Chapter 13

One hundred thirty-two… One hundred thirty-three…

"Your Majesty!" Christine shouted, her tone incensed as though she'd been trying to get his attention for some time.

Jim jerked his bored glance away from counting the letters on the vitals monitor on the bed across from his to focus on Christine. "I know, he's only been gone an hour, and I still have several hours of confinement left to look forward to."

"I just received word from Scotty asking whether or not Bones is en route to the tarmac. Doctor McCoy hasn't answered the pages I've sent."

"He hasn't arrived yet? Bones doesn't dawdle when there's a medical emergency." He didn't experience any stabs of alarm just yet, because it was entirely possible the man was stuck in a lift somewhere. Two attempts were necessary before he was able to throw back the blanket covering his legs and ease himself off the bed. When Christine didn't stop him, he knew she was experiencing enough alarm for both of them.

"Shall I have Lieutenant Uhura page Commander Spock and inform him to return to the ship?" the nurse asked.

"Not just yet." He made it to the intercom system and pressed the direct link to the bridge. "Ensign Chekov, locate Doctor McCoy's vitals with the ship sensors."

"Yes, Sir. Happy to." There was a long pause before Chekov continued, "Ship sensors cannot locate vitals for McCoy, Doctor Leonard. Last known location logged by ship computers was in ten thousand block of Corkai and Havlin streets."

"He's outside the ship," Jim exhaled in a rush. That was when he experienced his first jolt of alarm. "Chekov, have Uhura page Spock to meet me at McCoy's last known location. Send captain's orders to Cupcake to meet me at the shuttle bay doors with a team of security officers."

"Captain, you're in no condition to go gallivanting around Bulta. When Doctor McCoy said he would sign you out, it was only on light duty. You're not well enough to undertake a search and rescue," interrupted Christine.

"Then I'm checking myself out against doctor's orders."

"You could undo all the progress your injuries have made and end up slowing down the search party."

"I'm not sure you understand, Nurse Chapel. Bones has been kidnapped, no doubt by members of Sovereign Istabul. He didn't just decide to go for a stroll off-ship when a medical emergency is going on. There's no way in Hell I'm staying in this Sickbay when God knows what they might be doing to him. Page Doctor Westin to take care of the injured engineer."

The woman's body went tense as though she struggled between knowing what he had to do and what medical common sense said he should do, but she finally nodded. "Then let me give you a mild dose of adrenaline and another mender to be on the safe side."

Between Bones' method of injecting hyposprays and Nurse Chapel's he much preferred Chapel's. She was at least gentle. Jim was rubbing his neck when the lift doors flew open to admit Ritha to Sickbay, her face cut with lines of tension and worry. One look at her expression and he knew why Bones had been smiling earlier. They'd done the deed. Ritha had taken Bones' post-divorce innocence.

"Scotty just told me. I'm going with you, Captain."

If there was one thing he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt it was that people who cared deeply about the missing in action would be like a rabid dog with a bone. Though he may have otherwise ordered an engineer to stay behind and leave search and rescue up to the security officers, he knew Ritha wouldn't quit no matter how long it took. Besides, he just didn't have it in him to order her to stay behind where she would drive herself nuts with worry, so Jim nodded.

"Get a utility belt and meet us at the shuttle bay doors in fifteen minutes. We're going to find him, Monroe. I promise you that."

"I know we are. I'll tear apart this Goddamn city if I have to. Sodding son of a motherless sheep!" she exploded.

A brow imitated Spock's.

***

When blackness lifted from Bones, he didn't immediately open his eyes. Better to let the enemy think he was still unconscious so he could have a few minutes to study his surroundings and find out just what kind of shape he was in. As far as he could tell, he was laying, without the irritation of having his hands tied, on a hard surface that smelled faintly of damp concrete. The temperature was chilly enough for cold to seep into his bones and make his nose run a little but not so cold he was shivering. An intermittent beeping sound seemed to be coming from the same room, but he couldn't hear anyone else moving around in there with him.

As far as his body went, he was a little sore, probably from being on a hard surface for some time. His neck burned where they'd struck him with whatever had administered the sedative, but other than that, he was in one piece and hadn't been beaten. One would think he would have woken up if they'd actually started torturing him already.

He finally cracked an eye open to get a look at the area. Concrete floor, concrete walls, and a rather large computer terminal situated against one of the walls. The monitor was displaying an aerial view of the Enterprise and surrounding dry dock. As far as he could tell without moving, there was only one door on the wall to his left. If this was Sovereign Istabul's idea of a headquarters they weren't nearly sophisticated enough to actually do much damage to Bulta, so this was no doubt an outpost of some type.

If this wasn't the damned worst day of his entire life, he didn't know what was. He was a doctor, not James Bond! Seeing as how there was no one else in the room with him, Bones decided to sit up and then climb to his feet, groaning softly when his vision insisted on doing the two-step from the remnants of the sedative. He had to brace himself against the wall for a few minutes until the world stopped spinning. Could he jump off while the planet was motionless?

