Arc 1: Absolute Zero

Chapter Three

The guards came out of nowhere.

"Aki'ith! Shini, ilikina a'amith!" The strange, foreign tones of the Morrowi language caught Jim's attention moments before he saw the creatures themselves. "Prisoner! Stop right there!"

Cussing, Jim whirled around, his newly acquired phaser—taken right from under the noses of the armory guards—raised and set to stun. But before he could blast either of the two Morrowi into next millennium, they were on him, snarling and tensed for battle.

One threw a solid punch at his chest, distracting him while the second seized his wrist and wrested the phaser from his grip. "Shit!" Jim dodged the first blow, ducking under his own arm and spinning away.

The creature on his right snarled. It had taken on the form of a large, heavy-set man with graying black hair and piercing gray eyes to match. "Hold still," the alien man snarled, "and this will be much easier for everyone."

Jim jumped back out of their reach, bracing himself with one hand against the side of the corridor, and the other raised defensively before his face. "Hey, what can I say?" he said, grinning wildly. The familiar, giddy thrill of a fight washed through him, sweeping aside fear and reason. "I never liked the easy way."

The second creature—the one on his left, who had taken on the appearance of a tall and heavily made-up middle-aged woman—came at him with a scream that was almost intimidating. But, having faced much worse things in his life than angry alien soccer moms, Jim found that her war cry was, at best, lacking.

He told her so.

She was less than impressed. Her eyes narrowed, and her pristine white teeth bared in a ferocious snarl. She launched herself off one wall, pushing away with the ease of a house cat jumping from one couch to another. She threw herself at her opponent with a commendable measure of zeal. Her body slammed into Jim's with a dull thud of flesh and fabric; they fell together against the wall, sliding down to wrestle fiercely on the tiled floor.

"Stop!" commanded the gray haired alien man as his female companion immediately lost the upper hand.

Jim flipped his opponent over, kneeling with one leg on either side of her ribs and his hands clasped tight around her throat. "Spock said," he began, speaking through gritted teeth, "that you assholes have human weaknesses. Let's find out if he was right."

He barely had time to spin around as he heard the familiar whining buzz of a phaser preparing to fire.

"Don't move," the alien male said. He had Jim's phaser leveled at the starship captain's head, hands wrapped tight around the weapon's grip. There was a glint of danger promising quick and brutal retribution in his sharp, narrowed eyes.

Slowly, Jim put up his hands. With great care not to make any sudden movements, he rolled off the prone body of the female alien, and rose to a kneeling position before the male guard. "Shit," he swore loudly, "looks like you've got me."

The male alien's lips curled back in a triumphant grin. "Yes, Captain, it seems that I have, And now I will drag you out before my Empress to answer for your insubordinate behavior. You pathetic, incompetent excuse for a man."

Jim whistled. "How long did it take to come up with that one? A year? A decade?"

"Be quiet," the alien snarled, "or I will silence you myself, you disgusting, petty, unskilled menace."

"Seriously?" Jim raised his eyebrows, grinning. "Your insults are worse than your face. I mean, everyone's got the right to be stupid sometimes, but at this point you're abusing your privileges."

The female alien had regained her feet, and was now lurking behind her male companion. She snarled over his shoulder at Jim. Her eyes blazed with unbridled hatred. "How is he stupid?" she spat. "He is not the one on his knees, pathetic human."

"You have no idea what I can do on my knees," Jim shot back. He looked up at the male alien, then back to the female, and flashed her a not-so-subtle wink.

The male alien struck him across the face with a loud, vicious growl. Like a lion defending a kill. He shifted his body in front of the female, raising his fist—the one not holding the phaser—for a second blow.

As the strike fell, Jim surged upright, dodging to the side and wrapping his fingers around the alien's wrist. He spun behind the male Impersonator, turning the force of the blow against his opponent. With a vicious, sudden twist of his body, Jim unbalanced the creature and tossed him to the floor at his feet. In a half-second more, the captain had his phaser back, pried from the alien's unwilling fingers. But Jim didn't use the weapon. He didn't need to; not when his enemy was pinned and at his mercy, trapped against the hard floor and the crushing weight of Jim's knee against his spine.

