Captain's Blood

13

PROCESSING SEGMENT 3, STARDATE 57486.7

Consciousness returned to Kirk in a series of memories, melting one into the other, each of them different, each of them the same.

They were memories of pain, stiffness, the burning of a sudden reflexive breath. The symptoms came from different causes: a Klingon fist, an Andorian knife, an alien kiss. But as it had so many times before, the return of consciousness was accompanied by one all-too-familiar sensation: the hum and sparkle of medical equipment, and by McCoy’s stern scowl above him, as the ship’s doctor worked his miracles on him as surely as Scott worked his miracles on the Enterprise.

“Bones…” That single word came out as a bark. Kirk coughed, cleared the postdisruption congestion in his chest. “You’re all right.”

“My few remaining original parts are just fine.” McCoy moved away from Kirk, and as Kirk struggled to raise his head and squint through the dim lighting, he saw his friend hobbling away, leaning heavily on a cane of pale green metal, like weathered copper. “Unfortunately, they’re not the important ones these days,” McCoy groused to himself.

The doctor came back to Kirk’s medical bed with a strange instrument—what appeared to be an uncut ruby the size of a lemon with something silver and gleaming embedded within it.

But medical instruments weren’t Kirk’s concern. “Joseph?” he asked.

McCoy’s expression was unreadable. “What do you remember?”

Had any other person in the galaxy dared refuse his question by asking another, Kirk would have grabbed him by the throat and squeezed until he had satisfaction. But McCoy had always had reasons for everything he did. Most of the time, those reasons even made sense.

Kirk sank back on the medical bed, closing his eyes as he rapidly arranged his last memories in coherent order. “Scotty said something over the speakers about a cloaked ship grappling the hull. Gravity went out of alignment. The Calypso was boarded. Humanoids in combat environmental suits. No identifying insignia. But they used disruptors.” He opened his eyes, looked at McCoy. “Since you’re still with us, they weren’t set to kill. But whoever boarded us, they wanted my boy. They threatened to kill all of us if he didn’t go with them.”

Kirk took a deep breath, and his chest relaxed. Whatever the instrument McCoy was using on his chest, the pain of disruption was lessening. But there was no cessation of the agony of losing his son far too close to the agony of losing Spock.

“And then what?” McCoy asked briskly.

“Joseph was beamed away. Starfleet signature.”

That was the only reason Kirk wasn’t tearing apart wherever he was in order to find his son. However improbable, Joseph had been rescued by a Starfleet transporter. “Was it the Titan?”

McCoy put the odd medical instrument on a narrow tray. “Here’s the thing, Jim. What you remember is what Picard remembers. Both of you say that Joseph was transported by Starfleet technology.”

Kirk felt his stomach churn, but forced himself not to interrupt. McCoy has his reasons, he told himself. Don’t push him.

“But the mystery is,” the doctor continued, “that there are no Starfleet vessels on orbit of Remus. In fact, we’re the only Federation ship within ten light-years of this system.”

Kirk had to sit up then. The sudden movement made him dizzy, but it was impossible to remain still in the face of this news. “Then where did he go?”

“I don’t know.”

“But it was a Starfleet transporter,” Kirk insisted.

“No argument from Picard.”

“Bones, could there be another Starfleet Q-ship near us?”

McCoy leaned against a counter, hooked his green metal cane over the countertop, and stretched his arm. “Well, there’s the other mystery. Scotty maintains that when we were attacked, our full navigation shields were up. There’s so much junk and mining debris on orbit here, seems that’s standard procedure.”

Kirk saw the problem at once. “So how could Joseph have been beamed through the shields?” Then he saw the solution. “Intraship beaming! He was beamed from one part of the ship to another, inside the shields.”

Kirk’s heart beat wildly. Joseph could still be on the ship.

But McCoy dashed that hope quickly. “No such luck. Apparently the Calypso’s transporter bay doesn’t have that kind of capability. It only has a single transporter array and can’t be backfocused. Besides, Scotty was the last one of us shot. He says he would have seen the transporter system come online. And it didn’t.”

“Then where’s my boy?”

Kirk swung his legs off the edge of the medical bed. It was only then he realized how high off the floor he was, and knew he was where he had never wanted to be again—back on Remus. This was a Reman medical facility. He’d hoped this infirmary might have been on a Reman ship or ore-processing platform, still on orbit. But the room was too quiet, just as the corridor leading to Virron’s rooms had been.

Kirk had another thought. The intruders—different size, different height. Whatever they were, they hadn’t been large enough to be Remans.

“Picard did see one positive sign in what happened,” McCoy said. “If you think about it, Joseph was rescued from a group of people who were determined to kidnap him at gunpoint. Picard says that means whoever has Joseph, he’s likely not in danger. And I’d tend to agree with that.”

