Disclaimer: not mine
Sulu obeyed Jim's shout with reflexes that would have made any pilot proud.
With a rumble that probably terrified any civilians or personnel who had been in the city square, the USS Franklin rose up out of the small lake that occupied a large part of the open space.
Three ships that had been heading towards the large building that housed the control room and many of the official offices for Yorktown personnel were caught unawares, and crashed into the underside of the Franklin before they had a chance to attempt any evasive maneuvers.
The Franklin crashed down to the ground, and everyone on the Bridge breathed a sigh of relief as soon as their teeth stopped rattling from the force of the impact.
Once the ship was settled, Jim opened up a shipwide comm. and ordered everyone to evacuate.
"Captain, we have three unidentified signatures on board," Carol's voice interrupted any other directions Jim was about to give.
Jim stopped and reconsidered. After a moment's silence, he nodded decisively, and commed down to Medbay. "April, please join us on the Bridge." He turned back to the others. "Carol, you and April need to evacuate. Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, let's get looking."
He went to a side panel where several phasers were stashed, and handed them out to those who would remain behind.
Carol looked like she wanted to protest, but the steely look on Jim's face told her quite clearly that this wasn't the time or place. And she couldn't disagree with his order, all things considered. April arrived at that moment, and agreeably led Carol off the Bridge and towards the exit without hesitation.
Once outside, April tried leading Carol towards the hotel she and Jim had been staying at before their departure days earlier, a good distance away from the city center and any danger.
Carol immediately dug her heels in though, refusing to go anywhere other than the control room. "If I can't be there in person, I will not hide out in my room until it's all over," the Brit argued, and April was left with little choice but to follow Carol. Not that she tried too hard – she wanted to stay close as well.
The control room was buzzing with activity, some screens monitoring the situation in space outside the protective shields, others searching for problems inside. One screen was focused on the mess in the city square and the Franklin that was lying half in and half out of the small lake.
Archer, Barnett, and Pike looked up at their entry, and all three nodded in relief at seeing members of the Enterprise crew alive and uninjured.
Commodore Paris was there as well, and at seeing the new arrivals, immediately demanded an update.
XXX
As their own crew was evacuating, it was hard to find anyone who didn't belong, but Jim and Chekov managed to put down one stranger, while Uhura and Sulu let him know they had found two more.
As those accounted for the three unidentified life signs, the group all met back on the Bridge. None of the people they had found had been Krall or Kodos, and all of them were understandably on edge.
Uhura went back to the Communications station, searching through the records that had been stored on the ship's computers. There was all manner of footage, from old ship logs to more recent video recordings.
Chekov went back to his console and double checked to make sure there were no more life signs on board the ship other than the four of them, while Sulu and Jim could do little more than wait.
Scotty's call interrupted Jim from his position watching the videos over Uhura's shoulder, and he stepped away to speak with the Engineer.
The Scotsman sounded relieved to hear Jim's voice, but there was something in his tone that immediately set Jim on edge. "I'm at the main hub right now," Scotty explained, referring to the central engineering center of Yorktown, located in the basement of the control building twenty five floors below where April and Carol had just joined the Admirals and Commodore Paris. "I'm looking through the systems for any sign of Krall or Kodos…"
He trailed off, and Jim immediately picked up on the edge of worry in the older man's voice. "Anything?" the Captain prodded, not expecting good news.
Scotty bit his lip and shook his head, though he knew Jim couldn't see him. "Not yet, but Jim, I've found something else." He paused, considering what he had seen in the computer's codes he had been searching through while he ran facial recognition on the video security feeds. "It looks like a virus, infecting Yorktown's nervous system."
Jim furrowed his brow. The nervous system was what Engineers tended to call the group of life support systems in any off-planet station or ship – the oxygen, gravity, air filtration and other systems like them that were necessary for anyone to live. In professional settings it was generally referred to as the critical life support systems, but Jim – and many other Captains – tended to copy their Engineer's choice of terms instead, since that was usually what they called it any time they had to converse over issues with any of the systems in question. After a while, the name just stuck. "How bad?"
