The bridge was in chaos. Red lights lit the area, and Chekov was involved in an argument with the crewman at the science station. "Who are they?" He demanded as the turbolift opened, and Kirk could tell from his tone that it was not the first time he had asked.
"I don't know!" Shouted back the science officer. "I can't get a reading."
"Why did they attack us?" Chekov shouted at the viewscreen. Kirk could see smoke drifting lazily from a console, and someone lay fallen on the bridge floor.
Silence fell over the bridge as Sulu stepped out of the lift. He quickly took his seat in the center of the bridge. Chekov escorted Kirk to a seat at the security station before relieving the hassled science officer.
Sulu was in charge here, then. Chekov was possibly his second in command.
"Two ships." Chekov reported. "Neither should be here. They are engaged in battle."
"Are we involved?" Sulu asked.
"One of them fired on us." Chekov replied. "It was attacking when the other ship engaged it."
"Who are they?" Sulu echoed Chekov's earlier question.
"No one." Chekov replied as he worked. "One is the U.S.S. Enterprise." If he recognized the name, Sulu did not react.
"And the other?"
"No data."
Sulu frowned. "They don't have computer banks?"
"I can't hack into them."
Sulu watched the battle on screen before them. Kirk recognized the Enterprise right away. He also realized she was losing this battle. The Enterprise was adrift, firing uselessly as the other ship circled around her, taunting.
Chekov realized it as well. "Target enemy vessel and fire." He ordered, and the helm team didn't hesitate; phaser fire raked the larger ship.
The enemy ship returned fire.
The results were disastrous. "Shields?" Sulu snapped as the blast rocked the bridge; that he had managed to stay in his seat was nothing short of a miracle.
"Still inoperative." Chekov retorted, pulling himself back into his own seat. "I'll have the engineer's head on a platter when this is over. Idiot."
The ship rocked again. Kirk was thrown from his seat once more. The communications officer shook his head hopelessly.
"We're dead." He said in shock.
Sulu didn't deny it. He turned to look at Chekov. "Did you know it would be today?" He asked, almost conversationally.
Chekov shook his head. "If I had, I would not have shown up for work today." He replied.
Sulu shrugged. "Better than being taken down by the Empire." He commented.
Chekov let loose a snarl in reply. "Live, or die fighting!" He spat, turning back to the helm team. "Fire."
It was no use. Everyone on the bridge knew it. A last hit shook the bridge. One console exploded. Others sparked into flame. Kirk found himself trying to duck in spite of the futility, but found himself paralyzed, unable to move. The world around him dissolved into nothingness.
Spock was there as Kirk stumbled off the transporter pad. "Captain." He greeted as he stepped forward to catch Kirk before he fell. He eased Kirk down. "I must return to the bridge." He said. "I will return shortly."
Kirk nodded, and breathed a sigh of relief as Spock departed. He wasn't sure what had just happened, but he was glad, for the moment, simply to be alive.
He was startled by a cry of pure fury behind him. He turned; for the first time since all this had begun the man actually sounded Russian, Kirk thought, as he screamed profanities at the ceiling in his native tongue.
Sulu ignored him, and sat down next to Kirk. "Was that your Vulcan? What was his name?"
Chekov broke off his tirade to answer. "Spock. He's dead as well." He sat down on Kirk's other side, once again the cold individual Kirk had seen back on Sulu's ship.
"And the Enterprise doesn't exist." Sulu continued.
"We're dead too, now." Chekov said grimly. "The ship's been blown apart." There was no denying that much.
"Yeah." Sulu agreed, and the two fell into silence. "How long?" He asked after a minute. Chekov shrugged.
"Not too long." He replied wearily. Kirk wanted to ask what they were talking about, but the man changed the subject almost immediately. "So why were we destroyed?"
"Obvious, isn't it?" Sulu returned. "It's him." He nodded at Kirk.
Chekov frowned. "How did the other ship know?" He demanded. "I don't know anything except that Kirk's dead. Besides, I may be a spy, but I am not suicidal." Did Sulu find that statement funny? Kirk couldn't tell for certain. None of the man's emotions seemed very real.
"I don't think it was you." Sulu assured the man. "I know you aren't suicidal, as surprising as the fact is with all things considered. Are we waiting for the Vulcan?"
Chekov growled. "Do we have a choice? I don't fight Vulcans. It's not in my contract."
"Some bodyguard you are." Sulu complained.
"Not anymore. I'm off duty." Chekov retorted. "I'm taking a nap. I feel hung-over for some reason." He shifted to lean his back against the wall, and before long was actually asleep.
Asleep, Chekov no longer seemed quite so cold or harsh, Kirk thought. He actually looked almost vulnerable to the Captain. His impassive expression had faded; he seemed weary now, almost weak.
Sulu watched Kirk study the other man. He seemed neither surprised nor bothered that Chekov was sleeping now. "I take it he's not what you're used to." Sulu commented when Kirk met his gaze.
Kirk shrugged. "Neither of you are." He admitted, feeling a bit lost. He looked back over at Chekov. "He was more open, more trusting. Less-" He stopped, unable to give words to the differences.
