Star Trek Big Bang: On A Day Like This [5/7]

[oxymoronic]

Title: On A Day Like This
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Length: ~42k.
Rating: NC-17 for sex.



Master Post: Mix & Art
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven
At AO3

Jim jams the crux of his hands into his eyes, his breath not coming fast enough; he wheezes desperately and drops down to his knees, the oxygen deprivation making him feel dizzy and his fingers tingle. “A little more quickly next time, lieutenant,” a voice warns, floating somewhere above his head, and the lieutenant mutters an apology in an undertone. He manages to peel his eyes open; there’s a Vulcan bending over him, his eyes rather sharp. “I am Acting Captain Spock, and I demand to know why you were - ”

Spock? Jim thinks, and snorts. “Bullshit,” he pants, and collapses.

Jim wakes up to the sight of a cell wall staring back at him. He stands, scours his hand across his face and stretches, yawning. The room’s an exact square, with enough space for Jim to take three paces across it, and its lighting comes from two dim electrostrips across the ceiling; it’s painted a dull, opaque grey, which absorbs more of the light than it reflects. Along the left-hand side there’s a bench a foot or so off the floor, more comfortable than it looks, and a sliding door at the back reveals a small toilet and a smaller sink. He uses the latter to splash a little water on his face and turns back into his cell, noticing for the first time a small switch beside the bathroom door; it activates an identical companion to his sleeping-bench, sliding noiselessly out of the opposite wall. The two nearly meet in the middle and make it impossible to move; Jim flicks the switch again, sending the second gliding back. Still, it makes him hopeful; it’s meant to be a two-man cell, at least, which means he might get some company.

His fingers suddenly jump up to his ear; his earpiece has gone. He absently wonders whether Bones is still on Delta Vega, or if he has any idea of where Jim is now.

His clothes have gone with his earpiece - something he’s grateful for, seeing as he’s been wearing them day-in-day-out for the best part of the last two weeks. The clothes he’s been dressed in (whilst being depressingly monochrome) are, finally, comfortable, and his skin feels soft underneath them, the sign of a good wash. For some reason, the imagined memory of hot water makes him feel a whole lot more human, and he glances round the cell, invigorated. Jim quickly realises the door is impossible to find; he half-heartedly tracks his fingers across the walls, looking for a catch or crack in the stone, but gives up pretty quickly, slouching back on his bench/bed instead. There are still a few things irritating him, and he has the time to brood over them - for starters, how had Starfleet known where to find him? They must have tracked his transport from Delta Vega onto the Romulan ship - but Jim had no idea that kind of technology even existed. It must do, though, or Jim wouldn’t be sitting here, and would most probably have his brains all over a futuristic Vulcan wall.

That timing, he realises with a grin, was pretty damn close.

There is, however, a huge problem with that theory - if the technology’s available, why hadn’t the Romulans picked up their transportation as well? Especially seeing as they were meant to be from the freaking future, where any of today’s tech would have been refined and improved a million times.

There is, though, a slightly more worrying problem - if Starfleet tracked Jim from Delta Vega to the Romulans, would they have gone from the Romulans to Delta Vega? Would they have found the others? Jim realises, suddenly feeling a little sick, that if anyone’s going to get disciplined over him jumping blindly into trouble, it’s not going to be him. And, unlike him, they have something to lose.

This is why, his mom reminds his pouting, six-year-old self, you don’t leap before you look.

It’s dull, being in a cell, especially when its contents couldn’t entertain a bored toddler for more than three minutes; once Jim’s satisfied that his various wounds are bandaged properly he falls into a doze, slumping down on his sleeping-bench. It’s not an easy or a pleasant sleep, and he jerks awake more than once, gasping, as his - Bones’ - Cassie’s - his mom’s - head explodes all over the Vulcan ship, and the Romulan stands across him, smirking, and for some unknown reason buried in Jim’s psyche there’s a nineteenth-century pistol in his left hand, still smoking.

He’s awake when the door finally slides open, revealing itself to be casually hidden at the head of Jim’s bed. A sour-faced guard shoves someone inside, glares once at Jim and slams the cell door shut again, where it melds perfectly in with the wall. Jim’s barely had time to turn and register that it’s Bones who was just inelegantly tossed into the room before he’s rounding on him, swinging a fist Jim has to crouch to his knees to avoid - then a roll to dodge a kick, sending him crashing dizzily into the opposite wall. He just about manages to get his forearms crossed defensively in front of him before Bones drags him up by his wrists, wrenches his hands down from in front of his face and stares at him, panting slightly.

He places his left hand on Jim’s neck and kisses him, hard.

Bones pushes Jim slightly into the wall, paces across the room and sits down on Jim’s bed, his breathing slowly returning to normal. His lip’s bleeding slightly, up in the left corner, and Jim can still taste it inside his mouth. “You bastard,” Bones mutters, glowering at him unabashedly. “I thought you were dead.”

“The Romulans took my mike,” Jim slowly explains, sinking down to sit on the floor. “And your guys must’ve found the earpiece.”

Bones picks irritably with a corner of his grubby cadet uniform, trying to scrape off some stubborn dirt. Apparently, they hadn’t been so kind as to give him new clothes. “You were going to blow that damn ship to kingdom come, weren’t you? With you still inside.”

“It would have worked,” Jim replies, sounding a little sullen. Bones’ face contorts, livid, but he glares at the floor and doesn’t reply. Jim starts asking how long Bones has been here but the door slides open again - the guard’s back, still scowling, and he looks scornfully between the two of them before stopping on Jim.