Scotty grimaced. "Bad," he acknowledged. "Some of them are starting to fail, and from the looks of it, this virus has been working in the background for a while now. It's not something Krall just did, it has to have been active for days at least."
"And no one picked up on it?" Jim asked curiously.
Scotty sighed. "It's elegant," he grudgingly admitted. "Woven into the code in a way that unless you were deliberately looking for anomalies, it would go unnoticed. I only saw it because I caught a hiccup in the air filtration system while I was waiting for results from the face trace. I took a deeper look at the logs, and there's evidence that the life support systems have been slowly malfunctioning to failure for a while."
Jim considered what Scotty was telling him. "Could Lenore have done it, when she arrived at Yorktown?"
Scotty confirmed the idea immediately. "That makes the most sense. It had to have been done from inside the control tower, no one can hack Yorktown. She must have managed to get in sometime after you and the Commodore spoke to her and before we left. If she knows what she's doing, she could have attached a leech to the right console to give herself access."
Jim was well aware of the station's strength, mostly because Jon had asked him and Scotty to try to get in several years ago, when they had been building the station. Starfleet had wanted to make sure the station was as secure as possible, so the Admiral had asked several teams of officers with considerable computer proficiency to make an attempt. From the outside, neither Jim nor Scotty had been able to get in, not alone and not working together. But from the inside it was a different story. Someone with enough computer knowledge could theoretically use what many in the field called a 'leech', a small device that would act as a back door into the system, giving someone access without the correct credentials. But it would have taken a significant amount of skill, since Yorktown's systems were designed to stop exactly that from happening.
"What did you notice in the air filtration system?" Jim asked, wondering exactly what Scotty had seen that had drawn his attention to the issue.
Scotty frowned. "It's weakening several access sites," he explained. "It's not specifically designed to attack the systems themselves, what it's doing is attacking some of the security checkpoints."
"Making it easier to gain access so that the systems themselves can be messed with," Jim mused.
Sulu glanced up from his position by Chekov. "Does that mean what I think it means?" he asked worriedly.
Jim looked over at the pilot, and saw that Chekov was watching him as well, his own expression concerned.
Scotty was confirming before the Captain could say anything. "If Krall could get into the air filtration system, he could disperse just about anything that could do just about anything. You can't completely shut off the system from the control tower, there's a series of codes that need to be entered from one specific console across the station, precisely to make it more difficult to do what it looks like he's trying to do. If he's attacking security checkpoints, that means he's probably trying to gain access to that console. If he gets it, he could suffocate everyone on the station. He could turn off the artificial gravity, he could release a toxin into the air that would kill everyone. If he gets in there he could do just about anything."
Jim quickly grabbed a communicator earpiece and ran out of the Bridge. He stuffed the technology into his ear so that he could have his hands free as he moved. "Scotty, direct me to the nearest access point. Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, keep looking for Krall and Kodos. Spock, Bones, what's going on up there?"
Spock immediately chimed in, "We have kept the Admiralty updated to the current situation, Captain. They are aware that Krall and Kodos are both assumed to be on the station, and have been scanning security feeds in an attempt to locate them."
"Jim, what the hell do you think you're doing?" McCoy broke in, and Jim could almost feel the incredulity through the comm.
"I can think of three weapons we logged on the Enterprise and stored in our vaults that could do serious damage if released through the vents. We crashed on that planet, they could have easily found one of them. Lenore was way too happy when I told her my plan to find the ship. Also, you said they boarded when we were evacuating, there was no reason for that unless they wanted something."
Uhura and Sulu had thought that was just because Kodos wanted Jim, but it could make equal sense that they had had another agenda as well, only increasing their levels of worry.
Jim didn't break his stride as Scotty instructed him to take a left, and then a right and another right. "No time for this, Bones. Let control know Krall's likely destination. I'm in pursuit." He suddenly caught sight of a very suspicious man with dark skin ducking around a corner, and frowned. It looked like the description Uhura and Sulu had given them of the man who had captured them. "I think I've got eyes on Krall." He kept running.
Spock wasted no time in switching over to the control room frequency and informing them of Krall's likely destination and what Jim had told them.
