To The Journey

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This is an AU story.

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Earth In Peril

"What is it? What's going on?" Tasha didn't even wait until she was fully out of the turbolift to ask, waving the graveyard shift tactical officer away as she took her station.

Picard's face was drawn. "I just got word. The Breen have attacked Earth."

For an instant, the bridge was still and so quiet they could have heard a pin drop. Everyone was silently trying to process what they'd just been told. The news that the Breen had allied with the Dominion hadn't been good, but no one had expected this.

Tasha looked to her husband, half-expecting him to be the voice of reason as he had been so often, to say something. But she realized her mistake as soon as she looked at him. His emotions were still far newer than anyone else's. He was probably working twice as hard to process what he'd just heard.

Tasha swallowed hard and forced herself to speak instead. "What's the status of the conflict?"

"Starfleet's sending everything they've got, including us. Ground and orbital defenses have already been mobilized." The rest of the crew seemed to relax a little, finding comfort in the familiarity of the briefing. "Their target appears to be Starfleet Headquarters. Civilians and non-essential personnel are being evacuated from all likely target areas as we speak, unfortunately the Breen ships are preventing a full planetary evacuation. The best they can do is get as many people as possible to cover."

"What's our assignment?" Tasha asked almost on autopilot.

"We don't have one, per se. The situation keeps changing. We're supposed to meet the fleet at Earth. From there, we'll be issued orders. We may, however, also be expected to take some action without orders. Our priority is to protect the population. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," everyone replied somberly. They were all afraid of what they would find.

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"You should go too." Captain Scott faced the youngest member of his team - of his entire command, for that matter - as the people around them hurried to the transporter pads and the exits to evacuate.

"Captain," she said simply, "you are allowing your emotions to override your judgment. You have said yourself that I am one of the most competent engineers you have." Actually he'd used words far more complimentary than that, but she only wanted to get the point across, not boast about her abilities. "I have also been trained in tactical skills and combat more than most. This is a key facility, you cannot argue that fact. The effort would be best served by my remaining here." She met his eyes. "If you order me to go, I will. But I am asking you not to give that order."

The aging Scottish man let out a long sigh. "All right. Stay. But dinna make me regret this."

"I will endeavor to perform my duties adequately."

He nodded, but once she was out of his office he slumped a little in his chair. "That's not what I meant."

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What struck Tasha most upon landing was the sheer amount of chaos. She'd never seen this sort of thing on Earth before.

The second thing that struck her was the nature of the chaos. She'd spent years of her life around chaos, but most of that had had some military aspect to it, people killing each other. Everyone here seemed only to be scrambling to find their loved ones, or to tend the injured, or assess the damage. She had been told once that crisis could bring out the best as well as the worst in people. Watching this, she didn't doubt it.

By the time they had arrived at Earth, the battle had been all but over. The Breen hadn't been able to stand against what Starfleet had been able to amass, and most of their ships had been destroyed with relatively minimal casualties to Starfleet personnel on board ships. But the damage was done. The Golden Gate Bridge boasted a gaping hole and Starfleet headquarters had been decimated. She felt sick thinking of how many people might have been in there. She only hoped that hadn't happened early on, that they'd had enough warning to evacuate.

Comm systems were down all over the planet, overloaded with the sheer magnitude of transmissions, everyone trying to make sure their family was okay.

"Tasha!"

She heard the voice and turned to see Jim Kirk running her way, fast. She picked up a pace to match his and met him halfway, throwing herself willingly into his arms. As they had both been in space, there wasn't actually that much to have been scared of when it came to each other, but emotions were running high on all sides.

"God, you're okay," she whispered when she could talk again.

"So are you." He held her for a minute more before he let her go. "I'm still trying to find -"

"Your old crew," she finished for him. "Do you know who was on Earth?"

He nodded, pain he was trying desperately to hide creasing his face. "All of them," he said brokenly. "Spock, Bones, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura - all of them."

She hugged him again, this time to comfort him. "Your friends are tough. You have to believe it's going to be okay."

"Easy for you to say."

"No, it's not. I'm talking to myself as much as I'm talking to you. My sister's down here somewhere. But if I let myself expect the worst, I'm not sure I could handle it."