Kirk squeezed at his temples to ease his headache. If Picard was right, then there was one way the situation could make sense.

“The intruders, Bones…they were too small to be Reman. So let’s say they were Romulans, determined to keep Joseph from becoming the new Shinzon.”

McCoy nodded grimly. “Picard told me about that, too.”

“Then it’s possible Joseph was ‘rescued’ by the Remans.”

“Well, that would cover the motivation.” McCoy looked thoughtful, then shook his head. “But not the physics. It still doesn’t explain how Joseph was beamed through shields by a Starfleet transporter.”

But Kirk had thought of a way to make the puzzle’s pieces come together. “Remember, there’re dozens of Reman ships orbiting with us. Even three warbirds. Odds are one of them—maybe all of them—are outfitted for covert operations. They could easily have modulators to change the appearance of their transport beams.”

“But what about the shields, Jim? How did the beam get through the shields?”

Kirk had spent enough time analyzing what had already occurred. He needed to take action, plan for the future. He jumped down from the table, nearly keeling over in the unexpectedly rapid drop. “I don’t care how they did it, Bones. It only matters that somehow, it was done. The Calypso isn’t a starship. All its systems are simpler. Give Scotty ten minutes to run a diagnostic and he could probably pinpoint exactly how our shields were defeated.”

Kirk abruptly realized that he and McCoy were the only two people in the infirmary. “Where is everyone else?”

McCoy frowned. “Scattered to the winds for all I know. I woke up in another infirmary.” He waved a thin hand toward a closed door. “Somewhere down the corridor out there.”

“Woke up?” Kirk asked, wondering why his next question had taken him so long to ask, hoping the delay was not an indication of mental confusion he could not afford. “How did we get here?”

“A Reman doctor…that is, a Reman whose name, apparently, is ‘Doctor,’ could only tell me that we also had been ‘rescued’ from the Calypso, which is now adrift without power.”

McCoy looked around the dimly lit facility, its only apparent source of illumination the soft glow from the displays and controls of a few banks of unfathomable medical equipment. “So, welcome to Processing Segment Three.”

“Do you know how long we were out?” The more time had passed, the farther away Joseph could be.

McCoy shook his head. “No Starfleet communicator, no easy way to compare units of time. And the Remans don’t use stardates. I suspect the disruptor victims were out less than an hour or two, but—”

Kirk had to interrupt. Another delay in my responses, he thought, troubled. It wasn’t like him to forget to inquire about the others who’d been with them. “What are the injuries? Who’s affected?”

“La Forge was already conscious when Doctor brought me round. When La Forge pointed me out as another physician, I was next to be revived, to help the Reman. Picard was out, worse than you. He’d been shot at least twice. Scotty got banged up on the bridge. They stunned him but he caught his head on a console on his way down.”

McCoy had missed one of their party. “What about Doctor Crusher?”

McCoy replied with a haunted expression. “Not good at all. Jim, do you remember what hit her?”

Kirk replayed the fight on the Calypso.”The cabin door. It was blasted straight into—” Kirk looked at his hand—the one burned when the door had been shot. “I could have sworn…”

“You did,” McCoy said. “Not as bad as the last time, but you had first-and second-degree burns on your thumb and palm.”

Kirk’s hand was unblemished. “Good work, Bones.”

“Don’t thank me. It’s good old Reman medical science at work. At least, Reman trauma care. They’re extremely sophisticated when it comes to treating industrial accidents. That’s why they’re treating Crusher and Scott.”

“What about Picard and La Forge?”

McCoy waved his thumb at the door. “As far as I know, still back in that first infirmary. They brought you and me to this one for the regeneration equipment to treat your hand.”

“So…we’re here. Jean-Luc and La Forge are someplace else. And Scotty and Crusher are in…intensive care?”

“Something like that.”

Kirk knew his only hope for getting Joseph back was to have a full team. But the team had been separated. A chance occurrence? Or deliberate manipulation?

He stepped closer to McCoy, leaned back against the counter beside him, carefully checking the infirmary for surreptitious audio and visual pickups. He guessed any infirmary intended to treat Reman slaves would be subject to observation by a Romulan Assessor.

“This doesn’t feel right to me,” he said in a low voice.

McCoy snorted. “Then I pronounce you fully recovered.”

“Seriously, Bones. My son’s gone. We don’t have a ship. And we’ve been split up.”

McCoy unhooked his cane from the counter, tapped it decisively on the floor. “My first duty was to my patients. I’ve discharged that. So you tell me: What do we do next?”

There was only one answer to that as far as Kirk was concerned. “Get Picard and La Forge. Strength in numbers.”

