To Save Today: Act IV
Author's Note: As before, Age of Wonder will experience a network preemption for the holiday, as i will be travelling across the country and completely not available to post! Plus, I imagine a lot of you will be travelling for the holidays, too, and seeing family/friends/MOVIES! When I come back on January 3rd, I will begin the New Year with the STUNNING, ACTION-PACKED, TWO-PART CONCLUSION OF AGE OF WONDER!
Again, thank you so much to everyone who's been going on this journey with me! I promised angst with a happy ending, and you will get that happy ending!
The warbird's sickbay thrummed around her, an uneasy cadence that did nothing to shake the images of death and torture from Diana's mind. She hoped to find comfort in Jim's eyes, in his safety… it seemed to come at a price.
Diana had seen the look on Jim's face before. Not on his, but on many members of her team over the years. Kal, Barry, and Bruce…
In battles against demons and mythical creatures, they let her work uninhibited. But, when they saw their enemy as too close to human, she and Arthur had taken actions the others would not. They were both warriors, yet Arthur never faced half as much scrutiny as Diana had for her actions. She knew, as well-meaning as it was, it was a misconception from the rest of the League that because the Amazons strove for peace that they did not understand the price of that goal. To put it politely: she was not afraid to kill. She had argued with Bruce on the subject many times. The Joker's horrors upon Gotham took far more lives than Diana would have ever permitted.
As Jim's eyes scanned the corpse of his own torturer, she was poignantly reminded that no matter the time, Men did not understand the heart of the Amazon. No matter how many times and ways she tried to explain, the emotions were still the same.
Confusion, relief, shock… and an element of dismay. Jim had seen her slay enemies in battle before. She had a feeling it was more the state of her apparel and the fact that she had killed the "doctor" for the sins Jim couldn't see just as much as the ones he knew that bothered him.
She had to believe he would understand. She knew Steve did. In fact, he had understood too well.
Diana crossed over to him, snapping apart the wrist and chest restraints that kept him bound to the biobed. The monitors began to whine. With ease, she smashed her hand through the small display until the incessant squealing ceased.
Once free, she slipped her hands under his back to help him sit up, then to his feet. He had torn his gaze away from the body on the floor and instead looked to her. Given the way his eyes didn't want to focus, she had a feeling he was suffering from a concussion.
"We need to get you out of here," She muttered, bringing a hand up to touch his cheek. She only hesitated when she realized she was filthy. "What have they done to you?" She breathed as she tried to help him out of the bed.
"I've had worse," He groaned, almost dismissive.
No sooner than she got him to his feet, he actually swooned towards her, and she held him fast. That was when she noticed that his ears were covered in blood. It took her a moment to recognize that the Tal Shiar had been surgically removing the modifications McCoy had made to him, piece by piece.
There was a sizeable stab wound in his shoulder as well from a surgical blade, now discarded on the floor.
He didn't seem to care. Instead, he took hold of her wrist and pulled her close, expression severe. "Diana." He ground out. "Don't make me ask you again. What the hell did you do?"
"Exactly what you asked me to. I was the Trojan horse." She replied, frowning a bit that he seemed to be less than understanding.
"I know I asked for a rescue, but you're covered in blood." He said, as if that should explain all of it. "And not just theirs. Your arms…"
Diana scanned his face, recognizing the change in his emotions. He wasn't dismayed, he was worried. He was looking at her as if he'd somehow asked for her to unleash something he didn't have a right to.
"They were going to kill the crew before we got to Romulus." She finally replied, reaching up to brush a strand of hair out of his face. "Jim, I did what I had to. They would have tortured you, maybe Spock. I returned the violence they delivered back to me." She caught his eyes, forcing him to acknowledge what she was saying. "I spared the ones that put down their arms. I'm not an animal, but I will not sacrifice even one of our crew to them."
Jim's eyes slowly widened as he processed her meaning and relaxed a bit. He released her wrist, only for his hands to brush down her arms. It was clear he wanted to wipe the charred bits of black off of her, but didn't know where to start. "I get that. I've had to put down people before. I just didn't expect you to take on the whole ship."
"I haven't. Just the ones that got in my way to you." She reminded him. "And that number will grow if we do not get to Spock and get off this ship. Sulu's issued a distress call in the hopes that a ship near the Zone will be able to help us get back across the border."