"That's fair." He let her hold him for a moment more before pulling back. "I'm going to keep looking, but, uh, I'll find you later. If they fix the comm system, I'll call you."

"Okay."

He hurried off and she turned back towards the members of her crew that hadn't scattered to join the frenzy yet, just in time to see Deanna embracing a younger girl. She was just close enough to hear her friend say "I thought you were still on Betazed."

She shook her head. "Where have you been? My family moved to Deneva something like a year after you left for the Academy."

"Not on Betazed. Mostly avoiding my mother." Deanna giggled a little but it was tinged with grief. "What are you doing on Earth, anyway?"

"Looking for my sister-in-law. Last we heard she was on Earth."

"Are you two close?" Deanna asked, and Tasha didn't need to be an empath to know she was glad to shift the focus from herself and her own family.

The woman made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. "Until yesterday, I didn't even know I had one. Two years we've been married, and I always assumed it was just him and his two brothers. Then I'm watching a news broadcast about the Breen attack and he suddenly says we have to pack up and go to Earth to find his sister." She shrugged her shoulders. "So here we are. And I have no clue how he intends to find her. I certainly can't. Even if I was familiar with her I couldn't find one mind in this morass, and there's no point in even trying since I have no clue what I'd be looking for. But I had to come. It was hard enough not being able to go to my family on Betazed. I wasn't going to make him wait."

A dark-skinned, Vulcan man appeared at the woman's shoulder as if out of nowhere. "Ione," he said simply.

"She's not on the list?"

"No."

The relief that crossed the woman's face told Tasha that the list in question was the list of confirmed deceased. "That's good anyway, right?"

"It means very little, as the list is rather constantly being revised," he replied in the composed, Vulcan way she had suspected he would. "To find her listed would be bad news. Anything else is inconclusive."

"And these are the moments where I'm keenly reminded I married a Vulcan." Ione raised her eyebrows a little. But the man's attention had been focused elsewhere. It took Tasha only a few seconds to realize he was looking right at her.

"Excuse me. Is there something I can help you with?"

"Do you know where my sister is?" he asked bluntly.

She did a bit of a double take. "I'm sorry?"

"If anyone would know, it would most likely be you."

"I'm sorry," she said again. "I don't even know who you are."

"Of course, my apologies. It has been some time. I am Elieth."

This took Tasha aback even further. "My God. It has been awhile."

She had never been close to Tuvok's sons, and she hadn't seen any of them at all since she had left the Academy. It was no wonder she hadn't recognized him.

"My sister," he pressed. "Do you know where she is?"

"I'm trying to figure that out myself. I'll find you when I know something."

xxxxxxxxx

The room was littered with Breen corpses.

That was the first thing Montgomery Scott realized when he walked into the reactor room. He was still trying to account for his own people, but he couldn't figure out how all those soldiers had died. Only five other people had stayed behind, two had already been accounted for, and had been nowhere near the reactor room, and he doubted three people could have taken down this many Breen. Not only that but some of the armor seemed to be melted. No one under his command would risk a firefight with weapons turned up high enough to do that so close to the reactor.

Carefully stepping over and around the bodies, he hurried to check the reactor that powered the facility. Most likely the Breen had been looking to tamper with it, to blow the entire building, and just because they hadn't succeeded didn't mean it was fully stable.

He frowned when he stumbled over something at the base of the reactor, glancing down to check what it was. It wasn't a Breen, he would have seen the armor well before he'd tripped over it.

Then he saw it, and he felt his heart clench in despair. "No. Oh, God, no."

The young Vulcan woman he'd worked beside for years lay motionless at the base of the reactor. The left side of her face was horribly burned. He pulled her out from under the reactor, heedless of her injuries, but she didn't even stir. Her chest wasn't rising and falling. Panicked, he felt around her neck. No, please, no.

Then he felt it. The slightest beat of a pulse. It was weak and irregular but it was there. And then it all came together. She must have triggered some sort of shock pulse in the reactor, thus killing the Breen all in one shot. She wouldn't have been able to get out of the room in time, certainly not if she had to fight her way out, so she had crawled underneath the reactor, attempting to use its own shielding to maximize her chance of survival. Though she's no fool, he thought, feeling his heart break a little more. She must have known her chances weren't good.

