Liar, Murderer, Smuggler: Act III
Jim didn't necessarily blame Jaylah for wanting to be rescued, and in her defense, it wasn't as if he could have warned her not to call attention to him. Unfortunately, that would not help him in the slightest. He was going to have to think quickly if he planned to get the three of them out of this mess. Smugglers and slavers alike were staring them down, clearly suspicious of any trader a slave would call out to for rescue.
There were a startling number of Klingons in the crowd. Jim was starting to think that Starfleet Command's reasoning for not interfering on Verex had been more politically sound than he'd wanted to admit.
Doing his best to portray a suitably swarthy persona, he gave his voice as much gravel as he could and imitated Bones's good ole Southern twang. Jim thought it was passable. Bones would have threatened to strip Jim's alcohol rations on medical orders.
"Don't pay us no mind," Jim said, reaching up to scratch at his scruff. "She's just cross I let her get picked up by one of ya'll. Told her I'd space her if'n she didn't listen." Jim grimaced, hoping it seemed like an added bit of character. This is sounding way more cowboy than I was going for… He had to hope it was helping, but given the wary looks, he didn't think it was working too well. "And I reckoned this lovely madam here was lookin' for some more exotic ladies to break in…" He jabbed a thumb towards Diana, who had drawn herself up to full height and resumed the role of the confident madam. After all, he had a feeling it was much like slipping into the role of Queen of Themyscira.
The smugglers turned their attention to Diana, and immediately, Jim realized how short-sighted his plan had been. Jealousy reared up out of nowhere, twisting his stomach and making his heart race. Every one of those criminals that looked at her raked their eyes over her like animals. His hand clenched into a fist, expression shifting from the attempt at an easygoing smuggler to Jim Kirk on a mission. Jaw set, he could have been staring down a warbird again.
Diana's hand gently slipped to his, fingers brushing over his fist as if to ease it back open. The fog started to clear as he realized he had been ready to brawl over an emotion he didn't typically indulge. Not only did Jim hardly get jealous, he never got jealous enough to fight. It wasn't in him to be that possessive.
The pheromones… He realized as he noted the way they were still looking her over. He could see now that most of them had lost interest in their datapadds altogether.
"I'm sure you wouldn't mind if we take care of business with no trouble." Diana said, her voice more like a purr than he could recall ever hearing outside of the observation lounge or the gardens.
Best not to think about it too much.
He caught Diana's eye. Her gaze flicked down to the datapadd in his hand for just a moment before she turned her attention back to the smugglers.
Jim had said it many times to himself and to Bones, but she really was the most beautiful woman he'd seen in his life. And she was using that to mesmerize every scavenger male and several of the females. Jim turned back to Jaylah, dialing a bid as he gave her a sidelong glance that said Don't fight. Just hang in there.
His soon-to-be-navigational officer clamped her mouth shut, but glowered at Jim Kirk with all the ferocity he had once seen when she fought Manas.
Most of the smugglers didn't bother to bid. He had a feeling they were wondering if they could somehow convince the madam before them to accept their credits or latinum for her time instead.
Jim watched the false name he'd given start to rank higher and higher in the bidding. His fingers kept keying new bids frantically as the need climbed. "Dammit…" He hissed as someone passed him in the ranking. Another higher bid and he was back on top, but he didn't know how long it would last.
"Sold!" The slaver cried, promptly setting Jaylah on her feet.
Jim checked the name. It was his. He sighed in relief, then in that same relentless twang, motioned to Diana. "Then ya'll just give her to Madam Falashi - "
"Falashi?" The new, female voice came from a balcony somewhere to Jim's right. He turned, searching for a face to match as she kept speaking. "You have bought this slave for Falashi, the rhadaman of the Rigellian colonies?" He spotted her. An Orion woman, emerald skinned, red, wild hair, and quite well-endowed, wearing less clothes than Diana, but a bit more than the slaves. Another madam… "Then you give her to me."
"Ah…" Jim faltered, then realized their critical error. Savi was a ginger, too. Just like Galia had been. That madam was definitely Savi's mother. "This is Madam Falashi right here, as you can see - "
"I can see an impostor." The woman continued. "But, I am Madam Falashi. You have stolen my name, and now you seek to steal my wares."
