Chapter 18

The clapping of a single pair of hands was the first sound after the quietude. Bones, a medical kit dangling from his shoulder, applauded Arta for taking control of the screwed up situation and said, "Bravo. Brilliant display of marksmanship."

Shock entered her expression when she stared down at the gun in her hand as though she couldn't believe what she'd done. She dropped the weapon and took several steps back from it before shooting furtive glances to those gathered around her. "They were going to get away with everything they've done. They were going to be freed and come back in the future to attempt another revolution. More people would have died."

Another tense silence--Bones had to wonder if he was the only one getting a little sick of tension and silence--gripped the room while all eyes turned to Jim. Everyone seemed to be waiting with baited breath to find out how the captain would respond. Technically, what Arta had done was illegal. She'd assassinated two men rather than attacking in self defense, but he knew there wasn't a single person in the basement who wasn't silently cheering over the Mechanic's actions.

"Everyone go about your orders," Jim commanded when the weight lifted from his shoulders as though he'd made a firm decision on the matter.

"Captain Kirk," Spock began only to be interrupted by the captain.

"Don't even start spouting regulation at me. Find Jiet Je Jong and the scrambling device so our equipment can function here."

Bones picked his way through the rubble of broken antiques and android bodies, pausing on his way to the hide out to squeeze Jim's shoulder. "Down South we got a different kind of backwoods justice, Jim. You know someone's a killer that might walk because of some namby pamby loophole, you take care of it," he said, his southernism closer to the surface.

"Now all I have to do is convince Spock to leave it out of his report."

The hours that followed were some of the longest of his life. People's wounds had to be tended. Starfleet personnel had to be pronounced dead and bagged and tagged for autopsy. Evidence had to be gathered to submit to the Federation. Jiet Je Jong had to be located. The man was found locked up in one of the bunker's back rooms looking as though he hadn't seen a bath in months and littered with bruises and various cuts that seemed to be getting infected. Jim promptly exclaimed he'd known all along the missing scientist had been kidnapped, an announcement that was greeted by disbelief until the captain explained the wilted plants and its connection to Murphy's Law.

Keeping an eye on Spock and Jim while they raided the bunker was also a prime directive. How it was possible for two men to buzz from room to room so quickly without a single shot of espresso was a mystery. He had a feeling keeping up with them, seeing as how he was older and would inevitably wear down faster than them in the future, was going to be murder on his old man joints when they both insisted on creaking around the Enterprise when they were ninety. Spock was the one who found the device that scrambled their technology. Like any good science officer, he had to ogle the equipment for an hour before figuring out how to turn it off and free it from its metal housing for further study.

Then there was Scotty chirping in their ears about gathering samples of the androids for study. It was purely in Scotty's best interest that he found himself in one of the labs containing half-built androids helping Jim and Spock figure out how to unhook them. Had nothing to do with remembering the excitement on Ritha's face when he'd found her examining the Mechanic they'd first brought down. Right, he snorted to himself. He had a piece of swamp ground to sell himself if he thought wanting to see that palpable excitement again had nothing to do with it.

That was all before they were able to beam back to the madhouse that was the Enterprise. Bones knew a whole new form of "git 'er dun" as soon as he was ensconced in Sickbay where he could start helping Doctor Westin and Nurse Chapel process the patients he'd stabilized and sent back. Stella most certainly earned her position as a respected fellow doctor during those long hours. Hell, as far as he was concerned, Chapel may as well have gone ahead and enrolled in medical school so he could count her work in Sickbay as credit hours earned.

Being locked away in a microcosm meant he had no idea what was going on outside Sickbay. In fact, he hadn't even seen Ritha to know that she was all right, but at least he knew Scotty would have her butt in Sickbay if she weren't. That allowed him to buckle down and focus instead of his head drifting while he worked. All he had to do was keep moving, keep giving injections and performing operations when absolutely necessary, and eventually the hectic pace would die down.

A perpetual state of irritation was slowly engulfing him just from the sheer man hours involved with mopping up after such a large battle. He kept a tight lid on that irritation when in Sickbay, but there were only so many stomachs he could thrust his hands in without nerves fraying in the process. One thing became crystal clear. Nurse Gimbel was getting tossed off the Enterprise as soon as they could arrange a transfer and make port, because if that man stepped on his foot one more time or dropped another item, Bones fully intended on drop-kicking him off the Enterprise.

By the time he had a chance to take a breather, his uniform shirt was soiled with so much blood even he thought he might get sick from the sight of it, and the sight of blood hadn't bothered him since his early med school days. Bones took the opportunity to duck into his office to change his shirt, grab some coffee, and try to dissipate the fatigue and irritation without needing to be prodded in there by Westin and Chapel. The soiled shirt had just been dropped on the floor so he could grab a fresh one from a stack he kept in his office when the sound of his door sliding open made him flinch and tighten every muscle in his body. A guy couldn't even get a ten minute breather to change his shirt without something going wrong, he thought in exasperation.

