Falling Into Darkness

by Lady Dawson and EssentiallyRei

Chapter Two: As Stars Go By

Her entire sight had turned completely red.

Or at least, that's how it felt, Emily Conner considered as she regarded her surroundings of the foreign planet Nirabu. Every inch of the place—from the trees to the grass to the ground itself—was a harsh violent shade of red which, in addition to the harsh smell of flames and ash and gods know what else that was coming from the volcano in the distance, was not the most pleasurable of sights.

Wrinkling her nose again, Emily really wished she could take off the grey hooded disguise that kept most of her face covered. Since the species on this planet had barely gotten around to inventing the wheel, let alone spacecraft, they'd had to conceal their "alien" appearance, but with the volcanic ash in the air, the disguise made it hard to breathe.

Not for the first time, she glanced in the direction of the temple, pacing back and forth across the red grass before she glanced sideways at her companion, the alien horse called Niborilla that was their getaway.

"He's gonna wait until I can't breathe in this thing, then show up with the entire race of those clay dudes chasing him through the forest, isn't he?" Though she was joking, Emily knew that James T. Kirk was more than likely to do just that—probably with the clay dudes throwing spears at him, if past experience proved anything.

Except that their real name wasn't "clay dudes"; Spock had reminded her three times that they were called Nibirans. But really, they looked like they were made out of clay.

Of course, the only thing commenting that to Spock accomplished was the Vulcan First Officer fixing her with a cold stare that said all too clearly that she was being completely illogical before telling her that, "According to several old Earth tales, your ancestors were, in fact, made out of clay before they were put on the Earth."

Upon which Emily had forced a smile at him and said, "Yes, Commander," before going back to what she was doing, reserving the title "clay dudes" for those who would appreciate the humor. From the look that Spock had giving her, however, Emily suspected that someone had been saying it around him and he knew all too well who had coined the term.

Emily had managed to keep a straight face around him so far, but as soon as his back was turned, she had a hard time fighting back a grin.

Hearing noises through the forest, Emily straightened from where she'd been leaning against the red tree, scanning the surrounding area for any sign of where the noise had come from just as the Niborilla reared up unexpectedly, snarling at something out of her line of sight, followed by a familiar yell.

"Jim, no!"

Before the words had even left her mouth, Emily heard the unmistakable sound of phaser fire and the Niborilla fell to its side—not dead, just stunned, but it would be awhile before it woke up, meaning that they had to come up with a new way back to the Enterprise.

Yanking her hood off, Emily glared at the hooded figure that had just stunned their getaway, her hands on her hips.

"Dammit, Jim!" she complained. "Did you forget that was our ride?"

The new arrival pushed his hood back, revealing the handsome face of Captain James T. Kirk, who looked exasperated as his bright blue eyes met the green ones of his Chief Tactical Officer.

"Oh, great," he grumbled before looking over his shoulder as more yelling came from behind him and instantly, he bolted past Emily, grabbing her hand as he ran. Emily only had a quick look behind her to see the clay dudes running after them, throwing spears and arrows anything they could get their hands on as they chased down the two imposters.

Emily glanced sideways at Jim as they dashed through the forest, keeping her hand firmly latched in his.

"So," she said conversationally, like they were sitting in the cafeteria, eating dinner, and having a light conversation, "what did you take?"

Jim shrugged, glancing down at the scroll he had in his opposite hand. "No idea," he admitted, "but they were bowing to it!" He was digging his communicator out while managing to keep one hand on the scroll and the other on Emily's wrist—quite a feat, Emily thought. "Kirk to Shuttle One! Natives are out of the kill zone! You are clear! Spock, get in there, neutralize the volcano, and let's get out of here!"

Glancing briefly over her shoulder, Emily pushed Jim out of the way just as an arrow was shut directly towards their hands and probably would've pierced the captain had she not shoved him out of the way.

"You know, if you hadn't stunned our ride, then we probably wouldn't be running through the forest right now," she commented, but other than a dirty look, Jim didn't answer her, too busy talking to Spock over the comm.