Bones wasn't a hacker like Chekov, Jim, and Spock were. He knew his way around a computer console, but when it came to breaking open encrypted information or bypassing security protocol, he was in the dark. Taking a seat on the stool in front of the console, he perused the information displayed on the screen. They were building blueprints of the Enterprise. He didn't know how they were doing it, because Istabulians, with that strip of darker pigmentation across their eyes, would stand out among the Enterprise crew like a sore thumb. But the proof was right there in front of him. They had half the ship systems mapped out already along with detailed schematics of the Enterprise's engines, warp core, and inertial dampeners.

"This isn't good," he muttered to himself.

Either they were making blueprints of the ship to stage a critical attack that would result in the Enterprise being obliterated, or they were making a plan to build their own starship. As far as he knew, Istabulians had only rudimentary space craft that was limited to traveling to Istabul Minor and back. Their interstellar program was still in its infancy, though the Federation was helping them along. If terrorists got hold of a starship like the Enterprise, there was no telling what kind of trouble they would cause in the rest of the universe. It was likely their first act with advanced weaponry would be to level Bulta.

"Great, it's a baby Klingon Empire in its first stage of attempted expansion."

The sounds of voices just outside the door made his heart flop over and then go into hiding in the region of his stomach. Bones flew off the stool back to the area where he'd been laying and tried to recreate the exact position he'd woken up in. His eyes had just slipped closed when the door opened, allowing a man and a woman to step inside. They were whispering so quietly he couldn't hear everything that was said, not that he would have been able to understand them even if they were speaking louder. Ishta Major was a damn complex language by the sound of it. Uhura needed to hurry up with that earpiece translator she was working on.

Both man and woman were wearing similar clothing, wide-legged trousers and wrap shirts in muted colors, but neither wore the symbol Jim had described as having been worn by the attackers at Jiet Je Jong's apartment. What did surprise him was when the man cupped the woman's shoulders and lowered his forehead to rest against hers as though they were sharing an intimate moment. Right, like terrorists couldn't fall in love? Being a terrorist didn't immediately equate to being emotionless.

A third man arrived by way of the single door a few moments later, interrupting their conversation. He carried a tray containing covered dishes and a single beverage that threatened to make his stomach rumble from the scent of the food. Jim was supposed to be the one who could eat no matter what was going on, not him. Bones kept himself completely still and prayed his stomach didn't make a sound and betray him when the man took his leave after a brief exchange with the other two.

What would Jim do in this situation? He'd either talk incessantly until they got sick of him and let him go, or he would pop up from the floor and start wailing on them to secure his own release. Neither option suited Bones. Spock would try to logic his way out of the situation or use the advantage of being amongst the enemy to gain information. Seeing as how he was a doctor who wasn't trained on gathering information about alien terrorists, he wasn't sure how successful he would be.

Bones didn't get the chance to plan his course of action. The man approached him, crouched, and shook his shoulder rather gently. Gentleness from a terrorist? He'd been expecting to be smacked awake, had expected to wake up surrounded by terrorists bent on torturing him until he couldn't handle it anymore and screamed.

"Commander McCoy, the rate of your breathing has increased by one point three seven percent, and your heart rate has accelerated by three point nine four percent, both indications you are awake. It's time to stop pretending."

Oh great, they were spouting percentages like they were Vulcan. If it weren't for the terrorist part, Spock would have gotten along with them famously. The ruse over, Bones sat up and said, "You know you can get twenty years to life in the brig for abducting a Federation officer, right?"

"We are aware of the code of law in the Federation," said the woman. "Please, make yourself more comfortable and be seated at the table. You have been unconscious, therefore unable to eat, for many hours. A meal has been prepared for you."

"Like I'm going to eat anything you're offering me. Your penchant for poisoning people has already been established."

"The medical kit you were carrying at the time of your abduction has not been taken from you. Test the food for poison with your tricorder if you must. We did not bring you hear to torture, poison, or kill."

"I am Voren. This is my sister, Arta. You were brought here merely to discuss the situation our respective people find themselves in."

"Uh huh. If I believe that, you'll try to sell me a piece of swamp land."

Bones didn't turn down the offer of getting off the concrete floor, though. The chair he settled himself in wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world, but it was better than the damp ground. Eating the food whether or not it was poisoned would just be silly, because he had absolutely no intention of cooperating with these people.

"Brother, he doesn't believe us," Arta said, and Bones thought he detected a note of something akin to hopelessness in her tone.

"Damn straight I don't believe you. That computer monitor is flashing blueprints you're building for the Enterprise. I don't know how you're gathering that kind of information, but the Enterprise is in a state of red alert. That means they're ready for your attack. Now, why don't you let me go, and maybe I can talk the captain into going easy on the lot of you."

"We cannot release you until you've been made to understand the differences between Organics and Mechanics," Voren said rather ominously.

Organics and Mechanics. A funny flip-flopping sensation in his stomach almost made him hurl when he realized the truth of the matter, that Voren and Arta were both androids. A pair of androids were going to torture him until his mind became so twisted and broken he ended up betraying the Enterprise and all the people in board. Yeah, hurling sounded like a good idea.

