The Sum of its Parts 9/11
Short chapter, alas. But just think! Friday and Saturday you get more chapters! :)
The Sum of its Parts
by JB McDragon
Rating: R/NC-17
Genre: Action/adventure.
Characters: Spock and Kirk (eventual Spock/Kirk)
Spoilers: Uh. There was a new movie.
Word count: 42,000
Summary:
Broken: Adj. Def. 1. destroyed; made into pieces from a whole.
The Casari homeworld is a place that has yet to become unified. The people are ready to join the Federation, but one rebel faction will do anything to stop it. Anything, including capturing a starship captain and his first officer. With Kirk's memory damaged and Spock's mental shields shattered, escape is unlikely. It won't stop them from trying.
Notes: Many thanks to my beta-reader and font of information (aka, my pusher and dealer), alestar. The fic is NOW COMPLETE, and I'll be releasing a chapter every few days!
Master list, all previous chapters.
Chapter Nine
The resistance had moved faster than Spock had calculated. They were far more aggressive than Spock had calculated, too. And the cold was impinging upon his movements more than he'd calculated. All in all, his calculations were disturbingly off.
He kept his head ducked as they slipped past a small cluster of men going door to door, pounding on wood and demanding entrance in their search for fugitives.
“You there!”
Their whole group froze. Spock willed Jim to keep from smiling, to keep his eyes downcast. Not that Jim's eyes were as obvious as his own. He kept his gaze on the ground, too, focusing on the goat-like kittert. He couldn't feel his feet, but he was able to keep from shivering.
“What are you doing?”
“Heading to the sale.” Nara gestured to their creatures. “We wanted to get there early to graze the beasts.”
“There is no travel permitted today,” the man said. “Not until the fugitives are found. Prepare yourselves for examination.”
There was only one of the enemy standing right there with them. The rest of the man's group was drawing near. In a moment, the likelihood of escape would drop from five percent to point nine.
Spock stepped forward, hunching his shoulders in an attempt to look shorter. “I'll go first.”
Everyone gave him startled looks. He ignored them, and waited for the enemy to come close. When the man was within reaching distance, Spock sidestepped away from the gun, grabbing the man's neck. The mental drive he applied was three times what it needed to be. He tried not to feel a rush of vengeful pleasure from it, but didn't entirely succeed.
As the body dropped, the other guards started shouting.
“Go,” Spock said simply, and turning, pushed Jim toward an alley between houses. “The rest of you, scatter.”
“Good going, Spock,” Jim snapped, dashing down the street. “Now they know we're here!”
“They already knew we were here.”
“Now they know where! We could have been hiding in a shed, having sex right now!”
Spock stumbled. Obviously, the cold was worse than he'd realized.
“There! Stop them!” Blasts whipped by. Spock grabbed Jim and hauled him into a doorway, slamming shoulder-first into hard wood. It splintered under his attack. A child screamed as they burst into a domicile.
“We're not gonna hurt you,” Jim panted.
Spock said nothing, dragging his captain through the residence and out the other side.
“This way!” Jim ducked between two buildings, racing down a dirt street. Spock went after him, focusing on running. His leg was no longer working correctly. His feet were like plaster blocks. He forced himself onward.
“We should have brought that gun,” Jim snarled over his shoulder.
Spock said nothing. Nara's point that it would be conspicuous was still correct, even if circumstances had now changed. “Here.” He grabbed Jim, twisting down yet another alley barely wide enough to admit them. They scrambled over a stack of crates, and he pulled Jim down to the ground between the slatted wooden boxes.
“Now how is the crew gonna find us?” Jim hissed. His breath came sharp and fast.
Spock considered the question, trying to think past the encroaching cold. He eyed the wooden crates. “We need a signal flare.”
Jim eyed the crates, too. “Okay, except I don't have any way to make fire. Do you?”
It deserved consideration.
"Here's what I think," Kirk said, voice quick and harsh with his breath. "We go back into that house we just ran through, get something flammable, drag those crates into an open space, and set fire to them. Sound like a plan?"
