Because the books are translated by different people then the movies?IG-88E wrote:Besides, what about the EU? Why do we constantly hear things like "Sithspit" or "caf" when they could easily be translated to "Dammit" and "coffee"?
Star Crossed Fanfic
Moderator: LadyTevar
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Darth Garden Gnome
- Official SD.Net Lawn Ornament
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Heh, good chapter for character development. Stravo man, you writing is just so.....Whoa....that the battles are just as awesome as what our heros (and villians) do in between them.
Speaking of battles, soon it'll be time for the Federation's last stand at Andor! What a glorious battle it will be! Honor to the Empire! Er...[/Klingon]
A question though: how is Nemesis going to find Boba Fett (and therefore Kirk) if Fett is half way across the galaxy by then? Is his skill in the Force that good? Not that I'm complaining - let those two sit in that stranded shuttle - I'm loving watching their relationship really start to blossom.
Speaking of battles, soon it'll be time for the Federation's last stand at Andor! What a glorious battle it will be! Honor to the Empire! Er...[/Klingon]
A question though: how is Nemesis going to find Boba Fett (and therefore Kirk) if Fett is half way across the galaxy by then? Is his skill in the Force that good? Not that I'm complaining - let those two sit in that stranded shuttle - I'm loving watching their relationship really start to blossom.
Leader of the Secret Gnome Revolution
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Dark Primus
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Even defending Andor would be waste of resources and stupid.JodoForce wrote: Of course, if they lose Andor they'd have no base left, but they're going to lose Andor whether they try to defend it or not
A few Star Destroyers would easily decimate the entire alliance fleet unless they do have some form of triumph card left that could repell the Imperials.
EAT SHIT AND DIE! - Because I say so
"Me Grimlock Badass" -Grimlock
"Me Grimlock Badass" -Grimlock
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Luke Starkiller
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Crap, I' forgotten about that. Hehehe...happy fun ball...Ender wrote:I'm pretty sure I know what is going to happen to Andor.
Remember people... the Emperor is coming... and the happy fun ball with him.
What kind of dark wizard in league with nameless forces of primordial evil ARE you that you can't even make a successful sanity check versus BOREDOM? - Red Mage
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consequences
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You don't know my reputation on ASVS, but typically I tend to be rather harsh on fanfiction authors. I know that you can write better than you are doing right now (which IMHO, you've got the plot, but not the mechanics down) and that you don't is dissapointing. I don't mean to be condescending here, don't get me wrong, but I see so much more potential.Stravo wrote:Phongn,
I agree that the work needs some editing, I have no patience to go through and change typos (unfortunately). Perhaps one day I'll go back and do some cleaning. Please try to look past this and enjoy the story as so many others have. I do appreciate the comments and thank you so much for taking the time to read it.
I want fanfic excellence in both plot and mechanics, not just one or the other!
As to Hell - I guess when Han Solo says "I'll see you in Hell" on Hoth, he must have been a Terran spy.
Still, it didn't quite sound right, and from Jade? I'm not so sure that her Imperial-era self would think quite like that.
OK,
A word of caution, this chapter is very different than the others because we will spend a vast majority of it in someone's head. Just wanted to say that before some folks started reading and going WTF?!
Put please give it a chance and have faith in your author as I have tried not to let you folks down on these experiments.
Chapter 49: Solitudes Part 1
It was cold.
Bitter.
His skin was like ice and his muscles refused to move. But his will would not allow it. He took another deep breath and it felt as if he had thrust razors into his lungs. The air was cold, like knives and even breathing it was cutting him up inside.
He ignored this and shouldered his burden again.
The body was heavy, dead weight and there was no help from it. But there was life there and it was so precious to him. Death was too good a friend now these days. It had visited him and his friends too many times of late.
If he could just save this one life it might all be right.
He grunted as he walked through a particularly high snow drift, nearly sinking past his waist. He had almost sunk all the way past his head several times. He did not want to risk using the tricorder. He wanted to conserve every erg of power because he did not know how long he would be here.
He spied hope over the next drift.
A cave cut into the very rock face of the massive mountain that he was paralleling as he walked from the crash site.
He made for it with a desperate determination. The wind cut through him as he moved, snow and ice driven into his face and he sputtered as he continued on, hefting his charge and making a beeline for the cave.
He entered it and gently laid his burden down by some rocks. He was breathing quickly and hard as he drew his phaser from under the thick folds of the Starfleet survival coat. He examined the cave quickly with an expert eye and found some larger rocks which he quickly began to roll towards the center where his burden lay, wrapped in several survival jackets.
“Just hold on a second, and I’ll have us nice and warm.” He promised, his voice cracking from not speaking for nearly a day.
He finished moving the last of the rocks into a circle at the center and he aimed the phaser at the rocks. The bright red beam lanced into each rock several times. The rock quickly began to glow and pulse a dull red and suddenly the area around them was warm, not nearly warm enough to ward away all the cold but no longer dangerous or lethal. He moved the unconscious figure closer to one of the glowing rocks as he moved some more rocks out towards the entrance in a vain attempt to break some of the wind coming in from outside.
As he moved each rock he though back on the final moments before the cold hell began. His thoughts flying along as his hands, scarred and cracked picked up a rock an endeavored to form a makeshift blockade against the awful wind and heat leeching cold.
The Runabout shook around them as if in the grip of some enormous giant hand. Alarms were blaring incessantly as smoke filled the cockpit and the control touch pads kept winking on and off. He could hear the curses from Tom Paris as his hands danced on the pads, coaxing whatever he could from the dying ship.
The Runabout, missing a nacelle, venting plasma and a warp core ejected to prevent a breech was rocketing towards the large planet, driven by the gravity well and the momentum they had gained as they were forced out of warp.
There was no power available for maneuvering, and even if there was massive malfunctions were occurring in the control systems and thrusters themselves. The Runabout might as well have been a brick in space as far as Tom was concerned. There was little or no help and the nose was starting to glow red and he could see that they were trailing debris and gasses behind them.
We must look like some sort of meteor from the surface, Kirk mused as he tried his best to help Tom but there was nothing to be done except start emergency crash procedures. He occasionally glanced back to see the third member of his team securely strapped to a seat, head lolling down, eyes closed. The only sign that he was not well was the big blackened scorch mark on his chest and shirt, the tatters of his gold uniform shirt hanging at odd angles.
Chekov was dead.
It still had not sunk in yet. The young ensign had barely been old enough to serve on a starship and now he was dead.
His crew had seemed charmed. None had been injured or killed in this conflict that had seen the wholesale slaughter of entire Federation fleets. Then there was the Battle of Romulus, Spock nearly cut in half by debris, the fleet slaughtered around him and then this turn of events. This hunter named Boba Fett had nearly killed him but Chekov took the blast intended for him.
He was not sure how to react to that.
As a starship captain, he was supposed to inspire loyalty in his men, but he had never asked for any of them to lay down their lives for him. For the ship, for the crew, for the mission, that was expected, but for himself? That was never a requirement nor had the thought crossed his mind.
It was a damn stupid thing to do. Chekov was still too young to have thought it through.
“I wasn’t worth it, was I?” He muttered softly as he held his shivering hands up to the warm red pulsing rocks. He glanced over at Tom Paris’ unconscious form lying still wrapped in several survival blankets and wearing a survival coat. Kirk had wrapped the blanket as best he could around Tom’s face to protect him from the wind.
“Do you think so Tom? Am I really the savior everyone makes me out to be?”
He shook his head ruefully and remembered the jolt of the impact. Despite the crash restraints his head jerked forward as if it had wanted to come loose from his very neck. There was sharp pain and then soothing blackness.
He did not know how long he had sat unconscious, strapped in as the ship died around him, sunk into a huge snowdrift, the impact sending a crater up several hundred meters around them of blacked snow and earth.
He remembered nothing of that time except scattered bits and pieces, snatches of sounds. The computer’s calm female voice warning of life support failure. He remembered dimly almost laughing at the warning. He could feel hot blood coursing down the left side of his face and he could taste it in his mouth.
There was pain in his left leg, a sharp throbbing pain that seemed to remain with him even in oblivion.
He would sometimes snap awake as if in a bad dream and glance over and see Tom Paris, head lolling to his left mouth slightly open and a nasty gash across his cheek. Part of the helm control had come loose from its mounting and crashed into the side of his head. He remembered dimly hearing McCoy’s voice.
“That looks bad, Jim. Could be some sort of hematoma, we’ll have to get him up to sickbay right away.”
“Kirk to Enterprise.” He slurred part of him there in the cockpit and another part of him lost in the deepest recesses of a coma. “Medical emergency, three to beam up.”
