CHAPTER 4

"Indeed." Was Spock's only response for Jim's reaction to being thrown across the storage room and through the crates. He looked down at his hands again, sure in that he had sufficiently compensated for his strength when he had lifted his captain and lover off the floor.

"C'mon Spock, let's see if we can find Bones, he can probably figure out why you can throw me halfway across a room with barely a flick of the wrist." Spock merely nodded.

When they reached the door to the storage room, they noticed the copious amount of blood that spread out across the floor and walls, along with eight bodies scattered around them, all of them showing signs of being killed by a trained, efficient and merciless hand.

"The hell?" Jim hissed, looking upon the bodies with a mix of awe at a killer's proficiency and horror at the gore left behind when brains had been dashed out of a man's skull and onto the floor.

"The bodies appear to be approximately half of the attacking rebels, perhaps we should find Leonard and make our way to the beam out site quickly—whoever was capable of this may not discriminate between rebels, diplomats or ourselves."

"With your impossible strength, no rebel could get near us!" Kirk said grinning like a fool, if a little shakily, with one fist held high in a heroic pose.

"Jim."

"Yeah you're right, c'mon, let's find Bones and get outta here. He can figure out how you can throw me across a room without even trying and how I can go through a bunch of creates without getting a scratch on me."

Spock lifted an eyebrow, "Indeed."

Searching out their phasers from amongst the rubble of smashed wood and bring them to the ready, they made their way down the hall, not failing to notice the bodies lining it. Jim bent to check the vitals of one of the fallen men when he heard what could only be described as a choked-off sob. He motioned for Spock to look up ahead, see what made the noise around the corner.

"Leonard," concern coloured Spock's usually vacant voice. The Vulcan quickly walked out and knelt next to the doctor to put a hand on his shoulder. Kirk joined the pair, kneeling and holding his weapon ready, flicking his eyes around, watching for danger . "Leonard?"

"I've turned you into monsters," McCoy whispered. "They'll find out and hunt us all down, experiment on us, push us to our limits, all because I was selfish, because I couldn't sit there and lose you." He looked up to Spock, eyes shining, and then paused as he felt a palm across his cheek.

They were real. They weren't grotesquely disfigured, soulless beasts with a nasty habit of biting things!

"Hey, Bones… we're not monsters –and selfishness is greatly underappreciated in this day and age." Jim grinned, studiously ignoring the words about being hunted down. The blonde felt the tug in his stomach that said that there was a past behind that comment that needed sharing, but later. Right now, they needed to get to the transport site. "Come on Bones, we need to get off this rock so we can find out what happened with the negotiations."

Jim stood back up, took a quick glance around to make sure the way was still clear, then gestured for the others to follow him. Spock stood up with all of his usual cat like grace and was about to offer Leonard a hand up, but an image of what happened earlier with Jim jumped to mind and thought better of it.

As they made their way through the complex, Bones slowly calmed himself, realizing that both Jim and Spock were in fact quite real and not hungry beasts going on a rampage, and no, he hadn't just recreated Olduvai. It dawned on him that had he gone with his original plan of 'run!' both of the people he loved most, alive and un-mutated, would have discovered their abilities without him to turn to, and who would have gone to Starfleet and been discovered. UAC, as dilapidated as it was, would have found them and everything he had gone through would be repeated—on them. Unacceptable.

He put a hand on Jim's shoulder, they needed to know, know what would happen, what he had done to them, "Jim, I..."

"Bones, as much as I'd love to talk, now's not a good time. When we get back home, I promise." He looked over his shoulder at Bones, then glanced at Spock and stopped. Something was wrong with their Vulcan. "Spock?"

The Vulcan looked up, he had a light sheen of perspiration forming across his brow, he was breathing slightly harder and his skin was tinged a darker shade of green than usual. "It is nothing," Spock answered, "As you said, 'when we get back home.'" And it was left at that.

They made their way through the corridors quickly, exiting the building with no further resistance, and made it to the beam-down site with little trouble. Jim flipped his communicator out and held it up to his mouth, "Kirk to Enterprise."

"Enterprise here, Sir. We didn't expect to hear from you until tomorrow, Captain, is everything alright?" Sulu's voice crackled over the line.

"The complex was attacked, three to beam up."

"Aye, sir. Stand by for beam out. Is everyone okay?"

"We are, we're not sure about the ambassadors though. Later, Lieutenant."

Kirk closed the line as the transport began. The swirling lights and the tingling feeling, almost like having ants walk across your skin, the feeling of your molecules being disassembled, then the sensation of being in two places at once, and finally having your molecules reassembled unnerved Bones, but after going through the Arc it was like being ran into by a nervous Cadet on their first day at the Academy. Annoying and slightly disorientating. In comparison, the Arc was like being hit by a truck travelling at 200 km/h and surviving to watch the bloody mess that had been your head get hosed off the free-way.

The three of them stood there for a few moments breathing out their relief at being in the safety of Jim's fair lady, Enterprise.

"Heard you ran into some trouble Cap'n. Everything alright?" Scotty's Scottish brogue greeted the three.

"A few storm troopers Scotty, nothing we could handle." Jim said, glancing at Spock and Bones, distinctly remembering coming within a hair's breadth of bleeding to death.

"The blood stains say something else, Cap'n." He motioned towards both Spock's and Jim's torn and stained shirts. "Are you sure you're fine, sir?" worry colouring his voice.

"Shit." Jim quickly went and removed his command yellows and motioned for Spock to do the same with his science blues, "Not a word of this leaves that mouth of yours, not until I say otherwise, got it?" he said pointing a finger at the Scott manning the transporter controls and giving pointed looks to the other technicians at their stations, making sure they got the message..

"Aye sir," Scotty said with a meek nod.

Jim then moved to the comm. connected to the controls and opened a link to the bridge.

"Kirk to the bridge, Sulu you still there?"

"Yes sir. Sulu here."

"Keep the Conn until the end of Alpha shift."

"Aye sir."

"Kirk out." He then turned to his lovers, "I think we need to have a bit of a chat." Spock titled his head in the affirmative and McCoy just looked away, avoiding everyone's gaze.

When they had left the transporter room Scotty turned to one of the technicians and said, "Well, that was might strange. Something big must've happened down there."