"Where is the Captain, Mr. Sulu?" Spock asked, walking across the front of the bridge and standing in front of the pilot's console.
"Our sensor array's down, sir." Sulu answered. "I can't find him."
The main screen flashed behind them, and the image of Admiral Marcus' empty chair appeared, followed quickly by Harrison pushing Kirk into view, holding a phaser to the back of his head.
"I'm going to make this very simple for you." Harrison said.
"Captain." Spock said with concern.
"Your crew for my crew." Harrison continued.
"You betrayed us." Spock hissed.
"Oh, you are smart, Mr. Spock." Harrison replied mockingly.
"Spock, don't-" Kirk started to say quickly, before Harrison slammed his phaser against the back of Kirk's head. Carol watched in concern, still holding her leg, when Kirk slumped to the ground at Harrison's feet.
Spock took a step forward, as if he could do something to help, as members of the bridge crew stood up around him, all focus now on Harrison.
"Mr. Spock, give me my crew." Harrison repeated.
"And what will you do when you get them?" Spock asked.
"Continue the work we were doing before we were banished." Harrison answered.
"Which, as I understand it, involves the mass genocide of any being that you find to be less than superior." Spock replied, referencing what he had found in the records. "Not all records of you were burned, it seems."
"Shall we destroy you, Mr. Spock?" Harrison asked. "Or will you give me what I want?"
Spock was silent for a moment, considering his options. "We have no transporter capabilities." He finally said.
"Fortunately, mine are fully functional." Harrison replied. "Drop your shields."
"If I do so, I have no guarantee that you will not destroy the Enterprise." Spock pointed out.
"Well then, let's play this out logically, Mr. Spock." Harrison sighed. "Firstly, I will kill your captain to demonstrate my resolve. Then, if yours holds, I will have no choice but to kill you and your entire crew." His annoyed look turned into a satisfied smile as he spoke.
"If you destroy our ship, you will also destroy your own people." Spock replied.
"Your crew requires oxygen to survive, mine does not." Harrison shot back. "I will target your life support systems, located behind the aft nacelle."
Behind him, Carol watched as Kirk slowly tried to pull himself up, but he was too weak from the beating that Harrison had given him.
"And after every single person aboard your ship suffocates, I will walk over your cold corpses to recover my people." Harrison finished. "Now, shall we begin?"
Spock stared at Harrison angrily for a moment, but eventually broke his glare, looking down at Sulu. "Lower shields." He ordered.
Sulu nodded, clicking a switch on his console.
"A wise choice, Mr. Spock." Harrison said, before angrily kicking Kirk in the stomach, sending the captain groaning to the ground.
Harrison walked to the Vengeance's main console, activating the beaming targeting function. On the larger ship's main screen, a diagram of the Enterprise appeared, zooming in on the weapons bay and locking onto the projectiles.
"I see that your seventy-two torpedoes are still in their tubes." Harrison said. "If they are not mine, Commander, I will know it."
"Vulcans do not lie." Spock replied evenly. "The torpedoes are yours."
Harrison clicked a few buttons, activating the beaming process. Inside of the weapons bay, white beaming trails circled every one of the torpedoes, transferring them to Hanger 7 of the Vengeance. A camera view of the hangar appeared on the main screen, and Harrison smiled as he saw the torpedoes appear. They were indeed his, and his long crusade to save his people was at last complete.
"Thank you, Mr. Spock." He whispered, relief filling his voice.
"I have fulfilled your terms." Spock said. "Now fulfill mine."
Kirk slowly began to push himself upwards again, as Scotty regained consciousness and sat up, shaking his head.
"Well, Kirk, it seems apt to return you to your crew." Harrison said, sitting in the Admiral's chair and clicking a few switches. White beaming trails circled around Kirk, Scotty and Carol, sending them back to the Enterprise.
"After all, no ship should go down without her captain." Harrison hissed.
Spock turned away from the screen to Sulu when a loud alarm started blaring through the bridge.
"He's locking phasers on us, sir!" Sulu reported.
Kirk, Scotty and Carol appeared inside the cell that Harrison had been held in, looking around, confused. The attending officer turned around at the sound, seeing the three officers inside.
Scotty ran at the glass and kicked it. "Get us out of here now!" He yelled.
Before the officer could react, the entire ship jolted, and Scotty was thrown against the wall.
The Vengeance had resumed its firing on the Enterprise, firing all cannons and torpedoes at the smaller ship, causing explosions to appear across its hull. Only now, the smaller ship barely had enough power to stand up to it.
The bridge jolted repeatedly with every blast that hit it, sparks raining down from the roof. Red lights and blaring alarms filled the white room.
"Shields at six percent!" Sulu yelled.
"The torpedoes!" Spock yelled back. "How much time, Lieutenant?"