There was of course no reply. There was only the darkness of the cockpit, occasionally illuminated by a sputtering circuit or a plasma conduit flaring up. Otherwise there was only darkness and something else. A growing cold pervaded the air.
More darkness and indeterminate shadows, muttering fitfully he awakened only occasionally to imagine that he was waiting to be rescued. He saw things in his fevered dreams. Things that he could not quite recall but they disturbed him.
“Gary?” He asked hesitantly. It was a painfully lucid moment that he saw Gary Mitchell sitting at his bridge station. Kirk asked something that he could not remember and Gary slowly turned in his seat.
“Sir?”
Kirk froze. Gary’s eyes were brilliant liquid silver and nearly glowed under the bridge lights.
“What can I do for you, Jim?” He asked. His voice boomed like an Olympian god and Kirk’s blood ran cold.
Gary smiled, it was cold and lifeless. This was a man that Jim Kirk had called friend.
“What did I tell you Jim? You’d better be good to me.”
“Gary? Gary I miss you.”
The silver eyed mad god’s face twitched slightly.
The shadows came over him again. He dreamed of so many things, his memories flowed around him like a raging river. He felt as if he was going to be lost and he suddenly reached out in fear. He was afraid of being lost, of sinking down into the soothing darkness and never rising again.
He thrashed about, reaching, clawing for the light above him. He could feel it all crashing down around him, drowning him and he started to call out, to scream and pull himself out of the darkness through sheer force of will.
I WILL WAKE UP
He jerked up in his seat and the restraints pulled him back into the chair. He let out an exhalation of air and his eyes remained open, sharp and focused.
He was hyperventilating.
“Jim you have to calm down.” McCoy urged him.
Kirk slowed his breathing slowly and as he did he noticed that each breath was accompanied by a thin misty fog.
It was cold in the ruined Runabout.
Kirk slowly reached up and clicked off the restraints. His chest burned and he absently rubbed it as he slowly took stock of his situation. The ship was damaged beyond repair. Warp core gone, controls smashed, it was nothing more than a hunk of tritanium plating imbedded in the surface of this planet never to fly again.
He hesitantly began to get out of his seat and he very nearly lost his balance as his head swam, his left leg very nearly gave out under his weight.
He knew that if he blacked out now he might not get back up again, for he felt how cold he was. The cold was soothing but vicious, it invited him to sit down, close his eyes for a moment and rest.
“Hypothermia Jim, not a good thing at all. You’ve got the first symptoms of it, who knows how long you’ve just been sitting here without life support. You need to get warm quickly and find some warm clothing.” McCoy counseled him.
“Survival kit, Bones. I need to break out the survival gear.” Kirk replied softly and stumbled to the back, supporting himself by holding the hull and consoles. They were cold to the touch, at some points his hand even stuck slightly to the exposed metal.
“We must have crashed in the polar region of this planet. It was class M, just our luck, instead of a nice warm forest or quiet sea, we get this.” He commented to himself and found the compartment. He tapped the control and an overhead opened up obediently exposing several medium sized canisters and a box. He quickly began to pull them down.
“It is illogical to assume that this was a matter of luck Captain. Your crashing landing could have easily resulted in your death. It was all a matter of chance.” Spock commented behind him.
“Mr. Spock, ever the logical one. You of all people should know my stance on that.” Kirk replied wanly as he flipped open one of the canisters and pulled out a thick survival coat. As he was trained when an ensign, he quickly did a checklist of the gear included with the jacket and smiled as he opened up a bulky pouch at the waist and revealed the tricorder.
“Just what the doctor ordered.”
“You be careful Jim, I’m the one with the medical degree. I swear you starship captains would prescribe meds if you could.”
“Bones, I think my left leg’s broken.” Kirk replied and flipped open the tricorder.
“Why don’t you let the tricorder do the diagnosing captain? You don’t see me telling you what stratagem to use when fighting the Imperials.”
Kirk frowned as he ran the tricorder over his leg and the readout instantly reported a hairline fracture of his tibia.
“Maybe you’d have better luck than I did at figuring out how to beat the Empire Bones.” Kirk said with a soft sigh as he detached a regenerator from the top of the medkit and switched it on. He slowly ran the regenerator up and down his leg as he scanned around the cabin, pointedly avoiding Chekov’s body strapped in to his right.
He could feel an odd tingling sensation in his leg.
“Careful Jim, healing a broken bone takes up a good portion of the regenerator’s power. You still have Tom’s wounds to look after.”
Kirk looked over at the unconscious pilot.
“Tom, I’m sorry I have to do this but I need to be mobile if we’re going to get out of this mess, and frankly you don’t look like you’ll be in any kind of condition to walk.”
The tingling began to hurt as bone tissue grew at an accelerated rate and began to knit, forcefully under the energy field generated by the device.
“You’ll need a good bone tissue regenerator, Jim. At least 20 minutes in the stirrups so that I’m satisfied that the bone fused properly and you didn’t go and damage your marrow.”
“You know, you remind me of my mother.”
“I’m surprised she puts up with you half as much as I do.”
“I realize this is just a slap dash field dressing Bones, but right now I don’t have much of a choice.”
“The next logical step would be ascertaining the integrity of this craft. Considering the outside temperature it would be best to remain here and try to contact the fleet.”
Kirk hobbled over to the control panels in the cockpit, maintaining a steady rhythm over his injured leg with the regenerator he inspected the shattered consoles. He smirked darkly as he touched several dead touch pad controls and was rewarded with absolutely nothing.
“Computer.”
There was a brief static hiss and something that sounded like utter gibberish and then nothing.
“The core’s fried, main systems are gone. There’s no way I can rebuild this board with what we have in the stores, besides, I probably lack the skills with this technology, almost a century out of my time. But even I can recognize when a transmitter is gone.” He muttered. There was no hope in this board, the nose of the runabout had pretty much collapsed back into the body of the ship, sending much of the delicate equipment in the cockpit backwards and shards of hard tritanium had punched through several places in the cockpit housing, one dangerously close to Tom’s head and stomach.
The transmitters were in the nose, there was no longer any nose, thus no transmitter.
Kirk hobbled over to the stack of emergency supplies and checked the big box. It looked almost exactly like the ones back in his day. An emergency transmitter and rescue beacon.
He switched it on.
The lights winked and a status board popped up.
He smiled for the first time since he awoke. The transmitter was functioning perfectly.
“Switch that damn thing on and let’s sit back and wait for the cavalry.” McCoy pressed gleefully.
Kirk nodded and reached for the transmitter controls when he froze in mid motion.
“The transmitter puts out a helluva signature.”
“Correct Captain. It is designed to be picked up over a distance of 14 cubed light years. Standard Federation issue with a back up fusion power supply allowing this model to continue functioning for at least 27 days at minimum transmission usage. More than enough time for rescue ships to receive the beacon and respond.” Spock answered.
“More than enough power to be picked up by any starship in the area, including those hunting for us.” Kirk concluded and shook his head as he leaned back against the bulkhead, the painful tingling slowly subsiding.
“I can’t.” He shook his head.
“For heaven’s sake Jim, why not?” McCoy exclaimed.
Kirk limped back over to Tom and slowly and carefully undid his crash restraints. He checked him and saw that his legs had been crushed against the collapsing forward control panel. Kirk leaned in and started to pull against the unyielding metal.
“Looks like a little welding job is in order.”
Kirk reached into Tom’s holster and pulled out the phaser. He checked the setting carefully and pointed at the control panels. A light red beam lanced out and slowly began to burn away at the metal. Kirk was careful to make sure that none of the molten metal spattered on Tom.
“Jim.”
“Bones.” Kirk snapped. “There are people hunting us. Fett or Nemesis, it doesn’t matter which are currently out there both want us dead or worse and tripping the transmitter will only tell them precisely where we are.”
There was silence in the cabin for a moment as Kirk concentrated on cutting away the last of the panel. He put the phaser down and started to pull on the panel. The cut end slowly slid away from the rest of the controls and he flipped it over to the side. It landed with a crash and Kirk checked Tom’s legs. They were both bloody, his right leg had a small bit of bone jutting it from the thigh.
“That doesn’t look good.” Kirk commented and ran the tricorder over the legs. Both broken, the right leg shattered in several places. The regenerator would not work for that one.
“Give him a shot of antibiotics. An infection could have set in during the time you both were unconscious.”
“Right.” Kirk pulled out a hypospray from the medkit he attached to his belt and selected the dosage. He pressed it against Tom’s neck and was rewarded by a soft hiss.
“Anything else? I need to stabilize him of I’m going to move him.”
“Move him? Jim that man is in no condition to be moved.”
“The Captain brings up an interesting point Doctor. If he is indeed being hunted then this ship can easily be detected from orbit.”
