Fic: "The Needs of the Few" (13/23)
Title: "The Needs of the Few"
Canon characters/Pairing(s): Kirk & McCoy, Pike, Finney
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 9,149 for chapter 13.
Warnings: Foul language, political situations, military stuff.
Summary: As cadets on a summer internship, Kirk and McCoy are supposed to keep their eyes open and their mouths shut. As far as Bones is concerned, that’s just plain wrong on Jim Kirk, but Jim seems determined to follow orders and fall in line for a change. After all, they’ve both seen enough trouble in two years at the Academy, and this is the Peace Mission of Axanar. However, when a mystery starts to weave itself around the mission, and the senior officers don’t seem interested in investigating, how far can Kirk and McCoy let it go?
Notes: Still have your hat? Good. Keep holding it.
Previous chapters: One, Two, Three, Four(A), Four(B), Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve
Chapter 13
The morning had been dry and dull until Jim and the other cadets reached the power plant. Their trip through the city had been a simple sightseeing tour of the local architecture, but Jim had to admit that he was enjoying the time outdoors with sunlight on his face. There was mild weather, a light breeze, fresh air, and open sky. The city was dotted with gardens and recreational areas. Pleasant enough, but it wasn’t particularly exciting.
They hadn’t encountered many Araxians on their tour, which matched how quiet the streets had been during his security duty. He’d been on duty in the center of town, so it it made enough sense for it to be even more quiet here. Perhaps Araxians didn’t loiter during the work day. To be honest, the tranquility was nice. He could almost let himself forget about the crazy politics and the mystery simmering back on the ship and in Parliament.
At any rate, Pike was right. There was nothing he could do, so maybe he should just enjoy the fact that he was here, exploring a new planet. Only two years in Starfleet as a cadet, and he was already strolling around on a world that very few human beings had ever seen before. That was pleasant enough, in its own way. Besides, they were almost to the power plant, and Jim actually felt a bit eager to see it.
The power plant itself was an impressive structure; massive and beautiful at once, as if mere function wasn’t enough, and form was critical to its existence. The enormous power transmitters towered above the landscape, but were so artfully built they almost seemed like sculptures. It wasn’t exactly outside the city, but it was on the edge of the urban area, adjacent to a neighborhood on one side, and a set of larger buildings that Jim guessed were factories or office buildings on the other side. The whole view was distinctly alien, but a familiar sight caught Jim’s attention as a group of people came around the corner from the main power plant.
“Lieutenant Kim!” Jim said happily. “What are you and your team doing down here?”
Lieutenant Kim walked up to their group, grinning, with the rest of her team in tow. “The Araxian Minister of Energy sent an invite to show our engineers their power grid, and Captain Porter gave us clearance. We just finished a tour of the power plant,” she said. “They’re using dilithum to amplify their power generation, and we’re doing a technology exchange.”
“And,” Chief Petty Officer Johan cut in, “we’re apparently going to be babysitting a bunch of cadets. Isn’t that right, Blues?”
“Plato,” Jim said as he extended a hand for a firm handshake, “Good to see you, too.”
“We’re the power grid team for the Athena,” Kim explained, addressing the whole group, including the tour guide, “so this is our chance to play around with a power grid that covers an entire city and over a thousand square kilometers.”
“If it would please you,” Nraxhan said neutrally, “our groups can combine, as you appear to be colleagues.”
“I think that would be fine,” Finney said.
“Sounds good to me,” Kim said. “We’re about to head over to the main substation outside the plant. It controls power flow and boost to the center of the city, if you’d like to join us.”
The Araxian who was escorting the engineering group gave a polite bow. “I would be honored to show your cadets the power sub-station. Our engineers have created dilithium power boosters that amplify electrical current by feeding it through what you would call a warp field.”
Hodges elbowed Jim lightly, grinning. “If you didn’t study the math behind it, it almost looks like magic... creating an efficiency ratio over one by bending the space it travels through.”
The Araxian bowed again. “Our engineers have done their job well. We will gladly to provide this technology to the Federation in our gratitude for this alliance.”
Everyone was smiling and nodding as the two Araxian guides began leading them towards the sub-station, but Jim could barely hide his scowl as he walked at the back of the group. That wasn’t Araxian behavior. It was Axanar behavior. After everything he and Bones had discussed, he was sure of it. He looked at Finney for any sign that the Lieutenant recognized it, but Finney was talking to Kim, and hadn’t seemed to notice anything amiss.
“What’s eatin’ you, Blues?” Johan asked, falling into step next to Jim.
Jim gave him a sideways look. “Honestly? I don’t know if I can say.” He lowered his voice to an undertone. “There’s something weird going on here. Our tour guides... they’re not acting like Araxians. They’re acting like Axanar.”
“Aren’t they the same?”
“I don’t think so,” Jim answered. “But I’ve told everyone I can think to tell, and that’s all I can do. I’m a just cadet... it’s not my job to investigate, call the shots, make decisions, or... hell, I’m just along for the ride.”
Johan gave him an odd look. “You don’t seem like someone who just goes along for the ride. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be eatin’ you like this, would it?”
Jim forced a chagrined smile. “I’d almost think you know me.”
“Of course we know you. We gave you a name here. In our little corner of Starfleet, that means something.”
“A name...” Jim had always been Kirk. George Kirk’s son. He’d just wanted to make a name for himself, and someone had just informed him that he’d succeeded, even if only in a small way. For some reason, this struck him, and he stared at Johan, feeling an odd sort of humility. “I... thanks, man. But... all that stuff with the Axanar? I’ve got to leave that to the real crew. I’m just a cadet.“
Johan actually snorted. “Blues, you’re a junior officer out here. That’s the briefing we got about the internship program. I don’t know much about the way they run things at the Academy, but I know that they don’t give internship postings to every cadet. Just the ones who are ready for it.”
Jim felt his mouth going dry. “Still doesn’t mean the senior officers care much about my opinions,” he said tightly.
“Maybe they should.” Johan gave him a sharp look. “Nobody’s perfect, and even senior officers miss stuff. If you think there’s something fishy going on, and you don’t think they’re dealing with it, you should push the issue.”
Jim’s breath caught, because that’s exactly what he wanted to do, but instead, he forced himself to let out the breath. “Not my job. I’m just here to learn.”
Johan shook his head in patronizing surrender. “Whatever you say, Blues. Whatever you say.”
Jim turned his attention back to his path along the road. He’d been walking too slowly, talking to Johan, and the rest of the group had gotten ahead of them. Even from a couple hundred meters away, the sub-station was an impressive sight, with the towering transmitter standing tall, like a monument to civilization and ingenuity, and -
Then the sub-station exploded.
A shock wave rippled across the ground as a hot rush of gas and smoke blew out in every direction. Jim saw the rest of his group get bowled over like so much debris only a fraction of a heartbeat before the blast sent him flying backwards, stealing the breath from his lungs. He hit the ground hard, skidding briefly as he watched a black and red fireball lift into the sky.
As he lay there, stunned from being slammed backwards, he felt the ground rumble beneath his back, once. Twice. Three, four, seven, a dozen times. There were explosions all over the city, he realized numbly.
He grit his teeth against the aches as he forced himself to roll over and get to his knees. “Johan,” he said with a grunt, then a cough. “You okay?”
Johan was rolling onto his side and getting up. “Yeah. Check the others. What the hell just happened?”
Jim shook his head. He didn’t have answers... just suspicions, and fuck, he hoped he was wrong. “Lieutenant Finney! Wilcox! Nadeau! Everyone, are you okay?” He stumbled, then ran over to where the rest of the team had landed. They were all starting to move, and a quick check showed that everyone was alive and conscious, although they were a bit of a mess.
Lieutenant Kim was holding a hand to her forehead as she staggered to her feet. “Goldberg? Hodges?”
Johan caught her as she teetered slightly. “Gotcha, sir.”
“We’re here,” Hodges said as she helped Goldberg to his feet. Goldberg had a gash across his arm, but he seemed okay otherwise.
“I’m good,” Finney croaked. “Cadets! Report!”
Wilcox was on her knees, holding her head with her hands. “I think I’m okay, sir. Head’s ringing.”
“I’m fine,” Nadeau and Buhari said simultaneously. They had an assortment of scratches, but otherwise didn’t seem injured.
Liu, ever the Security cadet, was already on his feet, phaser out, scanning the area. “Sir, I assess that we’re under attack. Recommend we take immediate shelter.”
“Stand fast, Liu.” Finney had already pulled out his communicator.
Nraxhan stepped forward, holding out a hand. “I believe your cadet with the weapon is correct. We must take shelter immediately.”
“I’m contacting my ship,” Finney said firmly as he flipped open the communicator. “Finney to Athena! We have a situation down here.”
“Acknowledged, Lieutenant. Reports are coming in from all landing parties. Are you presently under attack?”
“Negative, but we’re just a couple hundred meters from the power sub-station. The station just blew up in front of us. We’ve got injuries.” His eyes settled briefly on Jim. “Two crewmen and two cadets. Requesting immediate evacuation!”
Two injured cadets? Jim looked around until he realized several people were staring at him. With a sinking feeling, he looked down and saw a small blood stain slowly spreading across his shirt. There was a rip in the fabric, and as he pulled back the shirt, he saw a small laceration on the lower side of his abdomen. He hadn’t even felt it. “Sir, it’s just a scratch. I didn’t even feel it. We need to figure out -”
“Shut up, Kirk,” Finney said, obviously not having the time or tolerance for contrary cadets. “Athena, do you read me?”
“Yes, Lieutenant. Are any of the injuries critical? Sickbay is taking in dozens of emergency requests, and we need to triage.”
A grimace twisted Finney’s face. “Nothing critical. A couple of lacerations. We’ve also got a couple of possible concussions from the impact of the explosion.”
“Then we need to take critical injuries first. Stand by, and we’ll be able to take you shortly. Athena out.”
Finney looked like he was ready to protest the delay, but his expression quickly changed to annoyed acceptance. He flipped the communicator shut.
“Sir, I really recommend we take cover,” Liu said again, still scanning the area with his eyes, phaser sweeping in arcs as he watched.
“The cadet is right,” Nraxhan said, more urgently now. He was looking around as he spoke nervously. “There have been explosions all over the city. Smoke is rising. This is an attack on a grand scale. We must find protection!”
Finney was pulling out his own phaser even as he tucked his comm unit back onto his belt. “Yeah, I think you might be right. Goldberg, you’re okay to walk?”
“It’s just my arm, sir.”
“Kirk?”
It was all Jim could do to keep from rolling his eyes. “I told you, sir... it’s just a scratch.”
Finney nodded at him skeptically before looking around at the rest of the group. “Kim? Wilcox? How are you two?”
Lieutenant Kim was still leaning slightly against Johan. “A bit dazed, but I’m upright.”
“Just a headache,” Wilcox said.
“Okay.” Finney turned back to Nraxhan. “Where can we find shelter?”
Nraxhan was positively quivering as he replied, “We are in a warehouse and storage district. There is no good protection here. We must get back to the center of the city where there will be others -”
“No, we’re beaming out as soon as the ship clears us, and we’ve got injuries. We need the closest building that will provide cover, not a hike through the city in the open.”
“But we...” Nraxhan’s voice trailed off nervously as Finney glared at him. “Right this way, sir.”
They started to walk quickly after Nraxhan, but Jim quickly caught up with Finney. “Sir... did you hear what Nraxhan said?” he asked in an undertone.
Finney gave him an odd look. “What about it?”