Jim pursed his lips, then slowly moved to steady himself again from another wave of nausea. When she offered silently to help him, he politely declined with a curt shake of his head. "Guess Kent was right. I don't have to worry about my career after pulling another stunt like this."
"That only depends on what you learned." Diana said, reaching down to take his hand in hers without thinking. "I could tell you found something the moment you looked at me on the bridge."
He nodded, reaching over to brush some of the grit off of her arm. "I did. But, you're not gonna like it."
Diana looked at him questioningly, but was only answered with him pulling her towards the dimly lit medical office. Once they were inside, he shut and locked the door behind them.
"The whole reason I got caught was because I was in here…" Jim was searching the room as he spoke, his hands feeling along the console. She recognized the gesture from one she'd done countless times. He was searching for something hidden along the edges. "The transponder signals we keep seeing everywhere? Definitely our spy. Spock was going to pull as many records as he could get that went directly to Commander Linvah, but the Sub-Commander, Tal, the guy you… dispatched... " Jim paused in his movements as he searched further back and under the console. Grunting slightly, he struggled for a moment before they both heard the resounding click of an old switch. "He was also getting data."
"Data?" She helped him back to his feet in spite of his protests. "Not communiques?"
Jim nodded, then motioned to the console as it went dead, then lit back up as if being booted to a completely different operating system. "I'd just found the switch before they spotted me and dragged me to the bridge for the dog and pony show. But, looks like they've been getting sent a series of surveillance files. And I'm starting to wonder if She-Wolf isn't the spy, but the project..."
Diana's eyebrow arched as Jim bent over the console a bit to activate a series of files. "What kind of project?" She had hoped that the She-Wolf was perhaps a reference to a female spy. Until Uhura could confirm the transponder signals, Conner was still the foremost suspect on Jim's mind.
JIm glanced over at Diana, clearly hesitant. He looked as if he was still debating telling her whatever was on his mind, but after a long moment, he finally nodded and turned back to the console. He had apparently made the decision not to repeat past mistakes. "The kind you're really not going to like."
The surveillance footage had been badly damaged. Whether that was from the technology they were using to view, or if it was more because of the degradation in long-range communications, she had no way of knowing.
But, she recognized what they were seeing. Rather… who.
And Diana's heart immediately clenched.
"Vanessa…" She breathed.
She was strapped to a biobed, just as Jim had been only moments ago, but she seemed to be sedated. The camera that had recorded the images must have been in the upper corner of the ceiling, casting down to the unwilling actors for the play below.
"Status, Doctor." The voice that filtered over was instantly recognizable. She'd been trying to reach him for weeks. Admiral Hackett stepped into view, watching as another Starfleet officer - the doctor in question - leaned forward to check Vanessa's pupils. The doctor seemed familiar somehow, although Diana knew it had to be coincidence. She couldn't have known the woman.
"She's remained sedated, but we can't remove the implants. Every time we try, the programming reasserts itself. Borg nanotechnology is quite insidious. The nanoprobes have adapted to the serum. We can't reach the patient's psyche." Diana swallowed down a sudden lump in her throat. The timestamp in the upper right corner of the screen indicated that they had been en route to Delphi. Perhaps that was why he had gone silent. If they couldn't determine how to wake Vanessa...
"Keep trying." Hackett said, watching the woman as she slept. "Did Watchtower's records help at all?"
"There are no surviving records regarding this … anti-Life equation, but the anecdotal evidence suggests that the Borg are the natural progression of such an equation." The doctor continued on, dauntless. "There's more of her that's Borg than Amazon, you realize. I may not ever be able to save her. We lack the kind of technology that created Cyborg. What you're asking for is a lot more work than - "
"I promised someone we'd protect her." Hackett remarked. "But, that's only if there's anything of her left in there. Find a way to get past the code, Doctor."
"Understood, Admiral."
The file stopped playing.
"They knew about the Borg because they knew about Darkseid, about the League…" Jim said softly, filling in the blanks for her. "That's why Hackett was waiting for us on the Yorktown. They must have been tipped off the moment I made my first log entry."
"He promised he'd protect her." She said.
"And I think he was." Jim leaned forward to pull another one up, queuing it for playback.
"Was?" Diana barely breathed before he motioned for her to watch.
The timestamp was a few days later. Vanessa was still strapped to the bed, sedated. The doctor was in the process of examining the Borg technology fashioned into a replacement arm.
