Technical Difficulties
Chapter 9: Of Chasing and Catching
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As he was putting the last finishing touches into the delicacies of the Sealion's course, Finnegan's communicator buzzed. Sitting in the cramped cockpit, he rushed out into the more spacious hallway before flipping it open.
"Agent F68 here."
The crackling of the other line was barely distinguishable, especially in the wake of the roaring engines of the Sealion, a ship that had seen better days. In the unlit hall, Finnegan held the communicator up to his ear, halfway engulfed in darkness.
"Affirmative, Kirk has been taken hostage. I am now en route to Mars space station, where I will take him to the ship."
There was another pause while the other line spoke.
Finnegan gestured naturally as he spoke again. "The other agents are ready to strike when I give the signal. I checked their status with the Protean call… Yes, I left it on the ship, but I believe I have successfully implicated…Affirmative."
Finnegan bit his lip. "I could not find the source of the signal. It has been encrypted within the system. Three agents still on the Enterprise are tracking through data looking for it, but are still unsuccessful… Yessir, I'll give the report in fuller detail on the surface of the planet. Yessir. Agent F68 out."
Finnegan grinned as he closed his communicator and stuffed it back into his pocket. So far, almost everything was going to plan.
When he returned to his post at the helm, Finnegan checked on the course progression.
"Ha! The Enterprise is slow as a turtle, Jimmy boy. I suppose that any starship that you run has got t' have some serious issues, then." He calculated some more figures on the screen, about the two courses the ships were following and how fast each of them were going compared to the proximity of the space station.
There was no response. Not that Finnegan had really expected one in the first place, but for a Captain to have his ship and leadership skills insulted in the same breath… you'd think he'd get a bit mad, hmmm? Enough to click the communication button with his forehead and send a scathing reply back to him.
Maybe Jimmy boy was still unconscious. Finnegan quickly tapped up his vitals.
There were none.
A bolt of lightning shot through Finnegan as he realized something was amiss.
It reminded him of something that happened not so long ago, back at Starfleet Academy. Something that tweaked his memory…
Slowly, as if through a haze, Finnegan drew his phaser.
Set phasers to kill.
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Unfortunately, the Enterprise was still in terrible condition from the havoc of Engineering Hell, and could only chug along at Impulse power. Even though the Sealion was only going Warp 2, it was zipping far beyond the possible realm of the Enterprise's tractor beam. Spock knew this quite well, but was determined to change it.
Starfleet was not answering the Enterprise's calls for assistance. Clearly, Spock was on his own. He only had the Mars space station working with him at the moment. Perhaps the Council was debating over the situation, as it should, but Spock needed its help immediately for any good to come of it. Spock's fingers tapped the captain controls on the chair quickly and flawlessly as he connected with Engineering.
"Engineer Scott."
There was a crash and some sparks fizzing on the other end before Scotty answered. "Aye, sir!"
"The Enterprise is currently out of range of the Sealion. The needed speed is approximately Warp 4.67 in order to use the tractor beam."
Scotty swore like a sailor before responding intelligently again. "Ah cannae, Commander, she cannae take it! Surely, th' ship will break daewn completely if yeh were t' do tha!"
"This is to save Captain Kirk. Surely something can be done."
There were more sounds of machinery breaking into pieces and exploding. "Commander Spock, the Lady's fallin' apart as it is, on measly Impulse. Engineerin' has too much on its hands t' chase anythin'. Ah'm giving ye all she's got!"
Spock held up his chin with his hand.
"Engineer Scott, we are the Captain's only hope. There is no other option but for us to rescue him from his tormentor. Is that fully understood?"
There was silence from the other line, other than the background of the bits of crackling and explosions still going on. But Scotty was quiet for a moment.
"Aye, Commander."