McCoy gave him a quizzical look.

“What?” Kirk asked.

“Something about the way you said that. You know, when Joseph and I barged in on you in Picard’s cabin, I got the sense that…things weren’t going too smoothly?”

Kirk wasn’t about to reveal to an unseen observer what Picard had confirmed about there being a third mission. “Later,” he said, looking up at the ceiling. “When we don’t have an audience.”

“Like that’ll ever happen.” McCoy pointed to the door with the tip of his cane. “You first, hero. In case there’s a sniper.”

Despite everything, Kirk smiled. “So comforting to know that someone’s looking out for me.”

There was silence then, as both of them immediately thought of someone else who should have been there to share this moment of action, and danger, and confronting the unknown.

Kirk’s throat tightened.

“Yeah,” McCoy said with a shake of his head. “Me, too.”

Kirk headed for the door out of the infirmary.

It didn’t slide open at his approach.

He pressed the door control, tried several toggles. “Locked,” he said.

“Are we surprised?” McCoy asked.

Kirk looked around. “See anything that looks like a communications screen?”

McCoy pointed to a wedge of green metal on a wall beside a medical console. The wedge was about a third of a meter tall, no more than ten centimeters across. There were several controls arranged in a precise grid on one angled face. A blank display screen and speaker grille were on the other.

Kirk went to it, peered closely at the controls. “These controls…they’re all the same color, none of them marked.”

“Tells you what it’s like to live on Remus. If you haven’t been specifically instructed in how to use something, then you shouldn’t be using it. I didn’t see any directional signs in the corridor, either.”

Kirk took a moment to contemplate the paranoia that must exist on a world with millions of slaves held in thrall by only a few thousand Assessors. “If you don’t know where a corridor goes, then you shouldn’t be in it.” He flexed his fingers. “I don’t suppose they wire these to explode.” He pressed some controls at random.

Nothing happened.

He touched the screen, spoke into the speaker grille, punched several controls multiple times. But still no response. Kirk turned back to McCoy. “Moving on. Anything in here we can use to get through the door?”

McCoy led Kirk to an equipment stand and selected several ultrasonic scalpels. Like the instrument McCoy had first used on Kirk, each scalpel appeared to have two parts—a gleaming, metallic operational part, sunk deep into an uncut gemstone that made a heavy, though secure handle.

Kirk held up the egg-sized emerald that held the scalpel McCoy had given him. “Is this some kind of power source?”

“I doubt it,” McCoy said as they returned to the door.

“More of a tradition, I think. Maybe dating back to a time when the Romulans wouldn’t provide any medical care to the Remans. It’s not unusual for primitives to believe the nonsense that raw stones contain some sort of unexplained power.”

“Raw stones like…uranium and dilithium?” Kirk asked.

“Don’t me get started,” McCoy grumbled.

They examined the infirmary’s door, and even in the shadows of the dark room, the key locking points were simple to locate.

Kirk pointed to the first site. “Doctor…”

McCoy expertly switched on his scalpel, and the blade disappeared in a blur of rapid motion.

Kirk was impressed as McCoy smoothly inserted the invisible blade into the narrowest of cracks between the door and its frame. McCoy made a one-finger adjustment to the blade’s setting control, lengthening the blade’s reach.

After a few seconds, there was a satisfying pop, and a wisp of smoke curled out from the door frame. “That’s one,” McCoy said.

Now that Kirk had seen the technique demonstrated, he used his own scalpel on the other half of the door. The pops of severed locks sounded every minute or so, until nine had been defeated. With so many locks, it was clear the door was designed to operate as a pressure seal. That raised the possibility that the corridors beyond could be open to the virtually nonexistent Reman atmosphere. Decompression would be a brutal and effective method for containing any potential revolt.

Kirk braced his hands against the door, then began to force it to the side.

It was like trying to get a recalcitrant horse to budge, but slowly the door began to move.

When it was open enough to enable the two of them to squeeze out, Kirk slowed his effort. He felt no resistance that indicated the door would slide shut again, but he had McCoy ease through first while he braced the door open for him. A second later, Kirk escaped behind McCoy. Together, they slid the door shut again.

“Now which way?” Kirk asked.

McCoy pointed to the right and they started off.

The corridor was almost identical to the one Kirk had walked through on his first visit to Remus. Again he was struck by the fact that there were no other doors or intersections, until they came to what McCoy called the first infirmary.

Kirk tried the door controls. No response.

He withdrew his ultrasonic scalpel and McCoy did the same.

Again, they began to probe for locking points to attack, but then Kirk noticed the door rocked slightly in its frame.

“Bones…step back for a second.”