Diana's heart sank, and she reached out beside her to brush her fingers against Jim's hand. As if he knew she needed the brief support, he took her hand and held it tight as the doctor kept working.
"Doctor." The voice was distorted, too modified for Diana to tell the gender or even species. It wasn't one she recognized. "Progress report."
"Progress is steady, Admiral. The samples we acquired from the organic storehouses at the Millennium Gate facility were quite satisfactory." As the doctor spoke, Diana furrowed her brow as she recognized the location.
"The Millennium Gate, that's where Kal settled the Kandorians after we restored the city…" While meant to be a civic environment that was self-sustaining and the height of technology, the facility had secrets acquired by Kryptonians and the League. "A.R.G.U.S. stored a number of things there, including technology not for human hands."
"The sample has integrated with the host technology perfectly. The nanoprobes are now completely integrated with the organic tissue.. I don't want to get too technical, but with the Starro's invasive genetic structure has allowed for 80% of the Amazon's bio-mass to be converted or assimilated by the Borg nanoprobes."
"Starro?" Diana blurted out, her heart jumping to her throat. Without thinking, she pulled her hand free from Jim's. She didn't want to be touched, she had to think, and there was no time.
The doctor looked up towards something out of the camera's view, but it was the first time Diana had a good look at the face. "She's remarkably resilient," The woman finished, almost surprisingly gleeful.
"By the gods…" She breathed, leaning forward. "She looks so much like her…"
"Glad to hear it, Doctor Anderson. Your family's service to Starfleet has always been appreciated."
The doctor nodded, then reached up to toy with something on her ear that Diana had not been able to see before in the prior file.
And then Diana knew.
The file stopped playback. Diana's hands clutched at the edges of the console so hard she heard the metal strain and then finally dent. Her heart pounded in her ears, blood rushing through her senses as she tried to ignore the impending feeling of panic.
"Woah, hey…" Jim reached up to take her wrists gently. "Diana, don't break the evidence."
"Leslie Anderson…" Diana breathed, shaking her head. "No, no, I watched her die. I saw her plummet to her death. How could she still be alive?"
Jim tried to pull her hands away, but she held fast. It wasn't until he shifted so she had to look him in the eye that he spoke again. "Diana, that woman on the screen can't be the same woman you knew centuries ago."
Diana's eyes widened as she realized that, of course, Jim wouldn't know. "No, no, of course she's not…" Slowly, she released her grip on the console. "Leslie Anderson died. But, she… she was a cybernetics expert, credited with giving herself the ability to walk again. The papers called her Doctor Cyber for her advances in the 2020s. But, what she didn't tell anyone was that she didn't learn to walk again… she learned how to walk into other people's minds. The device on that woman's ear? That is Leslie. She's a consciousness trapped in a computer, and someone in Starfleet has been letting her experiment on Vanessa! With a Starro!" She cried, genuinely dismayed and quickly threatening to bubble over with rage. There were no words, no time, nothing to be done except to fume and worry.
"What is a Starro, anyway?" Jim asked, clearly hoping he could distract her.
Diana opened her mouth to reply, then paused as she noticed another video. "There's more…"
She reached over to turn on the last video, ignoring Jim's: "What about Starro?"
The timestamp jumped significantly, just days before she had tried to reach Hackett before they went after Jaylah. And yet, there was the admiral, standing watch over Vanessa again.
Only she didn't look nearly as much like Vanessa as she had before. The Borg implants had taken over more of her body. The ocular implant had grown down into her mouth, it seemed, and she had more plating and armor across her body than flesh now.
Diana shook her head, eyes warming with tears as she realized what they had turned her into. "Sister…" She breathed, swallowing thickly once more. She blinked away the tears so she could focus on the screen, but felt her stomach raging like the tide.
Hackett was pacing around Vanessa's body. The biobed was no longer reclined. In fact, she was now propped upright, as if she could walk off at any moment. Judging from his body language, he was upset.
It was only then that Diana realized Hackett had no idea what the other admiral and Doctor Anderson had been planning. And he was just as worried as Diana now was.
"Hackett to Security. I need a level 5 team, full quarantine and blackout protocol to the Alpha lab. Locate Doctor Adrianna Anderson and have her brought to my office." Hackett's communicator didn't seem to be cooperating. Then, he noticed something off-camera and looked up, clearly confused.
