Title: Home (Multichapter fic with 35 parts)

Beta: un-beta'd D: D: D:

Warnings, Themes and Tropes, etc.: bondage, torture, prostitution, explicit sex, drug use

Summary: The Vulcans need a new home planet, so the Enterprise and her crew set out to find one for them.

"They'd come all the way for this? Which mad astronomer had sent them out here? Whose twisted idea had it been?"

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek or any of its characters.

– Home-Part 27 of 35 –

They sped down the hill towards the mountain, which rose tall on the other side of a stream banked by grassy meadows. Jim had to slow himself so that he wouldn't twist his ankle on the springy ground. When he reached the stream he saw that it was too wide to jump across.

Spock came to a stop beside him. "There is no way around it."

"Didn't think so."

Jim leapt forward into the stream. The water plashed up over the top of his boots. It was just as cold as the water inside the mountain city had been that had almost been the death of them. He walked on through it, his jaw clenched. All around him he could hear the splashes of the rest of the away team as they followed his lead through the noisy water. Spock was right behind him; he moved aside so he could talk to him.

"Spock, we're going to be going into the mountain."

"I am aware of our plan."

"How do you feel about that? Do you think you'll be alright in there?"

The tugging of the current at his uniform pants was an additional reminder of what had happened last time.

His first officer increased his pace, leaving Jim behind. Soon he'd reached the other bank. Jim stopped in the middle of the stream. This was not what he needed right now. Could he trust Spock? He remembered that he'd become obsessed almost the moment they'd set foot on the planet. Could whatever had affected him in the Katric Ark have caused that obsession?

As he approached the other side Spock offered him a helping hand up the small incline of the bank. Jim accepted with a smile, but Spock didn't let go of his hand and pulled him close; he could feel Spock's breath on his face.

"Something or someone is trying to get into my mind," he whispered into his ear.

Then he let go-the whole motion had only taken seconds. To anyone watching all he'd done was help his Captain out of the stream.

It certainly answered his question though. There was something wrong about this planet; maybe it had been abandoned with good reason. Whatever it was, they'd find out and deal with it, because there was no way he was giving up on Saketh. He hoped Spock would be able to fight whatever it was that was insidiously trying to get into his mind. Unlike last time, Spock at least knew to keep his guard up now. It was a good sign that he'd already detected this presence which had slipped past his senses when they'd last been on Saketh together.

The whole landing party hurried up the forested mountainside. Jim checked the map-it was a long way up. Briefly he considered changing their plan and heading west instead, to the broken ceiling of the chamber with the pit. But then how would they get down through that hole? Even if the Enterprisebeamed down the appropriate gear, they'd be vulnerable while they descended into the pit. No, this second entrance was their only chance and they had to get there before the pirates discovered it.

He started running faster, up and up. Fallen trees, rocks, saplings—he jumped over or around them all. His lungs were burning when they finally hit a clearing. It was no coincidence the trees didn't grow there, Jim knew. Under the ground beneath their feet was another one of those Vulcan-made structures which the roots couldn't penetrate. They'd still not worked out what they were there for. Spock wasn't an archeologist or a historian, and their expert on board in xenocultures, Dr. Langani, had many theories, in all of which Jim was sure the Vuclan experts on the Excaliburwould punch holes the size of small star systems.

He walked along the eerie clearing which long dead Vulcans had carved into the side of the mountain until he could go no further. Roughly ten meters in front of him a sheer cliff face blocked his path. A waterfall careered over it, leaving the mountainside's rock glistening with moisture. Fog hung in the air all around him. It was somewhere here that Sulu's team had found the second entrance.

"Spock, help me out here."

"Captain, I was not aware of the location of the second entrance until I studied the map."

Jim nodded. "Yes, of course. Sorry."

Spock had been kept away from the mission as much as possible, so he'd not got to study Sulu's report. He looked around but none of the security team had any idea either as to where the entrance was.

"Kirk to Enterprise, we need some help here."

"Scotty here. Where're ye now?"

"We're where it should be."

Sulu's voice came over the communication channel. "Search for the waterfall and then walk through it."

"Through it? Okay, thanks!"

The cold air coming out of the mountain would explain the fog. He eyed the waterfall.

"After me," he said and jumped through the curtain of water.

The freezing cold made it hard for him to suck in his next breath and he had to steady himself by leaning against the cavern's wall. Spock was beside him in an instant, just as soaked as he was and also gasping for air, only in a more dignified way of course. His first officer looked at him and raised a questioning eyebrow. Jim nodded in reply: he was fine, he just needed a moment.

Behind them Jim could hear the rest of the team splashing through the water. When they were all through the waterfall one of the security men pulled out a torch and turned it on, illuminating the path in front of them. He passed it to Jim.

The falling water hadn't seemed so loud outside but with the echoes from the cavern's walls adding to the din, it was deafeningly loud.

"This path leads straight to the heart of the mountain," Jim shouted. "We'll be out of communications range very quickly, but at least we won't have to go very far."