“What are you saying? He has to leave this shelter?”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt at this point, Bones.” Kirk added as he slowly pulled Tom out the chair, draping one arm over his shoulder and trying his best to support Tom’s weight as he limped over to the cabin.
“Jim, you won’t turn on the transmitter and you’re going to leave the ship. How in the hell do you think they’ll find you.”
Kirk paused for a moment. He looked at the canister of survival blankets and glanced up at the view port. It was completely covered in snow and earth.
“I don’t know how they will find us Bones. But I do know this. If Fett or Nemesis find us it will be far worse than what waits for us out there.”
Kirk quickly opened the rest of the canisters and organized the supplies. Whatever he could carry he took with him, strapped to his belt and clips. He stuffed every pocket of the bulky survival coat with medical supplies and sundry survival gear. As he did so his mind wandered back to his days as an ensign. The Starfleet academy survival course was one of the most grueling events in an ensign’s life.
Dropped on a planet that was borderline M class and you were told to survive for a week before you were recovered. The ensigns never knew what sort of terrain they would need to survive in, some classes it was a desert world, others the ocean. Kirk’s survival training had been on a forest world. Growing up in Iowa and camping out during his youth had made it a breeze.
He found himself wishing that he had scored an arctic survival course back then.
Still the training was important and had imparted in him a respect for the details of survival. It was always the little details that would kill you.
He also knew that Nemesis or Fett could be just as or even more so deadly than the environment out there. As such he made sure that he was ready for them. Several phasers were deftly stowed away in his survival jacket and utility belt. He even clipped one on Tom Paris’ belt and nodded with satisfaction as he collected every stray power cell that he could and eyed the phaser rifle clipped up on the overhead armory.
He tested its weight.
It would get in the way. He needed to carry Tom and the rifle might get in the way. It was a decision between the extra firepower and the space it would take up. He decided against the rifle.
He quickly finished fastening Tom’s survival jacket and then wrapped a survival blanket around him, making sure that Tom’s face was covered and slipping on the thick gloves. He paused at the transmitter.
If he took it with him he might be able to send short coded bursts that could be picked up by a rescue ship. It would certainly increase his chances at getting rescued as opposed to hoping that a rescue party stumbled across their warp signature.
In fact, no one really knew where he had gone. He had fled…wait did he just think fled?...he left the fleet quickly in his pain and confusion. He wanted a simple mission, something to give him a sense of accomplishment and give him time to clear his thoughts.
Now he was lost among the stars and the only real hope of rescue lay in this transmitter box.
He slowly started to lift the box and paused in shock. It was heavy. He noted the built in shoulder straps and frowned, running a hand through his hair. The transmitter was designed for carrying because it was so large and heavy. Of course the designers never though that perhaps the survivors would need to carry other wounded.
Kirk sat back on a chair and stared at the transmitter.
“The choices are clear, Captain. You ca either take the transmitter and hope to make contact with short coded bursts or you can take Tom Paris and hope that he survives the trek through this extreme environment but also severely cut down your chances at recovery.”
“Immanently logical Spock.” McCoy snapped in annoyance. “Jim you’re not seriously considering leaving that man behind?”
Kirk looked over at Tom.
“He can slow me down.”
“Another aspect to consider, it is not just the environment, doctor. The Captain is being stalked by two very dangerous enemies. Any advantage that he can take will help him survive. He cannot fight or defend himself as efficiently as he would if he were not burdened with a wounded man.”
“You green blooded inhuman. If Jim were to follow your advice he would abandon this man to die…this LIVING human being mind you in order to lug around that hunk of circuits.”
“Doctor, you really must learn to govern your passions, I did not advise the Captain to do any such thing, I was merely informing him of his logical alternatives. And I might add that ‘hunk of circuits’ as you called it is his only real chance for a rescue.”
“It all comes down to me.” Kirk said softly and looked between the transmitter and Tom.
“Keptain.”
Kirk slowly turned his head. Chekov was sitting up in his chair, still strapped in. The blood was beginning to pool around the straps causing big ugly purple bruises to appear around the straps. The black ugly blast wound on his chest was even darker and more grotesque.
“Chekov.” Kirk whispered.
“Keptain, I have always looked to you as a commander and a father. You are the heart of the crew sir.”
“Chekov, my god, I am so sorry.”
Chekov smiled weakly.
“Keptain, there was no choice. I did this not because you ordered me but because I know you would do the same for us. You have always been the kind of Captain that a crewman can look up to and aspire to be. Part of command sir is trust and I trusted you with my life.”
Kirk fought bitter tears welling up in his eyes.
“You’re dead, Chekov.” Kirk breathed.
“And you are alive sir. It is up to you to decide whether I threw away my life or not.”
Kirk dropped his head into his hands and closed his eyes.
“I have to make the one thing that I am so very good at, a command decision.” He said aloud. He slowly looked back up. Chekov was dead, lolling lifelessly against the restraints, eyes closed shut.
Kirk snapped the last fastener on his survival jacket and wrapped a survival blanket around his shoulders and neck like a scarf. He bent down and picked up Tom under his arms and hefted him up on his shoulders.
“Let’s make sure your comfortable Tom.” Kirk said as he pressed the hypo against Tom’s neck again delivering a mild sedative to make sure that any pain caused by the movement would not bring him out of his blissful unconsciousness.
Kirk took a deep breath and walked over to the backside access hatch and took one last look back into the cabin, a few flickering plasma conduits gave the interior an eerie illumination, as if the Runabout were a ghost ship out of legend.
“I chose to take him, because I’m his captain, because when in command you take responsibility for your crew and their lives and because it is the right thing to do. Either we get out of together or we don’t get out of this at all.”
Why did he say that out loud?
He keyed open the hatch and stepped out into the blinding white world.
Pretty words. Such pretty words, but did he feel that way now after hauling Tom for miles through snow and ice? Did he still feel like he was making the right choice. Were his aching muscles a sign of his discontent?
He sat in the silent cave, shivering hands held up before the pulsing red rocks and wondered many things.
He looked up slowly as he felt a presence in the cave.
Sitting directly across from him was a figure wrapped in long flowing black robes and a hood over its head.
“Who are you?”
“A friend.” The figure replied the voice was familiar.
He peered closer and the figure lifted its hooded head and he could clearly see the pearly white smile beneath.
“You want to know the truly ironic fact about this interplay Captain?”
Kirk’s eyes narrowed on the figure as he recognized the voice.
“You.”
“That’s right, Captain. Me.” Q lowered the hood and smiled at Kirk with a devil may care grin.
“Trelayne what in the hell are you doing here?” Kirk demanded.
“Funny that Captain. Your reception of my appearance here in this cave is one of bewilderment mixed with anger. Yet you look upon the specters of your Doctor McCoy and Mr. Spock with gratitude and welcome.”
“Specters?” Kirk asked suspiciously. His eyes switched over quickly to McCoy and Spock who were sitting on some rocks over both of them, legs dangling down. They seemed to be suddenly covered in shadow.
“Yes my sweet Captain. As I was saying the irony of our conversation is that I am finally able to reach out and speak to you, I am actually here yet you are currently suffering from a massive head injury due to the crash.”
“Head injury? I feel fine, don’t confuse me!” Kirk snapped.
McCoy and Spock were now completely engulfed in shadow, only their shapes were vaguely discernable in the depths of the cave’s darkness.
“Head injury, Captain. You were suffering from delusions and hallucinations, classic symptoms of head trauma. Surely you remember how your head swam after the crash.”
“What game are you playing, Trelayne? The tricorder would have warned me.”
“That would be true if you were lucid enough to recognize the symptoms. You show a remarkable ability to deny even the most obvious truths. But here you are and here I am, perhaps the head injury will open your mind to greater possibilities.” Q shrugged.
Kirk snorted.
“You really are as crazy as I remember, if you think you’re going to sucker me in with this head injury nonsense.”
“No, no. That is not my intention at all. Have you given any thought to your circumstances of late? To our conversation long ago?” Q asked and made a motion to warm his hands to the glowing stones.
“You mean about the universe ending? I had far more pressing matters on my mind, like trying to save the Federation.”
Q shook his head slowly.
“Your Federation is an ant in the jungle of life. The Universe is ending and you say this sentence with the same emotional connotation as you would say the sun is setting. You humans are so enamored with your own importance in the scheme of things. How it wounds your pathetic pride to even suspect that your destiny means nothing to most of the rest of the universe. In fact, you are nothing more than an after thought in grand scheme as you put it.”
“If that’s true, then why are you here? Why does the great god deign to come down and speak to an ant like me?”
Q smirked.
“If you knew the truth it would only scorch what little sense of pride remains, Kirk. But suffice it to say that you are an important piece in a rather elaborate game. You have only begun to perceive the opening moves of the gambit and the game is almost finished.”