"Indeed." Not a very good one, but a plan. Before Spock could voice the rest of his opinion, though, Kirk had whacked him in the shoulder and taken off for the house. It would take more time and attract more attention to drag Jim back. Spock let him go. Then, very carefully and purposefully, he wrapped his hands around the crates and dragged them out of the alley. He still couldn't feel his fingers, and he stumbled more than a few times.
At the mouth of the alley he took a breath, gathering strength and plotting his course. Then he moved as quickly as he could -- not quickly enough -- to pull the crates into the middle of the street.
"There!"
He ran. He was stiff and stumbling, nearly crashing down into the road before he got to the alley again, and the likelihood that they wouldn't follow him didn't bear thinking about. He slammed into a wall and ricocheted off, trying to keep his balance while the world spun. He couldn't tell if he was walking or not, couldn't feel the ground under his feet. Arms grabbed him and he started to fight before he realized it was friend, not foe.
"This way," Jim said, and twisted his fist into Spock's shirt, yanking him on. Spock staggered after, struggling to remain upright, trying to follow. Jim kept pulling him off balance, making him run faster, and he didn't have the strength to say he couldn't. It was all he could do to keep moving.
**
The problem with going back into the residence they'd run through was that they'd been under pursuit. By the time Jim had found some sort of combustible, they'd nearly surrounded the place. Luckily, the people who lived there didn't think much of the attacking Casari. It had given Jim the moments he needed.
Spock had gotten the crates out somewhere where a signal fire might actually be seen -- and hopefully not burn up peoples' houses -- but now they had to get to it.
He dragged Spock around a corner, caught sight of a man with a gun, and shoved Spock between two buildings. A shot exploded through the air, and Jim thought he could practically feel the bullet whiz past. What was wrong with good old phaser fire? Why'd they have to go using bits of metal?
"Come on," he said, and dragged Spock in a new direction, trying not to notice how Spock stumbled, or how dull his eyes looked, or the growing green cast to his mouth. They'd warmed him up back at the house. It had to be enough. Spock hadn't protested leaving so soon.
People started to shout. Villagers fought back. Jim didn't know what had happened to their escort, but he hoped they were being rabble rousers.
He found an opening into the street again, staring right out at that pile of crates -- and realized he and Spock were pinned down. A shooter stood at each end of the boulevard, just waiting for them to come out.
"We could make a run for it," Jim murmured. "Use the crates as cover." Not that they made very good cover, since there was a lot of ground to travel before they got to the crates.
There was a series of pops, far away, and cries. One of the shooters twisted to look.
"That's it," Jim said. Now or never. He darted into the road, keeping his head low. He could feel, more than see, the other shooter take aim. Jim hit his knees on the rough ground, sliding to the base of the crates. Cloth and skin tore. A gun fired. Distantly, he was aware that Spock was moving, too, racing across the ground toward the distracted shooter.
Jim ducked his head and shoved the fire-starter into the middle of the crates, trying to light the straw that filled them. More shots went off. Someone screamed. The straw caught, and Jim rolled away, lurching up to his feet. Somehow, Spock had taken down one of the shooters, and he was running -- staggering, half falling -- toward Jim.
And then he was only falling.
"Spock!" Jim bellowed, and launched toward him as he crashed, not even bringing his arms up in time to catch himself. Green splattered across the ground, lurid and alien.
"Don't move! Don't even think about moving!" someone bellowed, and Jim hit his knees for the second time in as many minutes, while behind him flame licked toward the sky and smoke began to rise.
"Don't move," he said, unaware that he echoed the other's words. "Just don't move." Spock's tunic was already turning dark with blood, more blood than Jim thought that pale body had in it. His shoulder was hit. An artery? Or just a lot of blood? Apply pressure. He remembered that. He put one hand over the other and pressed, trying to staunch the bleeding.
"Run." The word was no more than a croak, spoken from lips that were too white, under eyes that were too dark.
"Bullshit. As if I'd leave you here to enjoy the bonfire by yourself."
"Put your hands up!"
