AN: Okies, so, here we go, let's see if I can finish the action bit by the end of this chapter! Sorry for the super long wait, btw, I love you guys!

2258 – November 13th 1300 Hours

Spock glanced at Uhura. "Lieutenant, have they returned any of our attempts at communication?" He already knew they hadn't, she would have told him if they had. But he had to ask, because perhaps he was wrong…

"No sir." Uhura answered, her voice tense. "It has been nearly an hour since they were supposed to contact us."

"I am aware." He said forcefully, probably snapping slightly. He took a deep breath to calm himself. He could not take his rising panic out on the crew. He could not lose his emotional control. He had to remain objective, logical. "However we cannot send another away team down, the ion storm is too strong and may disrupt the beam down."

It could also effect the communications, which could be why the away team hadn't contacted him… why CHRIS hadn't contacted him. But it was too neat, as Jim would have said. It was too perfect. While statically possible it was highly improbable that an ion storm would have simply appeared from an almost perfectly clear atmosphere.

"I could pilot a shuttle down, Sir." Sulu said quietly, looking at Spock with an odd blend of emotions on his face. Spock could have deciphered them, had he the time or the inclination. As it was he had neither. "Ion storms make it risky, but nothing I can't handle."

That was correct, as Spock well knew, Sulu was a gifted pilot. However it went against their directive. They knew nothing of the life signs on the planet. Should any be particularly sentient then they might notice the shuttle entering their atmosphere. As he knew nothing of their technological state, or if they existed, then he could not risk disrupting the cultural evolution they would take.

"You could, I agree." Spock said simply. "However I must not allow it. The act would go against our Primary directive, do not interfere." As loath as he was to admit it, they had only one option. "We must wait the storm out, Sulu. We do not know if the away team is even in danger. It is highly likely that they are simply unable to reach us and have taken refuge to wait out the storm. There is little probability that you need worry yourself."

Sulu snorted but turned. While what he muttered was not said loudly, Spock could hear the words. "I need worry, what about you, you emotionless ass? Chris is down there and she might be hurt."

Were he human he would have snapped at the Asian man. He WAS worried for Chris. Beyond worried. However he controlled those emotions and thought logically. Logic said Chris was most likely fine. However even his Vulcan half was not soothed by that logical thought.

Chris groaned as she slowly came too. Her head throbbed, her eyes burned, her throat felt dryer than Vulcan… God, she wondered, what did I drink? And then, as she opened her eyes to a dark, disgusting, dank CAGE she realized she was NOT on the Enterprise, suffering from one of the Universe's worst hangovers.

She sat bolt up right, yelping as it jarred her left leg. Oh yea, she thought as she cringed in pain, forgot I'd broken that…

"Bones?" she whispered loudly, feeling around her as her eyes adjusted. "You here?"

Her hand brushed something and she about yelped and leapt back, but she controlled herself. She reached out again and began attempting to figure out what she was feeling. It was warm, soft to the touch, but very firm… like a person…

"Chris," came Jim's voice, cracking slightly. "Uhura might be annoyed if she found out you were groping my ass."

Chris half laughed, half cried in relief, realizing what, who, the thing was. It came out an odd strangled sound but she heard Jim snicker softly, sadly. "Jim, oh my God!" She gasped, forcing herself closer to him, ignoring the sharp pain in her left calf as she dragged herself over to him. "You okay?"

He rolled over onto his back with a groan of pain. "My head hurts." He commented miserably. "And I don't think my legs are working properly. What happened?"

Chris found his chest by touch. "I dunno, but I'm gonna check your legs. I'm NOT groping you, okay?" Her hands started down his chest, feeling for injuries, over his stomach, and down to his thighs.

He snickered again. "Yea, sure. Keep telling yourself that." He said softly, she could just imagine his shit eating grin. He hissed playfully in mock pleasure as her hands skimmed over his thighs, packed hard with muscle. "Yea, like that baby."

Chris smacked his chest hard before returning her check. "Perv." She muttered, reaching his knees.

"That kinda hurts Chrissy." Jim gasped, twitching as her hands passed his knee caps. She made a soft, soothing noise and continued her blind examination. He yelped loudly in pain as her hands hit something irregular, hard, wet, and sticky. "FUCK!"

She didn't need to see to know what had happened. "You broke both your legs." She told him softly. "Feels like compound, complex fractures."

"Hey!" Came a soft voice to her left. "That's too technical for you Chris."

Chris could have cried. "Liv?!" She took a shuddering breath. "Tell me Bones is with you!"

"Yea," Liv whispered. "I think. But he's been hurt. I can feel blood around his face and head." Chris tried not to worry about him… he meant so much to her… No, no he would be fine. "You two okay?"

Chris sniffed, trying to ignore her own pain, which was quickly becoming all she could think about, it intensified so much now she wasn't focusing on Jim. "Jim's broken both his legs. Feels like multiple fractures, and bone has punctured the skin." Liv cursed. "And I broke my left leg, classic tib/fib fracture. But I don't think it's too bad. Bones saw it before I blacked out and he wasn't too worried."

