CHAPTER 14
Chess - a game of intellect and strategy, of outthinking your opponent.
Poker - chance and bluff, a game of raised stakes and calculated odds.
Chess or poker. It has been Kirk's experience that the solution to a crisis, and crisis management has become something of a specialty in the last five years, will usually involve strategies drawn from one or the other and, more often than not, some combination of the two.
The problem is that when faced with a trusting gaze from a small boy at the wrong end of a phaser this doesn't feel like a game, and certainly not one he wants to play.
"If you would step over there, please gentlemen."
Adjusting his rumpled clothing, Rawlson gestures to the opposite wall, the one shielding the darkened chamber which Kirk now regrets not investigating further.
He doesn't move. His first officer does, but in the opposite direction from the one indicated. Spock steps out from the shadows under the staircase, still holding the incriminating lab coat from the storage locker. They are now side by side. And, while Miller's phaser remains pointed in its current direction, powerless.
Check.
"Let the boy go, Rawlson." It is taking all Kirk's got to keep his voice calm and even. "You're a Starfleet officer. You took an oath, remember?"
"Was a Starfleet officer, Kirk. Was," corrects Rawlson. He picks up the heavy briefcase and crosses behind the arcing sparks of the power conduit to stand with the three men at the doorway. "We've had a parting of ways, remember? My allegiances lie...elsewhere."
Turning his head to the corridor Rawlson confers with his security team in a low voice. Jake starts to pull away and, with barely a glance down, the lieutenant tightens his grip on the boy's shoulder, producing a muffled yelp. The casual cruelty ignites a slow burn of fury, but Kirk forces it down with the ease of long practice. No time for that.
Eyeing the men across the room he looks a question at his first officer who shakes his head. The conversation is inaudible, even to Vulcan ears.
Spock moves fractionally closer to his shoulder and murmurs, "Captain, our communicators are currently inoperable. But in my assessment they are not beyond repair."
"Communicators?" This is the first Kirk has heard of that possibility. "Where?"
"They had been concealed in the storage locker." Without moving his head Spock flicks his eyes down to the flat surface of the console where he has placed a stained white lab coat.
"That's excellent news, Mr. Spock." An opportunity - a hidden card. It remains to be seen whether it is high enough to outrank his opponent's hand.
The men in the doorway have reached a conclusion. Rawlson produces his own weapon and points it at Jake leaving Miller free to kneel and open the briefcase. From Kirk's position it's impossible to see the contents but the light from the corridor is reflected upwards in a red glow. Miller removes something and closes the case with a click. Then, ignoring them, he walks over to the wall opposite and slides open a door.
"Captain Kirk." The Commander spills words like oil staining silk. "We all know you will do as I say. So why prolong this?" He jabs the phaser point against Jake's bandage. The visible wince makes both officers take an involuntary step forward. Rawlson huffs an escalating warning. "Ah, ah, ah. That would not be wise."
Kirk finds himself wishing his first suspicions had been accurate. That he was dealing with a duplicate Rawlson. Somehow that would be easier than believing the man in front of him was ever part of the service. But he has to try.
"Rawlson - think what you're doing. He's a child." You wouldn't... The next words hang unspoken, and they'll stay that way while he's fixed by a gimlet stare from a pair of blue eyes, while grubby fingers clench and a trembling bottom lip is bitten into stillness.
"You show a touching faith in my morals, Kirk. Who knows what I would or wouldn't do at this point?"
The smile is almost cheerful. The man has a phaser pointing at the skull of a 12 year boy, and he might be discussing the pros and cons of equipping himself with an umbrella in the light of the most recent weather forecast. "I may be insane. I'm sure that thought has crossed your mind. Or perhaps I'm bluffing. What I'm relying on, my good captain, is that you won't take that gamble. Even you. Not when the stakes are this high." He ruffles Jake's hair in an obscene parody of affection. The boy jerks his head away as if he's had an electric shock. Rawlson laughs, that high pitched laugh that betrayed his duplicity and sets Kirk's teeth on edge. But the noise stops as suddenly as it began.
"I will not ask again, Kirk." The voice is low now, the eyes focused. Its owner stands straighter, then lifts the phaser away from Jake's temple just long enough to gesture to the door. "Move. Now."
Kirk blinks. Two men in one body. Personality as pendulum. How did Starfleet psyche evaluations miss this?
Lights flicker on in the room on the other side of the wall. Kirk can see Miller moving around behind the glass.
The familiar calm pours through his bones like cold syrup, bringing absolute clarity in the face of his options.
