0Title: Difficulty Engaged (10/11)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: During leave, trouble thwarts a good plan and causes Kirk and Spock to accelerate the timeline of their McCoy-centric agenda. But true to form, McCoy is already playing by a set of rules they don’t understand.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2| 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
Leonard shakes out his throbbing knuckles and remarks, “Huh, I didn’t think that would work.”
With his hands braced against his knees, an out-of-breath Jim peers up at the doctor admiringly. “Your right cross is no joke, Bones. Thanks.”
Leonard flashes a grin in response.
The moment Chee had spun within arm’s reach of McCoy, having jumped away from a resolute-looking Spock to avoid being nerve pinched for flipping Kirk for a third time over his shoulder (the sight and sound of which had Leonard as equally furious as Spock and flinching from Jim’s repeated impacts with the floor), McCoy had taken the opening without hesitation. As was typical of course, Kirk had already staggered back to his feet to endure another beat-down despite his energy clearly flagging and Leonard knew the only way to stop Jim was to lay Chee out first.
So he did, and he’s mighty proud of having done it too.
Naturally, it would be Spock who spoils the moment, catching their attention by holding up a hypospray. “I believe Mr. Chee’s sudden unconsciousness can be attributed to this.”
Jim sharply sucks in a breath. “Spock, if you had that, why didn’t you use it sooner?” The demand dies to a grumble as his fingers prod at a bruise blooming across his cheekbone.
Leonard is appalled for a different reason. “Damn it, man, what the hell did you do!”
“Merely made use of a sedative,” replies the Vulcan, which falls on deaf ears as Leonard shoves Chee onto his back and checks the unconscious alien for a pulse, “which should remain in effect while he is placed into custody again.”
Leonard fixes Spock with an unamused stare. “Next time leave the sedating to a certified medical professional. I don’t even want to know where you got that hypo.”
“Dr. M’B—”
Spock is unceremoniously cut off by Leonard’s higher-pitched “I said don’t tell me!”
The Vulcan closes his mouth and carefully turns his gaze from the doctor like a duly chastened child, at which point Leonard drags a hand down his face, immediately regretful, and apologizes for yelling. Mollified, Spock accepts the apology and summarily assists Leonard from his crouch on the floor. The doctor pockets the hypospray with a dour expression.
Sporting a wide smile, Jim comes forward to pat McCoy’s shoulder, and a short pause ensues wherein the three of them once again enjoy being reunited.
Then a deep snore from Chee breaks up the moment, Leonard sighs and asks, “What do we do about him—” adding with a glance to the second unconscious person in the corridor, “—and her?”
Kirk’s response is to flip open a communicator and call the Enterprise.
“Scott here. Capt’n, Dr. McCoy…?”
“We have him.”
Leonard doesn’t know quite what to think of the cheering coming through the open channel, loud enough to create static.
With a fond look at the doctor in question, Jim agrees, “My sentiments exactly. Three to beam up.”
Leonard frowns. “You’re sending Spock back?”
Spock clarifies, “You are the one who shall return to the Enterprise, Doctor. The Captain and I must stay to ascertain the whereabouts of the hostiles.”
“Are you mad!” One of Leonard’s hands shoots out to grip Jim’s uniform sleeve. “Jim!”
Jim dislodges his hand calmly. “Have Mr. Chekov lock onto McCoy and two alien life-forms at these coordinates. Medical and Security should be on stand-by.”
“Aye, sir. Uhura, comm Lt. Chekov in Transporter Room Three and Dr. M’Benga in Sickbay with Captain Kirk’s orders.”
Leonard argues, “I’m not going anywhere if you aren’t!” When Jim denies him with a simple “No, Bones,” he nearly explodes with temper. So be it! If Jim won’t listen…!
“Scotty,” the doctor snarls over Kirk’s shoulder into the communicator, “if you and Chekov don’t want to find out what a case of Andorian shingles feels like, you’ll listen to my order as Chief Medical Officer!”
