Ok guys I'm so sorry that it has been so long since my last update. my life is über cray right now and with my senior year in full swing and helping out with lots of volunteer work in Yarnell, AZ and a bunch of other stuff, I'm pulling my hair out for time to write much of anything that isn't homework. Please feel free to stone me if you wish. But first, please enjoy this chapter, however short it may be.
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I stepped onboard the shuttle, anxious and apprehensive about the task set before me. I was a weapons specialist, but this technology was beyond me and my area of expertise. I could only hope that nothing disastrous would happen to me or Dr. Marcus.
I strapped myself into the copilot's seat, and Marcus took her place next to me. As we departed from the Enterprise and made our way to the planetoid, Marcus explained the situation to me, along with explaining her appearance on the Enterprise. I nodded slowly, glad that she might have a slight idea as to how to open this thing properly. Any experience was better than none.
When we landed, we worked together to get our equipment out of the shuttle and to the torpedo that had been beamed down. Marcus held a comm, Kirk's voice resonating from the speaker. I attached sensors to the torpedo, Marcus setting the comm on top of the torpedo and working on her PADD to isolate the control panel from the rest of the weapon. When she had done so, I pried open the protective shield to access the wiring. Stepping back to let Marcus scan the wiring, I grabbed the wire cutters so I could disarm the torpedo when I was told.
"Alright, there are a set of wires to the immediate right of the access door." Marcus said after a long silence. "I need you to cut the twenty-third one down from the top, can you do that?"
"Yes, I can." I said, kneeling to access the port better. I took a few deep breaths, the dead silence unnerving. I carefully counted, and then recounted, setting the cutters gently on the correct wire. With another deep breath, I snipped the wire.
Pain ripped through my arm as the hatch came sliding shut on my arm. I yelled, mentally proud that I hadn't screamed like a two year old girl. But the pain tearing through me was enough to push that side thought out of my mind with no hesitation. It didn't feel broken, but it was definitely bruised pretty badly.
"What the hell just happened?" I heard Kirk's voice through the comm, and then heard another voice from the Enterprise, informing him that the torpedo had just armed itself. The warhead would explode in sixty seconds, and at this rate, so would I.
"Lock onto their positions," Kirk ordered, "and bring them onboard right now."
Spock's response traveled through the speaker. "With her arm trapped inside of the torpedo, the transporter is unable to differentiate between Miss Turner and the torpedo. We cannot beam one back without the other. By the time we could get myself and a crew to the transporter room to free her.." Spock's voice seemed strained, even by human standards. I didn't want to think about what he was thinking of.
"Dr. Marcus, can you disarm the torpedo?" Kirk called, his own voice showing concern.
"I-I'm trying!" She called back as her hands flew across a control panel.
"Miss Turner," Spock's voice called, a little better restrained than last time, "Can you free yourself?"
"No," I almost shouted, panic lacing my tone, "I can't get my arm out!" It only took me a moment to accept the truth. "Captain, I'm doomed. Beam Dr. Marcus safely back to the ship, you shouldn't have any problems with that."
Before anyone onboard the ship could reply, Marcus snapped at me, "No! You beam me back, she dies! I can do this, dammit! Trust me!"
"Twenty seconds." I mumbled, steeling myself. I realized that this was the end for me. This wasn't exactly how I had envisioned my Starfleet career ending, but at least I went out with a bang. I also realized that I make terrible puns when I'm in danger.
I counted down in my head, only realizing that I also counted aloud when I had ten seconds left to live. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes, and waited for the inevitable. Instead of a fiery explosion, I was met with a loud curse from Marcus, followed by the torpedo abruptly releasing its grasp on my arm.
I stood up, rubbing my arm as I stumbled over to the torpedo, which was now opening itself up.
"Turner, are you all right?" Kirk called, "Report. Marcus?"
"Captain, you're going to want to see this.." I said, staring into the torpedo. A pale, frozen face stared back at me. Someone in a cryotube.
The torpedo-tube was beamed back onboard, and Marcus and I returned via our shuttlecraft. McCoy had the torpedo brought into the medbay for inspection of the cryotube, and myself for inspection of my injured arm. Marcus hovered over the deactivated weapon, gazing down at the restful, pale-white face of the man lying within. I had no idea how old the man inside the overgrown Popsicle was, at least physically. Who knew how old the cryotube was on top of the man's age.
I sat on an examination table while McCoy both ran a quick scan over me and oversaw the inspection of the cryotube. Kirk and Spock entered the room, Kirk nodding an acknowledgement to me, and then turning away. Spock's gaze lingered on me a moment longer, his expression unreadable.