Carol immediately moved forward and bent down next to the Lieutenant at the Communications console. "Spock, where is Jim now?" she demanded.
There was a brief moment of hesitation before the Vulcan replied, "He is in pursuit."
Carol looked at the Lieutenant next to her. "Switch over to that frequency." There was no room for questioning in her tone. She needed to know what was going on.
Scotty was halfway through a sentence when the Lieutenant complied. "– headed straight up, Jim. Just keep going, he's almost at the console."
Carol was moving the Lieutenant out of the way before she even had time to think about it. Nearby, Jon, Richard, and Chris all considered reprimanding her, but couldn't quite make the effort. They wanted to know as well.
"Jim, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Carol pleaded, knowing that he was putting himself directly in the line of fire, again, and hating it but knowing that even if she could get him to stop she probably wouldn't. This was who he was, and she had told him once that she would never ask him to change. He wouldn't be the man she fell in love with if he didn't constantly endanger himself to save everyone else.
Jim blinked, pausing slightly as he heard his fiancée's voice. But then he pushed on, and continued in his path. "He's going to kill everyone, Carol. If he sabotages the air filtration, we won't be able to do a thing about it."
Jon moved over and leaned over the microphone. "Jim, do you know his plan?"
"Not the details," Jim admitted, his voice breathless – testimony to the sprinting pace he was keeping as he pursued Krall through the station. "But I can think of a few possibilities, and any one of them spells trouble."
Jon nodded somberly. "Do whatever it takes to stop him."
Scotty chimed in, interrupting them. "Jim, he's entering the airlock now. Damn it, he's opening the hatches! You've got minutes."
Jim clenched his jaw grimly and started climbing the ladder that would take him up to the airlock where Krall had stopped. He pushed open the trap door as Scotty's voice sounded in his ear, "Jim, you need to close all the hatches or whatever he releases will enter the system and we won't be able to stop it."
Jim didn't give any sound of acknowledgement. Krall turned to look at him and leered as he recognized the famous Captain. He pulled out a round disk, and Jim fought not to react as he recognized the device.
"I wouldn't come any closer if I were you," Krall warned.
Jim stopped, holding up his hands. "You don't want to do this," he tried, mind working overtime as he tried to figure out a plan.
His comm. was still open, and unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on who was asked – everyone tuned to this specific frequency could hear every word. Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, McCoy, Spock, Carol, April, Jon, Richard, Chris, and everyone else in the control room listened with baited breath.
Krall glowered. "I am righting a wrong," he insisted. "Mixing with aliens. Disgusting. The only thing they need is to be shown their proper place. These blasted talks are sending them the message that they're our equals. Pathetic!"
Jim was disgusted, but tried not to show it. The longer Krall talked, the more time he had to figure out how to stop him from releasing his weapon. "This isn't the way to send your message," he tried.
Krall snorted. "And you're the worst perpetrator. With your Klingon treaty, and your First Contact 'successes'. I know exactly what I'm doing! I watched Earth bend over backwards for these… things. They came with their technology and their false promises, and we believed them! We let them destroy what made us great!"
Jim frowned, confused. "What do you mean?"
"They took away my purpose!" Krall shouted. "I was successful, I knew what my mission was, and then suddenly we weren't there to protect America, we were a 'peacekeeping armada' protecting aliens instead."
Uhura, listening to this conversation with a growing realization, saw her vidscreen pause on one particular image. It was the Captain of the USS Franklin, giving a report on their situation. She frowned, and played the video. As soon as his voice filled the room, she recognized it. It was the same one from the man who had threatened her and Sulu in that cage. The same one that was currently trying to justify his actions to Jim before he attempted to murder everyone on Yorktown.
"Holy shit," she muttered, and then spoke urgently into her comm. Sulu and Chekov looked over at her, confused, but she didn't pay them any attention. "Jim, as crazy as this sounds, I think he's Captain Edison, from the Franklin. I'm looking at his video log right now, and it's him. It looks like him, and it's the same voice. Somehow, he's alive!"
