at the back of the ship McCoy hadn't seen before.
"YOU HUNGRY?" She called from the back of the ship. "I DON'T HAVE MUCH! JUST A FEW BITS AND BOBS, YOU EAT MEAT?" McCoy looked towards the room at the back.
"Uh…YES! I DO!" He called into the room and a few minutes later she reappeared with two steaming trays.
"It's not exactly Lan'sa meat but at least it isn't Gahg." McCoy shot her a puzzled look and she smiled, peeling off the top.
"Man'sa meat is very nice tasting…gagh is still alive when you eat it."
"Ah…" McCoy said with a disgusted look as he peeled black the black film of the lid. "…What is this?"
"Leola Casserole. It tastes like boots but its good for ya." Without further preamble she began to devour it.
"You're not a vegetation?" She gave him a blank look and chewed for a long while before saying.
"Would I be eating this if I was?"
"Good point." She downed the rest of it quickly and returned to the console.
"Oh, he's definitely heading for Arkhengrad."
"Where?"
"Arkhengrad, it is an Orion Slave Market. He'll try and make a switch there…" She glanced at the chrono on her watch. "For the love of god…"
"What's wrong?"
"The sedative I shot your happy homicidal nurse with will take about another ten minutes to wear off."
"Nurse Palmas is here?" V'au rolled her eyes again.
"My god, where did you think I sent her. Pleasure Planet! I'm mean come on…"
"V'au!"
"Sorry, I'll try and cut back on the sarcasm a little. Old habits die hard."
"Where is she?"
"In the back room, why? She's gonna be in a comatose state for the next ten minutes at least. I mean she is going to be really wasted. Probably going to be wasted when she's conscious too but hey, what can you do?" McCoy got up and went into the room V'au had retrieved the food from. To his left was a large cabinet, which he presumed, held the food and to his right were just boxes and crates. This was obviously the storage compartment of her small ship.
An electronic humming drew his attention and he weaved his way through the boxes to find Nurse Palmas crumpled up in a heap on the floor. A shimmering white screen crackled in front of her and she was wearing two heavy cuffs around her wrists and her neck. They didn't appear to be attached to anything, just there.
"See. She hasn't been harmed in any way." V'au said, coming up behind him. "Just shot with enough tranq. to take down a raging le-matya."
"That's the third time you've compared something to that, what in the blue blazes is a le-matya."
"…Eh…think of a tiger, big ol' constantly nasty tiger…make it green and give it venom…make it a little bigger and did I mention it was very nasty and stick it on Vulcan. Hey presto, you've got yourself a ready baked le-matya."
"I thought you said you were going to cut back on the sarcasm." He didn't wait for her reply as he turned back to face Nurse Palmas. He began to reach out for the white energy field but V'au caught his hand.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." She warned. "It'll blow you back against the wall. It's fairly powerful. Cardassian's aren't big on niceties unlike you Federation yokels." McCoy nodded and withdrew his hand.
"What's around her wrists and neck?"
"Her wrists? Just really big metal thingies. I put them on while I was in here getting food and around her neck? Pretty much the same thing but it has a live current going through it. I flick this switch here," She pointed to a tiny green nodule on her wristband. "And bye bye goes the safety and she gets a pleasant electrical shock."
"An obedience collar!" McCoy exclaimed, disgusted. She merely raised an eyebrow.
"No. She's not a dog, she's a prisoner. If I don't get answers, she gets pain. I believe it's called torture. A most effective method."
"Torture? What is this, the medieval era? This is barbaric and I won't have it done to a member of my staff." At this she scowled, advancing on him threateningly.
"Listen, buddy. A: You have jack didily squat authority here, understand? B: She isn't Nurse Pamela or whatever she called herself. Her name is Vargo Ni'Kessa. She's a nasty piece of work and an agent on Kek's payroll. She's a bad woman who's killed a lot pf people and not, definitely not, a nurse. I've fought her before and escaped with this…" V'au yanked up her top to reveal a slender scar reaching from the too prominent bones of her ribs, diagonally across her stomach to disappear down into her pants at her opposite hip.
"That doesn't look healthy." McCoy said.
"Well…it is a scar."
"Not that…have you been eating right?"
"What? What has that got to do with anything?"
"You're too damn thin. You're going to have to put on some weight."
"Oh for goodness sake. My weight isn't the point here, she is."
