Do I have to put a disclaimer on every chapter? Why do I have to do so? Have I made enough money to buy Star Trek between chapter one and chapter two? Granted, it's been two years, I could've made quite a bit of money, but no. I have not. Consider this chapter disclaimed.
Chapter 2
Spock got to his feet, as the little girl pulled the heavy wooden shutters closed and tied them with a rope. Lydia stepped out the door and leveled her shotgun. She waited a moment, then pulled the trigger.
She shot several times, but Spock, behind her, couldn't see who she was shooting at.
She pushed the door shut. "They've scattered – gone around the side." She lifted a sturdy wooden bar into it's place, holding the door shut.
Spock suddenly heard something, quiet footsteps outside one window. He turned, listening.
Lydia glanced at him. "What?" she whispered, but he raised a finger to his lips for silence.
Suddenly a rock crashed into the shutters. They didn't break or splinter, but the rope snapped. A mountainer – a man, his skin gray and powdery – yanked the shutters open and jumped through the window into the dimly lit room.
Lydia swung her shotgun up to her shoulder and shot him through the head.
Another mountainer leaped in, but Lydia was reloading. Spock found himself face to face with a second incredibly pale humanoid with black stripes painted on his skin with a dye. The mountainer tried to stab him with some sort of stone knife, but he sidestepped and nerve pinched him, sending him straight to the ground.
Another mountainer was just outside, but as Spock stepped toward him, Lydia's gun came back into play. She shot him in the shoulder, and he retreated.
Spock froze, waiting, but it seemed that the mountainers had had enough. Going closer to the window, he saw several of them fleeing back into the forest.
Lydia pulled the door open and checked outside, holding her gun at the ready.
"How did you kill him?" the little girl, who had been standing in the corner, stepped forward, awed.
"I didn't kill him. I used a technique known as the 'Nerve Pinch'. He's unconscious."
"You left him alive?" the girl shrieked, moving away from the mountainer.
"There was no need to kill him." Spock pointed out.
"I'm not sure I agree with you." Lydia grabbed the dead mountainer and started to drag him outside. Spock moved to help her, but she shook her head. "Nah, you're still injured. I can take care of this."
"What did they want?" Spock asked the little girl, who frowned.
"It's the famine." she said, as if stating the obvious. "They wanted our food. And that would be fine – we might sell, or even share, but they're all set on having it over our dead bodies."
"That is illogical." Spock frowned.
"I don't think they care."
Lydia came back and dragged the unconscious mountainer away.
"I'm Gracie, by the way." Gracie grinned. "Who're you?"
"I am Spock."
"Nice to meet you, Spock." Gracie paused. "How come you have green blood?"
"Where I come from some people have green blood." Spock said, carefully, not wanting to violate the prime directive.
"So where are you trying to get to?" she asked,
"I've lost the group of people I'm traveling with, and I know they're searching for me. I'll need to rejoin them."
"Then you should go to the town – that's where they'll look." Gracie pointed out.
Logical. The Captain will don appropriate disguise and find out if I'm in a hospital. Spock decided. "Can you tell me which way the town is from here?"
"She'll do better than that. She'll take you." Lydia announced, coming to stand in the doorway.
"Oh, I can?" Gracie said, excited.
"I'm sure Mr Sk – I'm sure Greenblood can protect you from mountainers, and you can make sure his wound doesn't get worse. I'll come to Arkney and pick you up in a while." Lydia decided.
"Okay, great! Come on, Spock."
This particular native was excited to meet a foreigner. Strangely, she was unconcerned about drastic differences between them like green blood, pointed ears and slanted eyebrows. She was more interested in how he spoke and his entertaining ignorance of the area. She pressed none of the points that he was worried she would, and they had a pleasant journey to the road.
"This leads to Arkney. We'll have to keep a lookout for mountainers. Sometimes they come this far."
"Do they come into town?" Spock asked.
"They used to go there on raids and steal food, but since we got the new sheriff, they stay away." Gracie replied. "Lydia always used to want to be the sheriff – but it's always a man, and we've already got a one that everybody likes. She's given up on it, but I haven't. She'll be sheriff someday. She'll be the best sheriff there ever was. She'll be better than the one they have now."
"The current sheriff is very good at his occupation, then?"
"Oh, yeah. He came all the way from Staton alone. You hear that? He survived alone."
"That is uncommon?"
"You know how far Staton is? No one has ever made it that far alone. Nowadays even groups of thirty or forty people disappear. But the sheriff made it, so everyone figured he's tough, which he is, obviously, cause since he's come, the mountainers haven't robbed the town once."
Spock considered that for a moment. "Staton is the closest town?"