"Twelve seconds, sir!" Another bridge officer answered.
"Crew of the Enterprise, prepare for imminent proximity detonation." Spock said into the chair's comms, relaying the message across the ship.
"What's he talking about? What detonation?" Scotty asked, while he and Kirk helped to carry Carol down a hallway toward the med bay. Sparks flew down from the ceiling while red-shirted officers scrambled around them.
"The torpedoes." Kirk realized. "He armed the damn torpedoes!"
Inside the Vengeance's Hanger 7, the 72 torpedoes finished their countdown, their small screens lighting up red, announcing their simultaneous explosions. The explosions tore through the lower hull of the Vengeance, damaging it severely and ending its attack.
In the bridge, the explosions jolted the entire ship, sending Harrison flying forward onto a console. The explosions continued to rock the Vengeance, destroying its engineering bay, effectively knocking out all systems that the ship needed to function properly. As he pulled himself up, sparks flew up all around him, and he realized what had happened.
"No!" He screamed, the anger and sadness in his voice indistinguishable.
But there was no-one to hear his anguished cry, as explosions continued to rock the ship.
"Sir, their weapons have been knocked out." Sulu reported with a smile, turning to face the captain's chair. "Not, bad, Commander."
"Thank you, Lieutenant." Spock nodded.
"Bones!" Kirk yelled, as he and Scotty entered the med bay with Carol. Almost every bed had an injured officer on it.
"Nurse!" Scotty called.
Uhura and a nurse ran over and took Carol from Scotty and Kirk, leading her away carefully.
"Good to see you, Jim." McCoy nodded, approaching them slowly.
"Who helped Spock detonate those torpedoes?" Kirk asked, slightly breathless.
"I did." McCoy answered.
Kirk looked surprised for a moment, before returning to his main thought. "He killed Harrison's crew." He said, in disbelief at Spock's action. He knew that the Vulcan side of Spock repressed emotion, but he didn't know that it would go this far.
"Spock's cold, but he's not that cold." McCoy corrected. "I've got Harrison's crew." He pointed to the other side of the med bay, where Kirk turned to see all of the cryo tubes containing the frozen crew piled up. "Seventy-two human popsicles, safe and sound in their cryo tubes."
"Son of a bitch!" Kirk exclaimed, impressed by Spock's plan, and that it had worked. Before he could ask anything else, the lights in the med bay flickered off.
All across the ship, the blue lights slowly shut off, being replaced by the red glow of emergency power, and the usual hum of the ship died down to silence. The bridge was suddenly shrouded in darkness, except for the glowing of the consoles.
"Sir, the central power grid is failing!" A bridge officer reported to Spock.
"Switch to auxiliary power." The Vulcan ordered.
"Auxiliary power failing, sir." An insect-like alien officer reported.
Spock didn't ask any more questions. He knew what the answers would be.
The Enterprise slowly started to turn in space, all of the systems keeping it in the air now shut down, and began descending downward through a field of debris, towards Earth.
"Commander, our ship's caught in Earth's gravity!" Sulu reported.
"Can we stop?" Spock asked.
"I can't do anything." Sulu answered, looking around hopelessly.
The Enterprise started to rotate faster as it descended, an explosion booming on its less damaged thruster.
In the engineering bay, Chekov ran across the warp core, holding onto a large spire when the explosion rocked the area. He reached a console, where a large screen had a flashing red window that read "WARP CORE OFFLINE".
"Clear the area!" He yelled across the bay.
Inside of the med bay, nurses were busy securing patients to their beds, while nearly being thrown off of their feet every few seconds.
"Engage emergency lockdown!" McCoy yelled, running across the bay to ensure that Carol was properly in place. "I hope you don't get seasick." He said, trying a joke to reassure her.
"Do you?" Carol asked.
"Yeah." McCoy nodded.
"Lieutenant, sound evacuation, all decks." Spock ordered sharply.
"Aye, sir." A blue-shirted officer nodded, activating the signal on his console.
"As acting Captain, I order you to abandon this ship." Spock addressed the bridge crew. He clicked a button on the captain's chair, and securing belts folded down across his chest. "I will remain behind and divert all power to life support and evacuation shuttle bays."
The bridge crew just stared at him silently, while the robotic evacuation announcement echoed through the room.
"I order you to abandon the ship!" Spock repeated, with more urgency, and a slight bit of panic.
"With all due respect, Commander, we're not going anywhere." Sulu replied, turning back forward and clicking a button, securing belts descending over his chest.
The other members of the bridge crew did the same, one by one.
"One day I've been off this ship! One bloody day!" Scotty yelled, as he and Kirk ran down a hallway.
As they turned a corner, the Enterprise pitched, causing the hallway to rotate. Sparks exploded outward as Kirk and Scotty fell over, grabbing wildly at the grooves in the walls, trying not to fall down the long distance.
