Take Us Out (4/6)

Date:

3

Title: Take Us Out (4/6)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek TOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Summary: Leonard finds himself in a situation that quickly goes from bad to worse, and it turns out he is the only one who can fix it.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3
Or read at AO3


“They’re not this stupid,” mutters a frowning, blue-eyed doctor as he kneels on the floor and unpacks his medkit.

Must you continue to complain?

Leonard shapes his retort as a sharp thought rather than speaking out loud: I believed you to be smart, but this plan of yours seems dumber by the minute. Nobody’s gonna believe I overpowered you.

Did I use the word ‘overpower’? I merely said you caught me off-guard—in a moment of weakness, if you will. It was rather unfortunate that the dosage in the hypospray you wielded was enough to kill me.

Leonard cuts his eyes across the room but of course Auron isn’t there, not physically in his own body anyway. Why do I have to be the one who murdered you?

Auron’s amusement is a wispy creature combing through Leonard’s thoughts. One would think such credit would appeal to you, Doctor.

It really doesn’t, the human replies and leaves it at that, doubting Auron could understand his reasoning even if he tried to explain. Examining the hypospray he supposedly killed somebody with, a worry niggles at him. He sets the instrument down again. “You have to keep your promise,” he whispers. “You have to let them leave unharmed.”

That depends on how convincing you can be.

Leonard might have said something in return, maybe to argue or maybe to beg, but in that moment there is a knock at the door. The Betazoid relays the order to answer it, as if Leonard can’t make that decision for himself.

A glazed-eyed man stands alone in the corridor. The emblem on his uniform marks him as an official of the space port. He seems to have difficulty focusing on Leonard although he’s the one who knocked to gain the attention, and he doesn’t attempt to enter the room. “Doctor… I am Commander Landres. I have come about the…” The man blinks too slowly. “…the accident.”

“Accident?” Leonard echoes, only to realize a moment later this has to be part of Auron’s plan. He clutches at the doorframe. “Oh sure, the accident. I, uh…” Leonard glances behind him at the mostly bare room. “…the body…”

“Has been taken to the morgue, of course,” supplies the commander. It isn’t surprising to Leonard that he looks uncertain of that fact himself. “I just came to confirm what happened. The man—Betazoid—was threatening you?”

Leonard rubs his palms against his pants because they are starting to feel clammy. He hates lying, and he would be the first to admit he’s terrible at it. “Right. I mean, yes, sir. And not just threatened—kidnapped.” There’s a sudden spark in his head, like displeasure, and it’s not his own. Leonard ignores it. “I was brought here against my will.”

The commander’s eyes clear somewhat, and for the first time he looks like he might be in control of his own mind. His sharp glance takes in Leonard’s outfit and the bruise on his face from where he’d taken a punch. “Starfleet?”

Leonard nods. “I’m Leonard McCoy, Chief Medical Officer of the USS Enterprise.”

The man’s eyebrows draw together. “This station may be bordering the far-reaches, Dr. McCoy, but we’re still Federation-sanctioned. Why wasn’t our Control made aware of the manhunt?”

Leonard hesitates, apologizing a bit guiltily Sorry, Jim before saying, “Last I know, my captain was in pursuit. He… has a way of tackling these problems head-on first and calling for backup second.”

Landres makes no comment made about that, thankfully. The man steps farther back into the hallway, an implicit invitation for Leonard to join him. “I’ll need to take an official statement, and we must contact your ship.”

Leonard doesn’t move. “I have a woman here who’s ill. She has a medical condition that needs to be monitored. She shouldn’t be left alone.”

“We’ll have her transferred to our facility. Granted out here, it isn’t much and the staff is minimal but they’re well-trained.” Landres questions, after a pause, “The woman was another hostage?”

“Wife of the kidnapper,” Leonard answers, wondering to himself if it isn’t somewhat true that Nola has been held captive by Auron all this time, too. “I guess you could say she was the motive behind his madness.”

Idle speculations, Doctor—we have no time for it, warns a cold voice in McCoy’s head. Follow the commander.

Leonard lifts his chin with a defiance that the man in front of him wouldn’t understand. “I’ll leave when my patient leaves. Once she’s situated, you can take my statement.” He adds quickly, “But be sure to reach out to the Enterprise. I doubt they’re too far away.”

