She Needs A Little Help With The Agony
Title: Nixaan Theta [8/?]
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: Kirk/Spock pre-slash so far
Rating: R
Summary: An away mission goes horribly, horribly wrong
Notes/Warnings: Violence. Swearing. More violence. Some gore.
Nixaan Theta
Part the Eight : Reunion
“I can't let you leave here alive, Kirk.”
Jim stared across the weakening light of the alert flare, fixated on the dull gleam of the phaser refraction chamber as each word took shape in his mind, shredding his relief like tiny darts through tissue.
Ferris' skinny shoulders and widened stance transformed with that flat declaration - from familiar and welcome to sinister and threatening.
The phaser was real enough, the resolve was there. This kid he'd served with, would have died for, was prepared to reduce him to molecules scattered across the dust. He caught the flex of the trigger finger, another impossible feat to be considered some other time - when he wasn't about to be murdered by one of his crew, preferably - and dove for the fallen Nixaanite nanoseconds ahead of the focused beam. He could feel the disturbed air vibrating over the standing hairs on his skin as he sought cover.
“Shit.” The curse was almost lost to his own quickened breaths. Ferris was surprised that he'd managed to dodge the beam.
You and me both, kid.
Nothing human could move that quickly.
He cut the thought off as sensory input began flooding him, tasting dust and acrid sweat-soaked terror from Ferris' direction, layered with the filth and rust-stained death of the corpse he was crouched behind. He recognized the approaching madness in the tumult of his fear and adrenaline. He couldn't afford to surrender to it; he needed to think, and to plan, if he was going to survive. Rapping his swollen thumb hard against the rocky wall, he used the burst of pain to clear his head.
Ferris was moving again. His attempts at stealth would be laughable in another setting; each footfall stirred up more dust and fell heavy in Jim's ears. Jim flicked a glance up to the edge of the pit and traced the outline of an overhang jutting out from the sheer face. Ten feet up, an impossible height for a standing jump. Much like dodging a phaser blast from the same distance.
It could work. Hell, he probably had better odds now than he'd had rescuing Pike from from the Narada.
What did Spock say again? Less than 4%? It'll work.
Smiling grimly, he tensed and leaped, only to overshoot the target and slam against the rock wall with his shoulder before thudding onto the ledge. His startled yelp and the loose rock scattering from his impact gave away his position - he flattened himself a bare moment ahead of the arcing phaser fire. From over the edge he could see Ferris was by the body, already lining up the next shot. Jim pushed himself clear as the ledge disintegrated and twisted mid-air to land in a ready crouch beside the dimming flare. He scrabbled for it as he tucked into a roll, a section of the ragged hem of his sheet dissolving as the edge of yet another beam caught the fabric.
The kid was fast.
Jim was faster.
He crushed the flare casing in his fist and let the last few drops of bio luminescent sludge scar through his knuckles as it burned out in the open air. The advantage was his in the black.
“Fuck!”
The fact wasn't lost on Ferris.
“What are you doing, Ensign?” Jim barely recognized his own voice in the low growl. He circled in the resulting silence, maintaining a tightening spiral on Ferris' last known position. He hadn't heard the kid move since he'd destroyed the light, but he wasn't willing to put his life on it.
Ferris seemed to remember enough of the Tactical Combat course to keep his mouth shut, so Jim tried scenting the air. The ozone from the phaser blasts and the settling dust and death in the pit were confusing his nose. The beast would probably know how to interpret the riot of smells correctly, and he could feel the black madness creeping on him again. He bit a hole in his cheek and swallowed it back with the blood and pain.
He would not give in to the monster. He tried his voice again, wincing as the words scraped his throat raw.
“C'mon, Ensign. Talk to me. Let's figure this out.”
The kid whirled to face the noise and Jim threw himself under the beam that silhouetted the Ensign clearly. He'd managed to move a few steps after all; Jim adjusted himself accordingly and sprang low at the slightly heavier patch of darkness before him.
They went down together as Jim's tackle buckled Ferris' knees. A swipe of Jim's arm knocked the phaser from his grip and sent it skittering across the pit, impacting with a hollow click against the walls. Ferris was thrashing desperately, bucking and twisting beneath Jim's weight as he tried to pin the kid in place without hurting him.
A white flash of pain as Ferris got a lucky strike in, directly against the raw patch he'd chewed through his own cheek. He snarled with the explosion and wrapped his fists in the folds of Ferris' Starfleet tunic, pulling up sharply and slamming the kid into the ground, hard enough so the impact rocked up through his own arms. Ferris continued to struggle a moment before stilling, gasps coming hard and fast from between his teeth.
“Ferris, man. You got to talk to me here. What the hell is going on? Cause it looks an awful lot like you just tried to kill me.”
“I...”
“What? Dammit, what?”
“You. You're...”
His hand was hurting again, a different kind of ache. He focused on that instead of the mounting frustration and the savage urge to rip his Ensign's tongue out through his throat. Waiting for the sucking breaths to even out - he may have broken some of Ferris' ribs with his last attack - he tried to find a label for the new sensation.
It was almost like he could feel the bones shifting underneath his skin but that was -
He stopped himself before he could think “impossible” and flexed his hand over Ferris' shoulder.
The shrill scream of pain twinned with terror had him jerking back reflexively, not soon enough to ignore the feeling of slipping out of warm flesh. Fresh blood filled his nostrils and he gagged on it, bringing his wet fingers level with his face in dumb shock.
Ferris bucked again, upsetting Jim's balance. He felt the skin over his jaw part like water as his nails brushed carelessly over it. More blood in the air, only his smelled wrong.
Stuttering panic threaded through him, a distant echo of his mad flight through the tunnels. His skin was itching again, pulsing through with little sizzles of lightning nerves winding up to a scream in his mind. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think. He shook with the fear twisting in his guts.