He threw a furious glare at the man with the gun. "I can't! I'm a little busy!"
Another bullet, from another direction, went whizzing by. A new voice shouted, "Now, alien!"
Jim ducked his head. The fire rose. The smoke drifted lazily, unconcerned with what went on around it. "Don't shoot!" Jim bellowed. "We surrender!"
"No," Spock croaked.
"Shut up!" Jim applied more pressure, feeling moisture absorb up into his sleeve. "You just shut up, you with the memories and what the hell am I supposed to do if you're gone, huh? We surrender!" Jim said again, louder. "He needs a doctor!"
"I'm a doctor." One shooter sneered, his gun still aimed, drawing near and pointing it at Spock's head. "I could take care of that."
There was another volley of pops from somewhere distant, another scream.
Jim leaned over Spock's head. "You want me to call down the ship, but I can't remember the damn codes because of that damn bug. You want the right orders, you'll have to keep him alive!"
The man wavered. His grip tightened and relaxed on his gun.
"I'll do what you want!” Jim cried, almost willing to barter anything they asked of him. “Damn it, we surrender, just--"
And then the rebel's grip tightened again. "You'll do what we want, anyway."
"Son of a bitch, see if you can make me after you shoot him." Jim crouched low over Spock, as if he could protect the Vulcan with his own body. He closed his eyes and held his breath, feeling the flutter of Spock's heart under his hands, feeling the muzzle of deadly weapons pointed straight at him, feeling his mortality keenly. This had to work. They had to negotiate.
There was a low sound, the smell of burning ozone, two quick zaps -- and running feet.
He opened his eyes. The shooter crumpled to the ground, weapon loose in his nerveless hand.
"--found them--" A voice reached over the rising crackle and pop of fire. Jim looked around, saw the second shooter lying still behind him, and four people in red shirts racing, crouched low, toward them. One spoke into a communicator. "--Get a medteam ready, Commander Spock's been injured--"
The tallest redshirt aimed and fired, pausing in his run to cover the others as a Casari rebel tried to take them out.
"Hold on, Captain," a woman said, whipping around and putting her back to Jim's, eyes scanning the buildings. "Stone to Enterprise. Three to beam up!"
The world dissolved. As if he could force it to remain solid, he pressed harder on Spock's shoulder.
When everything came back around him, he was crouched on a pad in a large room, with people standing along the edges, medical gear and stretchers at the ready.
"Jim!" A man with neat brown hair leaped up the two steps, mimicking Jim's pose on the other side of Spock. "What the devil happened? We've been looking for you two for days, and now you just appear, bloody and -- what the hell did he do to himself? Christ, Spock!"
The world twisted. He knew this man. He didn't know this man. Late nights and being a pest while Bones studied. The half-memory sucked back into the void. He reached for it -- grabbed for the tail ends -- Damn it, Jim--
The void snatched him up and swallowed him whole.
**
Spock was unable to catch Jim, and though McCoy lunged he didn't move fast enough. Jim's head hit the transporter floor with a sickening crack and moments later he was swarmed by medical personnel.
"Seizure," Spock croaked, but they were already yelling it, pulling him over onto his side, someone else dashing for a hypospray at McCoy's bellow.
"Spock, what happened?" McCoy snarled, while another doctor yanked Spock's shirt back. It tore under a quick blade, expertly wielded to get at his skin.
"Shirai," Spock stuttered, failing not to wince as the doctor peeled cloth away from the new bullet wound. "His mind is -- fractured--"
"Spock's freezing, McCoy. And -- fuck, he's lost a lot of blood."
"Indeed," Spock agreed faintly. "My sensory perceptions are dimming." He could barely make out the doctor's face, and only distantly heard McCoy bark, "Get them both on the stretchers and into sickbay! Now!"
Everything quickly became a haze of motion and pain, with McCoy's voice as punctuation -- "What the hell did you do to your feet?" -- as he tried to tell them about Jim and his memories, or lack thereof.
The world seemed very cold. He took some solace in the fact that it was a hypospray to the neck, however, that knocked him out at last.