"That won't be necessary, Hackett." The distorted voice was speaking again. Diana realized that the modulation must have been something done to protect the spy before sending the footage to the Romulans. They didn't want to be identified, and without the raw data, there was no way of knowing precisely how it was altered.
Hackett furrowed his brow, clearly concerned. "Admiral. I didn't think they'd call you back for this… Starfleet Intelligence - "
"Don't bother, I know regulation. You don't have the kind of clout and history around here like I do without knowing when you should come home to check on things." The voice could have been Conner, but it could have been anyone. Whoever it was, they clearly had used Hackett to get to Vanessa. "You've done a swell job, but I've got things under control. I think I'm ready for a test run, in fact."
"What have you done?" Hackett took a few steps closer to the figure off-camera. "We were supposed to protect Earth from the Borg, and Anderson's instead done… unspeakable things."
"The best weapons are just that, Admiral. Unspeakable. I like knowing that there are no words for the horror weapons can wreak. It makes it so much easier to market to the victims."
Diana knew the sentiment seemed eerily familiar, but she couldn't dwell on it. She had noticed that which Hackett didn't. Vanessa was moving behind him.
Before Hackett could react, what was left of Vanessa Katalepis stepped off of the biobed and reached out with her newly plated, completely Borg arm. A disruptor pulse unlike anything Diana had seen before lit up the camera.
Hackett dropped like a stone. Vanessa's arm remained trained on his back. And she fired.
And fired.
And kept firing.
Until there was nothing left except a smoldering hole in the admiral's back.
The video stopped playback.
Diana stood, tears of horror running down her face.
"I… I took backups while we were watching…" Jim breathed, holding up a data padd. She could see it out of the corner of her eye, but she was still staring at the screen.
Vanessa was gone. There was nothing left. Anderson had turned her into a parademon. A Borg. Parademon. Something altogether horrific.
Diana screamed in rage, gripping the console tight. In one furious move, she ripped the console clear out of the floor and flung it through the wall of the medical office. It crashed into a display, showering sparks everywhere.
Vanessa was gone. Her soul was gone, lost to Tartarus for the sins that this admiral had made her perform.
"I failed her…" Diana whispered. "I failed her again…"
Within moments, Jim was in front of her. His hands on her face, trying to coax her back, even as she stared, unblinkingly, at the green blood dried on her hands. She had never even known she was in danger. She'd known something was off, but she never pursued it…
"Diana, this isn't on you…" Jim breathed, his thumbs brushing at the still falling tears.
"I failed her, Jim." She choked out. "I promised her I would save her, that she would see the shores of our homeland - "
"And you trusted Hackett. You didn't know he'd get betrayed." Jim's eyes finally forced her gaze away from her hands. The raw hurt, the pain in his eyes reminded her that she was not the only one suffering. He felt guilty… "This is just as much on me. We have to stop this before it goes any further. But, you trusted Starfleet and they let you down. They let her down."
Diana stared back at him, blinking almost stupidly as she tried to focus. All she could feel was anger, self-loathing, and it was clouding everything. She lost so much, and just when she felt like she had steady footing…
"Diana, we can't help her from here. Okay? We have to go. We have to get Spock, find out what else they're planning. If you believe that we can stop them, stop her from hurting anyone, then that's all that matters. So, we have to go." Jim's tone brought her back to the last great battle where she had not followed him. It had cost him his life. "Come with me. Please."
She finally swallowed, then nodded and took a step away from him. "Yes. I want to know everything." There was a threat hidden under her words.
It was a threat Jim seemed to also share. As the two of them left the sickbay, he grabbed a disruptor rifle and quickly set the dial from blue to red.
They would learn everything. And they would pay whatever price needed to stop this madness before it spilled over.
Together, they made short work of the few centurions they encountered on the medical deck. Thankfully, their opponents had begun to realize that if they valued their lives, they would do well to avoid the intruders. But, while they encountered very little resistance by way of personnel, the security procedures were well in place. Turbolifts had been taken off-line.
It had taken very little time for Jim to find and manually open an access door to a Jeffries tube - which he took great pains to explain was not called a Jeffries tube and was inferior in every way to a Jeffries tube, save for the width of the tubes themselves.
They would need to climb several decks to reach the command deck where both the Commander's quarters and the bridge were located.
