Celebrate the Earth and Sky (17/20)

[aerlalaith]

Let Your Spirit Fly V

Depositing the transport jammers in a rough circle around the building was the easy part.  When he and Spock met, breathing hard, at the other side of where they had started, Jim began to consider their next, ostensibly more difficult, step.

“I hope Gaila knew what the hell she was talking about,” Jim muttered as he peered around the side of the building to eye the security guard.

“She was an enemy informant,” Spock pointed out.  “I am certain her sources are reliable.”

Jim stared at him.  “You’ve never been a spy, have you?” he said after a moment.

“No,” Spock said, starting to hold himself a little stiffer.  “But-”

“Shit, he’s still there,” Jim whispered.  He clamped a hand over Spock’s mouth, feeling the hot air tickle his palm.

“Mmghmf,” said Spock.

“If Gaila was right and the whole security system was automated with signals from one of the Orion ships, we’ve only got a few minutes before they notice the jammers and the human backup starts to work,” Jim said.  He huffed.  “Serves them right for thinking that our anti-burglar tech or whatever wasn’t good enough.  Right?”

Spock clawed Jim’s hand away from his face.  “In simplified terms, yes,” he allowed.  He narrowed his eyes.  “Also, my voice is hardly louder in volume than yours.  The hand was unnecessary.  Additionally, it is a fact that Orion technology is more advanced than human.”

“Sorry,” Jim said.  “Habit.”  He flushed a little.  The habit had developed over an absurdly long recon mission in the South Pacific, when some of the members of his team had been prone to too much talking, and then to getting themselves shot as a result.  He supposed though, that Spock probably didn’t appreciate it.  “Sorry,” he said again.

“You are forgiven,” Spock said, mollified by Jim’s groveling.  “Besides, the hologram transmitter has not yet begun.  The security guard has nothing to distract him.”

“And how long-”

“Forty-five seconds,” Spock said.  His eyes fixed on the little box.

It was, by far, the longest forty-five seconds of Jim’s life.  As the moments ticked by, Jim’s grip on Spock’s arm grew tighter, so that by the end his nails were practically digging into Spock’s flesh.

And then the box began to glow blue.

A little girl, pigtails sticking out of the sides of her head, was the first to notice.  She stopped and stared, before her mother pulled her along, uninterested.

An old man was next.  Leaning on his cane, his back nearly bent in two, he peered at it owlishly, as if unsure whether or not what he was seeing was fact, or a product of his failing vision.

Then a boy, dressed in a similar manner to Spock, caught a glimpse.  And then a girl, bedecked in clothing from four hundred years ago.  A man in a suit.  Someone’s dog.  Then crowds started to take notice, patrons gazed out of shop windows as the light around the box grew brighter and brighter.  It coalesced into a single beam and then-

The bridge of a Romulan ship.  And there was Sybok, resplendent in Sarek’s robes, face stern.  He held out his hand, palm up, fingers split in the ta’al.

“Greetings, Earthlings!” Sybok boomed.

Although he had been expecting it, Jim still jumped.

Beneath the hologram, a stream of Japanese subtitles began to appear.  Meanwhile, Sybok stood and paced closer.  “I am Sybok, son of Sarek of the House of Surak.  I come to you from the planet Vulcan, to free your people from bondage, and from tyranny!”

The street was suddenly very, very quiet.

“Spock, your brother makes a fantastic thespian but now would really be a great time to get into the building,” Jim murmured into his ear.

Spock started, then tore his attention away from the gigantic holo-screen Sybok, and back towards the issue at hand.  “The guard?”

“Oh, he’s definitely watching,” said Jim.

“Convenient,” said Spock.

“A great battle will take place in your skies tonight,” Sybok intoned, as Spock and Jim slid away from the side of the building and sidled casually up to the man guarding the front of it.  “On the honor of Vulcan, we will rid your planet of the Orion scourge.  They have poisoned your politics.  They have cut your planet’s fledgling wings into spaceflight.  They have funded and encouraged your endless wars-”

“So . . . hoax or alien invasion?” Jim said conversationally to the security guard, motioning towards Sybok.  Startled, the man whirled to face Jim.   At seeing him so close, his mouth made an O of surprise, but before he could get a word out, Spock nerve-pinched him from behind.  He crumpled without a struggle.  As predicted, the crowds on the street were now too engrossed with Sybok’s studied pacing and gesticulating, to notice.

“My money’s on ‘alien invasion,’” said Jim to the figure on the ground.  “But I’ve kind of got an in on this one.”

At this point, the people gathered on the street began to turn to each other, faces confused.  Voice began to mutter at first, then grew louder.  One or two brave souls attempted to touch the holo-transmitter and received a mild shock to the hand for their trouble.  The holo-transmitter stayed put.  The drama unfolding on Sybok’s ship continued uninterrupted.

On the holo-screen, a klaxon blared.  A Romulan crewmember, wearing what might have been part of the Empire’s fleet uniform thirty years ago, burst onto the deck.  “Lord Sybok,” he gasped, giving a salute that Spock happened to recognize as the sort of hand motion a homosexual Klingon might make when inquiring after a like-minded partner.  He supposed he ought to be thankful that they had not chosen the Betazed equivalent.

“Have the Orions responded to our hails?” Sybok queried imperiously.  “Are they willing to answer to Vulcan justice for the crimes they have committed against the denizens of Sol III?”