"Gravity systems are failing." Spock yelled. "Hold on! Hold on!"
Kirk and Scotty had continued to run down the hallway once the Enterprise had levelled out, but it had continued to turn, and now they were holding onto the large arches on a bridge. They both tried to grab a female officer who slid by them, down towards a hallway. Kirk stared after her in shock as she disappeared from view, his words to Pike echoing in his mind.
"Do you know how many crew members I've lost since I became captain? Not one!"
The evacuation warning again resounded through the hallways, snapping Kirk back to his present situation.
"There won't be time for evacuation if we don't get power to stabilize the damn ship!" Scotty shouted.
"Can we restore it?" Kirk asked.
"Only from engineering!" Scotty answered. "We have to get back to the warp core!"
The Enterprise returned upward, allowing Scotty and Kirk to stand up on the bridge. Scotty looked up, shocked still at the sight of officers hanging over balconies on the levels above them, as well as the sparking debris strewn around. He had never seen the ship like this.
"Scotty, we've got to get the power back on!" Kirk yelled at him. "Come on!"
The Enterprise slowly increased its speed of descent as it got closer to Earth. Kirk and Scotty were now running down an empty hallway, hoping it was because all of the officers nearby had gotten away. They were waiting for the ship to rotate now, and when it happened, they hesitantly but successfully continued their sprint along the side of the wall. The only disadvantage was the change in terrain, the difficulties of which was exemplified for them in the form of an approaching hallway. From their current position on the wall, it was a straight drop away from their destination.
"Scotty, we have to jump!" Kirk yelled, as a blue-shirted officer fell down the hallway, smashing against the hall's corner.
"What?" Scotty yelled back.
"Jump! Jump!" Kirk yelled, throwing himself across the hallway's gaping entrance, successfully landing and continuing his run.
"Oh, God!" Scotty screamed as he jumped, but still managed to clear the distance.
A large crack started to tear through the floor of the Enterprise's bridge, but it was, surprisingly, the least of Spock's concerns.
"Emergency power at fifteen percent, and dropping!" Officer Darwin reported.
Kirk and Scotty had made it to the engineering bay, and were running down multiple metal walkways, past enormous fuel tanks, towards the warp core. All of the engineers were seemingly evacuated, which was convenient for a clearer path, but it didn't change the ship's motions.
The engineering bay was filled with a droning mechanical moan as the bay shifted, causing Kirk and Scotty to quickly lie down and hold onto the metal bars of the walkway's railing. But before the ship leveled out, they both looked up to see a large piece of debris fall down towards them, hitting their walkway with a bone-jarring impact. As it flew downward below them, the walkway creaked and groaned.
"Jim!" Scotty yelled.
"Hold on!" Kirk yelled back.
Both he and Scotty knew what was probably going to happen next, and now they were just waiting. Thankfully, they felt the ship begin to turn upwards again, and they rolled with it back onto the walkway, getting up and running down the rest of it as fast as they could. As soon as they reached the next staircase down, the walkway buckled and broke, falling down several metres before crashing into another metal structure, and shattering into pieces.
"Captain!"
Scotty and Kirk turned at the young voice, to see Chekov standing a few levels below them.
"What's he still doing here?" Scotty asked.
"I don't know, but we could use his help." Kirk replied, starting to run back down the walkways.
The three of them joined up, running through the rest of the walkways into a long series of winding hallways filled with steam and tubes. Kirk was leading the other two officers, who were having a rapid conversation about the ship's current functionality.
"Even if we get the warp core online, we've still got to redirect the power!" Scotty was saying.
"He's right, Captain!" Chekov called up to Kirk.
"What are you talking about?" Kirk asked, the three of them stopping in a clear area of the hallway.
"Someone has to hit the manual override." Scotty explained, turning to Chekov. "Laddie, there's a switch, it's near the-"
"Behind the deflector dish!" Chekov yelled. "I'll flip the switch!" He took off running, reaching a metal staircase and beginning to ascend.
"Let's go!" Kirk yelled, and he and Scotty ran in the same direction, past the staircase and towards the warp core.
As soon as Chekov reached the top of the staircase, the ship pitched, sending him sliding, screaming downwards across the floor.
Kirk and Scotty ran into the crowded shuttle bay, and stopped in shock at what they saw. Shuttles were flying off of their moorings and smashing against the ground, while officers lost their footing with the turning ship, flying across the ground.
Everyone was trapped.
"Mr. Sulu, divert any remaining power to stabilizers." Spock ordered.
"Doing what I can, sir." Sulu replied nervously. "Doing what I can."