Diana had since turned to face the Orion she had impersonated. Her body language had shifted from monarch to warrior. Jim had learned the distinction quite well in his brief time on Themyscira. Idly, he recalled how easily her mother had done the same. "We have no quarrel with you. But, we are going to free these slaves. All of them."
Jim did nothing less than a double-take at Diana as she simply laid out precisely how duplicitous they had been. "So much for lies being sometimes necessary, huh?" He said, brow furrowed as he dropped the accent. He sounded remarkably like the same man who had tried to give her glasses so she'd be less distracting.
She quirked an eyebrow at him, as if to subtly remind him of his promise.
"Right," Jim said, taking a step back so he was closer to her while pivoted so he could hopefully make his way to the slaver podium with ease. His hands went up into fists, the datapadd dropped to the floor and forgotten. "You heard her. We're freeing the slaves." He said to Falashi and the crowd that was slowly turning on them.
"It is my custom to offer a peaceful resolution before I liberate them." Diana remarked. He'd noticed that her gaze had remained entirely on Falashi, even as the largely male Orion population went to grab their disruptors. "I have given you two warnings. If I must give you a third, then you may be certain I will not give you time to reject a fourth."
Falashi stepped forward on the balcony, the great black dress she wore sweeping the bulkhead with practiced elegance. "And who are you that I should care for your warnings? I am the Madam of this outpost."
"I am Diana of Themyscira, daughter of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. My people broke free from our shackles of bondage. And I shall be sure to teach your victims the same."
Falashi scoffed. "No slave or trader escapes my grip. I bring them here, and I will dictate how they leave here."
"Then, you would know that you've kidnapped a Starfleet officer." Jim remarked. "And as I am Captain James T. Kirk of the Federation starship Enterprise, that is really unfortunate for you. Because, see…" He nodded towards Diana. "I'm with her. So, what she says goes."
Diana glanced over at him. The smirk that graced her features could only mean one thing.
"Kill them both! And kill the slave who led them here!" Falashi cried, enraged by the blatant ruse before her.
Disruptors went up and Jim braced himself, trying to think of the best way to get to Jaylah. He knew the chances of getting to her were slim to none. The pack of scavengers between him and the podium were thick, practically a solid wall.
Bolts of green disruptor fire erupted before them across most of the room. In a heartbeat, she was there.
Diana's arms moved seamlessly, blocking one disruptor bolt after another as she effectively covered Jim.
The scavengers panicked, breaking off in any direction they could.
Without hesitation, Diana pulled her shield - which had seemed to the slavers like a part of her armor - from under the cloak and slung it across the room. It knocked two of the slavers down with ease before returning to her.
Jim used the opportunity to take a running start for the line of guards. He dropped to his knees, sliding across the room far enough to pick up one slaver's now discarded disruptor rifle and opened fire.
"James T - " Jaylah's voice went from a frustrated cry to a strangled cough. He cut down the row of slavers that had begun firing on them, then turned his attention to Jaylah. The slaver who had held her for sale had a hand wrapped around her neck and had hoisted her off the ground.
Without hesitation and hawk-eyed, Jim leveled the disruptor and fired, knocking a control device out of his hand before landing several bolts square in his chest. The slaver dropped Jaylah as he went down like a ton of bricks.
To her credit, Jaylah effortlessly caught herself on the railing and used it to climb down before making her landing with a quick somersault to relieve the stress to her bare feet and legs. As more slavers came around the corner from the pens, Jim laid down more cover fire and spotted another disruptor rifle. Jim called her name and kicked the rifle over.
WIth ease, she had it in hand and began to take out guard after guard. Meanwhile, Jim began to make his way back towards Diana as the room filtered out to just the trio, a lot of downed guards, and slave pens.
Klaxons had gone off in the melee and Falashi had disappeared as well.
Jim glanced down at his attire and sighed. "Dammit. I ripped my shirt."
"That is not much of a shirt, Jim." Diana remarked as she placed her shield back on its hook.
"The doors!" Jaylah said, motioning to the last of the heavy bulkhead doors coming down. "They are trapping us!" A fresh bleeding cut had appeared on her arm, oozing with blue blood, but she didn't seem to care.
"Yes, but they have left us with their merchandise." Diana remarked. "Which means we have prevailed in our objective. We can free the slaves, then find a way out."
