Thank you guys so much for your support! I really appreciate your reviews, follows, favorites, etc. You inspire me to write! This story is probably about 1/2 of the way over.
Love you!
Chapter Eight: Deneva
"We appreciate your concern, Captain Kirk, but assure you that if any kind of attack were to occur, the Deneva Colony is adequately equipped to deal with it."
"Yes, I'm certain you are Counsellor, I was just checking in. There have been some unusual encounters lately and it's protocol to warn any planets that could be affected," Kirk lied to the older man sitting across the vid conn from him, and the Counsellor of Deneva nodded and cut transmission. Jim sank back in his chair in the briefing room, rubbing his eyes wearily.
Spock's hunch had, apparently, been based on nothing. That, combined with a growing monster in the belly of his ship, the worsening condition of Carol Marcus, the loss of the exotic matter trail and the cloistering of his First Officer in his quarters had left Jim at the end of his rope. He stood, pacing the length of the briefing room. They had no leads, no trail to follow and useless current orders, and floating stagnantly in space was not the Captain's idea of keeping busy.
"Captain," the comm whistled at him, followed by Uhura's voice, and he punched the button.
"Kirk here."
"Mr. Chekov reports no further progress on the trail. He suggests we give up that line of thought and move on."
Jim's fists clenched. He was Captain James Tiberius Kirk and he never ever quit. But this bullheaded need to go on was getting them nowhere. His shoulders relaxed, fists uncurling as he leaned against the wall.
"Tell him to keep the scans running...but set a course for Starfleet's designated heading."
.
"Spock."
The Vulcan stared up at his ceiling, listening to the sounds of the ship. The voice in the darkness startled him; he was listening so intently, the whisper sounded like a shout.
He sat up, glancing around. He knew logically that no one could be in his quarters without his knowledge. However...
"Spock."
The voice was partially in his ears, partially in his mind. This potential telepathy disturbed the Vulcan deeply. If there was a telepathic being on board the Enterprise...
"Yes?" he ventured when the voice called yet again, and was met with only silence. He shook his head; he was being ridiculous, irrational. As illogical as his action of going to the Captain with his fears for a planet he had seen in a dream. There was no basis for his current state of mind.
"Spock! Spock! Spock!"
And yet it pestered him endlessly, driving him mad, and he clapped his hands over his ears and curled in on himself beneath the false protection of his bedcovers.
"Spock?"
"Leave me alone!" he finally cried in desperation, and then realized this voice had come from his doorway, not his mind, and sat up with a sinking feeling in his gut. Doctor McCoy stood cautiously in his entryway, looking alarmed. Spock had just yelled at him, which was enough to throw anyone off balance.
"You alright, Spock?" Bones called uncertainly, and the Vulcan sat up, smoothing his hair back and composing himself.
"Yes, Doctor. I have simply been suffering from unpleasant dreams and hallucinations, no doubt thanks to your so called medicine."
Bones bristled.
"Now wait just a goddamn minute! I came all the way up here out of the goodness of my heart to check on you, my patient, and you think it's alright to..." he trailed off as the light in the room came on, revealing the First Officer. His cheeks had begun to sink in slightly, and his pale skin seemed even paler than usual. He looked sickly, almost skeletal.
"This is about more than just nightmares, isn't it Spock?" he asked softly, the usual bantering animosity between them fading as real worry painted his expressive human face. Spock looked away. He would not discuss such things with a human, least of all McCoy.
"It is what it is, Doctor. Something I must handle alone," Spock replied quietly, and Bones sighed shortly.
"You know, Spock, trying to face every problem alone isn't strength. Sometimes, the strongest man is the one who isn't afraid to ask for help."
The doctor left Spock with that frustratingly vague piece of human advice, and the Vulcan fell into a medicated sleep with contemplations spinning in his troubled mind.
.
Jim twisted his chair around, the dull silence on the bridge making for a very bad environment to stay awake in. The soothing rush of the warp engines and stars speeding by, the hum of machinery...
