Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the Star Trek franchise.
-ooO0Ooo-
Apparently she had brought the message to them successfully, as she was still crouched on the floor when the man that held her pendant in his hand flashed a vicious grin at her and left the cell quickly, the guards following him. Alone again, the more rational thoughts slowly started coming back, mostly about what the immediate future would have in stock for her after this little visit. Probably her head would not be the only hurting part of her body if the attitude shown so far was anything to go by. So the pendant did apparently hold some information, she bitterly thought. Would have been fortunate to know this when it still had been in her possession. But what could this be? And the more time passed, she really started to wonder where she had been brought and what those… Humans? Mutants? Actors? Where. She just couldn't place them.
Though her thoughts ran around in rather small circles for her liking, she decided to settle on the cot, trying to relax and regain some strength and much needed rest. Although she was not very confident to succeed in this effort.
-ooO0Ooo-
Three hours – it had only been three fucking hours before Kirk had been ordered back to his attendance room by a call from crewman Mattison informing him of an important message from Starfleet command. This message had been very brief, but this was not the worst about it. What really pissed him off was the smug grin on Admiral Shield's face when the recording ended. This, and the content, that basically consisted of Shield taking temporarily control over one of his crewmembers – namely Spock – and ordered the Enterprise to bring him to indicated coordinates without "further! Did he really dare to say 'further" delay.
Fuming he entered the order into the Enterprise' electronic brain asking to set a new course and contacted Spock over the com, ordering him into the attendance room. He studies the face of the man entering his room carefully and did no fail to notice that the jaw was locked a bit tighter than usual, small but significant indication that his first officer was not expecting his captain to do small talk with him. He glared silently at the Vulcanian for what seemed an eternity, while the other met his gaze steadily, until he finally spoke up:
"O.k. Spock. Care to tell me how it comes to pass that I get ordered to deliver you near the Romulanian neutral zone? And while we're at it I'd now really like to be informed about the nature and the goal of the mission."
"Captain," he hesitated, and Kirk was momentarily stunned; his first officer didn't hesitate! "I assure you that this mission is of outmost importance for me, probably for me personally, although it is not about me. You might want to consider it as a rescue mission, and I can say with 98,3% probability that you would agree with the mission itself. But I'm afraid I will not tell you more about the details now, as I have no clearance to do so."
"Shield mentioned 4 days," he queried on "is there a chance of it lasting longer?"
"No Sir, if the goal of the mission has not been achieved after four days it will be aborted"
"If this is the case, will there be a repeat performance of Shields little showpiece?"
At this question, Spock averted his gaze, looking to the floor and stayed silent for ten full seconds, before he slowly replied: "No, sir. This is extremely improbable. The chance is now; there will be no second one."
He went quiet after these words and despite the fact that the minuscule hints of tension could still be detected in his features Kirk knew that he would not divulge anything else. That didn't hinder him to keep on staring at the man for a full minute, before he finally shook his head, sighing.
"Allright, I'll accept this statement for now and I won't cause you any difficulties this time, heck, I'll even go as far as to offer you the help of this ship if need be. But only on two conditions: if you get clearance later I want a full debrief of this mission and if there would be more than this one mission I will want to know the full details upfront, regardless of whether you have clearance or not."
Spock raised his eyes to Kirks and he could see the tension gone, replaced by hints of a look that he had seen on really rare occasions – something like gratitude and relief "These conditions are acceptable although logically not fully justifiable, but I still agree to them; thank you, Captain, also for your offer to help. I will now prepare for the mission." With these words he turned around and left Kirk standing in the middle of the attendance room, a sense of foreboding in the man's mind.
-ooO0Ooo-
Natasha woke up at the sound of the door look being activated, startled that she had somehow managed to doze of through her dark thoughts. She bolted up from the cot and turned again to face the door, trying to appear ready for whatever they had in stock this time. As the door opened, only the guards entered the cell, stepping towards her lithe frame and grabbing both her arms. After a brief struggle from her that did not achieve anything she was handcuffed and they led her out of the cell into a sparsely lit corridor of sorts. The guy she had come to call Commander in her mind, that had held the pendant earlier, had been waiting on the outside until the guards pushed her towards him and took the lead of the little party. Walking, she noticed that the walls where similar to the ones in her cell, they appeared to be carved from the stone. What strengthened this impression was the complete lack of windows, fresh air coming only from some kind of air vents that were fixed to the ceiling. Doors departed left and right from the corridor in regular intervals which had no lock, just a keypad to the side –apparently prison cells like hers. All in all it was a strange mixture of familiar and alien: the carved stone appeared like limestone, while the keypads seemed truly foreign to her, as well as the weapons her guards carried. They spoke English, although she couldn't place the accent. She just couldn't figure out which nation would have this kind of technology that looked too advanced to belong to any terrorist group.
After what seemed an eternity of crossing random doors, halls and stairways they halted in front of another locked door, and the commander turned to the keypad, typing in a code. The door opened with a hiss, and she was urged forward into the rather large room that appeared to be a laboratory of some kind, its predominant color being white with a kind of gurney dominating the middle of the area.