“Well... remember what I said about the Araxians looking and acting like the Axanar?” He swallowed tightly. “I think our guides are both Axanar.”
“What do you mean by -”
He was cut off as a round of weapons fire ripped through the air. The tour guide from the power plant went down with a smoking hole in the center of his chest. They heard a very human cry of pain that pierced through the chaos. Jim recognized the sound of both of energy and projectile weapons. Despite the chaos, his training kicked in as Finney started yelling.
“Everyone take cover! Take cover!” Finney was running, leading, and everyone followed, feet pounding and voices yelling.
Ducking and dodging, Jim’s breath was rushing in his chest, heart pounding in his ears as the sounds of screaming and weapons fire wove the deafening cacophony of battle. An energy weapon blast passed so close to his cheek that he felt the heat on his skin.
Buhari was running ahead of him and she stumbled as a blast hit a rock and sent dirt and shrapnel flying at her. Jim caught her under the arm before she hit the ground and kept running, half-carrying her.
Nearby, something else blew up, and Jim couldn’t be bothered to see what. There was a building ahead. Shelter. Cover. Out of the line of fire. Fifty meters away. Twenty.
“Everybody inside!” Finney was yelling at the top of his lungs. He blasted a larger hole in a partially-shattered plate window and stood aside as he waved everyone into the building. “Come on, get in here! Where’s Liu?”
Jim spun around and looked back out through the broken window. Liu had fallen behind, limping as he walked backwards, but holding up his phaser and keeping up a steady stream of fire at the location of their attackers.
“Liu! Stop shooting and run!” Finney yelled, even though it was obvious the guy probably couldn’t run.
Jim pushed Buhari at Finney. “Take her! I’ll get Liu!”
“Kirk! Get back here!”
Jim half-heard Finney but ignored him as dirt flew and weapons fire scorched the air. He hoped the smoke from the power station would conceal him enough.
“Liu! What the - shit.”
“What the hell are you doing, Kirk?” Liu spit out as he continued to hobble backwards on a leg that was pouring blood from somewhere above his left knee.
“Coming back to get you, moron!” Jim reached for Liu’s arm, but was swatted away as Liu continued to fire.
“No, Kirk. They hit my leg. I can’t run. Get back there! I’ll cover you.”
“Like hell I will!” Before Liu could argue, Jim grabbed him, hoisted him over his shoulder, and made an adrenaline-driven dash back towards the building.
Liu was shouting at him, something hot grazed his arm, but the smoke was thick enough that there was no clear shot. A few crazed, desperate seconds, and Jim crashed through the remnants of a blown-out window into the building.
It was dark and dusty, and there were hands grabbing and people shouting. Someone pulled Liu off his back, and someone else grabbed Jim by the arm and pulled him further into the building.
“Away from the walls and windows.” That was Finney. Jim could barely see features through the shadows in the building. “Come on, this way.”
Shuffling footsteps were muted by the sounds of weapons fire outside. Somewhere in the distance, the rumble of another explosion shook the ground. It was all quieter than the sound of Jim’s own breathing as he gasped for breath. The smoke had burned in his lungs, and the dirt and dust and...
“Is everyone here?” Finney again. He was shuffling through his shoulder sack, and a second later, he activated a light stick. The room lit up, revealing a long space with a low ceiling, full of what appeared to be manufacturing equipment of some sort. “Come on, who do we have? Report.”
“Nadeau, Wilcox, Kirk, Liu, and Buhari, all present and accounted for,” Nadeau said, gasping for breath himself.
“Who else do we have?”
Jim recognized Goldberg, leaning over a prone form. “My team’s all here, sir, but Lieutenant Kim was hit.” He was pressing his hands against a wound on Kim’s shoulder, near her neck. “She’s breathing and she’s got a pulse, but she’s out. We need to get her out of here.”
“We’ve got to evacuate Liu,” Jim spoke up. “Look at his leg.”
Liu was already on the ground, applying pressure to his own wound. Quickly, Jim knelt down and began applying pressure himself. “Let me do it, tough guy.”
“Tough guy, nothing,” Liu said, panting, but he still shoved Jim’s hands away. “After that stunt you pulled?”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Jim hissed.
“You were already injured, asshole,” Liu snapped back, even as he grimaced in pain.
“It’s your blood on my shirt, not mine,” Jim snapped, and even though he knew some of it was his own, he was pretty sure his own small cut had stopped bleeding, and it had been the gaping wound in Liu’s leg that had oozed all over his shirt. He wasn’t going to consider other possibilities. Not now.
“We all need to evacuate,” Finney said firmly. “And... where are our guides?”
“One of them is dead,” Johan said solemnly as he stepped aside, pointing down at Nraxhan, who was sitting on the floor, holding his arm as though it was injured. “I grabbed this one. Whoever was aiming at us, they were far more interested in hitting our guides than us. Lieutenant Kim was next to him when she got hit.”
“Great,” Finney growled. “Okay, injuries. Nraxhan, Kim, Liu, Buhari, Goldberg, Kirk -”
“I’m not injured, sir.” It was out of his mouth before he realized he’d said anything.
“I don’t want to hear it, Kirk. And I told you not to run back.”
“And Liu would be dead.” Adrenaline wasn’t helping his self control.
Finney gave him a sharp look. There was a graze of blood across his cheek, and his face was a mess of dirt and ash. Jim guessed they all looked like that. “You’re right,” he said harshly. “Liu would probably be dead, but it could have ended with both of you getting killed. This isn’t a training exercise, cadet. It worked out this time because you got lucky, nothing more. Right now, the only thing we can do is to get as many of us out of here alive as possible. So sit down and follow orders.”
Jim clamped his mouth shut. Finney had been ready to sacrifice Liu. The idea of it burned in Jim’s head, but... Finney’s call would have been the right one. They could have both been gunned down out there. Jim had been taught, over and over, that the goal was to save as many lives as possible... and sometimes, in the heat of battle, you had to cut your losses.
I wonder what Toland would say now, he thought bitterly.
It didn’t matter. Toland wasn’t there. Finney was, and if Jim had been shot down while carrying Liu back, Finney would have had two death certificates to fill out instead of one. It was nothing more than sheer dumb luck that he hadn’t been shot.
He thought he should have felt good about saving Liu’s life, but instead, he felt guilty. He’d acted alone, against orders, sticking his neck out, playing the goddamned hero, and could have gotten two people killed instead of just one. His first real mission, his first real emergency, and he was already fucking it up.
If ever there was a time to play his part, this was it. Pike had just warned him about his role as a cadet, and now lives were at stake. He had to lock it up and get in line. “Yes, sir.”
Finney nodded warily, then looked back around. “We’ll send up our guide here in the first group. Then the rest of us.” He reached for his belt and pulled up his communicator. “Lieutenant Finney to Athena.”
It was several tense moments before they received a reply.
“Athena to Lieutenant Finney. Status report - what happened down there? We lost you, but we’re still taking reports from landing parties all over the city.”
“We took direct fire from unidentified shooters. One of the Araxians with us was killed, but everyone from our party is alive for the moment. We’ve got two critical injuries and three minor ones.”
“The Parliament building was hit. We’re bringing up critical injuries first. Sickbay can only receive two at a time. Have your two most critical injuries tagged with activated comm units and we’ll beam them directly to Sickbay.”
“We’ve got one person applying pressure to our worst casualty. Can we beam up three at once?”
“Just two at a time. That’s all we can handle. Send that individual with the person applying pressure. Sickbay is on standby.”
Finney growled to himself, then spoke to Goldberg. “Where’s your comm unit?”
“On my belt.”
Without another word, Finney grabbed the comm, activated it, hit the homing signal for beam-up, and placed it on Lieutenant Kim’s torso. “Finney to Athena. Energize.”
A moment later, the room lit up as the transporter beam took them.
“Okay, Liu and Buhari next.”
They waited through an infuriating delay as the sickbay crew told them to standby. Too many injuries, too few beds. But soon enough, the transporter activated again, followed by a comm from the ship.
“Athena to Finney. You’ll need to stand by for further medical transport. There are too many critical injuries from other areas.”
“What about normal transport?” Finney all but yelled back into the communicator.
“We’re using the transporters to pull people out of building wreckage. Is your situation stable?”
“For the moment,” Finney snapped.
“Standby.”
The signal cut, and Finney glared furiously at the communicator in his hand before snapping it shut. In an instant, he rounded on Nraxhan. “With all due respect... what the hell is going on here?”
Nraxhan looked up from his spot on the floor as he wrung his hands. “How am I to know? We are a peaceful society! This is -”
“That’s odd,” Finney interrupted him. “I don’t believe you. So let’s try this again.”
“I... there are...” Nraxhan’s shoulders slumped. “There are Araxians who do not wish to come under the protection of the Federation. The isolationists. We have... we have been negotiating with them for many years. It was settled, though! There were very few that opposed the alliance! We had settled this. There should have been no dissidence. This should not be happening!”
As Jim listened, it felt like he was being handed puzzle pieces, and suddenly the picture was making far more sense. And somehow, Jim was suspecting that more than just a very few Araxians opposed the alliance. And also...
“Wait a minute,” Jim cut in, feeling a flash of victory. “You just said we have been negotiating with them. You’re not Araxian. You’re an Axanar.”
Nraxhan’s eyes went wide, and Jim knew he caught the bastard red-handed.
“You talk like an Axanar,” he pressed on. “And... you’re too young to be a founder, but you’ve got the skin tone of an Araxian elder, or a native Axanar. You weren’t born here.”
Jim felt all eyes on him as surely as he felt his heart thudding in an adrenaline-driven rhythm in his chest. His claim about the skin tone was a bluff - he couldn’t really tell without directly comparing one to the other. But as he stared down at the Axanar on the floor in front of him, whose face was frozen in an expression of shock, and he knew he was right.
“I... I have lived here for many years,” Nraxhan said weakly. “We have been trying to re-forge the natural ties between our people. We never meant -”
“We’ll have time to discuss this later,” Finney said, and there was a dangerous edge to his voice. “And you’ll tell whole story to Captain Porter and the rest of the diplomats, Nraxhan. But first, we need to get out of here.” He flipped open his communicator again. “Lieutenant Finney to Athena.”
“Athena here, Lieutenant. We’re almost ready to take you. Please stand by.”
Jim could see the internal struggle playing out on Finney’s face, and how much the guy wanted to yell into the comm and demand immediate beam-up. He was a very young Lieutenant, Jim remembered. They were almost the same age, only Finney had started at the academy when he was eighteen. But he was a Starfleet officer, fully trained and in a position of responsibility, and he knew how to follow orders. Slowly, he lowered the communicator.
Control. Something Jim knew he needed to learn. Patience. Command presence.
“How are you holding up, Kirk?” Finney asked.
“Fine, sir,” he replied, trying to hide his annoyance. “It doesn’t hurt. I told you... this is all Liu’s blood.” But even as he said it, a sharp pain was beginning to throb around the laceration and inside his gut. The adrenaline was wearing off. Didn’t matter. They’d be aboard the ship soon. And Bones would be in sickbay, berating Jim for getting himself in the way of flying shrapnel...
Bones.
Like a hand clenching around Jim’s chest, he was gripped by the realization that Bones was somewhere else in the city, surrounded by explosions. He could be lying somewhere, bleeding out. He could be buried in rubble with crushed limbs, slowly dying in agony. He could already be dead.
Jim felt the blood drain from his face.
A hand on his elbow caught his attention.
“Blues... you all right in there?” came the quiet question.