***

Pacing wasn't normally Ritha's thing. Being a rather laid-back person, she didn't often find the need to engage in nervous habits, but waiting for what seemed like an eternity for Spock to show up at the location was enough to make her want to go out of her mind. Pinching her bottom lip between thumb and forefinger, she whirled and paced back to the other building. Bones' vitals weren't registering on their handheld scanners. Either he was dead, a prospect that made her blood pump sluggishly, or the abductors had technology that had scrambled his tracking chip.

Bile splashed up the back of her throat when she considered the possibility of Bones being dead. He was her lover. No matter how much she might be against getting into a committed relationship with him, there was no way she could simply not care. That thought saw her pacing back to the other building, the soles of her boots scuffing against grit and dirt that had built up on the pavement.

A sharp breath of frustration escaped, and she glanced at her handheld again to look at the time. Where the Hell was Spock for it to take so long for him to arrive? They were wasting valuable time waiting around, time Bones might not have. Like she had any room to accuse Jim of not acting quickly enough. The captain was Bone's brother-by-a-different-mother. Simply looking at the captain's anxious face told her everything she needed to know about his turmoil.

"Ritha, pretty much everyone on the ship knows you and Bones are hot after each other, so don't freak out when I try to comfort you like your boyfriend is in serious danger. Try not to drive yourself nuts worrying about him, though. They didn't go to the effort of abducting him only to kill him," Paul suddenly said.

The smile she offered up was half-appreciative and half-bitter. "Which means they've somehow scrambled his tracking chip. Finding him without that chip is going to be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Hell, for all we know, he's already been moved out of Bulta and could be anywhere. But thanks for trying to reassure me." Her thumb's up and exaggerated smile were obviously sarcastic.

"Okay, Little Miss Sarcastic, you don't need to take that tone with me. There hasn't been enough time for him to be moved out of the city yet. I've got security officers heading to every toll booth on all the major thoroughfares out of Bulta with instructions to scan every car that passes through."

"I'm sorry," she whined plaintively. "This kind of gut-grinding worry isn't something I'm used to. Has anyone ever told that you're the best?"

"Only my boyfriend, and he's biased."

"He's a lucky guy, Cupcake. This isn't supposed to be happening. We were supposed to stop here to make repairs to the Enterprise and maybe get a little R&R while we were at it. Running around like chickens with our heads cut off wasn't part of the plan. The captain being injured, Bones being taken captive, fighting androids, they weren't on our itinerary."

"And I bet you and Bones weren't on the itinerary either."

Her head waffled back and forth, and then she shrugged. "I've wanted in Bones' pants since I saw him at the academy, but that's neither here nor there. Where the Hell is Spock?"

"And now that you've been in his pants, you don't want to give them up. Spock is en route. He was at the university all the way across the city."

"Wait, how do you know I've been in his pants?"

"I saw you leaving his quarters looking pretty disheveled, but your secret is safe with me. It won't get bandied about the ship."

"Thanks for that. If anything happens to him…" She let the statement trail off when a cab pulled up to the head of the alley and allowed Spock to step out. Her relief was palpable, because his arrival meant they could get down to the business of finding Bones.

"Jim, you were instructed to remain in Sickbay until further notice," Spock said, pinning the captain with an intense gaze. "As Acting Captain until you have been cleared for duty, I must ask you to return to the Enterprise so as not to jeopardize your health."

"Wild horses couldn't drag me back to that ship. Bones was last seen leaving Sickbay, but his last known location was in this city block as logged by the ship's scanners. Scotty is conducting interviews to see if anyone saw anything out of the ordinary."

"I anticipated this response and have made the decision not to have you locked in the brig for disobeying an order from the acting captain. By perusing security video recorded by the university's cameras, I have ascertained Jiet Je Jong's fate. Three frames were recorded depicting the professor's abduction from the parking garage."

"Show me the video," Jim said.

Teeth ground together to stop herself from demanding to know what any of this had to do with finding Bones. Sure, it was strange the creator of the androids had been abducted, but they had more pressing matters on their hands. Finding Bones alive had to come first as far as she was concerned. However, implicitly trusting the captain and the first officer came with the territory when serving on the Enterprise.

Ritha scooted a little closer so she would be able to look over Jim's shoulder when Spock whipped out his handheld device. The video recording was surprisingly clear, and though it was dark outside at the time the footage was taken, she could clearly see two men in purple uniforms give the professor an injection that immediately rendered him unconscious. Purple uniforms didn't really mean anything to her, but Jim reacted to seeing them immediately.

"Son of a… Run this through facial recognition software and see if we get a positive match. We need all the evidence we can possibly get connecting Tobra to Jiet Je Jong's disappearance if my gut is right."

"How many times has your gut been wrong?" asked Paul.

"Only once."

Spock dutifully informed the captain, "The images have already been submitted to facial recognition software. There is a positive match to Calit Cy Corga, chief body guard to President Tien To Tobra."