Jim didn't feel quite as optimistic as Diana did until he saw Jaylah's surprised and ultimately relieved expression towards the other woman. Jaylah wasn't easily impressed or galvanized. Diana had been able to accomplish this. "Look on the bright side, we got to you, didn't we?" He said with a grin.
Jaylah turned to face him, as if finally seeing the captain for the first time in months.
She promptly yelled at him, poking the disruptor rifle in her hand at him to emphasize her point. "Where have you been, James T! I have been trying to escape for weeks! The Academy was supposed to be safe. You and Montgomery Scotty promised!"
Even though Jim had his hands up in surrender, he was grinning from ear to ear. She hadn't changed a bit, including her preoccupation with their names. It looked like Jaylah had turned them into affectionate nicknames now. At least, he hoped so.
"He has been preoccupied with my problems as of late." Diana said, trying to help him. Jaylah lowered the rifle, then turned to regard her fully. Diana extended her hand to shake. "You fight like an Amazon, sister."
"I do not know what is Amazon, but I do know what is a crew." She turned from Diana back to Jim, not so easily dissuaded. "And you do not leave crew behind, James T. You want me for my ship, but then you did not come for weeks!"
"Jaylah, I promise, we got here as soon as we could. But, we didn't even know you were missing." Jim was entirely genuine. She had to know that. "Someone wanted to make sure we didn't find you. If you hadn't been so close with Scotty, we could've been too late." When she seemed to relent, he cracked another smile. "But, we weren't. We're going to get you out of here."
"Once we free the others." Diana reminded him, pointing to the pen. "I can open the pens with my bare hands, give me a moment." WIthout hesitation, she began to stride towards the pens.
It was Jaylah who actually reached a hand out to stop her. "There will be no escape without the collars."
"Collars?" Jim furrowed his brow in confusion.
Jaylah turned to expose her neck to them both, brandishing the thin metal collar with a large sensory device against her pulse point. "These Orions do many things to the slaves. The collar to make us agreeable. I did not agree." Jaylah said that with almost child-like petulance. "The slavers put these on and then the slaves are quiet and sad. It is like Krall's place." For a moment, Jim could see her tough mask slip. It was a moment too many as far as he concerned. He appreciated Jaylah's strength. He knew she hated to be vulnerable.
Without much concern for his own attire, he pulled off his shirt and ripped a long strip of fabric off of it, handing it to her. He didn't say why, he just motioned to her arm and continued on. "So, if we need to deactivate the collars, how do we do it?"
Jaylah took the strip of fabric and began to clean off her arm as he spoke. "I do not know. The guards mention a central control. If we can get there, I can deactivate them."
Diana nodded, then pulled her lasso free from her hook. "I will find the central control."
Ten minutes later, Diana had extracted the location of central control from the least wounded guard and then kicked through a bulkhead door.
As the trio stepped over the fallen bulkhead door into the next set of corridors, Jim couldn't help but smile over at Jaylah and quip, "Hey, at least you don't care if we're breaking this house."
This place was no less than a maze. Diana could not shake the feeling that every corridor felt like the next. It reminded her of the few times she had been in military vessels, such as aircraft carriers or submarines. It was non-descript by design and therefore, virtually impossible to navigate without some degree of familiarity.
While Diana had been able to compel the slaver to give her some idea where central control was and his familiarity with the outpost, it had not been enough to erase all doubt.
She was not prone to let heat effect her, but even she could tell that the temperature of the outpost was kept intentionally warmer than say, the Enterprise. The thin sheen of sweat on Jim's now completely bare chest certainly suggested that it was getting to him. She tried to ignore precisely how badly her mouth was itching again.
As they came to another fork in the corridors with no guards or smugglers in sight, she finally had to admit that she was doubting her own instincts. Sighing, she turned to look back at Jaylah and Jim, slightly at a loss. "This place is a maze. Each corridor looks so much like the next, I am hoping that we are moving towards the relative goal."
"If we find another guard, maybe you could…" Jim pointed to her lasso on her hip. "You know."
Diana smiled, amused by the way he still seemed rather shy about the power of that lasso. In both lives, he'd felt the compulsion of Hestia, and both times, he was left in awe and entirely unsure how to refer to it. "Yes, I do know, and believe me, if we have the opportunity, I will."
