I do not own Supernatural or Star Trek 2009.
Part 2
Six months after the conspiracy had been 'cleared up'...
"Oh come on Sam, loosen up! It's practically a shore leave planet!"
And that's when Commander Sam Winchester of the USS Impala knew the mission was doomed.
You see, Murphy's Law – the principle that if anything can go wrong, it will – should have been named Winchester's Law. Specifically Dean Winchester's Law. Perhaps if Sam was in a charitable mood, he might allow that the law be renamed Kirk-Winchester's Law, but the Enterprise was currently several thousand parsecs away and not pissing him off at this precise moment in time.
His captain, on the other hand, was much closer and more irritating.
Pretty ladies, fruit wine, an accomplished survey and first contact mission, everything was going swimmingly. Dean had let his crew go a bit. They'd had a monotonous couple of weeks and deserved the pseudo-shore leave.
And naturally one Sam Winchester was left as the designated transporter and shuttle pilot with a serious, unquantifiable case of the willies for no apparent reason.
Night fell, the food was good, booze plentiful, and the natives were friendly, speaking an early derivative of Standard, easily picked up by experienced crew.
Of course, that was when trouble struck.
Evidently the individual who didn't get totally hammered was the most viable candidate. Sam had finished herding his wayward crew back to the mass-transport site for beam up and was checking for any left-behind bits of technology when a soft 'thwip' sound and a quick sting had him slapping at his neck.
A small dart spun crazily in his hand and he swore bitterly before everything went black.
Dean's hangover was pounding in his head like last night's huge bongo drums when the comm cheeped. "What?" he groaned, feeling more than just fruit wine in his mouth. By this point, he was pretty sure the wine had been drugged and Sammy was going to be unbearable for the next few days. Sam was probably mad, which was why Dean was still on the transporter room floor. There was no need for Sammy to be that pissy, no one had gotten hurt.
"Winchester. Winchester?"
Ugh, Dean must have drunk more than he'd thought. He could have sworn he heard Kirk calling his name, annoying bastard. Can't leave a guy to nurse a hangover in peace.
"Dean? Dean! Get with it, you jackass!"
"The hell, Kirk?"
"Dude, you are so drugged. Where's Sam?"
"Dunno, Sam? Sam, where are ya! Computer, find Sam!"
The cool voice of the computer woke Dean far more effectively than any detox medication or irritating Enterprise captain. "Commander Winchester is not aboard this ship."
"What the fuck? Sammy!"
"Aw shit." Kirk's voice was troubled at best.
"Kirk, what do you know that we don't?" Dean demanded, very awake, very cranky and definitely kicking a stoned Ash several times before the navigator shook himself awake. Even Cas was a little worse for the wear, blinking blearily at the small transporter room screen. Which only confirmed Dean's theory about the drugging – Castiel had only sipped politely at a single cup of wine, claiming it too sweet and the kid could out-drink anyone on the ship except Bobby and Dean. Cas should be up and at 'em, not squinting like the lights were too bright.
"We've got an Andorian informant who'd just managed to escape the planet. His transport ship stopped in for water after their hydroponics quit and the entire crew was wined, dined, poisoned and then turned on each other through the use of psychotic drugs. Because the natives are a little under-developed for this sort of medical tight-roping, the victims can be overdosed or suffer adverse reactions." Kirk paused in sympathy as Dean clutched his head and groaned.
"Damn Sammy and his stupid Murphy's Law." He glanced around the transporter at his very useless (he had allowed an enemy to get them into that state, damn it) crew and swore. "Kirk, can I borrow an away team and Bones? Ellen will have her hands full."
"Hell yes Dean, you can borrow me and my best people. We'll get you sorted out, put a med-team on the Impala and start looking for Sam. Enterprise to beam over ASAP."
Dean realized that he was blessed (not a word he used lightly or even really believed in on a regular basis) to have such good friends.
Then he puked all over the transporter room floor.
Jim Kirk was a very angry captain.
The Admiralty now knew this in excruciating detail and Kirk was probably going to be up for another one of those pesky reprimands.
He didn't give a damn.