The female alien let out a shriek of fury as Jim regained the upper hand. She was on Jim in an instant. He almost didn't register the blur of motion as she lashed out with all her considerable strength. Her blow caught him across the face, hard, and he reeled, blinking as stars burst across his vision. There was a loud ringing in his ears, and he could feel fresh, hot blood streaking down his face from his nose.

Jim let out a hiss of pain, and dug his knee harder into the male alien's back, just between the creature's shoulder blades. He did his best to keep one opponent pinned even as the second continued to assault him, one blow after another falling with unending, deadly precision on his torso. Within seconds of engaging the female, his arms and chest were covered in new bruises; he could feel the blossoming patches of discomfort forming even through the natural numbing of the adrenaline in his bloodstream.

"Get off of him, or I will kill you," the female hissed. She slipped around behind Jim, wrapping one arm around his neck and flattening her front against his back,. She clung with inhuman strength, like a starfish to a log piling.

Jim choked, tipping his head back to try and get a breath. Unfortunately, doing so only afforded his enemy better access to his windpipe, and his airways were cut off completely. As his vision began to darken, angry red spots dancing before his eyes, Jim lifted his phaser. Reaching back over his head, he aimed it at where he hoped her face was, and fired. The hum of the weapon was far too loud and agitated, he realized a little too late. The blast that followed was explosive; far too powerful.

The female gasped as the beam of particles hit her. Jim felt her body stiffen against his. And then she keeled over sideways, a gaping hole burned through one side of her face. She twitched, arms flailing and fingers curling into claws, before going absolutely limp.

Jim stared at her for a long moment, frozen with shock. His phaser hadn't been set to stun. It had been set to fuck up shit permanently, and oh, fuck, that was so totally not what he'd meant to do.

Jim, immobilized temporarily by shock, nearly lost his grip on the second guard, who began to writhe beneath him, despite the pain that Jim's knee in his back must be inflicting. "You bastard!" the alien screamed. "I'll kill you, I'll rip you apart piece by piece!"

Jim didn't doubt it. He set his phaser back to stun, and shot the male alien in the chest without hesitation. The blast, much minimized in comparison to the kill-shot that the female had received, effectively rendered the hostile alien unconscious. Although for how long, Jim didn't know.

Jim was back on his feet in a nanosecond. Turning away from the dead female and the stunned male, Jim looked around desperately for some way out that didn't include running down potentially-guard-infested hallways.

He found his solution right away: a vent, covered only by a thin sheet of slatted metal, directly above his head.

As he braced himself between the walls, holstering his phaser to free both his hands, he managed to reach the vent and push aside the cover. But just as he was about to climb up into the close, musty space, his fingers scrabbling to find purchase on the cool, slick metallic ledge, an odd hissing sound filled the corridor below him.

Jim looked down, and saw that the sound was coming from the female alien's body. The human skin was peeling away from her face, revealing a thick, grayish slime beneath. As the flesh rotted away in fast motion, a strange, slightly yellow-tinted gas was rising from the body with a dull hiss, like hot air escaping a boiling kettle. The gas, whatever it was, was drifting right up to the vent Jim was about to enter.

Fucking great.

Launching into action, Jim kicked off from the walls as hard as he could. He reached out and caught the ledge with both hands. The sharp, thin, metal edge cut into his palms, and he let out a sharp gasp of pain. Pulling himself up, he wedged his shoulders through the narrow gap, dragging the rest of his body in after him.

The vent was narrow. Too narrow, he found, to move at speed. Propped up on his elbows, he struggled to get away from the open hole in the passage behind him, desperate to escape from the yellow gas rising from the rapidly decaying body of his dead opponent below. He could see the two bodies through the occasional slits in the vent as he moved forward, the stunned male still sprawled and unconscious, and the dead female quickly turning into a pool of grayish, fizzing sludge. Nasty.