Jim blinked and looked up at Johan, who was peering down at him with palpable concern. “Yeah,” Jim said in a low tone that was rougher than he’d intended. “I... I just remembered that McCoy and Hererra are somewhere else in the city. I hope they’re okay.” Jim hated himself just then. He hadn’t thought of Hererra at all.
“McCoy’s your doctor buddy, right?” Jim felt a hot flush of shame that Johan seemed to know that Jim’s fears focused on only one of the missing cadets.
“Yeah,” Jim said weakly.
“He’ll be okay,” Johan reassured.
“I hope you’re right.”
“Okay,” Finney said loudly, cutting across everything else. “Prepare to transport. I don’t know how much longer it will be, but I want to be ready the instant we’ve got clearance. Everyone form up.”
Jim stepped away from Johan, giving himself about a meter of space in all directions. The movement made his abdomen ache a bit, but it wasn’t bad. Really, all Jim could think right then was that Bones could be anywhere, and anything could have happened.
An explosion blasted through the front wall of the building. Hot air and dust and smoke rushed inwards, and Jim felt the building shift.
“Move it, people!” Finney yelled through the noise.
Through the dust, Jim thought he heard voices, muffled and distant. He ran, keeping his eyes on the dim beacon of the light stick Finney was carrying. They made their way past rows of machinery in silence, save for the heavy thud of boots against the hard floor. A door arch at the back of the room led to a smaller room, and what looked like an exit door.
“Everybody on me,” Finney commanded, and there was nothing else to do but listen. The group clustered up against the wall. “I’ve got no idea what we’re going to encounter on this side of the building. We can’t stay here. Whoever just blew the building is going to find us if we don’t move.”
Cautiously, Finney pushed the door open a crack, then closed it again. “It’s an alley. Good cover. Everyone follow me.”
In single file, they slipped through the door. The gray stone-like buildings were high on either side of them, but the opening at the end of the alley showed bright daylight.
Finney glanced around the corner of the wall. “There’s a row of buildings across an open area. We’ll have a bit of cover and concealment, but not much. We’re making a dash for the large building about three hundred meters down the street. It’s the only one that looks solid enough to repel weapons fire. Be ready to clear potential hostiles as we enter. Ready?”
He didn’t give anyone time to answer. He ducked around the corner of the building, and that was the team’s cue. Just as they’d done in training, dozens of times, Finney took point with the only phaser they had left, and they burst out of the shadows of the building and into daylight.
The smoke from the burning sub-station wasn’t quite as thick back there, but it still stung Jim’s lungs as he ran. Feet pounding, chest heaving. No time to think, just react. He waited for the weapons to start firing as the distance stretched between the buildings. He was on Johan’s heels as he ran. He could feel the ache in his gut, but adrenaline made the pain dull and distant.
There was no real cover, but they were getting closer to the building. Almost there. There was a small shed-like structure by the side of the road, maybe a hundred meters from their destination. Finney pressed his back up against it and waved everyone else on. “Keep going! Don’t stop!”
Jim rushed past, squashing an instinct to hole up with Finney and fight alongside him. Without a weapon, it would have been a pointless effort, so he kept moving. Nadeau was in the lead, followed Wilcox, the Axanar, then Johan, Jim, and Hodges. Finney would follow, covering their rear. The building was looming. The only noise was the sound of footsteps on gravel, and rough, strained breathing, ragged in Jim’s ears.
It couldn’t last.
An energy weapon blast cut through the air, followed by a full barrage. Johan looked back at him, but Jim shouted, “Keep running!” Weapons fire kicked up dirt all around them. The firepower was centered just ahead of them, on the Axanar. A blast caught the Axanar’s leg, but before he fell, another hit struck him clean at the base of his skull, and he dropped like a stone. It didn’t take a doctor to know the guy was gone.
Jim couldn’t stop to check anyway. If he slowed down, he was a dead man. Shelter was just ahead. More weapon fire rang in his ears, but he couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop.
The recognizable zing of a phaser blast put a gaping hole in the door of the building, and Jim knew it was Finney, shooting them a clear path. Ahead of them, Nadeau made it to the door, followed by Wilcox. With an extra surge of speed, Jim caught up with Johan and practically bowled him into the building.
He cleared the way in time for Hodges to barrel through. They all turned, expecting Finney any second.
The chaos of weapons fire slowed, but didn’t stop, and Jim could still hear the phaser, battling away. Worried, he took a tentative look at everyone, then ventured towards the opening in the door.
“Kirk, stay back!” Nadeau warned.
“What if Finney got hit?” Jim shot back. He was about to sneak a glance around the corner of the door when Finney burst through, stumbling clumsily into Jim’s arms.
“Help,” Finney gasped, and it was pretty obvious he’d been hit.
“Shit,” Jim hissed, and in a heartbeat, Hodges was there, helping carry Finney towards a bench at the back of the room.
“Not here,” Finney croaked. “Deeper into the building. Far enough... to buy time... for beam-out.”
There was a door at the back of the room, and Jim motioned for Nadeau and Wilcox to move ahead and check that it was clear.
Outside, the weapons fire had stopped. Inside, it was dark. They stumbled through the inner door, heading deeper into the building. Down a hallway, and through another door into an open room. Even in the dark, Jim could tell that the room was huge - a storehouse of some sort.
“Here,” Jim said as he found a table and some chairs. He indicated for Hodges to lower Finney into a chair. “Sit down here.”
“No,” Finney gasped. “Floor.”
“Sir?” Jim said, suddenly far more worried.
Carefully, they stretched Finney out on the floor. “Who’s got the pack with the light sticks?” Jim said.
Off to the side, a light stick activated, and Hodges handed it over to him. Jim held the stick up, letting it illuminate the whole space, and also the scorched and bleeding hole in Finney’s chest.
Jim felt his eyes go wide. “Nadeau, get some pressure on that!” he barked out as he grabbed his own communicator. “Athena, this is Cadet Kirk! Athena, respond!”
The few seconds it took for a reply stretched out impossibly long, punctuated by the heavy thud of heartbeats in Jim’s chest.
“... Kirk... is the Athena. Where did... ready for beam-out... who... command?”
“Athena, you’re breaking up. Lieutenant Finney has been seriously injured. Requesting immediate beam-up!” He looked around the room at the four pairs of eyes staring at him, and then down at Finney, whose eyes were closed, before holding his communicator up to his mouth again. “And we can’t wait.”
“... Kirk... signal... cleared to trans... activate comms... prepare... up.”
“You heard them,” Jim said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. “Nadeau, don’t move. Everyone else, form up.” He spoke into the comm again. “We’re ready. Energize.”
Jim waited for the familiar tingle of the transporter beam, but nothing happened. He might have heard a faint whine, and maybe there was a vague shimmer of light, but...
“Kirk to Athena,” he said into the comm, his voice barely hiding nerves and irritation at once. “What just happened?”
“... trouble ... a lock. Sensors ... energy fluctua-... in the structure … building. What... in your area?”
“It looks like a warehouse or storage building,” Jim said, looking around.
And for the first time, he really took stock of his surroundings. Although the main lights were out, the light stick cast the room in dim shadows that allowed shapes to stand out in contrast. The room was cavernous. Large packing containers were stacked to the ceiling; looming towers forming neat rows through the room, with walkways between them.
“Wait a minute,” Hodges said, before running over to one of the containers. “Blues, toss me the light stick.”
Jim tossed it over, and she caught it neatly before holding it up to one of the crates. “It’s got markings on it that must be Araxian or Axanar... but also Standard.” She looked back over, and her expression spoke volumes. Mostly defeat. “Dilithium. The crates all contain dilithium. The interference field from this much of the stuff must extend at least a hundred meters beyond the exterior walls, if not further. They’ll never beam us out of here.”
“Don’t say never,” Jim shot back. “Kirk to Athena. We’re in a building full of dilithium. Is there any way to modify the transporter? Can you boost the signal?”
It took a long moment before a scratchy reply came through. “Sensors... dilith... interfere... can’t... lock... move... from the building.”
“No,” came a weak groan from the floor. Finney’s eyes were open. “If you guys leave this building, you’re sitting ducks for snipers. You’ll never get out alive.”
“But sir,” Jim said hesitantly, not wanting to argue with either a dying man or a superior officer. “We can’t beam out from here. We’ve got to move.”
“Wait for rescue, Kirk,” Finney choked out, and it sounded like he was choking. Or drowning. Or maybe both.
“But -”
“That’s an order,” Finney said with far more force than should have been possible. Then he looked like he sagged back down against the floor. When he spoke again, his voice was weaker. “Call for a rescue party to beam down. Stay in this building. Hole up. They know... they know where you are. Just... wait. They should be... should be here quickly.”
Finney’s eyes fell shut, but Jim’s only widened. He adjusted the power level on the communicator, hoping to boost the signal, and spoke again. “Athena, this is Cadet Kirk requesting a rescue party. We are unarmed and there are snipers in the area. We can’t leave this building.”
“Kirk... send... party... able... transport...” The communicator crackled slightly and the message dissolved into an unintelligible mess of static.
“Athena?” Jim ventured nervously, then again, “Athena?”
“Forget it, Blues,” Hodges said, walking over. “With this much dilithium, it’s incredible that we got a message through at all. The longer you used the comm, the more you fried the transmitter.”
“So are they coming?” Nadeau asked, not taking his hands off Finney’s wound.
“You heard what I heard,” Jim replied. “I have no idea.” He knelt down and felt along Finney’s neck for a pulse. It was there, but it was too fast and not very strong. He thought bleakly of the one med kit that had come down with the landing party... slung over Bones’ shoulder. They hadn’t anticipated being split up. Of course, the reminder of Bones only twisted a thick knot of worry in his stomach, but Jim couldn’t let himself get distracted. He couldn’t help Bones, but Finney was right here.
“Sir? Lieutenant Finney, you need to keep your eyes open.”
Bleary eyes opened part way. “Tha’s rich, com’n from you,” Finney slurred. “‘sleep during th’ briefing this morning.”
Jim almost let himself smile at the attempted humor. “Come on, sir. We need a decision. We can’t stay here. What are your orders?”
“Told you already.” He sounded slightly breathless. “We wait for rescue. Use my phaser to defend... defend the entry. They... they’re not after you. Just the Axanar. They’re dead.” His eyes opened just a bit wider. “You... were right, Kirk. They were Axanar. We need to tell the ship... let them know... what’s going on.”
“We’ll try to get a message through,” Hodges spoke up from behind Jim. “Maybe we can boost the comm signal.”
Finney gave a weak nod. “Good. Do that.”
“I’m on it, sir,” Hodges said, and she promptly hunkered down with a communicator and her small pack of tools.
Jim shot her a grateful look, although she didn’t seem to notice it. He looked back at Finney, and at the blood oozing up around Nadeau’s hands. “Here...” He pulled his gray tunic off over his head. The movement caused a sudden jab of pain to his own gut, but he forced himself to ignore it, and quickly began ripping the shirt into strips. “The shirt was already shredded anyway. Use these to help staunch the bleeding.” He handed several strips to Nadeau, who quickly pressed them against the wound.
“We can’t wait like this, Kirk,” Nadeau said. “He can’t.”
“You think I don’t know that?” He looked down at Finney. “Keep breathing steady, sir.” Then he shot Nadeau a look. “Don’t let him drift off.”
Nadeau only nodded. The guy looked absolutely terrified, but there wasn’t much else Jim could do to reassure him at the moment. Besides, he needed to check something.
