A/N: Oh my it has been a long time in writing this! I've had a lot of excellent developments IRL (accepted to first choice grad school!) that have been keeping me very busy. Thank you for your patience...and hopefully this is worth it. As always, thank you to all my readers and especially those of you who take the time to review. Seriously, they make me very happy! You had a long wait, so now you get a long chapter! Enjoy.
Seventh Circle
Chapter 13
"Very well, Captain. The point is this: I might have you in my physical control, but your mind is still your own. You are perfectly free to loathe me or worry about your friends. This is unacceptable. I am a jealous woman. I want you all to myself, body and soul."
"What?" Kirk asks tersely. His blue eyes dart across the polished surface of the desk. No communicator. He curses under his breath. The device must be hidden in one of the several drawers covering the front of the desk. The captain glances warily back up at Lilith before opening the closest drawer, trying to ignore the awful sense of dread welling into his stomach.
"I could control your body, but what about your mind?" she replies. "I knew you would never devote yourself to me willingly. Even if you agreed to give yourself up, it would be to save your friends. It would be an act of loyalty to them, not to me. So I have to make you mine."
The first drawer contains nothing resembling a communicator. Kirk swears again and reaches for the next drawer. He rifles through it blindly, unwilling to take his eyes off Lilith for even a moment.
"You might be stubborn, James Kirk, but you are hardly invulnerable. It is not so difficult to shatter the psyche. All it takes is the correct application of force," Lilith continues. Her golden eyes glitter with amusement at his frantic search. "Given time, I would break you down to nothing. After that, I merely put the pieces back together…albeit in a slightly different way. You would come to act as I wish, even think as I wish. Then you would be completely mine."
Kirk's blood runs cold as her words filter through his pain-dulled mind. She wanted to brainwash him into being …whatever. Whatever she wanted him to be. She had kidnapped them and tortured them and killed Giacomo with the sole purpose of bending James T. Kirk to her will. Not for any grand scheme of revenge or galactic domination, but simply because she felt like it. He shudders. The weight of the phaser suddenly feels very good in his hand.
"So why'd you drag my men into it?" he grinds out from between gritted teeth.
She studies him for a moment, surprised by the astuteness of the question. "You are right, of course. I could have simply tortured you. It is much easier. But it would not work."
Kirk's eyes narrow. "Why not?"
"You aren't that type of man, James Kirk. You care nothing for yourself. I've seen your type before. It would not matter what I did to you. You would take it all, grinning that famous grin, until you died rather than submit."
Kirk stares at her, the communicator momentarily forgotten. Even more disturbing than her motive is the fact that she is inescapably, undeniably right. He knows he would rather die than give in to her. If it had just been him, if his friends had not been involved, he would have never cracked. He would have died, and willingly. The thought shakes him to the core.
She smirks at his sudden comprehension. "You see, I could not go after you directly, Captain. The only way to truly get to you was through them. I knew it; you knew it."
Sickened by her callousness, Kirk somehow chokes back his horror and reaches into yet another drawer. The worst part about it is that she is utterly sane, he decides. She simply made a plan and executed it.
His fingers suddenly brush metal casing. Kirk's heart leaps into his throat. His hand instantly pounces on the unseen object; yes it is the right size and shape! Intense relief washes over him as he finally withdraws the communicator from the drawer. They are saved.
Lilith watches him coolly. To his great satisfaction, traces of disappointment are evident on her striking features. "It would appear I have underestimated you, Captain."
"You wouldn't be the first," Kirk quips, managing a half-grin. He flips open the communicator and holds it to his lips. The captain looks triumphantly at Lilith as he presses the button to transmit. "Kirk to Enterprise."
He waits. There is no response.
Icy fingers seize his pounding heart. He takes a breath to steady his voice. "Enterprise, come in."
There is no response.
Oh god.
Kirk stares numbly at the communicator clutched in his blood-smeared hand. It should have worked. The device does not appear damaged. All the proper indicator lights are on. But it had not worked. Frustration overwhelms him and he slams his hand into the polished wood. Lilith starts at the noise. Kirk's eyes are instantly drawn to the motion. His fingers tighten on the phaser as he looks up at her murderously.
"Really, Captain? We both know you are not going to kill me," she says, a smile hovering around her lips.
Kirk does not rise to her bait. He takes a sharp breath to get a grip on his temper and pulls himself together. While the guards might be accustomed to minor scuffling, they will not ignore the sound of phaser fire. He must be ready for them before he fires.