"Staton's not a town, silly, it's a city. There's a town only a couple of miles away, Pgaro. People don't disappear coming from there, but when they leave they don't usually return."
"How do these people 'disappear'?" Spock inquired.
"If we knew, we'd have stopped it by now."
"Does everyone 'disappear'?"
"Lydia says that Father won't, but he hasn't come back yet, so he probably has." Gracie shrugged, then brightened. "See, there's the town!"
Star Trek
They walked up the empty street. "If your group has come looking for you, they'll have tried to sheriff's office." Gracie told him. "Let's see if they have."
"Gracie!" They turned. An elderly lady was walking toward them. "I haven't seen you in months, Gracie. You've grown so much!"
"Oh, I missed you, Susanne." Gracie hugged her.
"And your friend?" Susanne turned to Spock.
"I am Spock." he introduced himself.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Spock." Susanne smiled, then turned back to Gracie. "I'm so glad you came to town today!"
"Why today?" Gracie didn't miss a thing.
"I think I'm going to leave for Pgaro first thing in the morning. When it's still dark."
"What? Why?" Gracie was dismayed.
"I have reasons." Susanne paused. "It's been planned for days."
"You mustn't leave!" Gracie protested. "You can't! That would be terrible!" Gracie turned to Spock. "You go and speak with the sheriff, I'm making sure Susanne doesn't do anything stupid."
"What're you speaking to the sheriff for?" Susanne asked.
"There will be a group of my comrades inquiring for me. I need to find if they are here yet."
"Five people in strange clothes?" Susanne queried. "They came and I think the sheriff told them about that surgeon in Pgaro that works on people who get shot. I'm pretty sure they left straightaway. You'll have to check with the sheriff."
Spock nodded.
"Now, Susanne, you can't leave -"
"I need to go eventually – I'm worried though... leaving you and Lydia all alone out there. Maybe I'll stay for a while longer..."
Spock headed toward the sheriff's office. The door was ajar, so he stepped inside.
"Can I help you?" A tall, strong man looked up.
"Are you the sheriff?" Spock asked.
"Yes."
"I was traveling with a group when I was separated from them. I theorize they would come here to find information about me and -"
"No, there hasn't been anyone here all day." the sheriff smiled, sympathetically.
Spock stopped. "No one?"
"Sorry."
"It is illogical to apologize for a situation not of your own making. Thank you for your time."
"Since they're not here, they might be in Pgaro, the next – well, the only other town."
"I have reliable information stating it is unsafe to travel between this town and Pgaro."
"I can get you a group to travel with." the sheriff assured him. "Susanne, Thomas, Jeremy – several people are moving out, going to Pgaro tomorrow morning."
"I spoke to Susanne outside." Spock paused.
"Yes?"
"She said she may not go to Pgaro."
"Oh. That's fine. There are others going."
"Thank you. I may accompany them." Spock moved out the door and across the street, where Gracie ran up to him. "So what did he say about your group?"
"He said they have not come here." Spock said, his tone serious.
"But Susanne said they spoke to him!" Gracie whispered, glancing over to the old lady, who was walking slowly into the sheriff's office.
He lowered his voice. "This means one or the other is lying."
Gracie did the same, in a conspiratorial manner. "Susanne wouldn't lie!" She whispered emphatically.
"You must not decide the guilty party by emotion, but by fact. By logic." Spock rebuked her.
"I'm not deciding anything by emotion. I know Susanne. She doesn't lie. She knows it's wrong." Gracie shot back "I'm deciding from experience. From observation."
"Almost anyone will lie, given certain circumstances."
She snorted. "Well, I'm going to circumstance those two into telling the truth."
"Gracie, I don't think that is the optimal -"
Gracie took off across the street. "Don't run!" she called back over her shoulder. "You'll strain the injury." She slipped in the door, letting it bang shut behind her.
Spock stared after her for a moment, then started across the street.
A shriek sounded from the building – Spock prioritized Gracie's life over his health and logically broke into a sprint – and made it to the porch by the time Gracie burst out, hysterical.
Spock grabbed her shoulders. "Gracie, what's wrong?"
"Oh, horrible!" Gracie was sobbing too hard to explain.
Spock reached for his phaser, only to realize he had none.
"Stay here." He pushed in the door.
"Spock?" he heard, hiccuped through her tears.
"Stay outside, Gracie." he went through the door into the back of the sheriff's office.
Susanne sat in a chair, motionless.
"Susanne?" Spock approached her, but she didn't move. She was dead. Her neck was marked with fast-forming bruises. Strangulation.
Only the sheriff was inside with her. He was the only one I saw with opportunity and enough hand strength to kill her.
"Spock!" Gracie screamed.
Where is he now?