I do not own Star Trek 2009 or Supernatural
The world was going to end and there wasn't a damn thing they could to about it.
Walker smirked as the captains sat in stunned silence.
"You really think that, don't you?" a light, nonchalant voice asked. "You really think you can poison the entire damn galaxy and then twist it around to your own ends. And I thought only Starfleet captains were that arrogant."
"Hey!" Dean yelped and flinched as cuts pulled against fresh bandaging. "I resent that implication and you weren't on this ship thirty minutes ago! When did you get aboard?"
Gabriel was leaning lazily against the Impala's bridge railing, waving away Dean's demand and focusing on Walker. "Not now, Winchester. Walker, you didn't honestly think you could get away with it? I taught you everything you know and everything you know isn't all that much. Hell, you didn't even notice that I was among the Impala crew when Vern captured us. And it was child's play to slip away in a shuttle while Impala and Enterprise acted as diversions. Excellent job, you two, a bit over the top though. You didn't have to stick around until they were forced to blow up a minefield." The SIO winked cheekily at two reddening captains before returning to business.
"Starfleet wasn't sure exactly who to believe, but I pointed out rather logically that it couldn't possibly hurt to take an extra half an hour to test your little antidote," Gabriel dramatically threw air-quotes around the word antidote, "and to their immense surprise, the miracle drug they were going to rush into their star bases just happened to be the very virus they were afraid of. Now of course, they've packed it off to be analyzed and it's definitely not getting loose in any way shape or form. Ain't life funny like that?"
Disbelieving relief swept through both Impala and Enterprise like a cleansing tide as Walker swelled, sputtered and flushed a dark ebony-tinted crimson. "You, you, you didn't!"
Gabriel sighed melodramatically and shrugged. "I did. I left the bruiser captains here to do what they do best and that was chase your slimy, traitorous, racist ass until they caught you. Of course even their great talents can't be everywhere at once. Luckily, they had me because my job (and I'm exceptionally good at my job) is to jump to the end and stop the whole catastrophe train. Theirs is to smash the train apart and fish out the rats. And now they can do that with great wrath and vindictive glee, since the Federation is safe. Boys, Starfleet wants him alive but they didn't specify regarding health or wholeness of limb."
Suddenly Gordon Walker found himself far, far out of his depth, staring down the impressive phaser arrays of two extremely angry Starfleet ships.
"Surrender now," Captain Kirk grated out, "and I can promise you there won't be an 'accident' on the way to Earth. If we have to kick your ass before dragging you back to Starfleet, I won't guarantee your safety."
"Do us all a favour and resist so I don't have to do the right thing and let you live," Captain Winchester requested politely, every word cored with steel.
Rock, meet hard place.
It was looking like a ridiculously easy battle for the good guys when seven Romulan war birds dropped out of warp. "I knew leaving that bunch behind was going to come back to bite me in the ass," Kirk sighed in exasperation.
Dean shot him a dirty look. "You mean you didn't beat them up first? Why the hell did you leave them in one piece?"
"Excuse me for being worried about your sorry ass and running off to find you! And no, I didn't beat them up first 'cause I was pretty sure seven to one were shitty odds, even for Enterprise."
"Well, isn't that just awesome. Now it's eight to two. Because those odds are so much better." Sarcasm, irritation and worry rippled off both captains, filling their bridges with tension.
For the first time, Gabriel looked worried, realizing what sort of a position he was in. "You two get out of impossible situations all the time, hop to it!"
Dean and Kirk glared at him. "Dude, I don't know about Kirk but my ship's currently held together with silly string and sticky tape. While you were off being clever, we were getting the shit kicked out of us. Please tell me you came to find us with a nice Miranda-class ship or maybe someone bigger like say, Constellation."
Gabriel shrugged airily but his eyes stayed serious. "Federation's busy putting out riots started when someone preemptively leaked the news about the virus. I was given a shuttle and a direct line to Commander Singer. That was how I managed to sneak on board while you were busy being heroic, angst-ridden and desperate."