“I don’t have time for you to wax poetic, in case you haven’t noticed I’m trying to survive here.”
Q smiled.
“Survival is relative Captain. I am not here to help you survive bodily, that is best left up to you and I do so hate deux ex machine.”
“When it suits you.” Kirk shot back.
“Captain, you wound me. Here I am trying to help save your mind and soul and you take the time to take potshots at me. Do you feel better?”
“What do you want?” Kirk demanded.
Q slapped his thigh.
“Good we can begin some dialogue. Now, think of this, you humans are a race that thrives on symbolism.”
Kirk continued looking at Trelayne. It was only a year ago that this being had tormented him and his crew. Only to see him scolded by his parents for playing with lesser beings. There was a difference. True Trelayne was still a roguish bastard, but there was a slight maturity to him, a sort of majesty that he would never admit.
“Now taking this as a given and well you should, I have studied your race for centuries.”
“Funny that, being an after thought and all.” Kirk added wanly.
“Be that as it may, I ask you a very important question. Why did you save Tom Paris?”
Kirk blinked.
“What?”
Q snapped his fingers and appeared in a flash next to Kirk on the same rock. He leaned in closely and spoke.
“I asked you a simple question, I understand that head trauma might mean your thought processes aren’t at 100% but please try to keep up. Why did you save Tom Paris?”
Kirk noted that Trelayne did not have a smell. Even his breath did not have any odor. Funny the things he noticed when under the gun like this.
“I saved him because he is a member of my crew.”
Q smirked and crossed his arms.
“Oh, come now Captain, are you going to lie to me so plainly?”
“What are you talking about? That is the reason.” Kirk protested.
“That’s the reason you want yourself to believe, the one that you tell yourself to soothe your already battered ego.”
“I suppose you know why I did.”
“Oh James, why would I be here if I did not already know?” Q asked pointedly.
Kirk stood up to walk away when Q appeared in front of him in a flash of light.
“Walking away and denial will not help you.”
“Why the hell should I tell you anything?”
“Why are you afraid to tell me anything?” Q countered.
Kirk stared hard at Trelayne for a long moment. He saw the shadowy figures of Spock and McCoy watching them from a corner of the cave.
“I saved him because I felt that I had to do something right.” Kirk said softly
“Ah…feel that Jimmy, it’s the scent of freedom and truth. Does it not lift some weight off those rather broad shoulders?”
“Don’t call me Jimmy, Trelayne. You were much more polite and formal as a child.” Kirk replied acidly.
“Why do you feel that way, Captain? Why do you feel that you had to do something right? After all you’re a living legend, you’ve held the Federation together in its darkest hour.”
Kirk laughed scornfully and turned away from Trelayne. Q cocked his head slightly. He was so very human. A symbol of denial, rebellion and vulnerability all rolled into one. He had chosen correctly. If humanity was to have a champion, he picked the most human of its captains.
“Holding it together in its darkest hour? I just had my ass handed to me and lost 600 starships, 10,000 dead crewmen and a defeat that has crippled the Federation probably beyond repair.”
“I see.”
“Do you? You sit up there in your Olympian Ivory tower watching all of this with what I assume is some form of detached entertainment, like kicking over an anthill and watching them go at each other.”
“Olympian would be more apropos for Apollo not me. As I recall you scattered him to the winds.”
“He scattered himself.”
“But things looked pretty bleak for you and your intrepid crew during that particular mission, no?”
“You think I can’t see what you’re getting at? Let me tell you something, the worst part of that mission would have been my crew being enslaved forever. This is about an entire galaxy being enslaved forever.”
“So, does that really make a huge difference for you? I know you well enough to guess that you would fight just as hard if it were a single person that would be enslaved forever.”
“This is different.”
“Why?” Q pressed.
“The scale—”
“No Captain, we established that scale means nothing at this point. Why?”
“Leave me alone damn it. My head is starting to hurt.”
Q nodded sagely.
“This is the moment, Kirk. You need to free your thoughts, open your mind and look within.”
“I’ve read fortune cookies with more depth than what you just spouted.” Kirk snapped angrily. The figures became clearer now and he could hear McCoy.
“You tell him Jim.”
“Why is this different, why have you run away?”
“I did not run away damn you! I needed to get my thoughts together, to clear my mind, to see clearly what I needed to get done.”
Q flashed and appeared nose to nose with Kirk.
“You ran away.”
Kirk punched Q.
Q stumbled backwards and fell flat on his back holding his nose. Kirk advanced fury on his face. He savagely fell on Q’s chest and jerked Q’s head forward by grabbing the collar of his cloak.
“I did not run away you sanctimonious bastard! Who are you to judge me and tell me what I felt? I’m fighting to save this galaxy and I didn’t ask for it.” Kirk punched him harder. “I didn’t want this war you bastard!” He struck him again, snapping his head back against the cold hard stone. “I didn’t want to fight for the survival of humanity, this isn’t even my time!” Another blow and cartilage cracked with a satisfying crunch on impact. “I’m supposed to be dead! This isn’t my time, not my place yet here I am. They look to me for hope and all I can give them is tripe about duty and honor.” Kirk’s fist cocked back but he could no longer see, tears were filling his eyes and his mind was pounding like a jackhammer.
“I didn’t want this but there it is I am their sole hope, I am the heart and soul of the rebellion and I know in my heart of hearts that they will surrender without me, that all I ever knew and loved will be swallowed by this monstrous Empire.” He sobbed and released his hold on Q’s collar and slumped down, burying his chin into his chest and he sobbed loudly, hot tears spattering down on Q’s chest.
“It’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair Jim?” McCoy asked softly putting his hand on Kirk’s shoulder.
“It’s not fair that I’m fighting a war I can’t win. It’s not fair that I can’t win no matter what I do.”
Silence.
“A no win scenario Captain?” Q asked.
Kirk paused and very slowly looked down towards Q. Q’s face was a bloody pulp, his nose pushed off to one side and his left eyes swollen shut.
“The Kobayashi Maru.” Kirk breathed.
“What if I was to tell you that this is humanity’s Kobayashi Maru?”
“What purpose? The Kobayashi Maru was a test of character.”
“This might be just that, a test.”
“How?”
Q smiled with blood caked his teeth.
“Now that would be telling. This is about you now, Jim.”
Kirk slid off Q’s chest and lay down on the cold floor. The pounding in his head had subsided slightly.
“I’m afraid I’m going to lose.”
Q remained silent lying next to Kirk.
“I’ve lived all my life afraid, afraid of losing but more importantly what that losing entails.”
“Go on, Kirk, you’re almost there.” Q whispered.
“I’ve lived afraid of the one thing I have no control over, the one implacable enemy that I could not defeat no matter what tricks I used.”
Q nodded.
“I’ve been afraid of death.”
“You are mortal.”
“It’s not just that Trelayne. It’s the very thought that there is nothing you can do. I have spent my whole life doing as I wished. Life can be manipulated in so many ways, I fought my way through so many hopeless battles, slaughtered untold super computers, and I’ve even killed so called gods.”
Q smirked at this part.
“But in the end, all these struggles are rendered meaningless,” he saw a shadowy figure walk over to them. “Because death always comes to take its due.” Chekov stepped into the light.
“You are mortal Captain. Death is the very definition of your existence. Life ends.”
“I don’t like that part.”
“It is a rather childish attitude.”
Kirk slowly sat up and reached out to Chekov who reached out in return.
“Death is an unfair concept. It all ends.” Kirk whispered as he touched the young ensign who vanished like smoke.
“Everything ends Captain. It’s what you do with that time that matters.” Q replied slowly sitting up and gingerly touching his face.
Kirk nodded slowly.
“That’s it isn’t it. What can I do with the time I have?”
“It’s a command decision.”
“And I excel at that.” Kirk finished breathlessly.
Silence in the cave for minutes.
Q snapped his fingers and appeared at the far end of the cave, face unmarred and wearing a Starfleet uniform, a vintage uniform of Kirk’s era.
“Come with me.”
“Where?”
“Come with me and we will answer these questions, James Tiberius Kirk. Come with me and maybe we can find a place for you in the grand scheme, maybe I can show you what this test of character is about, I can tell you that in the end, win or lose, it DOES matter. Death is an end but not the end. Things matter James Kirk and the things you do echo in eternity.”
“I want to believe that.”
“Come with me.”
Kirk rose slowly and dusted off his pants and glanced over at Tom.
“You have my word, nothing will happen to him.” Q assured him.
“How can I be sure you’re not really a delusion leading me into some dark caverns below for me to trip and fall?”
Q laughed.
“I won’t assure you of that my brain addled Captain. But consider this, even in your damaged state, your mind has conjured only those that have helped you.”
Kirk looked back at McCoy, Spock and Chekov. They smiled softly at him and nodded.
