Chapter 14
The information didn't fully register in Jim's brain for a few seconds, but when it did, he let out a string of curses, slapped Spock's handheld closed, and kicked an empty beverage container across the alley. "That lying, scheming son of a bitch! When I get my hands on Tobra, he'll whimper for his mommy."
"Wait," Ritha interrupted, "what does this mean in terms of finding Bones? It's all well and good to know Tobra is abducting people, but shouldn't we be looking for our lost crew member?"
His brow flattened when he looked at her. Generally, he liked Ritha, but every once in a while, she got on his nerves. Considering he was operating on his last one, he was just about to tell her Spock and him were way more worried about Bones than she was since they'd known him longer when Spock saved everyone the headache.
"We have established a connection between President Tobra and the anti-Federation rebellion," began Spock, tucking his hands behind his back. "Tobra had the man responsible for creating the androids abducted. Following that train of logic, it becomes statistically probable he was directly responsible for the creation of the androids we fought at the food processing plant."
"See, lying fucktard, aisle one. If Tobra created the androids, he's also somehow connected to Sovereign Istabul, and therefore, directly or indirectly, connected to Bones' abduction," Jim concluded.
"Then why get us involved? The risk of us digging too deeply and finding out he's responsible for the rebellion would be too great," said Paul.
"That's the million dollar question we don't have an answer for yet. We're overlooking something," responded Jim. His hands were literally shaking with anger directed squarely at Tobra. Tobra had better pray they found Bones alive and in one piece, because Jim wouldn't hesitate to kill him with extreme prejudice even if he'd probably get court martialed for it.
"The sentience of the robots," Ritha commented in a much less annoying tone. "The only reason I can think of for getting us involved is if he somehow lost control of the androids."
"Given their sentience, it is possible the motivation of Sovereign Istabul has changed and Tobra feels his involvement may become public knowledge, jeopardizing his office."
An uncomfortable sensation in the pit of his stomach made Jim lean back against a wall. Tobra was either a dead man, or he would spend the rest of his natural life serving time in a Federation prison for one count of kidnapping, thirty-three counts of murder, and at least a dozen acts of blatant terrorism. The shaking of his hands only got worse when he closed his eyes and imagined Bones in pieces after being tortured. Now he knew how Bones had felt when Spock had arrived at the Enterprise performing CPR on him.
His head lifted when the soft hum of engines approached. "Now what?"
Continued weakness from his injury and the resulting surgery were pushed aside when several vehicles clogged the streets at either end of the alley. Presidential guards piled out of law enforcement vans, headed up by none other than Calit Cy Corga himself. Jim had a few choice words in mind for that son of a bitch too. Trapped between two solid walls of concrete wasn't the most pleasant of sensations. Considering there were only seven Starfleet personnel with him pitted against more than twenty guards, the odds were stacked drastically against them. The guards might be carrying crude weapons compared to a Starfleet phaser, but their numbers easily nullified that.
"Captain James T. Kirk, President Tobra would like to extend a special invitation to you and your group to join him for supper. Turning down this invitation would be unwise," Calit Cy Corga informed them. His invitation could have been misconstrued as a social visit, but the weapon he carried couldn't.
"I think we're going to have to take a rain check," Jim responded while scrambling to assess the situation. "See, we're kind of in the middle of something here and just don't have the time."
"Jim," Spock said, a slight waver in his tone.
"I will repeat myself only once. To refuse the great honor our president bestows upon you would be unwise."
This was certainly not the kind of situation he wanted his crew to be in. No matter what choice he made, the outcome could be disastrous. Fighting twenty guards could get more than one of them killed. It could get Spock killed, because Spock would inevitably get hurt trying to protect him. It could get Ritha killed, and though he wasn't terribly close to her, Bones needed her to get over his bitterness toward women. Fighting meant they might be too weak or injured to seize an escape opportunity. Surrendering meant they could be taken to a location where there simply weren't any means of escape.
In the end, Jim, using Spock's body to shield his left side, carefully slipped his hand inside his pants pocket to feel for the channel button on his handheld. He opened a channel directly to the Enterprise's bridge. "Lower your weapons. That's an order. You can stop calling it an invitation, Corga. We all know Tobra is the leader of Sovereign Istabul and is having us arrested."
The prick actually laughed at him before saying, "President Tobra will enjoy hearing all about your conspiracy theory."