Raise. Call. Bluff.
The commander is very keen for them to step next door. He has a suspicion about what awaits them in the adjoining room. But a change of scene, a shuffling of the cards, presents...possibilities.
He turns his head and meets the eyes of his first officer. A nod and the two of them move as one towards the chamber which is now bathed in blue light.
Rawlson follows, grabbing the heavy briefcase and pushing Jake in front of him.
The scent of singed circuits, of ozone and hot metal is stronger here. The air positively crackles with escaped electrons; they prickle discomfort across Kirk's scalp and raise the hairs on his forearms. The scene that greets them on the other side of the sliding door is both familiar and, in the context of recently acquired knowledge, terrifying.
Miller stands at a console, his fingers on the controls and his face glowing in the blue of reflected display. Rawlson joins him, one hand clamped firmly around Jake's shoulder and the other still grasping the pointing phaser.
And, on the far side of the chamber, Kirk notes with a weary sense of inevitability, are the transporter pads that the part of his brain that works on stuff when he's not looking had been expecting. Three illuminated circles on a raised platform. Standard Starfleet installation for the bowels of a small scale colony. Yet he doesn't need to see the glee on Rawlson's face to know that this particular transporter is far from a standard configuration.
Rawlson examines the display panel and seems satisfied with what he's reading. He lifts his head.
"You know I'm almost glad it worked out like this. For years I've looked at that picture and wondered. And now I get the chance to meet him at last. Your mirror image. The less than perfect Captain Kirk."
Kirk is quite sure he doesn't shudder. Not outwardly.
You're mad are the first words that spring to mind. And hot on their heels, You'll have to kill me first.
But, of course, the phaser isn't pointing at him. It's not his life that's forfeit.
Instead he ignores the men at the console and turns to his first officer who stands with unusual rigidity even for someone who long ago perfected the peculiar alchemy that turns Vulcan vertebrae from bone to steel.
Time for chess. He hopes that Rawlson's fascination with the Enterprise logs only extended as far as the events of Alpha 177.
"You know what this reminds me of, Spock?" he remarks conversationally, "Omicron Ceti III. Do you remember? The transporter room?"
A beat before Spock turns dark eyes from the transporter platform to his captain and nods slowly. "I do recall those events, yes Captain."
Kirk takes a small step closer towards the console, towards Jake, disguising the movement with a laugh and a punch to Spock's arm.
"That was quite an adventure, eh, Spock?"
Out of the corner of his eye he can see Miller is on the move, stepping round the console. He's still concealing something in his hand. Something he had removed from the briefcase Rawlson clutched in expectation of imminent evacuation to the Enterprise. Something...
Kirk spreads his hands wide. "Those spores really made a monkey out of you. I can still remember you hanging from that tree. We laughed about it for months."
Rawlson frowns. "I'm not sure you're grasping the seriousness of this situation, Kirk. We don't have time for reminiscences. I need you to-"
Spock pitches his voice lower, almost a growl. "I do not appreciate you revisiting those circumstances in present company, sir. I believe you should focus on the crisis at hand."
"Oh, don't be such a spoilsport, Spock. Listen Rawlson. You'll enjoy this. Our prim and proper Vulcan actually thought he was in love. Went all gooey eyed over a human woman if you can believe it."
"I am warning you-"
"Of course, it was all a hallucination. A few lungfuls of alien spores and he's anybody's. You should have known better than to inhale, Spock."
Miller smiles at that. And Rawlson's transfixed, the phaser point dropping.
"I had to snap him out of it - truth be told I think she was glad to get rid of him-"
With a roar the Vulcan lunges.
Rawlson instinctively steps forward and Miller jerks back to avoid the accelerating bulk of a charging Vulcan. Who neatly sidesteps the ostensible target of his fury and reaches for Jake just as Kirk makes a grab for Rawlson's phaser.
With the cold metal of the weapon held point first in his palm, he spins and aims what should be an unconsciousness inducing chop at the back of the commander's neck. But the man is faster than he looks. Dropping like stone, he rolls forward so the blow barely connects.
Propelled by his own momentum, Spock hits the wall with a thud and an audible 'oof' from the small boy he has tucked under one arm. The two guards are coming through the door and Kirk takes a split second to reverse the phaser in his hand and a split second more to thumb the control from kill (good god, he really meant to...) to stun. But split seconds are all it takes.
Too late he senses rather than sees Miller come up behind him; too late raises his arm to block the hand that plunges chill metal against his collar bone. Which means he's too late to stop the hiss of the hypospray, to pull away from the sting of the drug that trickles warm liquid under his skin.