Kirk hesitantly walked over to Q.
“Where are we going?”
“The underworld, Kirk, where all questions are answered, and I warn you, you will not like some of those answers.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“You will be, Captain, you will be.”
“What’s down there?” Kirk asked hesitantly as the caverns opened up before him and Q walked down into them without hesitation.
“Only what you take with you, James.”
Kirk looked back at Tom and down to the caverns. He sighed softly and walked down the path.
A word of caution, this chapter is very different than the others because we will spend a vast majority of it in someone's head. Just wanted to say that before some folks started reading and going WTF?!
Put please give it a chance and have faith in your author as I have tried not to let you folks down on these experiments.
Chapter 49: Solitudes Part 1
It was cold.
Bitter.
His skin was like ice and his muscles refused to move. But his will would not allow it. He took another deep breath and it felt as if he had thrust razors into his lungs. The air was cold, like knives and even breathing it was cutting him up inside.
He ignored this and shouldered his burden again.
The body was heavy, dead weight and there was no help from it. But there was life there and it was so precious to him. Death was too good a friend now these days. It had visited him and his friends too many times of late.
If he could just save this one life it might all be right.
He grunted as he walked through a particularly high snow drift, nearly sinking past his waist. He had almost sunk all the way past his head several times. He did not want to risk using the tricorder. He wanted to conserve every erg of power because he did not know how long he would be here.
He spied hope over the next drift.
A cave cut into the very rock face of the massive mountain that he was paralleling as he walked from the crash site.
He made for it with a desperate determination. The wind cut through him as he moved, snow and ice driven into his face and he sputtered as he continued on, hefting his charge and making a beeline for the cave.
He entered it and gently laid his burden down by some rocks. He was breathing quickly and hard as he drew his phaser from under the thick folds of the Starfleet survival coat. He examined the cave quickly with an expert eye and found some larger rocks which he quickly began to roll towards the center where his burden lay, wrapped in several survival jackets.
“Just hold on a second, and I’ll have us nice and warm.” He promised, his voice cracking from not speaking for nearly a day.
He finished moving the last of the rocks into a circle at the center and he aimed the phaser at the rocks. The bright red beam lanced into each rock several times. The rock quickly began to glow and pulse a dull red and suddenly the area around them was warm, not nearly warm enough to ward away all the cold but no longer dangerous or lethal. He moved the unconscious figure closer to one of the glowing rocks as he moved some more rocks out towards the entrance in a vain attempt to break some of the wind coming in from outside.
As he moved each rock he though back on the final moments before the cold hell began. His thoughts flying along as his hands, scarred and cracked picked up a rock an endeavored to form a makeshift blockade against the awful wind and heat leeching cold.
The Runabout shook around them as if in the grip of some enormous giant hand. Alarms were blaring incessantly as smoke filled the cockpit and the control touch pads kept winking on and off. He could hear the curses from Tom Paris as his hands danced on the pads, coaxing whatever he could from the dying ship.
The Runabout, missing a nacelle, venting plasma and a warp core ejected to prevent a breech was rocketing towards the large planet, driven by the gravity well and the momentum they had gained as they were forced out of warp.
There was no power available for maneuvering, and even if there was massive malfunctions were occurring in the control systems and thrusters themselves. The Runabout might as well have been a brick in space as far as Tom was concerned. There was little or no help and the nose was starting to glow red and he could see that they were trailing debris and gasses behind them.
We must look like some sort of meteor from the surface, Kirk mused as he tried his best to help Tom but there was nothing to be done except start emergency crash procedures. He occasionally glanced back to see the third member of his team securely strapped to a seat, head lolling down, eyes closed. The only sign that he was not well was the big blackened scorch mark on his chest and shirt, the tatters of his gold uniform shirt hanging at odd angles.
Chekov was dead.
It still had not sunk in yet. The young ensign had barely been old enough to serve on a starship and now he was dead.
His crew had seemed charmed. None had been injured or killed in this conflict that had seen the wholesale slaughter of entire Federation fleets. Then there was the Battle of Romulus, Spock nearly cut in half by debris, the fleet slaughtered around him and then this turn of events. This hunter named Boba Fett had nearly killed him but Chekov took the blast intended for him.
He was not sure how to react to that.
As a starship captain, he was supposed to inspire loyalty in his men, but he had never asked for any of them to lay down their lives for him. For the ship, for the crew, for the mission, that was expected, but for himself? That was never a requirement nor had the thought crossed his mind.
It was a damn stupid thing to do. Chekov was still too young to have thought it through.
“I wasn’t worth it, was I?” He muttered softly as he held his shivering hands up to the warm red pulsing rocks. He glanced over at Tom Paris’ unconscious form lying still wrapped in several survival blankets and wearing a survival coat. Kirk had wrapped the blanket as best he could around Tom’s face to protect him from the wind.
“Do you think so Tom? Am I really the savior everyone makes me out to be?”
He shook his head ruefully and remembered the jolt of the impact. Despite the crash restraints his head jerked forward as if it had wanted to come loose from his very neck. There was sharp pain and then soothing blackness.
He did not know how long he had sat unconscious, strapped in as the ship died around him, sunk into a huge snowdrift, the impact sending a crater up several hundred meters around them of blacked snow and earth.
He remembered nothing of that time except scattered bits and pieces, snatches of sounds. The computer’s calm female voice warning of life support failure. He remembered dimly almost laughing at the warning. He could feel hot blood coursing down the left side of his face and he could taste it in his mouth.
There was pain in his left leg, a sharp throbbing pain that seemed to remain with him even in oblivion.
He would sometimes snap awake as if in a bad dream and glance over and see Tom Paris, head lolling to his left mouth slightly open and a nasty gash across his cheek. Part of the helm control had come loose from its mounting and crashed into the side of his head. He remembered dimly hearing McCoy’s voice.
“That looks bad, Jim. Could be some sort of hematoma, we’ll have to get him up to sickbay right away.”
“Kirk to Enterprise.” He slurred part of him there in the cockpit and another part of him lost in the deepest recesses of a coma. “Medical emergency, three to beam up.”
There was of course no reply. There was only the darkness of the cockpit, occasionally illuminated by a sputtering circuit or a plasma conduit flaring up. Otherwise there was only darkness and something else. A growing cold pervaded the air.
More darkness and indeterminate shadows, muttering fitfully he awakened only occasionally to imagine that he was waiting to be rescued. He saw things in his fevered dreams. Things that he could not quite recall but they disturbed him.
“Gary?” He asked hesitantly. It was a painfully lucid moment that he saw Gary Mitchell sitting at his bridge station. Kirk asked something that he could not remember and Gary slowly turned in his seat.
“Sir?”
Kirk froze. Gary’s eyes were brilliant liquid silver and nearly glowed under the bridge lights.
“What can I do for you, Jim?” He asked. His voice boomed like an Olympian god and Kirk’s blood ran cold.
Gary smiled, it was cold and lifeless. This was a man that Jim Kirk had called friend.
“What did I tell you Jim? You’d better be good to me.”
“Gary? Gary I miss you.”
The silver eyed mad god’s face twitched slightly.
The shadows came over him again. He dreamed of so many things, his memories flowed around him like a raging river. He felt as if he was going to be lost and he suddenly reached out in fear. He was afraid of being lost, of sinking down into the soothing darkness and never rising again.
He thrashed about, reaching, clawing for the light above him. He could feel it all crashing down around him, drowning him and he started to call out, to scream and pull himself out of the darkness through sheer force of will.
I WILL WAKE UP
He jerked up in his seat and the restraints pulled him back into the chair. He let out an exhalation of air and his eyes remained open, sharp and focused.
He was hyperventilating.
“Jim you have to calm down.” McCoy urged him.
Kirk slowed his breathing slowly and as he did he noticed that each breath was accompanied by a thin misty fog.
It was cold in the ruined Runabout.
Kirk slowly reached up and clicked off the restraints. His chest burned and he absently rubbed it as he slowly took stock of his situation. The ship was damaged beyond repair. Warp core gone, controls smashed, it was nothing more than a hunk of tritanium plating imbedded in the surface of this planet never to fly again.
He hesitantly began to get out of his seat and he very nearly lost his balance as his head swam, his left leg very nearly gave out under his weight.
He knew that if he blacked out now he might not get back up again, for he felt how cold he was. The cold was soothing but vicious, it invited him to sit down, close his eyes for a moment and rest.
“Hypothermia Jim, not a good thing at all. You’ve got the first symptoms of it, who knows how long you’ve just been sitting here without life support. You need to get warm quickly and find some warm clothing.” McCoy counseled him.
“Survival kit, Bones. I need to break out the survival gear.” Kirk replied softly and stumbled to the back, supporting himself by holding the hull and consoles. They were cold to the touch, at some points his hand even stuck slightly to the exposed metal.