"Terrific. Yet again, you're useless. Kirk, how do you want to play this?"
"Hey, I just saved the Federation as we know it! That's gotta count for something!" Gabriel squawked indignantly.
Dean rolled his eyes. "Yep, you're a big damn hero. Give the man a Kewpie doll, a nice brassy medal and break out the band." The crews sniggered. "If we don't figure a way out of this mess, you're going to be a dead big damn hero."
Sullenly, Gabriel kicked at the floor. "Being a hero is overrated."
"Welcome to our lives," Kirk snorted.
Enterprise
"Uhura, prep a long-range SOS buoy. Scotty, prepare the chaff."
The chaff was one of Spock and Scotty's experimental concepts – an idea that might buy them some time to run or strike preemptively. Various heavy elements, radioactive and otherwise, had been known to scatter and confuse even the most solid sensors. Naturally, Spock had been working on a compensation filter for the Enterprise, her instruments easily compensating.
Therefore, when Spock sprayed a pulverized mist of the stuff into space between Enterprise and her enemies, it boggled the Romulan sensors just long enough for Enterprise to lash out with phasers and photon torpedoes.
"Winchester, get your speedy ass out of here," Kirk ordered tersely. The Impala's shields weren't up to par, her weapons non-functioning and even if she was limping, Kirk was pretty sure Winchester could outrun the Romulans.
He was gratified to see that his friend didn't argue and the Impala raced away at warp 9.2.
"Good. Now. I believe Walker's ship is that one, right Spock?"
"You are correct, captain."
"We take out him first."
Impala
"Captain, we are being pursued by three war birds."
"Good."
"Good?" Gabriel protested.
"Yeah, if they're chasing us, they aren't beating up Enterprise. Five to one is much better odds. Kirk will think of something. In the meantime, all we have to do is outrun these jokers to Earth."
"Warp core unstable, Captain," Sam reported calmly, fingers flying across his console in a complicated tango.
"Hold her together, Sammy. She's gotta make it."
"Warp core unstable? Even I know that if the warp core's unstable, we're a hair away from blowing up everything in this quadrant of space!"
The crew smirked grimly as a whole. Clearly Gabriel was new to Impala's way of doing things. "If we blow up, we'll take the Romulan bastards with us," Dean stated with cool certainty.
"Oh, well in that case, great. That's just fantastic. Kamikaze, that's us."
"Will you shut up? We aren't dead yet!"
Enterprise
Crossing his arms, Kirk took an at-ease stance on the bridge, staring speculatively at the screen, a lone pillar of stillness on the frenzied bridge as Sulu struggled to hold the ship together, Chekov hammered their numerous targets, Scotty squawked over the comm, Uhura's chattering stream of information floating about everyone's ears, Spock rerouting power from failing, battered couplings.
"Uhura, hail the lead ship. When Walker answers, I want to be broadcasting on an open channel," Kirk ordered suddenly. She was the only one who paused in what she was doing before flying to complete her captain's command. The usual bridge curiosity had no place here.
"Chekov, initiate the self-destruct."
That yanked all activity on the bridge to a halt for a brief nano-second. "Ser?"
"You heard me."
"Yes ser. Self-destruct actiwated. Avaiting your countdown."
Walker appeared onscreen, wide-eyed and more than a little panicked. His ship was falling apart at the seams, having taken the brunt of Enterprise's wrath. "Kirk. Are you willing to surrender?"
Captain James T. Kirk moved to the front of the bridge, Spock at his shoulder in a show of solidarity, a striking contrast to a fumbling Gordon Walker, the lonely human on a ship of enemies. "Your ship is lacking warp drive. Your shields are failing. And I am utterly determined to see all of you dead, even if it costs me my ship and crew. Your sensors should be registering our self-destruct. Stand down, surrender yourself and your ship and I will halt the countdown at ten seconds until Starfleet arrives to take custody." Kirk's voice carried all the chill and implacability of a glacier.
Walker paled to an ashen cocoa. "You wouldn't."