"What have you learned?" Kirk immediately asked Marcus.
"A little, not nearly enough." She indicated the torpedo and its inexplicable contents. "It's brilliant, actually. Somebody managed to shrink the drive unit to the point where they had room for an additional compartment and retrofitted the space that had been freed up to accommodate a cryogenic capsule. A portion of the onboard stored energy meant to maintain the weapon's electronics and related systems was redirected to sustain the capsule's functionality." Marcus shook her head at the wonder of it all. "A capsule like this requires only minimal power to sustain cold stasis for a considerable period of time."
"Is he alive?"
McCoy spoke up. "Yeah, he's alive. His vitals are minimal, barely detectable, but they're there. Slowed waaayy down. To levels you'd want if you chose to take a long nap on the floor of the Antarctic Ocean."
Kirk pressed his chief physician. "Can he be revived?"
McCoy was plainly dubious. "Not without the proper equipment. You can't improvise this sort of thing. The same science that was used to put him in this state has to bring him out of it. If we try to bring him back without the proper instrumentation, the attempt could kill him as soon as revive him... This technology's beyond me."
"How advanced, Doctor?" an obviously intrigued Spock inquired.
"It's not advanced," Marcus explained, "That cryotube is ancient."
"We haven't had to freeze anyone since the early days of deep space exploration." McCoy added. "The discovery and development of warp capability made this particular brand of biotech obsolete. An instant antique. And speaking of antiques, that's the most interesting thing about our friend here. I did a quick scraping off his shoulder, less than a flea would take, nothing he' notice even if he was awake. But enough to run some tests." McCoy nodded at the torpedo and its frozen occupant. "He's three hundred years old."
Kirk and Spock glanced at each other. I didn't know what it was, but I could tell some sort of understanding passed between the two of them. McCoy went to get me something to lessen the pain in my arm, and Marcus left the medbay. Kirk turned on his heel to leave, and Spock followed. But not before he brushed his hand against my cheek, the unreadable expression crossing his face once more. With his brown eyes swimming in emotion, he left to follow Kirk.
After thanking the Doctor for his help, I left the medbay and sat at the science station on the bridge, waiting for Spock and Kirk to return from the brig. I heard a beeping coming from one of Sulu's monitors, and I glanced over my shoulder to see him frantically trying to detect what was going on. I turned and began running proximity scans from my station, and alerted Sulu when I had found something noteworthy.
"Proximity alert, sir." Sulu said into the comm, "There's a ship at warp heading right for us. It will intersect our coordinates in- I don't have a specific time, sir. Soon, a matter of minutes."
"Klingons?" Kirk's voice sounded through the speaker.
"I don't think it's Klingons, sir." I replied into my own comm, "It's not coming at us from Qo'noS or Praxis or any of the known outlying monitoring stations."
Kirk and Spock soon entered the bridge, Kirk snapping orders as soon as he stepped out of the lift.
"Mr. Sulu, do we have an ETA yet on the approaching ship?"
"Three seconds, sir."
After a pause in which the Captain's face fell an infantismal amount, Kirk spoke once more. "Shields," he crisply ordered.
Spock took his chair next to my own, flipping a few switches and adjusting a few dials.
It slammed out of warp from the depths of the green nebula that had been the most prominent stellar feature ever since the Enterprise had been left drifting. It dwarfed the Enterprise. Jet black, it was constructed along the general design of a Federation starship, but her lines were heavier, her entire appearance from greatly extended nacelles to bow more massive and armored. Weapons blisters were amply in evidence everywhere on the huge vessel. Every part of her had been reinforced, beefed up, and braced. A glance was sufficient to indicate that this was a ship that had been built not for exploration, but for battle.
Overwhelming in scope, it was so immense that it blocked out the entire view forward. This was the first Federation starship I had ever seen that looked... mean.
"Captain," Uhura announced, "they're hailing us, sir. Standard Starfleet intership communications frequency."
"On screen. Broadcast shipwide, for the record." Kirk replied.
Any rapidly fading notions that the crew of the new ship might be non-human vanished with the appearance of a familiar figure on the forward screen. He was immediately recognizable, seated on a bridge that was at once more advanced and somehow leaner, colder, than that of the Enterprise.
"Captain Kirk." Admiral Alexander Marcus' tone was professionally cordial.
Kirk nodded, "Admiral Marcus. I wasn't expecting you. That's a helluva ship."