Spock intones, “Dr. McCoy, it is inappropriate to menace your colleagues with threats of disease,” and promptly places himself between McCoy and Kirk.
Leonard is about to tell Spock he can concoct an unpleasant medical condition for a Vulcan too when an idea occurs to him. His hands snap out and latch firmly onto Spock’s arms.
Spock’s eyebrows fly upward.
Leonard tugs the Vulcan right up against him and loops one arm around the Vulcan’s back that would normally be the preceding step to a hug or a more intimate kind of contact.
A strangled noise comes from Jim, whose eyes have popped wide.
Leonard feels very satisfied when Chekov comes across the line a moment later, stating with obvious befuddlement, “Keptin, I have ze Doctor’s signature but can’t separate him from Mr. Spock to lock on properly.”
Leonard hums, pleased, and then drawls a challenge to Jim, “You better rethink those orders, Captain. I’ll stick to this Vulcan like white on rice for however long it takes.”
“Keptin?” Chekov sounds scandalized because he’s too smart not to put two and two together and come up with a mental image of what Leonard in the First Officer’s arms.
Jim continues making funny noises. “Bones…” Then, unhappy about the turn of events but no doubt recognizing defeat in the face of good ole Southern stubbornness, Jim finally relays, “Change of orders, Mr. Chekov. Beam up the other life-forms. McCoy will stay with me and Spock. Is Dr. M’Benga there?”
“Acknowledged, Keptin. Dr. M’Benga just arrived with several nurses and orderlies.”
“Very good. Have him look over his new patients but maintain a security escort. Kirk out.”
The two beings shimmer away from sight, and a long-held tension finally leaves McCoy. It’s only after he has relaxed into Spock for some seconds that he remembers their predicament and jerks back to look Spock in the eyes, horrified by his own actions.
Yet at having a human practically draped over him, the Vulcan is remarkably complacent, standing straight-backed with his usual perfect posture, one arm tucked behind his back since Leonard is tightly clutching the other one. He’s so quietly calm it’s almost as though he wishes not to be the one to disturb their closeness.
Leonard doesn’t understand. Where is Spock’s indignation at this flippant breach of personal space? His outrage at being forced into physical contact?
Spock meets McCoy’s shocked gaze steadily, claiming then, “I have no issue with your touch. If you are comfortable, I am comfortable.”
Leonard chokes. Spock is giving him permission to keep holding on.
That thought has time to fully sink in, and Leonard stumbles back from the Vulcan as if burned, color rising quickly in his face. “You-You—!” he sputters.
How can a Vulcan be so shameless! Leonard isn’t his boyfriend!
Jim chokes on a laugh, and Leonard’s face flames hotter as he realizes his brain-to-mouth filter somehow let that last part be said aloud. There’s nowhere to look now that doesn’t bring Leonard face-to-face with the shambles of his dignity.
Spock is finally able to lock both hands behind his back and does so. “An oversight,” he remarks mysteriously.
“With corrective action coming relatively soon,” adds Kirk to no one in particular as he bends down to fetch the fake phaser from the floor.
Silliness, all of it, though admittedly Leonard started it. He refuses to process such nonsense, feeling simply that it’s neither the time nor place to deal with such things. Besides, discussions of nonsense never end well for Leonard anyway.
He sighs. What he wouldn’t give for the sweet monotony of his Sickbay duties right now, where everything is known and appreciated because it is known. Just look at the kind of trouble pushing for shore leave has brought! A smart man stays aboard the ship for his vacation. Next time McCoy will choose to catch up on some professional journals like the Chief Engineer instead of frolicking around with a Vulcan and a captain in tow.
Although having Spock for company this time hadn’t been so bad…
Leonard squashes that thought with a harrumph, and oddly enough the Vulcan sends him a look that on a human might be called fond.
“Ruti,” Leonard says with mild desperation, hoping for a change of subject to a topic he can handle. “Don’t tell me we’re fighting Ruti when we find her.”
Jim straightens, his smile dimming to a thin line. “Her enemies, Bones—what do you can tell us about them?”
