PhoebeSnow — To answer your question, I changed McCoy's daughter's name from JoAnna (JoHanna) to Maggie because I was bullied by a JoAnna when I was a child. A snotty, little know-it-all that loved making other girls feel terrible about themselves. I wondered about the change and tried to ease people into accepting it by using the name sparingly in the early chapters.

Thanks for the review. We just crossed the halfway point.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Kirk stepped onto the bridge and went to Uhura, McCoy following him like a thin shadow.

"Anything, Lieutenant?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Just this, Captain." She hit a button and an eerie, strange music filled the bridge. It was like a faraway clarinet combined with the haunting call of a whale.

"What is it?"

Uhura held out a perfectly manicured hand in a gesture of bafflement. "My best guess, Sir? It . . .sort of reminds me of waiting room music. It started after I sent your message over sonar frequencies. Sort of pretty, isn't it?"

"They took Dr. Maggie McCoy, Lieutenant," Kirk snapped. "There's nothing pretty about it."

There was a flash of surprise at the news as well as hurt from Kirk's tone, but her face quickly became a neutral mask as she cut the feed and began monitoring the board at her station. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bones squeeze Uhura's shoulder, and she reached up to pat his hand before resuming her work. He felt a moment's regret at his harsh tone, but there was no time to deal with hurt feelings.

"Sulu," he approached the captain's chair but made a gesture for the pilot to remain seated. "Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and myself are beaming over to the larger vessel where Maggie McCoy is being kept. Mr. Spock is creating a distraction, and I need your steady-hand to see it through."

Sulu nodded confidently. "What's the plan?"

Kirk took a deep breath, still hesitant about Spock's idea. "Spock is sending out a telepathic S.O.S. from the Enterprise saying she is in need of emergency repairs. Ironically, it's mostly true considering the damage to the portside nacelle. We're gonna need it fixed to fly outta here the moment we have Maggie."

Sulu looked doubtful. "Will they know how to fix it?"

"Spock's sending out a diagram on the repairs needed."

"Sounds like a plan but . . . " Sulu's almond-shaped eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I'm surprised Mr. Scott agreed to this."

Kirk grinned at him. "That's where your steady hand comes in. He doesn't know the exact details, and I want all his focus on getting us back aboard ship. He'll be in the Transporter Room, waiting for our return signal. Chekov will be in Engineering, keeping us up to date on how the repairs are progressing—that's the timetable we're working with. The instant we're back on the Enterprise, I want you to warp us out of here. Any questions?"

"No, Sir," Sulu said. "God speed, and we'll see you soon."

Kirk adjusted the phaser to maximum stun and locked in the setting before handing it to McCoy.

"Don't trust me, Jim?" McCoy asked wryly, noting the setting. They stepped onto the transporter platform next to Spock.

"I trust you, Bones," Kirk answered. "It's Maggie's father that worries me." He raised an eyebrow in McCoy's direction. "Terrifies me, actually. I had to skulk around my own ship to simply have an innocent chat with the lady."

McCoy rolled his eyes. "There's nothing innocent about you, Jim," he said, then patted the phaser hooked to his belt. "And remember, it can't kill you but it'll still hurt like hell. But we are friends. I'd probably only shoot you two, maybe three, times. Well, no more than seven anyway."

Kirk beamed a smile at him. "Thanks, Bones."

Spock, who had been standing on the transporter pad with his eyes close, opened them. "It is done. The Hunoi have received my distress call and a diagram of repairs needed. Ships are in route. We must leave now."

"Mr. Scott," Kirk said, turning to face the man at the transporter station. "Energize."

"Aye, Capt'n," Scotty said, pulling back on the controls. "See you soon."

Scott and the Transporter Room faded as Kirk and the rest of the team were enveloped in a golden light.

They materialized in a dim corridor. The curving walls were shaped like a tunnel and were made of a black material that glowed internally with a low-level light. Their uniform emblems and rank insignias on their cuffs were glowing a bluish green.

It made sense, Kirk reasoned. If the Hunoi were like Terran bats, they would be more comfortable in a dark environment. If they even have eyes, he thought. Or an eye. He shoved the thought aside and refocused all his attention on the mission at hand.

"Which way?" Kirk asked Spock, his voice a low whisper.

Spock rechecked the tricorder in front of him and gestured down the corridor. "At one hundred fifty-two point seven feet in that direction"—he nodded to his left—"this main corridor splits into a Y-shaped intersection; we take the right corridor. That opens up into the room where Dr. McCoy is being held."

"All right, let's—" Kirk broke off as McCoy brushed by him, moving down the corridor at a fast trot. "Bones!" he hissed, but his friend didn't slow. Kirk withdrew his phaser and tried to catch up, but he was slowed by the smaller corridors branching out from either side. He glanced down each one, and when he saw no movement in the dim light, he darted by the opening.

'Bout fucking time, he thought, as he and Spock reached the Y-shaped split and took the right. Immediately they found themselves in a large, domed room.

McCoy was standing in the middle of it, his thin frame silhouetted against a large, rectangular tank sitting on a raised platform. It was filled with a glowing, greenish substance, and suspended within it, was Maggie McCoy.

Kirk moved closer. "She alive, Bones?"

"Yeah. And that stuff she's in? The tricorder says its an oxygenated gel with some unidentifiable properties, probably used for healing."