Paralysis is almost instant. It stops him as he stands, robbing him of movement and almost of breath. His lungs hang suddenly heavy in his chest, as if the air around him has turned to liquid, forcing his chest muscles to flutter in their fight for oxygen.
Breathing heavily, Rawlson stands and snatches the stolen phaser from his clenching fingers.
"That was foolish, Kirk. Very foolish." Pointing the phaser directly at a gold clad sternum Rawlson very deliberately thumbs the control back to its original setting and nods at the man behind him.
"We've waited long enough. Get him on the transporter."
Distantly Kirk is aware of his arms being twisted behind his back. Of a relentless pressure propelling him towards the glowing transporter pads. His legs lock but there's no oxygen flowing to fuel his muscles. It's as if he's watching someone else's feet slide and scrabble across the tiles.
"You will cease this."
There's something about a Vulcan full of repressed fury that could make a photon torpedo stop in its tracks, reverse course and crawl carefully back into its tube. The room stills.
Kirk tries to draw enough breath to form words but speech seems impossible at this point.
Still pointing the phaser Rawlson takes shelter behind the transporter console and attempts to make it look like a deliberate decision.
"Really, Mr. Spock. In other circumstances your concern for your captain would be quite touching. Give me one good reason why we should, as you so quaintly put it, 'cease' what we're doing."
Spock stands, pushing Jake behind him and straightening his uniform. "You do not know. You do not understand. You were not there." Spock's voice is harsh; the words fall like stones.
Rawlson hesitates and then jerks his head across at the man behind him. Kirk feels the pressure ease.
"Explain yourself." Sharp, impatient; but there's an undertone of concern.
"The logs - the Enterprise logs from Alpha 177. They were incomplete..." Spock now has his voice back under control. He stands rigid and outwardly composed. At least that is how it would appear to those who do not know him as well as the man who stands immobilised beside him. "The captain's duplicate was irrational, an animal. He will not perform the function you seek."
The queen on the chess board has pushed herself out into play, protecting the vulnerable king from circling aggression.
"No, Spock." It's barely a whisper. The drug has worked its way beyond his chest, paralysing his vocal chords. His tongue feels like furred lead.
A frown from behind the console. "I understood the imposter took over the bridge. That he attempted to take command."
"That is inaccurate. In actual fact the imposter was barely human. He lacked intellect. His behaviour was erratic and he was largely incapacitated. Kirk lied. He forced me to sign off his version of events."
Miller now. "Why should we believe you, Vulcan? You would do anything to protect your captain."
"Vulcans do not lie."
Kirk wonders how often he has heard "Vulcans do not..." in the last five years. And wonders why it has taken this long for him to fully realise that the phrase 'Vulcans do not' as employed by his half human first officer can be both wistful aspiration and deliberate obfuscation.
Rawlson, however, nods sagely and, like so many before him, takes what he hears at face value. "But why-?"
"We needed an explanation for the length of time it took us to become apprised of the transporter malfunction, and for the delay in resolving the crisis. The landing party almost died. It was…I believe the word the captain used was, 'embarrassing'. Our subsequent recording of events exaggerated the capabilities of the intruder."
Rawlson nods slowly. "Yes, I see."
The chess board spins, the pieces float and land. The next move is inevitable.
"Spock..." A breath through gritted teeth. The Vulcan flicks his eyes sideways but otherwise ignores him.
Rawlson grins. "I think you may just have talked yourself into a job, Mr. Spock."
"Indeed."
Miller grabs his arm but Spock shrugs him off as an irrelevance and independently takes the few steps needed to stand calmly on the transporter pad, gazing down on a psychopath with his fingers poised on three sliding controls, on a small boy, mouth agape. And on his captain frozen and furious.
"Commander, I believe you will find my duplicate has the qualities you need. And, as second in command of the Enterprise, the crew will obey my orders as readily as those of the captain."
James Kirk is fearless. At least that's his reputation and it's been earned. But he and one other person in this chamber of horrors know that the captain fears three things - losing his crew, losing his command and losing his first officer. His friend.
For a brief moment the adrenaline surge is enough to cancel the drug's effects. But only in the region of his vocal chords.
"Spock!"
The shout is drowned by the escalating metallic whine of a transporter console doing its job. And then the words all vanish in the dark.
Yet even with eyes closed, the image burns. The dying sparkle of the ta'al offered in salute and farewell.
-oOo-