The commander gives him a strange look, opens his mouth as if to ask something else but ends up making a choked sound. His body gradually stiffens, and his eyes return to their glazed state. When Landres speaks, he is too curt. “As you wish, Doctor.”

With a slight shake of his head, Leonard watches the man walk away. “What was the point in that?” he asks. When no one bothers to give an answer, the doctor closes the door and turns back to his task, saying as he kneels by his medkit once again, “You’d better not kill that poor fellow.”

Do not ask too much of me, or it is inevitable you will find yourself disappointed.

Leonard suppresses a shiver, feeling eyes on his back. “Do you think maybe you could stop watching me for a single second?”

Did you believe I would leave you alone so that you might escape or double-cross me? I am not so foolish, human. Your lieutenant stays—and when the time comes, he will be useful to us both.

Leonard hunches his shoulders, not liking the sound of that. In the darkest corner of the room, a shadow breathes. Auron is probably smiling with Yarrows’ face, waiting for Leonard to show just how afraid he is. He’s made a deal with the devil, and they both know it.

Not thinking of a thing and letting his hands work on automatic pilot, Leonard picks up a cartridge-vial of a sedative, loads the hypospray and dials the dosage up to a setting that would actually come close to killing a person if not counteracted in time. He rises and goes to Nola’s bedside, leaning over her with a murmur, and lifts the hypospray for watchful eyes to see. “This should help stabilize her for the move.” He positions the hypospray against her arm, careful not to depress it, then finally drops the instrument to the wayside like it’s empty.

After an agonizingly slow ten minutes of keeping himself occupied, the loud rapping on the door is what Leonard has been waiting for. He tucks his re-assembled medkit under his arm and tells the man in the corner, “Time to put on your game-face.”

Two gray-uniformed people—and a man and a woman—let themselves in, pushing a hover-gurney alongside them. “We got a call for an immediate transport.”

“Glad you made it,” Leonard says, then tilts his head in the direction of the unconscious woman. “It’s for her. I’m her attending physician.”

Yarrows steps out of the shadows in the midst of Leonard introducing himself, a tall wide-eyed man in the red shirt of a Starfleet security officer. His look of distress is terrifying because it looks so genuine, like an expression the real Yarrows would have made.

“I’ll help you,” the young lieutenant offers, earnest, gathering Nola gently into his arms.

As Yarrows turns away to place her on the gurney, Leonard reaches behind him and grabs the discarded hypospray, silently tucking it into the waistband of his pants and covering it with the tail of his shirt. He follows the gurney and med-techs from the room without a backward glance.

~~~

Spock stands in the same spot for precisely forty-three seconds, waiting for Lieutenant Sulu to become sufficiently unidentified in the crush of departures and arrivals in the docking arena. They agreed to part ways, for there can be no element of surprise in their favor if Auron’s spies see them together. Sulu now has the advantage of the psionic invisibility Spock promised him and cannot be tracked as all these other minds can, so open, so vulnerable like specks of starlight in a great yawning darkness for any telepath to find. He fortifies his own mental shielding as he lingers motionless, to the point that all minds are little more than muted laps of disjointed thought at the edge of his awareness. He could disconnect from the sensation entirely but then he risks not knowing when he is near the two particular minds he seeks.

Trusting that Sulu is enough of a sleuth to find the abandoned shuttlecraft on his own, Spock turns at last for the access fare that leads to the main hub of the space port. While the Betazoid will desire to hide, he will also require a facility that suffices to house the sick. In an outpost such as this, accommodations are not plentiful and rooms made available for extended stays even rarer. None of them, he theorizes, will be luxurious in size or sight, serving only the purpose of efficiency.

Spock unerringly follows the overhead signs which point the way to the visitor’s center; there he can gather what information exists on the internal housing units so he can determine where best to begin his search for Auron or, at the very least, where Kirk and McCoy—two Starfleet officers of significant rank—have been hidden from the sight.

~~~

Jim thinks he is hallucinating at first. He sees the back of a dark-haired head, the points of two ears, and assumes it is Spock. He makes it halfway across the open platform before realizing he is crazy to think such a thing. Not every Vulcan he sees must be Spock, especially when said Vulcan-shaped figure has a dagger sheath at his hip.

Does Spock even own a dagger?

Jim frowns, his thoughts growing a little fuzzier than they had been a moment ago.

