A/N: YAY!!! The Doc Upload screen is working again. It wasn't actually a problem with my computer, but with the site. No matter what i did it uploaded my chapter as one big block of text so I had to go in and add paragraph breaks manually, not something I will be doing again any time soon, let me tell you! lol. But now it's better. Sorry to anyone who thought chapter nine was up already, I uploaded 8 twice because of the upload problem and had to delete the second version. So anyway, here is the REAL chapter nine, thanks to everyone that is still reading it, I SO love hearing from you all! Enjoy! - pj

Jo finally understood what everyone meant when they said the 'space fever' would get to her. That it was inevitable. It got to everyone at some point and she would have to work though it.

Jo hadn't believe them. She was sure she was stronger.

She was wrong.

And today she was two seconds shy of screaming, baking a cake the size of a car or heading down to engineering to see what she could set on fire.

Boredom does strange things to people, she concluded, leaning casually against the Captain's chair and wondering if it was possible to literally climb walls. She decided she would need to shut off the gravity first and then set to figuring out how she might get Ensign Thad away from his station long enough for her to figure out how to do that.

"Yeoman."

She looked up automatically. Jim, Uhura and Spock were all crammed into the turbo lift, on their way to a diplomatic negotiation on Ammor, the planet they were orbiting.

"Sir?"

"Feel like tagging along?"

Her face brightened immediately.

"Really?"

Jim shrugged, "sure. They're supposed to throw us a party after the negotiations are settled and you can only survive on replicated pizza for so long."

Jo grinned and practically tumbled over herself trying to get to the turbo lift at light speed, packing herself in between Spock and Uhura with glee.

Jim smiled, "Mr. Sulu, you have the con."

---

The Jim Kirk Curse. Everyone had heard of it. There were whispers of it in the corridors every time the Captain came back to the ship (never when he left because no one wanted to jinx him) of how it had either come true or failed. It was not usually the latter.

Jo had been on board for several weeks now and was quiet familiar in the JTKC, as some called it. She knew Sulu was a weary believer in it, Uhura a vocal one, Spock never had much of anything to say about it and McCoy, well, no one had ever been dumb enough to mention the Curse around the CMO so she wasn't sure.

As for Jo, she had never believed in the curses. She believed in herself and not much else and that had suited her just fine up until then.

But how else could she explain how quickly everything had all gone to hell if not for the famed Kirk Curse?

Jo covered her ears and screamed as laser-fire resounded around the room. Tables and chairs were knocked out of the way as panicked dignitaries fled and chandeliers and wall sconces exploded in cross fire.

All she'd done was accept a dance. The negotiations had gone well and a small banquet had been arranged for afterward with music and dancing. Jo had followed the Captain, Uhura and Spock into the large ballroom, content to be largely ignored. She wasn't imperative to the mission, she had nothing to add. It was just nice to not be cooped up on the ship for once and there were lots of things to look at in the lavishly decorated ballroom. It reminded her of her mother's parties on Earth, only this time she had no plans of putting food coloring or laxatives in the drinks.

The Ammor Prince had approached her innocently enough after the first course had been finished and asked her to dance. At least that's what she assumed he'd asked since he held one hand out to her and the other pointed toward the dance floor.

She'd thought about refusing, she didn't usually go for royalty, they were too concerned with appearances and had no real depth from what she could see. But the last thing she wanted to do was ruin all the progress the Captain had made in his negotiations by offending the guy And he was kind of cute anyway. So while the Captain was chatting with the Queen through Uhura and Spock had disappeared somewhere, she accepted.

Yet somewhere between trying to decipher his nonsensical mummerings as he held her a bit too close to dance and wrenching herself out of his grip when he refused to let her go when the music stopped, all hell broke loose.

And now she was cowering behind an atrocious marble statue while shouts of anger in a language she didn't understand and phaserfire she did resounded all around.

With shaking fingers, Jo reached for her communicator and held it close to her ear, crouching even lower behind the large square base of the statue, the ugly thing was all that stood between her and certain death, or at the very least, capture and as of yet unknown terrors.

