#phaser belt

[idol--hands]

Star Trek #5 (2022)

I have a couple of questions...

1. When did we decide Data can feel physical pain*? *even with the “emotion chip” 2. A lone Klingon bat’leth can chop a Soongian android like that?!

[bebemoon]

look for the name ROWAN (requsted by anonymous) | vivienne westwood red sheepskin and floral velvet jacket (a/w 1994), miu miu suede nappa leather micro mini skort, thistlethistle "phaser" ear cuff in bronze, miu miu leather and wood floral-detail open-toe platform heels, freckle farm "green + red" handmade necklace, freckle farm "twig" moonstone and opal handmade earrings, diptyque paris "tempo" eau de parfum, anna sui black leather sling bag, unearthen brass signet ring, unearthen brass measuring spoon set, hans christian andersen fairy tales first edition hardback (c. 1912), versus by gianni versace metal plate leather belt (c. 199o's) + vintage gold-tone orchid heart belt buckle, baserange "lima" rib over-ankle socks, gold-tone anklet w/ bells, beeswaxrubberstamps (on etsy) "bullfrog in water" mounted rubber stamp

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

May I humbly request “why didn't you kill me when you had the chance?” from the enemies/rivals to lovers prompts with Christopher Pike please? 💕

Send me a rivals (to lovers?) sentence starter!

Of course my dear! I hope you're having a lovely day!

You have your orders, and are told within earshot of their cell: if the prisoners try to escape again, shoot them on sight.

You don't now if it's pure luck or a coincidence that you're on patrol that night, or that you round the corner just in time to see their leader five steps out of the cell that they're being kept in.

"Get back!" You hiss, raising your phaser and advancing toward him swiftly, "Go!"

The man backs up, hands raised in a show of surrender. You grasp the gate that they've managed to open, closing it hurriedly and covering the code on the pad as you relock it. You shoot a murderous gaze at the five inside, jaw tight. Your heart leaps into your throat as you hear your commander call your name, and you turn around just as they approach you. Your back goes ram-rod straight, chin up as he comes closer.

"Lieutenant! What's going on here?"

"Nothing, sir," You insist. "Just checking that everything is secure."

"Is it?"

"Yes, sir."

He casts a gaze over your shoulder, brows drawing down as he looks them over. You fight to keep from fidgeting, your stomach churning with nerves. Does he know that you're lying? Were they seen on the security feeds?

But he finally nods slowly, drawing away with a murmur to keep up the good work. You nod, mumble, "Sir," And hold your position until he's out of sight. You let your breath drain from you slowly, your body releasing just a little bit of the tension before you look over your shoulder, locking eyes with the man that had been trying to escape.

"Do not do that again. It won't always be me coming around that corner," It feels like a stupid thing to say even as you say it, but the man gives a small nod, and goes so far as to take another step back from the door. You glance around to the others, finding them watching you warily. You just give a small shake of your head before you leave, lingering around the corner and listening for any click of a lock for the rest of your shift.

--

They're not like the other off-worlders. From what you can tell, they didn't sneak onto the facility to try and steal your tech—but you still don't know how they got past the planetary defense systems in the first place, or why. They fought well, but they'd been no match for your squadron once you'd been deployed to their location.

The five of them—two women, two men, and one Vulcan—can't be kept together. It's your commander's decision to split them up. You're not sure how effective it'll be, though you suppose its worth a chance until you can get answers out of them. You think that you may escape any more association with the situation, but your commander insists that you move their leader to his new high-security cell—and puts you in charge of his watch.

You grit your teeth and agree, certain that you have no choice but to obey. Your commander is not a kind man; he rewards loyalty with punishing work, and insubordination with death.

You force your expression to passive indifference as you approach their cell, fingers twitching over the handcuffs strapped to your belt.

"You," You nod to him, drawing the attention of all. "Get up."

It takes him a moment, but he rises slowly.

"Come here," You add, punching in the code for the door and listening to the snick as it unlocks.

"What is this?" He asks.

"You're coming with me."

"Where are you taking him?" A woman is up in seconds, just a step behind. You still your hand on the door, letting your gaze flit to her.

"Another cell."

"Why?"

"They don't trust you together." You probably shouldn't tell them that, but it's obvious enough.

"Why only take him?" The Vulcan pipes up.

"He's the first. He won't be the last." You look between all of them. "I'm going to open the door. If any of you rush me, I'll have to raise the alarm. If you try to escape, I can't be held responsible for what they do to you. I can promise that whatever they choose will be brutal." You meet the man's eye again. "I'm going to open this. I want you to step out and hold your hands forward."

"...I understand," The man says.

"Chris," The woman warns lowly.

"Captain, I would advise against this," Another woman begins to rise, then freezes when she sees your hand twitch toward your phaser.

"Stand down, La'an. That's an order." His gaze stays steady on yours, hands raising, palms open and fingers spread as you open the door just enough for him to inch out. You shut it quickly, punching the code with one hand and draw your cuffs off of your belt. He holds still, and despite your movements, you feel his eyes steady on your face. You turn to the others, eyes skating across their faces again before you reach up, gently nudging the man's shoulder and guiding him to leave ahead of you. You learned a long time ago not to let a prisoner follow you, or have the opportunity to easily grab your phaser.

He goes, slowing only for a second to shoot a wink at his compatriots over his shoulder—it's a reassurance that isn't meant for you, but makes your chest flutter nonetheless.

"Left here," You order, and he does as you say.

"What's your name?" He asks, and before he can twist all the way to look at you for an answer, you snap, "Face forward."

He does so, keeping an even pace down the corridor.

"I'm Christopher," He adds.

"Congratulations."

"You're not going to tell me your name?"

"You don't need it."

"I might."

"Trust me, you don't. Make a right."

He does. You can see him turning his head a bit this way and that, no doubt trying to memorize markers, security cameras, things that may help him find his way back to that first cell.

"You're a lieutenant?" He asks. You bite the inside of your cheek, fighting back an irritated groan. Is he going to talk the whole time?

"That's what your commander said," He adds. "How long have you been working here?"

You still refuse to respond.

"Must be a while. You seem pretty familiar with the layout."

This man must be plenty comfortable making conversation with himself—

You pull up short as he stops, taking a wary step back as he turns to face you. The two of you stand in testy silence for a few tense moments. You wait for him to spring toward you, past you, away from you. You try to think of every possibility, but he hits you with something that you could never have anticipated:

"I'm not going to hurt you."

Your eyes narrow slightly.

"...Are you going to hurt me?" He adds.

"Please turn back around."

He tips his head to the side a touch, and when he takes a step forward, you take a step back.

"I'm not going to ask you again," You raise your voice a little, trying to instill fear in him, and a sense of authority in yourself. His lips twitch with a small, almost taunting smile as he takes one more step. He freezes, watching your hand raise to rest on your phaser. He nods a little, finally turning to face away from you.

"...Left or right?" He asks. You nearly can't hear it over the roaring of blood in your ears. You actually have to think about it before you say: "Right."

--

He lets you nudge him into the cell, lock him up, and then steps forward when you open the latch.

"Give me your hands," You wave him closer. "I'll take the cuffs off."

He takes his time coming closer, and you have to fight a shiver off as his blue eyes seem to spear into you.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Do you do anything else?" You grumble, raising your hands to unlock the mechanism. He chuckles softly as the cuffs fall away, and grasps your wrists once the cuffs are off. You suck in gasp in, eyes widening slightly. He isn't pulling or doing anything threatening—just holding.

"...Why didn't you kill me when you had the chance?" He asks.

"What?"

"You had orders to shoot us on sight. You let me live the other day—and you could've killed me in the hall just now."

You shake him off, yanking your hand back. He's still watching you with a warmth that's unfamiliar to you, and disarming.

"Maybe I just want to know how you all snuck onto the planet," You fib. "Can't find that out if you're dead."

He nods a touch, his gentle hum almost condescending. You raise your hand to shove the latch shut, but he catches it with his hand before you can, lowering his voice,

"When we get out of here—and we will get out of here," His lips curl into a mischievous smile, "I'll remember."

"Remember what?"

"Your kindness."

He lets go of the latch, and you slam it shut, locking it hurriedly. Finally out of his sight, you let you sigh out a panicked breath, tugging your armor back from your neck a touch to cool your rapidly heating neck and face.

