Chapter Four
McCoy looked down at Jim. She was so small in the hospital bed. She looked broken and she was, physically. On the way to the hospital the shuttle had jolted causing one of Jim's ribs to puncture her lung. It had been a horrifying moment seeing her heart rate skyrocket while she suffocated in her own blood.
"Oh, Jim." He sat next to her as she slept and ran a hand down his face, the stubble on his cheek let him know how long a day it had been.
"Leo?"
McCoy looked up and saw Uhura at the door. She was wearing jeans with a dark red top, her hands were gripping her clutch and shaking. She looked extremely upset. He waved her in to let her know it was alright.
"Oh my God! What happened?" Her hands hovered over Jim's before gently grasping the fingers protruding from the splint.
"I don't know. Pike's promised to get to the bottom of it but officially it's being called an accident."
Uhura frowned. "These aren't accidental injuries."
McCoy sighed. "I know. Something's not right here."
"Do you think Jim was specifically targeted?" Uhura's eyes were bright with suspicion and the possibility of her being right weighed heavily on McCoy's mind.
"I just don't know." McCoy glanced up. "How did you know what happened? Aren't you supposed to be out on your date?"
Uhura's cheeks darkened. "It's not a date." She huffed. "It was just drinks with a friend."
McCoy's eyebrow rose skeptically. "Uh huh."
"It was." She reaffirmed and gripped Jim's fingers tighter. "He told me what happened halfway through and I came over as soon as I could."
"Ny, you don't have to justify anything. The important thing is is that you came." He smiled reassuringly. "Jim was only just stabilized and should be waking up soon."
Nyota nodded, biting her lip. McCoy could see that she still felt guilty. "Where's Ell?" She asked quietly.
"She's at the Paris's and Gaila said she'd pick her up and stay with her at Jim's place until I get home." He reached over Jim and gave her a small shove. "Stop worrying. I do enough of it for all of us."
Uhura gave a watery smile.
"Besides Ny, when are you gonna tell us who this mystery man is?"
"I don't know. When it feels right."
McCoy nodded. The monitors above Jim's bed started beeping quicker and she groaned. Her face wrinkling in discomfort. He immediately shoved on his doctor's mask and picked up his tricorder. Uhura quickly moved away.
"I'll...head out and go help Gaila."
McCoy grunted and continued to take readings. Her pain levels spiked and he quickly adjusted the medication flow in her IV. He barely noticed Uhura leaving, his entire focus was on willing Jim to open her eyes.
Her monitors started beeping faster and her eyelids twitched and finally fluttered open, the blue cloudy with pain and exhaustion. McCoy breathed a sigh of relief.
"Ah, you're awake."
Jim mumbled and started moving her arms sluggishly. He quickly moved to gently hold them to stop her pulling the lines attached and she frowned at the restraint.
"What's goin' on?" She looked down and saw the chest tube, the IV, the sling holding her left arm tight against her, the splint on her right wrist and then looked up at McCoy. The swelling had been brought down considerably on her face but the bruising would take another several treatments before it would fade completely. He could see the slow recognition kick in and McCoy made a note to do a deeper neuro scan.
"Bones?" Her voice was hoarse which wasn't surprising.
"Hey, Darlin'." He let go once she stopped struggling. Her nose wrinkled as she frowned and looked around in confusion.
"Hospital?" Jim's voice was a confused whisper and she looked around the room.
"I was in Chris's office and...and then..." She started trying to sit up in frustration and the biobed alarms started to trill.
"Hold on, Jim!" McCoy scrambled to raise the bed and adjust the oxygen field surrounding her head.
"You drugged me!" McCoy rolled his eyes. Of course that would be what she remembered.
"I did not drug you. I gave you pain medication, something for your fever and something to dissipate all the adrenalin pumping through you. Your own body drugged you into what it was supposed to do."
Jim glared at him and then looked down at herself, her eyes getting clearer the longer she was awake.