"Give me a second to change and grab some coffee. If it's an emergency, flag down Doctor Westin," he said.

"Take your time, Babe. I'm rather enjoying the view," Ritha said.

"Ogling a man who's dead on his feet," he muttered under his breath, but he was certain the relief was evident on his face when he tugged his shirt in place and turned around to get a look at her. By the looks of her, she hadn't even taken the time to change into a clean uniform yet, still had smears of blood and grit on her face from the battle. None of that mattered to him. All he saw was a woman who didn't have any telltale splotches of blood denoting an injury.

"You can't blame a girl for looking."

He wasn't certain why the flippant comment grated on his already frayed nerves. Maybe he'd been expecting to hear something other than the fact she liked his body. Maybe it was just the tension of spending the past six hours with his hands inside the bodies of his comrades. Whatever the reason, he snapped, "We both could have died out there, and the first thing out of your mouth is…"

She stopped his tirade when she said, "Shut up, Babe, and get your ass over here. I didn't come here to start another blow out like the one we had when I suggested being part of the mission team."

Forgetting that blow out was impossible. He'd been totally against her taking part seeing as how she hadn't even fully recovered from being tortured by that sick bastard. Snapping his mouth closed, Bones rounded his desk, eternally grateful for the fact that Ritha had a thick skin and never seemed to take his irritableness seriously, unlike some people on his staff he knew.

"Were you hurt?" she asked when he didn't comment.

"No, you?"

"Nope. You look like Hell, Babe."

"So do you," he responded while wiping away some of the grit on her face.

So much tension and fear over the last couple of weeks were offered respite from when her lips came to his. She didn't make him initiate it, didn't bat her eyes coyly or get disappointed when he didn't cross the distance between them. Ritha just cupped the nape of his neck and took what she wanted. Flattening his palm against her cheek, he molded their mouths together to deepen the kiss, his eyes sliding closed. Somehow, she had the power to make the rest of the universe disappear for a few brief moments, to make all the bloodshed and death take a back seat. It was all still there waiting for him, but right now, he wanted one moment to forget it all. She gave him that moment without expecting romance, candlelight, and flowers. Goddamnit, he was a goner!

***

Steam and the overpowering scent of melting metal wafted up from a large bubbling cauldron in the smelting factory the Mechanics had claimed as their home base. Jim, standing on a catwalk which granted access to the top of the cauldron, looked out over the people gathered on the factory floor. Mechanics and Organics were packed tightly together. Members of his crew mingled openly with the Mechanics. The more empathic of his crew did what they could to comfort the sorrow of their metal brethren when Voren's body was brought up by two Mechanics.

Brethren. That word caught in his mind and had his chest puffing up with pride for his crew. No one had ordered them to be so accepting of sentient machines. He hadn't issued any directives for them to make the Mechanics welcome, but there they were being brought together by another one of those universals; grief had a way of leveling the playing field. Everyone understood grief. Every sentient being he'd ever run across knew grief.

His glance drifted to the row of body bags. Each bag contained one of his dead crew members in their dress uniforms, and his heart lurched. Keeping the bodies in cold storage until they happened to pass close enough to Earth to return their remains to their families was impractical. Most bodies were consigned to space where they lived and died, their identification and personal effects being returned to their family. Jim had decided to break with that tradition in this instance and allow their bodies to be burned along with the bodies of the Mechanics, a symbol that, though their internal structures were different, they were also the same.

Arta, her voice wavering, said to the crowd, "Today is a good day, my brothers and sisters. Today, Voren's dream of a coalition between Mechanics and Organics has come to fruition. We stand beside our Starfleet brothers and sisters and know that the sacrifices we have all made together have meant something."

"This coalition won't end when we leave Istabul Major," Jim took over for her. "Your struggle to maintain independence and equality with the Organics of this planet won't be forgotten. On behalf of the USS Enterprise and all her dedicated crew, I promise this."

"As a symbol of our continued cooperation, let our Mechanic and Organic brothers and sisters find their eternal rest together."

Arta nodded to the Mechanics bearing Voren's body. Standing at the edge of the catwalk, they tipped the stretcher, allowing his body to slide into the molten metal. The heat consumed him. Only then did Spock and Bones come forward bearing one of the many body bags to be slid into the cauldron. Organic and Mechanic mingling together in death the way everyone hoped they could mingle in life.

Jim watched as each body was bought forward, felt each gurgle as the bodies slid into the cauldron in every fiber of his being. Each sound meant another crew member wouldn't be returning home to their family. It meant another letter he would have to write home to waiting families to inform them their son, daughter, brother, sister, father, or mother simply hadn't made it. Starfleet and Spock were wrong. A captain's greatest strength wasn't in being able to face certain death while remaining calm; it was living through certain death and shouldering the responsibility of lives lost under his command. He understood that now in a way that had escaped him before.