Sulu found the words for him. "Less callous." He offered. "Less openly threatening." He too turned to watch Chekov. He sighed. "So he graduated from Starfleet." Kirk thought he detected a wistful note in the statement.
"Both of you did." Kirk reminded him. "What happened?"
"He left." Sulu said after a moment. "His father was murdered, and he went home to take care of things."
"Then how did he end up out here, in space?" Kirk asked.
"He knew me." Sulu replied. "We had almost been friends, before he left. So the government drafted him as a spy and planted him on my ship."
"He really is a spy?" Kirk asked, uncertainly. There was still a lot that didn't make sense to him.
"Technically." Sulu replied. "He's also on my side." Sulu almost smiled at Kirk. "We're renegades." He explained. "Rebels against the Romulan/Klingon Empire. For years he managed to walk the fine line between spy and traitor to the Empire, until about a year ago when he saved my life."
Kirk was shocked, overwhelmed, but the question he found himself asking was probably the least relevant of those bothering him. "Why did he save your life, if you two hate each other so much?"
Sulu laughed. It was not a happy sound. "We may loathe and detest each other, Kirk, but the reality is that we work well together, and I can trust him more than anyone else on my ship. He hates the Empire more than I do, enough to blatantly defy their orders when he saved my life." Hard eyes turned to bore into Kirk's. "You don't defy the Empire and live."
The Empire. The Romulan/Klingon Empire. How had this happened?
Chekov was instantly awake as Spock returned. He was on his feet as Kirk and Sulu began to rise. Sulu leaned closer to Kirk as they stood. "This Vulcan, Kirk." He asked, either unaware or uncaring that Spock could hear him. "Do you trust him?"
Kirk smiled grimly. "With my life." He assured Sulu.
The four men were seated at various intervals around the conference table, attempting to determine just what was going on.
"It would seem," Spock surmised, "that when the being called Tirma 'leapt' into the past, you and I, being the closest in proximity to her, were to some degree protected from the effects of her jump."
"You were caught in her wake." Sulu suggested.
Kirk nodded. He remembered, now. They had been studying a recently discovered planet when out of nowhere two ships had appeared, one Klingon, and one Romulan. A strange being with pale blue skin and long curly hair of gold had then appeared on the bridge in the company of Romulans and Klingons, and announced that they would all die for their crimes.
He remembered the overzealous Romulan that had wanted to kill Kirk then and there. A fight had broken out, Kirk remembered. He had not been the only one injured.
"The Enterprise was immune as well, and at least one of the enemy's ships." Kirk commented. "She said she could open the ages. That she would go back and stop us from ever embarking upon our 'mission of evil,' as she called it."
"So she went back in time." Sulu suggested. "Changed the past. She killed some of your key personnel, altered the lives of others."
"Killed you." Chekov reminded Kirk from his seat; he had chosen a spot as far from Spock as possible and had refused to even look at the Vulcan.
Kirk frowned. "Then we have to stop her. We have to fix this."
"How?" Chekov demanded, eyes blazing.
"Travel back in time ourselves." Kirk replied heavily. He hated time travel. There was too much potential to really screw things up.
Sulu didn't seem overly enthusiastic about the idea either. "This is like something from some cheesy science-fiction horror story." He complained.
Spock merely shook his head. "We do not have the ability to go anywhere." He informed Kirk. "I was left alive for that reason only. We cannot run this ship with only four people."
"Chekov?" Sulu asked, and Kirk wondered if he were asking for Chekov's assessment of that fact. Spock was right, of course. They could not run the Enterprise with only the four of them.
"Does Kirk trust me to hack into his computers?" Chekov asked evenly.
"Go ahead." Kirk said, though he doubted the man could do anything with the computers tha Spock could not.
Chekov moved towards the computer, which brought him to stand beside Spock. Sulu cleared his throat, and Chekov reluctantly sat down beside the Vulcan and busied himself with the computer.
Chekov was uneasy around Spock. He did not trust the Vulcan, and was reluctant to even be near him. Kirk wondered why.
"I can reprogram everything to be accessible through the helm." Chekov offered after a minute.
"You can do that?" Kirk was amazed. Spock was impressed as well, if the raised eyebrow was any indication.
"I was given a crash course in computer hacking by a Vulcan." Was Chekov's retort. "Do you want me to do it, or not?"
"Please." Kirk said, puzzled by the outright hatred Chekov seemed to have for Vulcans.
Not his Chekov, Kirk reminded himself. Not in his time. The Chekov very likely had a perfectly understandable reason for his almost blatant hostility towards Spock.
"Give me a few hours." Chekov replied.
"In the meantime," Spock said, "if we are going to stop Tirma and her companions, we must pinpoint the changes she has made in history."
"Yes," Kirk agreed, "our deaths." Spock raised an eyebrow.
"We know that most of you are dead." Sulu explained to the Vulcan. He did not seem to share Chekov's hatred of Spock's people. "Do we know when? Where?"
Chekov growled. "I'm busy." He reminded Sulu. "I can't do two things at once anymore." Nonetheless, he must have somehow found the information, because it appeared on the view screen on the table.
Sorting through the data before him, Kirk felt completely overwhelmed. "Where do we start?" He wondered. "How do we start?"
Disclaimer: Star Trek does not belong to me.