The ship had turned upright again, and Chekov had reached the long hallway behind the deflector dish. He fell to his knees, sliding a few feet across the floor, and stopping at a large, reinforced console at the end of the hallway. He rapidly clicked the opening switches, straining at the heavy weight as he removed the console's top, to reveal a large red lever that would activate the manual override. Chekov strained with all of his effort to lift the lever, and pushed it down the other way, and a series of positive-sounding mechanical beeps started to appear.
"Core misaligned. Danger."
The words echoed through the warp core chamber as Kirk and Scotty finally reached it, Scotty running around to the core's main console, all of the hope disappearing from his face as he absorbed the information on the screen.
"Oh, no, no, no, no! " Scotty yelled, slamming a first down on the console's keyboard.
"What?" Kirk asked, breathless from their run.
"The housings are misaligned!" Scotty explained. "There's no way we can redirect the power!" He turned slowly to the captain, nothing but panic on his face. "The ship's dead, sir. She's gone."
But Kirk had lost enough today. He looked over his shoulder at the warp core, back to Scotty, and silently refused to lose everything, and everyone.
"No, she's not." Jim muttered, turning and running into the warp core.
"Wait, Jim!' Scotty yelled, following him. "If we go in there, we'll die!"
Kirk ignored him, dashing through the complicated structure of the warp core towards the entrance.
"Do you hear me?" Scotty continued. "The radiation will kill us!"
Again, Jim didn't answer.
"Will you listen to me? What the hell are you doing?" Scotty demanded, more panic in his voice when Kirk reached the entrance to the main core and started typing into the activation pad, ignoring the radiation warning sign on the door.
"I'm opening the door. I'm going in." Kirk answered evenly, as if it was the most normal answer.
"That door is there to stop us from getting irradiated!" Scotty shouted, pointing wildly at the door. "We'd be dead before we made the climb!"
Kirk paused before he finished the activation sequence, standing up straight, not looking at Scotty.
"You're not making the climb." He whispered.
Kirk whirled around and punched Scotty in the temple, knocking the Scottish man out instantly. Kirk caught Scotty before he landed, setting him down slowly in a chair and clicking a few consoles on the console in front of it, securing belts folding down over Scotty.
Kirk ran back over to the door, finishing the sequence and pulling it open, running into the heavily radiated chamber. The shaking of the ship made him pause, but he recovered, advancing into the chamber. The clicked the opening switches of a panel on the wall, the door of a tunnel opening at his feet. Kirk got down and crawled on his hands and knees through the tunnel, refusing to give up at this point.
Eventually the tunnel opened up into the enormous round structure of the interior warp core. Kirk slowly climbed his way up to the misalignment in the core, but it was several feet above with no convenient staircase nearby. Kirk stared upwards for a few seconds, wondering if he could just stop now. If, by some miracle, the core would realign itself and they would all be safe.
Kirk started to climb.
He felt his ship spinning as he climbed up the large, black tubes that were wound around the core, having to pause every now and then at a strange feeling of weakness filling him. The radiation was starting to catch up with him.
"If we don't get power or shields back online, we're going to be incinerated on re-entry!" Sulu yelled.
Spock looked down, once again preparing himself for death.
The Enterprise entered the Earth's atmosphere, and the outer layers of the hull started to burn away.
Kirk finally managed to pull himself up onto the warp core's main structure. He looked at the two pieces of the misaligned core, trying to figure out a way to fix it. He walked around to the other side of the core, grabbing the upper part of the disconnected structure. He started to slam his feet downward against the lower half, trying to pull it back into place. With every kick, the core shifted slightly, and Kirk kicked harder, finally seeing a solution, and willing to do anything. He started to yell with the effort as he kicked, and smiled when he heard a mechanical hum start. He gave the core a final kick, and it realigned, energy glowing between the two core halves. All of the power returned to the ship all at once, all lights in the chamber turning on, and the energy sent Kirk flying backwards, smashing against the wall and falling to the bottom of the room.
"Warp core is back online!" Sulu yelled happily, as everyone in the bridge smiled at the returning lights. "Shields online!"
"Maximum thrusters, Mr. Sulu!" Spock ordered.
Every thruster on the underside of the Enterprise fired at once, the burning of its hull now stopped. The Enterprise continued downward through a layer of clouds, but eventually the thrusters kicked in, stopping the ship and slowly raising it upwards. The thrusters slowly disengaged as the ship stabilized, severely damaged on the outside, but functional enough to keep it flying.
Sulu laughed in relief, while members of the bridge crew reported the restored systems to Spock.
"Shields at full capacity, sir."
"Power fully online."
"Altitude stabilizing." Sulu said, turning to face the Commander.
"It's a miracle." Officer Darwin said.
Spock clicked a button on the chair, and his securing belts folded away. "There are no such things." He muttered.
"Engineering to bridge." The comms on the captain's chair chirped. "Mr. Spock?"
"Mr. Scott." Spock answered.