He waved for the team to all draw closer so he could show them the map. It didn't paint the whole picture, but he remembered the reports of this section of the underground city well. The Katric Ark might not be a tomb (Dr. Langani had said the Vulcans stored their ancestors' souls there. It had been somewhere around that line that he'd decided there were other reports more deserving of his attention), but some of the corridors and chambers off the Ark's main chamber were actual tombs.

"There's only this one route we can take, all other passages off this main one are dead ends. These are possibly Saketh's equivalent of Rome's catacombs, so don't touch anything."

He paused to check Spock's face for any reaction to that news. Had that been something Spock had been told? It was impossible to keep track of what information about the mission had been passed onto his first officer. Spock was concentrating on the map though, his face neutral.

"That's the plan unless we come across Kroth, their leader. If we do, we take him out. Right, let's stick together, this place is a maze." He locked eyes with Spock. "I don't want anyone going off on their own."

There'd been a few broken bones amongst the team that had first gone down these seemingly unending steps into the mountain. The passageway was narrow, the steps crumbly and slippery in places and the noise of the waterfall still loud behind them, but the deeper they went the drier the air and the stone beneath their feet. They must have been descending the steps for almost a quarter of an hour until they finally reached the end of them.

Jim's torch cast a stark light on the rows of alcoves lining the corridor they'd be walking through next. Each alcove was stacked full of skulls; the eye-less sockets seemed to be staring back at him as if they were alive, each one with a unique expression.

"Follow me," he said in a hushed tone.

Many chambers and passageways, all of them also lined with skulls, branched off the main corridor. Jim did trust Spock, he really did-it was this place he didn't trust. Now that he knew Spock's behavior had been caused by a telepathic force influencing him and wasn't due to some kind of mental breakdown, he was even more wary of the city than he'd been before and kept a close eye on Spock therefore.

"We're close to the Katric Ark," Jim whispered. "There's some kind of antechamber to the Ark a hundred meters ahead of us."

It was too dark for him to make out any details of the Vulcan's face. He hoped he wasn't going to run off towards the Katric Ark.

When they turned a corner Jim could see light up ahead. "Torches off. Careful now."

They inched along the dark corridor towards the dim light at the other end.

Spock moved closer to him. "Captain, I can hear Kroth. He's close."

"Are you sure? I can hear voices, but I can't make out anything."

"I am positive. Vulcans have good hearing."

Jim turned around to his security team. "Alright. Kroth is through there. We may only have this one chance. If it doesn't work, retreat."

They were pressed up against one another. He was hip to hip with Spock and so he felt it when the Vulcan tensed a fraction of a second before Kroth stepped into their line of sight. The Klingon was flanked on either side by four guards, but he wouldn't be James T. Kirk if he wasted time thinking about such trivialities rather than seizing the opportunity to save the day. Jerking his phaser out of its holster, he threw himself out of the corridor's entrance, took aim mid flight and shot. He missed, only managing to graze the Klingon's shoulder. He thought he saw Kroth fall. The minute Jim hit the ground he rolled to his left instinctively. A shot of phaser fire burned the ground next to his ear.

Looking up he saw the man who'd shot at him; he was also the one holding the brightest torch that was illuminating the whole chamber. Spock shot him, plunging them all into darkness, when his torched clattered uselessly to the floor. Under cover of darkness he crawled forward; all around him the whoosh and zips and the fire fight he'd started sporadically lit up the chamber. He crawled forward, hoping this position on the floor wouldn't be visible to many in the chaos. When he felt the wall in front of him he paused. Kroth had gone down not too far to his left near a column—he crawled to avoid the fighting. There was no one by the column, Kroth was gone; he must have got away in the confusion.

"Looking for someone, Jim?"

He recognized the voice-it was Vig. A boot kicked him in the ribs. Jim rolled himself away from Vig and jumped to his feet to face his attacker, who caught him off guard with a powerful hook.

"Urgh." He tasted blood.

In front of him the room was lit up in red as Vig was hit in the chest by a burst of energy. The alien fell to the floor, but Jim found the floor was coming up to greet him too. The moment his head hit the ground he lost consciousness.

Spock saw a man punch Jim; he was too late to prevent it, but he took aim and fired, hitting the alien square in the chest-it was Vig he realized. He scanned the room. Although the pirates were retreating into the main chamber, he knew that he had to call for a retreat now. They were too few to stand a chance if they went into the Katric Ark itself to search for Kroth and finish him off. And Spock did not want to fight there. Not there.

For a moment it was as if a shadow swept over his mind. He could almost feel its cold tendrils try to find a way into his mind, but they were foreign, he could feel that now. They were not his thoughts, he could keep them separate from his own. He had not felt them before on Saketh, but his attention had been elsewhere—and once inside his mind, he would have had no way to fight them or realize their presence.

He stumbled across the room to where Jim lay motionless.

"Captain." No response. "Jim." Again, nothing.