And what would a Vulcan (traveling alone at that) be doing along the border of the Neutral Zone?

Maybe it’s a Romulan.

Kirk’s eyes widen with speculation. Really, that would be an unfortunate thing to encounter: Romulans wandering around in Federation space, and he as a starship captain being under oath to bring them in when he sees them.

He could pretend not to see them.

That’s not a bad idea. Romulan or Vulcan—there’s no time to find out. He has only searched half of the hostels in this area which are currently offering bunkers to wayfarers. No one remembers seeing a blue-eyed human, or a half-human Betazoid on her deathbed. He might as well be tracking ghosts.

Jim stops by a structural bulwark and leans a shoulder against it, raising a hand to his aching head.

Oh, what he wouldn’t give for one of McCoy’s little red pills right about now! And he owes Auron a solid crack on the jaw for this miserable pain.

Enough whining, Kirk, he thinks fiercely at himself. Enough! The thought rings painfully across his brain like a siren.

Jim blinks open his eyes, not remembering having closed them, and pushes off the bulwark. It takes a second or two before he regains his bearing in the unfamiliar surroundings. Only once he has stepped down from the platform and is almost to the opposite side does he have the sudden sense of someone following closely behind him. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

The hand barely lands on his shoulder before Jim is twisting out from under the grip and around on the ball of his left foot, arm thrown back in preparation to land a punch on the person who just tried to accost him—

—and, embarrassingly, who has now somehow captured his famous right hook and stilled it in mid-air with what must be the strength of a thousand men.

Spock looks back at him from behind his fist, then says with remarkable calm, “Captain, it is pleasing to see you again.”

“Spock,” Jim murmurs dumbly, “so it was you.”

The Vulcan lifts an eyebrow. “You recognized me, yet did not seek me out?”

“No, no, no,” Kirk assures his friend. “I thought you might be Romulan.”

Spock just blinks at him and releases his fist.

Jim drops his hand to his side somewhat sheepishly. “Sorry I almost clocked you.”

“Your apology is unnecessary. I was in no danger.”

Jim doesn’t know why he is laughing, only that Spock must have told the funniest joke he has ever heard. He is kind of surprised, though, when he suddenly cannot laugh anymore and has to lean on his First Officer for support because his limbs feel detached.

Maybe he has alarmed his Vulcan friend because Spock is asking him rapid-fire questions like “Captain, where are you injured?”, “Is this the first time you have lost consciousness?” and “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“That’s a Bones-question,” Jim remarks about the last one, squinting in hopes the fingers will cease to dance around so he can properly count them. “Stop moving your hand.”

“I see now why it is a useful question. My hand is not moving.”

“Okay, so I might have a concussion.”

“Undoubtedly.”

Spock is dragging him somewhere—oh, good, a place to sit down. Jim thanks him and sinks into the chair with relief. “Have you located McCoy?”

“Negative.”

Jim has a moment of clarity when he sees Spock pull something out of his belt. “What’re you doing?”

“I will try to establish contact with the ship. You require medical assistance.”

Jim makes a grab for the communicator and, sadly, misses by a good three inches. “No,” he says firmly. “I won’t go, consider that an order. We have to find them.”

“Your refusal to comply does not constitute an order, Captain.”

Jim smacks the side of his fist against a hard surface to show his ire. The surface is a table, he decides, one which wobbles under his abuse. He won’t hit it again. “Then I order you to accept my non-compliance as an order, Mr. Spock.”

Spock says something about severe head trauma and immediate treatment and Jim lets it all fade away, taking a few seconds for himself to breathe deeply through his nose. Once he feels he has a better handle on his wits—or what’s left of them, that is—he makes his command short and to the point: “Then fix me.”

As expected, Spock needs a moment to judge his sanity first before replying. “I am not a licensed medical practitioner.”

“No, but you’re a Vulcan with a strong discipline for blocking pain—and it’s the pain making me loopy right now, Spock.” He pauses, waving a hand at his forehead. “I’ve got shields, don’t I? Can’t you… extend them?”

“It is not the shield which matters in this case. It is the belief that the pain is of no consequence. Pain is a product of the mind, of the way the mind interprets the firing of synapses in the brain in a localized area.”

“Then make me not believe in it! You’ve done it before,” Jim almost pleads. “The bullets, Spock—remember? The illusion of the Earps and their revenge?”