The struggles beneath him compounded the agitation and he made a ponderous connection behind the gibbering mantra of no, no, no, no and pressed his hand, the safe hand, over Ferris' chest in warning. The Ensign stilled immediately and the sharp scent of urine penetrated the horror long enough for Jim to distinguish the frantic bubbles of noise as voice.
“- a monster, Kirk. A fucking monster. She said this wouldn't happen! Oh fuck. Oh fuck. I don't want to die like they did. My phaser -”
“Shut. Up. Ferris.”
The stream of babble cut off abruptly.
The silence helped. Inch by slow inch, he relaxed the muscles beginning to spasm with tension and willed himself to breathe slowly, deeply. The shudders tapered off into tremors before fading. He opened eyes he couldn't remember closing and steadied himself on one last shaky exhale.
“Do you have another flare?”
“...what? Yes!” The instinctive twitch to retrieve it was brought short with another warning press.
“Tell me.”
“My belt pouch, left side. Oh god, please, sir, don't kill me. I can-”
“Shut the fuck up, Ferris. That's an order.”
Keeping even weight across Ferris' chest with his good hand, Jim fumbled behind him for the pouch clasp. The cooling moisture on the Ensign's soiled pants brushed his knuckles and he swallowed his disgust along with the tiny flash of sympathy. The kid knew something, was involved somehow. He didn't deserve his pity.
He turned his head away to protect his vision when he cracked the case and set the brightly burning red tube beside his knee.
Unease and helpless curiosity warred within him. Jim blew out a shuddering breath. Ferris was doing a passable impersonation of a statue for the moment, the fight flushed out of him with his piss; he could take a minute to prepare himself.
I'm alive, I'm free. How bad can it be?
The silence in his own head was ominous.
Relaxing the protective fist he'd made of his left hand, he brought it into view. The skin was angry red, exaggerated by the flare, and his nail beds cracked and split as the claws poked through the tips of his fingers. The blunt fingernails themselves were partially ripped free, dangling limply beside the thickened base of the talons. He spread the fingers out experimentally and felt the claws retract into his skin until only the sharp, black points were visible. The sensation was disturbing: it reminded him of the first time he'd ever gotten old style sutures and hadn't been able to resist picking at them. The whistling vibrations of claws sinking back into his flesh scraped like a stitch pulling free of a partially healed wound. He flexed again and the claws slid out, scraping sensation intensifying as the pressure dislodged another fingernail. It fell softly into the folds of his rags.
Kirk suppressed the greasy nausea roiling through his guts and tried not to think too hard about what he'd just done. Information was important, reactions could wait.
Jim knew they'd be sharp -- he'd already tested that parameter with his face and Ferris' shoulder - but he slid the claws along his forearm anyway, both fascinated and disgusted when the skin parted so simply. Iron and oil flowed from the wound. The blood looked darker than it should be, a trick of the light? Was the change that basic? Why his hand? What would be next?
He shot a nervous glance at the hand splayed on Ferris. It was still a normal, human hand. His claw was still the same basic shape in comparison, just darker and... pointier. Mottling of the darker skin blurred halfway up his forearm. Only one dark patch existed above his elbow. He shuddered internally and turned his attention back to his captive.
“What else? Ferris?”
Ferris looked like a caricature of fear in the red glow, unstable light elongating the wide eyed terror and deepening the black between his parted lips to a cartoonish “O”. It would be almost funny if it didn't feed Jim's growing uncertainty so well. His eyes were frantically casting side to side, avoiding staring directly at Kirk even as he held himself rigid. Involuntary spasms, first his leg, then his arm, his abs, betrayed his terror further.
“Knock it off, Ferris. You're still alive, I'm probably not going to kill you now.”
The body beneath him stiffened until it seemed the Ensign could snap himself in half with it, but the kid's eyes still refused to focus on Jim.
“Dammit Ferris. LOOK AT ME.”
He hadn't thought the kid could get any tenser but every muscle seemed to be ratcheting as he finally, hesitantly brought his eyes to Jim. His breathing was shallow and squeaking on every exhale. Jim tried a smile - he didn't think he had fangs now. He ran his tongue hastily over his teeth to check and was relieve to find only the squared off edges of normal, human teeth.
“S...Sir?”
“It's sir now, huh? Fair enough. If I get off you, do I have your word that you aren't going to try to attack me again?”
A short nod.
“Fine. I'm going to back off now. You're going to get up, if you're able. And then, you're going to talk. Start with how you got away, with weapons, when the rest of the away team was slaughtered, and work your way up to where you tried to kill me.”
He leaned in closer, a small, nasty part of him enjoying the way Ferris' eyes widened. “If you make a move for your phaser, I'll drop you, and we'll just have to go over this shit again, only this time I'll hang you by your toes and you can tell your story to the dirt. Do you understand me?”
“I. Uh, yes. Sir.”
“Good.”
Jim eased up from his crouch, watching Ferris closely. He rolled his shoulders as he stood, trying to work out the kinks from his brief stint as human projectile. For whatever reason, the gesture seemed to relax the kid, so he brought his claw hand up to rub - gently - at his neck, easing the minor ache and hiding it from Ferris' view.
Ferris scrambled to his feet, keeping a wary eye on Jim as he moved. If his ribs were giving him any trouble, he was hiding it.
They stood facing each other in the pit, barely five feet between them, lit by the ruddy glow of the alert flare. It was almost a perfect mirror for their initial encounter, minus the phaser and Ferris' towering self confidence.
Pissing yourself in fear tended to mitigate the effects of ego, Ferris couldn't hold his his gaze and stared dumbly at his feet. The silence stretched a beat too long for Jim's limited patience. “Report, Ensign,” he barked.
Ferris startled.
“You got away,” Jim prompted.
The kid swallowed nervously, twice, before he was able to speak. “They... When...” a shuddering exhale. “When they took us down into the tunnels, they veered off with you immediately.”