Breath hissed through his teeth when guards flooded into the alley to gather up their phasers and bind their hands behind their back. There was a tense moment in which Spock looked like he might get physical in response to how physical the guards were being with Jim, but their arrest was completed without incident. Imagine having their own weapons turned against them. He could picture the headlines now. 'Famed crew of the USS Enterprise shot dead with their own phasers.' That would be just their luck.
As soon as they were all stuffed inside the back of a van, Jim leaned his shoulder up against Spock, not because of the weakness plaguing him, but because of Spock's innate telepathic ability when touch was involved. His first officer would be able to feel what he was feeling. He was never calm. There was always some kind of visceral emotion swirling around inside him, but Jim purposefully calmed himself this time to communicate to Spock why he'd made the decision he had. At least by allowing them to be arrested, they would all be inside the Sovereign Istabul headquarters, past their security measures, and in a position to strike if they were lucky enough. If not, Scotty would think of a way to free them.
Bouncing around in the back of the van for what felt like a couple of hours was tantamount to torture. Chapel's dose of adrenaline didn't last nearly long enough, so by the time they came to a stop and the van doors were opened, Jim was leaning heavily against his first officer. He righted himself so as not to clue the guards in to his fatigue, something that could be exploited and used against the rest of his crew members. Night had fallen during their trip. The air was muggy and heavy to breathe in when Jim dropped from the back of the van without the benefit of his hands to steady himself. Being jarred so heavily felt rather like Keenser was gnawing on his injured side.
By the looks of things, they'd been transported to a warehouse district in the seedier part of Bulta. Lights on the side of the building illuminated a small courtyard filled with crates and machinery, but there weren't any company logos for him to casually remark to Spock about so Scotty could hear it through the open channel on his handheld. They were led through a side door into an empty warehouse, separated into two groups, and taken down a pair of lifts into the building's bowels. From there, Jim's group was prodded into a barren room where he lost sight of the second group.
Aside from the two security cameras mounted in opposite corners, there was nothing remarkable about the room. Everything was concrete. Not a single window or piece of furniture alleviated the sense of being trapped inside a box, which meant Jim's worst scenario had come true again. Escaping from a room without any points of access would be nigh on impossible. Splitting them into two groups just made it all the more difficult, because when Scotty did show up on a white horse to save their asses, they would have to fight through the warehouse to find the others. Jim let out a frustrated groan.
"Sit down, Captain."
Jim wasn't given the option of obeying. The elf caught him under the arms and lowered him to the floor so he could lean up against the wall. Like it was any more comfortable than standing up. Okay, so it took less energy on his part. He looked to the three faces with him. Spock, Ritha, and Cupcake. It was obvious to Jim Spock was concerned. Cupcake was stoic while leaning his shoulder up against the wall, and Ritha could only be described as looking casual. She had her shoulder blades against the wall and her stomach thrust out for balance.
He was saved from admitting he might have, maybe, possibly, made the tiniest of mistakes by surrendering without a fight when the door opened. Tobra, along with five guards armed with Starfleet phasers, entered the room. One of them carried a chair that was unfolded to allow Tobra to sit down. The damned douche bag looked far too cool and assured for Jim's liking.
"I knew you were a scheming bastard the moment we realized we were fighting androids. If I'd gone along with my gut instinct then, you'd be in the brig, and I'd be sipping cocktails with my feet propped up."
Tobra tilted his head up a little to look down his nose at them before saying, "Such is not the truth. You would still believe me a concerned president were it not for the interference of the Mechanics."
"Nah, we still would have found out the truth. You didn't cover your tracks as well as you thought. We know you're in control of Sovereign Istabul. We know you abducted Jiet Je Jong and forced him to build the androids being used by Sovereign Istabul. So wipe that smug smile off your face."
"What an astute man you are, James T. Kirk. I suppose you were too smart for me after all." The blasted man actually laughed while simultaneously crossing his legs and folding his hands in his lap. "I'm aware your handheld device has an open channel to the Enterprise bridge. Unfortunately for you, the signal has been scrambled along with the signal of your tracking chips."
It took every fiber of his will not to blanche at the news. Scotty would have no way of knowing which direction they'd been taken in. Jim managed to keep his expression flippant. "As I was saying. You're a lying douche bag of a terrorist, and I'm going to enjoy slapping a pair of restraints on you and carting you back to San Francisco for what I hope will be an extremely lengthy trial. If I were you, I'd be praying Bones is in one piece when we find him."