Spock’s silence is like a shield of its own. All Jim can do is wait for Spock to lower it.

At last, the Vulcan does. “I can plant the suggestion but whether or not it takes root will depend on your belief.”

Jim sits back in his chair with a decisive nod. “Do it.”

He keeps his eyes open while Spock places his fingers against the side of his nose and along his cheekbone and temple. He trains his gaze on Spock as he feels the connection between them being initiated as it has some many times in the past, like a door opening, and Spock intones, “That which you feel does not harm you. The pain is of no significance. It does no harm.”

Jim clings to the resounding belief as he has clung to the sight of the stars since he was a child hiding in a cornfield in Iowa. Pain does me no harm, he repeats over and over.

It isn’t until a heavy cloud in his mind begins to lift that he realizes he and Spock are no longer connected in a mind-meld. He is alone in his head, his shield is strong again as if Spock reinforced it, and the pain, his pain…

Means nothing.

Jim blinks, not quite certain how to describe the sensation beyond freeing.

He glances around the station, feeling like he can think clearly again. He stands up, Spock standing up alongside him. “Thank you,” Jim tells him. “Thank you for helping me.”

“Jim, while you may not be aware of it at this time, the effort to maintain your current state will exhaust you.”

“So once I collapse, I’m back to being ordinary. Got it.” Jim moves away from the arrangement of tables. “We have to find the others.” He pauses and slants a look at the Vulcan. “You came alone?”

“At present, it is only myself and you.”

Jim accepts the strange answer and muses with just a hint of hope, “I guess you wouldn’t have brought a phaser.”

“They are traceable by their energy signatures and easily classified.”

“Logical as always, Mr. Spock. But I can’t say I’m comfortable walking around weaponless in a frontier post.”

Spock starts to remove the dagger from his belt.

Jim stops him with a small smile. “No, keep it. I’ll find something. In fact, I thought I saw a weapon’s booth around here… maybe we could trade—” His words die out as he catches a flash from the corner of his eye.

A familiar blue, just a glimpse.

Then again. Moving with the crowd.

McCoy,” Jim breathes, taken by surprise, then takes off at a dash. Spock is close behind him. “Bones!” he cries once he finally he breaks through the traffic of people and again catches sight of the man in the blue tunic he had first seen.

The person stops short, turning around at the reverberating yell, and for the briefest of moments, Jim thinks he sees the same fierce joy in Leonard’s eyes before it is replaced by wariness.

It is that wariness which slows Kirk’s pace to a fast stride. “Keep an eye out,” he warns his First Officer, going on a gut feeling. “Something’s not right.”

And now that he can see Lieutenant Yarrows standing slightly apart from the rest of the group who have also halted their progress, head bowed but otherwise motionless, that feeling intensifies.

But feeling cautious doesn’t stop him from reaching out to grab a hold of his friend once he can. He gives the doctor’s thin shoulders a slight shake. “Bones! Are you all right?”

Leonard answers the demand with a lift of his eyebrow and a quirk to his mouth. “Don’t I look all right to you, Jim?”

Jim takes the time to study the doctor with a critical eye; his eyes linger on the bruise darkening the man’s jawline. “How do I know you’re not—” He nearly chokes on bitterness as he forces out the name. “—Auron?”

“How do I know you’re James T. Kirk?” Leonard counters, cutting his eyes at Spock. “How do I know he’s Sp—wait, never mind. I don’t think the Betazoid has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting into his head. And if he did manage it, all I’d have to say is: the poor bastard. Auron—not Spock, that is.”

Spock’s eyes have narrowed ever-so-slightly. “It seems the doctor is himself, Captain.”

“Your concern is touching, hobgoblin.”

Those dark eyes narrow just a tiny bit more, which is a sign of serious intense scrutiny upon a Vulcan if Jim has ever seen it.

“I would admit I am shocked you were not ill-used by your captor, Dr. McCoy, were it not for the fact your mind is naturally volatile enough to dissuade contact with even the most skilled of telepaths.”

“Now wait just a blasted minute!” Leonard pulls away from Jim. “Of the two of us, who do you think is really the least attractive, Spock? Your mind is probably ’bout as welcoming as a concrete block, you cold-blooded—”

“Okay, okay,” Jim intervenes, oddly relieved. “Gentlemen, that’s enough. I think we all get the point that you were a little worried about each other. You don’t have to shout.”