Jim's slightly raised eyebrow was the only indication that he had heard Uhura. His mind immediately worked out the likely scenario. "You were there at Starfleet's foundation," he commented. "You were there when the Vulcans made contact."
Jon and Richard shared a startled look, but Carol just kept staring intently at the microphone of the comm. as if she could somehow be sucked through it to Jim's location so that she could help him.
Spock actually looked visibly shocked when McCoy glanced at him, but he quickly got himself under control.
Krall nodded and glared. "I was a Navy Captain. Proud to serve my country. Then they took away my ship and gave me a new one. I never asked for that!"
Jim frowned. "Captain Edison, I know it must have been jarring, but we had to adapt to survive. It's been several centuries since then, we couldn't just ignore the universe around us anymore."
Krall didn't seem to have been aware just how much time had passed since his final voyage from Earth. "Doesn't matter," he insisted. "We didn't have to take the aliens in and let them dictate how we handled space travel."
Jim took a hesitant step forward. "Edison –"
But Krall was done talking. "Enough!" he roared, and charged Jim.
Jim ducked to the side and landed a punch to Krall's ribs.
And just like that, the fight was on. Krall kept a tight hold on the weapon in his hand, but he clearly knew his way around hand to hand combat.
Jim took a few hits to his head and chest, but managed to give as good as he got. He was fairly certain the ribs he had thought were only bruised when they crashed on that planet were now broken. He also probably had a dislocated shoulder, and potentially a fractured bone in his right leg.
But he was also pretty sure he had broken a few of Krall's ribs and maybe his left arm.
He was just about to attempt a move that would put Krall in a headlock and hopefully end this, when the man gave a loud shout and swung hard. Jim couldn't duck in time, and took the blow across his face. He fell backwards, dazed, and watched through the haze as Krall turned the dial on the weapon. It let out a series of high pitched beeps, and then a cloud rose from the device. Krall grinned and released the device. It hovered in the air, beeping ominously as the cloud swirled in the air, contained to the air directly around the device for now, but not for long.
He turned back to Jim, and was surprised by the Captain's sudden attack; before Krall could do anything, Jim had ducked around his defenses and swung his arms around Krall's neck.
He squeezed tightly, refusing to budge even as Krall landed several more frantic hits. Slowly, the man's attempts weakened, and eventually, Jim felt him slump completely, unconscious.
He lowered Krall to the ground, and took a few desperate gulps of air. "Scotty," he gasped, "Krall released his weapon. Remember Tarellia? He got the sample. I'm trying to close the hatches now." He quickly moved to the nearest one, climbing up a short ladder on the wall so that he could twist the handle closed.
Everyone from the Enterprise knew exactly what Jim was talking about. Months ago, they had come across the planet Tarellia, and a biological weapon that had been quick, effective, and utterly destructive.
"Hurry, Jim," Scotty's voice was frantic. "We can't let that get into Yorktown's air system. That weapon killed two million Tarellians in less than two days. If it gets into Yorktown, it could kill everyone in a matter of hours."
Jim grimaced and moved to the next corner of the room. He winced as his ribs throbbed in time with his heart, but still climbed the ladder to close the second hatch. "Two hatches closed. I can't put this thing back though, Scotty. I need other options."
He quickly moved the third hatch, and out of the corner of his eye saw the cloud that was emerging from the disk expand to nearly double its previous size. He was running out of time.
The third closed with no issues, but the fourth one gave him some trouble. With a loud grunt, he managed to close it, and then had to wonder what happened next.
In the control room, Jon leaned over and muttered to Richard, "It's contained, but what's it doing to Jim? I remember reading the report on that situation on Tarellia, he needs to get out soon."
Richard shrugged helplessly, but a warning look told Jon not to bring that up with Carol, who already looked one step away from shattering completely.
"Got it!" Scotty's shout was very welcome. "Jim, you're going to shut down the air to the rest of the station. We'll have about fifteen minutes before it has to be turned back on. I need you to open up the northwest stream. That'll take anything straight to the ship entrance bay. Control, can you open the hatch? The weapon will get sucked out to space and die, and then Jim can turn the air back on."