She couldn't hear the Vulcan, but she had no doubt that he was reminding the captain about the Prime Directive—with probably cause, she thought with mirth. Jim had a habit of toeing the line of it more than he should.

"I know what it says!" Jim yelled into the communicator, pretty much confirming what Emily had thought about what Spock was saying, "which is why I'm running through the jungle, wearing a disguise! Now drop off your super ice cube and let's go! Kirk out!" He snapped his comm. closed, shooting a wry grin at Emily. "Still glad you came?"

She laughed at him. "Hey, you were all ready to bring Leonard out here and we both know how much he hates missions like this," she reminded him. "Right about now, he'd probably be yelling how much he hates this!"

Jim laughed too, though it was winded from how fast they were running. "You forgot he'd be obviously yelling that they're trying to kill us," he pointed out.

"That, too."

"Duck," Jim added and she obeyed, ducking her head just in time to avoid a spear aimed at her head.

"These guys don't give up, you have to give them credit for that," Emily observed. They were just barely managing to escape the pack, but they were still hot on their tails and showing no sign of giving up anytime soon. "How soon is Sulu, Uhura, and Spock going to be down here to pick us up?"

Unfortunately, as soon as she asked that, Jim's comm. beeped and he snatched it up again. Emily strained to hear what Sulu was saying, but all she made out was, "—going to have to make it to the Enterprise on your own!"

"Wonderful!" Jim sighed and maneuvered direction, never releasing Emily's hand which, despite there was an entire race of people trying to kill them at the moment, she had to appreciate having some alone time with her boyfriend. They rarely got to have moments where they could just hold hands without being concerned about anyone watching. "Ready?"

"Like we have a choice!" Emily hurled at him.

Jim grinned at her and they made a dash towards the edge of the forest, pausing only briefly to hang the scroll that he'd taken.

Glancing over her shoulder, Emily saw that many of the natives had stopped their pursuit and had fallen to their knees in prayer, bowing before the scroll, not caring about the imposters now that their scroll had been returned. Unfortunately, that didn't hold true for all of them, she thought as several of them continued running after them.

Hand entwined with Jim's, Emily leaped off the edge of the cliff as her feet touched the edge, diving into the waters below.

Freeing herself from the unwanted robe, Emily followed the shadowy outline of Jim as they swam for the Enterprise, parked on the ocean floor.

Her heart glowed at the sight of the starship that, a year ago, had been completely foreign to her. It was a marvel what a difference a year made; she never would have thought that she'd been working on a starship, exploring the galaxy—the idea, the concept, was completely inexplicable to her. She hadn't even known that something like this could have existed, outside of science fiction.

That was before she and her best friend—Spock's twin sister—Joni Bennett had been transported from their world to Star Trek. In the beginning, Emily had assumed that it was just some bizarre dream, but the more she was here, the more she realized that all of this was real and somehow, she'd been transported from what she referred to now as the Other World. And as far as anyone knew, they were here for good.

The only downside was Joni wasn't on the Enterprise; she'd been transferred away after the Narada incident last year, under the reasoning that the Enterprise had Montgomery Scott as her Chief Engineer, there was no need for another genius engineer. So Joni was forced to leave and Emily felt the absence of her friend every day. Joni was the only person who understood what it was like to come from another universe entirely.

Jim tried, but he couldn't really get it the way Joni could.

Swimming for the Enterprise, swimming home, Emily yanked off her goggles and inhales once they were safely inside and the water had been released from the tank. She grinned at her boyfriend, who had pulled his off too. "You know, if you wanted to get me into a skin-tight outfit, all you had to do was ask."

Bright blue eyes amused, Jim returned, "I'll show you what you can—"

Just as he was leaning closer, about to kiss her, the tank opened to reveal Montgomery Scott—a very unhappy Montgomery Scott, Emily thought as Jim yanked his head back.