Leonard turns on him, eyes wide. “What?”

Spock sounds as aghast as the doctor looks. “Captain, that is highly illogical. I fail to understand how you could infer—”

Jim flaps away their protests with a hand, intent on steering the conversation back to what’s relevant. “Can we talk about what’s going on here? Bones, where is Auron?”

Leonard closes his mouth for a moment, looking like he doesn’t know what he wants to say.

The hesitation is just enough to sound the red alert at the back of Jim’s neck. “Bones?” he repeats, hearing tension creep into his voice.

“The Betazoid is dead.”

Jim faces the newcomer with mounting unease. “Say that again.”

The man is older than Jim and wearing the insignia of a rank which under any circumstance cannot be readily dismissed.

“Captain Kirk of the USS Enterprise, I presume?” A hand is held out in introduction. “Commander Landres, head of Control and the commanding officer of this port.”

“Commander.” Jim shakes the proffered hand, taking a moment to figure out what the kind of man Landres might to be. “We’re in pursuit of a felon—and you say he’s dead?”

“The body’s in my morgue if that’s the way you normally classify ‘dead’.”

“How?” Jim questions at the same time Spock says, “We need to see the body.”

Jim glances at Spock, certain the Vulcan is as unsettled by the news as he is even if it isn’t apparent in Spock’s flat tone.

Landres shifts on his feet and motions at McCoy, who had grown quiet and unusually still at the man’s approach. “Kirk, I think your doctor could answer that question best. I’m interested myself in what he has to say.”

As everyone focuses their attention on McCoy, Leonard turns his face away. His admission is almost soft enough to qualify as a whisper: “I guess I killed ‘im.”

In that moment, everything seems wrong, hazy to Jim. A trick. Maybe the pain has come back or the blow to his head has damaged his ability to understand simple words. Jim doesn’t know. “Bones, you… killed Auron?”

The doctor sighs heavily, like a man put through too many trials, and faces his comrades again. As Jim meets McCoy’s gaze, he sees that odd wariness is back—and Jim doesn’t like it.

Leonard reiterates evenly, “I killed him, Jim.”

This is the kind of moment in Jim’s life where he wants to plug his ears or fake hearing loss and never, ever have to hear the details. Luckily, the question he has a difficult time managing is one his First Officer has no qualms voicing on his behalf. For some reason, that pains him all the more.

“How did you kill him, Doctor?”

Leonard’s mouth thins momentarily. “I got him when his back was turned with a vial of sedative—I think you know from personal experience how sneaky I can be that way, Spock—” A flash of grim humor crosses the doctor’s face, there and gone, causing Jim to internally shudder at the memory of the Vians. “—but I miscalculated the dose for a Betazoid. Now he’s dead.”

Spock scrutinizes McCoy as if he can discern the truth simply by what he sees.

Jim half-turns away, hoping nothing shows on his face as he processes what he is hearing. “And what is this?” he asks, focusing on the gurney and silent, staring audience of a man and a woman in non-descript gray uniforms.

“They’re taking her to their medbay,” McCoy explains. “You know how sick she is, Jim. It’s only gotten worse with this chase across the quadrant.” He falls quiet very briefly. “If you’ll allow it, I’ll see her settled in and set up properly before I turn myself over.”

Dr. McCoy,” Spock begins, tone almost sharp for a Vulcan.

Jim, watching Landres’ impassive face, lifts a hand in a wordless command to halt whatever else Spock might say. He’s grateful when the Vulcan obeys him. “Stay for just a minute, Bones—but I think the others can continue on for the time-being.”

Landres gives a tacit nod of approval, and the med-techs reactivate the gurney, leading it away. No one else makes a move to follow them.

Kirk focuses on Landres. “I think we will need to see that body, Commander.”

“I will be glad to lead the way, Captain, when you’re ready.”

But Jim steps back. “Not now. First, McCoy and the woman must be safely transported aboard the Enterprise.”

To his left, there is an audible indrawn breath and a word that might be a curse. Then, “Jim…”

Landres seems unmoved by the request. “A crime was committed in my jurisdiction, Kirk, and I’ve got a body and a verbal confession to prove it. Doesn’t matter how it came about, or why. I have to have some answers before I let your doctor go anywhere, even if it’s to sleep in your brig.”