[naturalrights-retard]

Dr. Joe Lee is the founder of Lasik Eye Center with more than 70,000 Lasik procedures under his belt. He knows a thing or two about actual science and Dr. Lee has come up with a novel, quantifiable, and what he believes to be an easily provable way to show that the mRNA experimental vaccine(s) are BIOWEAPONS — and so are the majority of the childhood vaccines. Yet his information has been largely ignored by Fauci, the FDA and even by the “leaders” of the vaccine education movement, AKA “anti-vaxxers”. This is his story.

[indeedcaptain]

Regulatory Relations, chapter 16: The Admiral

Hello everyone I hope you are doing well and happy April!

Wahoo, this story broke 100,000 words with this chapter! That's an insane number to think about.

Chapter warnings: graphic depictions of violence :)

Also posted on AO3 here!

☆☆☆

Kirk materialized on a dusty, paved track in the center of what could charitably be described as the middle of nowhere. He coughed as Spock and April materialized beside him, and they moved out of the way as the security teams appeared, one after the other. 

The area of Kindinos VI that they transported to was near colorless, infinite shades of gray-brown stretching to the staggering mountains breaking the near horizon. The star that served as the center of this solar system was a pale yellow dot in a pale gray sky, and though the climate could not be classified as cold, Kirk wasn’t sure he would consider it warm, either. 

It was a profoundly unfriendly planet, and as he looked around, he noted uneasily that there was no sign of the miners that had called for their aid. The land around them was uneven but for the paved road leading to the mountain to the east, rising and falling sharply in a pattern like moguls on a ski slope. The security officers unholstered their phasers, setting them to stun and creating a periphery around April, Kirk, and Spock, and the only sound except their footsteps was the familiar humming of Spock’s tricorder. 

Spock frowned slightly down at the screen as he turned slowly in a circle, scanning in every direction. 

“Where are we, Mr. Spock?” 

“It seems as though we are in the middle of the settlement, captain,” Spock said, and he lifted his eyes from the tricorder screen to look over the rolling micro-hills of the land before them. 

“But where is it?” 

Spock glanced over his shoulder at Kirk, and Kirk nodded before he approached one of the hills warily. Two security officers flanked him as Kirk and April followed a few steps behind, and Spock crouched next to the crest of the hill. 

He reached out and yanked on something set into the ground, and stepped back as a hatch swung open, revealing a dark hole in the ground. He looked around him curiously, and stomped his foot: the sound his heel made against the ground revealed that he was standing not on hard-packed earth, but dust-coated plex. Gesturing to one of the security officers, who pulled a flashlight from his belt and flicked it on, Spock and the officer crouched again next to the open hatch and peered down into the darkness. 

The other security officers broke off in groups of three and four, knocking on the other hatches set into the ground and pulling them open. Kirk came up behind Spock and leaned over his shoulder. The security officer--- a young human woman called Jackson--- shone the flashlight down into the hole. Buried beneath the ground was a self-contained unit, two meters by two meters, within which rested a single bed, a small desk, and shelving built into the walls approximating a kitchenette and bathroom. The bed was unmade, and a single, empty aluminum cup sat on the table. Lieutenant Jackson shone the flashlight around the border of the space, and the shaky light revealed that pieces of paper or plex had been stuck to the walls. 

“Hold there,” Kirk said softly, and Jackson held the light steady on one of the pieces of paper. It was slightly yellowed, a little dusty, but it showed a simplistic drawing of a house, with two big stick figures and three small stick figures drawn in front of it. Kirk’s heart sank. Someone’s child had drawn them this picture, and they had taken it to this job with them, and kept it where they could see it at all times. He glanced at Spock, who scanned the little room with his tricorder but met his eyes. 

“They may be in the mine itself, captain,” Spock said, and he and Jackson stood. Kirk straightened as well. 

“Did you get any life signs? From any of these little bunkers?” 

“Uncertain, captain. The scanner was unable to penetrate whatever matter makes up the soil of this planet. But my readings show a larger shelter just beyond our sightline,” Spock said, and indicated westward, in the opposite direction of the highest peak of the mountain range. “A larger domicile, or perhaps a central gathering place.” 

“Alright,” Kirk said, and with a gesture recalled the drifting security teams back to his side. “We’ll split into three. Spock, April, and I will head to the larger building, see if anyone is there. Team A, open as many of these hatches as you can and search for anyone within who may be in need of acute medical assistance. Close them up when you’re done, though, no need to let the dust into these people’s things. Team B, head to the entrance to the mine and see if there are survivors there.” His people nodded around him.

“Remember, we don’t want to come in with accusations. We’re just here to check everything over because the comms went down. We’re here to help. Check in with the ship every---” 

Tickatickatickatick. Kirk stopped as the noise echoed into earshot, drifting towards them over the dusty plain. Jackson turned over her shoulder, looking in the direction of the mountains, but nothing seemed to have changed. The ticking noise grew louder, and Spock started off suddenly towards the central road they had originally landed on. They followed Spock as he strode purposefully onto the road, and then scuffed at the dirt with his boot. 

The dust cleared easily away, revealing a magnetic track set into the earth. He looked up, along the road, as a metal cart rolled into view from beyond the curve of the road, where the rise and fall of the bunker-hills had hidden it. Slowly it tickatickaticked down the road, hovering above the metal strip, the rotating magnets set into the cart itself scraping and shifting as it pulled itself along. Kirk and the away team watched as it trundled on its way, empty but for the dirt that had settled into the grooves of it, and passed them to continue through the wasteland. 

“Perhaps the larger building is a storage location for the dilithium before it is shipped out,” Spock said quietly, as he watched the cart disappear around another bend. 

“Maybe,” Kirk said, and when the cart had vanished from view he turned back to the away team. “Check in with us or the ship every thirty minutes. Dismissed.” The officers nodded, and team A peeled off to open hatches as team B started down the long and desolate road. 

“Terrible day for a walk,” Kirk said as he, Spock, and April turned the other direction, towards where the other building waited for them. The wind had picked up around them, tossing the fine dirt in every direction, and there wasn’t a single tree to break the power of the gusts.

“I believe that they will be able ‘hitch a ride,’ as you might say,” Spock said, and they had only taken a few more steps when the tickatickatick began again. The cart lurched towards them once more, returning down its path from the mine to wherever its dropoff station might be and back again. They stepped aside to let it pass.

“I hope they catch it,” Kirk said. “No use walking if there’s a perfectly good cart going that way anyway.” He turned back to their road and continued down it. “What do you think of all this, Admiral?” 

April walked alongside him, dark eyes scanning the horizon around them. “I don’t like that we haven’t seen a single person,” he said, and he gently palmed his phaser. “Alive or dead.” Kirk hummed in agreement, and Spock followed the two of them a few paces behind, sweeping from standing between him and April to fanning out beside him. The Spock rule, Kirk thought with a jolt. He hadn’t seen it in action since he learned its name. Spock had always hovered on away missions, orbiting him, but he had never thought anything of it until it had been brought to his attention. He smiled at his pacing husband before returning his attention to the road, and to April. When was the last time he had been on an away mission, had to make life-or-death split-second decisions? His hand on his weapon was making Kirk nervous.

They walked for another twenty minutes before a huge, unnatural curve broke the flat horizon. It rose up before them as they approached; it was a building made out of the same material and in the same design that the hatches and the bunkers were, but it stood twenty feet tall and double that wide. Kirk turned back to look over his shoulder, and then look around him. 

“Mr. Spock,” he said quietly, returning his attention to the building. “Is there anything approaching this size, anywhere else within tricorder range?” 

Spock turned slowly, scanning in every direction, before he shook his head. Kirk took in the shape of the building, the positioning of its details: there was a small rectangular door set dead center, with what looked like opaque windows alongside it, with a second row of windows higher above. 

“This doesn’t look like a community center to me,” Kirk said, and Spock met his eyes as he spoke. “It looks like a house.” Spock considered it, as April’s breath left his lungs harshly. Kirk looked over his shoulder again at all the tiny, one-room bunkers, and looked back at the comparatively enormous structure. “Admiral, why did you call Dextrum’s owner unpleasant?” 

