Author's Note:
Happy New Year, Everyone!
Thank you if you've fav'd, followed, or reviewed—you rock! If you're unsure about posting a review, let me push you over that edge right now. I'm all about constructive criticism and knowing your thoughts will help make me a better writer. In other words, reviews make my day, so please post!
One more chapter after this one, I think. Cheers!
Spock caught up with his commanding officer as Jim knelt beside the bulky form of Charleston Rawles. Kamali's governor was sprawled out in the dust, his hands and arms covered with raw burns, his jacket singed and bloody.
The first officer crouched next to Jim. "Dr. McCoy is beaming down."
"He'd better hurry." Jim looked up and around at the surrounding rocks. "I'm not sure why the Klingons left our friend here alive, but he's still breathing. Barely."
Spock rose to examine the ground around them. After a few seconds he said, "The governor must have provided cover while the children tried to escape." His hand traced a blur of footprints leading toward a narrow passageway through the boulders.
"I saw," Jim responded, his hand lightly resting on the governor's shoulder. Spock saw the contact for what it was… a show of whatever meager comfort could be offered. "I tried to follow the tracks but they just… stop. It's like whoever was running away suddenly disappeared."
"There are larger tracks here, as well, Jim," Spock warned.
Jim nodded grimly. "Klingons," he breathed. "Those follow the others, then double back toward the field where we fought." He shook his head. "I don't know what that means…" He let the sentence dwindle before adding what he was no doubt thinking—that whatever it meant, it wasn't good for whoever was trying to flee.
Seconds later, Spock heard the telltale hum of the Enterprise transporter. A grumbling McCoy scrambled over the rocks and set to work on his patient with his trademark efficiency.
"Comm me when you know something, Bones," Jim muttered sadly. Then he and Spock left the ring of stones in search of survivors.
Jim lost count of how many times he and members of his search party called out, hoping against hope that this time they'd get a response. "HELLO! CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME?"
Shout. Wait. Hear nothing back but your own echo. Check.
"WE'RE STARFLEET. YOU'RE SAFE!"
Nothing.
Searchers had split up into small groups on the outskirts of the ruined colony. Now and then, Jim could hear Giotto's or Sulu's calls carried on the wind. While they all combed the planet's surface, shipside crew questioned Kamali evacuees to find out what had happened. It wasn't long before Jim was told who was missing, exactly, and why.
"KATIE!" he called out. "PATIK!"
No answer, again, from Katie or the kids.
Their tracks had clustered at the base of a tree. Klingons had clearly followed them there, but what happened after was a mystery. There were no bodies—not even a stray hair or piece of torn fabric. A disruptor set to kill could have incinerated all signs of life, but there were no scorch marks on the tree or the ground. Jim clung to that one, hopeful fact and held it foremost in his mind.
The Klingons had eventually returned to the battlefield and were eventually thrown in the Enterprise brig. If any of the prisoners knew Katie's fate or the children's, they weren't talking.
"KATIE! It's Jim. CAN YOU HEAR ME?"
As if to mock him, his comm buzzed.
"Kirk here," he answered with a scowl.
"Jim, I've got Rawles stabilized in sickbay. He's gonna make it, I think. It's the damnedest thing!"
"Good work, Bones." Jim meant it, but his voice offered little enthusiasm. "You pulled him through."
"No, no… not that. I mean his injuries! They're not from disruptors after all!"
"What? What are they from?"
"I'd swear that they're from his own phaser! Damned thing must've blown up in his hands." McCoy continued. "The burns are consistent with a misfire."
Despite himself, Jim smirked. He could imagine bloodthirsty Klingons seeing an energy burst from Rawles' direction and feeling cheated, thinking the cowardly human had done himself in. "That misfire probably saved his life, Bones."
"Yeah."
Jim was glad the portly governor would survive, but the news did little to lift his spirits.
"Any news down there, kid?"
Jim shook his head. "Nothing yet."
"How you holding up?"
"I'm fine, Bones."