He understood that the Impala walked into more than her fair share of crazy shit. And he grudgingly understood that most Constitution captains did not want to put their big, beautiful ships in the line of fire for a Miranda-class vessel that may or may not still exist by the time they fought through whatever crazy shit the Impala had gotten herself into.
So when the Admiralty had asked the newly refitted Constellation to go make sure the Impala wasn't tripped out on psychedelics, the captain had said no way in hell.
But Dean Winchester and his crew saved the Federation as regularly as Kirk did. They deserved saving. They also deserved decent intelligence, not this recurring "oops, would you look at that, we forgot to tell you about this planet/system/planetoid and (insert deadly action/situation of choice)!"
Kirk had promptly volunteered and refused to take no for an answer. Constellation could go pretend to be a useless flagship at the diplomatic function. Hell, her captain might even succeed in being polite, polished and starched.
Kirk, on the other hand, was going to do real work and save his friends.
His away team materialized in a miserable room. The Impala's senior bridge crew was up but weaving woozily and everyone else was still on the floor suffering from severe drugging. "Bones, get Winchester functional ASAP. You're beaming down with us to find Sam. Med-team, get this mess sorted out. Scotty, can you sweep the planet for Sam's communicator?"
"Nae, capt'n. Planet's laced with deutronium and it's affectin' both transporter and sensors. Ye'll have to find him the auld way and bring him back to the transporter site."
"Of course we will. Thanks Scotty."
"Sorry sair."
Dean hadn't felt this shitty since the night he and Kirk had gone kegging back on Earth. He was too ill to even flinch when Bones stabbed him with no less than four hypos. The effects of said hypos though, were fairly immediate.
"Eat," Kirk said shortly and dropped a field ration kit into his lap.
"Captain, I want to come," Jo spoke up, even though her pupils were still dilated and she couldn't really walk straight.
"Absolutely not," Bones and Ellen chimed in chorus. "It hit you and Castiel the hardest. You're not going anywhere," Bones proclaimed and the firm set of his mouth told Jo she wasn't going to win this one. "You can sit here and standby to assist the captains."
Dean finished cramming reconstituted chicken into his mouth and stood. "Let's get moving. I have a brother to find."
The jungle planet was strangely cheerful this morning, mist rising softly into the brightening sky, birds singing gloriously. Dean was grateful for the good weather (easy tracking) but at the same time it did not reflect well on his mood.
Storming forward towards the site of last night's festivities, Dean was astounded to find the clearing empty. No benches, no low tables, even the fire pit was gone, as if it had never been. Spinning the centre of the clearing, Dean scowled. Even the grass was undisturbed. He was pretty sure the natives didn't have the kind of technology necessary to move great long heavy tables through the jungle without leaving some trace.
"Village?" Kirk asked.
"This way," Dean replied shortly.
Something about this situation was unsettling. Spock knew the captain would call it a bad feeling, an unquantifiable unease. On the contrary, Spock knew that both Vulcan and human senses were capable of subconsciously noticing small, important factors and adding them up to an appropriate conclusion. The only way to identify the root of the 'bad feeling' was to pay attention.
"Somethin' about this just ain't right," Bones commented beside him, Georgia accent thick with worry. "I don't know what it is, but I'm getting the creeps."
The doctor may be acerbic and sometimes illogical in his emotions, but he was highly observant, intuitive, intelligent and practical. To hear him voice concern only amplified Spock's poor first impression of the planet. He lifted a hanging vine out of the way, noticing that the captains were forging a bit far ahead.
A short cry had Bones and Spock hurrying ahead. Dean was still standing out in the open, peering into a bower of leaves and branches. "What do you see?" he called in as Spock actually felt the need to place a hand on his phaser.
"I've got a passageway going into the jungle," a muffled Kirk replied. Spock noticed the drag marks Kirk must have noticed in the first place. They were undoubtedly humanoid but too small to be Sam Winchester.
Suddenly Kirk shouted and Dean barreled into the bushes. "What the fuck is wrong with this planet!" he roared, thrashing about. "Where the hell did Kirk go?"
Spock's bad feeling amplified.