Lilith is fast, but she had not been fast enough to hide the surprise written all over her face. She had not sabotaged the communicator. She thought it was going to work as much as he did. He forces himself to remember that there are a hundred technical reasons the transmission might not have gone through. It could be as simple as a frequency adjustment.
Kirk tries not to think about the possibility that the Enterprise simply is not listening; that the crew has given up on the search and the ship moved out of orbit.
Either way, he decides he does not want to figure it out with Lilith breathing down his neck. He edges to the side slightly so he has an unobstructed view of the door.
"I think your petition to join the Federation'll be denied," Kirk tells her.
He pulls the trigger before she can make a retort. Her eyes widen with surprise and she crumples to the floor. Even exhausted and dizzy from blood loss, Kirk is still a good shot. He cuts the first guard down before the door has fully opened, and the second as he comes barreling into the room over his comrade's body.
Kirk wrinkles his nose at the acrid odors of ozone and charred flesh as he examines his handiwork. Lilith he shot to wound. Her chest is still moving, and that is all he cares about. The guards he killed without mercy. An unarmed woman is one thing, armed thugs are quite another.
In retrospect, he probably should have tried to stun them. But somehow the only thing he can think about is that Giacomo's two little girls are going to grow up without a father, and he suddenly does not care. And god help any desk-jockey Federation bureaucrat who tells him he should have done otherwise.
A sharp pang from his wound drags him back to the present. The next part is going to be much harder. Intellectually, he knows the door is not far from the desk. But it is too far and too slow to drag himself over the floor, not to mention back to the cell. He can feel his strength ebbing away with every heartbeat. He is going to have to walk. Kirk closes his eyes, bracing himself against the pain to come.
"One," he mutters, wincing, "two--"
He heaves himself to his feet before he can say three. Pain rips through his abdomen, but he manages to stay upright. Kirk clings to the desk until the room stops spinning. He slips the communicator into his pocket before clamping his hand around the wound, trying to keep the glass shard from moving as he staggers for the door.
He manages to make it out of Lilith's chamber and partway down the hall before he is forced to take a rest. Kirk leans against the wall, panting. He grimaces as he removes his left hand, now slick with blood, from the wound. Wincing with pain, he slowly pulls the communicator from his pocket. He slowly (god, everything he does now is slow and painful) resets the device to broadcast on Spock's usual frequency. Praying Lt. Uhura is still on duty, he lifts the communicator to his lips.
"Kirk to Enterprise," he tries again. Despite his best efforts, a pleading note has crept in his voice. His head sags tiredly back against the wall. If this doesn't work… "Come on, guys…Kirk to Enterprise."
The communicator crackles to life. His heart leaps into his throat. "Captain?" Uhura's voice. The transmission is fraught with static and the voice is shocked, but it is unmistakably Uhura. Thank god. "Captain… --at you?...Is…--ll right?"
It is the best sound Kirk has heard in his entire slumps in relief, his eyes closing. "Yes, it's me," he replies. A hubbub of excited voices and planetary static suddenly overwhelms the transmission. Kirk can just make out someone (Scotty) bellow "QUIET YOU LOT!" in the background while Uhura clears the static.
When the channel clears, he finds Uhura's voice has been replaced with a Scottish brogue. "Sorry aboot tha', sir. Are ye all right? We didnae think we was going ta find yah, after five days an' tha' damnable interfeerance."
"Giacomo's dead," Kirk says shortly. He leaves the status of the remainder of the away team open to their interpretation. He does not have time or energy to explain about Chekov, or Spock and McCoy. A sharp pang of guilt twists his heart at the thought of the doctor. "Look, Scotty, can you get us out of here?"
"Aye, sir, it should be nae trouble now tha' I've a signal t' lock on to," the chief engineer says confidently. " Give me a minute t' get to th' transporter room an' recalibrate an' I'll beam ya up maeself."
There is a click as Scott ends the transmission to leave the bridge, but Kirk is not finished. He tiredly thumbs the transmit button again. "Enterprise?"
"Uhura here, Captain."
"Have a med team standing by," he adds, looking down at his bloody shirt and wincing. "Kirk out."
The captain eases the communicator back into his pocket. Even the small weight of the phaser in his hand seems unnaturally heavy, but he dares not put it away. Kirk clamps his free hand around his wound with a groan, futilely trying to stem the bleeding. He must continue onward.
He manages a few meters before his feet begin to stumble. He reaches to the wall for support, his bloody hand sliding nastily on the stones. He can see the door leading back towards the cell now. It feels kilometers away. The captain grits his teeth and drives himself forward. He can only take a few shuffling paces before pain and exhaustion force him to a halt.