“The Orion ships are firing upon us!” the Romulan crewmember cried, behaving in a manner that was basically the opposite of anything Vulcan.

“Lord Sybok?” Jim snickered.  He manhandled the unconscious security guard so that he looked as though he were merely sitting down for a rest between the wall and a conveniently placed trashcan.  “I didn’t know your family was royalty.”

Spock muttered something.

“What was that?”

“He has taken two separate and very famous plays and simply replaced the required dialogue,” Spock complained, even as Jim cautiously palmed the sensor on the door to the grey building.  “It is a disgrace.”

The door opened.

“Huh, would you look at that.  Looks like Gaila’s sources were right after all,” Jim said.  He cast a glance back at the increasingly irate crowd.  “Come on, someone’s going to try and shoot that thing up sooner or later.  It doesn't have to be our Orion friends.”

“A disgrace,” Spock grumbled.

“Come on, Spock.”  Jim snapped his fingers in front of Spock’s face.  “I can’t believe I’m the one telling you to focus here.”

The very indignity brought Spock up short.  “I am perfectly focused,” he hissed.  He too, looked at the crowd.  “Even if the holo-transmitter is destroyed, they cannot destroy every single television broadcast on your planet.  Not within a reasonable timeframe.  The message will get through.”

“Then come on,” Jim growled back at him.  “We opened the door, now let’s get inside before it slams on our lucky-ass faces.”

Spock gave him a dark look, but kept his commentary to himself as he and Jim slipped into the building.  The door clanged shut behind them.

They found themselves in a lobby.  The marble floors were cold and still, and reflected fake oak paneling along the walls.  There was no indication outside the elevator of where any of the levels might lead.  The light was a sullen flicker, more of a suggestion than anything tangible.

Jim shrugged the backpack off and pulled out some weaponry he had borrowed from Mirok’s cargo hold of questionably obtained items.  He clipped one gun to his belt and held another in his hand, the safety off.  “Movies that start out like this never end well,” he said, looking around warily.  “Where are they?  I know there’s security cameras here.  There’ve got to be.”

“Hopefully, those monitoring them are still distracted by Sybok and his . . . “ Spock floundered for a moment, “. . . fleet.”  He grimaced, managing to sound both a little bit proud, and a lot disdainful.  He eyed the empty, yet still foreboding, room.  “Additionally, the back-up security system has not yet had time to fully reboot.  But we cannot linger here.”

“How can they all be distracted?  I mean, seriously.  I came up with this plan and even I still expected there to be somebody here trying to kill us.”

“If we are to continue to trust Gaila’s information, we must go down.”  Spock removed his own, Vulcan model phaser from his pocket and clicked the safety off.  He started towards the elevators.

“Oh hell no,” said Jim from behind him.  “No way.  You ever see a horror movie?  An elevator is the number one place for something bad to happen.  We’re taking the stairs.”

“Jim, that is absurd-”

But Jim was shaking his head and Spock could sense that there was no way he was going to be winning this.

“I don’t care if we’re going deep enough to hit mantle,” Jim stated.  “We are taking the goddamn stairs.”

Illogical.  Humans were illogical.

He followed Jim to a side door, and they started down the stairs.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I’m still not convinced that he and Spock are related.”  McCoy squinted at Sybok, as if trying to find some semblance of Spock in his form.  The search became more difficult when Sybok turned around to see him staring, and gifted him with an amused smile.

Uhura sighed, then scrubbed at her eyes and focused again on the data pad.  Sybok sauntered over.

“Is there something troubling you?”

She looked up at him, the side of her mouth quirking.  “This is, uh . . . very dramatic,” she said.  “That makes the translation a little tricky, is all.”

Sybok motioned carelessly with his hand.  “Do what you can,” he said, voice airy.  “We only need for the basic message to get across, after all.”  His eyes grew distant.  “Freedom comes first in the mind.  We must, therefore, stimulate the minds of your people.”

“Huh,” McCoy scoffed.  “Good luck with that.”

Sybok rounded on him, fancy robes swishing with every step.  Mirok, passing by with a wrench in one hand, gave them all a mildly repulsed look before continuing on through the doorway.

“You do not seem to have much faith in your fellow humans,” Sybok said.

McCoy crossed his arms.  “Show me someone who’s got faith in the human race and I’ll show you a goddamn liar.”

“Ah,” said Sybok.  “Are you calling me a liar?”

“Okay, now I see where he and Spock are related,” McCoy said to Uhura.  “They’re both insufferable.”

Sybok laughed out loud.  “My brother?  Insufferable?”  He took McCoy by a companionable shoulder.  McCoy stiffened, though he did not shake him off.  “To an outside observer, my brother was the ideal Vulcan child.”  His look turned thoughtful.  “Logical, intelligent, curious; perfect in every way.  Except for not being fully Vulcan, of course-”  He paused to take in McCoy and Urhura’s boggled stares.  “Oh dear, that wasn’t a secret, was it?”

“I beg your pardon,” McCoy managed to spit out.  “What is he-part Romulan or something?  Is interspecies breeding allowed?”

“Of course it is,” Sybok said indignantly.  “We’re not barbarians.”  He examined his fingernails, then graced them with a look so without guile that it had to be on purpose.  “And Spock isn’t half Romulan, don’t be absurd.  He’s part human.”

There was a long bout of silence.  Uhura’s jaw dropped.  “You’re joking.”