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Jim slid across small sections of the hallway like a panther, concealing himself behind each bulkhead as if he was an extension of the smooth metal. He had already abandoned his bright gold shirt in favor for the standard Starfleet black slacks. No love was lost between them. Hell, Jim had a whole closet full of the things. About a month ago, he had ordered an entire production line of them for himself. He seemed to lose these shirts as easily as anything; they ripped like paper and were way too conspicuous to wear during a mission like this. He decided to complain to the Committee about the sheer impediment these uniforms caused; Jim was sure that the bright red color contributed to most of the deaths of his Security teams on foreign planetsides during away missions. Others dismissed his theory as paranoia and crazy talk, but Jim was pretty damn sure.
Spock had shielded most of his thoughts for the moment, as Jim needed the space to concentrate, but after such a tangent he impatiently told Jim to focus on the task at hand. Smiling, Jim shook his head and then looked for a convenient room to create a temporary base.
The room Jim came to first was a huge improvement over the cleaner closet he had been stuffed into before. After picking the lock on the door with a strip of metal, Jim closed the door behind him with another easy click. He flipped one of the lights on and inspected his findings.
It was a small storage unit, apparently. There was enough space for limited movement, with enough nooks and crannies for Jim to successfully hide and wage war upon Finnegan if he ever showed up in there.
And maybe some of the stuff in storage could help him, too. Jim really had stumbled upon a goldmine of opportunity by coming to this particular room first; there was an entire package of arms in one of the corners of the room. So nice for Finnegan to supply him with weapons.
He sorted through the package, which was just about as tall as he was, with extreme efficiency. He pulled out two phasers, fully loaded, as well as an oddly designed knife. It was twisted and curved like a modern saber and had sickly pincers all over it, extending like branches from a tree. He thought it was pretty badass, so he picked it up and held it in the light.
There was an unfamiliar symbol ingrained in the metal of the blade, just where the points started branching off. The sheen of the metal was tinted green. Jim inspected the handle of the blade then, and found both an intricate design and what seemed to be a button. He pressed it. The entire blade retracted into the handle. He pressed it a few more times, and the blade came out and went in and came out again.
"Whoa, cool!" Jim muttered excitedly. He would keep this particular knife. It was almost like a keepsake or something. Jim slipped the handle into his belt's third holster and clipped it in after retracting it again.
So not only was Finnegan a traitor to the Federation, but apparently he had some connections to an unknown alien culture. One that made sick, awesome weapons.
Hmmm. Food for thought.
Jim searched the cargo for medical supplies.
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Bones was sitting on the steps of the transport systems, randomly scanning himself, then the operator, then himself, then the operator. He even scanned the entire room with his tricorder for signs of alien life forms, he was so bored. The only stray life signs he found were small bacteria that were on the console, which the operator routinely wiped up once every ten minutes.
Just to be sure he had everything, Bones went through his little case of medical supplies that he flipped open on the ground. He checked the functionality of the equipment thoroughly.
Nothing was wrong.
The operator wasn't familiar with the good doctor's personality, though he had been to a few mandatory physicals in his time on the Enterprise. So when Bones opened his mouth, it surprised the poor lieutenant into shock.
"Damnation!" Bones thrust his black boot onto the ground with a bit more force than necessary and crossed his arms. He stood up and began pacing the length of the room. "Damn that goddamned fucker! And Jim! Ain't he got some kind of, oh, I dunno, protection against these goddamn situations? Ain't he supposed to be the goddamn Captain? Goddamn it! Fuck! Shit-for-brains numbskull! Getting himself kidnapped and shit! And that goddamn pointy-eared bastard, with all his goddamn voodoo shit! Shit! That fucking son of a bitch – "
Bones' broken communicator bleeped again.
" – And this fucking broken piece of shit won't quit fucking BEEPING!" Bones grabbed the offending piece of machinery and flung it against to wall in a fit of rage. He was still breathing hard, his shoulders completely tensed.
Then, Bones turned on the operator, who cringed into his station, trying to be invisible. It didn't work.
"And then all we have to save Jim with is another goddamn machine, one that just happens to always be on the brink of breaking down or switching his particles around in the wrong way or passing through radiation or some other shit!" Bones stomped up to the operator menacingly.
