Arc #1: Absolute Zero

Chapter Five

Jim's shirt ripped from the shoulder to the neck, the fabric sliding free of Spock's grip. Jim fell away from Spock with a muffled cry. As he dropped out into the waiting gloom, he attempted one last desperate maneuver to save himself from certain death: reaching out, he barely managed to seize Spock's booted foot, wrapping both arms tightly around his First Officer's leg. His second fall came to an abrupt end. The only difference was, now he was in dire danger of pulling Spock down with him. Not exactly an improvement.

Down below, the heated arguing of the aliens stopped mid-rant. Jim held his breath, his stomach uncomfortably pressed against the prickling wires and dials of the electronic tower. As the silence stretched on, he hoped fervently that they hadn't heard his short, panicked shout. Because if they had...

"Akili ami nathrai?" The alien words were clearly a question. "Kini'in threli ish?"

"You're hearing things," one of the aliens cut his companion off, speaking perfect English. Jim guessed that it was easier for them to speak human dialects when in human form. Or something. "We'll find them, trust me. But not up that damned tower. They'd be electrocuted as soon as they touched a bare wire. Besides, I doubt they could jump the coolant trough. They're such fragile creatures."

The first alien to speak muttered something incomprehensible, but didn't seem keen on continuing the argument.

"Well, come on, then." The second alien spoke to the room at large. "We've searched every crack they could hide in. There's no other way out. They must've tricked us, and doubled back the way they came." His tone was half angry, half resigned. "Fragile they may be, but not stupid, it seems. Let's move out!" This command was followed a few seconds later by the slamming and locking of the enormous metal door as the guards exited the room. Once again, Jim and Spock were pitched into almost total blackness.

Jim exhaled slowly through his nose . "Holy fuck," he breathed. "That was way too close."

"I do not believe," Spock said, and Jim heard the strain in the half-Vulcan's voice, "that our predicament is entirely resolved yet, Captain."

Jim, whose arms were beginning to shake from mixed exertion, strain, and adrenaline, sighed. "Any way you could reach down and pull me up, Mr. Spock? Preferably before I fall to a premature death?

A moment later, Spock's free hand fisted in the back of Jim's shirt, hoisting him back up to where Spock clung to a particularly large and sturdy cable. He held on to Jim's shirt until it was obvious that the captain had found an appropriate set of foot and handholds; only then did Spock release his unwavering grip.

"Thanks," Jim said. He held on tightly to the tower now, palms unhelpfully slick with sweat and blood. His entire body was tingling; whether from nerves or relief, he wasn't sure.

They continued the climb in silence, all of Jim's thoughts bent on the increasingly difficult task of not falling, or being electrocuted. The higher they went, the more numerous the bare wires became, until it was quite common to encounter a live wire, detached from the others, uninsulated and sparking with raw electricity.

"Careful, Captain," Spock said urgently, when Jim brushed against a (luckily) less-than-potent wire and received a vicious jolt to the leg. "I do not believe I will be able to catch you a second time, should you fall."

"That's comforting," Jim returned, forcing a grin to stave off the wave of nauseousness that hit him as he glanced down into the void. Spock was entirely hidden from his view; the dull, flickering lights of the tower allowed him very little illumination beyond the few feet ahead and behind him. "Be careful yourself," he said. "Your copper blood's gotta be more conductive than my iron blood, right?"

"That is correct," Spock said. "Although, due to the fact that my heart is located in my side rather than close to my left shoulder, I am far less likely to experience the negative cardiac effects of touching a live wire with my hands."

Jim turned back toward the tower. He inhaled deeply, fighting off waves of lightheadedness that threatened to knock him off balance. The closer to the surface they got, the thinner the air was getting. Which, considering that the Enterprise's initial scans of the planet's atmosphere had revealed that it mostly consisted of helium, with only minimal levels of oxygen nearer to the surface, was not that surprising.

Not that encouraging, either.

Fifteen minutes passed in silence. Then thirty, then an hour. The darkness was oppressive, swallowing everything in its great, gaping maw. Jim's breath was like a hurricane in the absolute stillness. Every thud of flesh against metal was a hammer falling on an anvil.