Jim climbed in first, and soon Diana found herself staring either up at him, or focusing on the ladder. She chose to stare at bulkhead. Her thoughts were still on Vanessa… or what had… been… Vanessa.
"So, I know why the Borg are terrifying," Jim suddenly said, cutting through the sound of their boots clanking against the metal rungs of the ladder. "But, what the hell is a Starro? And why did the Kandorians have it?"
Diana thought back to what he'd told her about his research, the fact that Kandor's A.R.G.U.S. information had been all but wiped from the Federation database. She had a sickly feeling she understood why. "When Kal-El restored Kandor, many of them did not have the same types of abilities that he did. They were able to adapt to Earth's atmosphere much better than Zod or any of the other Kryptonians Kal had faced, but it meant they needed time. So, we built the Millennium Gate: a self-sustainable civic environment, in conjunction with S.T.A.R. labs. Many of the Kandorian refugees on Themyscira had tried to settle there but found that Earth life was just... " She thought idly of Kara. Kal's cousin had given her life to stop the Eugenics War, but before that… she had been so at odds with humanity. "Earth was just too different." She finished.
If they had never left earth, would all of the Kandorians have eventually felt the way Kara did? Would they have protected humanity? Would humanity have still needed protection, if they could have outnumbered Khan?
"You realize that really makes this looks bad for your friendly neighborhood Kryptonian, right?" Jim remarked as they climbed another deck. "I'm guessing that wasn't common knowledge."
Diana sighed. "It wasn't. But, many Kandorians did stay, and they offered to protect items and lifeforms that we - the League - deemed too dangerous to be held without constant surveillance. The Starro entity was one such creature. It was a parasitic alien life form that found its way to Earth. It incapacitates and feeds off of its victims by attaching itself to the face. Once it has control of the body, it controls the mind and uses the neurological energy to grow stronger." She paused as she thought back to the last time they faced it. "We nearly lost Kal to it. Conner nearly lost his father. He would never let that fall into someone's hands."
Jim paused in the climb, clearly listening to her. He was considering her words. She had to hope he had started to realize that perhaps Conner was not the one responsible. "Time can change people, Diana."
"Not like that." She simply said. "But, the sooner we find Spock, the sooner we'll know for sure."
Jim nodded, then picked the pace back up to climb.
Above them, they could hear shouting. The centurions were sweeping decks, it seemed.
"You've scared the shit out of them." Jim simply remarked.
A sudden impact rocked them to the right so hard that the two of them had to each grab hold of the ladder, white-knuckled.
"Shit…" Jim breathed. She couldn't see his face, but she could imagine the scowl and note of incredulity to his voice. "They fired on my ship." He said, as if he couldn't believe their audacity.
"Even if they did, why wouldn't the warbird cloak after the attack?" Diana asked him, shifting a bit. "That was the Enterprise hitting us."
Jim spared a glance down at her, shrugging. "Probably because Spock was supposed to disable the cloak, and as he is insufferably good at his job…" He began to climb faster. "I am absolutely positive he did."
She spared a bit of a relieved smile, a brief respite from the turmoil in her heart. Even in the face of a crisis, Jim had several plans in motion.
Another blast, worse than the first, rocked the ship and Jim's foot slipped above her.
"Shit!" He gasped, just in time to lose his grip and start to plummet. He let out a wordless yell as he went careening just past her.
Without hesitation, Diana's hand snapped out and caught his wrist before he could fall further. He would have easily fallen two or three decks, and with another impact or tremor, there was no telling if he would have fared well at all. With the ease of lifting a pillow, she hoisted him back up and to the ladder beside her. She could share the ladder for the moment.
"Thanks…" He breathed, momentarily - and quite obviously - awestruck. "I might have to start keeping score on how many times we save each other's bacon, angel…"
Diana looked up, hearing the quick march of Romulans above them. "Don't," She replied, sparing one last look at him before she started to climb past him with a bare hint of teasing to her voice, a moment to distract her. "It will only depress you."
Ten minutes later, they had reached the command deck. From where they stood, they could hear Commander Linvah shouting on the bridge.
Jim motioned for her to follow him and the two of them crept down the hall to the commander's quarters. Two guards stood at the ready, but Jim quickly dispatched them each with a disruptor bolt.
Once the guards had collapsed to the ground, the two of them came out of hiding. Jim tried the console, then heard another error message and frowned.