"Thank God for small mercies." Liv muttered. "Jim leapt over a fallen tree and fell, dunno what happened because next thing I know I get hit in the head…" She drifted off and Chris listened as she hissed in pain. "Okay, apparently I'm bleeding too."

Chris heard a masculine groan of pain. "What in the name of God happened?" Growled Bones' rough drawl. Chris fought the tears of relief. Tears could come later.

Spock glanced at the chronometer. Fifteen hundred hours… They should have been back three hours ago, He thought. The ion storm had long since ended but the team's signals had disappeared, as if their communicators had been destroyed. He stood in Jim's ready room and leaned bodily against the wall. It was a highly unVulcan thing to do, however the door was closed and no one could witness his slip.

He was worried. No… the roiling, sickly orange emotion was more than worry. It was pure panic. It pushed against the glass of his mind, tried to leak through cracks in his control to influence his logic, his decisions. He could not allow it to do so. He could not risk the 426 lives of the remaining crew…

Spock pushed himself from the wall and walked to the porthole, and stared down at the planet. His human side screamed at him to go down there and look for his Chris himself, to take the situation into his own hands. He should have been with her to begin with, he should have insisted that Captain Kirk remain behind…

But there was no helping that now. The past could not be altered. And he could not risk himself to search for the wayward away team, it would be foolhardy. For if he were injured or unable to return the ship would have no qualified crewman to act as Captain. No, he would be forced to stay behind… to wait for word. But he could send teams down, teams to find their missing crewmembers.

He strode from the ready room and onto the bridge. "Uhura, please contact the top six ranking security personnel. Inform them that they are to constitute two away teams to search for the missing away team." Uhura nodded and Spock looked around the bridge. "I require two personnel willing to go down who have knowledge in tracking over rough terrain." He glanced at Chekov. "Please make the announcement Engisn Chekov. In form the crew it is a volunteer request. This may very well be dangerous."

The Russian boy's voice filled the room but Spock did not listen. He focused on the large green and blue orb in front of them on the view screen. "Sulu, bring up the last known positions of the two teams." Four little dots appeared in groups of two, approximately ten miles apart. The two teams must have traveled at about five miles an hour, a swift but not recklessly so, speed for humans. "Send those coordinates to the transporter room one. Each team will go to a different location."

"Commander Spock." Uhura said, catching his attention. He nodded in her direction for her to continue. "The security personnel are ready, sir, however there appears to only been one member of the crew who feels able to track over broken terrain with any certainty."

Spock hesitated for only a moment. "Sulu, you have the conn. If for any reason you lose contact with us send an urgent message to StarFleet apprising them of the situation. Then contact Admiral Pike and do as he suggests if it is logical." He turned on his heel and headed toward the turbolift.

"Commander Spock! You can't leave this to me!" Sulu exclaimed, eyes wide in terror. "I'm not cut out for this."

Spock locked eyes with the younger man. "You are capable and I am needed for my tracking ability. I had hoped to remain however things do not always go as planned." The turbolift door closed before Sulu could try to argue further.

Chris wanted to scream as the twin pair of strong, rough hands closed around her arms and hauled her upward, onto her feet. As her weight settled onto her broken leg she did scream in pain, feeling the burn up into her side; the leg collapsed, leaving her hanging in the grip of the two aliens.

Even with their bare skin against hers, she couldn't feel their emotions. They were blank, empty, were she less educated she'd call them soulless. She'd never complain about Vulcan's again, because they made even the most controlled Vulcan seem human. She could hear Jim yelling and Bones cursing but she couldn't for the life of herself, manage to focus on the words enough to understand them. All sound was drowned out by the roaring of her ears and her own screams.

She had a feeling as if the ground under her moved, as if she was being dragged/carried. It didn't matter, she couldn't tell. For all she knew she was still just outside her little cell. Light flared, orange and red, directly in front of her. She couldn't be in the same place… She felt, dimly, the heat of the flame.

Someone gripped Chris' wrist hard, nearly hard enough to break it. She fought, struggled, but the nausea induced by her pain made her weaker than a normal human man. She didn't know the aliens' species, but she knew they were stronger than her.

She felt the heat on her palm increase, her hand was moving toward the flame. She fought harder, struggled with all she could muster. And she began to speak, in any and every language she knew. "Please, please no… Sanoi, sanoi ri!" She continued in absolutely every language she knew, when she reached Andorian they hesitated.

"It speaks?" She heard one say in a rough dialect, ancient and crude sounding compared to the more modern and most common dialect.

"Please, please." She begged in their language, shaking with fear. "Don't hurt me."

"I fetch Lord." One said, thrusting her entirely into the grasp of a single alien. The one who'd spoken walked off, back the way they had dragged her from.

Spock knelt at the edge of the pit and looked down into the shadows of its depths. His eyes were better than a human's in failing light, Vulcan was often too hot during the daylight hours for travel, so in the shadows he was able to discern the glitter of green among the dark soil. His stomach felt as if it were attempting to turn itself inside out, a deeply unpleasant feeling, as he leapt smoothly into the pit to examine the substance.