"You have one minute to decide. Chekov, set our destruct at one minute twenty seconds. I believe at current strength, our shields will hold against your full-strength barrage for…"
"Tree minutes, ser. Self-destruct set at one minute, tventy seconds, ser."
"Thank you, Mr. Chekov."
Gordon Walker glanced about uneasily. Two of his allies jumped to warp, deserting the field of battle. A third was edging backwards, reluctant to be in the area. "You will take the star base with you. It'll be completely destroyed. Starfleet won't stand for it."
Kirk laughed. "I'll be dead. I won't give a damn. And I'm pretty sure the scientists in that base would rather be dead instantaneously than suffer at the hands of your Romulan buddies."
"Vone minute to self-destruct," Chekov announced with admirable calm.
"Well, Walker?"
Impala
"Hold it together baby, just a little bit more," Dean coaxed under his breath as Sam sweated at his console, exchanging very complicated information in an incomprehensible verbal shorthand with Ash, who had stopped swearing, all of his considerable talents focused on convincing the Impala that she really did want to stay at warp 9.3.
"Ten minutes to Earth," Castiel reported.
"We aren't going to make it, unless," Sam smacked an extra few buttons and the ship shuddered before suddenly running far more smoothly.
"Sam?"
His brother shrugged, carefully balancing power levels. "I disabled the ship's built-in buffers and safety limiters. She'll make it to Earth now but whether or not we manage to make it out of warp in the right place or in one piece is entirely up to Castiel."
The pilot rolled his eyes in exasperation as Dean gritted his teeth.
"The buffers that automatically keep the ship from, say, running right through Earth and wiping out both the Impala and an entire planet? The ones that regulate power flow to the warp core? The ones you can't reapply unless you're in space dock?" Gabriel ventured in disbelief.
"Those are the ones," Sam confirmed absently, "but I've got a handle on the warp core and Cas is good at what he does. We'll be fine. Probably."
"Probably," Gabriel repeated faintly.
"Captain, war birds breaking off pursuit," Ash stated calmly, "and returning to Romulan space at maximum warp."
"Cas, bring us down to impulse. And don't put us through Jupiter or something."
In a display of masterful skill, Lieutenant Luke Castiel brought his wounded ship out of warp at screaming speeds, weaving around moons and planets with a delicate touch, easing on the brakes until the Impala could screech to a halt beside Saturn. The arrested momentum threw everyone except Castiel forward in their seats with a thump as the port nacelle cracked again, Sam forced an emergency warp-core shutdown and the shields sputtered, finally giving up the ghost.
The Impala hung silent in space with her fragile crew still alive.
"Excellent job, Lieutenant, Commander," Dean complimented with rare correct form. "Sam, dial Earth and tell them they have a star base to liberate."
Enterprise
"Self-destruct in forty seconds, keptin," Chekov reported.
Walker was sweating profusely now as his crew looked increasingly edgy and mutinous. "All right, all right, we surrender!"
"Mr. Chekov, reset self destruct for two minutes, thirty seconds. We will disable the self destruct once Walker and the Romulans are unarmed and in our possession. Mr. Scott, prepare to beam our prisoners to the brig."
"Aye, capt'n."
"Yes ser."
It was a smooth prisoner transfer. The Romulans and Walker were stripped, searched and held in the brig. Kirk promptly had them gassed with a simple sedative. It wasn't strictly code, but the way his week had been going, if he didn't enact preventative measures the prisoners would break out and succeed in taking the Enterprise. The self-destruct was quickly disabled by a very happy Chekov, who, upon commendation for his professional manner, freely admitted in Russian-thickened English that his fingers had been shaking the whole time.
"Cupcake," Kirk demanded briskly, striding through his ship with a burgeoning sense of accomplishment, "do you think you have enough men to sweep the star base and suppress the Romulans?"
The big, burly security chief shook his head. "Sorry captain. If we didn't have civilians to worry about sir, I'd say I do. But as it is, even if we pull the senior bridge crew, the star base is too big. We couldn't lock down the entire base. Additionally, Dr. McCoy threatened me and my men with castration if we allowed you off the ship. I believe he was quite serious sir, and with all due respect, I don't want to test him."