“Why would I?” said Sybok.

“Oh my god,” said McCoy, faintly.  “But that’s not-how is that even possible?  Humans don’t go into space.”

Sybok heaved a sigh.  “It is a very long and complicated story that I’m sure Spock would be delighted to share with you all when this is over.”

“I doubt it,” McCoy said.  “Spock’s never delighted about anything.  I can tell you that much.”

Uhura gave him a kick in the shin.  “Don’t be an asshole,” she said.

“Well if he is, he never shows it!” McCoy said, rubbing the tender spot, irate with self-righteousness.

“It’s his culture,” Uhura snapped at him.  “Honestly McCoy, no need to be so insensitive about it.  He’s just different.”

“Well then, how come Sybok here is just full to bursting with emotions?”

Sybok looked like he was starting to reconsider his earlier declaration of faith in the human race.  “I am considered, as I believe the human idiom goes, somewhat of a black goat among my family.”

“I never would have guessed,” McCoy said dryly.  “Tell me another.”

“Another?” Sybok queried.

Inexplicably, McCoy laughed.  “He’ll do,” he told Uhura.

“You’re an ass, McCoy,” she replied, back to scowling at her translations.  She glanced up at Sybok.  “Couldn’t you get software to do this?”

Sybok arched an eyebrow.  “I have always been of the opinion that a true translation requires a living touch.  Do you disagree?”

She gnawed her lower lip.  “I guess not.  It’s just, if you’re going to be broadcasting this to the world, I don’t want people laughing at my subtitles.”

Sybok caught her gaze.  His dark eyes suddenly seemed unfathomable, and endless.  Hypnotic.  She blinked, and the effect was broken.  Sybok stepped around her to grasp the data pad and examine its contents.

“They will not be laughing,” he assured her.

She swallowed.  “I guess.”

“We have one more hour before we disengage the cloaking device and hail the Orion ships,” Sybok said.  “Will your translations be ready by that time?”

“Yeah,” said Uhura.  “They should be.”

McCoy pursed his lips, leaning his hip against the side of the wall.  “I can’t believe you guys can invent a cloaking device but you have to undo it to shoot at anybody.   Doesn’t that kind of defeat the point?”

“It is a Romulan invention,” said Sybok haughtily.

“Whatever,” said McCoy.  “Why didn’t you invent a translator or something?  Now, that would’ve been useful.”

“We have,” said Sybok.  “But even I cannot afford to equip Mirok’s fleet with Universal Translators.  Besides, as you might expect, your human languages are not even entered into the database.  It would be a moot point.”

McCoy frowned.  “Well, the cloaking thing is still kind of a big oversight, anyway.”

“I’ll let Mirok know you think so.”

McCoy wrinkled his nose.  “That pointy-eared devil looks at us like we’re the gum stuck to his shoe.”

“Oh no,” Sybok reassured them.  “It’s not just you.  Romulans just hate anyone who isn’t a Romulan.  It is one of their many cultural defects.”

“And they’re your allies,” Uhura said slowly.

“Well,” said Sybok.  “It was either us, or the Klingons.”

“We keep hearing about these Klingons,” McCoy groused.  “Are they actually that bad?”

Sybok looked thoughtful.  He tapped his fingers against his face.  “Let me put it this way,” he said.   “If Klingons had conquered your planet, you would be worrying less about drug kingpins, and more about nuclear winter.”

“They sound like a friendly bunch,” McCoy said, mouth puckered in distaste.

“Of course,” Sybok continued, “If Klingons had conquered your planet, then at least you would have noticed it at the time.  Subtlety is not their strong suit.”

At that moment, Kerit, Mirok’s second in command, appeared in the doorway.  She strode over to Sybok, pausing for only the briefest of moments to sweep a hostile glare over Uhura and McCoy.  She then proceeded to ignore them completely, speaking only in Romulan to Sybok, as if the humans were less than invisible.

Sybok answered her in Romulan, his face going serious.  He nodded, then turned to Uhura and McCoy.  “I must go to the bridge.  Remain here.  Work on your translations.  We will need to input them into the program as soon as possible.”

“Kerit,” Uhura said.  “What are Spock and Kirk’s locations?”

“Did that worm just speak to me?” Kerit said to Sybok, one haughty eyebrow lifting.  “Their tongue is unpleasant to the ear.”

“The location of my brother,” Sybok said.

Kerit huffed.   Sybok’s gaze hardened.

“Now,” he said.

“According to our sensors and the Orion female, they have reached the main warehouse,” she said, though clearly reluctantly.

Sybok nodded.

Kerit spun on her heel and headed out of the room, walking as quickly as dignity would allow her.

“What a bitch,” said McCoy.  Uhura crossed her arms, nodding in agreement.

Sybok looked confused.  “That is an . . . insult, yes?”

“Where did you learn your English?” Uhura asked, voice curious.

“Why?” Sybok asked in surprise.  “Do I speak the language poorly?”

“No, no,” Uhura said.  She cocked her head.  “It’s just, you have a very literal interpretation to it.  And you miss some of the idioms and things.”

Sybok let out a chuckle.  “My dear, I am a Vulcan, as much as my father might suspect otherwise.  Literal, logical, interpretation is the foundation of our modern society.”

“Still,” said Uhura.  “Where’d you learn it?”