Ferris flicked his eyes up to Jim and quickly back down to his feet before continuing: “They wouldn't tell us anything when we asked. We thought you were dead, sir.
“I got away because they didn't think I was significant enough to watch closely.” The words were bitter and strung through with self-loathing. “The ropes they used to tie me weren't even secure, sir. I managed to slip free when they were occupied with...” Genuine horror filled his voice and he lifted his pale face to meet Jim's eyes directly for the first time since he'd begun his story. “Do you know they strung them up while they were still alive? They were alive...”
Flashes of bodies swinging from hooks, skinned and drained of life and blood, filled Jim's memories as Ferris' voice trailed off. The bloody mist still swirled clearly in his thoughts and he swallowed back the helpless rage and grief.
“I saw,” was all he said, keeping his eyes dry and level with Ferris. No emotion leaked into the statement, and Jim had the passing fancy that Spock would be proud, if he weren't so horrified at what Jim had done to the Nixaanite leader in the amphitheatre.
And that was before you went all Berserker Monster back there. Yeah, Spock's gonna love this.
“How did you get your weapon back?”
A bare hesitation, covered quickly by a wince. Ferris crossed his arms over his chest and continued. “Like I said, we were conscious when they moved us below, sir. They took our weapons at the tunnel entrance and I ran there first when I got free. I was interrupted before I could get a communicator and I had to fight one of those monsters off to get away.
“I ran, sir. I abandoned my fellow officers and ran. I've been down here ever since, trying to find a way out of here. When I saw you, I panicked. You moved so fast and you fought like they did.”
Jim's eyes narrowed. There was just enough hesitance in his answers to lend credibility to his alleged panic. He was the poster child of repentance, humbled and ashamed, seemingly unable to meet his Captain's eyes.
Kirk didn't need to taste the deceit in the air, a mix of pheromones and sweat, or see the minute shifts in posture as Ferris stopped himself from clenching his fists, to tell he was lying. He'd done his stint as a genius-level repeat offender; he could give the kid pointers. Lesson One on the Lying to Authority Syllabus: Know Your Audience.
Lesson Two was still a work in progress, but it would follow the general principle of keeping details straight and remembering the major players.
“Why did you remove your bio-sensor? How was the crew supposed to find you if they couldn't track you?”
Ferris looked at him blankly for a second, hand twitching involuntarily to cover the raw patch of skin on the inside of his wrist. “I was afraid they'd be able to track me too, so I dug it out when I was able to stop.”
“It must have taken a while.” Jim kept his voice soft and encouraging. “How long before you were able to stop? How far did you get?”
Spock had mentioned all the bio-sensor's had cut out around the same time, though there was no reason for Ferris to assume he had that knowledge. Jim watched Ferris relax at the question and tried another reassuring smile, waiting for the kid to dig himself deeper.
Lesson Three: Never Assume Your Audience Is Stupid.
“It felt like hours, sir. Days, even. I found a section of caves that seemed abandoned and rested there. That's when I took it out. It still stings a little.” Ferris quirked his mouth up in a wry smile, inviting Jim to share his black amusement at being bothered by such a small thing.
He was good. The stench of deceit filled the air, no longer partially masked by fear, but his posture was loose and relaxed as he met his Captain's gaze with wide-eyed sincerity. Jim had enough to confirm his suspicions - he closed in for the kill. “That's a pretty story, Ensign. Very touching, almost noble.” He swept his hand forward, holding the sharp points of his claws extended towards the murderous little bastard's eyes. “Something's missing though. You were afraid when you saw me, when you saw this, but you weren't surprised.”
He took a step, casting a long, black shadow over Ferris, and growled. “I talked to one of them, a
Nixaanite, before I escaped. Did you know that?”
“N..n..no.”
“I can taste your lies now. It's different than the fear. Your heart is beating faster, you're afraid again, yes, and you're lying. You were there, weren't you? I thought I saw someone in the lab, at the end.”
A flash of teeth in darkness, a whisper of welcome. The scenes were fractured by the pain of electrocution and Kirk's own fear. Anger built inside him, rising up on another wave of agony, fuelled by the betrayal. Rage and fear, animal panic, his emotions made the pain stronger. He willed himself steady again, forcing his face into blankness as he thought furiously.
He sniffed the air again, slowly, deliberately. “Someone had to tell the Nixaanites what our landing point was after we got our orders. Someone had to signal them to attack.”
Another spike of adrenaline from Ferris. The kid was going to move soon, he'd have to be ready.
He gestured to the broken body behind them. “You're a pretty deadly shot, Ferris. In the dark, a fast-moving target and still, you nailed it. Not exactly what you'd expect of somebody who can't change the settings without nearly neutering himself. That was the signal, wasn't it?”
He loosened his stance, ready to move quickly, and spat, “You're a damned traitor.”
He sidestepped the first lunge neatly, but Ferris ducked beneath his outstretched arm to dive for the phaser. He whirled just as Ferris regained his feet, the weapon clutched in both hands and a triumphant grin on his face.
“You're right Kirk, I am a good shot. Make another move and I'll prove it to you.”
Not particularly eager to start dodging phaser blasts again, Jim spread his hands and tilted his head towards the Ensign. “So I was right, then. Why, damn it? Why all of this?”
“Don't be so naive, Kirk.” Ferris scoffed. “You've seen this place, those creatures. You're practically one of them now. Word of this gets out, the genetic research codes'll get set back to the twenty-first century. Billions of lives will be lost because we can't advance on what we learned here, and why? Because a handful of experiments went wrong.”
“Those experiments were sentient beings! They trusted us!”
“They served their purpose. You need to focus on the big picture. You've seen it, Kirk! You've felt it. We're close to isolating the instability in the serum, soon we can all be gods. Immune to disease, able to recover from grievous harm. We'll be stronger than our enemies, faster. Better!”
The phaser ratcheted up, aimed high on Jim's chest. Ferris shot a quick glance to the claw, still spread helplessly at his side.