"They changed the codes." He complained, then glanced up at her. After a second, he shifted his grip on the disruptor rifle and motioned with his free hand to the door. "Do the honors?"
Diana nodded and took a step back. Since she didn't know where Spock was in the room, she didn't want to knock the door off its hinges and risk injuring him. She pulled her sword and in a smooth move she'd done once before on the Enterprise, she jammed the blade in the seam of the door. Within a moment, she pried it away from the right wall, then managed to get her hand into the gap and slammed the metal into its frame.
When she pulled her hand free, the impressions she left kept the door in its open position permanently.
Spock seemed perfectly fine. In fact, he seemed… placid. And he had clearly been examining a glass of Romulan ale before they walked in.
Jim was understandably put out, but he didn't miss a beat. "Seriously? They cut my ears off and you're in here drinking?"
Spock stood quickly, hands behind his back. "Jim, that is not - "
Jim simply waved him off, rolling his eyes. "Save it, Casanova. I've taught you too well."
Spock's expression was hardly appreciative. The Vulcan clearly did not appreciate the insinuation that Jim had taught him how to slack on the job.
"Glad to see you're all right, Spock." Diana offered as Jim made his way over to a console. He set the rifle down on top of it as he pulled the smaller data padd where he had stored the footage from the medical bay.
"Tell me you found what we need, Spock. I need something to nail these bastards to the wall and make sure we stop them before they unleash something really nasty."
"I believe I have." Spock replied, touching a few buttons on the console beside Jim. "The Federation operative sent all of the information regarding the Medusa phenomenon and Jaylah's holo-technology to the Tal Shiar. Commander Linvah has been the She-Wolf's primary contact, and was responsible for ensuring that Jaylah was delivered into Orion hands. I have all of the communiques still salvageable."
"What are you saying?" Diana asked, concerned. "Do we not have enough to learn the spy's identity?"
"Not definitively. But, I can confirm that the communications had Starfleet Intelligence, admiralty-level clearance, and there would be very few admirals with such clearance level." Spock motioned to a particular file on the screen. "The Romulans have been planning a large-scale attack on San Francisco, Jim."
"And they want to use Medusa's curse to do it," Jim replied, scowling. "Then, we need to get back to Earth, find out when and how - "
"You will be doing no such thing, Captain." The three of them turned towards the new voice in the doorway. Commander Linvah stood alone, but no less threatening, her disruptor pistol trained on Jim. "The Romulan Star Empire has waited for this opportunity for years. You will be proven the inferior species, and with that, we shall conquer your Federation and build upon it. Rome was built on the blood of brothers. So shall the new empire."
Diana frowned. Her suspicions had been confirmed, even if the data could not provide that. "Romulus has no myth of the She-Wolf." She said, challenging Linvah for her attention. "You've been listening to rhetoric from a Federation admiral that you wish to co-opt for your own empire. You really are just like the Romans. You take the gods and the cultures of those you conquer and reshape it only so far as to make it Romulan enough. But, you are being manipulated."
Linvah smirked, changing her aim for Diana instead. "Says the immortal hero. We know all about you, Diana of Themyscira. Wonder Woman. The She-Wolf has taken special interest in you. And will see that you pay for your interference."
The spy knew her. Diana did not get the impression that it was through reputation alone. It was not information Linvah would give freely, either.
Instead of trying to goad her into more discussion, Diana simply acted. In a blink, she had pulled her lasso and looped it around the woman's shoulders, yanking her close.
"Tell me what you know of the She-Wolf." Diana ordered. She was vaguely aware of Spock and Jim flanking her, but kept her focus solely on the Tal Shiar commander. And she was formidable. "The lasso will continue to cause you great pain until you answer me." She warned, hoping that it would help Linvah break sooner.
Yet, she did not. "I am a Watcher of the Shadows. I will not answer to you." Linvah clamped her mouth shut as she tried not to speak any more. She buckled, falling to her knees as the lasso grew more and more brilliant. Finally, she could hold back no longer. "The She-Wolf has been contacting the Tal Shiar for a hundred years! We erase all mention of names and no one knows the identity."
Diana frowned, but could sense the truth. "What does the She-Wolf want the Tal Shiar to do?"
"We will…" Linvah tried to fight the compulsion, but couldn't. Sweat beaded on her severe brow. "We have infiltrated the Starfleet admirals and we will… destroy… dissent. It's already begun. The bomb is… en route."