Sybok looked at her for a moment, as if weighing his answer.  “From Spock’s mother,” he said finally.

“Wait, she’s still alive?” exclaimed McCoy.  “Is she-is she living on your planet?”

Sybok looked, if possible, a little embarrassed.  “Would you examine the time!” he said brightly.  “I’m needed on the bridge.”

“It’s ‘look at the time,’” said Urhura, helpfully.

“Yes, yes,” said Sybok as he dodged both McCoy’s irritated stare and the table next to him.  “Well, I shall see you soon,” he said as he left.  “You’re not supposed to be on the bridge, but I might be able to bribe Mirok with a corpse to torture or something.  We shall see.”   He waved, and they stared in mild shock as he vanished down the hall.

After he had left, McCoy moved closer to Uhura.  He peered at the data pad she held, trying to decipher the myriad of languages she had translated Sybok’s speech into.

“How many languages do you speak?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “Maybe like, twelve?  A lot, anyway.”  She stuck her tongue between her teeth in concentration.  “Why?”

“That’s pretty amazing,” McCoy said.  “Why’d you learn so many?”

She shrugged.  “When you understand a language, you understand a culture,” she pointed out.  “If our planet’s ever going to get its shit together, we’ve got to be able to understand each other on a deeper level.”  She indicated the words on the data pad.  “So, languages.”

“Wow,” said McCoy, after a moment.  “That’s a lot, I don’t know, better than the reason I tried to learn French.”

“Why’d you try and learn French?”

McCoy’s cheeks turned a bit ruddy.  “The girl down the block spoke it,” he confessed.  “She was from Montreal.”

Uhura patted his hand, eyes dancing.  “You must have been very inspired.”

“If only inspiration was all that it took,” he said mournfully, shaking his head.  “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Listening,” Uhura said, making some last minute corrections.  She glanced up.  “And a little inspiration.”

“Oh, now you’re making fun of me,” McCoy said, his accent coming out thick.

“Me?  Never.”

“Sure.”  He sat down next to her at the table.  They were quiet for a few moments.  Uhura placed a flourish or two on the contents of the data pad, then closed it.  McCoy placed his chin in his hands and leaned his elbows on the table.

“We’re on a spaceship,” he said.

“I know,” Uhura said.  She shook her head, a small grin upturning the corners of her mouth.  “Bizarre, isn’t it?”

“Hell, it’s so weird I think sometimes I might have dreamt these past months,” said McCoy.   “Still.”  He exhaled.  “It’s not a very good spaceship.”

“I don’t know,” said Uhura, cautiously.  “It’s hard to tell.”

“It’s a smuggler’s ship,” McCoy said, tone flat.  “It can’t be that good, even with all the money and cloaking devices in the galaxy.”

Uhura shrugged, looking a bit uncomfortable.  “It and, I guess the rest of Mirok’s ships too, they’re all we’ve got.”

“Yeah,” said McCoy.  He drew in a breath, facing her.  “So what if-what if Jim and Spock’s bluff doesn’t work?  What if those Orions don’t give two shits about them blowing up their precious drug sky high?  What if it doesn’t work?”

Uhura bit her lip.  “I mean, things working out as they usually do, I suppose they’ll shoot at us, we’ll shoot at them, and the whole world will watch on Chekov’s hacked T.V channels.”

“In this tin can,” McCoy said.  “We’ll die.”  He kicked at the wall as if to demonstrate.

Their eyes met.  “That’s always been a possibility, McCoy,” she said.

“I know,” McCoy said.  “I know.  I just-” he jumped up, rubbing his face with his palms.  “I can’t, you know?”

“What?”

“I can’t die.”  McCoy ran his knuckles along the side of the table.  “I can’t die,” he repeated softly.  “I have to find out what happened to my little girl.”  He looked at her.  “You get that, right?”

Uhura stood, then slowly, so as not to startle him, drew him into a hug.  “Yeah,” she said, “I know.”

He squeezed her back, and then broke loose to look her in the face.  “So we sure as fucking hell can’t die,” he said, very seriously.  “Even on this godforsaken, diseased, tin can.”

“Then we won’t,” Uhura said, voice as solid as steel.  She picked up the data pad and offered her arm to McCoy.  “Want to come with me to the bridge?”

McCoy took her elbow in a gentlemanly fashion.  “Your wish is my command, darling,” he said.  “Let’s walk on in there and give ol’ Mirok a coronary.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In total, there were three hundred and twenty eight stairs.  Or it might have been three hundred and twenty nine-Jim had gotten a little mixed up somewhere in the   two hundreds.

“Did you count the stairs?”

It was dark, so Jim felt rather than saw, his companion’s confusion.  “Stairs?” Spock said.  “There was only one stair.”  He paused.  “One very long stair,” he added.

Jim rolled his eyes heavenward, and was a little disconcerted to see that, well, he couldn’t see much.  The height of the ceiling, the breadth of the room they had stepped down into, what might have been skittering around in that corner over there, it was all a complete mystery.  Still, by the sound of their muffled footsteps, the room must have been quite large, almost cavernous.

“Not stair,” he whispered.  “Stairs.  Steps.  Did you count the steps?”

“Oh.”

Jim waited.

“No, no I did not count the steps.”

Jim sighed.  Spock moved closer to him in concern, although he still walked a little ahead.

“Have I violated a human custom?”

“Have you-what?  Well, no.  Not really.”