When the operator shied away, Bones spoke quietly, controlled the volume of his voice, but there was still an undercurrent of rolling rage. "Will this machine save Jim, or is it still fucking broken like it always is?"
"Uh… Yessir, checking status now, sir." The poor operator clicked some buttons hesitantly to check the status of the transporting equipment. The status popped up after a second.
After checking the results, the operator forgot he was being threatened. He sprung up to recheck the findings. Then he contacted the bridge.
"Commander Spock, the transporter is malfunctioning!"
Bones facepalmed.
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It was in the third row of boxes where Jim finally found some decent medical supplies. Cleaning some of his cuts came first, then he bandaged some of his worst injuries. He wasn't an expert in the medical field, but Jim knew enough to keep himself going; he found the hypo and the stimulant.
Now he just had to steel himself to use the shot. This was the hard part. Spock helped with that.
Fssshhhh. There, he gave himself the stimulant. He could keep fighting until his body literally broke down for a few more hours.
There was a small clink from across the unit.
Jim's ears pricked up.
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Scotty was blasting through sections of Engineering, checking on progress and asking anyone for any sign of improvement. The Enterprise had been fruitlessly working on making warp for the past ten minutes to no avail, stuck in Impulse.
The Sealion was pulling away from them.
With their Captain.
And that, Scotty could not abide.
He dove into the throng of Engineers that were trying to fix one of the converters, and pulled out a minute later. It was now working perfectly. "Git t' th' main power converter, alluv ye!"
The throng rushed to comply. Scotty ran through his decks of Engineering in desperation, trying to find the perfect solution. He had already run tests on the warp engines, and the anti-matter converter was completely shot, there was no way for anyone to fix it without some time in a shop with quite a few new parts… He had sent the engineers to do an impossible task that he could not do, and he knew it. Scotty knew that there was no way to fix that power converter…
Except…
Scotty remembered his little pet project.
The Heart.
With a mischievous grin, Scotty whisked himself across Engineering.
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The hair on the back of Jim's neck rose. He was definitely being watched. Or sensed in some way, at least.
He wondered how he hadn't noticed Finnegan open the door. He also thought he'd properly set a few nasty traps for him… Maybe Finnegan had entered another way. But how did he know where Kirk was, anyway?
Kirk slunk back into the shadows, making his way in a circle around the entire room to search for the intruder and how he got in.
He found the opening; there was an air vent that was hanging open. It was all pretty obvious, actually, now that Kirk thought about it… He should have prepared for multiple entrances. He closed the vent, locked it with a silent melting session.
But now, the time for thoughts was over; Spock warned him to be careful, and Jim agreed. But now wasn't the time for logical dissertation. They were two animals circling each other with death in their claws, and Jim knew it. This was the time for action, the time for instinct, to take over.
So he let it.
Spock put his shields up just in time.
Spock sucked in a breath in the command chair. It felt like Jim was pounding on his shields relentlessly with his adrenaline, anger, bloodlust, and everything else. Through the edges of the shield, Jim was leaking through.
Spock really had to be quick in this bond; Jim's mind was so strong. Standing up and checking the status of the pursuit again, Spock was clearly agitated.
Uhura noticed.
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Nurse Chapel had been sitting at the front desk of Sickbay for hours. She knew there was a red alert, she knew that Doctor McCoy was in the Transporter Room, she knew that the Captain was kidnapped.
She also knew that there were absolutely no patients in Sickbay, and that she was bored out of her mind.
To fit the mood, she pulled out some red nail polish and slicked it on. One by one, all of her fingers were carefully dabbed. There, with a bit of time, it'll dry. Her nails now matched the flickering light at the door. She softly blew onto them to speed up the drying process.
There were still no patients.
And then Chapel ran out of patience.