As if the thought had just occurred to him (and if the pheromones were still wreaking havoc with his body, it might have been), Jim turned to look at Jaylah, confused. "Jaylah, do you know anything about how you got here? We found your communicator and uniform in the wreck of an old slave ship."
The alien turned to face Jim, shaking her head. "I do not know how I got here, but I remember being in San Francisco. I went to get drinks after my final project. I met someone…." She frowned. "But their face is gone."
"Anything else about them? Anything at all." Jim asked.
Jaylah nodded after a moment. "Yes." She grimaced, then continued. "They wanted to congratulate me for my project. The admirals liked it. But, the voice is gone."
"What was your project exactly?" Jim crossed his arms over his chest and Diana found her eyes drifting down to the way his pectoral muscles were sculpted.
As Jaylah continued, Diana's eyes shot back up to eye-level. "I was making more of those holograms like my traps. They wanted to know how I could make the images without all of their big emitters. How I could make them solid."
"Someone was interested in your holo-technology…" Jim frowned, thoughtfully scrubbing at his scruff. "That's strange. Why would someone care that much about holo-technology to make a cadet go missing? Sounds like you were drugged."
"Maybe." Jaylah remarked, shrugging out of the corner of Diana's eye.
She was staring again and biting her bottom lip, that itch on the roof of her mouth returning in earnest. Perhaps it was the rush of adrenaline from the previous fight combined with the pheromones.
"What do you think?" Jim asked, turning to look at her. When he caught the way her eyes were distinctly not on his face, he took a step closer. "Like what you see?" He asked, only half-teasing.
"I can certainly confirm that you are still above average…" Diana said without thinking.
"James T. Diana, I know this place." Jaylah's voice came down the corridor. While she and Jim had been focused on each other, the other woman was hard at work and already on the move.
Diana turned to her left, trying to place where Jaylah had gone.
Within moments, they had caught up to her at the end of one of the corridors. Jaylah stood before a large viewport with a perfect vantage point to the docking bays on one side of the outpost. "When I was first brought here, they came and took me from a ship." Jaylah pointed down to one of the bays, then ran her hand across the glass, tracing a path towards a door on the far end. "That door leads to processing. The collars go on and then they take you to put in pens."
Diana glanced over at her, touched and deeply troubled that this girl could speak of such atrocities with ease. Scotty had mentioned that Jaylah had been forced to fend for herself on Altamid. In that moment, Diana could see how that had shaped her. It was the same kind of trauma that Steve had gripped so tightly to in a way Jim never did. The trauma that defined them and threatened to make that the sum of their parts.
"Well, that sounds a lot like your central processing." Jim remarked at Diana's other shoulder. "But, we're not going to get very far once we shut it down if they're waiting for us here." He was watching the Orion slavers as they patrolled the ships, ensuring that as Falashi had promised: no ships left without her say. He turned to face the others, motioning ahead of them. "Look, you two keep going to central processing. I'm going to find a way back down to bay 10, see if I can get the ship secured before you free everyone."
"No," Diana immediately replied. "No, we should stay together. I had to block disruptor fire for you once already."
"And I appreciate that, but I am a fully trained captain of a starship, I know how to get out of a jam."
"I have tried this jam." Jaylah remarked, clearly perplexed. "Does that not mean to be in it would make you sticky?"
Judging from the confused look on Jim's face, Diana quickly realized that Jaylah was teasing him. Her unique way of recognizing English and the look on the captain's face suggested that her dissecting a metaphor was someone new for him.
"Well… yeah, but that's not really the point I was going for." He finally replied, then waved her off. "Look, point being, you two are completely capable of getting to processing control. Jaylah, I've seen what you can do, and I have no doubt you can figure out how to shut those collars down."
"You don't even have a shirt!" Diana pointed out.
"Really, Diana? You think a shirt is what I need right now?" Jim fired back.
Yes. Her mind fervently cried, hoping the damnable itching would go away and that she could focus on the task at hand.
Diana furrowed her brow, prepared to argue with him once again. But, she knew that he had already made up his mind. While she didn't agree, she reminded herself that she had made the promise to trust him. She did it in Delphi, she would do it here. Sighing, she nodded. "Very well. But, be careful."