There was no time to waste in being careful. He picked Jim up and slung him over his shoulder.

"Retreat. Fall back!" he called out to the security team.

They would be unable to use this entrance if they left now he knew, but there was no way they had enough people to keep the tunnel under their control for more than a few minutes once the pirates returned in greater numbers.

They all hurried back the way they'd come. He turned a corner which caused Jim's body to shift across his back. As it did, he felt Jim's ribcage expand. He was still breathing, he was alive!

When they reached the surface Spock carried Jim through the waterfall and contacted the Enterprisewithout delay.

"No other pirate ships have appeared. I reckon we can risk lowering shields to beam him up," Mr Scott said.

"Beam him directly to sickbay," Spock replied.

He laid Jim down on the ground in front of him where he dematerialized promptly in a shower of light.

Next he had to contact the Excaliburand apprise them of the situation. He hailed Captain Patel. As he described the events to him, the sight of Jim being hit, falling to the ground without anything or anyone to break his fall, flashed across his vision. And although it had been too loud for him to actually hear the impact when Jim hit the floor, his mind nonetheless supplied a horrible cracking sound of bone against stone to accompany the memory. Spock concentrated on his speech, so his voice would not show any inflection. It was too late to suppress the emotions, all he could hope for now was to stay in control as they coursed through his veins.

Not for the first and, he was sure, certainly not for the last time he cursed his human side. A Vulcan would have been able to suppress these emotions with ease, whereas for him every waking minute was a battle for control, a fight against himself that he might lose at any moment. He had always had a lot of trouble suppressing anger especially, and he was ablaze with his hatred for the pirates-rational thoughts that came into contact with the flames of his emotions burnt to nothing more than charred cinders within fractions of a second.

Pravit leant back in his captain's chair. So Kirk had run in guns blazing and lost them access to the city via its second entrance. Why didn't it surprise him to hear that?

Kirk had made him look like a fool in front of the Klingons with his crazy diplomatic stunt. In professional terms he was able to rise above such a slight, but personally he couldn't stand Kirk. But that stunt had gotten them the result they'd needed on that mission and Pravit had personally made sure the Admiralty had understood that. But this mission, Patel felt, needed a bit more … tact. The Vulcan delegation was onboard his ship. They had to go about this carefully or the Vulcans would deem Saketh an illogical place to found a colony-and then what? All for nothing! He couldn't let that happen. He appreciated Kirk felt the same way and only wanted what was best for the Vulcans, but the man was too headstrong and reckless; looking for a hero's death possibly, although Patel realized that particular thought was overly cynical.

But he needed to take control of this mission. He massaged his temples. Those two, Kirk and Spock, were an inseparable team, loyal to each other to the core. He'd realized that during the last mission when they'd defended each other so vehemently. The Vulcan had even trusted Kirk's word above that of a computer! For a Vulcan that was akin to heresy: blind faith, rather than logic.

If he was going to take control of this mission, it didn't matter that Kirk was now in sickbay, as long as Spock was still in charge of the Enterprise. He needed both of them out of the picture as Spock would doggedly pursue any plan Jim dictated to him from his sick-bed.

He'd have to mull that problem over later, though, as Lieutenant Farringham strode onto the bridge through the open turbo lift doors.

"Sir, the prisoner's on board and secured in the brig if you wish to question him now," his chief of security informed him.

He was not a cruel man, or at least he hoped he wasn't. What would it take to get the guy to talk? Was he one of the inner circle or not? Would false promises of gold pressed latinum sway him easily? There was so much he had to think about as he made his way from the bridge to the holding cell.

As it turned out, much to Pravit's eternal relief, promises of riches were all that was required to get the pirate to start talking, although to keep him talking some threats were required-which his chief of security delivered expertly.

Farringham held his phaser pointed at the pirate's chest. "If you don't talk, you know what I'll do?"

"What? Stun me? I can see what setting that phaser's on and I know you won't kill me."

"No, we won't," Farringham agreed. "We'll just send you back down to the planet with a recording of all that you've already told us. Let your friends welcome you back."

Pravit and Farringham let the words sink in. The pirate eyed the phaser.

"Fine. But you won't like what I've got to tell you about your Vulcan half-breed pet."

"Oh really," Patel said dryly.

"It's only thanks to him we were able to find out about the tunnels on Saketh and the vast treasures there."

"What treasures?"

"He hasn't told you?"

The conversation just went downhill from there really. Something about Spock sharing his mind through telepathy with a prostitute (were Vulcans telepathic? He was sure he'd have heard that if it was true. Then again, they were a very private people. Still. Probably not telepathic) and Spock giving her all his savings so she would marry him … yeah, sure, of course, that was how Vulcans acted—silly him for thinking they were logical. What the pirate was saying was ludicrous, why was he evening listening to this bullshit?

When the 'interview' as over he asked Farringham to save the recording on file. On his way back to the bridge he shook his head-how creative this pirate was!