"Beam us up, Scotty," she heard the Captain scream, and chanced a glance around the edge of the square base to see the rest of the away team all ducked behind overturned tables and chairs on the other side of the room, defending themselves with phasers set to stun.

"Aye Captain, but there's some sort of interfer'nce, a generator on one side of the room, I can beam up the three life signs that are togethe' but I can't get a lock on the other."

Jo's stomach clenched. The other. That was her.

"Jim!" she screamed out momentarily forgetting the communicator, terrified he would give the order and leave her there. It was only logical. 'The good of the many' and all that. And the Captain's safety comes before all else, doesn't it? She was pretty sure she'd read that somewhere. And she had been around long enough to know The Enterprise was loyal to her captain above all else. Especially over a charity case Yeoman that wasn't supposed to be there in the first place

Whatever thoughts about to surface were halted when a ricocheting beam bounced off a metal art piece on the wall and hit her hand, the communicator falling to the floor in a heap of sparks and smoke. She yelped and cradled her now burned hand to her chest, bowing her head to her knees to make herself as small a target as possible.

A few moments later her ears perked up to the distinct whir of a transporter beam and her heart collapsed when the sounds of laser fire were still no further away.

They had left her.

She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut against tears of betrayal and fear.

She shouldn't have been surprised.

---

"Beam us up, Scotty!" Jim shouted into his communicator. He wasn't sure exactly what had happened, just that it had led to this.

He'd been discussing the options for trade with the Ammor King with Uhura running interference and Spock spouting logic in his ear when he realized Jo was no longer at his side.

A moment later, it seemed, she was screaming for him on the other side of the room, some punk kid had her by the arm and was trying to pull her out of the room.

He would never forget the look of fear in her eyes. The desperation.

He may never forgive himself either.

"Aye Captain, but there's some sort of interfer'nce, a generator on one side of the room, I can beam up the three life signs that are togethe' but I cann'e get a lock on the other."

Jim peaked around the table he was using as cover, Uhura beside him laying down fire. He could see the generator from here, a massive, ugly gray thing with pulsating light. It was the power for this huge building and had been running on full in preparation for the celebration.

And immediately in front of it, cowering behind a marble statue to an Ammor God, was Jo McCoy. Small, alone, huge blue eyes and mascara running down her cheeks.

Jim pursed his lips, his decision already made.

"Mr. Scott, beam Uhura and Spock out of here, along with the security team," he glanced over his shoulder at the three young men Bones had insisted he bring with him, "leave me, I'm going to go get Jo, when you can get a lock on us, beam us up."

"Jim," Spock grabbed his arm, "you can't-"

Jim grinned, bright and easy as if he wasn't risking his life, "I'll be fine, Spock. Go back to the ship, make sure everyone is safely off the planet and then get us out of here. I have to go get Jo."

He winked and the smile fell away as he watched his crew disappear from before him.

---

Her ears were ringing and her eyes were blurry but she would swear she could hear her name being called.

Slowly, she raised her head to look around. Beyond the chaos, behind the weapon's fire, amongst the noise and destruction…there was Jim Kirk.

Her Captain.

Her savior.

"Jim!" she shouted. It sounded like the entire building was about to come down but she thought she saw his lips move to form the words 'come here'. He wanted her to cross the vast expanse of nothing that separated them, no cover, no diversions...no way.

"Are you crazy?" she screamed, and ducked her head when a piece of plaster fell on her legs. Maybe the building was coming down.

"Jo," this time she heard him and she looked up. The determination, the absolute certainty in his eyes was undeniable, "trust me."

You have no idea what you're asking me. She thought, closing her eyes briefly. She glanced behind and with Jim as the only one shooting from the other side, the Ammor guards had easily freed themselves to come toward her.

"So this is the rock and the hard place I've heard so much about," she muttered and turned back around to face Jim.

With a deep breath, she got up, and ran.

TBC