The captain smiled at them both, but his eyes lingered on Diana far longer before he finally turned to go. "I'm the captain, I'm always careful!" He called back as he jogged down the other fork in the road.
Once he disappeared out of sight, Jaylah propped her disruptor rifle on her hip before turning to Diana. "He is not careful." She simply remarked, then turned towards their path.
As the hour wore on, Diana was never more relieved to see symbols indicative on the walls of the central processing room. She knew the phrase of characters in the Orion alphabet only from the lasso's blessing, but both she and Jaylah crept through the corridors with a level of battle readiness and brief familiarity. Jaylah knew it as the enslaved, Diana from the mind of one of the slavers.
While she was not necessarily against comfortable silence, time spent away from Jim had allowed her head to clear for the first time in hours. Diana found people to be attractive, human and alien alike. But, what drew her to someone was the heart and mind. That was how she knew that the Orion pheromones were at work to amplify the natural attraction she had felt.
Recognizing that Jaylah was as talented as any Amazon with a quick wit, but that incessant itching had not returned, told Diana that the pheromones were hard at work on only physical attraction and - as she could have guessed - only with members of the opposite sex.
That meant she could focus on getting to know Jaylah.
"So, I take it you're familiar with Jim's unique ability to walk headfirst into trouble." Diana remarked as they turned a corridor and continued onward.
Jaylah scoffed, suggesting that there were stories underneath that sound. "James T. set off my traps. He says he is very smart, but he is not smart about his own health."
Diana laughed. "Yes, unfortunately, I think it's an innate affliction of his."
Jaylah furrowed her brow, glancing over at Diana. There was no malice, just genuine curiosity. "I do not know what is 'A Nate' affliction."
Diana smiled, shaking her head, more than happy to explain. "Innate. A natural personality trait. I have spent months with Jim, but… let us say I know him as well as he knows himself." Aside from Doctor McCoy and Spock, the senior staff still didn't know that Jim was Steve reborn. It was an unnecessary level of complication. They had been told the two neural patterns had been resolved. Diana saw no reason to muddy those waters by trying to explain it to Jaylah. "And he naturally gravitates towards trouble."
She nodded. "He is trouble. But, I like James T. He and Montgomery Scotty helped me go to Starfleet Academy." Jaylah frowned. "They helped me leave that terrible place. Krall's place." She hesitated again, before forcing the word out. "Altamid." It reminded Diana of the sacred rites of the priesthood. To say a thing's name gave it power… or took it away. Jaylah was reclaiming the name for herself.
"Mister Scott told me that you had been on your own when he found you." Diana replied as a polite out for Jaylah.
She chose not to take it. "Yes. My family were killed by Krall. When I found Montgomery Scotty, his crew had been taken as well. He taught me what is a crew. A family." The woman turned and paused as they reached the next fork in the road, checking the corners before continuing on. "They are all I have. I was worried they would not come fast enough."
"But, you knew they would come. And they did, the moment they knew you were missing." Diana smiled, then reached out to gently rest her hand on Jaylah's shoulder. When the other woman looked at her, she furrowed her pronounced brow. "You are as much of the crew as Chekov, even in his new posting half a quadrant away."
Jaylah smiled softly, a moment of vulnerability that warmed Diana's heart. This woman had seen unspeakable hardship, but she still had a great heart. "Thank you, Diana. It is not easy to make new family."
"I understand." She replied. The two of them began to walk once more, and Diana found her thoughts drifting back to her island, to her mother. To Bruce and Lois… "Much of my family is gone." She offered to Jaylah by way of sympathy. "I am fortunate, there are many who are still alive and well, but there are friends and family that I lost. And all I have left of them are my memories." As they spotted another sign and kept heading towards the control room, Diana found an uneasy weight beginning to settle in her stomach. The longer she thought of Bruce and Barry, of her mother and Antiope, she felt the grief slowly welling up from the carefully hidden spaces in her heart for them.
That grief would never leave her. Guinan was right: She could make new places for new lovers and friends.
But, it did not change that there would always be empty rooms within that great palace.
One day, Jim's smooth charisma and easy smile would be housed in one of those empty rooms.
And there was the crux of the matter. Diana could learn to take the blessing of Steve's second chance, to live a full life with Jim Kirk. But, it would be his full life. Hers would continue on. Forever. Without him.