Finally, finally, the climb came to an end. The tower rose up through a circular hole in the previously unseen ceiling, the great spire's top capped by an enormous, protective glass half-dome. There was just enough space around the outer rim of the tower to allow Jim and Spock to slip through the opening and emerge into the room above the one they'd just been in. The relief that Jim felt at having his feet back on solid ground was almost overwhelming.

"Are you hurt, Captain?" Spock asked as soon as they were both stable.

"Huh?" Jim, who was still half-blinded by the brilliant overhead lights of this new room, squinted in confusion at his First Officer. It was only a few seconds later that he realized that his shirt, which was ripped open from his right shoulder to his left armpit, was covered in smears of dark red. He offered Spock a reassuring smile. "It's from my hands." He held up his palms, fingers spread, to reveal the still-oozing gashes he'd gained from climbing up into the vent back in the heart of the alien complex.

Spock didn't exactly look happy, but he did look slightly relieved. "We should attempt to regroup with Doctor McCoy," Spock said. "As soon as possible."

Jim nodded. "I don't have any idea where we are. Guess we'll have to do some exploring." He grinned. "My favorite."

Spock lifted one eyebrow. "As long as you do not sustain any more injuries, sir."

Jim rolled his eyes. "Aw, c'mon, Spock! I'm fine. Just some bruises and scrapes. Nothing I can't handle."

Spock didn't say anything, but his expression tightened slightly.

Jim started toward the curved door across the room from where they stood. At first glance, it seemed to be the only way in and out of the half-dome room, but when Jim looked more carefully, he realized that there was also what appeared to be a hatch—a trapdoor, of sorts—built into the highest part of the curving dome ceiling far above their heads. The only way to reach it would be to climb onto the glass shield covering the top of the electronics tower.

"Captain!" Spock said, tone low and urgent. Jim looked at him, and saw that Spock had dropped into a defensive crouch, shoulders tense and one hand gripping his phaser tightly. "Someone is coming. We should take cover immediately."

Jim mirrored Spock's crouch. Holding his own phaser up in front of him, he listened intently for whatever it was that had alerted Spock. In the distance, he caught the fainest sound of voices, and the gentle thump, thump of approaching footsteps. He breathed a curse.

Moving swiftly to Spock's side, he pointed out the trapdoor over the top of the tower. "Up there," he said. "They'll check the door. They won't check there."

"How do you know?" Spock returned. Jim, realizing that he actually had no argument to support his claim, said nothing. Instead, he just shrugged, cocking one eyebrow.

Behind the trapdoor was the narrowest, slipperiest ladder Jim had ever set foot on. Which was, considering his history of breaking and entering without any sort of plan formulated beforehand, saying a lot.

Spock went first, despite Jim's protests that they didn't know what awaited them in the darkness above. Spock insisted on it: it was, the half-Vulcan said, his duty as First Officer to protect his captain from any and all dangers. He would be remiss in his duties if he did not. Jim settled for keeping his phaser, and most of his attention, focused on the dark space above Spock as his friend ascended ahead of him. Just in case.

At the top of the ladder, after what felt like hours of climbing, the pair of Starfleet officers found a ledge similar to the ones protruding from the electronic tower in the room below them. Spock lifted himself up first, then turned to stare down into the lightless passage, half-crouched to avoid hitting his head on the very low ceiling that hung above them now, as his captain finished the climb and joined him on the ledge.

"Now what?" Jim asked as he crouched beside Spock. He shivered slightly; the cold was deepening the closer they got to the planet's surface.

Spock was silent for a long moment. And then, through the dim glow, a faint light flared to life in the Vulcan's hands. A tiny, flickering cube of green and gold roughly the size of a Rubix cube, most likely taken from the electronics tower. "It is able to sustain satisfactory illumination on its own," Spock said. He held it up, turning the two-toned cube to and fro before his face. "It is most likely powered by batteries, or some other form of stored internal energy."

Jim raised an eyebrow, impressed. "Nice thinking," he said. "It's always good to have a flashlight."

"It does not flash," Spock said dryly, "and I do not see any reason for it do so. However, should there be a need for such a function in the future, I may be able to-"

Jim shook his head, grinning widely, and cut Spock off by raising his hand. "No, Spock, it's fine. It's just what humans call hand-held lights. I don't even know why; I've never actually had a flashlight that flashes."