“You mean her cousin? He’s… here,” Leonard’s mouth says on its own, dread rousing within him. “On this ship.”
How had he forgotten the uneasiness which has accompanied him for almost a full day, that prickling certainty of a great and terrible threat looming closeby?
Well, it’s back now. That forcibly augmented extra sense in his brain fires up and blares out a warning like an emergency siren suddenly set off. It sends his normal senses reeling.
Whatever shows in McCoy’s face just then must be disturbing. Kirk calls his name with sharp concern. Spock reaches for him.
Emotions nearly overwhelm him. The roiling fear, anxiety, and timidity—those belong to Leonard; but the hatred and disgust and determination to kill are not his.
And the bloodthirsty hunger is entirely alien, of no source he can discern. He cringes away from it.
The scene is there in his mind: inside one of the ship’s cargo bays, Ruti facing her cousin Zanceas, a being so alike in appearance to her they are undeniably kin. But his features are twisted with rage where she is unmoved by temper. Their mutual animosity is blade-sharp, resounding like a bell in his head. He just wants it to stop, tells it to stop—
—and in doing so, reminds Ruti of his existence.
With horror, he feels her recognize his presence, can almost see her mind flex toward his, all claws and teeth in her desperation. Leonard is the only tool available to her now and she feels she must win this fight, even if that means destroying both of them in the process. Zanceas is destroyed or she and McCoy are, with no alternative.
What happens next is a blur to Leonard. Vaguely, he thinks he cries out; his own body betrays him, moving step by step away from Jim and Spock in the direction of the cargo bay while his mind—his spirit—is unwillingly dragged into a current of power.
Leonard floats with the current as it pulls and pulls; he swiftly goes along, without effort, with a lessening connection to where he exists physically. He sits helpless while the current starts to churn restlessly, then tumultuously, as it draws nearer to two monoliths rising out of the void. One is whole and terrifying; the other terrifying in a different way because it is cracked down the middle and seems unsteady. He is dimly conscious of how they suck in the power greedily, and more intensely conscious of the anticipation of a great clash and a certainty he—small and weak by comparison—will shatter into fragments upon collision.
But the horror is transient for Leonard where it should be flourishing. He is folded into another presence like a warm embrace. The familiarity of it soothes him, and he believes in its promise of there being nothing to fear. Leonard is not alone with the danger, and it is only the danger who is not yet aware of this fact. Foolish enough to take Leonard, the danger shall not succeed in keeping him, using him, or harming him.
The knowledge is a balm to Leonard’s soul.
“Spock, catch him!” Jim cries as McCoy forces his way past them with an unseeing stare.
Kirk had taken one look at the doctor’s terrifyingly empty expression and clearly surmised who has taken McCoy from them. Spock had foreseen this possibility the moment he felt Ruti break the shielding over Officer Huido and Mr. Murtee’s minds and miscalculated how much time he would have to initiate a defense against her, including the time it would take to convince Leonard it would be the only course of action open to them.
Now, as he steps to physically block the doctor’s path and arrange his hand along Leonard’s face while Jim pins Leonard from behind, Spock regrets he must proceed without explaining the risk and potential effects and obtaining consent; most of all, he regrets not knowing if Leonard understands Spock could never harm him through a mind-meld no matter the circumstances.
Yet when he catches up to McCoy’s self speeding along that pathway towards Ruti and another powerful but less controlled being, Spock barely makes himself known before McCoy accepts his comfort like a flower craving the sunlight.
Spock feels a billow of emotion—pleasure at the instant acceptance—admires it briefly and then shares it. Leonard chooses to sink into him more securely, then, just as the man had leaned into Spock’s body in the corridor not so long ago. This unknowingly solidifies the link between their minds. Spock is most grateful.
Spock momentarily diverts his attention to call out to Jim, lifting his free hand and asking, “May I?” A moment later, Kirk’s mind is also carefully connected to his, with Jim offering the same acceptance of his presence as McCoy had. Spock is flattered all over again.