Commodore Paris didn't look thrilled at the solution, but she was experienced enough, and knew enough about Captain Kirk and his brilliant crew, to know that if this was what they were suggesting, it was their only option.
Jim immediately headed to the small computer console in the airlock. He started typing, while a Lieutenant in the control room stood by ready to open the bay on command.
Scotty hesitated for a moment once the Captain let him know he was ready. "Jim, you'll have about three seconds to close it once it's open. It has to suck the weapon out, but if you don't close it in time, you'll be sucked out too."
Carol let out a soft gasp and angrily wiped a few tears away. "Jim, surely there has to be another way?"
Jim shook his head regretfully, knowing she couldn't see him. "I have to, Carol. This is our only option and we don't have time to waste."
Jon cut in quickly; he understood Carol's concern of course, but she needed to collect herself and remain professional. "Be careful, Jim."
Jim took a deep breath and typed in the first sequence that would open up the air stream he needed. "Carol, no matter what happens, never forget how much I love you," he pleaded. "I gave you that ring because I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I'm not planning for the rest of my life to last the next five minutes."
Carol clenched her left hand into a fist, the beautiful ring standing out brilliantly on her fourth finger, as she let out a small snort of amusement. A few nearby officers hid their smiles.
Her voice hardened as she got herself under control. "I swear to god Jim, if you let yourself get sucked into space and leave me to raise this baby alone, I will find a way to bring you back and kill you myself."
There was a visible reaction from several officers in the room, but only Jon and Richard seemed to jerk back as if physically hit.
Chris was just as stunned as the others, but managed to get himself under control quickly and couldn't help but smile softly at Carol's comment as he came up behind her and rested a hand gently on her shoulder. She looked up at him, eyes filled with unshed tears, and he squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.
He didn't say anything, but the gesture helped to ground Carol, as Jim let out a soft huff of air that could have been a soft laugh, and responded, "Duly noted." Jim took one more deep breath and let it out slowly. "I love you, Carol. More than life itself." Some part of his brain winced at how much this scene seemed to be imitating his father's final moments, and he refused to let this play out the same way. Without waiting for a reply, he quickly entered the final command. The room suddenly filled with a whirlwind of air as the hatch opened, and Jim gripped the console tightly.
Unfortunately, he had made the classic mistake of not paying attention to the enemy he had downed. Krall completely blindsided him as he lunged, pulling Jim away from the console. The two fought frantically, before Jim landed a solid kick to Krall's chest that had him falling into the weapon just milliseconds before it was sucked out of the opening in the airlock. Jim made a desperate lunge for the computer, but couldn't grab onto anything as he felt himself be pulled backwards and out of the airlock.
"Scotty, any plan b would be appreciated right now!" Jim called out, trying to turn himself around so that he could at least see where he was going.
Scotty immediately started typing, trying to come up with something, anything. Damn it, off the cuff plans were Jim's sort of thing, not his! If control closed the door immediately after the weapon exited, Jim would likely slam into it with all the force of a fifty foot drop onto concrete, killing him just as surely as being sucked out into space would.
In the control room, Carol was actively crying now, and April had to draw her away from the comm., hugging her comfortingly.
Jon and Richard were conferring with the techs, searching for solutions, but they were telling him the same thing about closing the bay that Scotty had determined on his own. Commodore Paris had already dispatched the Engineering lead in the Control Room for that shift to go to the console and stand by, ready to turn the air back on for the rest of the station once they had confirmation that the weapon had been taken care of. Jim would have been able to do that himself, if it weren't for the unexpected change of plans, but now that he was otherwise occupied they needed a backup, and they only had ten more minutes before they needed to get the air back on.
Turning himself around wasn't exactly a blessing for Jim, as he could now see the open bay getting closer and closer. Krall was in front of him, but the man wasn't moving anymore. It looked like parts of his skin had peeled off, likely an accelerated reaction to the weapon that had covered him completely.
Fifteen seconds now. Ten. Five.
Jim closed his eyes, and wished that he had been able to offer Carol something more than repeating his father's last words to his mother.
Please review!