Scotty was scowling at the two of them, dripping wet in their dive suits, barely having gotten their breath back as he exclaimed, "Do you have any idea how ridiculous it is to hide a starship on the bottom of the ocean? We've been down here since last night! The salt waters gonna ruin the—"

"Scotty!" Jim interrupted, looking slightly flushed at having nearly been caught, though only Emily caught it. "Where's Spock?"

Softening intensely, Scotty looked at him sheepishly. "Still in the volcano, sir," he answered at once.

Jim's gaze hardened and, without another word to either of them, he dashed past Scotty still in his dive suit, making a run for the lifts. Emily glanced sideways at the Chief Engineer before they both hurried after the captain as he made his way for the Bridge with Emily and Scotty in his wake.

Pavel Chekov looked around at them as soon as they had stepped into the pristine white glow of the Bridge. "Keptin on the Bridge!"

Unlike normally, when everybody snapped to attention as soon as Jim was in view, everybody was already on edge, their attention at its peak, Emily noted, though it wasn't hard to figure out why, with the First Officer still in a fiery volcano.

"Lieutenant," Jim barked at Uhura, who was in her own red dive suit, though considerably drier than either her or the captain, "do we have an open channel on Mr. Spock?"

"The heat's frying his comm., but we still have contact," Uhura reported. Emily could hear the tremble in her voice and laid a kind hand on her forearm, to which the Communications Officer glanced up at her.

"He'll be all right," she whispered softly, kindly. "Jim'll make sure that he gets back to the ship safely."

Her lower lip trembled slightly and Uhura nodded quickly, though the relief was evident in her dark eyes as she gave Emily a trembling smile that was filled with gratitude. A year ago, Uhura couldn't stand Emily any more than she had Jim, due to a prank Star Trek Emily had caused upon their meeting, but since then, the two women had formed a bond through their mutual understanding of having a relationship with their commanding officer—though with Uhura, it was not nearly as forbidden as Emily's was. Spock was only the First Officer; though a senior commanding officer, he was not the captain.

"I have activated the device, Captain. When the countdown is complete, the device should render the volcano inert."

Upon hearing Spock's voice break through the comm., Emily returned her attention back to the situation at hand, worry running through her, though she didn't dare share that with Uhura. Getting Spock out of the volcano would be very difficult—especially since they didn't have use of the transporters, which was why they didn't beam down into the volcano to begin with.

"I need to beam Spock back to the ship!" Jim demanded, looking between Sulu and Chekov. "Give me one way to do it!"

Emily glanced towards her "little brother"; Pavel had grown up in the past year, no longer the innocent little kid that she'd first met when she came here, but instead a brilliant young man who was more than capable of holding his own. If there was anyone who could figure out a way to get Spock back here, she thought without a flicker of doubt, it would be Pavel.

And sure enough, with his face flushing with earnest, Pavel suggested, "Maybe if we had a direct line of sight . . ."

"Hang on, man!" Scotty protested, holding up his hands in objection, his eyes wide in disbelief. "You're talking about an active volcano! Sir," he added, looking at Jim, "if that thing erupts, I cannot guarantee we can withstand the heat!"

"I don't know if we can maintain that kind of altitude," Sulu offered his suggestion.

Jim looked frustrated as he glanced over at Emily, desperate for some kind of help, but she shook her head at him; they both had valid points. And there was another one . . .

"The shuttle was concealed by the ash cloud, but the Enterprise is too large," Spock pointed out, listening to their arguments through the comm. "If utilized in a rescue effort, it would be revealed to the indigenous species."

"Spock," Jim said despairingly as Emily came to stand next to him, close enough for emotional support but not intimately, "nobody knows the rules better than you, but there has got to be an exception . . ."

"None," Spock said firmly, leaving no room for argument. "Such action would violate the Prime Directive."

Ugh, Emily hated it when he said stuff like that, especially during situations like this; there was nothing that Spock loved better than the rules, if in fact the Vulcan would admit to feeling one way or the other about it.

"Dammit, Spock, we're trying to save your life here!" she snapped at him. "Stop being so damn self-sacrificing!"