Suddenly Uhura snapped to alert at her station, eyes wide.
"Captain, a distress signal from...it's Deneva!" she called, and Jim shot upright. Spock had been right!
"Chekov, Sulu, plot course for Deneva maximum warp! Uhura, try to contact the Counsellor, find out what's going on. Yeoman Adair, get Spock up here," he tossed orders out, and his crew obeyed like the well tuned machine they were.
"No response from the Deneva Council," Uhura called, and Kirk's fists clenched.
"Try this communicator," he said, patching in a comm number to the station. She frowned.
"That's a private line," she noted, and he nodded, shoulders tense. Uhura keyed in the necessary commands, and suddenly a burst of static came through her earpiece.
"Sam, are you there?" Jim called, and another burst of static gave way to a woman's voice, hysterically high pitched.
"They just came out of nowhere! They're everywhere-Sam, get Peter! Please, help us! Oh God, please help-" the transmission cut out sharply, and Jim swallowed hard.
"That sounded like Aurelan," he realized softly, and Uhura looked at him questioningly. "My Brother's wife. He's a scientist on Deneva. Chekov! How long until we reach the planet?"
"Fifteen minutes sir," the navigator replied, and Jim fell back in his chair as Spock strode through the door. He looked haggard, but his eyes were bright and Jim felt an immediate weight off his shoulders to have his First Officer on the bridge.
The ship came out of warp above orbit, and the entire crew fell silent in shock.
A massive ovular craft of pitch black, oblong and sleek hovered above the planet. The planet seemed to swarm beneath it, and Spock felt a blast of pain shoot through his temples. It was just as he had seen it.
"Fire warning shots on that ship!" Jim demanded, and photon torpedos roared through space towards the intruding craft. It rocked as it was struck broadside, clipped along the edges, and it began to flee in reverse.
"Hail them, Uhura!"
"I've been trying, no response."
The ship floated to the right slowly, using basic thruster power, and suddenly the entire ship began to vibrate as a low thrum started up. Spock flinched, his sensitive ears reacting to the sound too low for humans to hear well, but they could feel it. The Enterprise trembled and shook, and then suddenly in a burst of light and energy, the ship was gone, leaving a brilliant splash of color.
"Dammit!" Jim swore violently, slamming his hand on the arm of his chair. They had escaped. He'd had them in his reach, and they'd escaped.
"We're being hailed from the planet Captain," Uhura said, and he nodded. Onscreen, an image flickered, severely hampered by interference.
"Please help us! There are creatures here-" it broke off, and Kirk leapt from his chair, motioning to Spock.
"Sulu, you have the conn. I've got to get down there. Giotto! Get a security outfit to the transporter room! We have to provide aid to these people!"
"Sir!" Uhura leapt from her chair. "You can't beam down into the middle of a crisis like
this! If you get yourself killed-"
"Lieutenant!" Jim interrupted sternly. Then he flashed a grin. "I'll be fine. Hold down the fort. Spock, you're with me."
The usual duo stepped into the Turbolift, and as the doors closed Spock swayed slightly. Kirk caught his elbow in alarm.
"Are you alright to beam down?" he asked nervously, and Spock recovered himself, nodding sharply.
"I am functioning at 73.24%. I will simply avoid getting into trouble, as you would say," he decided, and the two rushed to the transporter room.
Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scroggins, and four Security Personnel materialized on the surface in full battle mode. They had barely landed when the chaos began-phaser fire flew as they found themselves surrounded by 177s. The monster nearest them reared, then flailed away as it was barraged with eight thousand degree laser fire.
"My brother's laboratory is that way!" Jim shouted, and the group covered them as they hurried towards the glass-windowed structure ahead of them. The glass doors had been smashed, the metal bracers crumpled, and the sounds of defensive weapons shattered the evening.