"Sir, you'd better get down here." Scotty said, sounding pained. "Better hurry."
Spock's suspicion about the Enterprise's sudden functionality amplified, and he realized that something wasn't right. When he realized that he had heard nothing from the captain, he got up from the chair, sprinting across the bridge to the elevator, where he brushed past Uhura as she exited it.
Spock didn't slow his run until he reached the warp core, stopping in front of Scotty. The Scottish man shook his head, looking over at the warp core's entrance. Spock quickly walked over to the reinforced glass door, looking shocked at what he saw behind it.
He turned back to Scotty. "Open it." He said urgently.
"The decontamination process is not complete. You'd flood the whole compartment." Scotty replied. "The door's locked, sir."
Spock turned back to the door, kneeling down. On the other side, Kirk was leaning against the door, multiple cuts in his face, his eyes bloodshot, and breathing heavily. The captain slowly moved against the wall next to the door, reaching up and pulling down a small lever. Behind him, the tunnel that led into the warp core slid shut. Kirk leaned back against the wall, that small action seemingly draining him of all energy. Spock just watched him, silent and shocked.
"Did it work?" Kirk croaked weakly, his voice slightly muffled by the glass.
"The ship is stabilized." Spock nodded. "You saved us."
"So did you." Kirk replied. "Good idea with the torpedoes."
"It is what you would have done." Spock said.
"And this..." Kirk trailed off, clearly straining to speak. "...this is what you would have done. It's only logical."
Spock didn't have an answer, but he just continued to stare at Kirk, almost in amazement. He hadn't known that the captain was willing to go this far, no matter what he had seen.
"I'm scared, Spock." Kirk admitted.
Spock's emotionless barrier started to break, and his sadness appeared, his humanity started to show.
"Help me not be." Kirk begged, a tear running down his eye. "How do you choose not to feel?"
Spock shook his head, his eyes wet. "I do not know." He replied, his voice slightly wavering. "Right now I am failing."
Kirk didn't seem disappointed by this, but he instead slowly looked up at the Vulcan. "I want you to know why I couldn't let you die." He said softly. "Why I went back for you in the volcano."
"Because you are my friend." Spock said it as a statement, but it had a slight question in it as well.
"And I always will be." Kirk nodded, eliminating the question.
Kirk started to cough weakly, but repressed the cold feeling expanding inside of him to place his hand against the door's glass. After a few seconds, Spock held his hand in a Vulcan salute against the glass, trying to comfort the captain. The two men held the sign of friendship for seconds, Spock eventually breaking his gaze from it to look at Kirk.
The captain was staring sadly at their hands, smiling and on the edge of crying, but too drained to fully manage either. Kirk slowly turned to look at Spock, who was now threatening to break into tears more and more. Kirk's mouth managed to twitch into a smile at his Vulcan friend, before his face stopped moving, and his eyes went blank. Kirk's hand slid down the glass, stopping limply at the bottom of the door.
Spock slowly brought his hand away from the glass, failing to repress his emotions as tears fell down his cheeks. He stared down at the floor, completely lost in his grief.
Scotty cried as he watched the Vulcan, and Uhura ran into the core structure behind him, stopping when she saw Kirk and Spock. She put a hand to her moth when she realized what had happened, and how it was affecting Spock.
Spock hadn't felt despair to this degree since the destruction of Vulcan, and the loss of his mother. At that time, he had tried to preserve the Vulcan side of himself, for his people. But through Kirk, and through Uhura, he had learned the value of his human half. He had gotten his revenge against those responsible for the deaths of his mother and his people, and a strange sense of closure, even if he still remembered the pain.
But now, the person who had caused the death of his friend was still out there, and Spock's pain wasn't fading. It was amplifying. It was evolving into anger.
Spock started breathing heavily as he stared at the floor. His tears were forgotten, every cell in his body now turned to rage. He looked up into the air, and let out a scream. It was a primal scream, one that encompassed all of his grief, pain, sadness, rage, and frustration.
And, above all, it was a scream for revenge.
Outside of the Enterprise, the enormous black shape of the Vengeance plummeted downward past the smaller ship, a long black trail of smoke emanating from its broken thrusters. Its proximity to the Enterprise shook the smaller ship, and the black ship continued downward towards the planet.
"God, that was close!" Sulu exclaimed, watching the exterior sensors.
Inside the Vengeance's bridge, Harrison stumbled towards the main piloting consoles, his long, black hair swinging scraggily, the jolting of the ship constantly threatening to knock him off of his feet. He held onto the console when he reached it, managing to maintain balance.
"Set destination, Starfleet Headquarters!" Harrison yelled, activating the voice control function while he looked down at the console, watching the descent path of the ship.
"Engines compromised." The robotic voice responded. "Cannot guarantee destination. Confirm?"