Jim concedes, “I’m not trying to step on your authority here, Commander, but an investigation can be conducted from the ship. It will be because as Dr. McCoy’s commanding officer and as the person who is, in essence, responsible for the actions of his crewmen—”

Leonard latches hard onto his forearm. “Now hold up, Jim! Murder is a capital crime. You can’t just—”

“Quiet, Bones. I don’t think you murdered anybody.” He cuts his eyes at McCoy. “Unless you want another chance to try to convince me you aren’t lying?”

Leonard looks at his captain as if he’s grown a second head. “You don’t believe me?”

“The day you get careless with another’s life is the day I eat my hat.”

“Captain,” Spock points out, sounding only mildly interested in the burgeoning argument, “might I remind you, you are not wearing a hat.”

“It’s a turn of phrase, Spock.”

“Ah.”

McCoy makes the exasperated noise of someone who wants to throw his arms up in the air, except he doesn’t and instead marches determinedly towards Landres, wrists held out like he is offering them up for a pair of manacles. Landres’ mouth curves at the corners, giving him the appearance of a man who is inordinately pleased to be presented with a new prisoner.

Jim reaches out and snags the fabric of Leonard’s blue shirt and firmly reels him away from the commander. At the same time, he orders, “Mr. Spock, your communicator—see if you can contact the ship from here.” Then he transfers his fistful of shirt to Leonard’s bicep, making certain to hold on tightly enough that his friend cannot shuck him off with ease.

Spock flips open the communicator with a “Yes, Captain” and turns the frequency dial. “Spock to Enterprise. Come in, Enterprise.”

Leonard gives Jim’s grip one last, unhappy shake before giving up on getting himself loose. “Jim, listen to me,” he insists in a low, urgent tone. “You’re making a mistake. You’re—”

“In danger?” Jim finishes, voice equally hushed. “You don’t have to tell me what I already know, Bones.” He glances sidelong at the man. “But what I can’t figure out is why you think, even if you did manage to hurt someone and had to stand before a tribunal, Spock and I would leave you here to face it alone.”

“Because for once I’d like to believe you aren’t a fool!”

He doesn’t want to admit it, but that barb truly stings.

Maybe Leonard sees something of the hurt in his friend because his fierce expression softens. Unfortunately his words remain no less stubborn than the man himself. “Jim, you’re going to get yourself—and Spock—killed. I’m beggin you, for once don’t come charging into the battle until you know you can win.”

Jim frowns at him. “We will win, Bones.”

But, without warning, Leonard won’t meet his eyes.

“Win, Captain?” echoes Landres, the quality of his tone suddenly humming with a familiar ego-centric undertone.

Automatically Kirk tenses and shifts position into a stance of defensive, a blatant warning to anyone who knows him.

Spock has stilled too, lifting his head as he pauses in his attempt to reach the Enterprise. Miraculously in that moment of diverted attention, the speaker of the communicator crackles and comes to life.

Spock?” they can all hear Uhura say, “Enterprise to Commander Spock. We can hear you!

Spock wordlessly closes the lid of the communicator.

While the muscles in Landres’ neck are bow-string taut, his eyes have a strange glassy quality to them. But his voice is crystal-clear: “No, Captain, you don’t win this time.”

Jim’s free hand forms a fist. “Hello, Auron. You seem confident for a dead man.”

Damn it, Jim.

He resists the urge to pat McCoy’s shoulder because that would mean taking his eyes off the enemy. “It’s all right, Bones. I think he knows this was a plan destined to fail.”

“How ironic that you should think so, Captain, when it is your good Doctor McCoy who suggested it.”

Jim draws in a quick, steadying breath because he can feel the way Leonard has tensed at his back—and that means there is some truth to the claim. But that will have to be dealt with later.

“We’re past the chit-chat,” he tells the Betazoid. “I’ve got a Federation vessel within range and as of now, since it’s evident the commanding officer of this station is compromised, I have the right to temporarily assume his duties as the highest-ranking officer present. For the crimes you committed at this outpost, I am remanding you to the Enterprise to be held in custody until your hearing—and that’s just with regard to a small portion of the charges you will be facing, Auron.”

It is Yarrows who lifts his head and laughs. He doesn’t stop laughing.

Landres shakes his head slowly. “I seem to recall we have traveled this road before, Kirk. What was it I said then? Ah, yes… You cannot bargain with a desperate man.