"Um, yeah. I would have to agree with that," Kirk said lightly, pressing his hands against the glass. He stared at Maggie with stunned belief. When Spock had announced that the Hunoi had finished making repairs, he hadn't quite believed this was possible. Not in the short time she'd been gone, anyway. Her eyes and cheekbones were symmetrical and the swollen jaw was now perfectly smooth. Her hair, long and beautiful again, sat in a suspended plume beneath her head. Even the missing finger on her right hand had regrown.

But healing her injuries wasn't all that the Hunoi had done.

They had made . . . some changes. No doubt upgrades, from their point of view.

Kirk gazed at the tiny metallic teardrops attached to both sides of Maggie's nose, near the corner of her eyes. What were they? he wondered. If he'd met her somplace else, he would have assumed they were body jewelry, but he doubted the Hunoi would make such modifications without having a purpose.

The same black substance was on her fingertips, too, coating the nails. It continued down from there like a drip that had run down the back of her fingers until they met at her wrist. There, they plunged beneath the skin.

"Are you seeing this?" He asked, turning to look at McCoy. The doctor hadn't moved. Instead of gazing at his daughter, he'd been staring down at the tricorder. Now, he held it up for Kirk to see. On the screen was an outline of Maggie's body. The scan showed metallic lines curling upward from the wrist, encircling the bones in her arms, up her shoulders, and between the vertebrae in her neck, stopping only when they'd pierced the base of her skull.

"Yeah," McCoy answered in a voice empty of emotion. "I'm seeing it all right."

Kirk reached out and gave his friend's arm a squeeze. "She's alive, Bones. Right now, we just need to focus on getting her home. Can she be removed from this stuff?"

McCoy nodded. "You're right—first thing's first. Yeah," he continued. "We can pull her out. Her lungs are filled with this stuff but from the tricorder readout, it contains a bacteria that converts carbon dioxide right back into oxygen. Handy stuff to have in an anaerobic environment."

"I'm sure Spock will want a sample," Kirk said, then turned around with a frown. Spock would have normally chimed in by now, saying just that. "Spock? What are you—" Kirk's breath left him in a gasp, and McCoy spun around to follow his gaze.

"Captain, Doctor," Spock said, his voice sounding somewhat distant. "May I introduce the Hunoi."

They were easily missed in the dim glow of the room, but now that Kirk could see them, he wished he couldn't. He forced himself to approach Spock, who stood before one of the narrow enclaves built into the wall. Within each enclave, stood a Hunoi. A quick glance around the room revealed they were surrounded.

Well, guess I got my answer, he thought, stepping closer to the nearest enclave. The Hunoi indeed had eyes—two—but they were large, bulbous and a dull, milky-white color. There were no irises that Kirk could see, but he didn't doubt they were well-adapted to the ship's dark interior. There was no nose, nor an alien equivalent of one, but there was a mouth. Of sorts. Long, bluish tentacles hung from the hole in the lower portion of the Hunoi's face. Some tentacles hung limply, as though the creature was in the process of being sick on noodle pasta, while others squirmed and twisted in agitation.

"Are they aware of us?" Kirk asked quietly.

"Negative. They are unaware of our presence," Spock continued in that same, faraway voice that suggested he was listening in on their telepathic chatter. "They are in a discussion, determining what basic skill-sets they should provide the unit once the corrupted memory banks have been cleared."

Kirk let out a soft snort. He was about to suggest where the Hunoi could put those skill-sets when a faint chirp came from his waist. Kirk turned away and flipped open the communicator.

"Keptin." Chekov's voice was just loud enough to be heard through the speaker, but Kirk could still hear the ensign's urgency. "These repair ships are moving much faster that ve originally thought. Already the nacelle coils have been compweetly rebuilt."

Another voice could be heard speaking in the background followed by a Russian explicative from Chekov. "Keptin', they are sealing the outer hull now. You have a meenut, at most!"

"Understood, Ensign. Inform Mr. Scott we'll be beaming back shortly. Kirk out."

McCoy had found a mechanism that lowered the tank to the floor. He was rolling up his sleeves as Kirk approached. "Grab her legs. I'll get this end."

Kirk yanked his sleeves up and plunged his arms into the gel. It was warm and tingly against his skin. "This shit's dense," he grunted, working an arm beneath Maggie's legs. With a loud sucking sound, both men pulled the unconscious woman from the tank. "Spock, contact the Enterprise," he called out, not caring if his voice carried. He'd been feeling a low vibration in the decking since they arrived, but in the last few seconds it had increased to a waspish intensity. Call it survival instinct or sixth sense, but Kirk suspected the Hunoi knew they were there. "Spock?"

No answer.

"For God's sake, man!" McCoy's roar was so abrupt, and such an odd mix of terror and fury, that Kirk nearly dropped Maggie's legs. He twisted around to see Spock still standing in front of the Hunoi. But now his arm was extended, his hand pressed against the alien's mouth. Tentacles writhed around the Vulcan's long fingers, and there was a hint of blue-green light in the Hunoi's eyes as it began to stir.

" You stupid, hobgoblin—I should—" McCoy sputtered on several swear words before he could continue. "Getting a handjob at a time like this! We need to go, Spock! Now!"

Spock snatched his hand away as though burned. He blinked once, twice, then shuddered. When he looked at them, he appeared to be in control once more. Three long strides and he was by their side, communicator in hand. "Mr. Scott, four to beam back to the Enterprise."

It was proof to Kirk's mind that they had, indeed, run out of time, for Scotty gave no acknowledgement of the order. Instead they were simply wrapped in a warm, welcoming light that would bring them home.

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