"I'm naked!" Kirk's splinted hand found the chest tube and the IV quickly.
"Take them out, Bones. I want to go home." She started to pull at the strap to the sling and McCoy had to pry her fingers off.
"Stop that." Her expression crumpled and Leo had to shove down his instinct to let her have everything she wanted. "You need everything that's connected." She stopped her struggles and he released her again.
"And you are not naked. You have a gown on."
"It's backless."
"It's standard."
Jim picked at the blanket covering her. "It's stupid."
"It's efficient, Jim."
"Kinky, Bones." Jim smirked but it fell flat.
She took a deep breath and looked at the door to her room. McCoy could see her calculating possibilities and he made a mental note to change Jim's nurse rotation.
"What happened out there?" McCoy asked. He stepped around the bed to block Jim's view of the door. He waited patiently for her to talk, her eyes slid out of focus for a moment, remembering, and Jim closed them tightly, taking a shaky breath.
"I don't really know."
McCoy wanted to shake her. He needed to know what happened and who was responsible. "Do you remember anything?"
Jim looked up. "Of course I remember what happened but I don't know why."
McCoy wanted more but Jim was clearly done. "We'll talk about this more tomorrow."
"Yeah, Bones." Jim wasn't even looking at him, her gaze was like she was looking through him, as though she could see the answers in the air surrounding them.
McCoy was thankful he'd convinced Jim to take the summer quarter off. Lack of being able to spend time with Ella and the pressing need to present her thesis proposal had forced Jim to consider taking some time off. It would set her back in her plans to graduate in three years but it was definitely needed with this latest development. Term ended this week and the week after both of them were scheduled for a relaxing ten days in Hawaii. McCoy was hoping that the summer would help make Jim understand that moving in together was the next logical step in their relationship.
After all, right now, she needed the support.
Jim shifted in her bed, the multitude of things attached to her and in her made it difficult and near impossible to move. She hated hospitals with a vengeance and this time was no different. The similarities between now and her time after Tarsus were too close for comfort.
She eyed the door and noticed that the scary orderly McCoy had set up to babysit her had finally left. The corridors were dark and it was silent in her room apart from the quiet beeping of the medical equipment. Bones had left earlier after being shuffled out by his colleagues. Jim knew sleep wasn't going to come easily but still closed her eyes to try and will it to appear.
She'd had them closed for a moment and was focusing on slowing her breathing when the unmistakable snick of the door caused her to stiffen. This was why she hated hospitals. No privacy.
"James Tiberius Kirk."
Jim's eyes snapped open, a cold chill running down her spine. At the foot of her bed were three men, all wearing black. The one in the lead was older, his hair blond and he had cold grey eyes. Clearly the leader.
The other two were both brunettes, big and burly with their hands behind their backs standing at parade rest. Jim knew something was off and she cursed her body being trapped with injuries.
Her hand subtly shifted under the blanket and pressed the call button even though, in her heart, she knew it would do no good. Another frightening indicator was that even though her heart was racing, the monitors still showed the slow beeping from earlier. No-one was going to come.
The blond smiled and stepped forward, his expression interested and slightly curious. It was reminiscent of a lion about to devour it's prey.
"It's not often we see someone of your caliber, especially in a cadet."
Jim scowled and tensed further, her thoughts wondering how she was going to defend herself.
"Even when the odds were against you, you still refused to talk."
"By odds, you mean when they were torturing me?" She snapped. "I talked plenty. That chocolate cake recipe was a treasured secret."
She could see the three men dividing and her odds were down to nothing. The blond came up to her right while the two muscles went to her left.
"I'm sure it was." He laughed softly. He reached under her blanket and pulled Jim's call button from her splinted hand, waving it and tutting at her like she was a disobedient child. Jim badly wanted to punch him.
"As you can see, this meeting is private. My name is Commander Sloan."
Jim felt a chill run down her spine. "Forgive me for not getting up." She snapped.
