Author's Note:
Hello all. Here is chapter four and we are about to learn a bit more about the situation and what has happened to Jim, Scotty and Pavel. I thank everyone who has been supporting this story and I hope you enjoy this, now on with the chapter.
I own nothing.
The First Player
They arrived at the bridge quickly and were soon at their stations while Spock stood calmly in front of the Command Chair with McCoy hovering to his side and slightly behind him. Everyone looked to the veiwscreen and the face of the unknown caller appeared.
It was a human man with an oddly familiar facial structure. His face showed definite age lines and grey peppering his dark hair, he had grey-blue eyes which appeared cold and calculating and he looked to be somewhere around his fifties. As the man appeared on the screen there was a flash of something in Spock's eyes which only McCoy saw before it was gone again.
"Commander Spock." The man had a hard voice with a twinge of a Russian accent to it.
Spock merely looked mildly interested as he replied, "You are familiar with my name yet I do not recall ever meeting you before."
The man snorted, "Please Commander, I know you're not stupid. Your face was plastered across the news with the rest of your crew for months after what happened in San Francisco, there are few in the Federation who don't know who you are after that."
"Then may I ask what you are contacting us for? I assume you have something to do with our missing crewmembers."
The man gave a dark smile, "And you would be right, I suppose you wish to know what I've done with them."
Though no-one answered there was an increase in the tension around the bridge which the man seemed to pick up on, "Well I guess it would be unfair to keep you in the dark about it."
He snapped his fingers and the image changed, it showed Jim, Scotty and Pavel kneeling on a hard metal floor with their hands tightly restrained behind their backs, straps wound around their torsos pinning their upper arms to their sides. They were also blindfolded and there was bruising which indicated that they had been struck brutally across the face. Nyota gasped with horror as her hands shot to her mouth and tears glistened in her eyes, Hikaru's face morphed into one of rage and he clenched his hands around his station, Leonard felt his stomach drop at the sight and found himself fighting to suppress the fear he felt for his family members, Spock tensed slightly and his eyes flashed with emotion before he regained control and relaxed his body giving the outward appearance of calm and control.
The image of their captured crew was replaced with the face of the mysterious man and Spock spoke sounding unmoved by what he'd seen, "Why have you taken members of our crew and what do you wish from us?"
The man grinned as if amused by the commander, "Nothing except that you contact Admiral Archer and inform him of what's happened. I'm sure that he'll be willing to listen to me when he hears about it."
"If you wished to speak with the Admiral why did you not contact him directly? Why would you kidnap our crewmembers and have us contact him for you?"
The man's smile widened, "Because what I want cannot be gained through the normal channels and I want you to inform him so that you know your position in this. The Enterprise and her crew are the pawns in this little game and I'm sure you can work out what'll happen if you should try anything I don't approve of. Inform Archer of what has happened here and tell him that Lientov Chekov will speak to him soon."
The connection cut leaving the bridge in silence.
PS-The enemy revealed and I will explain a bit more about him in the next chapter (though I'm certain many of you have already guessed who he is). Please review and let me know what you think.