McCoy complied and Kirk easily slid open the unlocked door.

The infirmary beyond was dark, lit by controls and displays, but empty.

“Looks like Jean-Luc and La Forge beat us,” Kirk said. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

But McCoy didn’t share Kirk’s assessment of the situation. “Smell that?” he asked.

Kirk sniffed the air. In truth, each world he had visited had its own distinct smell, some more pleasant, some less so. He had judged Remus as having an industrial bouquet: a unique combination of lubrisols, machinery, dry dust. The Romulan Assessors and Remans had their own particular scents as well. The Romulans, musty. Remans, sharp. Kirk knew it was a combination of diet and the differing life-support systems they lived in. But the odors of each new world and species were part of the overall experience of exploration, and Kirk had never been bothered—or offended—by them.

And then he understood what McCoy wanted him to notice.

The sharp, ozone scent of ionized air. The underlying trace of heat and smoke.

“Weapons fire,” Kirk said. He held the scalpel as if it were a knife, one finger ready to switch on its blade. “Stay here,” he told McCoy.

“Say that again, I’ll hit you with my cane,” McCoy answered. He stayed at Kirk’s side as they moved through the infirmary.

“Over there.” Kirk pointed to an overturned equipment tray, its contents spread across the floor.

The smell of burning grew stronger the closer they approached, and Kirk recognized an odor that, in the end, was one of the few that was the same on every world.

Charred flesh.

Kirk rounded an equipment console, nearly gagged as the stench hit him full force.

The body was on the floor directly in front of him, chest open and smoking, organs within it still glistening with green blood and gore.

“Doctor,” McCoy said in shock. He started forward, but Kirk held him back. There was no hope for the dead Reman.

“He was a healer,” McCoy said in dismay, “not a guard. This isn’t right.”

“Jean-Luc didn’t do this, Bones. Neither did La Forge.”

Kirk crouched by the body, refusing to look into the open, staring eyes of the Reman. Instead, he searched the blood-sodden pockets of his cloak, the pouches on his belt.

“What are you doing?” McCoy hissed.

Kirk’s fingers touched rock. He pulled out a metal card punched by a series of square holes and then a small, smoothly polished black stone, no larger than the tip of his thumb. The stone had a small hole drilled through one end, as if at one time it might have been strung on a thin chain or leather strip, to be worn as an amulet.

Kirk examined the metal card more closely in the light from a display screen on a medical monitor. “The Remans authorized to work in this area have to have some way of getting around. This might be a key to access communications and at least some of the doors.”

McCoy seemed unable to take his eyes off the Reman’s corpse. “But if this poor devil still has his key, then how did Picard and La Forge get out?”

To Kirk, the answer was obvious. “They were taken out, Bones. By whoever killed the doctor.”

“Taken prisoner?” McCoy seemed unconvinced. “By who? Who else is there here except Remans?”

“The Romulan Assessors.”

“But they’re Reman, too, Jim. You said so yourself. Anyone condemned to Remus is a Reman.” McCoy leaned more heavily against his cane, and Kirk could see that Reman gravity was taking its toll on him. “You know what I think?”

“I know you’re going to tell me.”

“I think there’s a war going on down here. And I think we’ve landed smack in the middle of it.”

“The third mission,” Kirk said, deciding to speak freely. It was unlikely this infirmary was under observation. Otherwise, someone would surely have come to deal with the Reman doctor’s body and determine what had happened.

“Jean-Luc, La Forge, and Crusher…” Kirk said as he saw McCoy’s look of incomprehension. “They had another reason for coming on this trip.”

McCoy’s confusion grew. “What reason?”

“I don’t know. It’s what we were…’discussing’ in the cabin when you and Joseph arrived.”

“Before the attack and our ‘rescue.’ “

“Before all that,” Kirk agreed.

“Well, I’m sure it’ll be fascinating to learn what everyone’s really been up to—later—but for right now, what are you and I supposed to do?” McCoy asked.

Kirk turned the metal card over and over in his hand, thinking through his options. “If there is a war under way, you and I are involved. And that means we have to choose a side.”

“Whatever happened to neutrality?”

“If there is a war, then one side has my son, and the other side wants him. I have to choose a side, Bones. It might be the only chance I have to see Joseph again, to take him home.”

Another time, Kirk knew, McCoy might have pointed out that he didn’t have a home. But the sentiment was understandable, and McCoy didn’t challenge it. He did, though, add an important note of caution, even as he made clear his continued support.

“Let’s just hope the side we choose is the same one Picard and La Forge are on.”

“Let’s just hope,” Kirk repeated, as he stared down at the body of the fallen Reman doctor.

Because anyone standing between James T. Kirk and his child would be on the wrong side.