"And I wasn't expecting to get word that you had taken Harrison into custody in direct violation of your orders. Or did you forget that you were directed to find him and take him out?" Marcus shook his head sadly. "Orders disobeyed are orders never forgotten; the more so when they're as simple and straightforward as the ones you were given." He leaned forward slightly in his dark command chair. "What happened, son? What went wrong?"
"The unexpected, sir. We had to improvise when we experienced a warp core malfunction." Kirk responded in what was a surprisingly innocent tone. "But you already knew that, didn't you sir?"
"I don't take your meaning." Marcus said, looking rather annoyed.
"Well, that's why you're here, isn't it? To assist us with repairs? Why else would the head of Starfleet personally bring his ship to the edge of the Neutral Zone?"
"Captain, they're scanning our ship." Sulu murmured to Kirk.
"Something I can help you find, sir?" Kirk asked rather smugly.
"Where's your prisoner, Kirk? And don't tell me he's no longer on your ship. You know what he did. You'd never release him from custody and certainly not back to Qo'noS. Tell me where you're holding Harrison, and drop your shields."
Kirk sat a little straighter in his own command chair. "No need for that, sir. As the captor, it's my duty and responsibility to maintain control of the prisoner until he can be turned over to the appropriate authorities. All as per Starfleet regulations. The fact that I'm familiar with his crimes changes nothing. I'm preparing to return Khan to Earth for trial, sir."
Expecting anger from the admiral, I was bemused when he instead sighed and scratched his forehead.
"Well, shit. You talked to him." Marcus shook his head sadly. "This is exactly what I was hoping to spare you from."
"'Spare me'?" Kirk said, obviously bewildered.
"Listen to me, son." Marcus' tone turned benign, "I made a mistake. I'm not afraid to admit that. There'd be no point in not. I took a tactical risk waking that bastard up, thinking his super brain could help us protect ourselves from whatever came at us next. At the moment, Klingons. In the future, who knows? I I was hoping to use this creature to give Starfleet a boost in combat knowledge, skills, and material development. At first, it seemed as if that was going to be exactly the result. My problem with your prisoner was that I didn't really know what he really was, and now the blood of everyone he's killed is on my hands. This is something I will have to deal with separately, on my own. But not until this episode is resolved. I blame you for nothing, Kirk. He fooled me, he's fooled you. Now I'm asking you: Give him to me so I can end what I started, and let's put all this behind us."
"An what would you like me to do with the rest of his crew, sir? Fire them at the Klingons? Murder seventy-two people and start a war in the process?" Kirk queried, his expression turning hard.
"War? Is that what he told you?" the Admiral scoffed, "He put those people in those torpedoes! Nobody else did that. What else did he tell you? That he's a peacekeeper? He's playing you, son! Don't you see that? Khan and his people were war criminals, condemned to death before they managed to get away! Now it is our duty to carry out the original sentence that was passed on the prisoner and his cohorts before anyone else dies because of them. So I'm asking you again. One last time, son. Lower your shields, and tell me where he is."
Kirk sighed. "He's in engineering, sir. Under heavy guard. But I'll have him moved to the transporter room right away."
Marcus was visibly relieved. While implying that he was prepared for a fight, it was clear to me that he didn't want one, and was pleased that it had been avoided.
"Thank you, son. I'll take it from here."
The image of Marcus on the view screen was replaced with the view of the enormous warship hanging in space.
The instant the link was dropped, Kirk looked to his helmsman. "Do not drop those shields, Mr. Sulu."
"Yes sir." Sulu acknowledged.
Spock spoke. "Captain, bearing in mind that you are aware of the true whereabouts of Khan in the medbay leads me to belive that you are contriving a plan that conflicts with what you just told the Admiral."
"Can't fool you, Spock. My plan consists of doing exactly what we said we were going to do. I told Marcus we were bringing a fugitive back to Earth to stand trial, and that's what we're going to do." he addressed his comm pickup. "Mr. Chekov, can we warp?"
I heard the young russian man's garbled response, the background noise of engineering almost drowning him out.
"Can we do it?" Kirk pressed, not happy with the rather noncommittal answer.
"Technically, yes, but I would not adwise it, Kiptin!"
"Noted." Kirk replied, terminating the link. "Set course for Earth, Mr. Sulu."
"Yes sir." It took the helmsman scarcely a moment to enter the necessary command. "Course laid in."
"Punch it."
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I hope you enjoyed this little tibit I worked out to get to you! I'm so sorry again, and please, reveiew! It always makes my day happy!