“Kirk,” he snaps, and jabs a finger at him, in case Jim happens to have forgotten his last name. A pair of cuffs dangle ominously from his other hand. “The Captain wants to see you.”

It’s the first time he’s been inside a Starfleet ship - well, anything of this calibre, at least. The engineers seem to be proud of their work, and the name of the ship - the U.S.S. Enterprise - is ingrained in the corner of every junction. The name’s familiar - wait, that’s Chekov’s ship, right? Jim’s suddenly a little uneasy; it seems incredibly doubtful that this is a happy coincidence. Still, the ship itself sleekly done, everything white, silver and touch-sensitive, an aesthetically orgasmic revolution in technology. She must be brand new.

The guard leads him into a room to the left of the bridge, which Jim catches a glimpse of through a shutting door as they pass. The room’s small, dominated by a synth-wood desk mainly covered with PADDs and a large, sprawling computer monitor, set a half-inch deep into the surface. The Captain himself is sat in a chair on the other side, his fingers dancing across the screen, highlighting small boxes, minimising and maximising alternate windows. After releasing Jim from the cuffs the guard stands stodgily silent, waiting for an order; Jim quickly gets bored and clears his throat, rather loudly, earning himself a glare from the guard.

“Thank you, Matthews,” the Captain says, still apparently engrossed. “If you could close the door behind you?” He waits a moment, glares daggers at Jim and then slumps out; the door snaps loudly behind him. “You are Mr Kirk, are you not? Please, take a seat.”

“Yup, that’s me,” Jim replies, and drops himself in the chair opposite the Captain, grinning.

The Captain finally looks up, and almost sighs. “Are you going to be flippant, Mr Kirk?”

Jim pretends to think for a moment. “Yeah,” he grins, finally. “I think I am.” He slouches back. “How do you know my name, anyway?”

“Cadet McCoy was kind enough to provide it for me.” The Captain leans back in his chair, and Jim half expects him to steeple his fingers; he settles with staring unnervingly at Jim in a way that’s weirdly familiar - “You appear to have failed to recognise the severity of your crimes.”

Jim’s grin widens. He’s had years of practice at this; in his head he’s sat in the Principal’s office again, ready to charm himself out of the situation, avoiding a phonecall home. “To be honest, I don’t even know what we’ve done wrong.”

The Captain slowly raises his right hand, ticking off a finger in turn. “Ensign Chekov - theft of valuable equipment and disobeying a direct order. Lieutenant Commander Scott - harbouring a known fugitive - ”

Jim snorts; “Chekov? A fugitive?!”

“Cadet McCoy,” he continues, voice bland, “deliberately giving misleading information to a superior officer - ”

“What?! Wait, the guy who wanted to take us on Delta Vega? That was - ”

“And you, Mr Kirk.” He pauses, surveying him sharply. “Conspiring with him - not to mention the unauthorized use of valuable Starfleet equipment.” Jim’s brain’s going into overdrive, backtracking through the influx of information; if anything, all it’s done is confirm that the others have all been found and are also somewhere on board - probably the brig.

“That’s bullshit,” he concludes after a long while.

“Be that as it may,” the Captain continues unwaveringly, “you are still to be detained here until I receive further instructions from headquarters.” His head bows again, returning to the screen in front of him, leaving Jim to shift uneasily in his chair.

“Don’t you want to know what happened?”

“Ensign Chekov has provided a satisfactory account,” the Captain answers, still transfixed by his screen. I bet he has, Jim thinks, a little bitterly. A moment later the Captain’s head rises again; “though, I would be interested to know what happened after you two parted ways.”

Jim shrugs. “I got on the ship, the Romulans found me, you beamed me out. That’s it, really. How did you do that, by the way?”

The Captain ignores the question, bowing his head to the screen. “If you have no more information you wish to share - ” He touches a button on the side of the screen, and a grille beside it bleeps softly. “Matthews, escort Mr Kirk back to the brig.” Behind Jim, the door clicks back open again, and Jim’s tugged to his feet, his hands clamped behind him. “The handcuffs are not necessary.” The guard gruffly lets Jim’s hands drop, manhandling him to the door.

“I was only trying to stop Nero,” Jim blurts, rather childishly, and the Captain looks up, one eyebrow raised.

“Yes - and the heroic mission you threw upon yourself appears to have been unsuccessful.” Jim supposes that’s probably as close to sarcasm as Vulcans can manage. “You have probably only managed to further infuriate a deeply disturbed individual - and, well, his subsequent actions can rest on your conscience.”

The worm of guilt starts uncoiling in Jim’s stomach again. He makes to leave the room, but freezes by the door as something occurs to him, causing Matthews to crash painfully into his back. Ignoring the livid stare, Jim turns round to face the Captain again. “Your name,” he says, slowly, “it’s Spock, right?” He remembers hearing it when he first beamed on board, but he’d dismissed it as bad hearing brought on by oxygen deprivation.

“That is correct,” the Captain replies.

Jim hesitates. “Is it - common?”

“I believe I was the only one of my generation - ” He pauses. “Well, it is likely that I will be now. Now, please, Mr Kirk, I am busy - Matthews, return him to the brig. Oh, and send in Lieutenant Sulu when you leave.”