Kirk doggedly tries to take another step forward. His chest heaves shallowly. He must find the others! He stumbles, but manages to catch himself before falling. The wound sears at the sharp movement. It is all he can do to stand, now, and it is not enough. Frustration at his own weakness burns at him.
The echo of footsteps on stone suddenly distracts him from his misery.
He instinctively freezes. Someone is coming. Kirk mutters a curse under his breath. He is in no condition to fight. He has to lean against the wall to stay upright, for Christ's sake. Did he miss a guard? He thought he'd had them all accounted for, but he could not be sure. He grips the phaser with both hands and levels it resolutely at the door.
The footsteps stop. Muffled voices reach his ears. There are at least two of them. Shit. He swallows hard.
The door finally opens. "Hold it!" Kirk snaps, gesturing a little with his phaser.
The tall figure outlined in the doorway pauses. "Captain?"
Kirk's jaw drops. It can't be— "Spock?" he asks incredulously.
To his astonishment, Commander Spock lowers his phaser and steps over the threshold. An instant later McCoy's ornery drawl cuts in from somewhere behind the Vulcan's silhouette. "What's going on?"
"We seem to have found the captain," Spock observes. Weak with relief at finding them unharmed, Kirk cranes his neck to see around the doorframe. McCoy stands a few paces behind the Vulcan, with the unconscious Ensign Chekov cradled in his arms.
The captain's mouth twitches a little as the doctor comes into view. McCoy definitely has the beginnings of a black eye, but beyond that he appears none the worse for his part in Kirk's desperate plan. He glances quickly back at his first officer. Judging from the large green bruise forming along Spock's jaw, the doctor managed to give as good as he got.
He lowers his own phaser and glances back at the Vulcan. "Thought I told you to wait."
Spock raises an eyebrow. A faint spark has come back into his dark eyes. "I believe your exact order was to wait as long as I could. I…deemed we had waited long enough."
McCoy snorts. Kirk almost manages a smile. The doctor maneuvers sideways through the door after Spock, being careful to not bash Chekov's head into the doorframe.
"Jim, the next time you tell the hobgoblin to take a swing at me, do me a favor and warn me first," Bones grumbles, sounding irritated but unable to hide his relief at seeing Kirk again. Spock bristles a little at "hobgoblin", but not much more than usual and not nearly enough to concern the captain at this point.
"Sorry about that, Bones," Kirk says weakly. McCoy shrugs as if to say we're out, aren't we?, but Kirk can tell from the doctor's expression that he's going to be hearing about this one for a long, long time. Unfortunately, Bones catches the hitch of pain in his voice. His hawk-like eyes spot the blood on Kirk's hands and rapidly zero in on the glass shard sticking out of his abdomen.
"Good God, man, you're--!" McCoy exclaims. He automatically steps closer to peer at the wound, but he can do nothing but shrug a little in frustration because his arms are full with the navigator. Spock's eyes crinkle with concern. The captain stubbornly waves them both off.
"Yeah, Bones, I'm aware," Kirk interrupts wearily, fumbling for the communicator. He raises the heavy communicator to his lips. "Kirk to Enterprise. Scotty?"
"Aye sir, we're locked on an' ready to transport!"
"Get us the hell out of here."
The heavenly white lights of the transporter beam swirl around them, followed by a familiar, slightly tingling sensation. A moment later, his feet touch solid ground. Kirk takes a breath. The air is warm and dry, with that faintly canned smell peculiar to a new starship. He opens his eyes.
They are surrounded by the pristine walls of the transporter room of the USS Enterprise. Chief Engineer Scott sits at the transporter controls, his friendly face split into an enormous grin. Lt. Uhura stands beside him, pale with anxiety but making a valiant effort to remain composed. The requested med team is waiting in the opposite corner in a little knot of blue uniforms. McCoy is in motion the moment their feet are safely on the pad. He rushes past Kirk with Chekov in his arms, already bawling orders at the med team. Kirk can finally relax. They are safe.
The communicator slips from his nerveless fingers. Kirk's knees buckle. Spock catches his arm as he falls. The room tilts woozily to the side as hands lower him gently to the floor. The metal of the transporter pad is cool against his sweaty cheek. Anxious voices murmur overhead, fading slowly as his eyes close. He does not care. It is finally over.
They are home.
Well, I'd say that's all, folks...but that wouldn't be entirely accurate. Stay tuned. And please review! I reward reviews!