April had pulled his phaser out, holding it loosely in both hands down in front of him, and he gazed over the building in front of them with a curl to his lip. “He’s a criminal ten times over, but we haven’t been able to pin him with anything. Then he showed up with proof that the government of Kindinos II sold him this planet, because they couldn’t be bothered to mine the dilithium themselves, and he badgered us into the worst deal we’ve ever cut just because he caught us at a bad time and we needed the dilithium for the new ships. He’s brash, and arrogant, and I have been waiting for something like this to happen for a year now.” 

There was only one person that Kirk could think of who could possibly have made such a name for himself and pulled off such a ridiculous gambit, but there was no sense in focusing on that question now. “If I were a miner, doing the hard labor of pulling this rock out of the earth, and I live in a one-room hole in the ground and the big boss lives in a veritable mansion…” He trailed off, shaking his head. Spock’s hypothesis from the night before seemed more and more likely. 

“Any signs of life inside, Spock?”

“None, captain.” 

“We’re going in.” Kirk strode to the front door, Spock on his heels, and pulled the latch set into the metal of the door. 

It swung open easily, revealing only darkness within. Spock flicked on the light set into his tricorder, and it shakily illuminated an entrance hallway with arches leading into other rooms on either side. Spock insinuated himself between Kirk and the doorway, and then crossed the threshold first. One hand floated towards his phaser, and the other held his tricorder light out. Kirk followed him in, and April brought up the rear. The hallway was garishly decorated, apparent even in the single weak light source. Enormous oil paintings of buxom women and exotic locales hung on every wall, and their footsteps were muffled by an oversized rug that stretched out into the darkness beyond them. Every step released a puff of the brown-gray dust that coated everything and the vibrant colors of the paintings were deadened by it. Spock turned curiously into one of the side rooms and aimed his light at the windows. 

“I believe windows have been entirely coated by this dust,” Spock said. 

“Cozy,” Kirk said, and he and Spock abandoned the room to continue deeper into the house. They passed two rooms with overstuffed couches built for lounging, and one with a dining room table and seats for twenty. The only place the dust had been disturbed was the head of the table, where one person had put a plate and glass and then removed them. April trailed behind them, peering dismissively at the evidence of a man who was unaccustomed to the hard life of living on an undeveloped planet. 

Further in the house, there was a rickety metal staircase spiraling upwards, and the entrance to a kitchen.

“Choose your own adventure,” Kirk said, and peered upward into the darkness as Spock pointed their flashlight up into the second floor. April glanced up as well before he turned his head sharply, narrowing his eyes at the darkness hiding the details of the kitchen. 

“Point that light over here, Mr. Spock,” he said, and Spock obliged. April gestured at the dust with his free hand. “Look at this--- it’s been disturbed more recently than the rest.” And so it was; there was a line in the fine, gritty dirt that was a slightly different color, as though something had been dragged across the floor and then the reclaiming dust had done its best to hide the evidence. The fine hairs on the back of Kirk’s neck stood at attention. He abandoned the staircase to follow Spock and April into the kitchen. Spock wielded the light as April followed the trail through the dust, ignoring the marble countertop of the island. But Kirk noted the island, and the expensive shine of the plates sitting in the open cabinets, and the heft of the ceramic utensil rest that he lifted off what looked like an induction stovetop. Someone had brought all the comforts of home to this mining town, and then had refused to share with his neighbors. Kirk banked the fire burning angrily in the pit of his stomach and turned to pay attention to Spock and April. 

There was a door in the wall in the corner of the room, and April opened it as he raised his phaser. Kirk blinked, and for a moment Tommy looked over his shoulder at him as they both stared down into a cellar that smelled of death and rot, and then he blinked again. Tommy wasn’t there. April and Spock stood at the yawning threshold and stared down a set of untrustworthy-looking stairs that descended into pitch blackness. Kirk swallowed his sudden nausea and stepped up behind them. 

“Cellar?” 

“Perhaps,” Spock said, and he must have heard something in Kirk’s voice because without looking at him he reached back one hand with two fingers extended and stroked them along the side of Kirk’s useless hand before bringing it back to his tricorder. He aimed the little machine down the stairs and frowned. “But unlikely. This staircase leads down into a tunnel that extends further than a cellar or basement would.” 

“How far?” 

Spock looked back at him, liquid-dark eyes shining in the dim light. “At least two thousand meters beyond the boundary of this house.” The sense of unease that had dripped into his stomach at the disturbed dust intensified. He locked eyes with Spock, who gave one sharp nod, before he turned to April. “Admiral, I really appreciate you coming down here. But I don’t think the owner is still here, and I can’t guarantee your safety if we go underground.”  

“Your concern is noted, captain, but I am going with you.” April’s tone brooked no argument, and his eyes were hard like flint. Kirk read his resolve in the lines of his face, and a level of apprehension that he didn’t understand, and he turned away from him and Spock to flip open his communicator. 

“Captain Kirk to the Enterprise, come in, Enterprise.” 

“I read you, captain, this is Enterprise.” Uhura’s voice came immediately, barely crackling over the comms. 

“Checking in. We’re fine, but we’ve found something underground that needs looking at, so we’re going in. Any news from the other teams?”

“They called in just a few moments ago. Nothing yet, but they’re both fine.” 

“Good, good. If we miss our check-in, ask Giotto to send another team down. We’re going beneath the big house.” 

“Acknowledged, captain.” 

“Thanks, Lieutenant. Kirk out.” He flipped his comm shut and turned to his companions. “Once more unto the breach, gentlemen?” 

April exhaled heavily through his nose, the only sign he gave that he was tired of Kirk, and allowed Spock to cross through the doorway first with the flashlight before he followed down the stairs. Kirk brought up the rear, following the light bouncing down into the dark, and tried to remind himself that there would not be metallic blue sludge waiting for him at the bottom. 

☆☆☆

There was no sludge at the bottom; only a long strip of the same magnetic rail that they had seen on the road outside, and dunes of the same dirt that coated everything along the sides of the tunnel. The tunnel itself was tall enough to stand up straight in, but not wide enough to walk shoulder to shoulder, and the walls were carved directly into the earth. Kirk frowned as he dragged one finger along them. The dirt was silken, easily malleable; he didn’t trust the structural integrity of their underground avenue.

Spock walked ahead with the flashlight, but every ten steps Kirk saw the whites of his eyes glint in the heavy dark as he glanced back, as if to assure himself that he had not lost Kirk to the black tunnel. April walked between them, phaser held in one hand, eyes trained on the horizon of Spock’s light ahead of them. They walked through the tunnel for fifteen minutes; long enough that Kirk was beginning to lose track of the minutes, and the monotony of the path was easing his nerves.

Then Spock halted, raising one hand in a symbol for them to stop behind him. He stood stock-still, head cocked slightly to turn one ear down the tunnel, and Kirk could see the tendons in his neck in shadowy relief as he listened. 

April opened his mouth, half a syllable emerging, before Spock whispered, “Hush,” and Kirk saw his stance shift from vaguely curious to high alert. He turned back to them, dropping his voice so low that Kirk could barely hear him, and said, “I hear voices ahead. At least ten, possibly more.” 

“The miners,” Kirk whispered back, and Spock nodded.

“I heard one say ‘dilithium.’” Kirk gestured for Spock to continue on carefully. He glanced at April as Spock faced forward again, and blinked. For half of one second, before the light shifted and the moment vanished, Kirk could have sworn that April’s face was drawn down with a profound sadness. But when April met his eyes, the expression was gone, as if it had never been. 

April nodded, and they followed Spock further down the tunnel. They crept forward more carefully, placing their feet gently, and Kirk unholstered his phaser to set it to ‘stun’ and keep it in his hand. Spock drew his, holding his tricorder in one hand and the phaser in the other. The tunnel started to grow wider, and as they continued, Kirk’s less-sensitive human ears began to pick up voices from further down. 

He leaned forward and tapped Spock’s shoulder to get his attention, and when he had it, he purposefully reholstered his weapon. He stood for a moment as Spock analyzed him, considering his decision, before he decreed it logical and put his own away as well. April watched both of them unhappily. 

“We don’t want to create a problem where there isn’t one,” Kirk whispered as quietly as he could.

“I feel certain there is already a problem,” April whispered back, and he kept his out. Kirk glanced at it. He didn’t like it, but again he was outranked. 