As sparks flew from multiple consoles around him, Harrison looked up out of the main viewport, all of his anger and bitterness towards the organization that had caused him so much pain summed up in his answer.
"Confirm." Harrison hissed.
Down among the streets of San Francisco, citizen's days were interrupted at the sound of an enormous booming echoing through the sky. Conversations paused, heads turned, and confusion turned to shock at the sight of the Vengeance descending rapidly towards them. People began to run to spots on the street or in their homes where the falling ship was more visible, and Starfleet officers ran out of the headquarters, watching from stone walkways. The Vengeance wasn't heading towards the main building, but its current path was still sending it directly towards the centre of the city, falling lower and lower towards the San Francisco Bay.
The enormous ship smashed into Alcatraz, destroying the island with its lower dish. It then crashed into the Bay, sending a tidal wave of water upwards into the air. But the Vengeance kept moving forward, beginning to cleave into the city.
Citizens at this point started to scream and run, but the Vengeance was moving too fast, and smashed a trail into the futuristic glass architecture that made up the San Francisco skyline. As it continued its destructive path into the city, the thrusters disconnected from the main dish, and the giant, black, circular body of the ship slowly turned upwards as it was caught on the ground. It slowed to a stop, the buildings presenting no obstacle and shattering around it while the dish crumpled, small explosions appearing all across it and sending debris down to the ground. There was no way of telling how much damage had been done, or how many were dead.
For Harrison, the Vengeance had lived up to its name.
"Search the enemy ship for signs of life." Spock snarled as he ran onto the bridge, Uhura following him.
"Sir, there's no way anyone could survive that," Sulu tried to reason.
"He could." Spock replied.
Sulu was taken aback by Spock's intensity, and nodded. "Yes, sir."
The front of the Vengeance's bridge had been ripped open to show what remained of the city below it, while the sounds of sirens from approaching emergency vehicles. The ship was dead now, but there was one thing inside still alive: Harrison.
The augmented man groaned as he kept his strong grip on the sides of the console, the only injury on him a small cut on his cheek, before he rolled over, trying to find a way out. But the dish was now pointed straight down, and he slid across the floor, grunting with every bump that he hit. He was eventually stopped by a piece of the floor jutting outward, and it managed to hold his weight.
Harrison slowly pulled himself to his feet, looking down at the city while he held some cables that were dangling nearby for support. He was intimidated by the distance at first; the prospect of jumping the entire way down didn't seem like the best idea to him. But he overcame his brief fear with the memory of what he had just survived, and jumped out of the bridge, hitting the outside hull of the Vengeance and sliding down it towards the ground.
"Whoa! He just jumped thirty metres!" Sulu exclaimed, as the bridge crew watched the scanner monitoring the Vengeance.
"Can we beam him up?" Spock asked.
"He's moving with too much debris, I have no incoming signal." Chekov said, having sat back in his old seat. "But it may be possible to beam you down, sir."
Spock turned to Uhura, who gave him a short nod. The Vulcan turned and ran out of the bridge. As he made his way the transporter room, he picked up a phaser and a holster belt, hooking it up and getting ready for his landing.
"Prepare for coordinates." He said to the transport officer, who nodded.
"Enter three-five-one-seven by two-five-nine-eight." Chekov's voice crackled through the room's comms.
"Coordinates confirmed." The officer nodded, adding in the numbers and activating the beaming.
The white lights trailed quickly around Spock as he clicked the phaser to its kill setting, preparing himself for what he might encounter.
Harrison pushed his way between two Starfleet officers who were running towards the wreckage site. He had managed to make it far away from what remained of the Vengeance, and was now focusing on escaping altogether, to try to form his next move. He grabbed a long black coat from a nearby café table and pulled it on, seemingly free.
The low whirring of beaming appeared, and Harrison turned back into the crowd to see Spock appear, the crowd dispersing away from him. The Vulcan turned his head as soon as the white lights disappeared, and the two met eyes, a mutual hatred cemented between them. But instead of taking chances, Harrison turned and ran, Spock following him without hesitation.
Harrison continued to sprint away, weaving through people in an effort to lose Spock. When that effort failed, he took a sharp turn into a building, running up a short staircase and smashing through a glass door, letting nothing stop him. But Spock's focus on catching him kept him in pursuit, through the outside of the building and back out into the streets.
People got out of their way, seeming confused as they ran, but the two ignored everyone else, focusing on the path ahead of them.
Inside the Enterprise's med bay, McCoy opened a light blue body bag to reveal the blank face of Kirk. A team had transported him up to the bay, placing the captain in the bag after Spock had told them of his death. Still McCoy had held onto hope, but looking at Kirk's face, that hope disappeared. He clenched his fists by his side and began to turn, while Carol slowly approached the table, looking down at the fallen captain. Behind her, all officers inside the med bay looked at the table, surrounding it slowly.