But he couldn't keep wallowing. She'd survived this far; her best chance was if he could get her immediate medical attention. It was clear she was too far gone to feel pain so he just gathered her into his arms and sprinted for the nearest transporter pad, whispering to her with what breath he could spare. "Hold on, lassie, hold on, you'll be all right, just hold on."

Starfleet Medical was teeming with so many people it was a miracle they all fit in the building, but it was clear they'd set themselves up to handle the load they were getting.

Scott stopped just long enough to verify that she still had a pulse before waving for a doctor. "She has a pulse but she's not breathing," he explained in a rush to the woman who hurried up to them and helped him ease Asil onto a mobile table.

"How long has she been without oxygen?"

"I dinna know. I only found her a minute or two ago, but heaven knows how long she was there before I did."

"Okay, okay. Can you provide her name, rank, and service number for identification purposes?"

He rattled off the information and she hurriedly typed it onto a PADD. "Is she - is she gonna be okay?" he asked.

"I can't provide information on her condition until I run some tests, and I don't think it's in her best interests for me to take the time to do that now. We'll be placing her on the injured list as soon as possible, and you can find information about her condition there. Now, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave. We can't have extra people around, we're just too busy."

"I understand." His accent was thick from his emotions. He squeezed Asil's hand. "You pull through for me, Lieutenant. That's an order."

xxxxxxxxx

Jim almost felt his knees give way under him when he saw the large figure moving in his direction. "Scotty! Scotty!"

The engineer seemed to snap out of his daze. "Jim!"

Kirk hugged the man, and Scotty accepted the embrace gratefully. His emotions were all over the place after seeing his protegee so badly hurt.

"Have you seen anyone else?" Jim asked after a moment's silence. "I'm still trying to find the rest of our old crowd."

Scotty shook his head. "I just came from Engineering Corps, and I'm headed back now. Cleanup. I had to bring one of my engineers in." He nodded towards Starfleet Medical in the background.

"You okay?" Jim had finally figured out that something was off with his friend.

"I'm not sure." He let out a slow breath. "The girl who was hurt today - I tried to convince her to leave. She said she'd go if I ordered her to, but asked me not to." He blinked back tears. "I'm not even sure she's going to live. I should've given the damn order. She'd be fine now if I had."

"I'm sorry." He squeezed his friend's shoulder. "But it's not your fault. That's what command decisions are about. It's never easy, and no matter what you decide there's always something that could go wrong."

"Well, who ever decided I should be in command?"

Jim laughed a little despite himself. "No one ever said it was easy."

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Tasha jumped a mile when her PADD started beeping. She'd set it to automatically and continuously scan all available lists for certain names, specifically Asil and anyone with the surname of Paris as well as the married names of both of Tom's sisters and their children. Julia and Natalia Paris had both been placed on the list of confirmed survivors, much to her relief. But this time it was flashing Casualty List; Match; Injured.

At least it isn't the list of the deceased. Drawing a breath, she pressed the button to open the file.

Asil, Lieutenant, was the first thing on the page, followed by a service number she barely registered. Location: Starfleet Medical. Condition: Critical.

Tasha felt her heart sink as she collapsed to her knees, holding the PADD to her chest. "God," she whispered as if the Vulcan girl could hear her. "What did you do to yourself?"

She gathered her strength and stood. She didn't think she could talk, so she tapped out a message to Deanna to get in contact with her friend and tell the woman that her sister-in-law was at Starfleet Medical.

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"Can I help you?"

Tasha turned to look at the woman beside her. The woman couldn't be any older than twenty, and was attired in the blue version of a cadet's uniform. Probably pre-med. It made sense. Starfleet Medical would have been pulling in everyone with any medical training to free up the more experienced staff for the things only they could do. She looked just a little familiar, but Tasha brushed it aside. "I'm here to see my sister, she's in critical care." She figured she'd get better results if she claimed to be immediate family, not that it was really a lie anyway.