“There are no more bargains. Only justice.”

Landres unclips the small plasma rifle from his belt, seeming amused, and aims it at Kirk’s chest.

Jim just looks at him. “I suppose you think I’m surprised.”

“I doubt it. But regardless, you and your Vulcan will step away from Dr. McCoy. I would like to say I can be rid of him at this point but, alas, it seems I have more reason to keep him since you seem to value his life so much. Doctor, if you please, join me and quickly. Otherwise I might shoot your captain. You see, some humans fight a little harder than others when I’m in their head, and this Commander Landres is very angry with me right now. I dare say it might make me a little too jumpy with the trigger.”

Jim experiences a moment of hesitation but after a glance at Leonard’s expression lets go of him. The doctor circles around Kirk, then Spock, and without a word goes to stand at Landres’ side, head bowed.

“Good,” says the man before tilting his head contemplatively. “Hm. Which one of you should I kill first?”

“Bones,” Jim murmurs, “now would be a good time.”

Leonard lifts his head and releases an explosive sigh, saying to the area at large, “I knew I couldn’t trust him.”

In the next instant, there’s a hypospray sticking out of Landres’ neck. Leonard purses his mouth and pulls it back out with the mutter, “Huh, I think maybe I did that a little too hard.”

The commander stumbles back in surprise, his mouth opening and closing; and then his eyes clear. Seconds later they roll back up into his head. Landres drops to the ground.

Yarrows chokes on air mid-laughter and freezes in place, looking slightly horrified.

Kirk turns to Spock. “Can you take care of that? With any luck, our Betazoid menace will be too tied up to fight back.”

“I can, and gladly will.” Spock walks over to Yarrows and arranges his fingertips on the psi-points of the man’s face.

Leonard is staring down at the empty cartridge of the hypospray when Kirk joins him.

“Bones?” he calls the name gently.

“That fool shoulda known better than to give me ideas.” Then the doctor looks up, slipping the hypospray into his pocket, smiling tenatively. “How’d you know I had it on me?”

“I saw it when I grabbed the back of your shirt. At first it was just another puzzle piece that didn’t fit the picture. If you were out of danger, why would you want carry one of those as a weapon?”

McCoy’s smile turns into a look of suspicion. “You said you believed I wasn’t a murderer before you grabbed my shirt.”

Jim lifts his hands and gives a little shrug. “You know me… when I’m not sure, I bluff twice as hard.”

“Jim!” Leonard’s hand darts out and a finger jabs deeply into Jim’s breastbone. “You son of a gun, I was innocent!”

Jim can’t help it. He grins.

They hear a thud behind them and turn as one to find Spock with a crumpled Lieutenant Yarrows at his feet.

The Vulcan blinks placidly down at the human. “As you correctly assumed, Captain, there was a sufficient grace period between the Doctor’s attack and Auron’s extraction of himself from Landres’ sedated mind to allow me to sever his hold on the lieutenant. I have, for the lack of a more accurate term, placed him in the equivalent mental state of a Vulcan healing trance.”

“Spock, do you think we can save him?”

“In the essence of time, I did not ascertain the extent of the damage. Perhaps, Doctor. I can tell you no more at present.”

Leonard asks no other questions.

Jim touches the doctor’s shoulder in sympathy while saying to Spock, “Have the Enterprise beam him back. McCoy will go with him.”

That returns Leonard to life.

“Like hell I will!” the doctor snaps, suddenly irate. “Jim, just because we eliminated a few people from Auron’s roster doesn’t mean this space station isn’t a glorified dollhouse for a crazed telepath! And before Spock goes opening his mouth, no, Auron’s body isn’t in the morgue.”

“Clearly it is not, Doctor.”

“Shut up, Spock. And if you dare tell Scotty to transport me back to the ship, I’ll never speak to you again!”

One of Spock’s eyebrows inches towards his hairline. “I fail to see the threat in that statement.”

Leonard’s eyes narrow. “Then I’ll talk you to death. I’ll come into your room and sit by your bedside at night and repeat every smitten thing Chapel has ever said about Vulcans and their cute pointy ears.”

Jim looks pained. “That’s… unnecessarily creepy, Bones.”

The man cuts his eyes at Jim. “Your punishment will be much worse, believe me.”

Jim considers the sincerity of the threat. “…I think Bones can stay.”