***************
The Sum of its Parts
by JB McDragon
Rating: R/NC-17
Genre: Action/adventure.
Characters: Spock and Kirk (eventual Spock/Kirk)
Spoilers: Uh. There was a new movie.
Word count: 42,000
Summary:
Broken: Adj. Def. 1. destroyed; made into pieces from a whole.
The Casari homeworld is a place that has yet to become unified. The people are ready to join the Federation, but one rebel faction will do anything to stop it. Anything, including capturing a starship captain and his first officer. With Kirk's memory damaged and Spock's mental shields shattered, escape is unlikely. It won't stop them from trying.
Notes: Many thanks to my beta-reader and font of information (aka, my pusher and dealer), alestar. The fic is NOW COMPLETE, and I'll be releasing a chapter every few days!
Master list, all previous chapters.
Chapter Nine
The resistance had moved faster than Spock had calculated. They were far more aggressive than Spock had calculated, too. And the cold was impinging upon his movements more than he'd calculated. All in all, his calculations were disturbingly off.
He kept his head ducked as they slipped past a small cluster of men going door to door, pounding on wood and demanding entrance in their search for fugitives.
“You there!”
Their whole group froze. Spock willed Jim to keep from smiling, to keep his eyes downcast. Not that Jim's eyes were as obvious as his own. He kept his gaze on the ground, too, focusing on the goat-like kittert. He couldn't feel his feet, but he was able to keep from shivering.
“What are you doing?”
“Heading to the sale.” Nara gestured to their creatures. “We wanted to get there early to graze the beasts.”
“There is no travel permitted today,” the man said. “Not until the fugitives are found. Prepare yourselves for examination.”
There was only one of the enemy standing right there with them. The rest of the man's group was drawing near. In a moment, the likelihood of escape would drop from five percent to point nine.
Spock stepped forward, hunching his shoulders in an attempt to look shorter. “I'll go first.”
Everyone gave him startled looks. He ignored them, and waited for the enemy to come close. When the man was within reaching distance, Spock sidestepped away from the gun, grabbing the man's neck. The mental drive he applied was three times what it needed to be. He tried not to feel a rush of vengeful pleasure from it, but didn't entirely succeed.
As the body dropped, the other guards started shouting.
“Go,” Spock said simply, and turning, pushed Jim toward an alley between houses. “The rest of you, scatter.”
“Good going, Spock,” Jim snapped, dashing down the street. “Now they know we're here!”
“They already knew we were here.”
“Now they know where! We could have been hiding in a shed, having sex right now!”
Spock stumbled. Obviously, the cold was worse than he'd realized.
“There! Stop them!” Blasts whipped by. Spock grabbed Jim and hauled him into a doorway, slamming shoulder-first into hard wood. It splintered under his attack. A child screamed as they burst into a domicile.
“We're not gonna hurt you,” Jim panted.
Spock said nothing, dragging his captain through the residence and out the other side.
“This way!” Jim ducked between two buildings, racing down a dirt street. Spock went after him, focusing on running. His leg was no longer working correctly. His feet were like plaster blocks. He forced himself onward.
“We should have brought that gun,” Jim snarled over his shoulder.
Spock said nothing. Nara's point that it would be conspicuous was still correct, even if circumstances had now changed. “Here.” He grabbed Jim, twisting down yet another alley barely wide enough to admit them. They scrambled over a stack of crates, and he pulled Jim down to the ground between the slatted wooden boxes.
“Now how is the crew gonna find us?” Jim hissed. His breath came sharp and fast.
Spock considered the question, trying to think past the encroaching cold. He eyed the wooden crates. “We need a signal flare.”
Jim eyed the crates, too. “Okay, except I don't have any way to make fire. Do you?”
It deserved consideration.
"Here's what I think," Kirk said, voice quick and harsh with his breath. "We go back into that house we just ran through, get something flammable, drag those crates into an open space, and set fire to them. Sound like a plan?"