“Then why-”

“Never mind, not important.  So, how do we go about finding their stash?”

Instead of an answer, there was the sound of a mild collision, then a grunt.  Jim froze.

“Spock?”

A momentary pause and then Spock spoke, his voice sounding a little strained.  “I have located a-a door.”

Jim immediately stuck his arms out in front of him.  He walked two more steps and his left hand came into contact with something cold, hard, and metallic.  His right hand came into contact with something warm.

“Found you,” said Jim.  He felt the metal beneath his fingertips.  “You crash into this?”

“Its location was unexpected,” said Spock.

Jim choked out a laugh.  “Poor baby,” he said.  “How’s your nose?”

“If we could focus on the matter at hand,” Spock said primly.

“As long as you’re okay,” said Jim.   “So do we have to-what was that?”

“What?”

The ground beneath their feet started to tremble.  “The room is shaking and you have to ask me what?”  Jim growled, as a low hum began to emanate around them.   He grasped at Spock’s shoulder; half for balance, half for moral support.  “What the hell is that now?”

“I-this area is very seismically active,” Spock said, looking around as if the darkness and the room could tell him one thousand things.  “A small tremor is not unusual, so I have heard.”

“An earthquake?”  Jim forced calm into his tone.  “Well, it’s stopped now.  Do you think we need to worry about, I don’t know, aftershocks or anything?  Is that a thing?”

Spock was quiet for a moment.  “No,” he said finally.  “I do not believe so.  The tremble was mild.  We must focus on our task.”

“I think focus is your new favorite word.  Aside from ‘illogical,’ I mean.”

Spock gave him a sideways glance.  “A favorite word is illogical.”

“No,” said Jim, “this door is illogical.  How the hell do you open it?”

Spock began to feel along the sides and edges.  “There must be a control panel of sorts,” he muttered to himself.  “If we can locate it, we should be able to rewire it.”  He grimaced.  “Although it may be difficult to do so without light.”

“Yeah,” said Jim.  “Probably should’ve checked to see if the flashlight was working before we came down here.”

“Perhaps,” Spock agreed.

Jim exhaled, breath whistling between his teeth.  “Open Sesame!” he commanded.  The door remained shut.  Jim let his head thunk against the metal.  “Well, it was worth a try.”

There was a beat of silence during which Jim fantasized that he could hear the gears of Spock’s brain turning, and also the effort it was taking him not to ask the obvious question.  He decided to put Spock out of his misery.

“And before you explode from curiosity, that’s a human literary reference.”

“I see,” said Spock, voice very dignified.

“There’s a cave,” Jim continued.  “And some thieves.  And there’s a password which is-”

“Jim.  Focus.”

“Knew that was your favorite-OW!”

“Jim?”

“Ow, yeah I’m okay.  Something just stung me.”  Jim shook his hand, a weird shock running through his fingertips.  “I think I found the doorknob.  Or, you know.”

“You are not injured?”

“I mean, it kind of hurts but my hand’s not going to fall off if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“It was not,” Spock said.  “Although I am also pleased to hear that.”

“Anyway.”  Jim motioned, then realized that Spock could barely see him.  He grabbed Spock’s arm instead, and guided it towards the spot on the door.  “I think the locking mechanism is here.  There must be a code, or a DNA scanner or something for it to shock me like that.”  An idea occurred to him and his eyes widened in alarm.  “I hope I didn’t accidentally set off any alerts.”

Spock frowned, his hand hovering just above where Jim had touched and been shocked.  “I did not hear anything.”

“Doesn’t mean much,” Jim said.  He rubbed at his hand.  “The feeling’s mostly gone now.  It might just be a warning.”

“How very Orion,” Spock said, and Jim could hear the distaste in his voice.

“Jeeze Spock, you’re kind of starting to sound like a space racist.  Are all Orions that bad?”

“They conquered your planet,” Spock pointed out.  “The prime directive of their culture involves criminal enterprises.  Slavery.   Preying on others.  They stand for everything Vulcans do not.”

Jim sighed.  “I’m sure that’s not all of it,” he said.  “Gaila’s been helpful.”

Spock pursed his lips.  “She is, perhaps, an anomaly,” he allowed.

“I’m sure she’d be thrilled to hear that you think so,” Jim said, and Spock could hear the laughter he was suppressing.  “Anyway, the point I’m making is-oh, fuck me!”

“I beg your pardon?” Spock said incredulously.

“What?  No!  I mean, yeah, but no.  Sorry.  Look!”

“Jim, I cannot see anything in this darkness.”

“Wait.”  There was the sound of skin scraping on metal, and then an actual, physical flame, emanated from a small metal square Jim held between his thumb and forefinger.  “See?  I had a lighter in my pocket!”

“A . . . lighter?”

“Yeah, Chapel asked me to hang on to it, but then things got kind of hectic and I forgot to give it back.  But do you think you could take a look at the door now?”

“I-yes,” Spock said, a bit surprised that the light given off by the flame was in fact, sufficient to see.  “If you could lower it a little.”

“Like this?”  Jim knelt and held the light at Spock’s waist height.   “Can you see?”

“Yes.”  Spock bent to examine the door.  Now that there was light, he could see that Jim had been shocked by the small force field glittering green around the edges of the panel.  He thought for a moment.  To open the door in the traditional fashion, he would have to be in possession of a device that radiated another force field the exact opposite in phase as the one around the control panel.  Obviously he was not in possession of such a device.  So.  How to open it?  He expressed his concern to Jim.