Kirk groaned. His head felt like a troupe of Danubians had been using it as a tap-dance floor.
"You awake?"
Sam. That was Sam.
"I wish I wasn't."
A short laugh, pained and breathless. "Yeah, so do I."
Kirk cracked his eyes open and examined the situation. Their prison was an old structure, fashioned of rough stone stacked without mortar, but someone had gone to a lot of trouble to ensure the most effective security measures. Rusty iron bars crackled with electricity, cameras hung from the ceiling and the lock on the door was state of the art, which wouldn't be such a big problem if someone hadn't clearly known about Sam's escapist tendencies. The first officer was seated against the dank wall, wearing only an orange jumpsuit. All four limbs were chained equidistantly apart with shiny new manacles, leaving Sam spread-eagled in what could not be a terribly comfortable position.
On top of that, Sam looked like shit. His face was a rainbow of bruises, he wasn't sitting straight with broken ribs, his breathing was raspy and his unbruised skin a clammy fish-white.
"They expecting you to leave or something?" Kirk rasped, trying to inject humour into the situation, rattling his matching chains.
"Oh no. I just sit in prison for shits and giggles." Sam smirked wanly. "Don't try to dislocate your thumb. We're on camera and they'll shock the daylights out of you." That would explain the pallor of a normally tanned Winchester skin.
"Who are they and what do they want?" Kirk asked.
Sam shifted uncomfortably. "As far as I can tell, they're human and definitely not native. My guess is that they've got the natives working for them. Oh, and they're big fans of drug experimentation. Prepare to hallucinate like crazy."
Jim's shoulders would have slumped if they could. "Yay."
"You're not going to tell us where they are?" Dean Winchester asked in a very controlled, cold tone of voice, fists balled into weapons. Had Sam been present, he would have bundled his brother back onto the Impala immediately before Dean did something unbecoming a Starfleet captain.
Of course, the fact that Dean only ever got this pissed when Sam was missing put a cramp in the one plan that could have spared the native leader.
Well, Spock probably could have if he tried. But the Vulcan was not feeling very charitable at present. "Remember sir, we do need him to talk. Breaking his jaw would be imprudent."
"Noted, Spock."
McCoy held his tongue regarding the two loose cannons currently extracting information. He'd keep his calming influence for something more important than some native flunky willing to abduct friendly Starfleet personnel.
Kirk was tempted to spill the contents of his stomach all over the prison floor but then he'd be sitting in it for who knows how long, which would just be nasty. And he got the impression he'd need all the nutrition he could get.
His mind was spinning like a top and his senses were tangled. He hoped the hallucinations were over, that the whispering voice in his head was gone but when you still smell colours instead of seeing them, it just doesn't bode well for the state of one's brain.
Kirk shook his head in an attempt to clear it. Bad idea. The Danubian tap-dancers were back.
"All right?" Sam croaked. Sheesh, just like Bones, this one. Even when Sam felt like shit, he felt the need to check on others. Kirk grunted a yes and assessed Sam. Dean's brother looked worse than before, eyes bright and glassy, face pale under dark bruising.
"What'd you say to piss them off?" Kirk asked with a weak laugh, trying to keep the mood up.
Sam's head lolled on his neck and he blinked slowly. "They drug you three times," he said carefully, like his tongue was thick "and then they start telling you things. Things you know are wrong. She was telling me to-to-to kill D-dean and for a minute it felt right. That was when I told her there was no fucking way and she could go screw herself. She said I'd see the light soon enough, that there was always next time" Sam fell silent and Kirk suppressed a shiver.
It took a strong man to resist mind-altering drugs. The brain was a delicate instrument, easily warped and thrown awry.
That being said, whoever she was, she picked the wrong people to experiment on. Sam Winchester was as stubborn as a mule, especially regarding his brother and Jim Kirk just plain didn't like being told what to do. It was a matter of principle.
She wouldn't get into either of their heads if Captain James T. Kirk had anything to do with it.
Step one – encourage Sam.
Step two – piss off the bitch.
Step three – wait for Dean and Spock.
Step four – find popcorn to accompany the comedy that would be this witch meeting Dean and Spock.