"An illogical name for such a device, then," Spock replied. A good point, Jim thought, and huffed out a laugh.

Using the glowing cube to light up the space around them, Spock and Jim were soon able to find the only way off of the ledge that didn't require them to climb back down the ladder, or else somehow break through the ceiling or walls. Located along the wall just over the ledge was a short, narrow metal door. The panel was made of some sort of steel-strength material; attempting to push it open or pull it back proved futile, and resulted only in Jim reopening the cuts on his hands.

"Captain," Spock said in a hushed voice, after a few minutes of Jim's forcible attempts to gain entry to whatever passage or vent lay beyond the door. "I believe that there is some form of script carved into the concrete above the door."

Jim paused, one bloody hand pressed flat against the smooth metallic surface, and looked up at what he had previously assumed was a blank, uninteresting stretch of concrete above the door.

Spock lifted the glowing cube, lighting up the scrawling script and pictures carved into the wall. "It is the native language of the Morrowi," the Vulcan said. "Perhaps if Lieutenant Uhura were here, she would be able to provide insight into the phonetic structure and probable pronunciation and meaning behind these words, but as it bears no similarities to either Vulcan or any Earth language that I know, I am unable to do more than guess at what it says."

"And," Jim said, standing up just enough that the carvings were at his eye-level, "what would you guess it says, Mr. Spock?"

Spock was quiet for a few seconds. "I would guess it is a warning, Captain," he said evenly. "Concerning the predatory nature of the animals depicted in the space just above the script."

Jim looked up, a little higher, as Spock raised the light to illuminate more of the wall. "Holy shit," he breathed, when the glow caught in the delicate lines carved into dried, crushed stone. "What is that, an evil demon tiger?"

"A Canithor," Spock corrected mildly. "One of the few native carnivores indigenous to this planet. Similar in build and anatomy to the tigers of Earth, with a few vital differences: Canithor, unlike Terran tigers, do not have retractable claws. The brief report on the species that I read prior to arriving on this planet stated that a rare type of highly poisonous, paralytic bacteria grows on this creature's claws, in a symbiotic relationship that allows both the transmittance of the bacteria from one host to another, and the incapacitation of prey."

Jim let out his breath in a long whoosh. "You get scratched, you go limp, the bacteria have a new home, and the Canithor takes down an easy meal," he paraphrased. "So, in short, evil demon tiger."

Spock tilted his head. "We should avoid coming into contact with these creatures if at all possible, should we ever be forced to leave the confines of this facility," he said.

"That's the understatement of the century," Jim replied. Reaching forward, he traced the lines of the carvings, memorizing the features of the Canithor depicted. "You wanna help me break open this door?" He let his hands fall back onto the flat, metallic surface, fingers seeking out the cracks and hinges along its right edge.

Spock nodded again. He brought the glowing cube down to study the structure of the door's frame, his eyes sharp with concentration.

Working together, they combined wits and strength, and the very few tools available to them, to break through one of four hinges. After that, it was a simple matter of using the broken hinge as a lever to snap the bindings of the other three; once those were removed, the door fell inward with a dull, clanging sound at once.

"Where does it go?" Jim asked of no one in particular. Crouching lower, he motioned for Spock to give him the light. Holding it out in front of him like a torch, he slunk forward into the narrow, upward-sloping hole—because it really was more of a hole than a proper passageway—and into the unknown.

"I believe," Spock said, as he followed his captain into the dank darkness, "that this tunnel leads to the surface of the planet."

Jim paused. The passage was growing narrower, and shorter, the deeper he went. There was no longer any room to turn around, or even glance back at Spock over his shoulder. He had fallen to his hands and knees, bracing himself against the slick walls of the passage as he climbed. "Fuck," he groaned. "This isn't at all where I wanted to end up."

"We could turn around," Spock suggested mildly.

Jim heaved a far-too-dramatic sigh. "Bones is gonna kill me," he said. "We can't go back. He's got all the other prisoners locked in that storage room by now; if everything went according to plan, we'll just make it shittier for everyone if we try to rendezvous with him now. We'll have to find some other way to tell the Enterprise where we are, and get back to the ship using only our quick wits, and scrappy survival skills." He grinned, even though he knew no one could see him, because false bravery and calm were better than the alternative. "Sounds like a really bad reality show."