“I say we shoot it.”

“Jim, energy weapons will have no effect,” Spock stressed again.  “We need a force field key that will cause destructive interference.  What you are proposing might in fact be constructive.”

Jim crossed his arms, careful to keep the lighter flame away from the fabric.  “I don’t mean with a laser weapon,” he said scornfully.  He indicated the gun at his side.  “What about a projectile?”

“It is a force field,” Spock said.  “It will merely deflect it, like it did your hand.”

Jim paused in the act of exchanging one gun for another.  “It shocked my hand.  It didn’t deflect it.”

“Did it not?”

“No,” Jim said.  “Maybe it’s not a true force field.  Maybe it’s just to discourage people from reaching in who aren’t supposed to.”

“That would serve the same purpose.”

“No,” Jim said.  “Look, humans wouldn’t have the first clue what this stuff is, or why, right?”

“I suppose not.”

“Then okay, so maybe they were only worried about high tech aliens - such as yourself - getting up in their business.  So they got the cheap security system.  One that caters to the way high tech people do business and scares off the rest of us.  You with me?”

“I-yes, I believe so.”

“Okay, well you guys do all your business with lasers and phasers and force fields.”  He reached for the gun again and tugged Spock back, away from the wall.  “Let me show you how we do business on Earth.”

“Jim-”

Jim shot the panel.  At the impact, light frizzled around it, leaving dark scorch marks.  The green force field disappeared.  One of the panel buttons popped out.

“See?” Jim said, sounding thoroughly satisfied.  “Guns with bullets and lighters with flames.  I vote we knock them out of the sky with trebuchets next.  It’s the last thing they’ll expect.”

Spock forced his heart to slow and his vocal chords to unfreeze.  “Jim, that could have ricocheted and killed us both,” he said, voice strangled.  “That was highly reckless.”

Jim looked a little shamefaced.  “Oh,” he said.  “Sorry.  I didn’t think of that.”

Spock squeezed his eyes shut.  “Clearly,” he bit out.

“Sorry.”  Jim gnawed on his lower lip and then indicated the still smoking control panel with his gun.  “Can you hotwire the thing now?”

“Put that weapon away,” Spock snapped.  Meekly, Jim did as he said.  Spock looked at the control panel.  “As long as there are wires enough remaining to manipulate,” he said somewhat scathingly, and got to work.

Jim scratched at the back of his neck and continued to look shamefaced.  He moved the lighter closer and shifted from foot to foot until Spock glared at him pointedly.

“There,” Spock said, after a minute or two of fumbling.  “It should be-” He scrambled back to his feet as, with the screech of a door oiled by lazy and infrequent hands, the metal door swung outward.

Naturally, the room ahead of them was dark.

“Goddamn they’d better have a light switch,” Jim muttered as they started forward.  They both froze as the ground beneath them trembled.  “Another earthquake?” Jim asked when it had stopped.

Spock shook his head.  “I do not know.”

“Well, let’s hurry up and get this party started,” said Jim.  “I don’t want to be down here if there is a bigger quake on the way.”

“Agreed,” Spock said.  He and Jim stepped into the room.  Spock opened his mouth to suggest that they start by feeling for a switch alongside the walls, but as they crossed the threshold of the door, lights began to flick on the ceiling.

“Motion sensor?” Jim murmured out of the corner of his mouth.

“Likely,” Spock whispered back as the lights grew brighter.  He blinked and looked at Jim, who was putting his lighter back into his pocket, and wiping at his streaming eyes.  Then he looked ahead, and could not stifle the small gasp that left his lips.

“Oh shit,” Jim said, stepping up beside him, jaw dropping.  “Looks like we found it.”

And indeed, filling up a cavernous room as far as the eye could see, were wooden storage boxes, stacked on top of one another in neat rows.  Jim lifted the lid of one and whistled at the tightly packed packages of brown and yellow crystals.  He put it down again, and moved toward Spock.

“Why would they use wood?”

Spock’s forehead furrowed.  “I am uncertain,” he admitted.  “However, I would postulate that as an organic material itself, the wood would perhaps, modify or camouflage the hain-enela, if a ship’s cargo were to be scanned.

“Huh,” said Jim.  Then he blanched.  “Bastards have better not been using our trees!  We need those!”

“I must contact Sybok,” said Spock, reaching for his communicator.   “Do you have the charges?”

“You think I’d leave without these babies?” Jim asked, holding up two.   He walked to the far end of a row and began to pile them with the glee of a small child playing with blocks.

“You did leave without a functional flashlight,” said Spock.

“Always harping on the details,” Jim groused as he set to rigging the explosives.   “Hmm, I hope we’re still under the building proper.  If this thing actually blows and we’re not, someone’s going to get a big surprise the next time they go down to the basement.”

“I do not harp,” Spock defended.  He typed something into his borrowed, Earth-style communicator.  There was a brief sound of static, and then Gaila’s face filled the screen.

“Spock!” she said.  “You made it?”

“Hell yeah,” said Jim.  He stopped what he was doing and jogged back over to Spock.  “Took us a bit to get through the door though.”  He grinned smugly.  “And like I said, our inferior tech isn’t affected by the jammers.  So there.”

Gaila stuck out her tongue at him, then frowned.  “The blueprints show an elevator that goes straight into the warehouse.”