If he wasn't watching a tragedy unfold on Kamali, he might have laughed at the familiar exchange. "I'm fine, Bones," almost always meant Jim Kirk was operating on little more than grit and training.
McCoy's voice softened over the comm. "You'll find her," he said.
The young captain swallowed and, without a word, ended the comm. In the distance, he could hear Carol calling "DR. TALLIS!" along with members of her search team. She sounded hoarse. They'd been at this awhile.
Funny, how Carol's voice wasn't the one he wanted to hear.
He thought of what a pain-in-the-ass Katie Tallis was at the start of this mission. Yet, the image he held, the specter he searched for, was a smiling beauty in a nest of ropes, hair wild, heart beating against a damp white shirt.
The thought made his chest hurt.
"KATIE!" he yelled, for the umpteenth time. "PATIK! ANYBODY OUT THERE?"
They could be hiding, scared that Klingons would find them. Still…
By nightfall, Enterprise search parties would explore everywhere worth looking. Nightfall wasn't long off. The sun was starting to set.
Their odds were dying with the light.
Jim looked back toward the colony, at the smoldering remains of the once-magical ropes and beams. His eye followed the edge of the charred play structure, to a copse of burnt-out trees. A team had searched there, but there'd been no sign of anyone.
His eye combed the line of trees until it reached the lonely trunk where the fleeing tracks had ended so abruptly.
The tracks had ended so abruptly.
The young captain said nothing to his team, and started walking in the direction of his gaze. One of his men called out to him, but Jim ignored it, breaking into a trot. He reached the tree where all trace of Katie and the kids vanished, and looked around.
In one direction, the thicket spanned to the children's center, which was now a field of rubble. The other way, the grove collided with a sheer rock face. Jim made a decision. He took off, weaving through the blackened tree trunks at a dead run.
When the trees thinned he combed the grove's perimeter. Twilight was turning the landscape gray. Twice he nearly tripped over fallen branches but refused to slow down.
Until he saw what he was looking for. Where the rock face met the edge of the trees, the stone was smooth and nearly vertical—an impenetrable barrier—unless…
… unless you had another way up.
They'd climbed. The damn kids had climbed, up that one lonely tree where their footprints had ended and through this burnt-out grove. They climbed until they ran out of branches, until there was nothing left to keep them skyward… and when they'd reached this sheer cliff, they'd dropped down from the trees above it.
Jim hoisted himself up onto a thick branch. The singed wood splintered beneath his weight.
"KATIE!" he yelled. He could hear a search team scrambling through the grove, on its way to join him.
He tried another branch; this one held his weight. He picked his way impatiently from branch to branch, stretching for footholds, testing for sturdiness, until he came level with the top of the rock face.
He didn't wait for his crew to catch up. He hauled himself onto the rock.
On top of the cliff were more outcroppings, and he eyed them as he bounced around them, keeping an eye out for possible havens. He made out the distant sound of water and followed it—of course, they'd need water—to a cut between rocks.
"CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME!" he called again, voice rough from concern and overuse.
He rounded a boulder into a roofless tunnel, carved long ago by whatever mighty river had dwindled to the drip, drip, drip of water he was hearing now. He kept a guiding hand along the worn rock surface—there was very little light now and it wouldn't do to fall flat on his face. He moved steadily toward the trickle, curled around another bend, and stopped.
A patch of soft white shifted in the gloom. Jim let his eyes adjust. It was a shirt—he'd swear it—moving against the stone, catching the last glimmers of light.
As he waited for the image to take shape, he swallowed against a lump in his throat.
Katie was holding a tiny child, his shock of black hair brushing against her as she rocked him back and forth. More children were huddled against the rock.
She looked his way and froze.
Jim heard a sharp exhale; it could have been a sob. "Jim." Her eyes were shining.
"You…" he croaked, and then cleared his throat. "You all right?"
She smiled, and it reached her teary eyes.
"I'm fine, Jim," she said. Then she laughed. "We're all fine."