"Lieutenant, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

"Spock, we're talking about your life!" Jim yelled at him, the desperation lacing through his tone, bright blue eyes seemingly even brighter in the glow of the blue waters outside of the viewport.

But this time, Emily felt her heart clench in fear as Spock's voice faltered and static came through. All she could hear through the static was, "The rules . . . broken . . ." And then everything went quiet over the comm.

"Spock! Spock!" Jim shouted through it, but nothing came through. He turned to Uhura, whose hand was clamped over her mouth. "Try to get him back online."

Emily had never seen anyone move as fast as Nyota Uhura at that moment; she all but flew to her station, her hands flying over the control panel to try and reestablish contact with the First Officer—all the while, the seconds to the detonator were ticking down and with every second that passed, that one was less that they could rescue Spock in.

Jim looked at her, the uncertainty in his eyes. "If Spock were here and I were there," he whispered, so quietly that nobody else could hear, "what would he do?"

Emily bit her lip as she looked helplessly at her boyfriend, knowing the answer but not wanting to utter the words. She knew what Spock would do, even though it made her want to throttle the Vulcan until she knocked some sense into that thick skull of his.

But it was not her, but Leonard McCoy, standing on Jim's other side, who spoke the words Emily couldn't—wouldn't—say.

"He'd let you die."

She closed her eyes, looking away from Jim, knowing that they were true; if their roles were reversed, and it fell to Spock to save Jim, she wasn't sure if they'd even be discussing trying to get Jim back on board.

No—she knew they wouldn't be discussing it, just as surely as Spock was refusing to hear them now.

If only Joni were here, she wistfully thought, she would've been able to convince her brother that his own life was worth saving. But Joni wasn't here and there was no one here—not even Uhura, not that Emily would ever say that to her—that could convince the stubborn Vulcan that his life was worth preserving.

Looking back at Jim, Emily knew what he was going to do, even before he gave the order to Sulu to take the Enterprise into the air—knowing that the Nibirians were still out there, still trying to find the defilers of their sacred temple who had stolen their scroll. She knew him too well by now; he would leave no man behind.

As the Enterprise flew towards the volcano, making its way over the fiery ash cloud emitting from it, Jim looked at Emily. "Take the conn," he ordered. She nodded as he dashed away just as Spock was being beamed on board.

Flipping through her PADD, Emily glanced over some of the older messages that she hadn't had a chance to look at yet. Most of them were from Starfleet, but there were a couple from her older brothers—she would wait until later to read those; she was in a pretty good mood right now and didn't want it ruined—and one from Joni.

She tapped her finger against it, bringing up the letter, which was just as brief as the ones before it had been.

To Emily Conner,

Yet again, Emily, I must keep this brief.

My work has been keeping me busy and I find that I lose track of time too often. Days have turned into weeks. Weeks into months. But do not worry, my friend; this lost time is spent productively. Thus far, I am satisfied with my accomplishments. I wish I could share these accomplishments with you, but for now, my work remains classified.

With all my hard work, a promotion may be coming my way. Not one that will get me any extra time off or shore leave, but who knows. I will duly inform you if they give me any kind of leeway on such matters.

In what spare time I have, I've been following any unclassified data on the Enterprise's adventures that I can. It seems our friend Jim has been keeping his crew very busy indeed. It intrigues me that most of Jim's missions have become a bit of controversy with the "higher-ups." Fortunate that he has such a capable Chief Tactical Officer to keep his head on his shoulders, because I fear without you he would not.

Please inform my brother that I have received his communications in regards to our mother. It is regrettable news.

Stay vigilant, my friend.

Your friend,

Joan

Clicking her tongue as she read through it again, Emily tried to push down the uneasy feeling that went through her gut; it was the same one she had every time she read any of her friend's letters. She just couldn't shake the feeling that there was something wrong; Joni's letters just felt wrong.

But when she'd brought these concerns up with Jim and her uncle Chris Pike, they had both double checked with Admiral Marcus and assured her that Joni was well, but her work was indeed very classified, which was why she couldn't discuss it.