The tunnel continued to widen, and the far-off voices grew closer and louder, and once he was able to do so he stepped up to walk next to Spock. Spock glanced sideways at him, and adjusted himself so that he was just slightly in front of Kirk, his shoulder edged in front. April walked alongside them, his shoulders square, eyes sweeping ahead of them. The tunnel curved sideways, and as they rounded the edge, they saw something up ahead: light. Spock dimmed the tricorder’s little light and turned to April and Kirk. 

“There is a group of people approximately sixty meters ahead,” he said lowly. “We ought to proceed with caution. We do not want to startle these people into believing that we are a threat.” 

Kirk nodded, and they proceeded. Closer and closer they crept, until the murmuring voices coalesced into individual words---packing, and careful, and dilithium, and mine---and the light ahead grew brighter and brighter. Ten meters ahead Kirk saw a standalone light source--- quite similar to the ones that they kept on the Enterprise for when they needed to provide high visibility on a mission--- facing away from them. He pulled up into the last patch of shadow with Spock, clinging close to the wall for any cover it would provide.

“Alright,” he said, and turned to April to discuss their approach. But April stuck his phaser back into its holster and stepped ahead. “Admiral!” 

April ignored him. The harsh industrial lighting gleamed off his bald head as he walked straight into the center of the cavern that yawned open in front of them. 

Kirk hissed, “Admiral!” He glanced despairingly behind him, back into the safety of the dark tunnel, and froze. A shadowy figure emerged from behind them. Spock slid between Kirk and the figure, drawing his phaser in one subtle, fluid motion. Kirk drew his own, pressing his shoulder to Spock’s, turning sideways to cover their backs as his heartbeat picked up. From the corner of his eye he could see the shadow of movement of others along the perimeter of the cavern, circling them. 

“The admiral,” he murmured to Spock, and he felt, more than he saw, Spock’s answering nod. No one had fired on April yet, or even acknowledged his appearance in the room, and he was looking around at whatever he could see from his central position, but Kirk could still see movement---

April turned back to them, a curious expression on his face. The figure stepped out of the shadows and into the unforgiving light. 

He was not a miner. 

The world stopped spinning beneath them. Kirk’s heart stopped beating. His blood froze in his veins as he stared at a man in a uniform that he had not seen outside of his nightmares for almost twenty years. The Section 31 agent only spared them one glance as he strode from the tunnel behind them, a box clasped tightly in his gloved hands, and towards April in the center. 

Kirk staggered forward one step, raising his phaser to protect April, to stun the agent---

“Good morning, sir,” the agent said as he passed April, and April inclined his head in greeting before clasping his hands behind his back and turning back to them. Kirk stood frozen, as stuck as if his feet had been cemented to the ground. April’s eyes flicked between Kirk and Spock, who sidled around him now to keep his body between Kirk’s and the agent’s, and he sighed. 

“God damn it. So you both know.” He unclasped his hands to pinch the bridge of his nose between two fingers. The words echoed through Kirk’s head, shattering senselessly against the inside of his brain. April stared down at the ground, hand hiding his expression, before looking back up at them with undisguised grief. 

“I tried everything in my power to keep us from this point,” April said quietly. “And you fought me every step of the way, Kirk. Why couldn’t you stand down?”

April knew. 

April was part of it. April worked for Section 31. As a burning spear of betrayal struck through his stomach, and his heart hammered in his chest, the cold glassy pane of disassociation slid down over Kirk’s thoughts. Spock’s head twitched from side to side next to him, brown eyes assessing the cavern around them, the tunnel they’d left behind. Kirk slowly increased the power on his phaser by one level and gripped it tighter.

“That is not a wise idea, captain,” April said, glancing down at his hands. Kirk’s knuckles were white. Spock moved sideways, putting himself one step ahead of Kirk’s shoulder, his posture sliding from upright and stoic to that of a predator in the span of a heartbeat. Now that they were standing in the light, Kirk could see: a full team of soldiers in those black uniforms, gloved hands passing securely latched boxes from person to person, taking them somewhere beyond the edge of the cavern. “You will be coming with us regardless of your actions, so I recommend that you don’t do anything too brash.” 

“Like hell we will,” Kirk said, and kept his phaser where it was. From over April’s shoulder he could see more soldiers approaching, and one from over Spock’s.

“Disarm them, please,” April said, and the soldier closest to Spock broke into a run. Spock slapped his phaser back into its holster and ran to intercept him. So fast that Kirk could barely track his movement, Spock shoved the man’s phaser-hand upward, grabbed the weapon, and tossed it behind Kirk where it slid up against the wall. He twisted the man’s arm behind his head. When his back was to him, his other hand dropped down onto the crook of his neck and pinched. The man slumped to the ground, incapacitated, and Spock spun with a snarl to the other two soldiers as they approached, more cautiously than the first had. 

April raised one hand, and the two soldiers halted. “Mr. Spock, reports of your pacifism seem to be greatly exaggerated. But I think you’ll find that standing down would be more… logical.” He nodded to Kirk, and Spock’s head snapped to him. They both looked down at the small red dot that had appeared on Kirk’s uniform shirt, hovering over his heart. 

Kirk looked up, past April, and saw a woman across the cavern from him, plasma rifle balanced carefully on a stack of boxes. She nodded in acknowledgement when his eyes found hers before slotting herself back to the sight on the rifle. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Spock,” April said quietly. “But I would recommend putting your weapon and your communicator down.” From across the cavern, Kirk saw the sniper’s shoulders settle. The red dot rested unwaveringly on his chest. Spock’s eyes were trained on it, and Kirk could see that great mind calculating percentages and statistics even before he raised his gaze to meet Kirk’s. 

Spock pulled his comm from his belt and the phaser from the holster before dropping both to the dirt at his feet. 

“Wise,” April commented, as Spock returned to Kirk’s side, angling himself so that the dot of the rifle’s laser sight rested on his shoulder instead of Kirk’s chest. “Yours too, please, captain.” 

Kirk glanced at the laser sight on Spock’s shoulder before pulling his comm and phaser off his belt as well. “What’s going on here, admiral?” His voice sounded very far away, even to his own ears. His phaser and comms hit the dirt with a dull thud, and he nudged them away from him with his foot. 

“Stupid doesn’t suit you, Kirk,” April said softly, and Kirk’s mind snapped back to a subspace call with April two weeks ago, when he had said that he was taking Spock away, that he was sending Spock to another ship---

“Come with me,” April said, and turned over his shoulder. “I’ll tell you as much as I can.” Kirk and Spock exchanged a glance, and he knew they were in agreement. They followed April through the cavern and stuck close to each other. By Kirk’s count, there were a few over twenty Section 31 agents milling through the cavern, disappearing into and reappearing from the tunnels that dotted the larger room. Two of them hefted the one that Spock had pinched over their shoulders and vanished with him down another tunnel straight ahead. 

“You are both acquainted with Section 31,” April said. “But do either of you know what its actual purpose is?”

“I hypothesized that it was primarily dedicated to research,” Spock said, and he glanced at Kirk; Kirk nodded. Yes, that was the best option; keep April talking, get him to explain as much as they could while they sought another way out. 

“That’s not untrue,” April said, and nodded to the scurrying agents as they shuttled those locked boxes deeper into the tunnels. No one spared them a glance, but Kirk was viciously gratified to see that no one was willing to pass within two meters of Spock. “But it does go a little broader than that. The Federation needs a variety of tools to protect the interest of its citizens and ensure that actors like the Klingons are not able to interfere with our affairs. Starfleet, as a whole, is a hammer, and to you, everything looks like a nail. 31 is a scalpel.” April glanced at them, and his hand rested on his phaser, as if they needed a reminder of who currently held the power. 

“I do not understand your analogies, admiral. Please speak plainly,” Spock said, but the badly disguised anger in the set of his shoulders said that he very much did. 

“Starfleet, and starships and their captains, tend to be loud and flashy. 31 is able to act with more subtlety, more… finesse. Part of its value comes from being able to operate without public scrutiny. 31 conducts research, develops technology, and asks questions, same as the VSA.” He nodded at Spock, as if they were now speaking the same language, and a minute muscle in Spock’s jaw twitched as if he were offended by the comparison. “But when something goes wrong, something that gives our enemies the opportunity to take advantage of a weakness, 31 is the best tool for mitigating that damage.”