“We'll be monsters,” Jim said tonelessly, following the look. “Like me.”
“No! We just need more time. Damn it, Kirk! This is why it's your ass out here right now, you're too close minded-”
“To sanction the deaths of entire species in the name of power? I should fucking hope so.”
Ferris shook his head with a frustrated huff of air. “I don't know why I even bothered trying to explain. You're a ruffian, Kirk, and an idealist. Even after Nero, you don't have the stomach or the foresight to understand that the Federation needs to be prepared for anything. We're vulnerable now, we have to push this forward! Once we perfect the procedures, nobody's going to care about an insignificant rock, even if they do find out about it.”
“Of course not, that's why you're so determined to cover your tracks. So what, we were supposed to beam down and get slaughtered, thus justifying the destruction of this planet, and whoever you're working for goes back to gulling colonists for test subjects until your precious serum is perfected? Then what, Ferris?”
“What do you mean, then what? We remake ourselves! We face our enemies with new power, new might and we survive!”
Jim made an aborted step forward, biting off his words with an icy edge of contempt. “Who first, Ferris? Who decides? What if the people don't want your gifts, don't trust them? What if the first superior beings develop superior ambitions? What then, Ferris? Man, did you sleep through History?”
“It's different now,” the Ensign insisted sharply.
“Oh,” Jim laughed. “Oh, I see. It's different. Of course.”
He kept laughing, the sound raising towards hysteria, echoing back into him through his heightened senses. He struggled for control, mirth boiling just as uneasily as the fear and rage.
Finally he was able to gasp, “Enlighten me, please. How is it different, Ferris? Have all races finally raised themselves past our penchant for paranoia? Or are there still secret deals between member planets? Have we elevated into a culture embracing true equality amongst all? Or are there still factions that preach the superiority of Humans, or Vulcans, or Andorians? Do all branches of the Federation operate openly, without fear of reprisal, because they know their cause is just? Or do we just have better weapons now?”
Ferris' features grew stony at Jim's outburst. “I'm thinking you've served your purpose now too, Kirk. I'm sorry you couldn't understand, but you weren't supposed to make it out of this anyways.” He smirked as he set his shoulders and ran a thumb over the trigger. “If it makes you feel better, you'll probably be remembered as a hero.”
“Can't let me leave here alive, huh, Ferris? After all, I'm a failed experiment now, too.” Jim coiled every muscle to readiness and glared across the pit. “Make your first shot count, kid, or I'm going to tear you apart.”
It was over quickly.
Jim sprang sideways, to the cliff wall, sinking the claw into stone and twisting against the rock face. He pushed off with his feet and propelled himself at Ferris. The phaser beam cut a scorching path through the air, crisping another section of the sheet and burning through to his shoulder blade. The claw struck Ferris in the chest, and sank deep, backed by the momentum of the ricochet, slicing through flesh and muscle as easily as it crushed the bones.
Jim lay above the ensign, watching the realization of death sink into the young face, and felt the madness thicken and curl within him. Ferris' heartbeat was slowing; Jim could feel the spasms through his claws. The Ensign tried to lift the phaser again, with a movement so slight as to be almost unnoticeable in the weak red light. He shuddered once and coughed weakly, then died.
Jim pulled his shaking hand free of the destroyed chest cavity, tangling the bloody mess in the shreds of Ferris' red tunic, and let his tears fall. It shouldn't have happened like this, he should've been able to spare him. The twinges of pain at his back, where burnt flesh was trying to re-knit itself, were ignored.
He'd killed one of his own. He'd done it deliberately, knowing there was no way for Ferris to withstand the force of his last hit.
He was a monster.
The tears kept coming, each spasm of grief chased by another burning shift inside him. He rested his forehead on the cold ground and shook through the pain, until the sobs subsided into shivers.
Spock found him like that, covered in blood and shaking beside the corpse of his murdered crewman, in the last moment before the flare gave its last sputtering flicker of light.
Then it, too, died, and left them there in darkness.
Master Post
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Ritual Blah Blah:
Halle-fricking-lujah! And we're back! HI SPOCK! HI!
Ok.. confession time. I actually wrote this chapter BEFORE I wrote Chapter 7. So yeah, I've been sitting on this for a month. DON'T KILL ME! I had a good reason! I was getting really tired of posting only once a month and decided to buckle down, write like mad and be able to do that whole regular update thing that we readers love so dearly. I know how frustrating it is to wait for a new chapter of a story (especially when the author keeps leaving it at total bastard cliffhangers *laughs uncomfortably*) and I wanted to do better! Also, every time I write something for this story, new ideas seem to come out the woodwork and bitchslap me, so I figured having a few chapters written and waiting would let me do the editing thing if another plot derailment attacked and save me from having to do some fancy footwork to make it fit with previous events.
A good plan, yes?
*sigh* I trust you all remember my hysterical laughter anytime I mention myself and planning in the same breath?
Enter life, my real nemesis. I won't bore you with the details but I got busy. Stupid busy. Am still stupid busy. I have a career, which is an impressively adult sounding way to say I have a giant black hole of time suck forever waiting in the wings to stop me from doing fun things like torturing Jim. And, much as I would like to tell it to shove off and just let me play, I kind of need to make my mortgage and car payments, which it allows me to do, at the low, low price of my sanity and, in the last month or so, pretty much all of my time.
So, grand plan aside, I do have the chapter nine fully plotted out (have you guys ever tried Freemind mind-mapping? Brilliant, brilliant brainstorming program. Very visual and much better organized than my mess of .txt notes) and I am working on it, but I figured you guys had waited long enough. You can thank cathesput and gwenetta_92 for their gentle threats encouragements and Angel Baby1 for the outright throw down. Hi guys! XD
More love for Angel Baby1 for giving this a read through and helping me tweak the angst meter up to 11. If you guys aren't already reading Atlas, there's nothing I can do for you. Go now. Let it consume you. I'll still be here when you're done :D
/end chatty bastard.