“We must have crashed in the polar region of this planet. It was class M, just our luck, instead of a nice warm forest or quiet sea, we get this.” He commented to himself and found the compartment. He tapped the control and an overhead opened up obediently exposing several medium sized canisters and a box. He quickly began to pull them down.
“It is illogical to assume that this was a matter of luck Captain. Your crashing landing could have easily resulted in your death. It was all a matter of chance.” Spock commented behind him.
“Mr. Spock, ever the logical one. You of all people should know my stance on that.” Kirk replied wanly as he flipped open one of the canisters and pulled out a thick survival coat. As he was trained when an ensign, he quickly did a checklist of the gear included with the jacket and smiled as he opened up a bulky pouch at the waist and revealed the tricorder.
“Just what the doctor ordered.”
“You be careful Jim, I’m the one with the medical degree. I swear you starship captains would prescribe meds if you could.”
“Bones, I think my left leg’s broken.” Kirk replied and flipped open the tricorder.
“Why don’t you let the tricorder do the diagnosing captain? You don’t see me telling you what stratagem to use when fighting the Imperials.”
Kirk frowned as he ran the tricorder over his leg and the readout instantly reported a hairline fracture of his tibia.
“Maybe you’d have better luck than I did at figuring out how to beat the Empire Bones.” Kirk said with a soft sigh as he detached a regenerator from the top of the medkit and switched it on. He slowly ran the regenerator up and down his leg as he scanned around the cabin, pointedly avoiding Chekov’s body strapped in to his right.
He could feel an odd tingling sensation in his leg.
“Careful Jim, healing a broken bone takes up a good portion of the regenerator’s power. You still have Tom’s wounds to look after.”
Kirk looked over at the unconscious pilot.
“Tom, I’m sorry I have to do this but I need to be mobile if we’re going to get out of this mess, and frankly you don’t look like you’ll be in any kind of condition to walk.”
The tingling began to hurt as bone tissue grew at an accelerated rate and began to knit, forcefully under the energy field generated by the device.
“You’ll need a good bone tissue regenerator, Jim. At least 20 minutes in the stirrups so that I’m satisfied that the bone fused properly and you didn’t go and damage your marrow.”
“You know, you remind me of my mother.”
“I’m surprised she puts up with you half as much as I do.”
“I realize this is just a slap dash field dressing Bones, but right now I don’t have much of a choice.”
“The next logical step would be ascertaining the integrity of this craft. Considering the outside temperature it would be best to remain here and try to contact the fleet.”
Kirk hobbled over to the control panels in the cockpit, maintaining a steady rhythm over his injured leg with the regenerator he inspected the shattered consoles. He smirked darkly as he touched several dead touch pad controls and was rewarded with absolutely nothing.
“Computer.”
There was a brief static hiss and something that sounded like utter gibberish and then nothing.
“The core’s fried, main systems are gone. There’s no way I can rebuild this board with what we have in the stores, besides, I probably lack the skills with this technology, almost a century out of my time. But even I can recognize when a transmitter is gone.” He muttered. There was no hope in this board, the nose of the runabout had pretty much collapsed back into the body of the ship, sending much of the delicate equipment in the cockpit backwards and shards of hard tritanium had punched through several places in the cockpit housing, one dangerously close to Tom’s head and stomach.
The transmitters were in the nose, there was no longer any nose, thus no transmitter.
Kirk hobbled over to the stack of emergency supplies and checked the big box. It looked almost exactly like the ones back in his day. An emergency transmitter and rescue beacon.
He switched it on.
The lights winked and a status board popped up.
He smiled for the first time since he awoke. The transmitter was functioning perfectly.
“Switch that damn thing on and let’s sit back and wait for the cavalry.” McCoy pressed gleefully.
Kirk nodded and reached for the transmitter controls when he froze in mid motion.
“The transmitter puts out a helluva signature.”
“Correct Captain. It is designed to be picked up over a distance of 14 cubed light years. Standard Federation issue with a back up fusion power supply allowing this model to continue functioning for at least 27 days at minimum transmission usage. More than enough time for rescue ships to receive the beacon and respond.” Spock answered.
“More than enough power to be picked up by any starship in the area, including those hunting for us.” Kirk concluded and shook his head as he leaned back against the bulkhead, the painful tingling slowly subsiding.
“I can’t.” He shook his head.
“For heaven’s sake Jim, why not?” McCoy exclaimed.
Kirk limped back over to Tom and slowly and carefully undid his crash restraints. He checked him and saw that his legs had been crushed against the collapsing forward control panel. Kirk leaned in and started to pull against the unyielding metal.
“Looks like a little welding job is in order.”
Kirk reached into Tom’s holster and pulled out the phaser. He checked the setting carefully and pointed at the control panels. A light red beam lanced out and slowly began to burn away at the metal. Kirk was careful to make sure that none of the molten metal spattered on Tom.
“Jim.”
“Bones.” Kirk snapped. “There are people hunting us. Fett or Nemesis, it doesn’t matter which are currently out there both want us dead or worse and tripping the transmitter will only tell them precisely where we are.”
There was silence in the cabin for a moment as Kirk concentrated on cutting away the last of the panel. He put the phaser down and started to pull on the panel. The cut end slowly slid away from the rest of the controls and he flipped it over to the side. It landed with a crash and Kirk checked Tom’s legs. They were both bloody, his right leg had a small bit of bone jutting it from the thigh.
“That doesn’t look good.” Kirk commented and ran the tricorder over the legs. Both broken, the right leg shattered in several places. The regenerator would not work for that one.
“Give him a shot of antibiotics. An infection could have set in during the time you both were unconscious.”
“Right.” Kirk pulled out a hypospray from the medkit he attached to his belt and selected the dosage. He pressed it against Tom’s neck and was rewarded by a soft hiss.
“Anything else? I need to stabilize him of I’m going to move him.”
“Move him? Jim that man is in no condition to be moved.”
“The Captain brings up an interesting point Doctor. If he is indeed being hunted then this ship can easily be detected from orbit.”
“What are you saying? He has to leave this shelter?”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt at this point, Bones.” Kirk added as he slowly pulled Tom out the chair, draping one arm over his shoulder and trying his best to support Tom’s weight as he limped over to the cabin.
“Jim, you won’t turn on the transmitter and you’re going to leave the ship. How in the hell do you think they’ll find you.”
Kirk paused for a moment. He looked at the canister of survival blankets and glanced up at the view port. It was completely covered in snow and earth.
“I don’t know how they will find us Bones. But I do know this. If Fett or Nemesis find us it will be far worse than what waits for us out there.”
Kirk quickly opened the rest of the canisters and organized the supplies. Whatever he could carry he took with him, strapped to his belt and clips. He stuffed every pocket of the bulky survival coat with medical supplies and sundry survival gear. As he did so his mind wandered back to his days as an ensign. The Starfleet academy survival course was one of the most grueling events in an ensign’s life.
Dropped on a planet that was borderline M class and you were told to survive for a week before you were recovered. The ensigns never knew what sort of terrain they would need to survive in, some classes it was a desert world, others the ocean. Kirk’s survival training had been on a forest world. Growing up in Iowa and camping out during his youth had made it a breeze.
He found himself wishing that he had scored an arctic survival course back then.
Still the training was important and had imparted in him a respect for the details of survival. It was always the little details that would kill you.
He also knew that Nemesis or Fett could be just as or even more so deadly than the environment out there. As such he made sure that he was ready for them. Several phasers were deftly stowed away in his survival jacket and utility belt. He even clipped one on Tom Paris’ belt and nodded with satisfaction as he collected every stray power cell that he could and eyed the phaser rifle clipped up on the overhead armory.
He tested its weight.
It would get in the way. He needed to carry Tom and the rifle might get in the way. It was a decision between the extra firepower and the space it would take up. He decided against the rifle.
He quickly finished fastening Tom’s survival jacket and then wrapped a survival blanket around him, making sure that Tom’s face was covered and slipping on the thick gloves. He paused at the transmitter.
If he took it with him he might be able to send short coded bursts that could be picked up by a rescue ship. It would certainly increase his chances at getting rescued as opposed to hoping that a rescue party stumbled across their warp signature.
In fact, no one really knew where he had gone. He had fled…wait did he just think fled?...he left the fleet quickly in his pain and confusion. He wanted a simple mission, something to give him a sense of accomplishment and give him time to clear his thoughts.
Now he was lost among the stars and the only real hope of rescue lay in this transmitter box.
He slowly started to lift the box and paused in shock. It was heavy. He noted the built in shoulder straps and frowned, running a hand through his hair. The transmitter was designed for carrying because it was so large and heavy. Of course the designers never though that perhaps the survivors would need to carry other wounded.