Beyond the two connections he buoys with his own strength, there is a flicker of alarm, of dismayed recognition. Spock doesn’t allow Ruti time to decide what to do about him and yanks McCoy from the current of power, letting the spark of his own temper burn off the few tendrils of her control which try to stubbornly cling to the doctor’s mind.
Then he wraps up the three of them in a cocoon of shielding as comforting as a soft blanket but tough enough to withstand an attack by Ruti or her cousin. Spock gives the cocoon a final shake to discard the insecurities and apprehension and little doubts from Kirk and McCoy, and this act brings Leonard out of the fog of control to his own awareness.
As Leonard gives the mental equivalent to a startled meep of Where am I?, Spock takes a moment to savor the resonance of energies between himself and his chosen partners. Here is a sense of completeness that he instinctively knows could be so much more than a joining of similar minds. It is wonderful in a way Spock is not adept at describing.
The temptation is great to offer more than protection but the circumstances are not proper by Vulcan dictates. Yet Spock must wonder what is so improper about this sudden yearning to let Kirk and McCoy know him as he truly is and to learn them fully in turn.
Spock, is that you?
Ah, Leonard recognizes him. And of course, Jim always has.
Spock had thought his love a quiet flame and realizes now it burns strong and joyfully under their attention. Some day he will explain this to them.
I am Spock, he answers. Doctor, Captain. Our thoughts are one.
Duly noted, comes from Jim, who until then has been holding his mind utterly still so as not to disturb McCoy’s slow acclimation to their new situation. But as with all brilliant minds like Kirk’s, being still for too long only serves to heighten his curiosity and inspire a child-like desire to be set free to explore his surroundings.
On the other hand, fresh from being rescued, Leonard naturally decides Spock defaulting to a three-way mind-meld to protect him is overkill.
Jim’s flick of thought says he appreciates how Leonard is stubborn in the best of ways but honestly, thank the man instead of berating him!
Spock won’t get any thanks from Leonard for putting himself in danger! What’s Jim doing here anyway? Meddling?
Spock finds the humans’ byplay amusing. Leonard stops fighting with Jim with an irritable little mental harrumph, and Jim settles on thinking how happy he is that they are together.
When Spock mirrors Jim’s happiness, Leonard awkwardly pulls back from the unabashed feelings only to realize there is nowhere to hide with their thoughts laid so bare. He demands, What’s the point of all this?
To protect ourselves, Bones, Jim answers immediately. To end this fight for good.
I don’t understand, Leonard says.
Faith, Doctor, is all we require.
An easy request for someone of McCoy’s nature to fulfill, Spock knows. McCoy has always had faith in abundance; otherwise, he would have never followed Jim to the stars, would not be the man who stands by his Hippocratic oath at all costs, could not be filled with such endless compassion and could not so readily understand why Spock’s honor is tied so intrinsically to his loyalty to his captain.
Leonard thinks something interesting concerning Spock and sweet-talking before, as predicted, mustering a truly admirable amount of faith.
Physical body or no physical body, Jim buzzes with adrenaline. Are we ready, Spock?
The forging of relationships require trust, and trust requires truthfulness. Spock has always prided himself on being strictly honest even during the times that necessitate a modicum of deception. He can do nothing less than offer the truth now, regardless of the outcome.
I know of no alternative, Jim. Our greatest strength is our unity. We must attempt to negate Ruti’s power together.
Leonard protests, You could cut me loose, let me be a distraction. Jim, you and Spock fit together. You always have. Surely like this, you two would be enough to—
But Jim, like Spock, is having none of that type of argument. Not anymore. Out of the question. It’s all three of us or none of us.
Leonard fires back, And who do you think we are to match the likes of them? Gods?
Be us gods or men, Bones, our best chance is with you.
Leonard wavers between being surprised and charmed.
Affection for Kirk and McCoy bolsters Spock’s confidence. Gentlemen, we are more than capable.
In fact, he has calculated the likelihood of them being invincible. The odds are gratifyingly favorable.
Disbelief meets his surety, followed by a wave of awe from Jim.