She grabbed her communicator, called on some other nurses to take her position, cashed in some favors, and finally got her way. Chapel also made sure to take a full medkit and a sedative, just in case. She made her way to the Transporter Room once her replacement showed up.
Fighting through a crowd of people in the turbolift, Chapel finally made it to the right deck. Getting past Security who were marching and taking up entire hallways, Chapel finally made it to the right door. The door swished open and she walked in.
"Doctor."
"Nurse."
The operator didn't think it was really his place to say anything, so he didn't.
"…Anything particular to report to me, Chapel?"
"No, sir. There have been absolutely no patients at Sickbay for a number of hours, and I felt that my time would be better spent as your medical assistant in the case of the Captain's return."
"Well, then." Bones sat back down. "I assume you got another nurse to take up your place?"
"Of course, sir."
"Good, good." Bones invited her to sit next to him with a gentlemanly wave of his hand. She complied.
They waited.
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Scotty got the news that the transporter wasn't working when he was digging through a pile of metal contraptions. He immediately ordered a three-man team to tackle it.
He was busy, in the moment of a brilliant idea.
He could save the Captain and the ship, all at once.
Or he could destroy both.
He needed to be careful.
Scotty grinned.
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Three red-shirted Engineers burst into the transporter room, making all three start in surprise even though they had known they were coming.
Bones stood and grabbed his case, as did Chapel. The operator, trained only as an operator, uselessly stood to the side while the pragmatic engineers took over.
They were real pros; Scotty had sent three of his best men to take on the transporter. It was truly a finnicky instrument, if Scotty was truthful; it wasn't dependable in most of these terrible situations. So he had made sure to send the best while he was busy.
They worked as a seamless team, each diligently working on some part of the same task. Each sawed off one part of the metal covering to allow wires and codes to peek out of the console. Then Lieutenant Patel, the leader of the trio, took center stage as he worked the wires through each other. Officers Leo and Renolds took position at the separate stations, monitoring progress and helping where they could. One went to manually check the pods for function before returning and switching position with the other. After ten minutes, Patel ascertained that it was time to test the transport capabilities.
They decided to at first test the machine by beaming an inanimate object to somewhere in the room. They used a piece of the metal they had burnt off the console.
It didn't work.
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Still digging through the mass amounts of metal junk around Engineering, Scotty still hadn't found his little project.
Then, looking up, he found it.
Keenser, the little bastard, had taken it, and he was currently jumping on top of a bunch of very important Engineering doohickies with the Heart in his little grubby hands!
"This isn't a playground for ye, ye li'l wrench!" Scotty called after him, trying to keep up with him by running along the Engineering floor.
Suddenly, Scotty stopped. That gave him an idea.
He picked up a small wrench and flung it at the blur that was Keenser.
Scotty heard a pathetic sounding squeal and thud. There was no more movement on top of the machines.
He climbed up on the bars, grinning.
He took back his Heart in triumph.
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Circle after circle was made in the darkness, and the ma between the two of them, these two animals, grew smaller and smaller. They knew where the other one was purely out of instinct. There were no tricks or traps, only them…
And suddenly, the two of them were face to face.
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End of Chapter 9, tbc
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Author's Note:
"Ma" is the term used to describe the distance between two fighters.
I finally got my laptop! Yay! MacBook Pro! Woot woot! Things are going to go a lot faster now. Hopefully.
I was on a car trip this weekend for the Fourth of July, and in the car I was planning the chapter sequences out. Guess what? I finished half this arc… really, less than half… and got an amazing 28 chapters roughly planned out. This is crazy, no? Looks like we'll be here a long while, because this story keeps on having something to say. It's almost ridiculous how long this will be. And yes, I plan to finish it.
Shout-out to LastResortUsername for guessing the evil kidnapper! though I think it was pretty straightforward if you watch the Original Series. Obviously it's the douche Finnegan from Shore Leave. I really hate him, so he's the evil guy. No deep reason why… or is there? Mwahahahaha!
Til next time, then… And all of you who reach this point, Review! …Please?