Jim almost made it to the first bend in the vent before the gas caught up to him. It seeped in through cracks in the tight, dark airspace; he didn't realize it had mixed with the air around him until he took a breath in through his nose, and smelled the thick, strangely lemon-like tang of the foreign substance as it poured into his mouth and lungs. "Shit," he breathed out, reaching up to draw his sleeve over his nose, lips, and eyes. As if that would do any good now. Whatever damage the gas could do to him, it was already as good as done.

Past the bend, the vent widened slightly, and Jim was able to get up on his hands and knees. Travel become much easier then, and faster. It didn't take him long to find the room where the prisoners were being kept. Creeping cautiously along with his belly pressed to the floor of the vent—more for stealth now than necessity—Jim, shimmied along the metal chute until he was positioned directly above the silent, watchful crowd in the closed space beneath him.

There were two guards. One by each door, their steely eyes cast out over the huddle of terrified prisoners. Easy targets, Jim thought, and took aim through a particularly wide slot in the vent floor.

They fell without even a scream, expressions of shock frozen on their face as the phaser blasts hit them. Jim was very careful not to kill them—he had no idea what the effects of the strange yellow gas might be on the various creatures in this room—but he did make sure that both guards were well and truly down for the count before kicking his way through the ceiling, and dropping into the midst of the crowd.

The reaction to Jim's dramatic entrance was sudden, and overwhelming. The already on-edge aliens and humans in the room ducked and covered with shouts and cries as their captors fell, shielding their faces and diving for what little cover there was.

"It's fine!" Jim addressed the room in general, raising his hands in a placating gesture. "I'm here to help you, not hurt you."

"Jim!" Bones said, once again pushing his way through the throng in order to reach his captain's side. "Thank god, you goddamn idiot, I thought…!"

"Bones," Jim cut his friend off, grinning as he reached into his back pocket. "I got a present for you." He pulled out the doctor's tricorder, pressing it against Bones' chest. "You have no idea what I went through for that thing. You're welcome."

Bones snatched the tricorder from him, but didn't spare so much as a glance at it. His gaze was fixed on Jim, expression caught between fury and incredulity. There was a crease of worry between his eyebrows deep enough to put the Grand Canyon to shame. "How did you even survive?" he demanded to know. "I almost had a heart attack in here when they took you away in that damn bag, Jim!" he added. Because apparently his tense demeanor wasn't enough to convey the magnitude of stress that Jim had caused him.

Jim shrugged, his grin widening. "Hey, what can I say, Bones? I'm immortal. I rose from the dead as soon as I was past the doors, and singlehandedly defeated the entire alien civilization with my bare hands." He sidestepped to avoid Bones' retributive swat, laughing. "No, seriously, they're all dead! We can go back to the ship now."

"You cocky bastard," the doctor growled. He raised the tricorder threateningly, pointing it at Jim as if it were a weapon. "I want the real story. Now. And none of that souped-up bullshit."

Jim sighed. He reach up to rub one hand across the back of his neck, which was still sore from the female Impersonator's headlock. "Spock saved me," he admitted. "Big shocker there."

Bones rolled his eyes, somehow managing to look even more grumpy and irritable than before. Jim wondered how that was even humanly possible, but then again, this was Bones he was talking about. His CMO's default state seemed to be 'grumpy and irritable', even at the best of times.

"Speaking of that green-blooded menace," Bones began, with a dose of his own singular brand of Southern charm, "where is the Commander?"

Jim bit the inside of his cheek, wincing when his teeth grazed the cut he'd made in his own tongue. "He went to meet the Empress," he said. "We split up; I went to the armory to get these-" he gestured to the phaser and tricorder, "-and he went to the Queen's Hall to negotiate."

Bones frowned. "The Queen's Hall? You mean the throne room?"

"Yeah. Same thing."