"Her weight's just fine. In fact she could stand to lose a few pounds."
"WHAT! No, stop analysing everything for five seconds Doc. Listen, I spent a few weeks in captivity a while back, they didn't exactly do buffet so I lost a few pounds. I promise to start eating more, now can we get off this point and back to the matter at hand, Vargo Ni'Kessa!"
"I though you called her…uh…Sikaro…or Sikara…or something, before."
"Watch your mouth! I didn't expect to hear such foul language coming off of a good mannered man such as yourself."
"Ah…you were calling her names?" V'au nodded, blushing slightly. "Well…I still don't like the idea of torture."
"You think she's just going to wake up and go. 'Oh! Tra la la la la! You're such a lovely person I'm going to tell you everything I know. No reason why not to!'"
"What did we say about that sarcasm of yours?" V'au threw her hands into the air.
"You just ain't gonna see it my way, are you? Alright…I think you better leave the room and let me conduct my business. If she does know something that can help Spock…I'm gonna make her tell me. Just go out and monitor the flight path for any sudden changes. Just in case he veers off course or something I don't want to lose his trail." McCoy looked first at Nurse Palmas then at V'au, who was staring at the chrono in her wristband. It beeped slightly and she looked at the sleeping form.
"Wake up, wake up, its time for a little chat." McCoy saw her approaching the barrier as he went out to the control room.
He sat where V'au had before and tried to decipher the controls. He had very little experience with navigation but what he could draw up from the Academy days was useless as the controls he was looking at wasn't in English.
"Come on, Leonard ol' boy. You can figure this out." He scanned the controls and found a panel that looked as if is had something to do with what he was looking for. A tiny red triangle was following a silver dashed line. "Bingo." He watched it for several minutes until he began to hear raised voices in the back. A tiny light on the console beeped and continued to do so for several moments.
"That can't be good. V'AU!" No response. "V'AU!"
What's going on back there? I should go check it out. He thought but the little voice that lies in the back of everybody's mind suddenly piped up.
But you don't want to go in there because you area afraid of what you may find.
Shut up! I'm a doctor; it's my nature to detest wilful harm to another. First, do no harm.
She's right though, and you know it, as much as you hate to admit it, you're going to have to hurt a few people to find Spock.
Shut up!
You don't want to listen to reason, do you? You're afraid, afraid of what's going to happen. You should have left the decisions up to Jim and stayed in your nice, safe sickbay.
"Shut up." Leonard growled at the two voices warring inside his head and he got up, walking swiftly into the back room. The white shield was down and he could hear V'au talking. She didn't sound happy, not happy at all.
"LIAR! SCUM BAG!" McCoy ran to find her inside, her hand beneath Vargos chin but above the collar. She was obviously half choking her. "TELL ME!" Vargo spat at V'au and the next thing McCoy knew, a blade had shot out from the now infamous wristband and was sunk into Vargo's side.
"V'AU! NO!" She pulled the blade out and Vargo went limp in the restraints that were holding her against the wall. McCoy pushed her out of the way and felt for a pulse…
"V'au…what have you done."
IOIOIOBy the way. I bet you didn't see this coming a mile off(!) Oh I have to cut the sarcasm. Well things really have taken a turn around. Palmas is evil, V'au is sadistic, Spock is kidnapped, McCoy is eating Leola and Chekov is nowhere in sight and there is no Kirk! At all! Ever! Yeah! I'm sorry, he's just a very, very annoying character to write and he'll probably end up sleeping with someone if I do try and write him. He tends to grab the pen from me and wont give it back. That caused fierce trouble the last time he did that. Ah well, hope you enjoyed and once again I remind you to review! I love feedback and thanks to everyone who reviewed so far.
P.S: Do you think that you are spending too much time on your computer listening to music when you know all the words to a Mexican Folk Song? Don't even ask why I have Mexican folk on my comp. It just kinda got there during one of my downloading frenzies. I'm going to take a little break writing for a while so the next chapter will take even longer to come up but I have a fair idea of what I'm doing so don't worry. I just need a little break because this much time on any one thing is not good for my health (Too much minesweeper. Far too much and I know the words to too many non English songs! Too many! Irish, Italian, Mexican, Spanish and Sumoi! I didn't even know Sumoi was a language before today! Where is it the language of, anyone know, give me a buzz.)