Before McCoy walked away to grieve alone, his eyes already wet, he turned back, placing his hand to Kirk's neck to search for a pulse, for anything to try to deny what he was seeing. For a few seconds, he felt nothing, and he bowed his head, squeezing his eyes shut.
And then he felt the slight movement underneath his finger.
Hope returned instantly, and McCoy looked up, blinking away tears with a look of disbelief on his face. Carol recognized the look, and when she and McCoy joined eyes, they both had the same idea.
"Get me a cryo tube, now!" McCoy yelled.
Harrison continued his sprint towards the end of the elevated city level that he had been running on. At the end of his vision, he could see a garbage barge port, and a large red shuttle starting to rise into the air. He increased his running speed, pushing several people to the ground when he ran into them, and leaped into the air at the edge, landing smoothly on top of the red barge. He turned back to see if Spock had managed to keep up with him. He saw Spock still a fair distance away, so he turned, standing up and relishing in the victory of his escape.
"Even if it would have been more satisfactory to kill him." Harrison thought.
Spock continued his run, also increasing his speed at the sight of Harrison getting away. He jumped over the edge of the elevation, barely managing to grab a landing leg beneath the garbage barge, yelling at the strain of holding on as it started to fly away on its designated path. But he ignored the effort, focusing on climbing to the top of the small shuttle.
Unfortunately, Harrison heard Spock grunting with effort at his climb, and when the Vulcan came into view, all of Harrison's desire for revenge reappeared. The augmented man ran across the barge, stomping down on Spock's arm and causing the Vulcan's phaser to drop, spinning downward out of view.
Harrison reached down and grabbed Spock, yelling in anger as he lifted the Vulcan and threw him across the barge, where he smashed into one of the two large panels pointing up into the sky, preventing him from flying over the edge.
Harrison advanced on Spock, who managed to dodge his first punch, but when Spock struck Harrison across the face, and the man gave no reaction, instead spinning and punching again, Spock realized that he was going to be on the back foot of this fight. So Spock went defensive, opting to block and dodge Harrison's powerful blows, but still trying to get some hits in. The result was Spock's punches being relatively ineffectual while he tried his best to dodge Harrison's fists. The barge sailed on through the sky, adding the wind to Spock's list of disadvantages.
Eventually, Spock managed to knock Harrison's fists away and strike in quickly, grabbing his enemy in a Vulcan neck pinch. Normally, this would have immediately ended the fight, but instead of instantly knocking out Harrison, the man simply yelled in pain, arching his head back, but resisting. He slowly fell to his knees, still yelling, but managed to reach over and tear Spock's hand away, dodging the Vulcan's punch and giving him two across the face.
Inside the Enterprise's med bay, the medical staff was now rushing all around to complete Dr. McCoy's task. Carol was monitoring Kirk with multiple sensors, all of them telling her that he was alive, but his vitals were slipping.
"Get this guy out of the cryo tube, but keep him in an induced coma." McCoy ordered, as tube was placed next to Kirk. "This tube is the only chance we've got to preserve Kirk's brain function. Maybe it can stabilize his vitals, too."
"How much of Harrison's blood is left?" Carol asked.
"None." McCoy realized, remembering that he had used it all in the tests.
He quickly went to the other side of the med bay, clicking the comms button on a console. "Enterprise to Spock." He called into it. "Spock!"
Harrison had grabbed Spock by the neck and lifted him into the air, and was now staring at him, his eyes filled with rage and hatred. He punched the Vulcan, sending him flying backwards near the edge of the barge. Harrison quickly closed the distance and grabbed Spock's head, lifting the Vulcan up and beginning to squeeze.
Spock could hear small cracking noises, and realized what would happen if he didn't stop Harrison. He did the only thing he could think to do, and placed a hand to Harrison's face, activating Vulcan mind-meld. Harrison clenched his eyes shut and yelled at the sudden flood of unfamiliar thoughts entering his head, but there was no way for him to resist.
Harrison's grip weakened, and he brought his leg up, slamming his knee into Spock's head, ending the connection. Spock fell to the barge's surface while Harrison stumbled back, blinking rapidly to try to clear himself of the strange experience. Before Spock could pull himself up, Harrison ran to edge of the barge and jumped.
Spock looked up in shock and confusion. But Harrison had jumped down to another, identical barge that had been following the same path. Spock looked over the edge to see the second barge flying underneath the one that he was currently on, and he refused to give up the chase. Spock ran to the end of the barge and jumped, falling down through the air and smashing into the other barge, yelling with the jolt of the impact and rolling backwards, hanging off the edge of the red shuttle.
Harrison turned at the sound of Spock yelling with the effort of pulling himself back up onto the barge, and shook his head at the Vulcan's persistence. But if Spock wanted to keep fighting, Harrison was willing to give him one. But now, he was going to finish it.