Mollified, Leonard sniffs. “That’s a wise decision, Jim-boy. A very wise decision.”

“Happy to oblige,” Jim deadpans. “Let’s move this along, shall we? I feel like Big Brother is watching.”

“You and me both,” his friend agrees. “And he’s got to be pissed.”

Spock relays the order to have Yarrows transported back to the ship and apprises Mr. Scott that they found McCoy. To Scotty’s “Are ye sure he’s our doctor, Mr. Spock, and not that mad man taken control of his brain?“, Leonard leans over Spock’s arm and says into the communicator, “That’s right, Scotty, I’m the mad man and now I’m privy to the secret ingredient in your recipe for moonshine you mistakenly told McCoy that night you drank all his brandy! I’ll sell it and become rich!”

The response is a gasp and a wail of “No, ye can’t! That’s me family’s pride ‘n honor!

“Well, that brandy was damned expensive!” retorts the doctor.

Spock, no doubt nonplussed to be wasting time over an argument about the preciousness of alcohol beverages, closes the channel on them both.

Now, as they walk the length of the eastern corridor of the hub, Spock’s brain has circled back to something much more fascinating. “You mentioned Big Brother, yet I do not see the immediate connection to Auron. Who is Big Brother?”

“A reference to a book called 1984,” Jim explains. “Remind me to lend you my copy of it some time.”

McCoy snorts. “He’d just say it’s another example of the psychosis of the human race. I mean, who needs paranoia when the universe is so logical?”

Jim suppresses a smile.

“If you wish to discuss what is logical and what is not logical, I believe this turn of conversation is quite firmly in the latter, given the dangers of our current circumstance, Dr. McCoy. I suggest you elaborate on where you are leading us instead.”

“To the medbay—where else?”

Jim gives Leonard a sharp look. “Auron’s wife?”

Leonard nods. “Who better for bait than the one person our mad man can’t leave behind?”

“Captain, while I believe Dr. McCoy’s assessment to be astute, to take a hostage is unethical and against what we represent as Starfleet officers.”

“I don’t think Bones means we use her as a hostage, Spock.”

“Definitely not that, Spock,” Leonard says, glancing at the Vulcan. “If she doesn’t want to help us, then we can send her back to the Enterprise.”

Spock stops walking. “I was of the impression the disease had rendered her unable to communicate.”

Leonard looks weary all of a sudden. “She talked to me, briefly. She knows what her husband is doing, and she wants it to stop.”

“She wants to stop him,” Jim agrees, remembering what the woman had whispered only for him to hear. He makes a decision. “We ask—and we hope for the best.”

Spock inclines his head minutely and resuming walking again, hands locked behind his back. As the Vulcan’s long stride carries him slightly ahead of Kirk and McCoy, Jim’s gaze is drawn to the dagger at the Vulcan’s belt.

Not for the first time he wonders, like he did with McCoy, what trump card it is Spock has hidden up his sleeve. But he doesn’t ask because he trusts in his friend to reveal that card when the time is right.

Next Part

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About KLMeri

Owner of SpaceTrio. Co-mod of McSpirk Holiday Fest. Fanfiction author of stories about Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

3 Comments

  1. hora_tio

    What can I say except that you so get the dynamics of these three men. Throughout this chapter you consistently display their intimate knowledge of each other and their ability to ‘read’ one another. So sure are they of each others personalities and character that it would never enter their mind that one of them would be acting dishonorably or maybe even more like that they know what makes up the core of who each is and know for a fact that they would never act dishonorably. Kirk knew bones cared for his patients and could never so easily take a life like that….as with spock kirk trusts them with his life and even more telling is the fact that kirk trusts them with the life of his crew whose lives he values more than his own. well done my friend …well done get some sleep tonight…lol

    • writer_klmeri

      I think that’s exactly the reason it doesn’t ever become annoying that Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are always putting themselves on the line for each other – because we know they perceive something precious in their friends that must be protected. And that is because they understand each other well enough to know there’s a heart of gold beneath the flaws and posturing and any misunderstandings. The Triumvirate is perfect in the fact their friendship is often strong and unshakable without them ever realizing it. I just love them. I really do. You are very much appreciated. I can only pull off the marathon-writing because you provide me with such great support and motivation to pursue my muse. So thank you – and I would bet the other readers thank you too!

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