Kirk sat back on a chair and stared at the transmitter.
“The choices are clear, Captain. You ca either take the transmitter and hope to make contact with short coded bursts or you can take Tom Paris and hope that he survives the trek through this extreme environment but also severely cut down your chances at recovery.”
“Immanently logical Spock.” McCoy snapped in annoyance. “Jim you’re not seriously considering leaving that man behind?”
Kirk looked over at Tom.
“He can slow me down.”
“Another aspect to consider, it is not just the environment, doctor. The Captain is being stalked by two very dangerous enemies. Any advantage that he can take will help him survive. He cannot fight or defend himself as efficiently as he would if he were not burdened with a wounded man.”
“You green blooded inhuman. If Jim were to follow your advice he would abandon this man to die…this LIVING human being mind you in order to lug around that hunk of circuits.”
“Doctor, you really must learn to govern your passions, I did not advise the Captain to do any such thing, I was merely informing him of his logical alternatives. And I might add that ‘hunk of circuits’ as you called it is his only real chance for a rescue.”
“It all comes down to me.” Kirk said softly and looked between the transmitter and Tom.
“Keptain.”
Kirk slowly turned his head. Chekov was sitting up in his chair, still strapped in. The blood was beginning to pool around the straps causing big ugly purple bruises to appear around the straps. The black ugly blast wound on his chest was even darker and more grotesque.
“Chekov.” Kirk whispered.
“Keptain, I have always looked to you as a commander and a father. You are the heart of the crew sir.”
“Chekov, my god, I am so sorry.”
Chekov smiled weakly.
“Keptain, there was no choice. I did this not because you ordered me but because I know you would do the same for us. You have always been the kind of Captain that a crewman can look up to and aspire to be. Part of command sir is trust and I trusted you with my life.”
Kirk fought bitter tears welling up in his eyes.
“You’re dead, Chekov.” Kirk breathed.
“And you are alive sir. It is up to you to decide whether I threw away my life or not.”
Kirk dropped his head into his hands and closed his eyes.
“I have to make the one thing that I am so very good at, a command decision.” He said aloud. He slowly looked back up. Chekov was dead, lolling lifelessly against the restraints, eyes closed shut.
Kirk snapped the last fastener on his survival jacket and wrapped a survival blanket around his shoulders and neck like a scarf. He bent down and picked up Tom under his arms and hefted him up on his shoulders.
“Let’s make sure your comfortable Tom.” Kirk said as he pressed the hypo against Tom’s neck again delivering a mild sedative to make sure that any pain caused by the movement would not bring him out of his blissful unconsciousness.
Kirk took a deep breath and walked over to the backside access hatch and took one last look back into the cabin, a few flickering plasma conduits gave the interior an eerie illumination, as if the Runabout were a ghost ship out of legend.
“I chose to take him, because I’m his captain, because when in command you take responsibility for your crew and their lives and because it is the right thing to do. Either we get out of together or we don’t get out of this at all.”
Why did he say that out loud?
He keyed open the hatch and stepped out into the blinding white world.
Pretty words. Such pretty words, but did he feel that way now after hauling Tom for miles through snow and ice? Did he still feel like he was making the right choice. Were his aching muscles a sign of his discontent?
He sat in the silent cave, shivering hands held up before the pulsing red rocks and wondered many things.
He looked up slowly as he felt a presence in the cave.
Sitting directly across from him was a figure wrapped in long flowing black robes and a hood over its head.
“Who are you?”
“A friend.” The figure replied the voice was familiar.
He peered closer and the figure lifted its hooded head and he could clearly see the pearly white smile beneath.
“You want to know the truly ironic fact about this interplay Captain?”
Kirk’s eyes narrowed on the figure as he recognized the voice.
“You.”
“That’s right, Captain. Me.” Q lowered the hood and smiled at Kirk with a devil may care grin.
“Trelayne what in the hell are you doing here?” Kirk demanded.
“Funny that Captain. Your reception of my appearance here in this cave is one of bewilderment mixed with anger. Yet you look upon the specters of your Doctor McCoy and Mr. Spock with gratitude and welcome.”
“Specters?” Kirk asked suspiciously. His eyes switched over quickly to McCoy and Spock who were sitting on some rocks over both of them, legs dangling down. They seemed to be suddenly covered in shadow.
“Yes my sweet Captain. As I was saying the irony of our conversation is that I am finally able to reach out and speak to you, I am actually here yet you are currently suffering from a massive head injury due to the crash.”
“Head injury? I feel fine, don’t confuse me!” Kirk snapped.
McCoy and Spock were now completely engulfed in shadow, only their shapes were vaguely discernable in the depths of the cave’s darkness.
“Head injury, Captain. You were suffering from delusions and hallucinations, classic symptoms of head trauma. Surely you remember how your head swam after the crash.”
“What game are you playing, Trelayne? The tricorder would have warned me.”
“That would be true if you were lucid enough to recognize the symptoms. You show a remarkable ability to deny even the most obvious truths. But here you are and here I am, perhaps the head injury will open your mind to greater possibilities.” Q shrugged.
Kirk snorted.
“You really are as crazy as I remember, if you think you’re going to sucker me in with this head injury nonsense.”
“No, no. That is not my intention at all. Have you given any thought to your circumstances of late? To our conversation long ago?” Q asked and made a motion to warm his hands to the glowing stones.
“You mean about the universe ending? I had far more pressing matters on my mind, like trying to save the Federation.”
Q shook his head slowly.
“Your Federation is an ant in the jungle of life. The Universe is ending and you say this sentence with the same emotional connotation as you would say the sun is setting. You humans are so enamored with your own importance in the scheme of things. How it wounds your pathetic pride to even suspect that your destiny means nothing to most of the rest of the universe. In fact, you are nothing more than an after thought in grand scheme as you put it.”
“If that’s true, then why are you here? Why does the great god deign to come down and speak to an ant like me?”
Q smirked.
“If you knew the truth it would only scorch what little sense of pride remains, Kirk. But suffice it to say that you are an important piece in a rather elaborate game. You have only begun to perceive the opening moves of the gambit and the game is almost finished.”
“I don’t have time for you to wax poetic, in case you haven’t noticed I’m trying to survive here.”
Q smiled.
“Survival is relative Captain. I am not here to help you survive bodily, that is best left up to you and I do so hate deux ex machine.”
“When it suits you.” Kirk shot back.
“Captain, you wound me. Here I am trying to help save your mind and soul and you take the time to take potshots at me. Do you feel better?”
“What do you want?” Kirk demanded.
Q slapped his thigh.
“Good we can begin some dialogue. Now, think of this, you humans are a race that thrives on symbolism.”
Kirk continued looking at Trelayne. It was only a year ago that this being had tormented him and his crew. Only to see him scolded by his parents for playing with lesser beings. There was a difference. True Trelayne was still a roguish bastard, but there was a slight maturity to him, a sort of majesty that he would never admit.
“Now taking this as a given and well you should, I have studied your race for centuries.”
“Funny that, being an after thought and all.” Kirk added wanly.
“Be that as it may, I ask you a very important question. Why did you save Tom Paris?”
Kirk blinked.
“What?”
Q snapped his fingers and appeared in a flash next to Kirk on the same rock. He leaned in closely and spoke.
“I asked you a simple question, I understand that head trauma might mean your thought processes aren’t at 100% but please try to keep up. Why did you save Tom Paris?”
Kirk noted that Trelayne did not have a smell. Even his breath did not have any odor. Funny the things he noticed when under the gun like this.
“I saved him because he is a member of my crew.”
Q smirked and crossed his arms.
“Oh, come now Captain, are you going to lie to me so plainly?”
“What are you talking about? That is the reason.” Kirk protested.
“That’s the reason you want yourself to believe, the one that you tell yourself to soothe your already battered ego.”
“I suppose you know why I did.”
“Oh James, why would I be here if I did not already know?” Q asked pointedly.
Kirk stood up to walk away when Q appeared in front of him in a flash of light.
“Walking away and denial will not help you.”
“Why the hell should I tell you anything?”
“Why are you afraid to tell me anything?” Q countered.
Kirk stared hard at Trelayne for a long moment. He saw the shadowy figures of Spock and McCoy watching them from a corner of the cave.
“I saved him because I felt that I had to do something right.” Kirk said softly
“Ah…feel that Jimmy, it’s the scent of freedom and truth. Does it not lift some weight off those rather broad shoulders?”
“Don’t call me Jimmy, Trelayne. You were much more polite and formal as a child.” Kirk replied acidly.
“Why do you feel that way, Captain? Why do you feel that you had to do something right? After all you’re a living legend, you’ve held the Federation together in its darkest hour.”