"Indeed." Not a very good one, but a plan. Before Spock could voice the rest of his opinion, though, Kirk had whacked him in the shoulder and taken off for the house. It would take more time and attract more attention to drag Jim back. Spock let him go. Then, very carefully and purposefully, he wrapped his hands around the crates and dragged them out of the alley. He still couldn't feel his fingers, and he stumbled more than a few times.
At the mouth of the alley he took a breath, gathering strength and plotting his course. Then he moved as quickly as he could -- not quickly enough -- to pull the crates into the middle of the street.
"There!"
He ran. He was stiff and stumbling, nearly crashing down into the road before he got to the alley again, and the likelihood that they wouldn't follow him didn't bear thinking about. He slammed into a wall and ricocheted off, trying to keep his balance while the world spun. He couldn't tell if he was walking or not, couldn't feel the ground under his feet. Arms grabbed him and he started to fight before he realized it was friend, not foe.
"This way," Jim said, and twisted his fist into Spock's shirt, yanking him on. Spock staggered after, struggling to remain upright, trying to follow. Jim kept pulling him off balance, making him run faster, and he didn't have the strength to say he couldn't. It was all he could do to keep moving.
**
The problem with going back into the residence they'd run through was that they'd been under pursuit. By the time Jim had found some sort of combustible, they'd nearly surrounded the place. Luckily, the people who lived there didn't think much of the attacking Casari. It had given Jim the moments he needed.
Spock had gotten the crates out somewhere where a signal fire might actually be seen -- and hopefully not burn up peoples' houses -- but now they had to get to it.
He dragged Spock around a corner, caught sight of a man with a gun, and shoved Spock between two buildings. A shot exploded through the air, and Jim thought he could practically feel the bullet whiz past. What was wrong with good old phaser fire? Why'd they have to go using bits of metal?
"Come on," he said, and dragged Spock in a new direction, trying not to notice how Spock stumbled, or how dull his eyes looked, or the growing green cast to his mouth. They'd warmed him up back at the house. It had to be enough. Spock hadn't protested leaving so soon.
People started to shout. Villagers fought back. Jim didn't know what had happened to their escort, but he hoped they were being rabble rousers.
He found an opening into the street again, staring right out at that pile of crates -- and realized he and Spock were pinned down. A shooter stood at each end of the boulevard, just waiting for them to come out.
"We could make a run for it," Jim murmured. "Use the crates as cover." Not that they made very good cover, since there was a lot of ground to travel before they got to the crates.
There was a series of pops, far away, and cries. One of the shooters twisted to look.
"That's it," Jim said. Now or never. He darted into the road, keeping his head low. He could feel, more than see, the other shooter take aim. Jim hit his knees on the rough ground, sliding to the base of the crates. Cloth and skin tore. A gun fired. Distantly, he was aware that Spock was moving, too, racing across the ground toward the distracted shooter.
Jim ducked his head and shoved the fire-starter into the middle of the crates, trying to light the straw that filled them. More shots went off. Someone screamed. The straw caught, and Jim rolled away, lurching up to his feet. Somehow, Spock had taken down one of the shooters, and he was running -- staggering, half falling -- toward Jim.
And then he was only falling.
"Spock!" Jim bellowed, and launched toward him as he crashed, not even bringing his arms up in time to catch himself. Green splattered across the ground, lurid and alien.
"Don't move! Don't even think about moving!" someone bellowed, and Jim hit his knees for the second time in as many minutes, while behind him flame licked toward the sky and smoke began to rise.
"Don't move," he said, unaware that he echoed the other's words. "Just don't move." Spock's tunic was already turning dark with blood, more blood than Jim thought that pale body had in it. His shoulder was hit. An artery? Or just a lot of blood? Apply pressure. He remembered that. He put one hand over the other and pressed, trying to staunch the bleeding.
"Run." The word was no more than a croak, spoken from lips that were too white, under eyes that were too dark.
"Bullshit. As if I'd leave you here to enjoy the bonfire by yourself."
"Put your hands up!"
He threw a furious glare at the man with the gun. "I can't! I'm a little busy!"