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: Kirk/Spock pre-slash so far
Rating: R
Summary: An away mission goes horribly, horribly wrong
Notes/Warnings: Violence. Swearing. More violence. Some gore.
Nixaan Theta
Part the Eight : Reunion
“I can't let you leave here alive, Kirk.”
Jim stared across the weakening light of the alert flare, fixated on the dull gleam of the phaser refraction chamber as each word took shape in his mind, shredding his relief like tiny darts through tissue.
Ferris' skinny shoulders and widened stance transformed with that flat declaration - from familiar and welcome to sinister and threatening.
The phaser was real enough, the resolve was there. This kid he'd served with, would have died for, was prepared to reduce him to molecules scattered across the dust. He caught the flex of the trigger finger, another impossible feat to be considered some other time - when he wasn't about to be murdered by one of his crew, preferably - and dove for the fallen Nixaanite nanoseconds ahead of the focused beam. He could feel the disturbed air vibrating over the standing hairs on his skin as he sought cover.
“Shit.” The curse was almost lost to his own quickened breaths. Ferris was surprised that he'd managed to dodge the beam.
You and me both, kid.
Nothing human could move that quickly.
He cut the thought off as sensory input began flooding him, tasting dust and acrid sweat-soaked terror from Ferris' direction, layered with the filth and rust-stained death of the corpse he was crouched behind. He recognized the approaching madness in the tumult of his fear and adrenaline. He couldn't afford to surrender to it; he needed to think, and to plan, if he was going to survive. Rapping his swollen thumb hard against the rocky wall, he used the burst of pain to clear his head.
Ferris was moving again. His attempts at stealth would be laughable in another setting; each footfall stirred up more dust and fell heavy in Jim's ears. Jim flicked a glance up to the edge of the pit and traced the outline of an overhang jutting out from the sheer face. Ten feet up, an impossible height for a standing jump. Much like dodging a phaser blast from the same distance.
It could work. Hell, he probably had better odds now than he'd had rescuing Pike from from the Narada.
What did Spock say again? Less than 4%? It'll work.
Smiling grimly, he tensed and leaped, only to overshoot the target and slam against the rock wall with his shoulder before thudding onto the ledge. His startled yelp and the loose rock scattering from his impact gave away his position - he flattened himself a bare moment ahead of the arcing phaser fire. From over the edge he could see Ferris was by the body, already lining up the next shot. Jim pushed himself clear as the ledge disintegrated and twisted mid-air to land in a ready crouch beside the dimming flare. He scrabbled for it as he tucked into a roll, a section of the ragged hem of his sheet dissolving as the edge of yet another beam caught the fabric.
The kid was fast.
Jim was faster.
He crushed the flare casing in his fist and let the last few drops of bio luminescent sludge scar through his knuckles as it burned out in the open air. The advantage was his in the black.
“Fuck!”
The fact wasn't lost on Ferris.
“What are you doing, Ensign?” Jim barely recognized his own voice in the low growl. He circled in the resulting silence, maintaining a tightening spiral on Ferris' last known position. He hadn't heard the kid move since he'd destroyed the light, but he wasn't willing to put his life on it.
Ferris seemed to remember enough of the Tactical Combat course to keep his mouth shut, so Jim tried scenting the air. The ozone from the phaser blasts and the settling dust and death in the pit were confusing his nose. The beast would probably know how to interpret the riot of smells correctly, and he could feel the black madness creeping on him again. He bit a hole in his cheek and swallowed it back with the blood and pain.
He would not give in to the monster. He tried his voice again, wincing as the words scraped his throat raw.
“C'mon, Ensign. Talk to me. Let's figure this out.”
The kid whirled to face the noise and Jim threw himself under the beam that silhouetted the Ensign clearly. He'd managed to move a few steps after all; Jim adjusted himself accordingly and sprang low at the slightly heavier patch of darkness before him.
They went down together as Jim's tackle buckled Ferris' knees. A swipe of Jim's arm knocked the phaser from his grip and sent it skittering across the pit, impacting with a hollow click against the walls. Ferris was thrashing desperately, bucking and twisting beneath Jim's weight as he tried to pin the kid in place without hurting him.
A white flash of pain as Ferris got a lucky strike in, directly against the raw patch he'd chewed through his own cheek. He snarled with the explosion and wrapped his fists in the folds of Ferris' Starfleet tunic, pulling up sharply and slamming the kid into the ground, hard enough so the impact rocked up through his own arms. Ferris continued to struggle a moment before stilling, gasps coming hard and fast from between his teeth.
“Ferris, man. You got to talk to me here. What the hell is going on? Cause it looks an awful lot like you just tried to kill me.”
“I...”
“What? Dammit, what?”
“You. You're...”
His hand was hurting again, a different kind of ache. He focused on that instead of the mounting frustration and the savage urge to rip his Ensign's tongue out through his throat. Waiting for the sucking breaths to even out - he may have broken some of Ferris' ribs with his last attack - he tried to find a label for the new sensation.
It was almost like he could feel the bones shifting underneath his skin but that was -
He stopped himself before he could think “impossible” and flexed his hand over Ferris' shoulder.
The shrill scream of pain twinned with terror had him jerking back reflexively, not soon enough to ignore the feeling of slipping out of warm flesh. Fresh blood filled his nostrils and he gagged on it, bringing his wet fingers level with his face in dumb shock.
Ferris bucked again, upsetting Jim's balance. He felt the skin over his jaw part like water as his nails brushed carelessly over it. More blood in the air, only his smelled wrong.
Stuttering panic threaded through him, a distant echo of his mad flight through the tunnels. His skin was itching again, pulsing through with little sizzles of lightning nerves winding up to a scream in his mind. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think. He shook with the fear twisting in his guts.
