Chapter Twenty-One: In which there is plotting, frantic searching, and MORE frantic searching! Lots of people being frantic, basically. Oh, and Karina manages to get herself in some seriously hot water again. Did I mention that one?
Jim: (frantically) And, meanwhile... WHERE IN HECK ARE CAMILLE AND BONES?
Guess we'll have to find out, huh?
I only own my OCs.
Vladimir had watched as the girl left Pavel's dormitory. She looked as though she were on a mission. And the words "over my dead body" hadn't exactly been a promising aspect. Andrei would not be happy to hear of this.
Then again, did he need to hear of it? Vladimir paused for a few moments, not entirely sure of his next move. He knew his partner. If anything or anyone deigned to interfere with Andrei Chekov's plan, they would find themselves at least stinging from a minor flesh wound, whether that be figurative or literal. Vladimir was a cold, ruthless man. But less so than Andrei, much less so.
If he informed Andrei that the girl might interfere now, there was a possibility he'd merely scare her a bit, then let her go loose. But on the chance that she did discover something that compromised Andrei's right to his son now, Andrei's revenge would be quick and swift… and unrelenting.
Vladimir didn't have the same disdain for Pavel as Andrei did…sad when you considered that the boy was Andrei's son. In fact, on occasion, Vladimir sometimes liked Pavel better than his own son, Dimitri. So if this girl was trying to help him, she probably had a good judge of character. He didn't blame her.
And, though he couldn't understand why, he'd rather her not get hurt.
Knowing her escaping any harm was unlikely even if he told Andrei now, he decided to do so any way. Damage control, he called it. He may be involved in the same business as Andrei, but he didn't get the same sick pleasure from watching carnage as the other man did.
Seeing Andrei approach, Vladimir sighed and steeled his nerves. Might as well get it over with. He raised a hand, hailing the other man.
Frowning, Andrei bypassed Pavel's door and went to where Vladimir was standing.
"What is it?" he asked. "What did you see?"
Lowering his voice, Vladimir said, "We may have a problem."
At this point, Karina was frantic. Jim had fallen asleep at least twice already, as she'd kept him awake looking through the files with her. Computerized research may be faster than book research – though Karina personally preferred the latter – but it was still yielding no results. The United States, Starfleet, no one had any rights referring to this situation.
Karina nudged Jim awake. "Come on, Jim. I need your help. I need you to be awake."
But she was close to falling asleep herself. She'd been up all night, and though that wasn't uncommon for New Year's, she also knew that most people did it with the assumption that they could sleep in the next day. She had no such luck. Classes may not resume until the day after tomorrow, but she had to keep looking. She couldn't rest until she found an answer.
None of this would have been a problem if Camille and Bones were lending their eyes, as well. Where were they, anyway? She was surprised her communicator hadn't buzzed by now, with Camille wondering why she hadn't crawled back into the room, completely hammered at this point.
Jim had no response, of course. After her all but screaming at him and being shushed by the night shift librarian, he'd tried to stay awake valiantly, but was now out like a light. Karina groaned. Some help he was, that one.
If she exhausted these files, she would go to Captain Pike, but Karina wasn't exactly certain what good that would do. And she was beginning to realize, there wasn't much else she could do, bar waiting until hiatus, hopping a shuttle to Russia, marching up to the Chekov's door, and hauling Pavel back by the ears. After stunning his father, of course. That would be immensely satisfying.
Maybe she wouldn't be with Jim, Camille, and Bones after all. At least they could stay in touch. There were so many ways to do that nowadays. She wouldn't lose them entirely.
The only thing Karina cared about right now was making sure that Pavel got to choose his future. Once everything got sorted out, hopefully they would at least be assigned to the same ship.
She was staring at the screen, blinking rapidly to keep herself awake, when she heard a grunt come from the direction of the librarian.
Karina sat bolt upright, unsure of whether she should turn around and investigate or rather keep quiet, hunkering down underneath the table, dragging Jim with her. Her split second's hesitation was the worst option she could have taken, however.
A rough hand clamped itself over her mouth, and someone lifted her off her feet. Remembering the last time she had been mugged, a cold wave of fear passed over her and she lashed out with her legs, kicking at anything she could.
Her captor wrestled her to the ground, moving quickly so as to avoid her crying out and waking Jim. He slipped a gag over her mouth and began tying her wrists and ankles. Karina's heart beat faster than she could remember it ever beating before, and she screamed against the foul-tasting cloth, hoping Jim would hear her. She felt a shadow falling over her and looked up at the man towering above – and choked on her screams.
She'd never seen him before in her life, but she knew who he was automatically. He bore such a strong resemblance to his son…albeit slightly scarier-looking, and meaner.
The older Mr. Chekov, I presume, she thought. And as to who had a death grip on her right now, she instinctively knew that it was the partner Pavel had mentioned – Vladimir, he'd said his name was.