"What in the hell did the Empress want with Spock?" Bones asked, incredulous. "Did she actually want to listen to him drone on about the importance of exploratory deep-space missions for hours on end?"

Jim smiled, the expression tinged with the first signs of his growing exhaustion. As the adrenaline of his fight and flight response wore off, waves of weariness crashed over him like breakers on a rugged shore. If he could have, he would have flopped down on the floor right then and there, and slept for the rest of the foreseeable future.

But, as was usually the case in his chaotic shit-storm of a life, that was simply not an option.

"Bones," Jim said, reaching out and grasping his friend's shoulder to make sure he had the doctor's undivided attention. "I need you to get everyone out of here. Fast. As soon as I get that door open, I want you all moving. Got it?"

"Jim..." Bones began, gaze darkening dangerously.

"Bones," Jim parroted. "Their safety's first priority."

"Where are we going, then?" Bones asked, tone sharp as a honed blade. "There are more than fifty lifeforms in this room, Jim, are you telling me you want us all to run pell-mell through the corridors until we happen on a way out?"

"No, of course not," Jim said, playing at wounded. "Oh ye of little faith! I've got a great plan this time."

"Does it involve anyone faking their death?" Bones said dryly. "If so, count me out."

Jim shook his head. "I just need you to get them to the transporter room."

This managed to bring Bones up short. The doctor stared at Jim for a long moment, then said, "Have you lost your goddamn mind? These creatures don't even have starships. What in Sam Hill would they need a transporter room for?"

Jim laughed. "It's for transporting supplies down from the surface," he corrected. "I saw it marked on a map of the vent system they've got stuck inside of the vent tunnel. Thing is," he added, cutting Bones off before the doctor could start again, "it's the closest accessible room to the surface, as far as I could tell. If we barricade ourselves inside, all we have to do is wait for the asteroid shower to end—a couple days, at most—and get communications to the Enterprise back online. Should be easy, once we're out from under half a mile of rock and dirt."

Bones looked like he wanted to keep arguing, but couldn't think of anything specific enough to bring up. "Fine," he conceded at last. "But I don't like it, Jim."

"I know you don't, Bones." Jim clapped him on the shoulder. "Trust me, it'll work."

"Every time you say that," the doctor grumbled, "everything goes to hell in about three seconds flat."

Jim counted. "See? Three seconds, and everything's still relatively fine." He flashed Bones a grin as he started for the door, leaning down to snatch the access key-card off of one of the stunned alien guards as he passed.

"Relative to what?" Bones wondered aloud. "The end of civilization as we know it?

Jim ignored his CMO's retort, and set to work wedging open the door. Even with the key-card to unlock it, he found that getting the enormous slab of solid steel to shift was much easier said than done.

Once the door was open, Jim checked to make sure that the hall ahead was clear. It was, thank god.

Turning back toward the watchful, waiting crowd in the room behind him, Jim motioned for them to follow him. "C'mon," he said to Bones, keeping his voice low just in case someone in the next passage over was listening. "Just look for signs or maps, and keep moving until you're in the highest room up. I'll rendezvous with you once I've got Spock. And Bones? Unless I give the right password, don't let me in. These aliens we're dealing with are impersonators; if they kill me and take my body, they could sound and look just like me."

"I doubt it," Bones said, "no alien in this place is half as annoying as you, kid. I'd bet money on that fact." He paused, letting out a soul-deep sigh that told Jim he'd rather be anywhere else in the universe. "What's the password?" he asked after a long moment, obviously reluctant to know.

Jim grinned. "Glad you asked," he said. "If it's me, the password will be 'Captain Sexy Pants.' But if it's Spock, it'll be 'Commander Sexbomb.' God it?"

"I swear to god, Jim," Bones said, and lifted the tricorder to prod Jim in the chest, hard. "Once we're back on the ship..."