No matter what they said, though, she still couldn't shake the feeling that—

"Oh!"

So distracted was Emily that, as she rounded the corner, she collided with Uhura, who had been going in the opposite direction and hadn't been looking where she was going either.

"Uhura! Sorry . . ." she apologized at once as she scrambled to her feet, offering a hand to help the Communications Officer up. "I wasn't watching where I was . . . going . . ." Emily trailed off as she got a good look at Uhura's expression, realizing at once that something was wrong; her eyes looked red. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Uhura said quickly, shaking her head. "It's all right, Emily—I wasn't watching where I was going either . . ."

Noting where she had just come from—in the direction of Spock's quarters—Emily regarded Uhura. She definitely looked like she had been crying and it was that that made up her mind.

"You know, I was just about to have a cup of tea in my room," she said, laying a hand on the taller woman's arm. "Would you care to join me?"

It took some convincing, but eventually, Emily talked Uhura into coming with her to her quarters, where she replicated two cups of tea. She would've preferred coffee, but the replicators made such terrible coffee that Emily preferred to have the tea that it made; at least it somewhat resembled tea.

Setting the steaming mug in front of Uhura, Emily took the seat across from her. "So what happened?" she asked with infinite kindness.

The Communications Officer's shoulders sagged as she stared down at her mug miserably. "Spock and I . . . we had a fight."

Emily nodded; she had expected as much, after that afternoon. She had seen the way that Uhura had flung her earpiece onto her station after making sure Spock was on board; it was all too clear that she was upset with the Vulcan.

"I don't understand him sometimes," Uhura admitted, looking thoroughly depressed. "It was like he knew that he was going to die—he was prepared for it—and he didn't even give one thought as to what I was going through there or even what it would do to me if he had died. He didn't even care what it would do to me if he'd died. All he did was just sit there so stoically and . . ." She gave a frustrated noise. "And he didn't even really fight with me; he just sat there and let me yell and scream at him . . . if he had even just tried to reason with me, but he wouldn't even do that . . . just told me that it was the only logical way."

"To him, maybe so," Emily said grimly. Uhura looked like she was about ready to explode. "Nyota, I am on your side, okay? Spock is my friend, even if he won't admit that he's friends with anybody. I care about him too and I'm just as annoyed with him about his whole 'ready to throw myself into a volcano' escapade as you are. And I know Jim is too," she added as an afterthought. "I just think that . . . Spock loves logic, we know that; he loves the rules and reasoning and . . . and he's been through a lot this past year," she mused, "especially with Joni being gone. But he loves you; I know that and deep down, I know you know that. Spock just . . . shows his feelings differently than we do."

The Communications Officer sighed. "I know . . . it just frustrates me sometimes."

"I can't blame you for that one," Emily acknowledged. "I honestly don't know how you do it. If it were me, I'd have yanked the eyebrows off his brow by now."

Uhura managed a weak laugh. "He can be sweet sometimes, you know . . . even though it's probably not intentional, he does things sometimes that make me wonder if his human side shows more than he thinks it does."

"Oh, I know that," Emily said with a wry grin. "I know full well that I never want to be on the receiving end of his temper."

Looking puzzled, Uhura looked like she was about to ask, then obviously remembered about the incident last year when the captain had been on the receiving end of Spock's temper, and she laughed again before she was quiet again.

"He loves you, Nyota," Emily said reassuringly. "I have no doubt of that. You shouldn't either. I think maybe Spock's problem is that instead of feeling too little, he feels too much." And perhaps doesn't want to feel too much, she added in her head, not sharing this particular thought with Uhura, but she seemed to guess anyway as she nodded slowly at Emily, sipping her tea.

"If only he would show it," she said quietly.

Emily nodded once and the two women watched the stars go by outside Emily's window in silence.

AN: Hey, guys! Hope you enjoyed the new chapter! We've got all sorts of ideas for the new stories! And we appreciate those of you who reviewed on the last chapter and hope you do so for the new one!

Lady Dawson