Kirk laughed scornfully and turned away from Trelayne. Q cocked his head slightly. He was so very human. A symbol of denial, rebellion and vulnerability all rolled into one. He had chosen correctly. If humanity was to have a champion, he picked the most human of its captains.
“Holding it together in its darkest hour? I just had my ass handed to me and lost 600 starships, 10,000 dead crewmen and a defeat that has crippled the Federation probably beyond repair.”
“I see.”
“Do you? You sit up there in your Olympian Ivory tower watching all of this with what I assume is some form of detached entertainment, like kicking over an anthill and watching them go at each other.”
“Olympian would be more apropos for Apollo not me. As I recall you scattered him to the winds.”
“He scattered himself.”
“But things looked pretty bleak for you and your intrepid crew during that particular mission, no?”
“You think I can’t see what you’re getting at? Let me tell you something, the worst part of that mission would have been my crew being enslaved forever. This is about an entire galaxy being enslaved forever.”
“So, does that really make a huge difference for you? I know you well enough to guess that you would fight just as hard if it were a single person that would be enslaved forever.”
“This is different.”
“Why?” Q pressed.
“The scale—”
“No Captain, we established that scale means nothing at this point. Why?”
“Leave me alone damn it. My head is starting to hurt.”
Q nodded sagely.
“This is the moment, Kirk. You need to free your thoughts, open your mind and look within.”
“I’ve read fortune cookies with more depth than what you just spouted.” Kirk snapped angrily. The figures became clearer now and he could hear McCoy.
“You tell him Jim.”
“Why is this different, why have you run away?”
“I did not run away damn you! I needed to get my thoughts together, to clear my mind, to see clearly what I needed to get done.”
Q flashed and appeared nose to nose with Kirk.
“You ran away.”
Kirk punched Q.
Q stumbled backwards and fell flat on his back holding his nose. Kirk advanced fury on his face. He savagely fell on Q’s chest and jerked Q’s head forward by grabbing the collar of his cloak.
“I did not run away you sanctimonious bastard! Who are you to judge me and tell me what I felt? I’m fighting to save this galaxy and I didn’t ask for it.” Kirk punched him harder. “I didn’t want this war you bastard!” He struck him again, snapping his head back against the cold hard stone. “I didn’t want to fight for the survival of humanity, this isn’t even my time!” Another blow and cartilage cracked with a satisfying crunch on impact. “I’m supposed to be dead! This isn’t my time, not my place yet here I am. They look to me for hope and all I can give them is tripe about duty and honor.” Kirk’s fist cocked back but he could no longer see, tears were filling his eyes and his mind was pounding like a jackhammer.
“I didn’t want this but there it is I am their sole hope, I am the heart and soul of the rebellion and I know in my heart of hearts that they will surrender without me, that all I ever knew and loved will be swallowed by this monstrous Empire.” He sobbed and released his hold on Q’s collar and slumped down, burying his chin into his chest and he sobbed loudly, hot tears spattering down on Q’s chest.
“It’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair Jim?” McCoy asked softly putting his hand on Kirk’s shoulder.
“It’s not fair that I’m fighting a war I can’t win. It’s not fair that I can’t win no matter what I do.”
Silence.
“A no win scenario Captain?” Q asked.
Kirk paused and very slowly looked down towards Q. Q’s face was a bloody pulp, his nose pushed off to one side and his left eyes swollen shut.
“The Kobayashi Maru.” Kirk breathed.
“What if I was to tell you that this is humanity’s Kobayashi Maru?”
“What purpose? The Kobayashi Maru was a test of character.”
“This might be just that, a test.”
“How?”
Q smiled with blood caked his teeth.
“Now that would be telling. This is about you now, Jim.”
Kirk slid off Q’s chest and lay down on the cold floor. The pounding in his head had subsided slightly.
“I’m afraid I’m going to lose.”
Q remained silent lying next to Kirk.
“I’ve lived all my life afraid, afraid of losing but more importantly what that losing entails.”
“Go on, Kirk, you’re almost there.” Q whispered.
“I’ve lived afraid of the one thing I have no control over, the one implacable enemy that I could not defeat no matter what tricks I used.”
Q nodded.
“I’ve been afraid of death.”
“You are mortal.”
“It’s not just that Trelayne. It’s the very thought that there is nothing you can do. I have spent my whole life doing as I wished. Life can be manipulated in so many ways, I fought my way through so many hopeless battles, slaughtered untold super computers, and I’ve even killed so called gods.”
Q smirked at this part.
“But in the end, all these struggles are rendered meaningless,” he saw a shadowy figure walk over to them. “Because death always comes to take its due.” Chekov stepped into the light.
“You are mortal Captain. Death is the very definition of your existence. Life ends.”
“I don’t like that part.”
“It is a rather childish attitude.”
Kirk slowly sat up and reached out to Chekov who reached out in return.
“Death is an unfair concept. It all ends.” Kirk whispered as he touched the young ensign who vanished like smoke.
“Everything ends Captain. It’s what you do with that time that matters.” Q replied slowly sitting up and gingerly touching his face.
Kirk nodded slowly.
“That’s it isn’t it. What can I do with the time I have?”
“It’s a command decision.”
“And I excel at that.” Kirk finished breathlessly.
Silence in the cave for minutes.
Q snapped his fingers and appeared at the far end of the cave, face unmarred and wearing a Starfleet uniform, a vintage uniform of Kirk’s era.
“Come with me.”
“Where?”
“Come with me and we will answer these questions, James Tiberius Kirk. Come with me and maybe we can find a place for you in the grand scheme, maybe I can show you what this test of character is about, I can tell you that in the end, win or lose, it DOES matter. Death is an end but not the end. Things matter James Kirk and the things you do echo in eternity.”
“I want to believe that.”
“Come with me.”
Kirk rose slowly and dusted off his pants and glanced over at Tom.
“You have my word, nothing will happen to him.” Q assured him.
“How can I be sure you’re not really a delusion leading me into some dark caverns below for me to trip and fall?”
Q laughed.
“I won’t assure you of that my brain addled Captain. But consider this, even in your damaged state, your mind has conjured only those that have helped you.”
Kirk looked back at McCoy, Spock and Chekov. They smiled softly at him and nodded.
Kirk hesitantly walked over to Q.
“Where are we going?”
“The underworld, Kirk, where all questions are answered, and I warn you, you will not like some of those answers.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“You will be, Captain, you will be.”
“What’s down there?” Kirk asked hesitantly as the caverns opened up before him and Q walked down into them without hesitation.
“Only what you take with you, James.”
Kirk looked back at Tom and down to the caverns. He sighed softly and walked down the path.
Wherever you go, there you are.
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El Moose Monstero
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First Post! Unless my computer is on the blink and being slow... 
EDIT: Right then, great chapter, can't actually say much more than that, couldnt see anything that seemed wrong or out of place, all the interactions are accurate, bring on the next chapter!
EDIT: Right then, great chapter, can't actually say much more than that, couldnt see anything that seemed wrong or out of place, all the interactions are accurate, bring on the next chapter!
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Dark Primus
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Kelly Antilles
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That sounds familiar.Stravo wrote:“What’s down there?” Kirk asked hesitantly as the caverns opened up before him and Q walked down into them without hesitation.
“Only what you take with you, James.”
Hopefully its more revealing than Luke's journey into the cave(which didnt last very long, and didnt give a much of an impact on the viewer, it was over waay to quickly)
"Okay, I'll have the truth with a side order of clarity." ~ Dr. Daniel Jackson.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
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Ghost Rider
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Awesome...loved the inner dialogue with with Kirk and how he molded his logical and emotional sides to the two characters that always war over such things.
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Sometimes we can choose the path we follow. Sometimes our choices are made for us. And sometimes we have no choice at all
Saying and doing are chocolate and concrete
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Darth Yoshi
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Awesome. Can't wait to see what happens to Kirk next.
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That was a very, interesting chapter. Loved all the freaky dialogue between Kirk and, well, himself sort of.
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Phongn,
I'd be interested to know what you did not like. This was an experimental chapter exploring the psyche of a main charcter. Considering the lack (relative) of responses to this particular chapter I wonder whether your response was shared by many other readers. Fact of the matter is that there are two more chapters like this one lined up for the rest of the story, one more for Kirk and one for Nemesis. If people don't like this inner monologue style it would behoove them to let me know.
I'd be interested to know what you did not like. This was an experimental chapter exploring the psyche of a main charcter. Considering the lack (relative) of responses to this particular chapter I wonder whether your response was shared by many other readers. Fact of the matter is that there are two more chapters like this one lined up for the rest of the story, one more for Kirk and one for Nemesis. If people don't like this inner monologue style it would behoove them to let me know.
Wherever you go, there you are.
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I can follow this clear as day 