He walked through the room, and asked Wilcox how her head was doing as he passed by. She said she was fine, and everything else seemed quiet for the moment, so Jim took the excuse to grab a spare light stick and shuffle around to the back side of the table. Feeling nervous, he pulled back the hem of his black undershirt.
It was sticky and thick with dried blood, but he’d assumed that almost all of it was from Liu. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
The laceration wasn’t too long, but it seemed pretty deep. Grotesque even. It was starting to ache beyond just an annoyance. It had barely hurt at first, but adrenaline and the emergency situation could explain that. He couldn’t be sure how much blood of his own blood he’d actually lost, but it couldn’t be that much. Besides, this was no time to fixate, and he couldn’t let himself be weak right now. His commanding officer was injured, possibly dying, and they were trapped.
Settling on a course of action, he quickly wadded up a piece of his shredded uniform shirt and pressed it against the gash. Then, he took the longest strip he had and tied it all the way around his waist, holding the first piece like a thick wad of gauze against it. It wasn’t pretty, but it would have to do. Satisfied with his handiwork, he put his shirt back down and turned back to the group to find that his movement hadn’t gone unnoticed.
Johan was staring, eyes fixed on him, first his stomach, and then his face. “Blues, you said it was just a scratch.”
Jim almost missed a beat, but quickly flashed his best reassuring grin. “It is. I just keep tugging on it when I move, so I wanted to put some pressure on it. Keep it from bleeding so much.”
“If you’re sure -”
“I’m sure. It’s fine. We’ve got bigger problems anyway,” Jim said in a rush. “Would you be able to help Gadget with the communicator?”
He gave a humorless laugh. “Why do you think we call her Gadget? I’d just get in the way.” Then his expression changed. “But yeah, I’ll help.”
Jim nodded gratefully and turned around. “Hey Gadget? How’s the communicator coming?”
“I’m trying to combine the power supplies from two communicators into one, but I don’t have the right tools, and it might not be enough power anyway.”
Jim only nodded. “Keep at it.”
Hodges gave him a skeptical look, but Johan grabbed the light stick and held it up over the project, improving the lighting. She gave him a nod, then bent back down over the equipment, tinkering away to the dim glow of the light stick.
Jim stepped back and looked around at the high ceilings and the towering stacks of dilithium crates. Sure, he knew the planet had dilithium, but so much of it in one place? What the hell were they planning to do with it? That led him to the next unnerving question.
Who controls this dilithium?
It was dead silent in the building, aside from soft murmurings from the rest of the group. Jim was sure the silence wouldn’t last long. “I’ll be right back,” he said, then walked deeper into the shadows.
The rows of crates went all the way to the back wall. He found a computer terminal, but without power, there was no way to activate it. Besides, he was certain that all the functions were in the Araxian language. Or Axanar. Whatever.
There were no windows, but there was a door. It had to lead outside because there was daylight filtering around the cracks, and a puff of moving air when he held his hand over the doorjamb. He wanted to open the door and check to see if the back of the building was clear for an escape... but if it wasn’t clear, it would only draw more attention. Still, he filed the option away as a last resort.
Other than that, the only thing of interest was a set of stairs heading upwards. Jim was just about to see where they led when a shout pulled his attention.
“Kirk! Get over here!” Nadeau’s voice was strained with panic.
Jim spun around and hurried over, crouching down next to Finney’s prone form. “What’s going on?”
“He’s unresponsive. I can’t get anything out of him.”
Trying to ignore the ice flooding his veins, Jim pressed his fingers to Finney’s neck. He still had a faint pulse, but he’d stopped breathing. Then, under his fingers, Jim felt Finney’s pulse falter and stop. “Shit,” Jim barked out. With no med kit, they had to do this the old fashioned way. He pushed in and immediately started chest compressions. “Start rescue breathing, Nadeau,” he bit out, then shouted, “Hodges? The comm unit?”
“Just one second... there.” She snapped the cover shut. “It’s not great, but it’s the best I can do.”
“It’ll have to be good enough. Comm the ship.”
She flipped open the comm. “Petty Officer Hodges to Athena. Please respond immediately. Situation critical. Over.”
The comm unit crackled in response. Jim watched as she fiddled with the controls to boost the gain. “Hodges to Athena - “
She was cut off as the comm unit sparked in her hand with a snap of electricity, and she dropped it. It fell to the floor, sputtering and smoking.
Jim’s chest clenched. “Hodges?”
She looked at him and shook her head bleakly. “I was afraid of that. The field created by the dilithium can make electronics short out if they’re not made for these conditions. It was a chance... but... I’m sorry, Blues.”
“Sorry’s not good enough,” Jim snarled, redoubling his efforts to revive the Lieutenant. “Damn it, Finney. Don’t you fucking do this to me! The rescue party is coming. You need to reprimand me for cussing at a superior officer! Come on!”
Everything else in the room zoned out as Jim did compressions, checked for a pulse, and started compressions again. He’d pause every so often for Nadeau to give two breaths, then start right back in with a desperation he’d never felt before. In the back of his mind, he heard Bones yelling about old-fashioned, barbaric techniques and broken ribs and telling him he was doing it wrong, which only drove him to greater desperation. Finney was dying, and Bones might already be dead, and how did everything go so wrong, so fast?
“Blues. Hey, Blues! Blues!”
Hands were on his shoulders, pulling him back. It was Hodges. “You need to give it up. You’ve been at it for too long.”
“No! We can’t stop until we get him to sickbay!” He struggled, but Nadeau was also pulling him back, his hands now free of their burden.
“He’s lost too much blood, Kirk. I’m sorry.”
Jim was breathing fast, still straining against the hands on his shoulders, staring at Finney. Even in the shadows, the dark stain of blood was visible across the man’s gold shirt, forming a puddle underneath his body. The chest compressions had probably made him bleed faster. Jim realized, with a sickening note of finality, that he was gone. He looked back and forth between Hodges and Nadeau, and finally, he slumped in their grasps. “Yeah, so am I,” Jim said roughly.
Everyone fell silent, which was fine, because the buzzing in Jim’s ears had overtaken everything. His commanding officer was dead. They were three cadets and two crewmen in the middle of a civil uprising on an alien planet. They couldn’t contact the ship, and they couldn’t beam out.
Forcing himself to move, Jim reached over to where he’d dropped the last pieces of his shredded uniform shirt. The piece with his insignia patch was lying on top. Feeling numb, he placed the piece of cloth across Finney’s eyes, with the insignia centered.
The silence persisted.
Finally, Johan spoke up. “So, what’s the plan?”
Jim felt a jolt at the question, and shook his head to clear it. There would be time to mourn later. Right now, there were five living people in the room, and he needed to focus on them. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Johan replied calmly - at least, calmly for a person who was in the middle of a battle and had just watched a man die, “what are we going to do?”
Jim frowned. “We’ve got our orders. We wait for rescue. The Athena has got to have already sent people down. Finney told us to wait.”
“Lieutenant Finney’s not in charge anymore,” Hodges said gently.
Jim’s eyes widened as he looked around at the other four pairs of eyes fixed on him. “Johan,” he said tentatively, “you’ve got seniority here.”
“No, Blues. I’m a crewman. So’s Gadget.”
“Then...”
“You three are officer interns,” Johan said flatly. “You’re all acting as Ensigns. So who’s in charge?”
Wilcox stood up slowly. “Kirk... I think it’s you.”
“What?”
Nadeau spoke up. “The squad leader rotation roster. This week, it's you, Kirk.”
Jim felt his world reeling. “That’s just a training roster,” he said in a rush. “I don’t think they intended it for something like this. Besides, even though you two are crewmen, you’ve got more real experience.”
“Experience with energy conduits,” Hodges said. “We’re engineering techs. We didn’t go to the Academy. We don’t have the tactical experience to fight our way out of a paper bag. You’re trained for this. You’re in charge.”
“I switched to piloting because tactics wasn’t my thing,” Wilcox said.
“And you’ve outscored me in... well... let’s be honest... everything,” Nadeau admitted.
Four pairs of eyes were locked on him. Hodges took a step forward. “What do we do, sir?”
There were a dozen plans spinning in Jim’s head. They could try to exit the rear of the building, get beyond the interference of the dilithium, and call for beam-out. They could climb further up in the building and use the vantage point for defense. They could go out the front and collectively offer surrender. Or... he could follow his gut instinct. He could go out the front, distracting the enemy while everyone else escaped... playing the lone wolf... just as he’d been told not to do.
So many options, but only one choice.
Pike had told him to trust his instincts, and his instincts were telling him to stick his neck out while having everyone get the hell out of there immediately... but he’d also told him not to act on his own, and reminded him quite strictly of his place. He was Cadet James T. Kirk, and he had his orders.
“We stay,” Jim said, hating the finality in his own voice. “But that doesn’t mean we do nothing. Wilcox, how’s your head?”
“A bit achy.”
“Think you’re still good with a phaser?”
“Good enough.”
Jim grabbed Finney’s phaser and tossed it to her. “You’ll guard the front of the building. Gadget?”
“Yes, sir?”
The title sir didn’t sit right, but Jim plowed on. “You and Nadeau look for anything on this level that might be useful. Wires, transmitters, equipment, weapons... but mostly, see if you can find a secondary power supply. The sub-station is shot, but there might be a generator in a place like this. Maybe we can use the power boost to get a signal out.”
“You got it.”
“Johan....there’s a set of stairs at the back of the room. Go up there and see what you can find. Might be an office or control room with a computer or communication equipment. If this is a dilithium storage facility, they’d have to have equipment that could transmit through the field.” He looked questioningly at Johan, not really sure what he was asking until the man gave a solemn nod of approval.
It was exactly what he needed. Jim nodded back. “Everyone, keep your eyes open for weapons we can use. And... stay clear of any windows.” Then he cast a glance down at Finney’s body. “I’m staying here. Honor guard, as long as possible.”
“Absolutely. Sounds like a good plan,” Wilcox said, and the rest of the team seconded her.
The easy agreement seemed both familiar and foreign. He’d led enough missions in training simulations, but this was real. Too fucking real. Finney’s body was real. The burning power station was real. Every decision Jim made was going to be cold hard reality for all five of them. “And...” Jim swallowed tightly. “If all else fails, and we get raided before a rescue party arrives... there’s a back door to this room. It leads out of the building. If the attackers enter the building, make for the back door, get far enough away from the building, and comm for beam-up.”
“What about you and... Finney?” Nadeau asked.
“I...” Jim realized his tone must have given him away. He’d planned on staying with Finney’s body. With a sigh, he gave up that idea. “We’ll have to leave him.”
“He would have ordered you to,” Wilcox said.
“I know.” It wasn’t good enough, but that was exactly what Finney would have ordered. Finney had experience. Finney’s dying orders were to stay there, but he never would have told them to risk their lives just to bring back a body. “For now, we follow his orders to stay here. We’re out of the line of fire. Every time we expose ourselves, more people get shot.”
Even as he said it, it sounded wrong. Staying wasn’t right. The rest of them could slip out the back while Jim distracted the shooters at the front of the building. Or hell, maybe they could all make a run for it. They shouldn’t stay... but they would. There could be shooters at the back of the building. They might run directly into more trouble before they could get far enough from the dilithium to beam up. And... he had Finney’s orders. Steeling himself, Jim gave a decisive nod. “Okay, everyone, get to it.”
But as everyone walked away on their respective assignments, and Jim crouched down next to the body of his commanding officer, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was completely fucking this up.