He’s jostled back out of the door into the corridor - a bored-looking Asian man leaning against the opposite wall slinks in after and shuts the door behind him. The corridors are busier than before - probably a shift change, which would also explain Matthews’ eagerness to get him back in his cell. Inside the brig, Jim notices that the doors to each cell appear to be made of something not dissimilar to two-way glass, allowing him to see inside but, as he knows from experience, giving the impression of a solid stone wall from the other side. Chekov and Scotty occupy the first on the right; the two to his left are filled firstly with a huge green thing with way too many tentacles and secondly with what looks like huge fluffy balls of wool. The cell between theirs and the others’ appears to be empty, but Jim notices that the security system is set to maximum and - though he could’ve imagined it - it looks like something’s shifting and flickering near the end wall.

Matthews grabs him roughly by the shoulders and shoves him into his cell, and he has to pirouette on his heel to avoid crashing into Bones, who was skulking by the door. Bones has activated the second bench, and Jim falls back on one as Bones settles on the other, looking across at him. “Did you find out anything different to me?”

Jim shrugs. “I didn’t find out anything,” he mutters.

Bones, for a minute, looks a little proud of himself. “He told me they’d been tailing Nero since the last time Starfleet got blown up - that’s how they spotted you beaming across, though God knows why the Romulans didn’t. It’s damn weird, if you ask me.”

Jim silently agrees. “You got the Captain back, though, right?”

Bones suddenly looks grim. “We got him back, sure enough, but he’s in a bad way - they attached some sucker slug or something to his spinal chord, probably leeching him for information. Nasty bastards, and in such a sensitive area - ” He cuts off, scowling. “I asked to help, seeing as I spent the last year studying the damn things - but apparently I’ve got all the authority of a fugitive stuck in here.”

Jim falters, thinking back to what Spock had said. “I did the right thing going to the ship, didn’t I?”

“No, Jim,” Bones sighs. “You did the wrong thing, the stupid thing - but it was the only thing we could do, and we did a damn sight better than Starfleet had managed to.”

Jim nods, staring absently at the floor. “You don’t think - Spock - the Captain here Spock - is the same Spock as the other Spock?”

The sentence, which had far too many uses of the word Spock in, understandably takes Bones a moment to work out. Eventually, he nods and shrugs. “The way this whole thing’s so wrapped up in coincidence makes it unlikely not to be.”

“He’s an asshole,” Jim protests, and scowls at the way it comes out almost as a whine. “I can’t believe we’re meant to be friends.”

“You sound like my nine year old,” Bones replies, sounding bored, and Jim stares at the wall again.

Starfleet aren’t kind enough to equip them with a clock, so Jim has no idea how long he sleeps for, or even how long he’s been there. He wakes up bad-tempered and with a headache, which could mean too much or too little sleep, and he cups his hands, taking a messy drink from the sink in the back room. Bones is still sleeping quietly on the bench to the right of the bathroom, his face to the wall and his arm doubling up as a pillow - Jim slides back onto his own bench and sits crosslegged against the wall, watching him, his fingers tracing little patterns on his knee and resisting the urge to patter them on Bones’ side. It seems so stupid for them both to be sitting here - Nero’s still out there, still with the technology to destroy the freaking universe, and they’ve gone from being the only people who could stop him to skulking uselessly in the brig.

He hesitates, stretching his fingers out away from himself and closer to Bones, licking his lips. He keeps his eyes on the slope of Bones’ side, moving softly in time with his breathing. I’ve known him for two weeks, he realises a little scornfully, and drops his hand. Two weeks is not long enough to be freaking out over someone like this.

Two weeks is also not enough to stop it being awkward when Bones jerks awake to find Jim sprawled all over him, sent flying across the cell to slam his head painfully into the opposite wall and land pretty much on top of his cellmate. Jim opens his eyes, dazed, blinking hard to try and focus; he realises something huge has slammed into their cell door, leaving a curved dent cleaving through the centre, electrical smoke billowing angrily out of the top. They both scramble to separate, and Jim stands warily at the head of his bed, locking his legs for another sudden dive. “The ship’s been hit,” Bones mutters, rubbing his shoulder where Jim had crash-landed into him. “Did you feel it lurch? That can’t be good.” Jim presses his ear to the sparking door; he can sort-of hear the sound of a klaxon coming from outside. He pushes his hand against it and it feels cold and sharp, closer to glass it is than the stone it’s meant to imitate. It’s thick, a slab of unrelenting metal, and probably impossible to shift; he tries to estimate the depth, the weight, but can only guess it’s probably way more than a fully-grown man’s meant to handle. He peels his hand away, flexing his fingers and rolling his shoulder.

There’s a sliver of space open in the corner - the door’s been so badly hit it’s warped, and if Jim puts his hand inside…

“Jim,” Bones says slowly, sliding off the bed. “What are you thinking?”

Ignoring him, Jim walks over, presses his hands into the gap and pulls. He nearly blacks out from the pain - not just from his stomach, crying out against the use of his torso muscles, but his elbows and wrists scream at him, threatening to pop out of their sockets. He absently hopes the glass is made of sterner stuff - the last thing he wants is a hand full of tiny splinters. In the corner of his eye he vaguely registers Bones charging across, yelling frantically, and then he lets go, staggering back, his arms trapped in the moment between agony and numbness, sending tingles all along his fingers. Even worse, a slow, wrenching pain is starting to come from his stomach - Jim touches it absently, thinking about tearing tissues and wounds that haven’t quite healed yet.

“You are sometimes the stupidest dumb fuck,” Bones mutters, and starts frisking his throbbing arms. “Does anywhere else hurt?”