April gestured around at them, at the contingent of individuals in black uniforms. “Dextrum wasn’t beholden to our labor laws, because it wasn’t a Federation company. When the conflict first broke out, there was a possibility that we would both lose our investment and face backlash on a galactic level from working with an organization that treated its workers like this. Section 31 was called in to make sure that, at the very least, we got the dilithium we paid for.” 

“But we weren’t supposed to be here,” Kirk burst out. His fury was heavy on his tongue. 

“Who is we, captain?” April asked, bemused. “You were not supposed to be here. I tried to keep you and Spock from ever seeing this at all. But then you answered that call for help, the one that was never supposed to have been sent, and I couldn’t stop you.” 

They entered a tunnel, not as narrow as the first but still smaller than the cavern behind, and April strode ahead while Kirk and Spock walked shoulder to shoulder. For one second, in the darkness, Kirk grabbed onto Spock’s hand and squeezed, and Spock squeezed back. Then they reemerged into the light and he released his grip. 

“Admiral,” Spock said, as he looked around at the lofty cavern around them, and the telescoping ladder leaning against the wall on the far side of the space. “Please clarify why you are willing to share this information now, when you would not before.” 

For a second, Kirk watched as a muscle ticked in April’s neck, as he heard a soft clicking as April’s throat closed, as April turned his face away from them both. When he turned back again, even as his face remained neutral his eyes revealed his grief. 

“You two never should have been allowed to serve on the same ship,” he said. “Regardless of what Pike thought of your potential together. I said the risks were too high, but others were so convinced that a Vulcan would never befriend humans that they were willing to ignore it.” April’s voice was profanely gentle when he continued. “Sometimes it felt like I was the only one who remembered S’chn T’gai Michael Burnham, and that she had been human.” 

Spock’s eyes widened. 

“I tried to separate you before it was too late,” April said, and his voice hoarsened. He pressed his hand against his sternum and closed his eyes for a second longer than normal. He clenched his jaw as his eyebrows pulled together. “But your damned Vulcan telepathy… the link to the ambassador, to Amanda Grayson, and to T’Pau, who already didn’t trust us…” April hissed a breath out through his teeth, and with every second, every secret, the wrinkles of his face and the dark circles under his eyes deepened. “I didn’t want to do this.” 

“Then don’t,” Kirk said. In the space of those two words, he finally understood how Madeleine and Natalya had heard the unsaid threat in the auditorium on Tarsus. He felt the same burning clarity in his bones as he turned to Spock, felt electric fear skittering along his skin like lightning. Spock was turning to him, his apprehension plain in his beautiful brown eyes, reaching one long hand out for him, when April said, voice tight, “Make it look like an accident.” 

Kirk heard the whine of a charging phaser behind him. He was standing in the auditorium on Tarsus, next to Tommy and the littles. He was standing in the cavern, hundreds of feet below the surface of Kindinos. He was standing in front of Spock on their wedding night as Spock reached out to take his hands. 

“No,” he said, and he snatched Spock’s outstretched hand and yanked as hard as he could. The cavern lit up with the light of phaser fire. Spock stumbled against him, his breath leaving him in a rush as he collided with Kirk’s chest. They both rocked backwards. Kirk wrapped his arms around Spock and spun them both, Spock’s feet clumsy and dragging beneath them. Spock was warm in his arms. His breath brushed Kirk’s ear.

Kirk’s hand was warm and wet when he pulled it away from Spock’s back. He looked down over the planes of Spock’s shoulder to see green coating his palm. 

“No,” he said again, and something vital inside him shattered. “No, hey, Spock, look at me. Look at me.” 

From somewhere very far away, he heard an unfamiliar voice say, “Should I fire again?” April responded, “No. It’s just a matter of time. Leave them be, but grab Kirk before we take off.” 

Spock leaned heavily against him, head resting on his shoulder, and his voice was low and weak as he breathed, “Captain.” His knees buckled. Kirk lowered them both to the ground, taking as much of Spock’s weight as he could, holding him close in an awful parody of intimacy. Spock slid sideways as he lost his balance, and Kirk caught his head in his hand before it could hit the ground. Spock’s hair was silky against his palm, but the blood on Kirk’s hands dampened the strands and made them stick to each other. It smudged against his forehead and drew little green lines over his skin. He coughed, sprawled on the ground where he lay, legs bent beneath him. The only things Kirk could feel were the weight of Spock’s head in his hand and the hard earth beneath his knees. Spock’s face was too pale, and his eyes were glassy as he looked up at Kirk bending over him. 

“Captain,” Spock said, and he lifted one shaking hand to Kirk’s face. 

“No,” Kirk said again, and ripped what was left of Spock’s shirt open. The phaser fire had torn through Spock’s chest, entering from the left side of his back and exiting near his sternum. The smell of burning skin turned his stomach, but he forced himself to look. It felt like one of his nightmares, but he couldn’t wake himself up. “It’s not so bad, see? It’s not so bad.” It was worse. The phaser had been set to kill, and it had seared Spock open. But, Kirk realized, as Spock’s cold hand landed unsteadily on his neck, that if he hadn’t pulled Spock towards him it would have gone straight through his spine and heart. 

“Jim,” Spock said, and coughed again. There was a speck of green at the corner of Spock’s mouth, and Kirk wiped it away with his thumb. 

“Hush,” he said. “You’re going to be fine.” He knelt over Spock, hands fluttering uselessly over the expanse of burned skin and wishing that he were Bones, and realized in horror that he could see Spock’s ribs inside his body. They rose and fell with his unsteady breathing. Spock’s hand groped for his and clasped it. 

“My Jim.” Spock coughed. “Ashayam.” The Vulcan word slid like water, like blood, off his tongue, and Kirk’s eyes burned hot with tears as he remembered in a flash that first morning, sitting across from Spock in the mess, teasing Spock, watching him drink his tea as they planned their fake relationship. Beloved. Beloved. Beloved. He pressed their joined hands to his chest and leaned over him. Something dug into his stomach. 

Something hard and metallic was digging into his stomach. 

“You’re gonna be okay, honey, I promise,” Kirk said, and he reached one hand inside his shirt to pull out Scotty’s experimental comm. Spock’s eyes followed his hand lazily, and he shook his head. 

“No, captain,” he said, and his voice was weak. “Use it for yourself…” He trailed off as his chest spasmed, and he coughed wetly. His blood seeped into the dirt beneath him, staining his shirt and Kirk’s pants.

“Absolutely not,” Kirk said fiercely, and he flipped the comm open in the space beside Spock’s body and his knees. Within it was one single red button. He pressed it.

Nothing happened. He slid it into the remains of Spock’s mangled shirt, where it rested on his stomach, and redoubled his grasp on Spock’s hand. “Hold on,” he said. “Scotty will get you out.” He had never prayed so hard for something to be true. 

Spock’s eyes were trained on his face, as if he were memorizing the lines of it. “Why?” 

“You have to ask?” Kirk shook his hand lightly before pressing it against his chest again, and slid his hand over Spock’s forehead, through his hair, smoothing it back away from his face. “I promised to keep you and protect you, didn’t I?” Kirk’s voice shook. Spock’s unfocused eyes searched his, but his eyelids were drooping.

Was it Kirk’s imagination, or was Spock starting to dissolve? 

“For better and for worse, against all dangers, as long as I live,” Kirk said. The edges of Spock’s body softened, glowing golden with the molecular confusion of a transporter lock, and Kirk half-laughed as tears threatened to spill down his cheeks. Scotty, that mad beautiful genius. Kirk was going to owe him and Giotto whatever they wanted for the rest of their lives, assuming that he made it out in one piece. 

Beloved. Beloved. Beloved. Spock’s eyes were locked on him, the warm brown that he had come to cherish over every other color, and he ran one hand over Spock’s cheek. 

“I love you,” he said. “You’re my best friend, and my husband, and I want you to be both of those things for the rest of my life.” 

Spock’s eyes refocused, hardening as he started to vibrate entirely into gold. Kirk heard someone from behind him yell out, but there was nothing that they could do to him now. The only thing that mattered was that Spock would be safe, that Bones would fix him, that he wouldn’t die here, bleeding out on the cold stone floor. 

“I will come back for you, ashayam,” Spock said, voice harsh with the blood in his throat. Kirk kissed the back of Spock’s hand and laid it gently on Spock’s stomach. Then he sat back on his heels and watched in heartstopping relief as Spock shimmered entirely out of his vision and disappeared, leaving behind only the green bloodstain on the dusty stone floor. 

