Three hours later the ship was running, and Sulu and Chekov were at the helm.
The question remained; where did they go from here? Furthermore, once they found their people, what did they do then? How did they save them? How did they fix this?
"Found her." Chekov broke the worried silence. He looked tired, Kirk thought.
"The other ship?" Sulu asked. Chekov nodded.
Why were they looking for the other ship?
Then it hit Kirk. Of course. This ship had destroyed theirs. It had destroyed their crew. Their lives. They wanted revenge.
Sulu cursed. Chekov turned to stare at him. "We should fire." He insisted. "Finish them off."
Sulu shook his head. "There are more important things at stake here." He replied. Kirk was relieved, for a second.
"They destroyed our ship!" Chekov shouted at the other man. Sulu didn't blink. "Killed everyone on board. This-" He gestured broadly, "everything- is their fault. I want-"
"What you want is of little consequence." Sulu reminded him coldly. "We will not jeopardize what little chance we have left to fix this. We will not fire." Chekov shrugged and turned back to his console, and Sulu turned back to his. That was the end of it, Kirk thought.
A second later Chekov fired on the ship. Sulu turned to glare at him, but the bridge jerked, throwing them both to the floor.
Sulu was up again in a second, but Chekov stayed down. "They're returning fire." He informed Kirk coolly as he tried to evade their attack.
At this point there was nothing else they could do. Chekov had forced their hand. Kirk sighed. "Return fire." He ordered.
"Your ship is breaking up." Sulu informed the enemy ship with apparent calm. "Prepare to surrender and beam over your crew." If he had a problem doing as Kirk had ordered, it did not show.
"We will die first." Came the angry reply.
"Picking up Klingon and Romulan life forms." Spock informed Kirk quietly. "And something else."
"Tirma?" Kirk asked. "Can you get a lock on it?"
"Your ship has only minutes left before total destruction." Sulu attempted to reason with the Romulan on screen. The Romulan scoffed at this; the screen went blank.
"Locking." Sulu muttered. "Shall I beam it over?" Kirk nodded, and Sulu kicked Chekov, who was starting to come around, a little harder than necessary. "Go to the transporter room and welcome our guest. Bring her back here alive."
Chekov didn't say a word, but hauled himself up and headed for the turbolift. There was a dark bruise forming at his temple, Kirk saw; he must have hit his head when he fell.
On the viewer before them, the enemy ship was breaking up. There would be no survivors. Sulu sighed. "What now?" He asked.
"We talk to our survivor." Kirk replied. "Maybe we'll get lucky."
"I'm taking our 'guest' to sickbay." Chekov's voice came over the comm. "She's injured. Badly. If you want to talk to her, you can do it down here."
"He's a doctor, too?" The question was out of Kirk's mouth before he had time to think about it.
Chekov didn't look up from the being on the bed. "I am a spy." He snapped. "That means I get dropped somewhere where my job is to gather information, remain undetected, and stay alive." He let loose a snarl. "She's dying. I can keep her alive, but she's not going to get any better. And before you ask, I didn't do it. She was like this when she beamed over."
"Is she awake?" Kirk asked.
"For now."
Kirk moved forward to study the being responsible for all this. She stared up at him with haunted eyes. "You offered to take survivors." She murmured. Kirk nodded. "And you brought me here, to try to help me, after what I have done." Her eyes turned to Spock, and she reached towards him. "I am weak." She said. "I will not recover. Even now it is difficult even to speak."
Spock seemed to understand what she wanted, for he moved closer to her and placed his fingers against her face. He was mind-melding with her.
Chekov hissed and retreated, face pale.
Kirk didn't have time to ponder this reaction; Spock was speaking, though slowly. "They told her we were sent to destroy her. That we were conquerors, that we would use her against the Klingon and Romulan Empires. That we wanted to enslave the galaxy." He paused. "She sees now that they were lying. She will help us. The bridge is the catalyst; the bridge will restore your time. Bring your people to it, and we can restore your time. We will take you where you need to go."
Everything went black.
"Where are we?" Kirk groaned as he tried to decide whether or not to sit up.
"Sickbay." Sulu was up already, looking around.
"What happened?" Chekov groaned.
"We have jumped." Spock said slowly; he was still in the mind-meld with Tirma. "To help one, you must have the other. Their lives have always been intertwined."
"Whose lives?" Sulu asked, but Kirk knew. Even with all that had changed, Sulu and Chekov were still here together.
"Kindred spirits." Spock said. "Here is where you will find Hikaru Sulu."
Beside Kirk, Sulu paled.
"You cannot go down there." Sulu repeated firmly. "What happens if you get killed?"
Kirk shook his head. He would not send anyone down there if he would not go himself. "I have a responsibility to see this through." He insisted.
"You're injured." Chekov mentioned as he joined them. "I can't do anything else for her." He reported. "Your Vulcan is all that's keeping her alive."
"That reminds me." Sulu said, turning to Chekov. Abruptly he backhanded the younger man. "When I give an order, I expect it to be obeyed." He drew his phaser and leveled it at Chekov's chest; Kirk wondered how he had missed that both Sulu and Chekov were armed with phasers, and that Chekov carried a downright evil looking knife as well. "Do I need to worry about you screwing this up?" Sulu asked. "If there's going to be a problem, I'll solve it now."
Chekov glared back at him. "You'd be doing me a favor." He growled. They stood facing off a moment longer.
Chekov sighed. "You don't have to worry." He said at last. "I'm yours."
Sulu returned his phaser to its holster. Chekov licked his lips nervously.
"Let him go." He told Sulu, nodding towards Kirk. "I cannot go with you."
Sulu balked at that. "What?"
Chekov forced a smile that meant absolutely nothing. "My next fight will be my last." He predicted. Sulu stared at Chekov for a long moment before turning to Kirk.
"Come on." He said.
Kirk stopped once they reached the transporter room. Sulu sighed.
"Chekov is dying." He said in answer to the question Kirk hadn't asked. "I told you, you don't defy the Empire and live. Especially if you're a spy. They take steps to prevent that sort of thing." Sulu shook his head. "It's a miracle he's lived this long. Too stubborn to just die, I guess. Anyway, if he says a fight will kill him, then a fight will kill him." Sulu didn't seem overly upset at the thought of losing the other man. It was just another example of how wrong all this was.
"If he won't come with us...Does he expect trouble?" Kirk asked.
"Chekov always expects trouble. He also dislikes everyone, before you ask about his issues with Spock." Sulu hesitated. "Of course, it doesn't help that part of his induction into the world of espionage involved a forced mind-meld with his Vulcan mentor." He continued matter-of-factly on to the transporter pad.
Kirk follwed him, aghast. What kind of world did these men live in? How could his death, or any of their deaths, have changed everything so much?
No wonder Sulu and Chekov were the way they were.
Kirk hoped he could pull this off. This was not the way things were supposed to be. They had to fix this. Had to.
Disclaimer: Star Trek does not belong to me.