Kirk didn't know whether to be flattered at the concern or worried about the chain of command on his ship.
"Captain," Uhura called over the comm, "I am receiving communication from Starfleet." Striding onto the bridge, Kirk plopped into his chair with a tired sigh, tension draining from his shoulders, too weary to care about protocol.
"On screen."
Admiral Pike was scowling ferociously and Kirk tried to straighten up a bit. "Don't bother Kirk," the admiral waved off, clearly trying to rein in his poor temper. "You're not in trouble. The Intelligence Office, on the other hand," and the scowl returned. Kirk did not want to be in their shoes. "More to the point, reinforcements will be arriving within the hour to begin relieving Enterprise. Constellation's ETA is four hours and when she does arrive, you will be put on standby. Winchester sends his regards."
Clearing up the mess was an involved, tedious and annoying process. Three days after Walker had surrendered, Kirk washed his hands of the over-enthusiastic, rookie captains fighting over who got to claim glory for arriving to help first and took his battered ship with Walker in the brig back to Earth. He figured it was for the best, considering a usually unshakably calm Sulu had actually threatened a superior officer with a reprimand if he didn't smarten up, Spock looked like he was fraying around the edges (which translated in human terms to feeling as frazzled as an irritated, wet tiger) and Kirk had almost gotten into a shouting match with one stupid rookie who had wanted to send all the Romulans back through the Neutral Zone in life pods (which might have been a worthy punishment because it would take them about ten years to get to a habitable planet but at the same time any of their potentially eavesdropping friends could pick them up and then they'd be free again). Kirk decided to let stiff, unfriendly Captain Poole handle the idiots.
When the Enterprise finally docked at home, there was a hero's fanfare waiting but most of the exhausted senior crew didn't bother even leaving the ship until they could sneak off in shuttles. Just to be on the safe side, Chekov and Scotty had shipped off in a cargo bin, to Kirk's amusement. For Kirk's part, once the ship was empty of everyone except Bones and Spock, he passed out in his bunk and didn't wake up until McCoy rudely barged in twelve hours later.
"What, Bones, what the hell, I'm sleeping!"
"You're coming with me."
Kirk raised his eyebrows. "That's nice. Where are we going?"
"The Winchester house."
"Why?"
"Because Ellen wants my opinion on the Winchester idiots' condition and I'm still not happy with your ribs. If I keep you close, the likelihood of you doing something retarded is lessened. On top of that, you need to get out of this ship and you won't have to worry about the media. John will run off any reporters for us with glee."
Winchester House
"Get lost and stay lost!" the grizzly bear sometimes known as John Winchester roared at the skinny, fashionably dressed reporter frantically skittering down the front walk, barely glancing at Jim as he ran by.
John's thunderous scowl lightened as he spotted the battered Enterprise captain. "Jim! Bones! Come on in! No reporters allowed here, you'll be safe." Finding himself hustled inside and planted on the couch beside a relaxed Dean before he could blink, Jim sank back into the cushions with a sigh of relief. A big plate of nachos piled with beef and smothered with cheese landed in his lap as Sam waved from his favourite big puffy armchair while Bones began hovering and scanning with the ever-present tricorder.
"Hey, glad to see everyone's alive and in one piece," Jim greeted casually.
"Mostly, anyway," Dean winced as he flipped the vid channel and Jim swallowed a surge of hot anger on spotting the wide white bandages still wrapped around his friend's forearms. He realized he didn't want to know what John's reaction had been upon hearing the story.
They settled in to idly watch football, Dean occasionally flicking peanuts at the screen when a poor play was made. "So," Sam began casually, "what's the news?"
Jim sighed. Better get it over with. "IO's in huge shit and the Admirals are demanding an inquiry into IO's operations. Gabriel's up for a commendation. We're up for commendations. The crews are up for commendations. Commendations all around!"