April roared, “What did you do?” 

“Protected my husband,” Kirk said, and he grinned ruthlessly at April from where he knelt on the ground. April frowned down at him before nodding sharply. 

From behind him a phaser whined and discharged, and the world around him vanished into blackness before he had even hit the ground.

☆☆☆

Kirk’s face pressed against something cold and metallic. He could feel the rumbling of an engine reverberating through his cheekbone, rattling his skull and intensifying what was the beginning of a splitting headache. His hands were tied behind his back, and he lay facedown on his stomach. Behind him, he could hear murmured conversation; one deep and familiar voice, and an unfamiliar one. Where the hell was he? 

April’s voice said, “Thank you. Dismissed.” His heavy footsteps rang against the floor, and Kirk felt each footfall through his bones. 

April had fooled them, betrayed them. Someone had hurt Spock. And now, he was… where, exactly? The feel of the engine and the faint recycled smell of the air told him he was on a shuttle, but with no idea how long he had been out and no comm device to use for coordinates, he was lost. But Spock had gotten out. The Enterprise had beamed him aboard. That was what mattered. 

April sat down somewhere in the vicinity of Kirk’s shoulders and sighed. Then he said, “Are you awake yet, captain?” 

Kirk stayed still, weighing his options. He could pretend to be out still and wait until April left, or he could reveal his consciousness and see if he could get April to talk again. Any information would help him at this point. 

He lifted his head, peeling his cheek painfully from the metal floor, and turned his head to look April’s way. “April,” he said, as coldly as he could manage. He thought he could be forgiven for abandoning his decorum at a time like this. 

“I am sorry, for what it’s worth,” April said, and Kirk snorted. But April looked awful. His eyes were sunken in his face, dark circles beneath them, and the muscles of his face looked like he had forgotten what smiling was long ago. He met April’s eyes.

The other man shifted forward out of his seat and rolled Kirk onto his side before pushing him upright and retreating to his bench seat again. There was a secured stack of cases behind Kirk, and he leaned back against them, stretching his legs out in front of him. He was definitely on a shuttle--- a small one, by the width of the room they were in--- and the stars passed by the window over April’s shoulder at sublight speed.

April studied him for a minute before sighing again. “I knew this was going to end badly for you the day that you fought me to keep Spock. You should have let him go.” 

Kirk resisted the urge to spit at him, but it was a close thing. He felt like a caged animal. It was only the restraint of his hands tied behind his back that kept him from throttling April. April, who had ordered the shot that had sprayed Spock’s lungs over the shirt that he still wore, who had pulled those horrible gasping breaths out of him as Kirk lowered him to the ground--- but he couldn’t think about Spock and that wound right now, or he would crumble. He pushed his thoughts behind the wall in his mind and focused on what was around him, before him. 

“I was never going to do that,” Kirk said. “Not if he didn’t want to go.” 

“So you married him?” April dragged one hand over his face. “I had hoped that it was all a ruse, just another one of your Corbomite maneuvers to outbluff me--- but. I do have eyes, after all. As soon as you responded to the distress call, I received my orders.” 

“And what orders were those?” 

“To make you my strategic extraction,” April said. He dropped his hands into his lap. “31 wants you, captain.” 

Kirk laughed once, harshly. It grated on his throat. “I will never work for you. I wouldn’t have done it before, and I’m certainly not going to do it now.”

“Because we hurt Mr. Spock?” 

“Because you hurt my husband,” Kirk snarled, leaning forward, and was gratified by April’s nervous twitch.

“I understand your reticence, captain, but your consent is not required.” 

“Is that so? Are you going to track down Spock and put a phaser to his head every time you need something from me?” 

April watched the stars go by the window over Kirk’s head for a minute before he said, “The solution is a little more elegant than that, and one that I believe you are already acquainted with.” 

A cold line of fear dripped into Kirk’s stomach--- a method of forcing his hand that he was already acquainted with? What the hell could that mean? The door at the head of the room slid open, and a woman in the black 31 uniform walked in. 

“Docking in thirty seconds, admiral,” she said, and he nodded at her before she disappeared back into what seemed to be the cockpit of the shuttle. 

“I’m sure she’ll show you soon enough,” April said, and stood. He vanished through the door to the cockpit, leaving Kirk alone in the back of the shuttle. He staggered to his feet immediately, shoving himself upright as quickly as he could with his arms still bound. He pressed his face against the window, trying to see where they were docking---

A huge ship appeared out of the darkness before him as the shuttle swung around. It was nearly as big as the Enterprise, but a newer, unfamiliar design--- it was sleeker, and darker. To Kirk, it looked unfriendly. There were no numbers or names tagged onto the ship anywhere that he could see, but it was built in the same styles as other Federation ships. It grew larger and larger in the tiny window before the shuttle was entirely swallowed by the ship and the view was replaced by the docking bay. 

The turbodoor slid open and Kirk shifted backwards, tensing. April stepped back in. 

“Got a look at the ship, did you?” His voice was jovial enough, though it seemed like all of the little light remaining had left his eyes. “She’s gorgeous, and almost brand new. You might come to like her, after a time.” 

“Somehow I doubt that,” Kirk said. “I’m a one-ship man, myself.” 

April held his eyes, and there was nothing in his face of the man who had been on the Enterprise, harassing his crew, just days before. He was still flesh and bone, but the spirit had fled somewhere between Kindinos and this ship. 

For a moment Kirk held his eyes, and April’s jaw worked, throat tensing, until he pressed a hand to his mouth and turned away. When he turned back, whatever he had wanted to say was gone. 

“If you’d follow me, captain,” April said, and gestured in front of him. “There is someone who wants to see you.” 

“I can’t shake any hands if you don’t untie me,” Kirk said as he passed. He got an eyeful of the cockpit as he stepped through it and down onto the runner along the shuttle. It looked like those on the Enterprise. If he could somehow steal one, he could fly it. 

“We won’t think any less of you if you forget your manners,” April said, and followed him down. Kirk stepped down onto the shuttle bay floor and looked around him in abject awe. The hangar was enormous--- bigger than even the Engineering department on the Enterprise. There were six shuttles resting along the runway, two recently landed with crew streaming out of them, and room for more. An entire contingent of people in 31 blacks scuttled around: working on shuttles, or passing by on catwalks overhead, or flowing in and out of the doors dotted around the hangar. 

“Where’d you get the money for a ship like this?” Kirk wondered out loud. 

April smiled slightly, a horrible rictus, and said, “I can be very convincing when I need to be.” He walked towards one of the larger doors leading into the depths of the ship, and the shuttle navigator prodded Kirk forward with her drawn phaser. He followed April, memorizing the layout of the hangar and the catwalks above him as best he could. Maybe he could break his restraints and steal a shuttle. Maybe he could steal a comms unit and get Uhura’s attention on some radio frequency, somehow. Maybe he could---

The large door before them slid open, and the first thing he noticed was the shine of fluorescent lights on steel gray hair. A woman strode towards him and April, flanked by a retinue of Section 31 officers, and Kirk knew her. Her hair had been blonde, and her skin once had fewer wrinkles, but Kirk knew her: he knew her twinkling eyes and heart-shaped face and gentle posture. His feet stopped moving involuntarily. His hands went numb behind his back as he stared at her. 

“Captain James Kirk,” Elise Darling called, and her voice was just as it had always been; warm and inviting and utterly undeniable. “Oh, I always knew that you were going to be special. Welcome to the headquarters of Section 31.” 

[wcrpbubble]

❝ i’m not gonna let anything happen to you. ❞ picard to bev

her stomach is in knots and it feels like a stone has lodged into the pit of her belly. it's not a pleasant feeling, but it reminds her she's still human at least. she isn't afraid of what lies ahead - she's afraid of it not working. there are so many variables and the scientific part of her could point out that it increases the danger beyond measure, but she's trying not to think about that. in a few hours, everything could be over.

beverly is dressed out of standard uniform; she's in an all black ensemble, hair pulled back into a tight bun. with careful precision, data has been attaching pieces of borg tech to her stealth suit and her skin; the stark contrast of the grey against her pale skin makes her a bit uneasy. it isn't connected in any way to her body, only placed in certain points to mimic an assimilated borg. it's inert and there's no chance of it turning against her which is a small comfort; still, the metal feels cold against her hands, her temple. they're meant to emit the same registrations any borg tech would, therefore disguising her as human. as long as she doesn't provoke the hive so to speak, she shouldn't be detected. the metaphasic shielding geordi had rushed is still unknown; they've barely had time to test it. it should afford her time, at the very least, if things go sideways.

she is desperately hoping things do not go sideways.

she flexes her fingers, watching the borg tech move with her every motion. slung around her waist is a utility belt with several hyposprays loaded with the virus, as well as a phaser; it'll be her only defense and she's just fine with it - a phaser rifle would only slow her down. she needs to move quickly, efficiently. there won't be much time once everything kicks off.