Bones, I think Spock’s ego might be bigger than mine.
It’s Leonard who outright despairs for his sanity. What in blazes was that! Vulcans are supposed to be logical!
Just imagine, Jim chuckles, if we finally have proof to the contrary.
It’ll shock the galaxy, Jim.
Jim and Leonard are jesting to allow themselves time to acclimate to a tamer version of his belief in their combined power, Spock knows, and not trying to insult his nature.
Jim arrives there first. So, we can take them. Tell me what you need, Spock.
I’m not going to like the answer, Leonard decides preemptively, but you have me too for whatever you need. We ought to teach Ruti and her no-good cousin why it’s rude to muck about in other people’s heads.
A commendable sentiment, Spock approves.
Leonard’s mental sigh is indulgent, almost playful. In the meantime, could I have my body back?
Certainly, Spock says. Our connection is securely established. Prolonging physical contact is not required.
He withdraws his hands from McCoy and Kirk’s faces respectively with no lessening of the mind links, which pulse warm and strong, and the three of them open their eyes at the same time.
Leonard clears his throat. “Well, that was interesting.”
“Fascinating is the word, Doctor.”
Jim offers them a tiny smile. “I would say pleasant.”
McCoy flushes. When he has his reaction under control again, he says, sobering, “They’re in the cargo bay.”
Jim nods once and turns in the direction McCoy had been going. Spock and McCoy follow him.
Zan tsks his disappointment at his cousin. “What were you attempting to accomplish just now, Rutiana? And with so feeble a mind?”
“There is trouble headed this way, Prime.”
He sneers. “Who could possibly interfere?”
“There is no time to relate the story to you,” she replies, “not that you would have the patience for it.”
“You are always making enemies, little cousin.” He admits he does feel the ripple of a three-pronged storm moving along the ship. Under normal circumstances it might make him cautious but what does he have to fear? He has nothing to do with the trouble Ruti has stirred up in this place. He says coldly, “Perhaps your enemies would like to watch my pack feasting on your body.” He delves inward to the bond with his Scavengers, sensing them strain against the leash of his power. “You feel their hunger, don’t you? They want to greet you so badly. Shall I let them?”
“You could try,” she says too softly, backing up another step to place her hand against the outer hull of the shuttlecraft. “But it should surprise me little if their wildness proves too much even for you, Prime.”
“Their obedience is to me, only me!” he snaps, barely preventing himself from launching forward to lay hands on her, an act of physical violence which should be beneath him but with his tenuous control seems like the only way to truly slake his anger. He settles for releasing a yell of frustration.
Ruti gives him a pitying look. “You should not have left the homeworld, Zan. You are coming undone.”
Her words nearly shatter his control. “Whose fault is that!” And finally he attacks, throwing a vicious punch of power directly at the outermost barrier around her mind.
She stiffens but does not deflect the blow. “Try again,” she challenges him afterward, letting him have a taste of her emotions and thoughts.
But how can this be? She is surprised by him, this woman who once bowed to him in fealty after the Clan made him Prime instead of her. She believes him strange to have not torn through her first barrier. Speculates he has become so embittered he cannot command his power with the finesse he once had. His rage must have eaten away his prowess, blackened his talents, weakened his own mind.
“NO!” he roars in denial, and power blasts out of him in a shockwave which she rides easily. He is left panting and, in his panic, tries to wrench the unconscious bodies at her feet to awareness and to their feet, to use them like puppets against her.
They do not stir.
He had imagined her destruction would come at a flick of his thoughts and somehow the opposite is true: her brazenness has made her stronger than him, and his anger has hobbled him.
But not completely. No, there’s still the hunger, gnawing at him, wanting, always wanting.
He starts to laugh, heedless of the way it makes him look crazed, and calls in the Scavengers.
“What was that?” Jim wants to know, pulling Leonard upright against him. He directs the question to Spock, who appears to have been unaffected by the blast of energy that threw back the doors to the Bantum’s cargo bay and left Kirk and McCoy staggering back a few steps.