"You're gonna hypo me into next month?" Jim guessed, laughing. "Looking forward to it." He reached out and put one hand on Bones' shoulder. "Get them to the room," he lowered his voice, meeting the doctor's gaze evenly. Smiling in what he hoped was an encouraging manner, he added, "I'll join you soon."

"You better," Bones shot back. Jim could feel his friend's eyes on him even as he eased his way into the crowd, and started back toward the door at the other end of the room.

As Jim scanned the key-card and struggled to pry open the door leading to the corridor to the Queen's Hall, he heard Bones call for the assembled prisoners to follow him out. Good, Jim thought, relief blossoming in his chest as he turned to watch the room empty out. He'll get them somewhere safe. I know it.

Once the last of the prisoners had disappeared from sight, Jim slid through the small opening between the door and the wall, and stepped out into the corridor beyond. Hold on, Spock, he thought. I'm coming.

He took off at a sprint down the hall, phaser gripped tightly by his side.

He heard Spock's voice even before he entered the Queen's Hall. The familiar, even tones resonated off of the high, curving walls of the throne room, echoing faintly down the hall where Jim stood, tilting his head to listen.

"I do not believe you are seeing my point," Spock was saying. Despite the seemingly flat, emotionless words, Jim could sense a faint undercurrent of frustration in his First Officer's voice. He wondered how long this argument—if that was what it was—had been going on. "If you do not release us and allow us safe passage back to our ship, it will soon be discovered that you have taken us hostage. And, although I have seen how you and your subjects seem to pride yourselves on your perceived superior wit and battle tactics, there is a large difference between capturing the Enterprise's away team when they do not yet know of your existence, and going up against the Enterprise itself. If it comes to open battle between your forces and Starfleet's flagship, Empress, I have calculated the odds of your survival at 0.02 percent. 0.001 percent, should the officers about the Enterprise learn of our captain's demise."

"Enough," snapped the Empress—Jim recognized her voice from before. "You will be silent, Vulcan, or I will have my guards silence you."

Creeping forward, Jim reached the edge of the corridor, and sank into a predatory crouch. Hidden by the curve of the wall to his left, he craned around until he could see most of what was going on. He held his phaser tightly in his right hand, the grip already slick with sweat from his brief but intense run from the prison room.

"Empress," Spock said evenly. Jim could see him now, hands clasped behind his back, posture as upright and perfect as always. "I am not threatening you in any way. I am simply stating predictions I have made based on the information that is currently available to me. Should the current circumstance change..."

"You mean, if I let you escape?" the Empress sneered. She lounged in her throne, dark dress spilling down around booted ankles. Her raven hair was swept up in a severe bun atop her head. As she looked down at Spock, who was flanked by an escort of four burly guards, her eyes flashed furious fire.

Spock lifted his head slightly. "I am not asking you to allow me to escape," he said. "To do so, from your perspective, would be illogical. I am merely requesting that you rethink your position, and reassess what you mean to gain by taking us into your custody. Since you have already killed our captain..."

The Empress cut him off once more. "Your captain," she spat, "was a weak, soft man. Norik-" she gestured to one of the guards; the tall one, whom Jim immediately recognized from the prison room, "-killed him with a single blow. Which means that Norik, a lowly guard among thousands, is a stronger and better man than your pathetic human captain ever was. And Norik is not even a man." She finished her taunt by spitting to the side. Norik laughed, and spat at Spock's feet in a gesture that mirrored his ruler's.

Spock did not reply, but Jim saw his First Officer's fingers curl into the beginning of a fist.

Jim took this as his cue to enter. Standing up, he strolled casually into the open, phaser already raised and firing. Before anyone in the room could react, three of the four guards had already fallen, stunned, in crumpled heaps. The forth—Norik, the tall one—whirled around, reaching for his own weapon—another phaser, Jim realized, and wondered if the alien had taken it from one of the two dead crewmen, or from Spock. Not that it mattered. Jim was about to take it back, anyway.