*********
To Chapter 14
Canon characters/Pairing(s): Kirk & McCoy, Pike, Finney
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 9,149 for chapter 13.
Warnings: Foul language, political situations, military stuff.
Summary: As cadets on a summer internship, Kirk and McCoy are supposed to keep their eyes open and their mouths shut. As far as Bones is concerned, that’s just plain wrong on Jim Kirk, but Jim seems determined to follow orders and fall in line for a change. After all, they’ve both seen enough trouble in two years at the Academy, and this is the Peace Mission of Axanar. However, when a mystery starts to weave itself around the mission, and the senior officers don’t seem interested in investigating, how far can Kirk and McCoy let it go?
Notes: Still have your hat? Good. Keep holding it.
Previous chapters: One, Two, Three, Four(A), Four(B), Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve
Chapter 13
The morning had been dry and dull until Jim and the other cadets reached the power plant. Their trip through the city had been a simple sightseeing tour of the local architecture, but Jim had to admit that he was enjoying the time outdoors with sunlight on his face. There was mild weather, a light breeze, fresh air, and open sky. The city was dotted with gardens and recreational areas. Pleasant enough, but it wasn’t particularly exciting.
They hadn’t encountered many Araxians on their tour, which matched how quiet the streets had been during his security duty. He’d been on duty in the center of town, so it it made enough sense for it to be even more quiet here. Perhaps Araxians didn’t loiter during the work day. To be honest, the tranquility was nice. He could almost let himself forget about the crazy politics and the mystery simmering back on the ship and in Parliament.
At any rate, Pike was right. There was nothing he could do, so maybe he should just enjoy the fact that he was here, exploring a new planet. Only two years in Starfleet as a cadet, and he was already strolling around on a world that very few human beings had ever seen before. That was pleasant enough, in its own way. Besides, they were almost to the power plant, and Jim actually felt a bit eager to see it.
The power plant itself was an impressive structure; massive and beautiful at once, as if mere function wasn’t enough, and form was critical to its existence. The enormous power transmitters towered above the landscape, but were so artfully built they almost seemed like sculptures. It wasn’t exactly outside the city, but it was on the edge of the urban area, adjacent to a neighborhood on one side, and a set of larger buildings that Jim guessed were factories or office buildings on the other side. The whole view was distinctly alien, but a familiar sight caught Jim’s attention as a group of people came around the corner from the main power plant.
“Lieutenant Kim!” Jim said happily. “What are you and your team doing down here?”
Lieutenant Kim walked up to their group, grinning, with the rest of her team in tow. “The Araxian Minister of Energy sent an invite to show our engineers their power grid, and Captain Porter gave us clearance. We just finished a tour of the power plant,” she said. “They’re using dilithum to amplify their power generation, and we’re doing a technology exchange.”
“And,” Chief Petty Officer Johan cut in, “we’re apparently going to be babysitting a bunch of cadets. Isn’t that right, Blues?”
“Plato,” Jim said as he extended a hand for a firm handshake, “Good to see you, too.”
“We’re the power grid team for the Athena,” Kim explained, addressing the whole group, including the tour guide, “so this is our chance to play around with a power grid that covers an entire city and over a thousand square kilometers.”
“If it would please you,” Nraxhan said neutrally, “our groups can combine, as you appear to be colleagues.”
“I think that would be fine,” Finney said.
“Sounds good to me,” Kim said. “We’re about to head over to the main substation outside the plant. It controls power flow and boost to the center of the city, if you’d like to join us.”
The Araxian who was escorting the engineering group gave a polite bow. “I would be honored to show your cadets the power sub-station. Our engineers have created dilithium power boosters that amplify electrical current by feeding it through what you would call a warp field.”
Hodges elbowed Jim lightly, grinning. “If you didn’t study the math behind it, it almost looks like magic... creating an efficiency ratio over one by bending the space it travels through.”
The Araxian bowed again. “Our engineers have done their job well. We will gladly to provide this technology to the Federation in our gratitude for this alliance.”
Everyone was smiling and nodding as the two Araxian guides began leading them towards the sub-station, but Jim could barely hide his scowl as he walked at the back of the group. That wasn’t Araxian behavior. It was Axanar behavior. After everything he and Bones had discussed, he was sure of it. He looked at Finney for any sign that the Lieutenant recognized it, but Finney was talking to Kim, and hadn’t seemed to notice anything amiss.
“What’s eatin’ you, Blues?” Johan asked, falling into step next to Jim.
Jim gave him a sideways look. “Honestly? I don’t know if I can say.” He lowered his voice to an undertone. “There’s something weird going on here. Our tour guides... they’re not acting like Araxians. They’re acting like Axanar.”
“Aren’t they the same?”
“I don’t think so,” Jim answered. “But I’ve told everyone I can think to tell, and that’s all I can do. I’m a just cadet... it’s not my job to investigate, call the shots, make decisions, or... hell, I’m just along for the ride.”
Johan gave him an odd look. “You don’t seem like someone who just goes along for the ride. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be eatin’ you like this, would it?”
Jim forced a chagrined smile. “I’d almost think you know me.”
“Of course we know you. We gave you a name here. In our little corner of Starfleet, that means something.”
“A name...” Jim had always been Kirk. George Kirk’s son. He’d just wanted to make a name for himself, and someone had just informed him that he’d succeeded, even if only in a small way. For some reason, this struck him, and he stared at Johan, feeling an odd sort of humility. “I... thanks, man. But... all that stuff with the Axanar? I’ve got to leave that to the real crew. I’m just a cadet.“
Johan actually snorted. “Blues, you’re a junior officer out here. That’s the briefing we got about the internship program. I don’t know much about the way they run things at the Academy, but I know that they don’t give internship postings to every cadet. Just the ones who are ready for it.”
Jim felt his mouth going dry. “Still doesn’t mean the senior officers care much about my opinions,” he said tightly.
“Maybe they should.” Johan gave him a sharp look. “Nobody’s perfect, and even senior officers miss stuff. If you think there’s something fishy going on, and you don’t think they’re dealing with it, you should push the issue.”
Jim’s breath caught, because that’s exactly what he wanted to do, but instead, he forced himself to let out the breath. “Not my job. I’m just here to learn.”
Johan shook his head in patronizing surrender. “Whatever you say, Blues. Whatever you say.”
Jim turned his attention back to his path along the road. He’d been walking too slowly, talking to Johan, and the rest of the group had gotten ahead of them. Even from a couple hundred meters away, the sub-station was an impressive sight, with the towering transmitter standing tall, like a monument to civilization and ingenuity, and -
Then the sub-station exploded.
A shock wave rippled across the ground as a hot rush of gas and smoke blew out in every direction. Jim saw the rest of his group get bowled over like so much debris only a fraction of a heartbeat before the blast sent him flying backwards, stealing the breath from his lungs. He hit the ground hard, skidding briefly as he watched a black and red fireball lift into the sky.
As he lay there, stunned from being slammed backwards, he felt the ground rumble beneath his back, once. Twice. Three, four, seven, a dozen times. There were explosions all over the city, he realized numbly.
He grit his teeth against the aches as he forced himself to roll over and get to his knees. “Johan,” he said with a grunt, then a cough. “You okay?”
Johan was rolling onto his side and getting up. “Yeah. Check the others. What the hell just happened?”
Jim shook his head. He didn’t have answers... just suspicions, and fuck, he hoped he was wrong. “Lieutenant Finney! Wilcox! Nadeau! Everyone, are you okay?” He stumbled, then ran over to where the rest of the team had landed. They were all starting to move, and a quick check showed that everyone was alive and conscious, although they were a bit of a mess.
Lieutenant Kim was holding a hand to her forehead as she staggered to her feet. “Goldberg? Hodges?”
Johan caught her as she teetered slightly. “Gotcha, sir.”
“We’re here,” Hodges said as she helped Goldberg to his feet. Goldberg had a gash across his arm, but he seemed okay otherwise.
“I’m good,” Finney croaked. “Cadets! Report!”
Wilcox was on her knees, holding her head with her hands. “I think I’m okay, sir. Head’s ringing.”
“I’m fine,” Nadeau and Buhari said simultaneously. They had an assortment of scratches, but otherwise didn’t seem injured.
Liu, ever the Security cadet, was already on his feet, phaser out, scanning the area. “Sir, I assess that we’re under attack. Recommend we take immediate shelter.”
“Stand fast, Liu.” Finney had already pulled out his communicator.
Nraxhan stepped forward, holding out a hand. “I believe your cadet with the weapon is correct. We must take shelter immediately.”
“I’m contacting my ship,” Finney said firmly as he flipped open the communicator. “Finney to Athena! We have a situation down here.”
“Acknowledged, Lieutenant. Reports are coming in from all landing parties. Are you presently under attack?”
“Negative, but we’re just a couple hundred meters from the power sub-station. The station just blew up in front of us. We’ve got injuries.” His eyes settled briefly on Jim. “Two crewmen and two cadets. Requesting immediate evacuation!”
Two injured cadets? Jim looked around until he realized several people were staring at him. With a sinking feeling, he looked down and saw a small blood stain slowly spreading across his shirt. There was a rip in the fabric, and as he pulled back the shirt, he saw a small laceration on the lower side of his abdomen. He hadn’t even felt it. “Sir, it’s just a scratch. I didn’t even feel it. We need to figure out -”
“Shut up, Kirk,” Finney said, obviously not having the time or tolerance for contrary cadets. “Athena, do you read me?”
“Yes, Lieutenant. Are any of the injuries critical? Sickbay is taking in dozens of emergency requests, and we need to triage.”
A grimace twisted Finney’s face. “Nothing critical. A couple of lacerations. We’ve also got a couple of possible concussions from the impact of the explosion.”
“Then we need to take critical injuries first. Stand by, and we’ll be able to take you shortly. Athena out.”
Finney looked like he was ready to protest the delay, but his expression quickly changed to annoyed acceptance. He flipped the communicator shut.
“Sir, I really recommend we take cover,” Liu said again, still scanning the area with his eyes, phaser sweeping in arcs as he watched.
“The cadet is right,” Nraxhan said, more urgently now. He was looking around as he spoke nervously. “There have been explosions all over the city. Smoke is rising. This is an attack on a grand scale. We must find protection!”
Finney was pulling out his own phaser even as he tucked his comm unit back onto his belt. “Yeah, I think you might be right. Goldberg, you’re okay to walk?”
“It’s just my arm, sir.”
“Kirk?”
It was all Jim could do to keep from rolling his eyes. “I told you, sir... it’s just a scratch.”
Finney nodded at him skeptically before looking around at the rest of the group. “Kim? Wilcox? How are you two?”
Lieutenant Kim was still leaning slightly against Johan. “A bit dazed, but I’m upright.”
“Just a headache,” Wilcox said.
“Okay.” Finney turned back to Nraxhan. “Where can we find shelter?”
Nraxhan was positively quivering as he replied, “We are in a warehouse and storage district. There is no good protection here. We must get back to the center of the city where there will be others -”
“No, we’re beaming out as soon as the ship clears us, and we’ve got injuries. We need the closest building that will provide cover, not a hike through the city in the open.”
“But we...” Nraxhan’s voice trailed off nervously as Finney glared at him. “Right this way, sir.”
They started to walk quickly after Nraxhan, but Jim quickly caught up with Finney. “Sir... did you hear what Nraxhan said?” he asked in an undertone.
Finney gave him an odd look. “What about it?”