Jim, neglecting to mention his stomach, shakes his head. “It worked, didn’t it?” he gasps, gesturing at the door; there’s a sliver of space open, enough for a child to squeeze through with ease - or a twenty-five year old man with difficulty. He just about manages to lever himself through, grins back through at Bones and walks into the brig. All of the other cells seem to be intact and, weirdly, unguarded - both of the guards Jim noticed before are nowhere to be seen. A large trolley - titanium, Jim reckons, or at least an alloy - has snapped from its brackets when the ship lurched, and careered down the length of the brig, smashing into their cell door. From the outside, cracks are darting and splitting the high-gloss surface; a hard punch would probably have the thing falling inwards in a shower of lethal shards. Bones extracts himself noisily from the cell through the tiny gap, cursing madly, and falls on his ass before worming his feet through and trying to look dignified; he ends up failing spectacularly when the ship lurches underneath them again, sending him crashing into Jim and they both stagger across the brig as the Enterprise tries to right itself. The door to their cell slams shut with the deathly force of a guillotine, and Jim winces, thinking of Bones’ feet being stuck there, moments before.

“Well, there’s no point hanging around here,” Bones observes drily, pacing across the room to try the door out of the bridge; he plugs a security code in and it swishes open without hesitation. “Standard Starfleet emergency security code,” Bones explains, looking disgruntled. “Would’a thought they’d’ve reset the codes on a ship like this.”

The corridors are virtually empty; there’s a flashing red light pulsing from the overheads, and the klaxon ringing through the corridors is loud enough to wake the dead. The few people they meet are unconscious, strewn haphazardly across the floor; they spend a moment beside each at Bones’ insistence, checking they’re not suffering from anything worse than concussion. The crew, it turns out, is staring open-mouthed out of any viewport they can come across - they don’t pay Jim and Bones much attention when they happen down a corridor with a large, oblong window, surrounded by the crew gaping at the sight.

Jim doesn’t even need to look to know it’s Nero.

They retrace their footsteps to Spock’s office, simply because Jim reckons that in times of crisis the authority might actually do some good; it’s empty, and Jim plays with the terminus in his desk while Bones paces the room, muttering darkly to himself. “Wait a second,” Bones barks, frowning with his hands on his hips in the middle of the room. “If that’s the door we came through, where does that one lead?”

Jim follows his finger, and his feet follow his look. He stands a little way back, frowning - “Bathroom, maybe?” he guesses, “storage closet?”

About as far from the truth as he could be; when Bones barges past him close enough to set off the motion-sensor it springs open to reveal the bridge. It’s pretty much a scene of general chaos; there’re at least three unconscious crewmembers strewn haphazardly across the floor, and the rest are following the general example and either flooding out in a panic or screaming useless orders. Bones moves from beside him instantly, checking the vitals of the nearest unconscious crewmember, leaving Jim to lean on a console and focus with mounting dread on the sight outside the viewscreen.

The last time he saw the Romulan ship this close, his planet got blown off the face of the map.

Spock enters; instant silence. He paces down the steps and settles himself in the Captain’s chair, looking curiously at Jim. “How did you escape the brig?”

“The door was open,” Jim explains, looking a little hurt. It’s a white lie at best, but his freedom’s hardly the most pressing problem. Bones straightens up, glances once at Spock and starts scanning the remaining bridge crew for casualties; he starts at the sight of a woman perched on a console almost right next to them, looking absently out at the Romulan ship. She catches the movement out of the corner of her eye and Jim watches her pass from shock to sheer happiness. “Leonard,” she breathes, shaking her head and smiling. Jim frowns; she seems weirdly familiar. “I thought you were dead; so many of the others were - ”

“I’m not,” Bones replies, and gestures vaguely at Jim. “Thanks to him. Jim, this is - ”

“Uhura,” he finishes, supplying it with a lazy smile. “I never forget a pretty lady.”

Uhura’s face falls and her mouth snaps open, but her loyalty to her Captain overcomes her urge to smack Jim in the face. “Cadet,” Spock says, almost sounding bored. “I am trying to contact engineering.”

“Yes, sir,” she replies, glaring at Jim. “Opening a line now.” The speaker on the left arm of Spock’s chair crackles loudly, and Jim winces at the static.

“Damage report?”

“Casualties on decks five and six, fatalities on seven - Captain, Doctor Puri is dead.”

Spock’s mouth tightens and he leans back in the chair. “And Nurse Chapel?”

“Unconscious, sir; she was with the doctor. We think she might be concussed.”

He nods. “Cadet McCoy shall be sent down as a replacement.” Bones, standing next to Jim, starts violently and protests even more so; Spock tries to silence him with a wave of his hand, but it’s Uhura that makes him shut up.

“Captain,” she calls, looking haggard. “We’re being hailed.”

“On screen.”

“I can’t go,” Bones whispers to Jim, his voice tight. “I’m not qualified!”

“You wanted to,” Jim hisses back. The screen’s jumping and flickering, trying to focus, shimmering a deep, nauseating green. “Don’t complain.”

“Jim - ” His voice cracks a little, and he shifts to the other foot. “Jim, what if someone dies?”