"Stop right there!" Norik screamed, lips drawn back in a furious snarl. He lifted his phaser, aiming it at Jim's chest. "I'll kill you, you..." But then he seemed to recognize Jim, and his eyes went wide. "You..." he started to say, but that was as far as he got. He stopped dead suddenly, eyes bugging out as the phaser dropped from his hand.

"Your timing is most impressive, Captain," Spock said calmly. He had one hand wrapped around Norik's neck, fingers clamped down hard on the creature's exposed nerve. The alien guard fell, floppy and limp as a dead fish, at the Vulcan's feet. "Although I do not see the purpose in waiting in the corridor for an additional two point five minutes before coming to my aid."

"I didn't want to interrupt your speech." Jim grinned, moving forward to stand at his First Officer's side. "Seriously, though; you were killing it out there, Spock. Nice job."

Spock's eyebrows contracted, and Jim saw a flash of confusion in his dark eyes. "Killing what, sir?"

"It's an expression," Jim explained with a laugh. He clapped his First Officer on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it."

Turning his attention back to the Empress, who had risen from her throne with a furious cry, Jim put in place his most devilish, dashing smile. "Well," he said, "guess I'm not such a pathetic loser human after all. So how do you want to do this?" He lifted his phaser, aiming it at the alien queen's chest. She had been moving as if to attack them, but stopped dead when she saw the weapon in his steady hand. "My phaser, or his fingers?" Jim jerked his head at Spock. His smile grew broader, eyes sparkling with the barely contained ecstasy of victory.

"Captain," Spock said, "it would be more prudent if you would simply..."

"I know, Spock, god." Jim sent a bright flash of particles straight into the Empress' chest; the alien crumpled like her fallen guards, stunned, on the sleek floor of the throne room. He turned to his First Officer, rolling his bright blue eyes in mock exasperation. "There, you happy?"

"I am Vulcan," Spock said. "I do not experience joy."

Jim holstered his phaser, and leaned down to retrieve the second weapon from Norik's limp form. He pressed it into Spock's hand. As he did, Jim thought back on all of the thinly veiled smirks, the glints of satisfaction he'd seen in Spock's eyes whenever the half-Vulcan managed to beat Jim at chess, or was proved right in one of their many disagreements. "Hey, do you smell that?" Jim said, sniffing the air as they headed back toward the prison room.

Spock frowned ever so slightly. "No, Captain, I am not currently aware of any unusual smells."

"Huh. Well, to me, it kinda smells like a pile of bullshit," Jim said cheerfully. He took off down the corridor at a brisk jog, flashing a mischievous grin over his shoulder at his First Officer as he passed him by. "Race you to the highest room in the complex?"

Predictably, Spock did not engage him. Instead, the half-Vulcan sped up until he was a few feet behind Jim, blue-clad body moving in a perfectly fluid, efficient gait. Every time Jim sped up, Spock sped up just enough to match the new pace, but never made so much as a single attempt to pass.

Which, Jim thought, about a billion times more annoying than if Spock had simply blown by him.

Fucking Vulcans, man.

They had almost made it back to the prison room when a loud shout up ahead stopped Jim in his tracks. Spock, who seemed to have sensed the danger a few seconds before the captain, had already come to a dead halt in the hallway behind him.

"Ki'ithi nami shiri'ki," one alien was saying, voice raised in obvious fury. Switching to English—for the benefit of any humans who may be listening, Jim realized—he added, "We know that the Empress has fallen! We can feel it in our shared minds, you pathetic creatures. We are one! If you hurt her, we know. And you have! Now, we will deal out the most brutal retribution upon the ones who harmed her. You had better pray to whatever gods you have that we do not find you."

Jim turned to look at Spock. "Shit," he hissed, "what now?"

"I believe," Spock replied, "that our best course of action would be to run away, Captain."

"Agreed," Jim said, and took off back the way they'd come. Guess we're finding another way up to the highest room.

So far, this entire mission had just been one enormous clusterfuck after another.

And it was nowhere near over yet.