"Sam!" Jim shouted as they pushed through the rubble, and the shrieking of a frustrated 177 pierced the air. Instead of running away from the sound, the landing party raced towards it.
A 177 was scrabbling at the doorway to a corridor which had been barricaded closed, preventing it from entering. It writhed under phaser fire as the party attacked, but the exoskeleton took most of the brunt and shielded the monster. Jim glanced around frantically; they had to do more than make this thing retreat.
"Spock!" Jim grabbed his First's shoulder, directing his attention upward. A shattered mirror ceiling hung above them, the edges jagged and deadly. It dangled by a support wire, and the Vulcan threw his gaze back to his Captain.
"It is not in correct position. How do you intend to rectify this?" he inquired, already on board with Jim's plan. Jim's eyes hardened to blue diamonds and he sprinted towards the 177. Spock's heart leapt into his throat as Kirk leapt onto the beast with almost no hesitation, riding it like a wild mustang.
"Jim you god damn idiot!" Bones was shouting, but Spock focused his attention on the hanging glass. If Jim could lure the beast into position…
He fired, slicing cleanly through the support wire, and Jim threw himself clear of the monster in the nick of time as the massive shard of glass came hurtling through the air to strike the 177 with a decisive thud. It sheared clean through the armored exoskeleton, sending two halves of a 177 squirming and writhing until it lay still.
"Sam!" The officers came up to the partially bowed in sliding door, melting a human sized hole in the metal and forcing their way in. The room was dark, the emergency lighting flickering fitfully, As the party forged deeper into the room, a shuffle reached Spock's sensitive ears and he froze, holding up a hand for his human companions to do the same.
"Sam?" a tremulous female voice whispered, and Jim stepped into a small pool of light, blue eyes catching the fluorescent rays.
"It's Jim Kirk, Sam's younger brother," he replied to the disembodied voice, and suddenly a woman stumbled from behind a barricade of desks and laboratory equipment. She was covered in blood—her own or another's was unclear—and she threw herself into Jim's arms.
"Jim! Oh Jim," she sobbed, on the verge of hysteria, and he cupped his arms around her gently.
"Aurelan, my brother's wife," he explained softly, stroking her hair. "Aurelan, where is Sam?"
She shook her head, dissolving into tears. Kirk gestured to Bones to see to the woman, and he knelt with her as the Captain and the rest of the party crept further into the building.
"There is no evidence that your brother is here, Jim," Spock pointed out gently, but the Captain made no indication that he had even heard his First Officer's comment. They rounded a corner into a much larger room. It was once a lobby, and was now scattered with rubble and the shattered glass of a 177 crashing in through the roof. There was no sign of any of the creatures now, and they slipped across the floor stealthily. Spock glanced down and paused, his boot resting in the reddish trail of blood indicative of a wounded human.
"Captain," he called softly, and Jim's jaw tightened at the sight. He followed the smeared trail around another corner, beneath the staircase, and stopped abruptly. Scroggins and Spock came up beside him to discover a gruesome scene.
A man lay beneath the staircase with his back to them; at least, what was left of it. A 177 had evidently attempted to eat the elder male from behind, its mandibles slicing cleanly through his spine and nearly all the way through his chest, leaving a ragged hole. His blood splashed the blue carpet with crimson.
"Is it him?" another security officer asked, and Jim's jaw tightened.
"It is my brother." He paused. "Was my brother. At least he didn't feel much pain," he said softly, a rather macabre statement based on the state of the man's severed spinal nerves.
He knelt down beside his kin, and Spock felt a wave of concern for his wellbeing. His eyes were as hard as diamonds, cold and unfamiliar as he closed Sam's glassy eyes. He suddenly froze, shoulders tensing visibly.
"Get Bones," he instructed Scroggins, who turned and ran back for the doctor who had stayed with Aurelan. Jim rose from his knees, holding a boy of around 7 years in his arms. He was drenched in blood, his sandy red hair speckled with the stuff and freckled face flecked with drying plasma.