Harrison ran at Spock just as he was about to stand up, and kicked the Vulcan in the face, sending him flying to the end of the barge on his back. Harrison was on him instantly, pummeling him with multiple punches to the face and stomach. Spock had no time to recover, and Harrison threw him, causing him to roll to the other end of the barge. When he sat up on his knees, Harrison once again slammed a foot across his face, sending the Vulcan sprawling to the barge's surface again. Harrison was on him in an instant, resuming his powerful blows to Spock's face. A small part of him was impressed that the Vulcan hadn't given up yet.
Kirk had been placed inside of the cryo tube, and it closed over his head, sealing him inside.
"Activate the cryogenic sequence." McCoy ordered.
Carol clicked a sequence of buttons on a panel on top of the tube, and the glass circle showed ice appear, frosting up the glass.
"McCoy to bridge. I can't reach Spock." McCoy said into his comms. "I need Harrison alive. You get that son of a bitch back on board right now! I think he can save Kirk."
"Can't we use one of Harrison's other crew members?" Carol asked. "Are they all like him?"
"They might be, but this technology hasn't been studied in years." McCoy answered, gesturing to the pod. "I don't know how cryo-stasis affected their blood, or if it'll work. But we do know what Harrison's blood can do, and that we can use it."
"Can we beam them up to the ship?" Sulu asked, having taken the captain's chair and was overseeing the chase.
"The trackers are damaged, I can't lock on to them properly!" Chekov exclaimed, clicking rapidly in an attempt to find a solution.
"Can you beam someone down accurately?" Uhura asked, coming up with an idea.
Harrison's powerful blows had knocked all of the energy out of Spock, and now the Vulcan wasn't even trying to fight back, green blood dripping from wounds on his face. Harrison seemed to realize that he wasn't going to encounter any more resistance, se he decided to end the fight. He kneeled down and grabbed Spock's head, starting to squeeze again. Spock didn't have the energy to fight, so he weakly grasped at Harrison's arms, trying to pry the augmented man away. But Harrison didn't give up, pressing harder, and the small cracking noises started to appear again.
Before he could finish the job and crush Spock's skull, there was a loud whirring as the white lights of beaming swirled around rapidly behind them. When they disappeared, Uhura was standing on the other side of the barge, holding a phaser, and she turned to face them at the same time that Harrison noticed the noise. Uhura aimed her phaser and fired a stun shot into Harrison's back, but it had no effect. She continued to fire blue bolts into Harrison's chest after he let go of Spock's head, standing up and starting towards her. The stun blasts were slowing him down, but he was more focused than he had been on the Vengeance's bridge. He yelled with every blast, but pushed through the phaser's effects, focusing on slowly getting to Uhura and snapping her neck. Uhura's face grew more nervous with every ineffective shot that she fired.
Spock slowly pulled himself up, looking around and coming to a realization. Harrison had been built to withstand a lot of things, but he couldn't fight against materials that hadn't existed.
Like the metal that made up the barge.
Spock reached over to a small piece of loose metal on the red shuttle's side, ripping it out. He stood up just as Harrison was about to reach Uhura, and he grabbed the augmented man's shoulder and pulled him back, slamming the piece of space-age metal across his face. Harrison spun, reacting as a normal person would due to the combination of the multiple stun bolts and the metal. Spock took this opportunity to grab Harrison's arm, putting it over his shoulder and pulling it down sharply. Harrison's arm broke with a sharp snap and caused a scream of pain from the augmented man.
"Spock!" Uhura yelled, trying to stop the Vulcan before he went too far.
But Spock ignored her, grabbing Harrison by the front of his shirt and slamming him down to the barge's surface. Uhura kept her phaser trained on Harrison, but Spock started to repeatedly slam his fist into Harrison's face. But now, Harrison had been so weakened by the multiple attacks that he wasn't even fighting back.
"Spock!" Uhura yelled again, falling to her knees, realizing what Spock would do if she couldn't stop him. "Spock, stop! Stop!"
Spock ignored her, continuing to pummel Harrison.
"We need him to save Kirk!" Uhura yelled.
Spock stopped his assault, looking up in shock at Uhura, letting what she had said process in his mind. He looked back down at Harrison, who weakly moved his head. He had been beaten.
That was good enough for Spock.
Spock looked at Uhura and nodded, before he grabbed Harrison's collar, lifting his head away from the barge's surface. Harrison barely reacted, his eyes flickering weakly.
Spock brought his fist down across Harrison's face again, ending the fight.
So, that's Chapter 5. In my opinion, this was the best one, and certainly the most fun to write. Well, that's enough of me reviewing my own work, so I'll leave you guys with your opinions. Hopefully you enjoyed, see you next time for the ending!