Spock was silent, which Jim took to mean his First Officer wasn't buying the whole cavalier-about-the-potentially-fatal-situation act. Letting out his breath through his clenched teeth in a long, low hiss, Jim hung his head, briefly closing his eyes against the glow of the cube in his palm. "Alright, Mr. Spock," he said. His eyes opened, and he clenched his hands into fists before releasing the tension cramping his shoulders and neck. "What's the most logical course of action here?"

"Well, Captain," Spock began promptly, "the most logical course of action would be to stay here until we are sure that the Morrowi who were sent to search for us have returned to their usual duties, after which time we would attempt to regroup with Doctor McCoy and the others. Should we discover that they have already been beamed back aboard the Enterprise, we would then need only to find some way to relay our coordinates to Mr. Scott, after which time we would also be beamed aboard. If we should find that, for some reason, the Enterprise is still not able to take us back aboard at that time, however, then it would be most logical to do as you instructed Doctor McCoy, and barricade ourselves in a room close to the surface and containing enough technological implements to build a communication device capable of hailing the Enterprise, and stay in contact with the ship until they are capable of beaming us up."

Jim considered this for a long moment. Then he shook his head. "It makes sense, yeah, but I'd hate to wait that long just doing nothing. For all we know, Bones and the others are in trouble. We can't risk waiting until the Morrowi give up on finding us. It'll take too long."

Even without the privilege of seeing Spock's reaction, Jim could picture it perfectly in his mind's eye: veiled frustration, with just the tiniest hint of fondness lurking behind dark eyes. "It is illogical-" the Vulcan started, but Jim cut him off before he could start in on another 500 word rant.

"Yeah, it's illogical for us, Spock," Jim said. "But what about Bones? We can't just assume he's fine. I've got to find him, ASAP, just like I said. We'll just have to find some way around the guards."

At that moment, before Spock could reply, the distant sound of heavy, booted feet on ladder rungs rang out through the dark void behind them. "Shit," Jim hissed, and started moving forward again, up the narrow tunnel, away from the sound with as much speed as he could manage.

"They seem to have located us, Captain." Spock's voice was so soft that Jim barely caught the words over the thudding of his own hands and knees on the rocky floor of the passage. "There seems to be no choice now but to continue forward."

"Great observation," Jim panted. The cuts on his hand had broken open again as he pulled himself through the ever-narrowing tunnel. He was leaving a blood trail, he realized, and his heart sank. If the Morrowi had a light source, or even a really good sense of smell…

"I have detected a three point five degree Celsius drop in temperature during the past thirty seconds," Spock said. Jim shivered—he'd felt the cold shift, too.

The tunnel ended abruptly in another door similar to the one at the top of the ladder. Holding the glowing cube up before his face, Jim struggled to get a better look at the hinges holding it shut. "Hold on," he called back to Spock, who seemed to have come to a stop just behind him, although Jim couldn't hear anything over his own breathing and the too-fast beating of his heart.

"What can you see, Captain?" Spock asked.

"A door," Jim said. Using his fingers and the broken hinge from the first door, which he had stashed in his pocket for future use, he pried away the first of the four metal bands holding the door to its frame. They came away with surprising ease—Jim figured it had something to do with the frigid temperatures, which had made the metal brittle.

"Jim," Spock said, warning in his low tone, "I would not open that door without first attempting to discover what is on the other-"

"Too late." The last hinge fell away onto the cold stone floor, clanging loudly in the close tunnel. Jim pushed himself back a few feet as the circle of solid metal fell forward into the passage in front of him. Immediately, the most vicious, biting wave of cold Jim could remember experiencing washed over him. Gritting his teeth against the painful chill, he ducked his head, holding his breath in his chest for fear of inhaling pure ice.

"I believe," Spock said dryly, "that you have found a route to the planet's surface, sir."

Jim blinked, holding the cube of light up in a hand already shaking with cold. Ahead of him, outside of the tunnel, was pitch blackness that stretched on and on for as far as he could see. In the extreme distance, high above, the faintest glimmer of distant stars could be seen sprinkled across an inky sky. "We've got to get out of here," he said. His breath was a billow of white against the glow of the cube. He shuddered involuntarily, gritting his teeth on a wave of bitter chill. "I'm going out. If something grabs me..." he tapered off mid-sentence, pausing a moment before finishing with, "...don't follow."