"Peter," was all Jim said in explanation.
.
After Aurelan, Peter and the remains of George Samuel Kirk Jr. had been beamed up to the Enterprise, the landing party became a rescue party. They spread out across the surrounding area searching for any survivors.
Their success was limited. With each colonist they pulled from the wreckage of Deneva's once thriving settlement turned Jim's eyes a little darker, his shoulders a little tenser. Spock was beginning to wonder if his Captain was suffering from emotional stress. He doubted he could help even if he was.
"Help!"
A scream drew them to a domestic structure nearby. They had split into as many squads as they could, and Spock found himself alone with the Captain racing to the rescue.
A 177, smaller than any they had seen thus far, had cornered a Denevan woman and her small child, both of whom were wide eyed in terror.
Spock fired upon the creature to draw its attention, and as it whirled with a shriek it was struck directly below the crest of its spiny exoskeletal helmet by a blast from Kirk. It stiffened and fell limp abruptly, and Spock's eyes widened with realization; a weak spot in the armor!
Jim leapt down from his perch atop the structure, wielding a jagged pipe in his left hand. The creature twitched and clicked helplessly—they must have paralyzed it—but could not attack nor escape.
Jim struck it across the eye with the pipe, a vicious gesture of violence that made Spock start. This was most unlike his Captain.
But Kirk hit the beast again and again, anywhere he could reach with the primitive weapon. He hit it until his hands bled from the rough metal, and then he threw it aside, kicking the hard shell repeatedly until his rage wore itself out and he fell to his knees at the side of one of the beings responsible for his brother's demise. Tears, hot and bitter, streamed down Kirk's face as he let all his emotions run free as Spock never permitted.
The Vulcan approached, kneeling beside his Captain and resting a silent hand on his shoulder. Jim crumpled against him, his face resting in the protective dip of Spock's neck. The Vulcan felt no shame in providing this comfort to his friend, and draped an arm around the Captain's waist to wait for him to gather himself.
"We were too late," Jim whispered, one hand fisted in the blue fabric of his Science Officer's uniform. "You warned me what was happening and I waited, I took a chance. My brother is dead because of me. How many people are dead because of me?"
"The responsibility does not fall upon your shoulders, Jim," Spock asserted fiercely, and Kirk lifted his eyes to meet the dark gaze of his friend. "You attempted to warn Starfleet, you came as quickly as was humanly possible. You have saved many people. What more could be asked of you?"
Jim sighed, running a hand through his hair with a heavy sigh. "Let's get back to work. There are more people to help here."
He rose on his own two feet, sturdy, immovable, and Spock realized he truly admired his commanding officer. He would follow this golden figure into the depths of hell, to the edges of the universe and back if need be.
In a past life, perhaps they had already been.
.
Too many hours later, Jim collapsed in his quarters, not even bothering to remove his boots. He had been awake far too long, and felt sleep surging up to meet him.
He had just begun to drift off when the door swooshed open, and the broad shouldered figure of Leonard McCoy appeared silhouetted in the doorway.
"Jim?" he hissed, trying to determine if the Captain was awake, and Kirk moaned and rolled over.
"What is it Bones?" he muttered, rubbing his aching eyes. McCoy's eyes were lined with dark circles and he looked bone weary, but he doubtless had many more patients to attend to.
"I just thought I needed to tell you. Aurelan…her wounds were too severe. She's dead, Jim."
Kirk closed his eyes, nodding softly.
"Thank you Bones," he murmured and rolled over. The Doctor didn't want to leave his best friend in this fragile emotional condition, and fidgeted at the door for a moment, searching for words.
"The boy, what's his name?"
"Peter."
"He's going to recover just fine. Your brother didn't die in vain," he tried to comfort, and Jim's fists clenched convulsively. Bones flinched; he wasn't being helpful here.
"Try to get some sleep," he advised, and left Jim alone to his blissfully dreamless sleep.
No matter the universe, some things stay the same.