"Okay, sure. You can come with me."

Tasha followed the woman up to the critical care ward, stopping behind her when she stopped to grab a roster. "What did you say your sister's name was?"

"I didn't." Tasha swallowed, hoping the woman wouldn't send her away when she figured out the truth. "Her name's Asil."

The woman glanced down at the roster, and a look of surprise and something else Tasha couldn't identify crossed her face when she saw the patient description. "Uh huh." She raised her eyebrow. "You really thought you could get all the way up here without anyone figuring it out?"

Tasha shrugged a little. "I hoped so, I guess. But I didn't lie; she is my sister."

The younger woman smiled a little now. "Lucky for you, you happened to run into me, and I get it, the whole family is more than blood thing. I'm adopted," she added at Tasha's inquiring glance. "Same species, but once you accept that DNA isn't everything it doesn't really matter how closely related you are or aren't. Just don't get me in trouble, okay?"

"I won't."

"Through here."

Tasha's breath caught in her throat when she saw Asil. The girl lay still in her bed, a mask over her face hooked up to a tube and a drip connected to her right arm. The skin on her left arm and the left side of her face was patchy and uneven. "What's wrong with her?"

The woman took up the chart. "Third and fourth-degree burns to thirty-two percent of her body. Doctors have already cloned and placed grafts. Oxygen deprivation for an undetermined amount of time, but there doesn't appear to be any significant brain damage."

Tasha let out a breath. "That's good, anyway. What are her chances?"

"Chart doesn't say, and I'm not qualified to make an estimate. I'm sorry, but I really should get back to my post before they miss me."

"No, that's all right, I understand. Just - can you tell me your name?"

She shrugged. "Don't know how much good it will do you, seeing as they're likely to take us pre-med cadets off the rotation as soon as everything's under control, but I'm Jessica Marinette. Call me Jess, though, everyone does."

"Jess."

She stopped just before she would have triggered the automatic door. "Yeah?"

"Thanks."

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"Jim."

It wasn't a shout, not exactly. But for him, that voice could cut through pretty much every background noise in the galaxy. He turned and completely unabashedly hugged his oldest friend. "Spock." He couldn't get out more than that one word, whispered into the Vulcan's shoulder as relief poured through him. "Spock."

He realized at some point that he was crying, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Losing any of his crew, especially after having lost Chekov and Chapel while he was in the Nexus, would have been devastating, but losing Spock was the second most painful thing he had ever experienced only because he'd lost his son not a month later. He didn't think he could go through it again.

"I talked to Scotty, he's fine, if a little worked up over someone under his command who got hurt," he reported once he had regained power of speech.

Spock nodded once in acknowledgment. "And I had cause to cross paths with Admiral Sulu. We were unable to converse for any length of time, but he is alive. I have also located Doctor McCoy's name on a list of confirmed survivors. His identity was noted when he volunteered to assist in treating casualties."

Jim sagged even more as a fresh wave of relief washed over him and might have actually collapsed if Spock's arms hadn't been around him. "I've been so worried," he gasped.

"As I suspected you would be."

"We have to find Uhura still." He allowed his one remaining worry to be voiced, even though it cut into that blissful sense of relief.

"Logic would suggest that the more promptly we begin the search, the sooner we are likely to find her."

He grinned. "Yes, Mr. Spock. Logic would seem to suggest that. Let's get to it."

The scenario in this chapter comes from the DS9 episode The Changing Face of Evil, but all of the dialogue and most of the specifics came out of my own head. The only things I borrowed were the idea of the Breen attacking Earth and the bit about the Golden Gate Bridge and Starfleet HQ.

I had to include some of the interpersonal scenes with the TOS characters, partly for a particular reader who I know to be a big TOS fan but also after seeing Into Darkness twice (which has less to do with me being a fangirl and more with me knowing two groups who wanted to see it and couldn't be merged) and watching how well the characters play off each other.

The name Elieth for Tuvok's third son is given in expanded universe, as is the idea of him marrying a Betazoid named Ione Kitain.

The Jessica Marinette character does eventually have more of a role to play in the story, but not for awhile.

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