The struggles beneath him compounded the agitation and he made a ponderous connection behind the gibbering mantra of no, no, no, no and pressed his hand, the safe hand, over Ferris' chest in warning. The Ensign stilled immediately and the sharp scent of urine penetrated the horror long enough for Jim to distinguish the frantic bubbles of noise as voice.
“- a monster, Kirk. A fucking monster. She said this wouldn't happen! Oh fuck. Oh fuck. I don't want to die like they did. My phaser -”
“Shut. Up. Ferris.”
The stream of babble cut off abruptly.
The silence helped. Inch by slow inch, he relaxed the muscles beginning to spasm with tension and willed himself to breathe slowly, deeply. The shudders tapered off into tremors before fading. He opened eyes he couldn't remember closing and steadied himself on one last shaky exhale.
“Do you have another flare?”
“...what? Yes!” The instinctive twitch to retrieve it was brought short with another warning press.
“Tell me.”
“My belt pouch, left side. Oh god, please, sir, don't kill me. I can-”
“Shut the fuck up, Ferris. That's an order.”
Keeping even weight across Ferris' chest with his good hand, Jim fumbled behind him for the pouch clasp. The cooling moisture on the Ensign's soiled pants brushed his knuckles and he swallowed his disgust along with the tiny flash of sympathy. The kid knew something, was involved somehow. He didn't deserve his pity.
He turned his head away to protect his vision when he cracked the case and set the brightly burning red tube beside his knee.
Unease and helpless curiosity warred within him. Jim blew out a shuddering breath. Ferris was doing a passable impersonation of a statue for the moment, the fight flushed out of him with his piss; he could take a minute to prepare himself.
I'm alive, I'm free. How bad can it be?
The silence in his own head was ominous.
Relaxing the protective fist he'd made of his left hand, he brought it into view. The skin was angry red, exaggerated by the flare, and his nail beds cracked and split as the claws poked through the tips of his fingers. The blunt fingernails themselves were partially ripped free, dangling limply beside the thickened base of the talons. He spread the fingers out experimentally and felt the claws retract into his skin until only the sharp, black points were visible. The sensation was disturbing: it reminded him of the first time he'd ever gotten old style sutures and hadn't been able to resist picking at them. The whistling vibrations of claws sinking back into his flesh scraped like a stitch pulling free of a partially healed wound. He flexed again and the claws slid out, scraping sensation intensifying as the pressure dislodged another fingernail. It fell softly into the folds of his rags.
Kirk suppressed the greasy nausea roiling through his guts and tried not to think too hard about what he'd just done. Information was important, reactions could wait.
Jim knew they'd be sharp -- he'd already tested that parameter with his face and Ferris' shoulder - but he slid the claws along his forearm anyway, both fascinated and disgusted when the skin parted so simply. Iron and oil flowed from the wound. The blood looked darker than it should be, a trick of the light? Was the change that basic? Why his hand? What would be next?
He shot a nervous glance at the hand splayed on Ferris. It was still a normal, human hand. His claw was still the same basic shape in comparison, just darker and... pointier. Mottling of the darker skin blurred halfway up his forearm. Only one dark patch existed above his elbow. He shuddered internally and turned his attention back to his captive.
“What else? Ferris?”
Ferris looked like a caricature of fear in the red glow, unstable light elongating the wide eyed terror and deepening the black between his parted lips to a cartoonish “O”. It would be almost funny if it didn't feed Jim's growing uncertainty so well. His eyes were frantically casting side to side, avoiding staring directly at Kirk even as he held himself rigid. Involuntary spasms, first his leg, then his arm, his abs, betrayed his terror further.
“Knock it off, Ferris. You're still alive, I'm probably not going to kill you now.”
The body beneath him stiffened until it seemed the Ensign could snap himself in half with it, but the kid's eyes still refused to focus on Jim.
“Dammit Ferris. LOOK AT ME.”
He hadn't thought the kid could get any tenser but every muscle seemed to be ratcheting as he finally, hesitantly brought his eyes to Jim. His breathing was shallow and squeaking on every exhale. Jim tried a smile - he didn't think he had fangs now. He ran his tongue hastily over his teeth to check and was relieve to find only the squared off edges of normal, human teeth.
“S...Sir?”
“It's sir now, huh? Fair enough. If I get off you, do I have your word that you aren't going to try to attack me again?”
A short nod.
“Fine. I'm going to back off now. You're going to get up, if you're able. And then, you're going to talk. Start with how you got away, with weapons, when the rest of the away team was slaughtered, and work your way up to where you tried to kill me.”
He leaned in closer, a small, nasty part of him enjoying the way Ferris' eyes widened. “If you make a move for your phaser, I'll drop you, and we'll just have to go over this shit again, only this time I'll hang you by your toes and you can tell your story to the dirt. Do you understand me?”
“I. Uh, yes. Sir.”
“Good.”
Jim eased up from his crouch, watching Ferris closely. He rolled his shoulders as he stood, trying to work out the kinks from his brief stint as human projectile. For whatever reason, the gesture seemed to relax the kid, so he brought his claw hand up to rub - gently - at his neck, easing the minor ache and hiding it from Ferris' view.
Ferris scrambled to his feet, keeping a wary eye on Jim as he moved. If his ribs were giving him any trouble, he was hiding it.
They stood facing each other in the pit, barely five feet between them, lit by the ruddy glow of the alert flare. It was almost a perfect mirror for their initial encounter, minus the phaser and Ferris' towering self confidence.
Pissing yourself in fear tended to mitigate the effects of ego, Ferris couldn't hold his his gaze and stared dumbly at his feet. The silence stretched a beat too long for Jim's limited patience. “Report, Ensign,” he barked.
Ferris startled.
“You got away,” Jim prompted.
The kid swallowed nervously, twice, before he was able to speak. “They... When...” a shuddering exhale. “When they took us down into the tunnels, they veered off with you immediately.”
Ferris flicked his eyes up to Jim and quickly back down to his feet before continuing: “They wouldn't tell us anything when we asked. We thought you were dead, sir.