Sloan laughed softly. "I'm glad to see your sense of humor is returning. It's a good sign."
"Of what?"
"That you're beginning to relax. We subjected you to high levels of stress to ensure accurate test results. The neuro-synaptic relay was very effective in recording your neuro-electrical responses during the inquisition."
Jim felt sick. "I suppose you find your subjects more malleable after a good torturing session."
Sloan's smile froze on his face but his eyes turned darker. "It's effective."
"Why do I detect a hint of doubt in your voice?" Jim's hands curled into fists.
"To be honest, I would have preferred to study you longer but I hardly expected you to blow up a quarter of my base." He took a deep breath. "I'm pleased to say, though, that the test results are in your favor. Your loyalty to the Federation and, more importantly, Starfleet are beyond reproach."
"What?" Jim shifted, sitting up straighter. The pull of the chest-tube causing her to grimace. "When have I ever shown any type of betrayal to the 'fleet? What gives you the right to do what you did to me and who the hell do you work for?"
Jim saw Sloan shake his head slightly and Jim heard the two on her left back off slightly. It reinforced the fact that Sloane was in charge. "I work for the same people that you do."
Jim snorted. "I can't believe that Starfleet would sanction something like this."
Sloan shook his head. "Most of Starfleet is competent and efficient but limited. Let's just say I work for a different branch of Starfleet Intelligence. Our official designation is Section 31."
"Never heard of it."
"We like to keep a low profile. Works out better that way for all concerned."
Jim could feel her adrenalin starting to spike and fear creeping into her body. She swallowed dryly. "And...what does Section 31 do?"
"We search out and identify potential dangers to the federation."
"And once identified?" Jim was scared of the answer.
"We deal with them."
"How?"
Sloan looked directly at her, his expression so cold that a Vulcan would have felt fear. "Quietly."
"And Starfleet approves this?" Nausea rose up and Jim had to force it down.
Sloan regarded Jim as if she was a naive child. "We don't submit reports or ask approval for specific operations. We are an autonomous department."
"Authorized by whom?" Jim sat up straighter.
"Section 31 was part of the original Starfleet Charter." He said simply.
"But that was over one hundred years ago! Are you telling me you've been working on your own ever since? Without specific orders? Accountable to nobody but yourselves?" Jim was shocked.
Sloan smirked. "You make it sound so ominous."
Jim's jaw dropped. "If what you're saying is true then you act as judge, jury and executioner and I think that's too much power for anyone!" Her thoughts strayed to Governor Kodos.
Sloan shifted his stance, his face serious. "I admit it takes special people to do what we do. People who can sublimate their ambitions to the best interests of the Federation. People like you."
Incredulous rage roared through Jim's veins. "Are you serious? Less than twenty-four hours ago your men were torturing me and now you want to recruit me?"
"You have all the qualifications to be a useful member of Section 31. You're intelligent, resourceful and good at keeping a low profile. Considering your position as the Kelvin baby, that's an impressive feat."
Jim's eyes narrowed. "Are you for real?"
"We're on the same team. We believe in the same principals that ever other Federation citizen holds dear."
Jim was disgusted. "And yet you violate those principals as a matter of course."
"In order to protect them." Sloane looked disappointed.
"Well, I'm sorry but the ends don't always justify the means." A prime example was Kodos. His belief of executing half so that the other half may live rather than all colonists dying of starvation was a topic of hot debate in history.
"We deal with threats to the Federation that threaten it's very survival. I think if you knew how many lives we've saved, I know you'd believe that the ends do justify the means. I'm not afraid of bending the rules once in a while if the situation warrants it and I don't think you are either." His hands came to rest on her bed rails and gripped them tightly, his conviction in what he was saying was absolute.
"One of those rules that is needing to be bent is recruiting you before your graduation."
"You've got the wrong officer. I have a family. I'm not helping you." Jim said evenly.