Jim doesn’t have time to answer, because the face of an angry Romulan is slowly materializing on screen. It flickers and jumps violently, covered by something pocked and green; the lens whirrs further back, revealing it to be a nervous Romulan’s forehead. Jim nearly laughs when he recognises him - it’s the Romulan he ambushed, and Jim doubts he’s pleased to see him still alive. “Captain Spock,” he begins, “the Captain requires your presen- ”

The Romulan is violently shoved to the side before he can finish, and a second fills the screen. He looks more haggard, more cruel, and he’s never quite still, constantly twitching and writhing. There are marks beneath his eyes that are dark even for a Romulan, and Jim guesses he’s not getting much sleep. “Spock?” he rasps, glaring malevolently into the camera. Jim resists the urge to roll his eyes; he’s clearly into amateur dramatics. “I want you dead, Spock…”

Spock, undaunted, does nothing but lean back in his chair and quirk a single eyebrow. “I am prepared to consider your terms if you are willing to - ”

The Romulan - who, by his incredible powers of logic, Jim guesses to be Nero - takes it badly. He lunges wildly at the screen, screaming, and there are a few moments of static-drenched screen, accompanied by shouts and loud crashes before the first Romulan’s head flickers into focus, attempting and failing to keep his composure. He continues in rehearsed, staccato sentences; “You are to send Spock alone inside an unoccupied shuttle over to this ship. Failure to do so will result in the destruction of the Enterprise. You have thirty minutes to comply.”

The screen unobtrusively fades to black. Uhura presses a button, and the Romulan ship is displayed on the screen once more. Spock stands.

“This is stupid,” Jim pronounces, glaring at Spock in disbelief. “You can’t seriously consider going over there - he’ll kill you, and then he’ll kill all of us anyway!”

“You’ve got to hand it to him, that is the likely course of action, sir,” the lieutenant in the pilot’s seat agrees - Sulu, Jim remembers, waiting to come in when Jim had left the Captain’s office before.

“Perhaps in a rational being, I’d agree,” Spock replies, fiddling with the console to Sulu’s right. “Nero, however, appears to be driven solely by vengeance which for some inexplicable reason centres around me, and it is therefore logical to presume that once I have been removed from the equation his pathological desires will be complete.”

Jim snorts. “You just said that Nero’s anything but logical - using a damn presumption on him makes no sense!”

Spock decides to simply ignore him. “Cadet Uhura, accompany Cadet McCoy to the medbay - the nurses should know what to do with him there. Mr Kirk is to be returned to the brig - Mr Sulu, you have the conn.”

There are a few hectic attempts to argue with him, not just by Jim - and then he steps into the elevator and is gone. Moments later, they watch the shuttle launch and sleekly glide its way over to the Romulans’ ship.

Sulu straightens his back, trying to look firm; Jim can see his fists trembling. He’s standing awkwardly in the middle, looking nervously at the empty captain’s chair every now and then. “Ensign Mulroy, take Kirk back to the brig. Uhura - McCoy to medbay, like the captain said.” Jim had associated Ensign with tiny; he gets quite a shock when a six-foot burly officer starts manhandling him out of the brig. He catches Bones’ eye once more, standing at the other end with Uhura’s hand resting on his arm; Bones tries desperately to mouth something to him but Jim’s out in the corridor, staring at the closed metal door.

“This way,” the Ensign grunts, prodding Jim in the back, and they tramp away down the corridor, each step taking him further and further from the bridge. The corridors are even more deserted than before; occasionally they pass through a room filled with whispering, terrified people, but the Ensign doesn’t walk slowly enough for him to catch the conversation. They step into an empty elevator and Jim makes his move.

“Fuck this,” he mutters, and punches the Ensign in the face. He crumples to the floor with a crack.

The corridor leading to the brig is empty; Jim wrenches the grille off a service tube, drags the snoring Ensign out of the elevator and shoves him inside. With a furtive glance back into the elevator, Jim breaks off in a run.

Jim enters the brig, fists raised; it’s still completely unguarded, the guards’ desertion undetected - which, in Jim’s opinion, is a major oversight, and would not happen on his ship. He stands by the terminus, fingers flying across the screen; a pulsing red box with Authorisation Code flickers up and Jim swears, slapping the side. He should’ve got Bones to give him that damn code. He licks his lips, leans against the console and stares at the screen. Come on, Jim, you’re smarter than this. He hacked into Interpol almost before he could read.

He closes his eyes and starts to type.

access denied

access denied

access denied -

access granted, rimmed in a healthy, happy green. Are you sure you want to open the door?

Jim grins and presses yes.

Scotty and Chekov stare at him. “A word of advice,” he tells Chekov cheerily as he helps them out of the cell. “You really need to update your security system.”

“I take it you have a plan?” Scotty wheezes as they run through the corridors back to the elevator.

Jim shrugs. “Generally, I just make it up as I go along.” He presses the button labelled transporter room.

This, unfortunately, is not unguarded, but it is understaffed - Jim takes out the two by the console and, surprisingly, it’s Chekov and not Scotty who takes out the one he doesn’t see, creeping up behind him with a hypospray full of clear sedative. Scotty eyes up the console warily, glancing once at Jim. “Why do I know what you’re going to say before you even say it?”

Jim takes the steps two at a time and settles on the pad, staring back down at Scotty. “I can do it this time,” he murmurs, his fingers flexing. “I know I can.”

“Incredible thing, déjà vu,” Scotty mutters, and starts plugging the coordinates into the terminal. Outside, a loud, angry klaxon sounds, accompanied again by the flashing lights.

“Security breach located,” the console informs them coolly. “Emergency lockdown in sixty, fifty-nine - ”

“Shit,” Jim hisses, glancing out of the door. “Scotty, how’s it coming?”

“Nearly there!” he yells over forty-five, forty-four, powering desperately.

Chekov suddenly jumps, running up to join Jim on the pad. “Kid, you can’t come - ”

“I don’t want to,” Chekov replies testily, fiddling with something on his belt. “You don’t have a communicator - here, take this.” He presses a black oval of metal into Jim’s hand. “Emergency locator. Press the button on the side to beam out you and anyone you’re holding.”