“How fascinating,” said Spock dryly, casting a look a Jim.

“Whatever,” said Jim.   “What’s going on up there?”

“We’ve hailed the main ship,” Gaila said.  “They don’t seem to want to answer.”

“Well, fuck,” said Jim.  “Give them a picture of this-”  he snatched the communicator from Spock’s hand and waved it around the room.  “And of this, too-” he brought the communicator down low to make sure the explosives were very clear to see.

“Or how about,” said a voice from behind, “a picture of this.”

There was the sound of an energy weapon discharging, and then Spock dropped to the ground as if his legs had been cut out from under him.  His head hit the linoleum floor with a sick sounding crunch.

“Spock!” Jim shouted.  He whirled around, dropping the communicator, to stand over Spock as Orion after Orion emerged from behind the wooden storage containers.  He could hear Gaila shouting on the communicator, but could not respond.  His eyes fixed on Spock.  Was he breathing?  Oh god, please, please let him be breathing.

At the sound of booted footsteps, Jim looked up and forced himself not to blanch at the sight that greeted him.  Orions, they had to be Orions.  At least twenty of them.  They grinned at him, faces ranging from orange to green, fingering their weapons as they stepped closer and closer.  Jim forced himself to stand his ground, to focus on this new threat, to ignore the possibility that Spock might already be dead.  He reached for the gun at his waist, gripped it in sweaty palms.

Suddenly, maybe ten feet away, the Orions stopped.  Jim swallowed.  He formed his other hand into a fist around the detonator to hide his trembling and forced himself to watch, forced himself to look calm and cocky, like he had no fear, as just one of them stepped forward.

(Jim didn’t know if it was the one who had shot Spock, but he didn’t care.  He wanted to kill him anyway.  He wanted to kill them all.)

“Poor little human,” said the Orion.  Jim steeled himself to meet those bulging green eyes, to look unflinching at orange skin and clashing silver clothing.  “Your deal with the Romulans was mildly clever, but you didn’t really think six little Romulan ships were going to chase us away, did you?”

“Who are you?” Jim demanded, somewhat surprised at the steadiness of his own voice.  “How did you get in here?”

“Shouldn’t that be my line?” asked the Orion.  “You’re the ones breaking and entering.”

“Your name,” growled Jim, fear starting to give way to being.  Just.  Really.  Pissed off.  He focused on that feeling, felt his body calm and his mind grown sharper.  His hands steadied.

“My name is Ayalis,” said the Orion.  He gave an ironic little bow and shook his head, pointing at the far wall.  “And we took the elevator, obviously.  Trust a human to do things the hard way.”

“Fuck you,” Jim said.

“Please,” Ayalis said, eyes going flat.  “That comes later.”  He nodded at Jim’s hands.  “Drop the weapons.”

In response, Jim raised the detonator.  “If you come any closer,” he said, voice shaking now in anger.  “I’ll blow this place sky high.  And you, and me, and all the hain-enela with it.”

Ayalis crossed his arms.  “You’re bluffing,” he said.  “You haven’t finished rigging it.”

“Try me,” said Jim tightly.  He gripped the collar of Spock’s jacket as well as he could, and began to back up against one of the crates, dragging Spock’s body along as well.

Ayalis sighed, then he fired his weapon at Jim.  The energy beam hit him in the leg and he dropped his gun, gasping in pain.   He fell to one knee, eyes watering.

“I do not have time for this,” Ayalis said.  He motioned to his fellow aliens.  “Take them.”

Jim struggled to his feet, reaching for his fallen weapon.  “I’ll shoot!”

“You can barely stand,” Ayalis observed.  He eyed Spock.  “And your Vulcan friend has fallen.  Give up.”

“No,” said Jim fiercely, back now to the crates

The ground beneath them rumbled.  Some of the Orions looked at each other, unnerved.  Ayalis glared at them.  “Hold your positions,” he snarled.  “It’s just the subway.”

Jim blinked at that.  Then immediately focused again.

Ayalis stepped closer.  “Give up,” he said again.  “I have thirty ships from the Syndicate at my command.  Your little Romulan enterprise is likely already destroyed.  Give up, and I might let you live.”

“Don’t talk bullshit,” said Jim.  “I know you’re not even a part of the Syndicate.”

Ayalis curled his lip.  “Let us just say,” he said silkily, “that the rest of the Syndicate and I have come to a momentary accord.”  He indicated Spock, then shook his head in mock sorrow.  “Apparently, news that a Vulcan ship was snooping was enough to bring them around.  Really, that little spy should have waited for orders from her superiors,” he spat out the word, “before throwing her lot in with humans.”

Jim slumped to his knees again.  Darkness was beginning to encroach on the edges of his vision.  He felt for Spock’s hand and curled his fingers around Spock’s when he found it.  He startled as Spock squeezed his weakly in return.

“You were shot in the chest,” Jim said to him, gasping from the pain.  Spots danced in front of his eyes.  His leg felt as though it were on fire.  He put his head next to Spock’s.

“My heart,” Spock managed, “is in a different location than yours.”

Jim squeezed his eyes as tears of pain and anger and relief threatened to break through.  “If this were any other situation, I’d think that was a corny metaphor for breaking up with me,” he said, and gripped Spock’s hand tighter.  “But at the moment, I’m just glad you’re a literal minded bastard.”