She was seriously going to have to think up something good to work her way out of this one. Romulans, she could handle. Russians, on the other hand? It was slightly sad that she felt better up against an alien race than she did up against her own species.
Andrei was holding a formidable looking weapon, which Karina would have expected, knowing he was an illegal arms dealer, and her heart rate quickened when she saw that it was a phaser rifle. Like the antique guns she'd seen in store windows here in the city, these were slightly more powerful than their handheld counterparts. Meaning that they had no "stun" setting. These things either missed you or blew your head off, there was no in between whatsoever.
And right now, he was moving straight toward Jim.
Karina started struggling even harder as Andrei leveled the phaser at Jim's head. How was the man not waking up right about now? Seriously!
"What are you doing?" Vladimir asked, incredulous. "I wasn't aware we were still in the business of murder."
Andrei glared at his partner. "He's going to wake up and find the girl missing. We can't leave any traces of our presence here."
"I think a dead man leaves more evidence than a missing girl, don't you?" Vladimir posed. "Take her bag. By the time he wakes up and sees her gone, he'll think she's just headed back to her room and given up. And then once he realizes she's truly missing, it'll be too late."
Karina didn't necessarily like the sound of that, but at the same time she was rooting for Vladimir. She'd already come close to getting Jim killed last year, she wasn't eager to repeat the process, with more success.
Andrei looked for a brief second as though he were about to go ahead and kill Jim, in spite of his friend's warning, then groaned and sheathed the rifle at his side. "Fine. But let's go. Sooner or later someone's going to come in here. It may be the holidays, but this is a place of study, after all."
Karina refused to struggle any farther. Attempting to get loose would only distract her from figuring out a strategy. She didn't intend to die today, any more than she intended to when she'd gotten kidnapped by Romulans last year. And even less so did she intend to let them get away undetected.
"And exactly how do you propose we get out of here, Andrei?" Vladimir growled, rising and dragging her up with him. "We won't have time to get through the hallways now before it's crawling with cadets, officers, everyone and their brother!"
Andrei nodded his head to the right. "Same way as last time," he said. "Come on. Get the blindfold on her and let's get out of here."
Last time? Karina thought. What last time?
But she was not to know where they were going, apparently. Vladimir shoved a thick black cloth over her head, and, enveloped in darkness, the only thing she could really think of was how long it would be before she ran out of air.
Jim was not so foolish as Andrei had thought. He assumed nothing when he awoke to find Karina gone. In this situation, he supposed anything could happen. Trying Cam's communicator, he found her to not be in the answering mood. Great. He tried Kari's. She wasn't answering, either.
He made his way through the corridors, attempting not to be frantic. Frantic was not a word that often described Jim Kirk, but this time, he was really having to push back the feeling. Funny how often that happened when it came to Karina.
Reaching Camille and Karina's room, he buzzed the door. No answer. "Cam? Kari?" he tried, though he doubted that if they were asleep, they'd be able to hear him if they couldn't hear the buzzer. A thought occurred to him, and he couldn't decide whether it was horrific or satisfying. "Bones?"
No answer. He was almost halfway relieved.
Turning away from the door, he frowned. Where to next? Maybe the Russian kid's room. Knowing Karina, he didn't put it past her to march herself back there and flat out tell the kid's father exactly what was on her mind. Which, undoubtedly, would have gotten her into an even worse predicament than she'd bargained for. The girl had a habit for landing herself in hot water.
Balancing his need to find out where Kari was quickly and his desire to not look like a complete idiot, cavorting around Starfleet like a madman, he settled for a power walk, rather than the run he really wanted to break into. He hoped he remembered which room it was.
Turns out, he didn't need to remember. It was quite obvious by the time he got there.
The door hung wide open. Whoever had been there last had left in a hurry. Otherwise, everything was just as it had been before. Something was definitely off. If they were heading back to Russia, why was everything still here?
Jim tried Camille's communicator again, then Bones'. Why was no one answering? They were having a situation, here!
Suddenly, something flittering in the corner of his eye caught his attention. A piece of paper floated on the breeze near to the ground, and he lunged for it. He had a hunch that nothing was too random to be evidence, and he didn't believe in coincidences.
His eyes widened when he saw the lettering on the paper. This was bad. This was very bad.
It was a map of Starfleet's tunnels. They knew how to move underground. Jim groaned and sank back against the wall, sliding to the ground. If these guys had Kari, it was going to be stinking difficult to find them in that labyrinth.
Suddenly he sat up straight, a horrible thought occurring to him. They hadn't given names in the article he'd read about Kari's dad saving Starfleet. But they had mentioned that the pair of men responsible for the break-in had escaped…and they were Russian arms dealers.
And as previously stated, James Tiberius Kirk was not one to believe in coincidences.
He had to find Karina. But first, he needed to find Camille and Bones.