Leonard is thinking they are lucky not to have been within range of being literally knocked off their feet. Jim agrees.
“A surge,” Spock remarks, almost offhand. “Not like before.”
Leonard stiffens against Jim’s side. “Ruti calls it an unleashing.” He widens his eyes at the Vulcan. “Spock!”
Spock looks their way. “I am well, Doctor.”
“Last time you weren’t!”
“I was not prepared before.”
Anchored, Leonard’s mind supplies, his eyes widening further.
Jim doesn’t quite know what to make of that, but if it means Spock is able to withstand any tricks thrown their way, he won’t worry about it.
Spock is amused again, and that’s another thing Jim needs to come to terms with, it seems. Apparently Leonard and Jim are at times entertaining, at other times adorable, and most frequently enchanting with their strange leaps in thinking, all of which the Vulcan responds to with an abundance of fondness and a decisive ‘these humans amuse me and I am okay with it’ attitude. He would not have expected to find such a carefree nature within Spock.
“We’re going to have to do something about it,” Leonard mutters for Jim’s ears only. “And he says my emotions are out of control!”
Spock’s amusement grows. Once again McCoy has forgotten that about superior Vulcan hearing.
Jim sighs while Leonard glares at the back of their pointy-eared companion’s head, the doctor thinking about how he regrets not asking if there would be an off-switch to their mind link. In response, Jim rubs a hand soothingly along McCoy’s back.
Spock turns from inspecting the ruins of the cargo bay entrance with his tricorder. “Captain, I have picked up the same unusual life-signs from earlier. They are ahead of us.”
“Speculation, Mr. Spock?”
“Not enough data to speculate.”
McCoy steps up to Spock’s side to read the tricorder output. “Hm, from these readings, I’d guess they aren’t humanoid. No highly developed brain waves.” His head snaps around so he can stare at Kirk. “Jim!”
Jim feels a chill down his spine. “What is it?”
Leonard shudders as if Jim’s chill reaches him too. “Ruti said her cousin had things called Scavengers searching for her. Sounded like a pack of wild dogs.”
“Bones, someone would have reported animals running wild around the spaceport.”
“Assuming one can see them, Captain,” Spock points out, then pauses to add, “or is allowed to see them.”
Jim opens his mouth a moment before saying weakly, “That would certainly be an efficient way to hunt.”
“Indeed.”
Leonard shudders again. “I don’t relish the idea of being attacked by something I can’t see.”
“The creatures are not invisible to our scanner, Doctor.”
“Uh-huh,” McCoy says dryly, “and in the time it takes you to call out their positions like a sportscaster, they’ll be snacking on somebody. Jim, I hope you have more than that fake phaser on you.”
Both Jim and Spock pull out phasers. Leonard is momentarily nonplussed they don’t have one for him. With a smirk, Jim hands him the fake one. The doctor rolls his eyes heavenward.
“Just stay behind us, Bones.”
“Oh, can it, Jim. Find somebody else to play your damsel in distress. I still have my right cross.”
Jim doesn’t bother to control a swell of tenderness for the man, and Leonard looks like he wishes he hadn’t said anything. Too bad, thinks Jim, because there is no stopping their feelings now or in the future.
A scream splits in the air, coming from inside the cargo bay. Jim reacts on instinct by running toward it, Spock and McCoy on his heels.
They draw up short after dashing through two stacks of shipping crates to find themselves standing to the side of a wide-open area near the back of the bay. There’s a man on the ground, still screaming, as he tries to fend off a monstrous-looking beast latched onto his leg.
Jim doesn’t hesitate. He fires at the creature. The phaser blast sends it tumbling aside, but it rolls back to its feet very quickly and snarls at them before running off.
McCoy gasps, “There!”, and points at the end bay where Ruti has somehow scrambled to the top of a shuttlecraft. The ungodly racket around him, Jim realizes, is all snapping and snarling made by a large pack of creatures circling the small vessel. These must be the Scavengers. The fact that they are visible doesn’t make Kirk feel any better as he watches them.