Wait. Step four wasn't part of the plan. It'd be funny, but impractical. No popcorn on this planet. And it wouldn't be a comedy, it'd be a massacre. Popcorn wasn't appropriate for massacres; he'd need peanut M&M's instead and definitely enough to share with Sam.
Clearly the drugs were still fucking with his head.
He knew for sure when Sam started laughing raspily and Kirk realized he'd been listing his steps and the dialogue regarding step four aloud.
Sam's laughter disintegrated into hacking coughs which gradually subsided although a grin continued to hover around a pain-tightened mouth.
Sealing his lips shut, Kirk made absolutely sure step five wasn't said aloud – deflect abuse from Sam onto himself whenever possible.
Dean barreled through the jungle at juggernaut speeds. Sam had now been missing for twelve hours, Kirk for four. The native leader had spilled the necessary information after Dean had threatened to start removing fingernails and neither Enterprise officer showed any sympathy or support for the poor alien.
According to the leader, a Federation-looking woman had shown up in a ship like theirs with a dozen or so men. They bought the old temple from the natives and paid them with drugs. The natives had decided to exercise their sadistic streak and tested the drugs on passing transports. The leader had started whining about how a group of men about three years back abused their hospitality and they were just trying to protect themselves.
Dean might have been sympathetic but they'd kidnapped his brother and turned him over to a sadistic bitch with a taste for mind-warping. Bones wasn't sympathetic at all, now or ever. Innocent men were dead. Spock remained deadly silent on the subject.
After leaving the camp, there had been some discussion about whether or not they should go back to Enterprise and get some security after discovering that their communicators didn't work courtesy of the same interference that had knocked out sensors and transporters.
Spock had been the one to say there wasn't enough time, that they should press forward. So they had moved out on their own and Dean was impressed. He knew Spock was in excellent shape, but for some reason McCoy had just never seemed like the athletic type, refusing to play team sports on shore leave and such. Yet here he was, matching Dean stride for stride.
Spock naturally spotted the temple first. There were several guards, but they were bored and lazy, easily avoided. The rescuers paused to regroup. "This is styled after Mesopotamian ziggurats," Dean mused. "The only place big enough to hold a research facility is at the top."
"That's an awfully exposed staircase," McCoy muttered as Dean squinted, calculating.
"Who said anything about taking the stairs?" he asked with a thin smirk.
Kirk was pretty sure he'd managed to hit the witch in the eye hard enough to bruise before they'd strapped him down and zapped him full of something that burned his veins like acid and sent his head spinning.
Now he was flat out on the damp floor, hoping the ceiling would stop swimming sometime soon. Or at least change the channel. He was getting really tired of the same six fish. They could at least be different colours. He didn't know why he was seeing fish, but he was pretty sure they weren't real and he was forgetting something really important.
Someone important.
Sam.
"Go away," he hissed to the fish and sat up slowly, feeling the universe tilt crazily. He was only chained by his foot now, far too ill to go anywhere far and he knew they knew he knew it. Figure that one out. While hallucinating.
Sam.
He had to focus.
Shit, Sam. Kirk's shoulders slumped. Sam wasn't even chained up anymore, staring glassily at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling in a slow, hitching motion. "Sam? Sam, Sammy!" Kirk shook his shoulder gently, hoping to find Sam Winchester somewhere in this battered shell.
Glazed hazel eyes rolled over to gaze at Kirk.
"Hey dude, you in there? Two blinks yes, zero blinks no."
It took a minute but humour sparked and Sam blinked twice before his mouth fell open slackly. "D-didn't let her win," Sam whispered, making a Herculean effort. The bubbling wheeze in his breathing was definitely not good.
Carefully hoisting Sam up, Kirk managed to prop his torso up against the wall. The wheeze got a little better. "Thanks," Sam hissed painfully.
"Don't thank me until Dean shows up. I'm pretty pathetic, getting nabbed like that. Into an underground tunnel system at that. Did you know I'm seeing fish right now?"
There was an awkward shake of Sam's shoulders and Kirk leaned in close. "What?"
"God, you sound like my brother. Fish and all."