"I don't think so. In time you'll come to agree with me." Jim could hear the plastic creaking under Sloan's fingers. "We have a situation that needs an agent placed and you are in a position to accomplish our objectives."
"I'm not helping you."
Sloan moved closer, almost towering over Jim. "I think you will. To keep your family safe and together."
"What...what are you talking about? We could leave." The fear and anger curled in her belly.
"Oh, you'd be able to leave on the basis of having a child but the good doctor wouldn't. You both can't use the excuse. I'm sure you wouldn't want to take the child that McCoy only recently discovered away. We'd expose Dr. McCoy's past and he'd be posted so far away that it could be years, maybe decades, before he saw her again."
"Then he can leave with her." Jim tried. She wondered what Sloan was talking about.
Sloan looked at Kirk almost pityingly. "And then we'd make sure he'd lose his daughter another way. The murder of a patient under his care...more specifically, his father, would not do well to come to light. It was covered up sufficiently well to not be investigated by local authorities but we have better means to bring attention to this dark chapter of his past."
Jim scoffed. "What are you talking about?"
"What you need to understand is is that we will use any means at our disposal to ensure that our objectives are reached. If that means exposing the truth about your doctor friend to do so, then so be it. Euthanasia is a carefully allowed practice. One that is only done when certain specifications are met. In Dr. McCoy's case, it had been denied but he decided to ignore that, instead choosing to play God with his father's life. What he didn't know was that a cure for his father was mere months away. He could have been saved."
Jim's heart twisted. She didn't know what to think.
"David McCoy's death was carefully done. An overdose of calcium stopping his heart. Very few people would think to look for it. Nice, clean and peaceful except for the fact that we look deeper."
Jim's breaths were coming quicker As Sloan continued. "Leonard McCoy could lose his medical license and what state agency would allow a child to live with a man who killed his own father."
"You wouldn't." Jim breathed.
"We would." Sloan twisted the knife deeper. "You are going to work for us."
Jim believed that he would. The conviction was clear in Sloan's voice.
"You are going to accept a summer internship on board the USS Farragut. Their current assignment is going to be the Axanar Peace Talks. They are applying for Federation citizenship and aid. Our intelligence reports indicate Klingon interference and we need to determine what is happening. We need you to root out the source of interference and ensure that the Axanar people join the Federation."
"Why?"
Sloan pulled a PADD out of his jacket. "The planet of Axanar have one of the largest stores of dilithium ore and their manufacturing of tritanium alloy is second to none. We need these assets to build our ships. To protect us from threats that Starfleet has yet to identify. They are still rebuilding after their uprising against the Klingons and we know that the Klingons want them back for the same reasons we want them."
Sloan showed her the production rates scaled next to other member planets and Jim would have to be blind to not see the advantages of Axanar joining the ranks of the Federation.
"And what could I possibly do? I'm just a cadet."
Sloan pulled back his PADD. "The king, Xilith, has an interest in exotic women. You would be on the diplomatic liaison team as an honor guard. We calculate that Xilith would want to show that they are advancing by allowing a mere female to protect him. You would not be noticed by others and would be able to see and hear what fully fledged officers would not. Someone is trying to sabotage the talks."
Jim sat numbly. "And what about my family?"
Sloan seemed to consider. "Potentially an asset. Xilith recently lost his wife and daughter to a virus that is still decimating their people. It would endear you to him to show that you are a mother. This is why they are eager to join the Federation. The medical relief that we could supply in exchange for the dilithium and tritanium is desperately needed but some of the Axanar people believe that Starfleet is responsible for the plague. The Farragut is a generational ship."
He'd thought of everything. Like a fly caught in a spider's web, Jim nodded slowly.
"And what if I still say no and choose to expose you?"
Sloan smiled, a cold calculating smile. "Let's just say, I won't lose any sleep over it."
Before Jim could reply there was a sting and hiss in her neck and her world went dark. Her last thoughts were what on Earth had she been dragged into?