Could she really do that to herself again?
"Here." Jaylah picked up the pace, snapping Diana out of her reverie. She pointed with the disruptor rifle to the placard on the bulkhead door. "Central processing. The collar control will be in here."
"So it will be heavily guarded." Diana said, pulling the shield from her hook again. Jim and Jaylah had become comfortable with disruptors. Diana did not need such things. "Ready?"
Jaylah pressed up against the wall alongside the door, hugging cover as she nodded to the Amazon. With a quick move of her hand, Jaylah smacked the door control.
The doors opened quickly, and Diana raced into the control room just as the guards pulled their weapons. Shift held aloft, she braced herself against a hailfire of disruptor bolts. Grunting, she held fast. "Now, Jaylah!" She ordered, sparing a glance back at the door.
Jaylah whipped around the corner and fired off a couple of bolts, then stepped closer to Diana to keep going. Together, the women were an obstacle the guards couldn't overcome. Diana took the fire and Jaylah popped up over Diana's shield, picking off each guard until the last of them fell.
As the last guard dropped like a stone, Diana lowered her shield and Jaylah shut and locked the door again. Putting her shield away, she strode over and gently kicked one of the slavers with her boot to see if he would awake. He groaned and remained otherwise still.
Jaylah had found a console and was frantically typing on the main display. "I can find the override for the collars. But, the guards are back on patrol. See?" Jaylah motioned to one of the monitors while she kept at it.
Diana stepped closer and scowled as watched the monitor. The same slavers that they had incapacitated earlier were now getting back up on the auction floor. With the guards in place, any work done to free the slaves would be for naught if they were still unarmed and weak. "How can we help the others? Is there an armory of some kind?"
Jaylah paused at the suggestion, thinking it over. "Yes. Yes, there is." She said, making her way to a different console and beginning to type. When something chirped at her, she swore colorfully in her native language and bent down, ripping free a few tubes. "I can override all of the door controls when I turn off the collars. But, they will be quick." She finished connecting a few tubes, then stood back up. The console chirped affirmatively now, instead of locking her out. "Here is the armory." She pointed to the map, then touched a few buttons. "And now the collars are off."
Another quick dance of her fingers and the metal collar around Jaylah's neck suddenly unlocked, falling off of her with ease. On the monitor, the slaves began to rise and gesture to one another as their collars started to fall. The door controls suddenly flashed from red to green, signalling they were open.
"Many may die, but it is better to die free than to live a slave."
For some reason, entirely unbidden, Diana found herself recalling one of her first conversations with Jim after they had gone to the Yorktown. Just after Pavel had left the ship and they had shared what would become one of many heart to hearts over the months. It had been one of the first times that Diana felt herself truly seeing Jim for himself, even while Steve's ghost flashed before her.
She had seen Jim Kirk, the captain, the defender of the Federation.
Better to die saving lives, than to live with taking them.
Jim was not afraid to die. And he was alone on the other side of the outpost. And now, Diana was worried for him all over again.
She didn't care to see the slaves die, either.
Diana motioned to the armory schematic. "We must arm them. Find us a route to the armory and then to the auction floor. Once those have the weapons needed, they can take the outpost, but we will not abandon them to this."
Jaylah nodded, excited for the prospect of paying back the animals who had done this.
Her communicator chirped suddenly. She rifled through her cloak to find it, then flipped it open with ease. "Jim?"
"I take it you made it to the central processing center." Jim sounded as though he was trying to be quiet, clandestine.
"Yes." She replied, making her way back over to the monitor. She looked at the display, slightly lost, then tried to recall what buttons Jaylah had pressed to change the view. No luck. "We've opened the cells and removed the collars. We're on our way to the armory, then we will double back for you."
"I appreciate that, as I'm sure this quiet won't last long here. The guards just started scrambling." Jim paused for a moment. "You know, if I'm still captain after this, this is definitely one of those stories I plan to tell everyone. Although, it's not quite as funny as Sammy pretending to be my driver, that was a good one. This one I can tease Jaylah about, too - "
Jim's voice suddenly cut out. Disruptor fire filled the comm line.
"Jim?" She called, trying to hear him over the disruptor fire. "Jim!"
The communicator went dead.