“I got away because they didn't think I was significant enough to watch closely.” The words were bitter and strung through with self-loathing. “The ropes they used to tie me weren't even secure, sir. I managed to slip free when they were occupied with...” Genuine horror filled his voice and he lifted his pale face to meet Jim's eyes directly for the first time since he'd begun his story. “Do you know they strung them up while they were still alive? They were alive...”
Flashes of bodies swinging from hooks, skinned and drained of life and blood, filled Jim's memories as Ferris' voice trailed off. The bloody mist still swirled clearly in his thoughts and he swallowed back the helpless rage and grief.
“I saw,” was all he said, keeping his eyes dry and level with Ferris. No emotion leaked into the statement, and Jim had the passing fancy that Spock would be proud, if he weren't so horrified at what Jim had done to the Nixaanite leader in the amphitheatre.
And that was before you went all Berserker Monster back there. Yeah, Spock's gonna love this.
“How did you get your weapon back?”
A bare hesitation, covered quickly by a wince. Ferris crossed his arms over his chest and continued. “Like I said, we were conscious when they moved us below, sir. They took our weapons at the tunnel entrance and I ran there first when I got free. I was interrupted before I could get a communicator and I had to fight one of those monsters off to get away.
“I ran, sir. I abandoned my fellow officers and ran. I've been down here ever since, trying to find a way out of here. When I saw you, I panicked. You moved so fast and you fought like they did.”
Jim's eyes narrowed. There was just enough hesitance in his answers to lend credibility to his alleged panic. He was the poster child of repentance, humbled and ashamed, seemingly unable to meet his Captain's eyes.
Kirk didn't need to taste the deceit in the air, a mix of pheromones and sweat, or see the minute shifts in posture as Ferris stopped himself from clenching his fists, to tell he was lying. He'd done his stint as a genius-level repeat offender; he could give the kid pointers. Lesson One on the Lying to Authority Syllabus: Know Your Audience.
Lesson Two was still a work in progress, but it would follow the general principle of keeping details straight and remembering the major players.
“Why did you remove your bio-sensor? How was the crew supposed to find you if they couldn't track you?”
Ferris looked at him blankly for a second, hand twitching involuntarily to cover the raw patch of skin on the inside of his wrist. “I was afraid they'd be able to track me too, so I dug it out when I was able to stop.”
“It must have taken a while.” Jim kept his voice soft and encouraging. “How long before you were able to stop? How far did you get?”
Spock had mentioned all the bio-sensor's had cut out around the same time, though there was no reason for Ferris to assume he had that knowledge. Jim watched Ferris relax at the question and tried another reassuring smile, waiting for the kid to dig himself deeper.
Lesson Three: Never Assume Your Audience Is Stupid.
“It felt like hours, sir. Days, even. I found a section of caves that seemed abandoned and rested there. That's when I took it out. It still stings a little.” Ferris quirked his mouth up in a wry smile, inviting Jim to share his black amusement at being bothered by such a small thing.
He was good. The stench of deceit filled the air, no longer partially masked by fear, but his posture was loose and relaxed as he met his Captain's gaze with wide-eyed sincerity. Jim had enough to confirm his suspicions - he closed in for the kill. “That's a pretty story, Ensign. Very touching, almost noble.” He swept his hand forward, holding the sharp points of his claws extended towards the murderous little bastard's eyes. “Something's missing though. You were afraid when you saw me, when you saw this, but you weren't surprised.”
He took a step, casting a long, black shadow over Ferris, and growled. “I talked to one of them, a
Nixaanite, before I escaped. Did you know that?”
“N..n..no.”
“I can taste your lies now. It's different than the fear. Your heart is beating faster, you're afraid again, yes, and you're lying. You were there, weren't you? I thought I saw someone in the lab, at the end.”
A flash of teeth in darkness, a whisper of welcome. The scenes were fractured by the pain of electrocution and Kirk's own fear. Anger built inside him, rising up on another wave of agony, fuelled by the betrayal. Rage and fear, animal panic, his emotions made the pain stronger. He willed himself steady again, forcing his face into blankness as he thought furiously.
He sniffed the air again, slowly, deliberately. “Someone had to tell the Nixaanites what our landing point was after we got our orders. Someone had to signal them to attack.”
Another spike of adrenaline from Ferris. The kid was going to move soon, he'd have to be ready.
He gestured to the broken body behind them. “You're a pretty deadly shot, Ferris. In the dark, a fast-moving target and still, you nailed it. Not exactly what you'd expect of somebody who can't change the settings without nearly neutering himself. That was the signal, wasn't it?”
He loosened his stance, ready to move quickly, and spat, “You're a damned traitor.”
He sidestepped the first lunge neatly, but Ferris ducked beneath his outstretched arm to dive for the phaser. He whirled just as Ferris regained his feet, the weapon clutched in both hands and a triumphant grin on his face.
“You're right Kirk, I am a good shot. Make another move and I'll prove it to you.”
Not particularly eager to start dodging phaser blasts again, Jim spread his hands and tilted his head towards the Ensign. “So I was right, then. Why, damn it? Why all of this?”
“Don't be so naive, Kirk.” Ferris scoffed. “You've seen this place, those creatures. You're practically one of them now. Word of this gets out, the genetic research codes'll get set back to the twenty-first century. Billions of lives will be lost because we can't advance on what we learned here, and why? Because a handful of experiments went wrong.”
“Those experiments were sentient beings! They trusted us!”
“They served their purpose. You need to focus on the big picture. You've seen it, Kirk! You've felt it. We're close to isolating the instability in the serum, soon we can all be gods. Immune to disease, able to recover from grievous harm. We'll be stronger than our enemies, faster. Better!”
The phaser ratcheted up, aimed high on Jim's chest. Ferris shot a quick glance to the claw, still spread helplessly at his side.
