A/N: I don't know how you'll forgive me for this incredibly long wait. I'll try to make it up to you by finishing this story quickly and, hopefully, with a satisfying ending. This chapter was written in March, but I never actually posted it because I wanted to change a few things...

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Kirk was a landmine. One wrong step and you were likely to be blown back three ranks. The Romulans in the hostage exchange were useless, equally bullheaded in their refusal to give up any information as they were certain that a Starfleet officer wouldn't resort to torture. On the second count, Kirk wasn't sure he'd bet money on that and was edging closer and closer towards that option. The only person who had dared talk to him in the three days since the Romulans had cloaked and disappeared with his friends was Uhura and even then, she was smart enough to keep conversation to a minimum. The bridge had become deathly silent and deathly still and there was nothing to distract him from his thoughts.

The same thoughts kept circling around Kirk's head, eagerly feasting upon his insecurities. Why had he let them go? Screw the Treaty and screw the Romulans. Selfishly, he wish he'd at least sent someone else. Maybe if he'd at least kept Spock, he could have used the link to find Bones. Now, he was clueless as to where the Romulans had gone. They hadn't picked up a warp trail, but that didn't mean there wasn't one. His best option was to sit tight and order more scans.

Kirk hated waiting.

"Scan the area again." Kirk ordered, his voice startling more than one of the Bridge crew. Chekoc didn't comment on the fact that he had just finished a scan of the area, and it had come up negative. No, the navigator wisely hopped immediately to the task.

Was Bones even alive? The Romulans had to be pretty pissed at him at the moment, what with him showing up the entire fleet. Who knew what they'd make of Spock in this situation. Why did this always seem to happen to them?

He'd received another flood of contradictory orders from the splintered groups of the Admiralty which he didn't care to pass along to his crew. There wasn't a warp trail, so his best bet was to stay put and that was exactly what he was going to do.

But a lot of things could happen in three days. Kirk sighed.

"Incoming transmission from an unknown source." Uhura called out. "It's being broadcast on Romulan channels."

"On screen." This was the ransom call he'd been waiting for.

He expected the scene that appeared before him, but he still flinched at the sight of Bones dangling from chains in front of him. The security officer and Spock were nowhere to be seen, possibly dead. Bones looked unconscious, but not every bit as beat up as Kirk had dreaded.

"Behold!" A voice boomed over the speakers. As a Romulan came into view on the screen, partially obstructing the view of Bones, he rabble-roused, "Is this the man the Romulan Empire has come to quake before? See how easily he falls! Romulans must unite and take back our foothold, to not bow like cowards before the weakened Federation."

Kirk didn't wait for his brain to process the information; it wasn't far off from what he'd expected. "Uhura, pinpoint where that signal is coming from." He gazed back at the screen, trying to locate every possible injuring on the doctor's body, but finding surprisingly few.

The speaker went on, "The treachery of the Federation is indisputable. They promised us, swore that they were not planning on attacking. I present to you evidence that the Federation is breeding Indyrin soldiers to start a war on us. They saw what they mistakenly thought was some impenetrable advantage, and are now biding their time to build army."

"Uhura?"

"Working on it, sir."

"On examination of the Federation doctor who was responsible for the attacks on our Romulan fleet, we have found him to be carrying an Indyrin child."

Kirk grit his teeth. Could it be true? Could Bones be pregnant with some sort of Indyrin hybrid? He analyzed what the Romulan had said. He'd been carefully playing both angles; that the Federation was breeding an army of supersoldiers and that these Indyrins were no threat to them, yet he'd made both arguments sound plausible. There was one thing that the Romulan had right, the idea of a walking, talking Indyin soldier was truly terrifying.

"Found it." Uhura announced. "Coordinates on your screen."

Kirk glanced down at the arm of his chair. Very close to a radiation anomaly, probably hoping the radiation would mask their presence. Which it had. Until they'd begun to broadcast. "Shields up. Red alert. Chekov, plot a course. Sulu, ready phasers."

"But sir, if we fire on their ship now, it will be validating their claims that we're trying to start a war."

Kirk knew it, but he still wanted to throw a punch at Sulu for reminding him. "Uhura, see if you can jam their signal."

"Yes sir."

The Romulan was still yammering on about betrayal, which Kirk found ironic given that he'd kidnapped Federation officers for what was undoubtedly the purpose of murder in order to determine this possible threat to the Romulans. "...Genetically engineering their own people to produce this abomination of a child..."

"Got it." Uhura announced just as the viewscreen fizzled out and the Romulans voice crackled and was replaced by static. She'd either gotten lucky or was more skilled than Kirk had given her credit for.

"Aim for their engines and fire!" Kirk announced, standing from his chair. He took a deep breath, hoping that in their overconfidence, the Romulans had left their shields down and that, if they had, the blast wouldn't endanger his friends.