"And your crew is touted as the best Starfleet has to offer. No wonder the Romulan was able to destroy Vulcan when such is the state of intelligence rampant in the Federation."
Jim winced on Spock's behalf but knew he wouldn't have to restrain the elf even if Spock was practically shaking with anger.
"You have no right to show such disrespect to an entire race of people," Spock bit out. "You have no right to defame the intelligence of the Federation when you are unfamiliar with the facts of the case."
"Obviously I have a right when I've managed to so completely fool the best Starfleet has to offer. Gentlemen, and lady, there is no Sovereign Istabul, and you're going to tell me the weapon access code for your starship."
His lips thinned at the same time Spock's eyebrow hit his hairline.
***
Bones had caved. After several hours of captivity, he'd finally caved. The plate in front of him only had a few crumbs and smears of sauce left on it, the contents having taken up residence in his stomach. Pleasantly full, he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. Arta and Voren had left a while ago when another Mechanic had come rushing in to whisper to them, so he allowed the silence to stretch. Eventually, Jim and Spock would blast through the wall to rescue him, and for the moment, he wasn't being tortured. Always a plus in his book. Realizing both facts--it was a fact he would be rescued--meant the initial alarm of his predicament had fled.
He was just settling himself deeper in his chair to get comfortable when the door opened again to admit the two Mechanics. Voren's expression was grave, but Arta's was full of abject sadness. Her cheeks were stained with blue streaks as though she had been crying, as though the blue liquid filling their bodies also served as tears. His stomach dropped through the floor. Androids weren't supposed to understand emotion let alone react based on it. They weren't supposed to cry, feel grief, or experience depression. Something was terribly wrong with this situation.
"Commander McCoy," Voren began, "the time has come for us to talk. Two of our brothers have just been killed attempting to intercept Tobra's presidential guard. Unfortunately, their lives were given in vain, because your captain and several other crew members have just been taken into custody."
His back went rigid in the chair. "Why would Tobra take them into custody?"
"Because you were getting too close to the truth. He could no longer go about his machinations while you were distracted," Arta said.
"Come, there is something you should see, Commander."
His glance shot between the two of them when they headed over to the computer console still displaying blueprints for the Enterprise. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw when Arta inputted a series of commands that brought up a live video from inside a concrete room much like the one he was now in. Jim, Spock, Ritha, and Cupcake were all inside the room along with several presidential guards and Tobra himself. Voren adjusted the volume.
"There is no use denying the inevitable. One way or another, you will give me the access codes to your ship's weapon system. I beseech you not to make me hurt you."
Jim shot furtive glances to each of the crew members inside the room before straightening his shoulders. "Eat shit and die."
"Have it your way. You Earthlings give your women far more equality than they are afforded on Bulta, but I believe you still harbor a soft spot for a woman in trouble." The president moved with the speed of a rattlesnake when he put his fist to Ritha's jaw. Lips curled up into a lazy smile, and he took a moment to smooth now-disheveled strands of hair from his face.
For her part, Ritha didn't so much as yelp despite the fact her lip was now bloody. She gathered up a mouthful of blood and spat it out dangerously close to the president's polished shoe.
"Asshole!" Jim shouted, now being restrained by a phaser planted squarely against his chest. "You want the damn codes, come over here and drag them out of me."
"But I know men like you, James T. Kirk. No amount of torture done to you will make you break your silence, but torture to those you feel responsible for… There are so many delightful possibilities. When I'm finished with her, all this smooth, creamy flesh will remember for a lifetime what pain feels like."
"You know what, Tobra? This is where I tell you to suck my dick," Ritha commented in a bored tone.
"I'm going to kill him," Bones choked out. "I'm gonna autopsy him alive!"
Arta's hand came to rest on his forearm as though she was trying to comfort him before saying, "We will help you free your comrades, but you must promise us something in return. Promise the violence between us will end."
"You've been poisoning water sanitation plants and trying to blow up food processing plants, not to mention killing thirty-three crew members in total. How can I believe you anymore than Tobra?"
"What choice do you have?" asked Voren. "We are the only ones in position to help you rescue your comrades and your woman."
He couldn't believe he was doing this, but the image of Tobra hitting Ritha and restraining Jim with a phaser was burned into his mind forever. "Give me the short version. And I do mean short. Every second they have to stay with Tobra is a damn second too long."