After consigning the remains to the smelting vat, everyone was invited back to the Enterprise for a wake the likes of which only Scotty could organize. That meant Sickbay would be hopping the following day as people came in for hangover treatments, but for now, Jim was content to sit back and watch everyone drink away the grief and tension. Poor second shift station crew. They weren't allowed to get hammered like everyone else, had to stay sober so the ship could function if, God forbid, another catastrophe arose.

The party room on the entertainment deck was thumping with the heavy bass of some electronic music that was so favored when Jim parked himself against a wall with a beer in his hand to watch the crowd. Once he had a few beers in his system, he'd shove his way into the middle of the crowd, but for now, he was content to watch the Mechanics learning how to dance. Seeing Jong Je Jin, whose father was still recovering in Sickbay, try to take part in some new line dance everyone seemed obsessed with had him laughing. What pleased him the most, however, was witnessing Ritha dragging Bones onto the dance floor for a slow dance. That needed to be recorded for posterity as far as he was concerned. The man had finally pried his balls loose from Jocelyn's bear trap.

Spock and Nyota's presence next to him pulled his attention away from the dance floor. He looked up at the pair with a questioning expression. "Please tell me you didn't lace his drink with chocolate, Uhura."

"Do I look like the type of person who would purposefully get him drunk? I think not," she responded in a tone of voice that said she was cross with him for some reason.

"We merely came to inform you we were retiring for the evening and convey our gratitude for your efforts to convince Starfleet Nyota should remain aboard the Enterprise. Nyota received word this morning their decision was being reversed."

"Yeah, they sent me a transmission too saying the same thing. Hey, it was purely selfish on my part. There's no way I want to lose someone as talented as you, Uhura. Besides, I kind of like Spock."

"I heard all about how you tried to tempt Spock into getting me transferred off the ship. What was it you said? Something about one word from Spock and you wouldn't lift a finger to convince Starfleet to keep me on the Enterprise?"

Jim's brow flattened, his eyes narrowing before saying, "Do you have to tell her everything? I was just testing him to make sure he understood the kind of hard decisions you would both have to make as parents on the Enterprise."

"I believed such was the case when I made mention of it to you, Nyota. The captain was merely assuring himself we are both ready to face the challenges of rearing our offspring on a starship."

"Oh," she said as though the wind had been taken out of her sails. "Thank you, Captain Kirk, for intervening on our behalf."

"You know what? I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me, Uhura. You're both welcome. I'm not going to lose either of you over this. Now go retire, and don't dent the wall with the headboard of the bed!"

Spock clearly didn't understand the innuendo lacing that comment. "Jim, the beds are bolted to the floor. Denting the wall with the headboard would require purposefully unscrewing the bolts."

"I'll explain it to him, Jim," Uhura said with a smile. She slipped her arm around Spock's, and both left the party room.

A shudder passed through him. Uhura was going to have a kid. The thought curdled his stomach when visions of an overprotective communications officer hopped up on pregnancy hormones and maternal instinct assailed him. Still, he was happy for the couple. He sure wished they'd waited to reproduce until after their five year mission, but things rarely worked out the way people planned them in space.

He'd just drained the last of his first beer when Stella approached, offered him another beer, and said, "I'm surprised you're not out there on the dance floor. You okay?"

"Yeah, just taking it all in." He accepted the beer from her and popped the cap off to swig from it.

"What's going to happen to Arta?"

"As far as the report is concerned, the ex-emperor and his would-be-tyrant son were killed in a shoot out at the mansion. Spock's report says the same thing. We all know they would have tried again as soon as we left Istabul Major. These people and this planet wouldn't be safe if they were alive."

"For what it's worth, I think you did the right thing. Laws are great and should be obeyed, but when loopholes get in the way of protecting billions of people, something needs to be done."

"So you don't think I'm a vigilante?"

There was a soft smile on her lips when she settled her fingers on his forearm and said, "We could just call you Superman."

Jim barely managed to get his swallow of beer down before laughing. "Nah, Superman is boring. I prefer Batman." There was a slight break in the conversation before he continued. "So are you going to go on a date with me or not?"

"Yes, Jim," she responded. "You're not going to stop asking until I agree anyway, so I may as well just get it over with."

A small pout formed on his lips. "As if going on a date with me would be such a terrible thing."

"Depends on who you ask. Lucky for you, I don't believe in listening to what gossip says about other people. Are you sure you'll be okay?"

"I'm the captain. That means I'm always okay."

"I believe that like I believe my hair is pink. Just because you're the captain doesn't mean you have to be all right all the time. That's what you have Spock and Bones for. That's what you have me for."

Jim caught hold of a tendril of her hair and gave it a light tug before responding, "Don't worry about it. Spock has a way of forcing me to be fine whether or not I want to be, so I'll be okay."

"Good, because I'd hate to have Bones shove his gigantic medical code up your backside."

Honestly, he had no idea why that struck him as so funny, but Jim was suddenly laughing, laughing so hard he had to lean against the wall to keep from losing his balance. "His," there was a short pause, "medical code," another short pause, "isn't that big."