"Again?" Dean whined. "Ugh, more medals, hand-shaking and ass-kissing."
"Yep," Jim shuddered. "Ceremony and all. Maybe the world will need saving before then."
"That won't help, they'll just give us another commendation. We'd have to make them mad at us."
"Maybe we should try being villains then. Keep with tradition maybe and get Scotty to test out a transporter theory on Chandra's new Bernese mountain dog. Anyway, Walker's going away for life on Pluto. Vern's being shipped back to Romulus."
"What?" Sam squawked. "The bastard's going home to his own people?"
Bones interrupted with a neutral "Romulans believe in the death penalty whereas Starfleet does not. And once they realized that the virus had been aimed not only at humans but Romulans as well, the council wasn't too happy with him. He'll be dead in two months." Jim couldn't figure out if Bones was pissed about the death penalty or just glad Vern wouldn't be coming back to threaten anyone else.
"Oh." Sam subsided.
"The lovely and esteemed Dr. Gain," Jim swallowed a mouthful of nachos and hoped it wouldn't come back up after he finished giving the bad news, "has vanished. Yet again. We could not account for her death and given her resourcefulness in the past, I can't imagine she's dead."
"Gain's the bitch who drugged my boys?" John growled from his battered leather armchair. Jim nodded, reaching for a beer and grinning innocently at an irritated Bones, who couldn't technically stop his captain.
"Huh. Maybe I should – "
"Dad," Sam broke in, "you could, but you're not going to. We can take care of her ourselves legally. That way she gets dragged through the whole humiliating debacle of being lowered to the status of prisoner and then lives out the rest of her life in humiliation and degradation." There was a brief, intense stare-down wherein Jim realized with a jolt how alike Sam and his father really were until John backed down with an ungracious grunt.
"Fine."
Jim heard Dean's small sigh of relief. "World War IV aborted?" he muttered and Dean nodded once before chugging back his beer.
The afternoon passed quietly enough, Bones napping on the other giant couch and Jim joining in on the fun game of reporter-baiting. It went something like this: while John was in the kitchen or puttering about the house, Jim and Dean would stick their heads out, wave, smile, whistle, whatever, until some brave news-person set foot on the porch and set off the alarm. Then John came rumbling out to drive them away while Jim and Dean snickered behind their beers and Sam shook his head with a small grin.
Jim tried leaving in the evening to head back to Enterprise but Sam and John wouldn't hear of it. Bones hadn't even tried to leave and sometime after dinner Spock had wandered in, sitting with immovable dignity on the floor and watching football with scholastic intensity. Dean just handed Jim another beer, said the Packers were playing the Patriots and wondered aloud if Jim was man enough to stick around to watch the insanity that was Sam and John going at it verbally over their favourite, rival football teams.
So he stuck around and they goofed off that evening and the next day and the next week and the next two weeks after that, regrouping because somehow everyone knew deep, deep down that this wasn't over yet.
Starfleet prison
"Useless fool. Now we've lost Kerlyn, all his resources and Walker. Additionally, the Federation knows about the drug. I'll have to start from scratch all over again."
A prison door swung open and a bare, green-tinged foot stepped over the dead prison guard.
"It wasn't my fault you wanted to work with an insane Romulan backer and a superiority-obsessed human spy."
Skeletally thin hands drew a white lab coat closer around a skinny frame. "Everything went according to plan until you couldn't execute my will. Intimidated into compliance and then shot by a single human, what kind of Romulan are you?"
"Is this really the place to discuss our mistakes? And I was not intimidated. I took the most prudent course of action."
"Your mistakes. Your pretty words only reiterate what I just said – you're a coward."
"Puny human woman, do not test me."
"Or what, you'll kill me? Rape me? Scar me? Cause me great and unending physical or mental anguish?" A bird-like head tipped sideways in curiosity. "We've had this conversation before. I don't see why you persist in attempting to threaten me when you know you cannot scare me. Now move quickly and keep up, we must be punctual. You're going to listen on the way to the base. I have a new agenda. And this time we will not fail."
End of Part Two