“We'll be monsters,” Jim said tonelessly, following the look. “Like me.”
“No! We just need more time. Damn it, Kirk! This is why it's your ass out here right now, you're too close minded-”
“To sanction the deaths of entire species in the name of power? I should fucking hope so.”
Ferris shook his head with a frustrated huff of air. “I don't know why I even bothered trying to explain. You're a ruffian, Kirk, and an idealist. Even after Nero, you don't have the stomach or the foresight to understand that the Federation needs to be prepared for anything. We're vulnerable now, we have to push this forward! Once we perfect the procedures, nobody's going to care about an insignificant rock, even if they do find out about it.”
“Of course not, that's why you're so determined to cover your tracks. So what, we were supposed to beam down and get slaughtered, thus justifying the destruction of this planet, and whoever you're working for goes back to gulling colonists for test subjects until your precious serum is perfected? Then what, Ferris?”
“What do you mean, then what? We remake ourselves! We face our enemies with new power, new might and we survive!”
Jim made an aborted step forward, biting off his words with an icy edge of contempt. “Who first, Ferris? Who decides? What if the people don't want your gifts, don't trust them? What if the first superior beings develop superior ambitions? What then, Ferris? Man, did you sleep through History?”
“It's different now,” the Ensign insisted sharply.
“Oh,” Jim laughed. “Oh, I see. It's different. Of course.”
He kept laughing, the sound raising towards hysteria, echoing back into him through his heightened senses. He struggled for control, mirth boiling just as uneasily as the fear and rage.
Finally he was able to gasp, “Enlighten me, please. How is it different, Ferris? Have all races finally raised themselves past our penchant for paranoia? Or are there still secret deals between member planets? Have we elevated into a culture embracing true equality amongst all? Or are there still factions that preach the superiority of Humans, or Vulcans, or Andorians? Do all branches of the Federation operate openly, without fear of reprisal, because they know their cause is just? Or do we just have better weapons now?”
Ferris' features grew stony at Jim's outburst. “I'm thinking you've served your purpose now too, Kirk. I'm sorry you couldn't understand, but you weren't supposed to make it out of this anyways.” He smirked as he set his shoulders and ran a thumb over the trigger. “If it makes you feel better, you'll probably be remembered as a hero.”
“Can't let me leave here alive, huh, Ferris? After all, I'm a failed experiment now, too.” Jim coiled every muscle to readiness and glared across the pit. “Make your first shot count, kid, or I'm going to tear you apart.”
It was over quickly.
Jim sprang sideways, to the cliff wall, sinking the claw into stone and twisting against the rock face. He pushed off with his feet and propelled himself at Ferris. The phaser beam cut a scorching path through the air, crisping another section of the sheet and burning through to his shoulder blade. The claw struck Ferris in the chest, and sank deep, backed by the momentum of the ricochet, slicing through flesh and muscle as easily as it crushed the bones.
Jim lay above the ensign, watching the realization of death sink into the young face, and felt the madness thicken and curl within him. Ferris' heartbeat was slowing; Jim could feel the spasms through his claws. The Ensign tried to lift the phaser again, with a movement so slight as to be almost unnoticeable in the weak red light. He shuddered once and coughed weakly, then died.
Jim pulled his shaking hand free of the destroyed chest cavity, tangling the bloody mess in the shreds of Ferris' red tunic, and let his tears fall. It shouldn't have happened like this, he should've been able to spare him. The twinges of pain at his back, where burnt flesh was trying to re-knit itself, were ignored.
He'd killed one of his own. He'd done it deliberately, knowing there was no way for Ferris to withstand the force of his last hit.
He was a monster.
The tears kept coming, each spasm of grief chased by another burning shift inside him. He rested his forehead on the cold ground and shook through the pain, until the sobs subsided into shivers.
Spock found him like that, covered in blood and shaking beside the corpse of his murdered crewman, in the last moment before the flare gave its last sputtering flicker of light.
Then it, too, died, and left them there in darkness.
Master Post
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Halle-fricking-lujah! And we're back! HI SPOCK! HI!
Ok.. confession time. I actually wrote this chapter BEFORE I wrote Chapter 7. So yeah, I've been sitting on this for a month. DON'T KILL ME! I had a good reason! I was getting really tired of posting only once a month and decided to buckle down, write like mad and be able to do that whole regular update thing that we readers love so dearly. I know how frustrating it is to wait for a new chapter of a story (especially when the author keeps leaving it at total bastard cliffhangers *laughs uncomfortably*) and I wanted to do better! Also, every time I write something for this story, new ideas seem to come out the woodwork and bitchslap me, so I figured having a few chapters written and waiting would let me do the editing thing if another plot derailment attacked and save me from having to do some fancy footwork to make it fit with previous events.
A good plan, yes?
*sigh* I trust you all remember my hysterical laughter anytime I mention myself and planning in the same breath?
Enter life, my real nemesis. I won't bore you with the details but I got busy. Stupid busy. Am still stupid busy. I have a career, which is an impressively adult sounding way to say I have a giant black hole of time suck forever waiting in the wings to stop me from doing fun things like torturing Jim. And, much as I would like to tell it to shove off and just let me play, I kind of need to make my mortgage and car payments, which it allows me to do, at the low, low price of my sanity and, in the last month or so, pretty much all of my time.
So, grand plan aside, I do have the chapter nine fully plotted out (have you guys ever tried Freemind mind-mapping? Brilliant, brilliant brainstorming program. Very visual and much better organized than my mess of .txt notes) and I am working on it, but I figured you guys had waited long enough. You can thank cathesput and gwenetta_92 for their gentle threats encouragements and Angel Baby1 for the outright throw down. Hi guys! XD
More love for Angel Baby1 for giving this a read through and helping me tweak the angst meter up to 11. If you guys aren't already reading Atlas, there's nothing I can do for you. Go now. Let it consume you. I'll still be here when you're done :D
/end chatty bastard.