Arta began, "Emperor Tien was a devoutly traditional man. When the Federation began making overtures to the people of Istabul Major, he contracted scientists to build autonomous Mechanics capable of making command decisions. Emperor Tien planned to unleash them on the people of this planet to remind them of the greatness of the empire. The original prototypes refused to engage in hostilities."
"An android army all with superhuman capabilities. Well, Goddamnit, that's just great. How were the prototypes able to refuse. You're nothing more than programming."
Voren continued, "Jiet Je Jong wanted us to make rational, moral decisions rather than becoming killing machines for the empire. He developed the nanochip technology which allowed us to experience every sense an Organic takes for granted. Over a course of years, the nanotechnology evolved into a capability to experience emotion. Fear, morality, and love." He paused to take hold of Arta's hand then.
"Okay, so you're saying that you're sentient."
"If Organics still describe sentience as the ability to feel emotion, then yes. Perhaps in some way, our emotions could be considered artificial, a result of binary coding telling us we should respond to depressive stimuli with depression, but it is no less real to us," Voren responded.
"Emperor Tien and his son, President Tobra, reopened the project under the strict control of governmentally-appointed scientists. The scientists built one hundred units with deactivated nanoprocessors, but Jiet Je Jong had anticipated this possibility and created a fail-safe. The certaktin filling our interior carries a special enzyme that reactivated the nanoprocessors."
Voren said, "By that point, many communities wanted to join the Federation and reorganize the government to a federal republic. This was obviously not acceptable to Emperor Tien, so we were deployed with orders to destroy any community demonstrating friendship with the Federation."
"We escaped," continued Arta. "My brothers and sisters turned on the men Tien sent with us, killed them, and went underground into hiding where we have been attempting to raise awareness about Tobra and his father's desire to seize control again."
"When you arrived, Tobra saw an opportunity for your advanced weaponry to wipe us out, so he fabricated the story about Sovereign Istabul as a means to get you involved."
"Then why did you gas the Enterprise instead of coming to us and giving this information?" asked Bones, his brow furrowed.
Voren answered, "You attacked our brothers at the food processing plant. Tobra convinced you of his lies and asked you to destroy us, so we sought to make you leave."
"Thirty-one crew members died as a result. Thirty-one innocent people, who had no part in your war with the government of Istabul Major, lost their lives. And you expect me to empathize with you?"
"You murdered seven of our brothers," Arta retorted with a frustrated roll of her eyes. "You are Organic, and all we saw was that you were siding with other Organics. The logical course of action was to frighten you into leaving the planet. That is why we chose tetrahydine. We knew only a small percentage of your crew would succumb to the gas."
"Gee, thanks for being so Goddamned considerate. If there is no Sovereign Istabul, then why was Jim attacked by Organics at Jiet Je Jong's apartment?"
"Tobra knew you were digging into the old information and were getting close to realizing Jiet Je Jong is missing. Once you realized that, you would start putting the pieces together. It is logical to assume he would send Organics disguised as this fictitious organization to substantiate the lies he's been telling you."
"With all due respect, your programming must be faulty if you think I'm going to believe any of this when you have blueprints for the Enterprise on your computer."
"The blueprints were downloaded from Tobra's hard drive during a hacking session looking for evidence we could bring to the people of Istabul Major. Tobra will destroy your crew, use the Enterprise to regain control of Istabul Major as an empirical monarchy, and copy Starfleet technology to build other ship," Voren said.
Well that took some of the kick out of his whiskey. It also made too damn much sense to dismiss as the Mechanics lying to him. He wanted to mentally whine about them being technology and therefore completely untrustworthy, but it was becoming harder and harder to do that. "All right, then why abduct me?"
"Voren proposed abducting you, your captain, or the Vulcan to get you away from the technology of your ship for us to explain what was happening."
"Half-Vulcan," Bones corrected.
"Your captain has been sequestered to your sickbay for many days, proving a difficult target. The Half-Vulcan has heightened senses and some degree of telepathy, making him an undesirable target. You were therefore selected as the easiest ranking member of your ship to obtain."
"Well, that makes me feel so much better," he grouched. "All right, then let's go get my friends back before Tobra can prove just how sick and twisted he really is."
Wasn't it just so damned ironic. He was the one crew member on the entire Enterprise that was leery of technology, but there he was getting ready to storm a secure bunker with a bunch of androids. Jim, Spock, and Cupcake owed him so damn much for this. Ritha got a free pass just for putting up with his snarky self for so long.