“Well... remember what I said about the Araxians looking and acting like the Axanar?” He swallowed tightly. “I think our guides are both Axanar.”
“What do you mean by -”
He was cut off as a round of weapons fire ripped through the air. The tour guide from the power plant went down with a smoking hole in the center of his chest. They heard a very human cry of pain that pierced through the chaos. Jim recognized the sound of both of energy and projectile weapons. Despite the chaos, his training kicked in as Finney started yelling.
“Everyone take cover! Take cover!” Finney was running, leading, and everyone followed, feet pounding and voices yelling.
Ducking and dodging, Jim’s breath was rushing in his chest, heart pounding in his ears as the sounds of screaming and weapons fire wove the deafening cacophony of battle. An energy weapon blast passed so close to his cheek that he felt the heat on his skin.
Buhari was running ahead of him and she stumbled as a blast hit a rock and sent dirt and shrapnel flying at her. Jim caught her under the arm before she hit the ground and kept running, half-carrying her.
Nearby, something else blew up, and Jim couldn’t be bothered to see what. There was a building ahead. Shelter. Cover. Out of the line of fire. Fifty meters away. Twenty.
“Everybody inside!” Finney was yelling at the top of his lungs. He blasted a larger hole in a partially-shattered plate window and stood aside as he waved everyone into the building. “Come on, get in here! Where’s Liu?”
Jim spun around and looked back out through the broken window. Liu had fallen behind, limping as he walked backwards, but holding up his phaser and keeping up a steady stream of fire at the location of their attackers.
“Liu! Stop shooting and run!” Finney yelled, even though it was obvious the guy probably couldn’t run.
Jim pushed Buhari at Finney. “Take her! I’ll get Liu!”
“Kirk! Get back here!”
Jim half-heard Finney but ignored him as dirt flew and weapons fire scorched the air. He hoped the smoke from the power station would conceal him enough.
“Liu! What the - shit.”
“What the hell are you doing, Kirk?” Liu spit out as he continued to hobble backwards on a leg that was pouring blood from somewhere above his left knee.
“Coming back to get you, moron!” Jim reached for Liu’s arm, but was swatted away as Liu continued to fire.
“No, Kirk. They hit my leg. I can’t run. Get back there! I’ll cover you.”
“Like hell I will!” Before Liu could argue, Jim grabbed him, hoisted him over his shoulder, and made an adrenaline-driven dash back towards the building.
Liu was shouting at him, something hot grazed his arm, but the smoke was thick enough that there was no clear shot. A few crazed, desperate seconds, and Jim crashed through the remnants of a blown-out window into the building.
It was dark and dusty, and there were hands grabbing and people shouting. Someone pulled Liu off his back, and someone else grabbed Jim by the arm and pulled him further into the building.
“Away from the walls and windows.” That was Finney. Jim could barely see features through the shadows in the building. “Come on, this way.”
Shuffling footsteps were muted by the sounds of weapons fire outside. Somewhere in the distance, the rumble of another explosion shook the ground. It was all quieter than the sound of Jim’s own breathing as he gasped for breath. The smoke had burned in his lungs, and the dirt and dust and...
“Is everyone here?” Finney again. He was shuffling through his shoulder sack, and a second later, he activated a light stick. The room lit up, revealing a long space with a low ceiling, full of what appeared to be manufacturing equipment of some sort. “Come on, who do we have? Report.”
“Nadeau, Wilcox, Kirk, Liu, and Buhari, all present and accounted for,” Nadeau said, gasping for breath himself.
“Who else do we have?”
Jim recognized Goldberg, leaning over a prone form. “My team’s all here, sir, but Lieutenant Kim was hit.” He was pressing his hands against a wound on Kim’s shoulder, near her neck. “She’s breathing and she’s got a pulse, but she’s out. We need to get her out of here.”
“We’ve got to evacuate Liu,” Jim spoke up. “Look at his leg.”
Liu was already on the ground, applying pressure to his own wound. Quickly, Jim knelt down and began applying pressure himself. “Let me do it, tough guy.”
“Tough guy, nothing,” Liu said, panting, but he still shoved Jim’s hands away. “After that stunt you pulled?”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Jim hissed.
“You were already injured, asshole,” Liu snapped back, even as he grimaced in pain.
“It’s your blood on my shirt, not mine,” Jim snapped, and even though he knew some of it was his own, he was pretty sure his own small cut had stopped bleeding, and it had been the gaping wound in Liu’s leg that had oozed all over his shirt. He wasn’t going to consider other possibilities. Not now.
“We all need to evacuate,” Finney said firmly. “And... where are our guides?”
“One of them is dead,” Johan said solemnly as he stepped aside, pointing down at Nraxhan, who was sitting on the floor, holding his arm as though it was injured. “I grabbed this one. Whoever was aiming at us, they were far more interested in hitting our guides than us. Lieutenant Kim was next to him when she got hit.”
“Great,” Finney growled. “Okay, injuries. Nraxhan, Kim, Liu, Buhari, Goldberg, Kirk -”
“I’m not injured, sir.” It was out of his mouth before he realized he’d said anything.
“I don’t want to hear it, Kirk. And I told you not to run back.”
“And Liu would be dead.” Adrenaline wasn’t helping his self control.
Finney gave him a sharp look. There was a graze of blood across his cheek, and his face was a mess of dirt and ash. Jim guessed they all looked like that. “You’re right,” he said harshly. “Liu would probably be dead, but it could have ended with both of you getting killed. This isn’t a training exercise, cadet. It worked out this time because you got lucky, nothing more. Right now, the only thing we can do is to get as many of us out of here alive as possible. So sit down and follow orders.”
Jim clamped his mouth shut. Finney had been ready to sacrifice Liu. The idea of it burned in Jim’s head, but... Finney’s call would have been the right one. They could have both been gunned down out there. Jim had been taught, over and over, that the goal was to save as many lives as possible... and sometimes, in the heat of battle, you had to cut your losses.
I wonder what Toland would say now, he thought bitterly.
It didn’t matter. Toland wasn’t there. Finney was, and if Jim had been shot down while carrying Liu back, Finney would have had two death certificates to fill out instead of one. It was nothing more than sheer dumb luck that he hadn’t been shot.
He thought he should have felt good about saving Liu’s life, but instead, he felt guilty. He’d acted alone, against orders, sticking his neck out, playing the goddamned hero, and could have gotten two people killed instead of just one. His first real mission, his first real emergency, and he was already fucking it up.
If ever there was a time to play his part, this was it. Pike had just warned him about his role as a cadet, and now lives were at stake. He had to lock it up and get in line. “Yes, sir.”
Finney nodded warily, then looked back around. “We’ll send up our guide here in the first group. Then the rest of us.” He reached for his belt and pulled up his communicator. “Lieutenant Finney to Athena.”
It was several tense moments before they received a reply.
“Athena to Lieutenant Finney. Status report - what happened down there? We lost you, but we’re still taking reports from landing parties all over the city.”
“We took direct fire from unidentified shooters. One of the Araxians with us was killed, but everyone from our party is alive for the moment. We’ve got two critical injuries and three minor ones.”
“The Parliament building was hit. We’re bringing up critical injuries first. Sickbay can only receive two at a time. Have your two most critical injuries tagged with activated comm units and we’ll beam them directly to Sickbay.”
“We’ve got one person applying pressure to our worst casualty. Can we beam up three at once?”
“Just two at a time. That’s all we can handle. Send that individual with the person applying pressure. Sickbay is on standby.”
Finney growled to himself, then spoke to Goldberg. “Where’s your comm unit?”
“On my belt.”
Without another word, Finney grabbed the comm, activated it, hit the homing signal for beam-up, and placed it on Lieutenant Kim’s torso. “Finney to Athena. Energize.”
A moment later, the room lit up as the transporter beam took them.
“Okay, Liu and Buhari next.”
They waited through an infuriating delay as the sickbay crew told them to standby. Too many injuries, too few beds. But soon enough, the transporter activated again, followed by a comm from the ship.
“Athena to Finney. You’ll need to stand by for further medical transport. There are too many critical injuries from other areas.”
“What about normal transport?” Finney all but yelled back into the communicator.
“We’re using the transporters to pull people out of building wreckage. Is your situation stable?”
“For the moment,” Finney snapped.
“Standby.”
The signal cut, and Finney glared furiously at the communicator in his hand before snapping it shut. In an instant, he rounded on Nraxhan. “With all due respect... what the hell is going on here?”
Nraxhan looked up from his spot on the floor as he wrung his hands. “How am I to know? We are a peaceful society! This is -”
“That’s odd,” Finney interrupted him. “I don’t believe you. So let’s try this again.”
“I... there are...” Nraxhan’s shoulders slumped. “There are Araxians who do not wish to come under the protection of the Federation. The isolationists. We have... we have been negotiating with them for many years. It was settled, though! There were very few that opposed the alliance! We had settled this. There should have been no dissidence. This should not be happening!”
As Jim listened, it felt like he was being handed puzzle pieces, and suddenly the picture was making far more sense. And somehow, Jim was suspecting that more than just a very few Araxians opposed the alliance. And also...
“Wait a minute,” Jim cut in, feeling a flash of victory. “You just said we have been negotiating with them. You’re not Araxian. You’re an Axanar.”
Nraxhan’s eyes went wide, and Jim knew he caught the bastard red-handed.
“You talk like an Axanar,” he pressed on. “And... you’re too young to be a founder, but you’ve got the skin tone of an Araxian elder, or a native Axanar. You weren’t born here.”
Jim felt all eyes on him as surely as he felt his heart thudding in an adrenaline-driven rhythm in his chest. His claim about the skin tone was a bluff - he couldn’t really tell without directly comparing one to the other. But as he stared down at the Axanar on the floor in front of him, whose face was frozen in an expression of shock, and he knew he was right.
“I... I have lived here for many years,” Nraxhan said weakly. “We have been trying to re-forge the natural ties between our people. We never meant -”
“We’ll have time to discuss this later,” Finney said, and there was a dangerous edge to his voice. “And you’ll tell whole story to Captain Porter and the rest of the diplomats, Nraxhan. But first, we need to get out of here.” He flipped open his communicator again. “Lieutenant Finney to Athena.”
“Athena here, Lieutenant. We’re almost ready to take you. Please stand by.”
Jim could see the internal struggle playing out on Finney’s face, and how much the guy wanted to yell into the comm and demand immediate beam-up. He was a very young Lieutenant, Jim remembered. They were almost the same age, only Finney had started at the academy when he was eighteen. But he was a Starfleet officer, fully trained and in a position of responsibility, and he knew how to follow orders. Slowly, he lowered the communicator.
Control. Something Jim knew he needed to learn. Patience. Command presence.
“How are you holding up, Kirk?” Finney asked.
“Fine, sir,” he replied, trying to hide his annoyance. “It doesn’t hurt. I told you... this is all Liu’s blood.” But even as he said it, a sharp pain was beginning to throb around the laceration and inside his gut. The adrenaline was wearing off. Didn’t matter. They’d be aboard the ship soon. And Bones would be in sickbay, berating Jim for getting himself in the way of flying shrapnel...
Bones.
Like a hand clenching around Jim’s chest, he was gripped by the realization that Bones was somewhere else in the city, surrounded by explosions. He could be lying somewhere, bleeding out. He could be buried in rubble with crushed limbs, slowly dying in agony. He could already be dead.
Jim felt the blood drain from his face.
A hand on his elbow caught his attention.
“Blues... you all right in there?” came the quiet question.