“Thanks,” Jim mutters, pocketing it. Twenty-four, twenty-three.

“Done!” Scotty shouts, slapping the terminus; Chekov skips off and hovers beside him. “Clear the pad, energising - ”

“Jim!” Bones barks, and Jim starts, glancing wildly around for him. The voice is coming from a grille beside Scotty’s hand, and Scotty snaps it back as if stung, staring openmouthed. “Jim, that’s you, isn’t it? Of course it’s you, nobody else would be damn stupid enough to send the whole ship into emergency lockdown. I knew from the second the alarms went off - look, for God’s sake, don’t do anything stupid - ” Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen.

“Scotty,” Jim yells, “energise!”

“No,” Bones shouts, “Scotty, don’t - ”

“SCOTTY!”

Five, four, three.

Scotty hits the button and Jim’s gone.

There’s a nasty, chemical smell in his nose when he materialises; he tries to breathe shallowly and looks around, darting out of the door. It’s not a part of the ship he’s been in before, which is entirely possible, considering how big the damn thing is - he starts trying every door he can find, looking for something, anything he can use to defend himself. A loud, angry klaxon starts ringing - he doesn’t understand the words that follow it, but it’s pretty safe to guess they’re not to welcome him on board. He hides in the Romulan equivalent of a broom cupboard to escape from a couple of patrols and then breaks into a run down the corridor, ignoring stealth for speed.

The first corridor he tries is a dead end; the second takes him back where he’s started; the third nearly dumps him prematurely in the brig. He regrets not having Chekov with him, and absently thumbs the oval in his pocket, smooth against his fingers. He has to work this out before the Romulan ship goes to warp - Scotty might have a lock on the ship, but his trans-warp beaming equation, complete with three years of research, is sat on the hard drive of a terminal at Delta Vega, lightyears away. Besides, he didn’t know for sure if the locator would even work if they went to warp. He might never get back - him or Spock.

Focus, Jim. If he finds his way to another map, he can probably remember the Romulan character indicating the Vulcan ship and work out a way there - then it’s just a matter of getting himself caught. The thing is, phase one has to happen before phase two - which is a lot easier said than done. Still, hiding in Romulan broom cupboards is going to get him nowhere.

He grits his teeth and steps into the corridor.

Three corridors over and two very close shaves later, Jim’s staring at a map, scanning it hopelessly. It looks nothing like the one they saw before, and, even worse, Jim can’t find the symbol he knows anywhere. He scans it again, hoping it’ll just dissolve and rematerialise as a big arrow telling him to Go This Way - footsteps at the end of the corridor announce his third close shave and he darts into an alcove, barely hidden by sparking wires and tubes. He’s close enough to hear their conversation - they’re speaking Standard, and Jim strains his ears to hear. “Commander Ayel,” the younger one squeaks with an annoying amount of awe.

“Prepare the Red Matter,” Ayel murmurs back - Jim recognises the voice as the same Romulan he had the pleasure of being shot at from before. He seems to do a hell of a lot on this ship. “Nero wants the Enterprise destroyed before he kills Spock. He ordered me to do it, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this intruder - I’m going to join the security teams sweeping the lower decks. Quickly!” He barks the last part and sweeps regally away; moments later, the younger scuttles past his hiding place. Jim squirms out of the gap and follows.

Unfortunately, the hangar is a literal hive of activity, the Romulans swarming around the arcane ship from every angle. Jim manages to dodge through the closing doors and hide in an alcove to the side - he notices he’s on the opposite side of the Vulcan ship from before, and he has to back a lot further into this alcove to avoid being seen. He falls spectacularly over a crate and lands on the floor, quickly slamming out an arm to take the weight and stop it crashing onto the floor; his forearm explodes with pain and he bites a lip to stop himself screaming. Whatever’s in it, it’s fucking heavy.

As he rights it he frowns - there’s a Starfleet logo peeking out of a flap. He pulls it open to peer inside, and nearly laughs. It’s full of old three-sixties - nicknamed Flashers because of the flare they give before they go off. Half nitroglycerin, half TNT and outlawed half a century ago. A small strip of magnesium sits above a container of oxygen connected with the explosives; when the timer gives out the magnesium falls into the oxygen, and the resulting reaction ignites the rest. Big explosion, very messy, very hard to control - especially seeing as the clingfilm-style layer separating the magnesium and the oxygen tends to rupture before the timer goes. God knows why the Romulans have them, but they suit Jim’s purposes nicely; he slips one out of the box and hugs it close to his side, plugging in the timer.

Now comes the tricky bit - he has to get over to the ship, plant the bomb and somehow get to the other entrance and make it look like he hasn’t been here all along. He waits for a gap in the guards and hotfoots it over to hide under the shuttle; he finds an access panel underneath in the Romulans’ blindspot and slides the bomb inside, hitting the big shiny activate button. He has fifteen minutes to find Spock and get them both out of there without the Romulans suspecting a thing.

One of the younger Romulans is struggling with a huge crate of what looks like phasers - he drops it and it explodes, sending a phaser beam ricocheting around the hanger, passing so close to Jim’s hiding place he feels the heat across his face. His superiors erupt in anger, shouting and screaming at him; the rest, momentarily distracted, start muttering and laughing. It gives Jim just what he needs and he pelts across to the nearest door, skidding through just as it shuts behind him.

Jim smiles. Here’s where the fun begins.