Diana's eyes widened. "En route. From where? Here?"
Linvah's eyes met Diana's, filled with hatred that she thought she would never see after the final demise of Lex Luthor. "My other warbird. You're too late. My last orders… were to keep your here. No matter the cost." The Commander opened her mind, filling Diana's with the image of her last actions.
Diana stood straight, shaken by the knowledge that suddenly flooded her. "She's set the ship to self-destruct. We have less than two minutes." She let the lasso unfurl, then knocked the commander out with a swift blow.
Jim grabbed her arm. "Then we have to go. Come on!"
Spock followed after them into the main hall, but paused. "Jim, we cannot transport back to the Enterprise before the detonation. The transporter room is several decks away and they would have jammed communication signals."
Diana looked between them, then to the lasso in her hand. "But, they cannot stop your mind, Spock."
The Vulcan rose an eyebrow, confused. "I do not follow."
She held up the lasso. "The Lasso of Hestia is a seeker of truth. It enhances the gateways between minds to achieve that goal. Vulcans are low-level telepaths. You can reach Nyota, tell them to be ready for us."
Spock looked down at the relic, clearly unconvinced. "I am not certain I can do so…"
She reached out to rest her hand on his shoulder, echoing the words that he had used against Jim a few days before. "It is statistically impossible for you to be 'absolutely certain' about any one course of action, Mister Spock. But, you must try."
"Still means we have to get to the transporter room," Jim said, clearly trying to retrace their steps in his mind.
"I can do that. I might not be as fast as Barry or Kal…" Diana took a deep breath. "But I am enough." She took hold of Spock around his waist, then took Jim with the other arm. "Hold on."
Diana summoned her strength from deep within, then put one foot in front of the other. Within moments, she sped down the hall, then shifted so that she could drop down the several flights of access tubes back to the transporter room deck, using careful precision to avoid any unpleasant collisions for the two passengers she had in hand.
As they reached the transporter room, still abandoned save for the bodies she had left, the red alert klaxons sounded again.
This time… with a countdown.
"I'll get the coordinates in," Jim said quickly, making his way to the console. "You figure out how the hell they're gonna get the shields down."
Diana turned to Spock, then held out the lasso to him. "Think of her. The lasso will do the rest."
Spock slowly reached out to take the lasso from her. In that brief moment, the relic glimmered, giving her a brief glance into his mind. Given the strength of his emotions in that brief microsecond, he would have no trouble reaching Nyota. Spock closed his eyes, holding the lasso in one hand
After a few moments of tense silence, Jim finished keying the sequence behind her and Spock opened his eyes. "She has told Mister Sulu. They will be dropping the shields momentarily. I suggest we hurry."
Jim nodded, tapping a button and then bolting from the console. "Three second delay, get on the pad!"
Diana reached a transporter pad just in time to hear the countdown end.
The trio materialized on the bridge. Diana was more than surprised to see that her armor and body, which had been caked in dried blood, seemed suddenly clean. It took her longer than she wanted to admit to remember that the transporter system had some sort of organic scrubbing code.
"Glad to see you, Captain." Sulu said from the captain's chair, immediately standing.
"Same, but get us the hell out of here." Jim replied.
The ship made an about face with seconds to spare. The countdown had ended on the warbird, and now the explosions began to blossom from the hull, disappearing as quickly as they hit the . vacuum of space.
Within seconds, the stars warped around them. The Enterprise was safe. For the moment.
"Get us into Federation space and hail the nearest ship." Jim said as he took his seat and Sulu moved back to the helm.
Beside her, Spock handed Diana the lasso silently before making his way over to his station. She could tell that from the look on Nyota's face, the two of them had had a significant mental conversation in the mere moments that he had held the lasso.
"The Farragut is on the other side of the border," Sulu remarked. The Enterprise dropped out of orbit within moments, and Diana could feel the room suddenly drain of tension.
"Good. Lieutenant Uhura, if you could open a channel - "
"No need, captain. They're hailing us." She replied quickly.
"Good. Onscreen." Jim said with a nod. Within seconds, he had relaxed into the safety of the captain's chair. Diana began to move back to her spot on the bridge.
She stopped as the face that appeared on screen belonged to none other than Conner Kent himself.
"Captain Kirk." Conner said by way of greeting, arms crossed in a gesture to match his father, expression just as stern. "It's time we talked."