Jim blinked and looked up at Johan, who was peering down at him with palpable concern. “Yeah,” Jim said in a low tone that was rougher than he’d intended. “I... I just remembered that McCoy and Hererra are somewhere else in the city. I hope they’re okay.” Jim hated himself just then. He hadn’t thought of Hererra at all.
“McCoy’s your doctor buddy, right?” Jim felt a hot flush of shame that Johan seemed to know that Jim’s fears focused on only one of the missing cadets.
“Yeah,” Jim said weakly.
“He’ll be okay,” Johan reassured.
“I hope you’re right.”
“Okay,” Finney said loudly, cutting across everything else. “Prepare to transport. I don’t know how much longer it will be, but I want to be ready the instant we’ve got clearance. Everyone form up.”
Jim stepped away from Johan, giving himself about a meter of space in all directions. The movement made his abdomen ache a bit, but it wasn’t bad. Really, all Jim could think right then was that Bones could be anywhere, and anything could have happened.
An explosion blasted through the front wall of the building. Hot air and dust and smoke rushed inwards, and Jim felt the building shift.
“Move it, people!” Finney yelled through the noise.
Through the dust, Jim thought he heard voices, muffled and distant. He ran, keeping his eyes on the dim beacon of the light stick Finney was carrying. They made their way past rows of machinery in silence, save for the heavy thud of boots against the hard floor. A door arch at the back of the room led to a smaller room, and what looked like an exit door.
“Everybody on me,” Finney commanded, and there was nothing else to do but listen. The group clustered up against the wall. “I’ve got no idea what we’re going to encounter on this side of the building. We can’t stay here. Whoever just blew the building is going to find us if we don’t move.”
Cautiously, Finney pushed the door open a crack, then closed it again. “It’s an alley. Good cover. Everyone follow me.”
In single file, they slipped through the door. The gray stone-like buildings were high on either side of them, but the opening at the end of the alley showed bright daylight.
Finney glanced around the corner of the wall. “There’s a row of buildings across an open area. We’ll have a bit of cover and concealment, but not much. We’re making a dash for the large building about three hundred meters down the street. It’s the only one that looks solid enough to repel weapons fire. Be ready to clear potential hostiles as we enter. Ready?”
He didn’t give anyone time to answer. He ducked around the corner of the building, and that was the team’s cue. Just as they’d done in training, dozens of times, Finney took point with the only phaser they had left, and they burst out of the shadows of the building and into daylight.
The smoke from the burning sub-station wasn’t quite as thick back there, but it still stung Jim’s lungs as he ran. Feet pounding, chest heaving. No time to think, just react. He waited for the weapons to start firing as the distance stretched between the buildings. He was on Johan’s heels as he ran. He could feel the ache in his gut, but adrenaline made the pain dull and distant.
There was no real cover, but they were getting closer to the building. Almost there. There was a small shed-like structure by the side of the road, maybe a hundred meters from their destination. Finney pressed his back up against it and waved everyone else on. “Keep going! Don’t stop!”
Jim rushed past, squashing an instinct to hole up with Finney and fight alongside him. Without a weapon, it would have been a pointless effort, so he kept moving. Nadeau was in the lead, followed Wilcox, the Axanar, then Johan, Jim, and Hodges. Finney would follow, covering their rear. The building was looming. The only noise was the sound of footsteps on gravel, and rough, strained breathing, ragged in Jim’s ears.
It couldn’t last.
An energy weapon blast cut through the air, followed by a full barrage. Johan looked back at him, but Jim shouted, “Keep running!” Weapons fire kicked up dirt all around them. The firepower was centered just ahead of them, on the Axanar. A blast caught the Axanar’s leg, but before he fell, another hit struck him clean at the base of his skull, and he dropped like a stone. It didn’t take a doctor to know the guy was gone.
Jim couldn’t stop to check anyway. If he slowed down, he was a dead man. Shelter was just ahead. More weapon fire rang in his ears, but he couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop.
The recognizable zing of a phaser blast put a gaping hole in the door of the building, and Jim knew it was Finney, shooting them a clear path. Ahead of them, Nadeau made it to the door, followed by Wilcox. With an extra surge of speed, Jim caught up with Johan and practically bowled him into the building.
He cleared the way in time for Hodges to barrel through. They all turned, expecting Finney any second.
The chaos of weapons fire slowed, but didn’t stop, and Jim could still hear the phaser, battling away. Worried, he took a tentative look at everyone, then ventured towards the opening in the door.
“Kirk, stay back!” Nadeau warned.
“What if Finney got hit?” Jim shot back. He was about to sneak a glance around the corner of the door when Finney burst through, stumbling clumsily into Jim’s arms.
“Help,” Finney gasped, and it was pretty obvious he’d been hit.
“Shit,” Jim hissed, and in a heartbeat, Hodges was there, helping carry Finney towards a bench at the back of the room.
“Not here,” Finney croaked. “Deeper into the building. Far enough... to buy time... for beam-out.”
There was a door at the back of the room, and Jim motioned for Nadeau and Wilcox to move ahead and check that it was clear.
Outside, the weapons fire had stopped. Inside, it was dark. They stumbled through the inner door, heading deeper into the building. Down a hallway, and through another door into an open room. Even in the dark, Jim could tell that the room was huge - a storehouse of some sort.
“Here,” Jim said as he found a table and some chairs. He indicated for Hodges to lower Finney into a chair. “Sit down here.”
“No,” Finney gasped. “Floor.”
“Sir?” Jim said, suddenly far more worried.
Carefully, they stretched Finney out on the floor. “Who’s got the pack with the light sticks?” Jim said.
Off to the side, a light stick activated, and Hodges handed it over to him. Jim held the stick up, letting it illuminate the whole space, and also the scorched and bleeding hole in Finney’s chest.
Jim felt his eyes go wide. “Nadeau, get some pressure on that!” he barked out as he grabbed his own communicator. “Athena, this is Cadet Kirk! Athena, respond!”
The few seconds it took for a reply stretched out impossibly long, punctuated by the heavy thud of heartbeats in Jim’s chest.
“... Kirk... is the Athena. Where did... ready for beam-out... who... command?”
“Athena, you’re breaking up. Lieutenant Finney has been seriously injured. Requesting immediate beam-up!” He looked around the room at the four pairs of eyes staring at him, and then down at Finney, whose eyes were closed, before holding his communicator up to his mouth again. “And we can’t wait.”
“... Kirk... signal... cleared to trans... activate comms... prepare... up.”
“You heard them,” Jim said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. “Nadeau, don’t move. Everyone else, form up.” He spoke into the comm again. “We’re ready. Energize.”
Jim waited for the familiar tingle of the transporter beam, but nothing happened. He might have heard a faint whine, and maybe there was a vague shimmer of light, but...
“Kirk to Athena,” he said into the comm, his voice barely hiding nerves and irritation at once. “What just happened?”
“... trouble ... a lock. Sensors ... energy fluctua-... in the structure … building. What... in your area?”
“It looks like a warehouse or storage building,” Jim said, looking around.
And for the first time, he really took stock of his surroundings. Although the main lights were out, the light stick cast the room in dim shadows that allowed shapes to stand out in contrast. The room was cavernous. Large packing containers were stacked to the ceiling; looming towers forming neat rows through the room, with walkways between them.
“Wait a minute,” Hodges said, before running over to one of the containers. “Blues, toss me the light stick.”
Jim tossed it over, and she caught it neatly before holding it up to one of the crates. “It’s got markings on it that must be Araxian or Axanar... but also Standard.” She looked back over, and her expression spoke volumes. Mostly defeat. “Dilithium. The crates all contain dilithium. The interference field from this much of the stuff must extend at least a hundred meters beyond the exterior walls, if not further. They’ll never beam us out of here.”
“Don’t say never,” Jim shot back. “Kirk to Athena. We’re in a building full of dilithium. Is there any way to modify the transporter? Can you boost the signal?”
It took a long moment before a scratchy reply came through. “Sensors... dilith... interfere... can’t... lock... move... from the building.”
“No,” came a weak groan from the floor. Finney’s eyes were open. “If you guys leave this building, you’re sitting ducks for snipers. You’ll never get out alive.”
“But sir,” Jim said hesitantly, not wanting to argue with either a dying man or a superior officer. “We can’t beam out from here. We’ve got to move.”
“Wait for rescue, Kirk,” Finney choked out, and it sounded like he was choking. Or drowning. Or maybe both.
“But -”
“That’s an order,” Finney said with far more force than should have been possible. Then he looked like he sagged back down against the floor. When he spoke again, his voice was weaker. “Call for a rescue party to beam down. Stay in this building. Hole up. They know... they know where you are. Just... wait. They should be... should be here quickly.”
Finney’s eyes fell shut, but Jim’s only widened. He adjusted the power level on the communicator, hoping to boost the signal, and spoke again. “Athena, this is Cadet Kirk requesting a rescue party. We are unarmed and there are snipers in the area. We can’t leave this building.”
“Kirk... send... party... able... transport...” The communicator crackled slightly and the message dissolved into an unintelligible mess of static.
“Athena?” Jim ventured nervously, then again, “Athena?”
“Forget it, Blues,” Hodges said, walking over. “With this much dilithium, it’s incredible that we got a message through at all. The longer you used the comm, the more you fried the transmitter.”
“So are they coming?” Nadeau asked, not taking his hands off Finney’s wound.
“You heard what I heard,” Jim replied. “I have no idea.” He knelt down and felt along Finney’s neck for a pulse. It was there, but it was too fast and not very strong. He thought bleakly of the one med kit that had come down with the landing party... slung over Bones’ shoulder. They hadn’t anticipated being split up. Of course, the reminder of Bones only twisted a thick knot of worry in his stomach, but Jim couldn’t let himself get distracted. He couldn’t help Bones, but Finney was right here.
“Sir? Lieutenant Finney, you need to keep your eyes open.”
Bleary eyes opened part way. “Tha’s rich, com’n from you,” Finney slurred. “‘sleep during th’ briefing this morning.”
Jim almost let himself smile at the attempted humor. “Come on, sir. We need a decision. We can’t stay here. What are your orders?”
“Told you already.” He sounded slightly breathless. “We wait for rescue. Use my phaser to defend... defend the entry. They... they’re not after you. Just the Axanar. They’re dead.” His eyes opened just a bit wider. “You... were right, Kirk. They were Axanar. We need to tell the ship... let them know... what’s going on.”
“We’ll try to get a message through,” Hodges spoke up from behind Jim. “Maybe we can boost the comm signal.”
Finney gave a weak nod. “Good. Do that.”
“I’m on it, sir,” Hodges said, and she promptly hunkered down with a communicator and her small pack of tools.
Jim shot her a grateful look, although she didn’t seem to notice it. He looked back at Finney, and at the blood oozing up around Nadeau’s hands. “Here...” He pulled his gray tunic off over his head. The movement caused a sudden jab of pain to his own gut, but he forced himself to ignore it, and quickly began ripping the shirt into strips. “The shirt was already shredded anyway. Use these to help staunch the bleeding.” He handed several strips to Nadeau, who quickly pressed them against the wound.
“We can’t wait like this, Kirk,” Nadeau said. “He can’t.”
“You think I don’t know that?” He looked down at Finney. “Keep breathing steady, sir.” Then he shot Nadeau a look. “Don’t let him drift off.”
Nadeau only nodded. The guy looked absolutely terrified, but there wasn’t much else Jim could do to reassure him at the moment. Besides, he needed to check something.