Ruti’s situation is dire. “Help me!” she cries when she notices them. Jim can see even from his distance how her face lacks color, her eyes are wide with fear. “Captain, please!”
Jim Kirk is an honorable man. He doesn’t have to like somebody in order to save them. “Spock, you and McCoy move to a position on the opposite side. Phaser set to kill.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Jim!” McCoy protests even as Spock urges the doctor to return the way they came so the pair can safely skirt around the bay’s perimeter without attracting the attention of the creatures.
“The stun barely slowed the thing down, Bones.” He orders McCoy, “Now, go!” After the two men retreat, Jim slinks alongside the crates toward where Ruti is trapped, mindful of keeping quiet.
He pauses to mutter a curse under his breath as he comes upon a man laid out on the ground wearing a Starfleet captain’s uniform; not far beyond Huido is the patrolman’s shopkeeper friend in Science blues. Thankfully, the creatures don’t seem interested in the pair at all. Ruti has all their attention. One of the pack leaps halfway up the shuttle, jaws snapping.
“ZAN!” Ruti screams. “CONTROL THEM! YOU HAVE TO TAKE BACK CONTROL!”
No such luck, thinks Kirk, since the man who was being mauled by the creature a moment ago clutches at a badly bleeding leg and looks too shell-shocked to be useful. Jim can just make out pitiful cries about betrayal—his wife, his family, his pack.
Kirk starts forward again, only to be slammed back by some invisible force into the crates, knocking some of them over. He almost drops his phaser in the process, overwhelmed by pain lancing through him. For a second, there’s a double ring of Jim! resounding in his head.
One of the creatures turns toward him at the commotion, lifting its long snout as if scenting something divine. Jim has a bad feeling that something is him.
He fires just in the nick of time as it leaps for him. It drops to the ground and doesn’t get up again.
The moment Jim has his feet under him, the force hits him again. This time he cries out as he goes down—and he suddenly realizes what the purpose of the attack is: more of the creatures stop circling the shuttle to pinpoint his position. Her desperation evident, Ruti is using her power to clash against the shield protecting his mind. As power meets shield, the aftershock rings out, making the Scavengers aware of other prey.
Jim’s trying to save her and she’s trying to kill him and there is no reconciling those two facts.
But that is a problem for Jim to concern himself with at a later time as the creatures search for him in earnest. He sets a wide dispersal pattern on his phaser, aims, and fires. Some of them are intelligent enough to scatter when some of their packmates die, and that gives Jim enough time to break from his position and dash toward the center of the bay. He sees Spock and McCoy running at him from the other side, breaking their cover at the same time. He can’t even fault them for wanting to fight at his side.
“Ruti!” he yells at the woman atop the shuttlecraft. “We can get you out of here but you have to draw them back to you!” He dodges one of the creatures and shoots it, raising his voice to a near-scream. “YOU HAVE TO TRUST ME!”
She’s not going to listen. Why would she when they are clearly enemies and even her own kind have no mercy for each other, capable of horrific crimes like letting each other be torn to shreds by savage beasts?
Suddenly McCoy’s voice rings out. “Damn you, if you won’t trust him, trust me!”
Ruti straightens atop the shuttlecraft. Jim meets Spock and McCoy in the middle of the bay, where they form a triad, he and Spock firing at will at the pack closing in on them.
Jim can feel them now, how agonizingly hungry these animals are, can see it in their jerky movements. They want terribly to rend flesh from bones, to feed on the power of the mind until it sates the hunger. Until, at last, that power is theirs to use to free themselves of a miserable, captive existence. They never chose to be tamed.
“Jim,” Spock says, “Leonard, hold on!”
Jim doesn’t understand the Vulcan’s warning at first. Then he senses why, a maelstrom of power whipping up like a storm from nowhere, coursing over the floor, sparking off some of the electrical circuits in the paneled walls. The power swirls and tugs, eddies forming to work laboriously to drag everything with energy into its main current. But against the shielding Spock has strengthened around them—no, against the unit that comes from Kirk, Spock, and McCoy’s selves fitted together so perfectly—it can find no purchase, sliding off that smooth cocoon made from courage and comfort and love. They are safe in the eye of the storm because they are together.