Another bullet, from another direction, went whizzing by. A new voice shouted, "Now, alien!"
Jim ducked his head. The fire rose. The smoke drifted lazily, unconcerned with what went on around it. "Don't shoot!" Jim bellowed. "We surrender!"
"No," Spock croaked.
"Shut up!" Jim applied more pressure, feeling moisture absorb up into his sleeve. "You just shut up, you with the memories and what the hell am I supposed to do if you're gone, huh? We surrender!" Jim said again, louder. "He needs a doctor!"
"I'm a doctor." One shooter sneered, his gun still aimed, drawing near and pointing it at Spock's head. "I could take care of that."
There was another volley of pops from somewhere distant, another scream.
Jim leaned over Spock's head. "You want me to call down the ship, but I can't remember the damn codes because of that damn bug. You want the right orders, you'll have to keep him alive!"
The man wavered. His grip tightened and relaxed on his gun.
"I'll do what you want!” Jim cried, almost willing to barter anything they asked of him. “Damn it, we surrender, just--"
And then the rebel's grip tightened again. "You'll do what we want, anyway."
"Son of a bitch, see if you can make me after you shoot him." Jim crouched low over Spock, as if he could protect the Vulcan with his own body. He closed his eyes and held his breath, feeling the flutter of Spock's heart under his hands, feeling the muzzle of deadly weapons pointed straight at him, feeling his mortality keenly. This had to work. They had to negotiate.
There was a low sound, the smell of burning ozone, two quick zaps -- and running feet.
He opened his eyes. The shooter crumpled to the ground, weapon loose in his nerveless hand.
"--found them--" A voice reached over the rising crackle and pop of fire. Jim looked around, saw the second shooter lying still behind him, and four people in red shirts racing, crouched low, toward them. One spoke into a communicator. "--Get a medteam ready, Commander Spock's been injured--"
The tallest redshirt aimed and fired, pausing in his run to cover the others as a Casari rebel tried to take them out.
"Hold on, Captain," a woman said, whipping around and putting her back to Jim's, eyes scanning the buildings. "Stone to Enterprise. Three to beam up!"
The world dissolved. As if he could force it to remain solid, he pressed harder on Spock's shoulder.
When everything came back around him, he was crouched on a pad in a large room, with people standing along the edges, medical gear and stretchers at the ready.
"Jim!" A man with neat brown hair leaped up the two steps, mimicking Jim's pose on the other side of Spock. "What the devil happened? We've been looking for you two for days, and now you just appear, bloody and -- what the hell did he do to himself? Christ, Spock!"
The world twisted. He knew this man. He didn't know this man. Late nights and being a pest while Bones studied. The half-memory sucked back into the void. He reached for it -- grabbed for the tail ends -- Damn it, Jim--
The void snatched him up and swallowed him whole.
**
Spock was unable to catch Jim, and though McCoy lunged he didn't move fast enough. Jim's head hit the transporter floor with a sickening crack and moments later he was swarmed by medical personnel.
"Seizure," Spock croaked, but they were already yelling it, pulling him over onto his side, someone else dashing for a hypospray at McCoy's bellow.
"Spock, what happened?" McCoy snarled, while another doctor yanked Spock's shirt back. It tore under a quick blade, expertly wielded to get at his skin.
"Shirai," Spock stuttered, failing not to wince as the doctor peeled cloth away from the new bullet wound. "His mind is -- fractured--"
"Spock's freezing, McCoy. And -- fuck, he's lost a lot of blood."
"Indeed," Spock agreed faintly. "My sensory perceptions are dimming." He could barely make out the doctor's face, and only distantly heard McCoy bark, "Get them both on the stretchers and into sickbay! Now!"
Everything quickly became a haze of motion and pain, with McCoy's voice as punctuation -- "What the hell did you do to your feet?" -- as he tried to tell them about Jim and his memories, or lack thereof.
The world seemed very cold. He took some solace in the fact that it was a hypospray to the neck, however, that knocked him out at last.
***************