He walked through the room, and asked Wilcox how her head was doing as he passed by. She said she was fine, and everything else seemed quiet for the moment, so Jim took the excuse to grab a spare light stick and shuffle around to the back side of the table. Feeling nervous, he pulled back the hem of his black undershirt.
It was sticky and thick with dried blood, but he’d assumed that almost all of it was from Liu. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
The laceration wasn’t too long, but it seemed pretty deep. Grotesque even. It was starting to ache beyond just an annoyance. It had barely hurt at first, but adrenaline and the emergency situation could explain that. He couldn’t be sure how much blood of his own blood he’d actually lost, but it couldn’t be that much. Besides, this was no time to fixate, and he couldn’t let himself be weak right now. His commanding officer was injured, possibly dying, and they were trapped.
Settling on a course of action, he quickly wadded up a piece of his shredded uniform shirt and pressed it against the gash. Then, he took the longest strip he had and tied it all the way around his waist, holding the first piece like a thick wad of gauze against it. It wasn’t pretty, but it would have to do. Satisfied with his handiwork, he put his shirt back down and turned back to the group to find that his movement hadn’t gone unnoticed.
Johan was staring, eyes fixed on him, first his stomach, and then his face. “Blues, you said it was just a scratch.”
Jim almost missed a beat, but quickly flashed his best reassuring grin. “It is. I just keep tugging on it when I move, so I wanted to put some pressure on it. Keep it from bleeding so much.”
“If you’re sure -”
“I’m sure. It’s fine. We’ve got bigger problems anyway,” Jim said in a rush. “Would you be able to help Gadget with the communicator?”
He gave a humorless laugh. “Why do you think we call her Gadget? I’d just get in the way.” Then his expression changed. “But yeah, I’ll help.”
Jim nodded gratefully and turned around. “Hey Gadget? How’s the communicator coming?”
“I’m trying to combine the power supplies from two communicators into one, but I don’t have the right tools, and it might not be enough power anyway.”
Jim only nodded. “Keep at it.”
Hodges gave him a skeptical look, but Johan grabbed the light stick and held it up over the project, improving the lighting. She gave him a nod, then bent back down over the equipment, tinkering away to the dim glow of the light stick.
Jim stepped back and looked around at the high ceilings and the towering stacks of dilithium crates. Sure, he knew the planet had dilithium, but so much of it in one place? What the hell were they planning to do with it? That led him to the next unnerving question.
Who controls this dilithium?
It was dead silent in the building, aside from soft murmurings from the rest of the group. Jim was sure the silence wouldn’t last long. “I’ll be right back,” he said, then walked deeper into the shadows.
The rows of crates went all the way to the back wall. He found a computer terminal, but without power, there was no way to activate it. Besides, he was certain that all the functions were in the Araxian language. Or Axanar. Whatever.
There were no windows, but there was a door. It had to lead outside because there was daylight filtering around the cracks, and a puff of moving air when he held his hand over the doorjamb. He wanted to open the door and check to see if the back of the building was clear for an escape... but if it wasn’t clear, it would only draw more attention. Still, he filed the option away as a last resort.
Other than that, the only thing of interest was a set of stairs heading upwards. Jim was just about to see where they led when a shout pulled his attention.
“Kirk! Get over here!” Nadeau’s voice was strained with panic.
Jim spun around and hurried over, crouching down next to Finney’s prone form. “What’s going on?”
“He’s unresponsive. I can’t get anything out of him.”
Trying to ignore the ice flooding his veins, Jim pressed his fingers to Finney’s neck. He still had a faint pulse, but he’d stopped breathing. Then, under his fingers, Jim felt Finney’s pulse falter and stop. “Shit,” Jim barked out. With no med kit, they had to do this the old fashioned way. He pushed in and immediately started chest compressions. “Start rescue breathing, Nadeau,” he bit out, then shouted, “Hodges? The comm unit?”
“Just one second... there.” She snapped the cover shut. “It’s not great, but it’s the best I can do.”
“It’ll have to be good enough. Comm the ship.”
She flipped open the comm. “Petty Officer Hodges to Athena. Please respond immediately. Situation critical. Over.”
The comm unit crackled in response. Jim watched as she fiddled with the controls to boost the gain. “Hodges to Athena - “
She was cut off as the comm unit sparked in her hand with a snap of electricity, and she dropped it. It fell to the floor, sputtering and smoking.
Jim’s chest clenched. “Hodges?”
She looked at him and shook her head bleakly. “I was afraid of that. The field created by the dilithium can make electronics short out if they’re not made for these conditions. It was a chance... but... I’m sorry, Blues.”
“Sorry’s not good enough,” Jim snarled, redoubling his efforts to revive the Lieutenant. “Damn it, Finney. Don’t you fucking do this to me! The rescue party is coming. You need to reprimand me for cussing at a superior officer! Come on!”
Everything else in the room zoned out as Jim did compressions, checked for a pulse, and started compressions again. He’d pause every so often for Nadeau to give two breaths, then start right back in with a desperation he’d never felt before. In the back of his mind, he heard Bones yelling about old-fashioned, barbaric techniques and broken ribs and telling him he was doing it wrong, which only drove him to greater desperation. Finney was dying, and Bones might already be dead, and how did everything go so wrong, so fast?
“Blues. Hey, Blues! Blues!”
Hands were on his shoulders, pulling him back. It was Hodges. “You need to give it up. You’ve been at it for too long.”
“No! We can’t stop until we get him to sickbay!” He struggled, but Nadeau was also pulling him back, his hands now free of their burden.
“He’s lost too much blood, Kirk. I’m sorry.”
Jim was breathing fast, still straining against the hands on his shoulders, staring at Finney. Even in the shadows, the dark stain of blood was visible across the man’s gold shirt, forming a puddle underneath his body. The chest compressions had probably made him bleed faster. Jim realized, with a sickening note of finality, that he was gone. He looked back and forth between Hodges and Nadeau, and finally, he slumped in their grasps. “Yeah, so am I,” Jim said roughly.
Everyone fell silent, which was fine, because the buzzing in Jim’s ears had overtaken everything. His commanding officer was dead. They were three cadets and two crewmen in the middle of a civil uprising on an alien planet. They couldn’t contact the ship, and they couldn’t beam out.
Forcing himself to move, Jim reached over to where he’d dropped the last pieces of his shredded uniform shirt. The piece with his insignia patch was lying on top. Feeling numb, he placed the piece of cloth across Finney’s eyes, with the insignia centered.
The silence persisted.
Finally, Johan spoke up. “So, what’s the plan?”
Jim felt a jolt at the question, and shook his head to clear it. There would be time to mourn later. Right now, there were five living people in the room, and he needed to focus on them. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Johan replied calmly - at least, calmly for a person who was in the middle of a battle and had just watched a man die, “what are we going to do?”
Jim frowned. “We’ve got our orders. We wait for rescue. The Athena has got to have already sent people down. Finney told us to wait.”
“Lieutenant Finney’s not in charge anymore,” Hodges said gently.
Jim’s eyes widened as he looked around at the other four pairs of eyes fixed on him. “Johan,” he said tentatively, “you’ve got seniority here.”
“No, Blues. I’m a crewman. So’s Gadget.”
“Then...”
“You three are officer interns,” Johan said flatly. “You’re all acting as Ensigns. So who’s in charge?”
Wilcox stood up slowly. “Kirk... I think it’s you.”
“What?”
Nadeau spoke up. “The squad leader rotation roster. This week, it's you, Kirk.”
Jim felt his world reeling. “That’s just a training roster,” he said in a rush. “I don’t think they intended it for something like this. Besides, even though you two are crewmen, you’ve got more real experience.”
“Experience with energy conduits,” Hodges said. “We’re engineering techs. We didn’t go to the Academy. We don’t have the tactical experience to fight our way out of a paper bag. You’re trained for this. You’re in charge.”
“I switched to piloting because tactics wasn’t my thing,” Wilcox said.
“And you’ve outscored me in... well... let’s be honest... everything,” Nadeau admitted.
Four pairs of eyes were locked on him. Hodges took a step forward. “What do we do, sir?”
There were a dozen plans spinning in Jim’s head. They could try to exit the rear of the building, get beyond the interference of the dilithium, and call for beam-out. They could climb further up in the building and use the vantage point for defense. They could go out the front and collectively offer surrender. Or... he could follow his gut instinct. He could go out the front, distracting the enemy while everyone else escaped... playing the lone wolf... just as he’d been told not to do.
So many options, but only one choice.
Pike had told him to trust his instincts, and his instincts were telling him to stick his neck out while having everyone get the hell out of there immediately... but he’d also told him not to act on his own, and reminded him quite strictly of his place. He was Cadet James T. Kirk, and he had his orders.
“We stay,” Jim said, hating the finality in his own voice. “But that doesn’t mean we do nothing. Wilcox, how’s your head?”
“A bit achy.”
“Think you’re still good with a phaser?”
“Good enough.”
Jim grabbed Finney’s phaser and tossed it to her. “You’ll guard the front of the building. Gadget?”
“Yes, sir?”
The title sir didn’t sit right, but Jim plowed on. “You and Nadeau look for anything on this level that might be useful. Wires, transmitters, equipment, weapons... but mostly, see if you can find a secondary power supply. The sub-station is shot, but there might be a generator in a place like this. Maybe we can use the power boost to get a signal out.”
“You got it.”
“Johan....there’s a set of stairs at the back of the room. Go up there and see what you can find. Might be an office or control room with a computer or communication equipment. If this is a dilithium storage facility, they’d have to have equipment that could transmit through the field.” He looked questioningly at Johan, not really sure what he was asking until the man gave a solemn nod of approval.
It was exactly what he needed. Jim nodded back. “Everyone, keep your eyes open for weapons we can use. And... stay clear of any windows.” Then he cast a glance down at Finney’s body. “I’m staying here. Honor guard, as long as possible.”
“Absolutely. Sounds like a good plan,” Wilcox said, and the rest of the team seconded her.
The easy agreement seemed both familiar and foreign. He’d led enough missions in training simulations, but this was real. Too fucking real. Finney’s body was real. The burning power station was real. Every decision Jim made was going to be cold hard reality for all five of them. “And...” Jim swallowed tightly. “If all else fails, and we get raided before a rescue party arrives... there’s a back door to this room. It leads out of the building. If the attackers enter the building, make for the back door, get far enough away from the building, and comm for beam-up.”
“What about you and... Finney?” Nadeau asked.
“I...” Jim realized his tone must have given him away. He’d planned on staying with Finney’s body. With a sigh, he gave up that idea. “We’ll have to leave him.”
“He would have ordered you to,” Wilcox said.
“I know.” It wasn’t good enough, but that was exactly what Finney would have ordered. Finney had experience. Finney’s dying orders were to stay there, but he never would have told them to risk their lives just to bring back a body. “For now, we follow his orders to stay here. We’re out of the line of fire. Every time we expose ourselves, more people get shot.”
Even as he said it, it sounded wrong. Staying wasn’t right. The rest of them could slip out the back while Jim distracted the shooters at the front of the building. Or hell, maybe they could all make a run for it. They shouldn’t stay... but they would. There could be shooters at the back of the building. They might run directly into more trouble before they could get far enough from the dilithium to beam up. And... he had Finney’s orders. Steeling himself, Jim gave a decisive nod. “Okay, everyone, get to it.”
But as everyone walked away on their respective assignments, and Jim crouched down next to the body of his commanding officer, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was completely fucking this up.
*********
To Chapter 14