"No damage. Their shields took most of it."

The anomaly could likely cause damage to an unshielded ship, then. "At least they won't be able to cloak. Fire again."

"Why aren't they firing?" Uhura wondered.

Chekov responded, "We've pushed them closer to the anomaly. Their systems may be malfunctioning."

Kirk frowned. It was time for a calculated risk. His friends were on board that ship. "Back off and fire a torpedo at the tip of their wing."

"Captain?"

"Now."

The Romulan ship spun backward towards the anomaly, then compensated by rushing forward towards the Enterprise. The anomaly reacted, sending both ships reeling backwards. Kirk slid and tumbled over his chair, landing inelegantly on the floor. "Shields?"

"Holding."

"And the Romulans?"

"They look pretty close to failing."

The ship rocked again, this time with a phaser blast. "Return fire."

"Their shields are down." And then almost in the same breath, Sulu said, "They're cloaking. Going to warp."

"Fire!"

They caught the tail end of the vessel, which knocked it out of cloak, and it spun out. "Tractor beam." Kirk clicked on the comm. "Scotty, can you beam them back?"

"I've got two human life signs. I'm having a hard time locating Mr. Spock."

"Get whoever you can, goddammit." There was silence, then shuffling over the comm. Then, "Med team to transporter Room."

"Captain, the Romulans are breaking free."

"Got 'em" Scotty huffed out. "Still trying to locate Mr. Spock."

"The Romulans are going to warp."

"After them. Stay on their tail."

"Aye, Captain."

Kirk spun out of his chair and raced down the halls to the infirmary. He caught the security guard that had accompanied them. "What happened over there?" The guard looked a bit sheepish and Kirk noticed that he wasn't sporting any injuries.

"They weren't in need of medical help. As soon as we boarded, they honed in on Dr. McCoy. They kept threatening him, but he just threatened them back. Said he would do to them what he'd done to the other Romulan ships if they so much as touched us." The redshirt took a deep breath. "It worked, too, at first. They were just scared of him. And then they decided he couldn't do anything to them and things really started to get bad. They didn't do much to him, but they really took it out on Mr. Spock. That is, until Dr. McCoy summoned one of those ghost things that the Indyrin use. It scared the hell out of them."

"So Spock is okay?"

"Last I saw him, he looked a bit roughed up, but definitely alive."

"And McCoy? Why is he unconscious?"

"Beats me. The Romulans hardly touched him aside from scanning him."

Kirk rested his hand briefly on the man's shoulder, but was too concerned for his friend to waste a minute more outside of Sickbay. "Get some rest."

The room was chaotic; a few injuries sustained in battle along with the bustle around Bones.

"He's dying." M'Benga stated, refusing to leave Bones' bedside. Kirk's eyes were immediately drawn to the still form on the biobed. He looked no worse than he had the day he left.

The quiet words silenced the room. "What happened to him?"

"It's hard to tell. The scans say there isn't anything wrong with him, that he should be awake, but instead he's dying. I can't make heads or tails of it." M'Benga's voice was calm, clinical and more detached than normal. "We've treated the few wounds he had, which seemed to help a little bit, but he's still slipping away."

Kirk sat down next to the bed and took Bones' hand. Immediately, his turmoil vanished as Bones absorbed his emotions. As his head cleared, he thought about how the Indyrin seemed to die when they couldn't absorb emotions. Maybe Bones' DNA had changed that much? "Everyone needs to place a hand on him." Kirk ordered, backing away so others could get in range. There was a miniscule hesitation as the staff wondered at the strange order, before all of them began to comply. Nurse Chapel was the first to rest her hand on his arm and then back away. Soon, everyone in the Sickbay had a hand on McCoy's still form.

"It's working." M'Benga declared. "His vitals are stabilizing. He's regaining consciousness."

Bones came to with a bit of a start, immediately batting away the extra hands. Once the crew had moved back to attending the other injured and it was just Dr. M'Benga and Kirk waiting at either side of the biobed. "I've got a killer headache."

"You almost died."

"Serin explained that. The baby needs a whole lot of emotions to grow, more than I can produce apparently. Since I'm not constantly in the kind of emotional state that is strong enough to sustain a growing Indyrin, it was quickly starving to death and taking me with it." Bones explained slowly.

"So it's true. You're pregnant."

"Apparently. Part human, part Vulcan and part Indyrin." Bones sighed, but he didn't seem to be feeling much heat behind his words. "Goddamn Mokdan. Their gestation period is abnormally short. They probably thought they could get away with it, maybe without us even knowing."

"Bones? How are you?"

"I'll be okay." Kirk wasn't sure what to make of that response. There was so much more to say, to discuss, to ask.

"Captain." Sulu's voice came over the comm. "We have a problem."

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