"your false implants are transmitting borg signatures correctly." data says matter-of-factly. "it should not be detectable as a disguise for some time. i've confirmed the installation of the metaphasic shielding into your communications badge; simply touch twice to engage it - though i suggest only as a last resort as it is still currently unstable."

"thank you, data." beverly gives the ghost of a smile. "can you check in with geordi, make sure there's nothing else we're missing?"

not that she doesn't trust geordi to be two steps ahead with the torpedos, the shielding for the ship - he'd floated the idea of trying to extend the transporter lock range for a brief period of time, but she's had no confirmation. at any rate, data leaves and beverly's facade slips a fraction of an inch. she pushes off the edge of the biobed she'd been sitting on, trying to pretend the borg tech strapped to her is nothing more than a costume, nothing more than what she'd wear for a play. it doesn't make it any easier to see.

"i know." beverly replies to jean-luc softly, checking her belt once more to ensure she has everything. it's nervous energy she has no outlet for. "if it were anyone else i'd be terrified i'm walking into a death sentence." and frankly, she still might be. but she trusts jean-luc and his promise to her, to keep her safe, to bring her back in one piece. beverly intends to do what she can to ensure her own safety of course, but the borg are her top priority. the queen herself.

"just promise me you'll have one hell of a sizeable romulan ale waiting for me when i get back."

@nebulaties

[pkmndaisuki]

Ok so apologies if anyone else has done this, but i wanted to go over what Star Trek-related easter eggs were in Thanks to Them i could identify!

First off, the name of the Star Trek analog being "Cosmic Frontier" comes from the opening lines of the show: "Space: the final frontier", which is a nice nod on its own.

But then Gus tells us the names of a few characters: Captain Avery, Security Officer Quando, and Chief Engineer O'Bailey.

Captain Avery is likely named not for a character but an actor, Avery Brooks. He played Commander (later Captain) Sisko on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (which, like Cosmic Frontier is revealed to be, was written and aired in the 1990s). For extra significance, Brooks was the first male black lead in a Star Trek series, so I love that that's the character Gus wanted to be.

Security Officer Quando isn't given much besides the name, but their name sounds like a call back to Quark and Odo, two characters also from DS9, and Odo was the head of security.

Chief Engineer O'Bailey is clearly named for Chief Engineer Miles O'Brien, originally a Star Trek: The Next Generation character that was moved to DS9.

The story of O'Bailey being a clone from an enemy planet does of course lean into Hunter's own story, but someone in a Star Trek series wanting to hide their past due to ties to an antagonist isn't that uncommon. In fact, DS9's Odo is part of an alien species that winds up as the primary antagonists near the end of the series, though, like Hunter, Odo is unaware of his origins for most of his life.

While Cosmic Frontier does seem to borrow the most from DS9, there are nods to other Star Trek shows as well.

The guy on the front cover is a clear charicature of Captain Kirk of the original series, O'Bailey in appearance looks like part Borg which originated in TNG, the plot of the crew trying to find a way home comes from Star Trek: Voyager, and the cosplay props in the basement closet have a TON of references on their own.

First off, this wig in the corner with the antennae is probably a nod to the Andorians, a species introduced in TOS and later revisited in prequel shows Enterprise, Discovery, and Brave New World.

This one might be a bit of stretch but this mask reminded me of Dr. Phlox from ENT, mostly in the general shape of the face and hair.

One especially niche nod, but as an animation nerd I love, is the pink armor. In Star Trek: The Animated Series (made by Filmation in the 1970s), one of the color artists was partially colorblind so he mistook the greyish gold armor of the Klingons of TOS for this purplish pink color. (That discrepancy is also why the usually brown Tribbles were also pink in TAS.)

Manny Noceda having a cosplay of a character named Circuit calls to mind the TNG character Data

The ship looks sort of like an upside-down Enterprise, and the emblem on the commemorative cups looks like the Starfleet logo.

Then of course Hunter and Gus' cosplay outfits are a blend of multiple ST uniforms. The color schemes of TNG/DS9/VOY-era with the primary colors and black split, even having the insignia over the heart like the com-badges.

Even the belts are callbacks to where crewmembers would keep Tricorder scanners and Phasers.

I love the love that the crew clearly put in these nods and references, and it's just neat to see more sci-fi elements in the much more classic-fantasy inspired show.

[chernobog13]

Admiral James T. Kirk, modeling the much-maligned uniform footie-pajamas Starfleet personnel were wearing at the time of Star Trek The Motion Picture (1979).

Another complaint justifiably leveled at these uniforms were the muted, bland color schemes used.  I remember reading that someone in the production (I don’t remember who) had stated that the primary uniform colors used in TOS would be too bright and garish for the big screen.

I do like the two-tone uniform pictured above, although I wish the grey had been switched out with something a little livelier.

A tidbit for those who might not have been aware: that belt buckle device is not a Type-1 phaser (like I originally thought).  It’s actually a life signs monitor that continuously updates the wearer’s condition and location to the ship’s computer.  It’s functions, along with the communicator, would be incorporated inside the Starfleet insignia badge by the time of TNG.

[makeallthingsyours]

I have drawn a one-page comic, set in an alternate universe, where, around the time TOS is set, the Federation is attacked by a powerful enemy, that destroys and conquers everything in their path. Faced with this, Vulcans have to make a decision.

This is different from my ussual posts, but I hope you enjoy it. Live Long and Prosper.

Text and description:

1)[a panel of plain text] The Federation has been attacked by an enemy that does not respect life. They are vicious and kill without remorse. Many planets have fallen. Negotiations were futile. T'Pau, Matriarch of all Vulcan, announces to her people, the state of things.

2) [disc shaped spacecrafts attack a planet]

"We were attacked without a warning."

3)[four individuals of different species, dressed in formal clothes] "Negotiators were sent"

4)[same individuals, with their faces crossed]

"And lost."

5)[a planet, with its surface burned]

"Some planets were razed."

6)[pieces of rock floating in space]

"Some reduced to rubble."

7)[Armed soldiers, in spacesuits that cover their faces, approach a house. A city burns in the background.]

"Some were conquered, their people treated as cattle."

8)[T'Pau on a platform, with an auditorium around. There are two incense cauldrons behind her.]

"Hear me, people of Vulcan!"

"Our world is in danger, as are all the worlds to which we had sworn our loyalty as allies!"

9) [A close up on T'Pau's eyes.]

"We remembered the teachings of Surak, we offered them peace, and after they murdered our messengers we offered them peace again, but the enemy we face today does not believe in peace!"

10) [T'Pau on the podium. The cauldrons are slightly smoking.]

"Their only resolve is for all of us to be killed!And this is a price for peace which we will not accept!"

"I stand before you, people of Vulcan, to give you the announcement of what was decided when the enemy decided to destroy us!"

11) [The shot gets closer. The cauldrons begin to burn.]

"Today, Vulcan is at war!"

"We are at war!"

12) [A far shot with the auditorium visible.]

"I will not ask you to kill, for whatever we do, we may perish the same, but I do ask you to have courage!"

13)[Amanda, Sarek, Spock, Michael and several other people stand on a balcony in the auditorium.]

"So even if we die,"

14)[T'Pring and Stonn watch a holoprojection of the speech. He has his arm around her.]

"it shall be remembered,"

15)[Several people watch the projection on screens in a public place.]

"that Vulcan died unafraid!"

16) [And adult Andorian hugging a child while a masked soldier approached them with a weapon.]

"And if you choose to fight, when you shall take up your arms remember that you fight not only for yourself,"

17)[A galaxy from afar.]