Giving them a moment to calm down and get back on their guard, Jim presses the release button and swaggers, in full view, into the centre of the Romulan guards. They’re on him in a moment - he puts up a pretty good show of looking surprised and struggles feebly, but they jam his hands behind his back and knee him in the stomach for good measure, and he chokes with the pain. When his ears stop ringing he hears them barking into their communicators; by the time he’s pretty much regained the ability to breathe the one pinning his arms smacks him round the head, grinning vindictively. “You’re going to the Captain,” he murmurs, eyes glittering with a mixture of glee and malice.

Perfect, Jim thinks. “No, don’t do - ” He struggles again, going limp as they tug him to his feet. Maybe I’m overdoing it, he muses, but the guards seem pretty convinced; there’s a blindfold strapped round his head and he’s led, stumbling every now and then for effect, through the ship and onto the bridge.

The blindfold being whipped off doesn’t have the effect it should; the light’s so dim on the ship there’s no glare to put him off-balance or disorientate him to the proper psychological effect. He glances around, trying to take in as much as he can; Nero’s standing with his hands clasped behind his back, staring out at the Enterprise. The occasional Romulan subordinate scurries across the consoles, refining the data and refocusing the image; Ayel, looking furious, stands at Nero’s right; Spock is slumped at his feet, looking almost as angry. He looks a little paler than usual, and there’s a smear of green blood across his bright blue shirt. “The intruder, Captain Nero,” his escort murmurs, bowing reverently. Ayel nods and the Romulan retreats; the former tugs Spock to his feet and pushes him over to stand beside Jim.

“I’d ask you what you are doing here,” Spock murmurs as he turns to face Nero, “but it seems likely you’d lie.”

“We have to get off the ship,” Jim hisses, eyeing up Nero and Ayel.

“Why?”

“Because there’s a bomb in the cargo bay.”

Spock stares at him.

“Who is it?” Nero rasps, turning on his heel to stare malevolently at Jim.

“Jim Kirk,” he calls, waving with a cheeky smile. “It’s great to finally meet you.”

“Jim Kirk,” Nero repeats, staring at him blankly. “The son of the famous George. You’re very like your father.” Jim grits his teeth and says nothing. “I didn’t realise you were under Starfleet’s command.” Nero watches Spock carefully, but trying to guess an emotion from a Vulcan is like having a staring contest with a rattlesnake. He sighs, just slightly, and gestures. “Ayel.”

His second in command marches forwards, looking menacing - “I’m not,” Jim says, figuring out the veiled threat at the last moment. “I’m not part of Starfleet. I hijacked my way here.”

“You’ve got a habit of doing that,” Ayel sneers, his hands tightening menacingly. “You like dancing around our ship, don’t you?”

Jim shrugs. “Not my fault you’ve not got the technology to track me.”

Ayel’s mouth clamps tight. “We did,” he mutters, “but somebody broke it.” Jim grins. A first lucky break.

“How long before the bomb activates?” Spock murmurs. Jim thinks hard; he’s tried to keep hold of the time, but it’s hard without a clock.

“Five minutes?” he whispers back. “Maybe more, maybe less.”

“Captain, the Red Matter will be primed in one minute,” the console informs Nero, and he swaggers over to it, pushing a button.

“Program in the coordinates and prepare to clear the singularity,” he replies, occupying himself with the terminal.

“He’s clearly lost his mind,” Spock mutters, shifting to talk to Jim a little easier. “He believes he is from the future and that I destroyed his planet - Jim, he’s trying to destroy the Federation.” It’s an unwelcome confirmation of the other Spock’s story. “That is why he destroyed Earth.”

Jim fingers the locator in his pocket, palms it and worms it through his fingers into Spock’s. He can’t help but hope it doesn’t look like they’re holding hands. “A locator,” Spock confirms without looking down. “Clever.”

“Use it to get back to the Enterprise,” Jim mutters. “Warp away from here - ”

“Too late,” interrupts Spock. “By the time I get to the bridge Nero will have launched the Red Matter.”

“You get back to the ship,” Jim hisses. “Let me deal with Nero.”

Spock pauses. “There’s no way the transporter will lock onto you before the bomb is activated. You’ll be trapped here.”

It’s funny, Jim decides, that the first person that he thinks of is Bones. “I know.”

“Red Matter primed,” Ayel declares. “Waiting on your signal, Captain.”

Nero paces over to them, looking from one to the other. “You’re going to watch,” he rasps, and lurches away back to the console to press the button. At that moment, Jim lunges for him, catching him round the middle and sending them slamming to the floor. Nero roars, twisting violently out of his arms and kicking at his head; flipped onto his back, Jim watches Spock calmly fight with Ayel, disarming him with the sharp snap of a breaking wrist and then pinching his neck, sending him falling to the floor. Then Nero’s on top of him again, blocking his sight and pummelling his fists into him as quickly as he can; a wayward one successfully slams into his stomach and Jim cries out, his whole body convulsing with pain. At this rate it’ll be a miracle if that damn wound ever heals. Nero writhes free and dives for the console again; Spock’s there to stop him but gets shoved aside by a single lucky blow to his head and he staggers before falling to lie sprawled on the floor by Jim’s feet. Jim wraps his hands round Nero’s ankles and wrenches him from his feet; they roll closer to the edge of the platform, sliding on the smooth metal. How much longer before the bomb goes off? Jim thinks, desperately; it can’t be more than a couple of minutes now -

Nero’s sliding off the edge of the platform; Jim’s chest surges with victory but the feeling’s premature - Nero makes a wild, final grab at Jim and catches hold of his ankle, dragging him off with him. Spock lunges for them, grabbing hold of Jim’s arm with one hand and fumbling with his other to get the locator - Jim’s slipping out of his fingers, and Nero’s clawing his way up his leg, pulling him further and further down - Jim suddenly realises that if Nero’s still holding on when they beam he’ll come back onto the Enterprise with them and he’ll be saved.