"Hey, those fish are scary sons of bitches." Kirk hoped channeling his inner Dean (much like his inner Kirk if he did say so himself) would help Sam stay that much more connected to reality. Because if Sam's trip was anything like Kirk's, reality was pretty subjective at the moment. Fish and all.
He sat shoulder to shoulder with the battered man. Soon Sam's head lolled against Kirk and his eyelids fluttered shut. It worried Kirk, but the relatively even rhythm of Sam's breathing was a little reassuring and God knew they'd need every bit of strength they could muster.
"Damn it Dean, Spock, you're taking too long. Hurry up."
"Are you insane?" Bones hissed in a whispered shout.
"Actually, this course of action is quite logical, Doctor. The guards' line of sight is obscured and it is not a predictable route into the temple. It should also be remarkably efficient."
"Thanks, Spock," Dean said through the rope in his mouth, snapping a karabiner clip to the barbed harpoon head.
"All it takes is one phaser shot to the rope and we're all dead!"
"Isn't that usually how phasers set to kill work, Bones?"
The doctor stared at the captain and first officer in no small disgust. "If we end up dead, I am going to haunt both your asses for the rest of eternity."
"Ghost haunting a ghost, Bones, that's a little weird."
"The theory that human consciousness continues to exist after expiration has never been quantifiably proven, Doctor."
McCoy took a very large breath, exhaled slowly and hoisted up his medical pack. "It's the sentiment that counts, you assholes. Let's do this."
Dean took careful aim with the small, powerful pneumatic gun and shot, watching with satisfaction as the matte head and its long tail of rope arced out, latching onto the temple with tenacity. Taking in the slack of the rope, he patted the powerful small engine Spock had bolted into a tree.
"You always carry this stuff?" McCoy asked irritably, tightening the knot of the makeshift harness Dean had handed him.
"Actually, it's Sammy's pack. He always has the most random, useful shit I've ever seen. You don't wanna know what else is in there. Up ya go, Bones."
Despite the ziggurat being several hundred feet tall, it was the work of a minute to ride up. Spock was neutral about the whole experience, Dean focused forward on finding Sam and McCoy was absolutely sure they were going to be spotted and shot.
Luckily, the guards were too busy playing poker to notice three men being towed up the ziggurat like so many odd-coloured socks hung out to dry. The rope was left intact, just in case although Dean said he doubted they'd be able to ride it down.
Dean took point. The element of surprise worked admirably in their favour and they made it all the way in to an office before being pinned down. "McCoy, find me a map or something that tell us where Kirk and Sam are!" Dean barked as he and Spock held the doorway.
The doctor riffled quickly through the PADD on the desk before shouting in triumph, shoving the PADD into his bag. "They're in the last door on the right!"
Taking a few deep breaths, Dean nodded to Spock.
The quick charge was nerve-wracking, phaser-fire sizzling around their ears, smoke filling the corridor. Dean shot the lock on the last door several times and the three rescuers piled into small room, slamming it shut behind them. Spock, as the strongest, promptly braced his back against it.
McCoy had flown across the room and unlocked the bars, at Sam's side in an instant. "Dear God," he whispered.
"Hey Bones," Kirk slurred on the other side. "It's Bones, right, not a hal-hallucination, right? Say no, so I know you're a hallucination." McCoy raised an eyebrow at the rather incoherently sensible sentence. Definitely still drugged.
Dean was hovering in front of both prisoners, crouched down at eye-level. "Dumbass," he almost shouted, worry thick in his voice. "What the hell, Kirk? What were you thinking, getting caught like that?"
Kirk blinked slowly. His face was swollen, an eye swelled shut and blood trickled from his lip. Defensive wounds covered his hands and slashes showed through the bright command shirt, staining it an offensive orange-red. "Well, you're not a hallucination. Only Dean Winchester makes that much noise."
"D'n?" Sam mumbled and everyone in the room froze.
"Hey little brother," Dean murmured, gently nudging McCoy out of the way. He turned Sam's battered face towards him, delighting in woozy, irritated hazel eyes glaring at him.
"You're…late, j'rk."