The end of the maelstrom is Ruti, eyes closed, presented as a strangely delicate, serene statue fixed atop the shuttlecraft. The pack instinctively follows the current back to her, even the creatures who had taken to hiding in the long shadows between the towers of crates. They cannot resist.
Jim flips open his communicator, yelling into it, “Kirk to Enterprise! Emergency beam-out!” Coordinates appear in his thoughts, and he doesn’t question them, just thanks Spock and repeats them into his communicator.
As the Scavengers begin to claw their way up the shuttlecraft, climbing over each other mindlessly, shredding one another in the process, Ruti opens her eyes. In that moment, she looks like she knows she will die having trusted them to save her and is disappointed in them for that.
Then the transporter effect takes hold, and Ruti vanishes in a swirl of particles.
The Scavengers fall back in confusion. The man with the bleeding leg drags himself upright, expression shocked at first before turning to rage. He sounds the hungriest, Jim thinks, when a scream of denial bursts from him. The wildness in the man’s eyes is no different from the creatures’.
He turns on Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, teeth bared.
“He is insane,” Spock supplies flatly. “His desire to kill has become theirs, and theirs his.”
The Scavengers advance on him from behind. He doesn’t seem to notice them. He drags himself toward the Starfleet officers.
“Keptin!” Chekov cries through the communicator, reminding Kirk how short on time they are.
“I need your best skills now, Pavel,” Jim says, feeling calmness overtake him despite the present danger. “Six to beam out, humanoid signatures only. Don’t bring anything else with us.”
Chekov wisely doesn’t ask him to clarify that order.
Spock’s shielding has them protected this long from external influence, but Ruti’s cousin sees them, wants their blood, and soon his pack will too. Unfortunately for him, Jim isn’t going to let that happen.
Six men form on the flagship’s transporter pad, and in the next instant, Jim leaps into action, hustling McCoy down the platform steps and away from the man who by all accounts is still murderous and poised on the verge of leaping at them even while trying to regain his bearings. At the back of the transporter, Huido and Murtee remain blissfully unaware of the danger they could be in, sprawled out together in repose.
“You’ll all die!” screams Ruti’s cousin, the Prime, and without ceremony, Spock reaches over and nerve pinches the raving man. Security officers flood into the transporter room just as the man’s eyes roll back in his head and he collapses at Spock’s feet.
McCoy breaks away from Kirk toward the pale woman standing next to the transporter console with Chekov looking nervous beside her. “Well?” he demands pointedly of her.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Ruti whispers.
McCoy pulls Spock’s hypospray out of his pocket and jabs it into her arm. Afterward, an alarmed Chekov catches her as she folds to the floor.
When the doctor turns back to Kirk and Spock, he looks grimly satisfied. “Better than she deserves,” he says.
Jim grabs the man around the shoulders and hugs him tight, tucking his head into the juncture of McCoy’s neck and shoulder. Everyone except Spock politely looks elsewhere.
“Me too, Jim,” Leonard agrees with the wordless relief. “Me too.”
Once Kirk steps back from McCoy, Spock turns in the direction of Scotty, just arrived with another group of Security. “Notify Port Headquarters of our status and request of Commander Wardyn to lock down the Bantum. No one must be allowed to board the ship until its newest inhabitants are dealt with.”
The Chief Engineer nods easily enough, then pauses for a double-take at both Kirk and Spock.
Jim huffs at his queer expression. “Red isn’t our color. We know.”
“Aye,” echoes Scotty. “It really isn’t, sir.”
It’s McCoy who laughs, rocking into Jim’s shoulder in his mirth, and Spock who states simply enough, “Illogical.”
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- Difficulty Engaged (7/10) – from November 29, 2019
- Difficulty Engaged (6/10) – from September 19, 2019