The dark soil had, for the most part, greedily absorbed the green liquid, however a black stone imbedded into the bottom of the pit had allowed some of said liquid to remain. Gently he tapped his fingers to the shining substance, rubbing them together to feel the texture and lifting his hand to the light.

He didn't need the light to know, however, what it was. Blood, even a few hours old, was something he was sadly well acquainted with, given his childhood. The blood was, indeed, a dark emerald green and thus belonged to Chris. For a quick moment bright, blinding red rage shattered itself against his control. Spock could not think of her possible injuries, he knew too little.

As such he tried to focus on the many possible small injuries that could have caused her to bleed. He knew nothing of the amount of blood she lost, thus it was entirely possible she had simply split her lip or grazed her hands. The flaw with his logic was, of course, that she could have also bled quite a bit from any number of serious and deadly injuries…

"Commander?" Asked a Security personnel, "Are you quite alright, you've been silent since we arrived."

Spock forced himself to mentally shake off his worries and fears. His Chris was fine, utterly fine, all he need do was find her to prove it to himself. He looked around the pit, searching for signs of struggle or ascent. The walls were mostly smooth and undisturbed.

"I am well, Lieutenant. Caris Pike fell into this pit and was injured, she did not climb out. Thus she must have been removed." Skillfully he scaled the loose dirt wall, finding the roots that could hold him.

"There's red blood over here." Called another man, peering at a point on the opposite side of the pit. "Probably belongs to the Doctor. He must have been struck, look at the splatter on the bush."

Spock walked to join the young man and inspected the 'evidence'. He had to agree with the Ensign, it was clearly medium velocity blood splatter with a small pool of it. Also, as the Ensign did not notice, there were footprints from a good number of individuals, none of which were human or boot-shaped. He noted the absence of drag marks.

"The Doctor and Lieutenant were carried, not dragged, from this place by at least four individuals of an unknown race." He stated before pressing his com. "Spock to Enterprise," He called. "It is clear that Caris and McCoy were taken by unknown and potentially hostile aliens. We shall follow the tracks to their source."

"Enterprise here," Sulu's voice answered back. "We got all that. The other team says something similar. I hope you meet up with them at the end of your trails. Enterprise out."

Spock nodded to his team. "Follow me, remain silent, on the trail and do not disturb anything." As he set along the only slightly broken trail he kept every sense alert. Given what had clearly happened to his Chris and McCoy, he and his team were likely putting themselves into great danger. He should have been nervous, afraid even, under his Vulcan control.

Instead, he noticed dimly, he was determined and at peace. He was hunting those who had hurt what was HIS, and he was going to free Chris, and his friends, and then exact justice for the injuries they had taken.

Chris wasn't sure exactly, what had happened. All she knew for sure was pain, so much pain. And fear, fear bordering on terror it was so overpowering. She wasn't even sure if it was all her own.

But she was aware enough to know that the weight holding her up on her injured left side was a friendly one. The arm wrapped around her waist was trying to hold her weight enough to let her half stumble with her good leg. She clung desperately to the person who held her and hobbled.

There had been pain… so very much pain. And heat, heat and sharp things, and terror. And then a voice, an angry, powerful voice in the darkness. The voice called something she should have been able to translate but she hadn't been capable. And then more pain, and being dragged.

Then a loud clang and a roar of human rage and hate. And then hands, human hands, and love, and friendship, and desperation. And then she was lifted, painfully, to lean against and be held by the friend. A bright light hit her face and she winced at the suddenness.

And there were more voices, angry and raised, and then there was hands holding her that burned in a totally different way, in a good way. But the hands disappeared as she leaned into them in relief and she cried out, afraid it was all a dream, a hallucination brought on by the pain… But the good burn returned as strong, gentle arms lifted her carefully and the pain, while still present, dimmed slightly.

She could feel anger and hate strong enough to make her head spin, relief strong enough to make her knees weak, and love… love so pure and powerful it made her fall into a welcome, warm blackness of unconsciousness. As she fell she wasn't sure if her mind played tricks on her, or if the hot, gentle lips that pressed to her temple were real. If the hot breath really caressed her ear and said soft, sweet words she couldn't understand.

Spock held Chris in his arms, her head rested on his shoulder and her body was limp. But he was at peace as the white swirl of the transporter surrounded him. Her beautiful body might be broken, bruised, and bloody but McCoy assured him of two things. First and most important, she would be well if gotten to the Enterprise quickly. And second that retribution had already been dolled out in spades.

Everything was going to be as it should. He'd found her, she was in his arms, safe, and he was taking his Chris home. And he had absolutely every intention of never letting her go.

AN: Alrighty, so I hope you enjoyed. I'll give a bit more about what happened to Chris in "What A Doctor Needs" and a much better accounting of how they escaped but I don't want to spoil the surprise. ; )

As for her injuries, it will all be explained in due time. Probably a very dark themed one-shot to go with this once it's done. Let's just say it's REALLY not pretty or nice and call it good for now.

Last chapter coming VERY soon! I hope the Chris bit at the end wasn't too hard to understand! All my love my Doves!

Ciao!