With a hard, strong kick, Jim connects with Nero’s head; Nero’s grip fails and he falls; Spock’s fingers connect with the locator and, seconds later, they dissolve into two flashes of light and disappear.

They land painfully back on the Enterprise, slamming into the pad strong enough to wind him. The room, filled with angry-looking officers, erupts at the sight of Spock, tugging him up and onto his feet; Bones picks up Jim instead and starts checking him over. Jim slips out of his fingers and starts running full-pelt for the door, shoving past the guards; over his heartbeat and his squeaking footsteps he can hear Spock barking orders as he runs close behind. He hurtles into the bridge and skids to a halt in front of the viewscreen, staring at the Romulan ship, half of the Enterprise’s security forces hotfooting behind. They try to wrestle Jim to the floor, cuffs at the ready, but Spock shakes his head and waves them away. Bones, just about catching up, jogs beside him, wheezing slightly, and throws him a filthy look; he starts prodding and pressing along his arms and legs to check for damage. Jim tugs him up and soundlessly points across to the ship.

It explodes.

The whole bridge room is staring at Jim. “Where the devil did you learn to do that?” Bones asks, staring in wonder.

Jim shrugs, grinning. “I had a troubled childhood.”

Once the smoke and debris floats away, Jim’s surprised to see it’s still looking remarkably intact - but the bomb wasn’t the weapon. The real thing’s yet to come.

“Captain,” Sulu suddenly says as he settles down in front of his haywiring, screeching console. “The gravitational readings - ”

“You ignited the Red Matter,” Bones realises. “You clever son of a bitch.” Jim simply smiles.

Uhura stands; she steps down to rest beside Bones and stares out at the ship, the first signs of the singularity peeking out around its far end. The picture is silent, but Jim imagines the shrieking, rendering metal, sucked into somewhere endless, soundless. Jim feels nothing but bitter victory; Uhura’s face is twisted slightly, and Jim hopes it’s not from remorse. “Shouldn’t we… help?”

“No,” Jim says, staring forward.

Bones looks at him. “Jim… Nero’s not the only Romulan on that ship.”

He killed my mother, Bones, Jim thinks, but he says nothing.

“Establishing communication link,” Uhura says neatly, having paced to the nearest console, and ignores the glare Jim sends her. “Receiving a reply.”

Ayel’s face is the one on the screen, and not Nero’s; Jim wonders how far in that cavernous ship he fell, and how badly Jim hurt him. “Narada,” Spock declares, staring stoically into the view screen; his hands are clasped behind him, every inch the gracious host. “This is Spock, Acting Captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise. We have determined that you are too close to the singularity to survive without assistance - ” Spock glances across at Jim, who stares back stolidly. “ - which we are willing to provide.” Jim feels his fingers clench up.

Ayel, fortunately, does his job for him, and spits at the screen and terminates the link.

“See?” Jim mutters, staring back out at the Narada. “You just can’t help some people.”

Uhura, tight-mouthed, glares at Jim. “So we just watch as they all die?”

“Pretty much,” he replies, still staring forward. “We did all we could.”

“Sounds like bureaucratic bullshit to me,” she mutters; nobody takes her up on it. Jim silently wonders how many of them agree.

The black hole on screen is stretching, its mouth yawing through the helpless space and happily sucking the Narada down into it. For a moment Jim wonders what it must be like over there - the younger Romulans panicking, the older too shocked to do anything but stare.

He says nothing. He’s worse than homeless, orphaned and it’s because of them.

The moment the ship is fully destroyed is as unremarkable as Earth had been; it was there and now it’s not. Jim absently thinks that it’s over - then he dismisses it. The Romulans destroyed his planet, and that’s something that can never really be over.

The ship lurches suddenly under his feet; Jim catches himself on a console, and Spock skips light-footedly up to the Captain’s chair, pressing the comms button. “Mr Sulu, manoeuvre us to a safe position. Mr Scott, are we ready to go to warp?”

“Aye, Captain,” Scotty chimes over the comms, sounding remarkably chipper. “Awaiting your order.”

There’s a happy-sounding electronic noise from Sulu’s console. “We’re outside the gravity field, Captain, but it keeps expanding - it would probably be better not to try and stay near it for long.”

Spock shakes his head. “We should attempt to monitor the singularity to ensure it doesn’t damage any of the nearby systems. Ensure we remain at a safe distance and monitor any fluctuations closely.”

Spock starts to sound off reports to all areas of the ship; Bones takes the opportunity to grab Jim’s arm and starts what promises to be a long lecture, gripping roughly. “I can’t believe you went over to the ship again,” he mutters, glaring. “It’s a goddamn miracle you’re alive at all.”

Jim diplomatically decides not to tell him he had planned to be on the ship when it blew up. “I knew what I was doing,” he shrugs, grinning. “And it worked, right?” It’s not much of a comfort; it’s not exactly the first time he’s said it.

Bones snorts. “Just about.”

Behind him, Spock raises an eyebrow. “Mr Kirk, would you like to explain why there’s an unconscious Ensign in a service tube on deck seven?”

Part Six