“How sweet,” Ayalis said.  He held up his hand.  “Hold on, gentlemen, let’s give them a minute.”  He leered, “Everyone knows that we Orions love, love.”

“Jim,” Spock breathed, eyes still closed.  “Jim.  The charges?”

Jim shook his head.  “Over there,” he said.  “They’re not rigged.”

Spock took a breath.  He whispered something.  Jim bent down lower to hear, his hand splaying across Spock’s chest.  He tried not to look at the ugly wound there.

“What?”

“Flammable.”

“What?”

“The crystals, Jim.  They are,” Spock coughed.  “When they react with water, the resulting solution . . . is highly flammable.”

For a moment, Jim’s heart felt as though it had stopped in his chest.  Adrenaline flooded his system.  And very slowly, Spock blinked open his eyes.   They met Jim’s.  He nodded towards the crates.  Specifically, towards the one he and Jim had already opened.

As Jim shifted, the hard, square shape of the lighter in his pocket pushed against his leg.

“All right,” said Ayalis, crossing his arms.  “I think we’ve given them enough time to say goodbye.   They’ll probably be on the same cargo ship to Rigel VII anyway.”  He nodded to the Orions circling them.

Jim inched his hand down into his back pocket.  His fingers brushed against the lighter and he drew it out.

“Take them,” said Ayalis.

With strength born of desperation and mad adrenaline coursing through his body, Jim surged to his feet, praying his leg would not collapse.  His hands scrabbled on the open crate behind him, digging for the packages filled with the hain-enela.  He pulled one bag out with a shout of triumph, and then flicked his lighter and held it up, grinning eerily.

All of the Orions immediately froze.  Their gazes moved from Jim, to the flame he held, to the bag of hain-enela crystals.  Jim opened the bag with trembling fingers, thought for a moment, then spat into it.  He shook the bag, then spat into it again.

“What are you doing?” Ayalis barked.

“Go to hell,” Jim said.  He touched the lighter oh-so-gently to the wet material on the top.  And as it burst into flame, he lobbed it as far and as hard as he could, straight at the pile of charges.  The flame caught.

They exploded.

Jim threw his body over Spock’s.  The force of the blast was enough to cause boxes of hain-enela to come tumbling down, the wood crates crackling into flame as they met with the fire from the explosion.  Ayalis was shouting something, his face shiny bright with burns, but Jim couldn’t hear through the ringing in his ears.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he shouted at Spock.

Spock may have said something in reply, but Jim couldn’t hear it.   As he looked around, he saw that the fire had begun to spread quickly.  Smoke entered his lungs and he coughed.  The Orions milled around in a panic; they had been closer than Jim and Spock had been to the explosion, and so were even more disoriented.

The elevator door, maybe six meters away, caught his gaze.

“Come on!” he shouted, tugging at Spock.  But Spock couldn’t move.  Jim thought he saw words forming on Spock’s lips, but he ignored them, as he ignored the heat growing around him.  “You bastard, I’m not fucking leaving you here!” he hollered, over the sound of wood crackling and crashing as it caught fire.

Spock caught his arm.  Go his mouth formed.  Jim shook his head.  “I won’t!” he said again.  And then he bent down, heaved as much of Spock over his shoulder as he could, and began to stagger towards the elevator.  The fire in his leg felt hotter than the true fire around him, but Jim would not stop.  He could not.

Spock was heavy.  He didn’t look it, but man.  Jim could hear the Orions behind him beginning to get a little more organized.  Something fell.  There was a pained shriek.  Shots discharged.  Flame roared around him.  Jim drew in a breath of smoke and coughed again, deep in his chest.  His limbs began to feel strange, and it occurred to him that along with the wooden crates, the hain-enela was burning too, releasing its potent smoke.  One foot in front of the other, he thought to himself as Spock’s legs dragged alongside the ground.  Slow and steady wins the race.

He reached the elevator door and jabbed at the button blindly, unable to see for the smoke and the tears streaming from his eyes.

“Come on, come on!” he said.

The doors opened with a chime.  Jim stumbled inside, dropping Spock as he pushed at the button over and over to close the door.  The doors closed.  Jim sputtered, and gasped and coughed as he took a deep breath of the comparatively fresh air.

“I’m going to guess,” he said to Spock, voice hoarse, “that there’s a party waiting for us upstairs.”  He peered at the buttons, and saw that there was one more floor to go.  The subway, Ayalis had said.  He looked again at Spock.  He was out cold.  At least, Jim thought with a shiver of trepidation, he hoped he was.  Jim pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to clear them of the stinging smoke.

“I guess we’re going down,” he said, and pressed the button.

One level was not very far, but to Jim it seemed like ages passed before the elevator dinged their arrival and the double doors opened onto a narrow platform in a dimly lit tunnel.  A single elderly man, dressed in a grey uniform, was mopping the floor.   His white hair stuck out in tufts behind his ears, and ringed his otherwise bald head.  He looked up as Jim staggered out of the elevator, dragging Spock as well as he could.  The old man’s jaw dropped, and he backed up in fright, holding his mop in front of him in defense.

“No,” Jim croaked.  “Please.”  He held up his hand as he stumbled and fell to the ground.   His ears still rang from the explosion.  “Please,” he said again, or at least he thought he did.  “Please, help.”

The last thing Jim saw was the man’s slow lowering of his mop.  He fainted.

Previous      Next