Before Spock could reply, Jim launched into motion, scrambling up the steep incline beyond the broken door, and emerging into the dark, frigid landscape above. For a few seconds he stood perfectly still in the icy wind, only his head moving as he surveyed the terrain. Holy shit, he thought, taking in the vast expanse of frozen rock and glacial-looking rivers of ice stretching away for miles and miles in ever direction. In the far distance, he caught sight of a line of dark against the star-flecked horizon: a forest, he guessed, or a city of tall buildings outlined against the dull light of two tiny moons hanging in the blackness overhead. Vividly, an image of the tiger-like beasts carved over the mouth of the tunnel they'd come through flashed through his mind's eye. If there was anywhere that creatures like those would be found, it would likely be in a jungle, Jim thought.

He had just turned back toward the tunnel, intending to inform Spock that it was safe to emerge, and was not at all surprised to find that his First Officer was already standing beside him, having approached with all the silent stealthiness of a prowling cat. The half-Vulcan stood with his back completely straight, hands clasped at the small of his back. He said nothing, but it was obvious from his stiffer-than-usual posture and expression that he wasn't impressed by this latest turn of luck. And, that he was extremely cold.

Crossing his arms over his chest to keep himself from shivering, Jim offered Spock his best cocky, sure smile. "Not the warmest place ever," he conceded, addressing Spock's unspoken complaint. "As long as we get back in contact with Enterprise soon, though, we'll be fine."

Spock's eyebrow raised impossibly high. "And how do you propose we contact the ship, Captain?" he said, his voice nearly as cold as the wind that threw itself with vicious intent across the rugged, barren landscape.

Jim swallowed. He winced as the icy air slid into his mouth, scorching his throat and sticking in his lungs. Ducking his head, he pressed his arms tighter against his chest and stomach. "Well," he began, "we could-"

A sharp, chilling scream stopped him mid-sentence. The sound rose and fell like a siren, eery and wild as the wind carried it across the rock and ice. It lifted the hairs on the back of Jim's neck, and sent his heart immediately into overdrive as adrenaline flooded his veins. Instinctively, Jim crouched down, drawing his phaser and checking that it was on its highest setting. Spock crouched beside him, mirroring the captain's position. "What the hell was that?" Jim hissed, looking around with wide blue eyes.

"I do not know," Spock said, voice so low it was hardly more than a whisper. "Although I could hazard to guess that it was the hunting cry of some wild animal. It seemed similar to the war cries of human warriors, or the howling of wolves in communication with one another during a hunt."

Jim swore. "You think it's a Canithor?"

"It is very possible," Spock replied evenly. There was an underlying gravity to his otherwise neutral tone.

The scream sounded again, this time much closer. Jim lifted his head, urgently scanning the landscape for the source of the sound. When he found none, he shook his head, gesturing toward the passage they'd come from. "Get back in the tunnel," he whispered urgently. "I'd rather face down a hundred Morrowi than a huge alien cat."

Spock nodded once in acquiescence of his captain's command. Slinking with predatory grace, the half-Vulcan made his way back to the tunnel, sliding down into it and disappearing amid the bottomless shadows.

Jim followed. Crouched low, he kept his phaser raised and ready to fire. He reached the edge of the tunnel, and opened his mouth to say, "I'm coming down!" but before the words could leave his mouth, a black and white-streaked shadow slammed into him full-force, snarling with vicious fury. He was knocked flat on his back, his phaser spinning from his hands and skidding away across the planet's rocky surface. "Spock!" he tried to say, but all the air had been knocked from his lungs, and his voice wouldn't work.

The beast, which was about the size of a small shuttle ship with claws as long as sharp as machetes, stood over Jim with one enormous paw on his chest, and the other raised for a killing blow. As the strike fell, Jim raised his arms over his head in a final desperate attempt to protect himself. The last thing he saw before everything went black was a flash of bright blue, and a flare of piercingly white light.

In the foggy distance, someone was yelling his name.

And then the creature's paw struck him, and there was nothing at all.