"but for every being in this galaxy! For their very existence! "

18)[T'Pau close up, with a determined expression. The cauldrons burn intensely. ]

"We are warriors!"

19)[Three panels: A middle aged Vulcan touches a weapon on the wall, then passes a sword to a teenager, the teenager dressed themselves in armor with the sword at their belt.]

"We layed our weapons down to ensure our survival, and for survival we shall now bear them again!"

20)[A disc shaped spacecraft blown up by phaser.]

"We shall fight with fire"

21)[a bloodied lirpa]

"and steel,"

22)[Kolinahru standing in a ring, holding hands.]

" and thought!"

23)[Three Romulans, a man in a military uniform, a woman in a military uniform and a woman in a loose civilian dress watch the holoprojection together. The women are holding hands.]

"And our brothers who march beneath Raptor's wings will fight along our side!"

24) [Six panels, each with a close up of a formally dressed Vulcan.]

"I speak to you, peers of the High Court,"

"give the sign to your people! "

"Give them the yon'savas to mark their faces!"

25) [Close up of T'Pau. The cauldrons behind her burn with tall, intense flames.]

"Let it be known for all times!"

"To face us is to face defeat!!"

[spacefruitpress]

As seen in our anthology Binary Stars, What the Empress Wants by Daisy Fairchild is a sassy, sexy, sapphic romance set in the far reaches of interstellar space.

Get your copy today!

The Empress frowned, a delicate wrinkle of the royal brow. “I don’t recognize you.” She was the most perfect creature Hylbe had ever seen. Her plump, pale arms and moon-shaped face glowed in the dim light. Her bare, full breasts were subtly perfumed and undergirded with a heavily embroidered corset, while diaphanous skirts swirled around her broad hips. A faint flush painted her round cheeks, and her eyes gleamed with sharp intelligence above a disapproving mouth. Hylbe looked away. She wasn’t certain of the details of Ehk’sorki protocol, but it was usually a safe bet not to move or speak until the noble in question bade you. A regal sigh came from above her. “A kidnapping? How tedious.” Hylbe froze in place. There must be some protocol, some detail she had missed. She moved her hand slowly to the phaser hidden in her belt, letting the touch of the metal comfort her as she lifted her gaze slowly from the floor. The Empress was bustling around the room, sweeping jewelry and baubles into a large bag. As Hylbe watched, she set down the bag and draped a heavy m’nool fur cloak around herself. The hood covered her gauzy green veil, making her seem utterly alien, as unreachable as the mountain peaks on W’run-tigoth as she shoved her feet into sturdy, jewel-studded slippers. “Well?” the Empress prompted impatiently, a sharp look on her refined features. “Get up, then. Are you kidnapping me or not?

spacefruitpress.com

[oldwickedsongs]

Trektober 2023: Hiding Injuries

Who: Chris Pike and Gabriel Lorca

Gabriel Lorca was home.

Almost five years and a whole other universe away- surrounded by Terran duplicity and horrors later; Gabriel Lorca, last of the USS Buran was finally home.

At least physically he was. The Starfleet captain had returned (with his shield, he claimed gruffly and barked out a laugh although Chris saw no cause for humor) and stood before them all as hardy and hale as any of them had been after the Klingon war.

He stood proud too, his features frozen hard against the curious and frightened looks the crew gave him as he followed Chris to the guest quarters. Chris knew better then to compare the memories of who he knew Gabe to be to the leather clad, dark eyed man beside him, but he couldn’t help himself. He needed him to be back; to still be himself despite whatever had gone on in that world.

Because if Gabriel could come back from there, perhaps he could from Boreth.

“Infants.” Gabriel finally broke the silence and the word was spat out like a curse. Lorca had his back to the wall of the tubro lift and his hand kept dropping to his belt for want of a knife or phaser, and his eyes shut against the brightness (M’Benga said it was only psychosomatic and would pass in time- that too, Chris wanted to believe.) “I can’t believe we were ever that young. Or naïve.”

There was something else too, Chris saw or thought he saw, in his ex lover’s eyes. A deep, swallowing longing that reminded Chris of a ghost; as if Gabriel saw something he had been once in those crewmembers and could never be again. He must have felt like a shadow then. A relic from the war and a universe that passed him by.

Chris swallowed against the feeling of dread that crept up from his gut. This was something new; since Boreth and mostly, he’d gotten it under control: that feeling of the walls closing in on him and encasing him in a box, the way panic snatched at his throat and took his voice and-

“You okay, Chris?” Gabriel’s voice sliced through the artificial tin of the lift as they stopped on their floor. He was there in that moment, the Gabe he knew- eyes full of concern and compassion. “What’s wrong?”

How to tell him, he thought. How to explain what he’d seen and where he’d be in a few years’ time…

“…nothing.” He managed. “Just…lost in time.”

[idol--hands]

[raddocwrites]

SNW drabbles

Fab Five

“What is it?” una asked, all business once more.

“Looks like an old asteroid belt,” ortegas offered first, scanning her own monitors.

“But im getting some weird readings,” uhura started when the shuttle shook alarmingly.

Unas eyebrow rose. “Weird how-“

“Ion storm developing off the starboard nacelles,” ortegas shouted out over the hiss of sudden static. “Attempting to-“

They all slammed forward as their shuttle rocked. “Report!” una called out.

Ortegas fingers flew over the helm flinging them elegantly through space but the forces raging against the hull did not abate. “It seems to be following us,” she exclaimed.

“Theres something unnatural about this storm,” uhura shouted as the shuttle shook and jolted. “Critical systems are shutting down!” Sparks and smoke started to fill the cabin.

La’an sat at the tactical console frantically scanning for an enemy, something to attack or defend against. But there was nothing.

“Warning. Life support offline,” the monotone voice of the computer managed to break through the noise of the chaos.

La’an shared an alarmed look with una, already unbuckling her safety harness. This was bad. And there was nothing natural about it. She quickly turned and stumbled towards the back weapons locker. She crashed into it and managed to input the code on the third attempt. Grabbing as many as she could carry, she lurched towards the others. “Arm yourselves,” she instructed as she thrust a phaser at una.

She shoved one at chapel who took it without hesitation and staggered forward towards ortegas and uhura. Before she could hand off the remaining weapons, their entire craft shuddered alarmingly. La’an was tossed off her feet and slammed into the floor.

She heard the cries of the others as they were flung around violently. They still had their harnesses engaged, but uhura had been leaning forward and smashed her head against the console. She slumped limply in the seat.

La’an blinked and tried to breathe. For several seconds she thought it was just the wind knocked out of her. But then she noticed everyone else gasping for breath as well. She sucked in and desperately tried to fill her screaming lungs and failed. Clenching her fingers, she searched through the chaos and met unas eyes. They were like an ancient lighthouse guiding sailors to safety in violent storms, always there, guiding her home. To safety. To una. She openened her mouth to say something, but darkness took her first.

Una saw la’an crash into the deck and uhura bash her head against the console. She frantically tried to undo her safety harness but the damn thing was jammed. “La’an!” she called out. She jerked uselessly at the straps and anxiously scanned the others around her. They were quickly losing consciousness.

Una flicked her gaze back to La’an plastered on the floor of the shuttle. They shared a moment of dread, of hope, of all the things, before la’ans eyes rolled back and she sagged.

Una knew she only had moments more before the lack of oxygen overwhelmed her as well. The last thing she saw was a tractor beam pulling their abused shuttle towards a massive asteroid.

[shsy7573]

We’re in this Together - Ch. 1

For more info or chapter index, see overview post

DISCLAIMER: I do not own own Voyager or any of the characters in this fic (except for the aliens. Those were my creation.)

*This story is not beta-read and has not been edited or proof-read in any way! This was just something I threw together over the past three days and decided to post as my first entry on this site!*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CHAPTER ONE

“Captains log, stardate 50658.85. Lt. Torres and I’s shuttle just touched down on a small, M-Class planet. Scans show that the surface contains limited amounts of dilithium, and B’Elanna suggested it would be a good idea to harvest some. While we’re here, Voyager has headed off on a diplomatic mission to the homeworld of a species that controls this sector of space. The planet is located approximately two light years from here, so if all goes well, we’ll be meeting up with them in about a week.”

As the shuttle craft engines whirred to a halt, Captain Janeway joined her Chief Engineer in the hull. Over the next week, the two would be spending a lot of time together. While both parties weren’t too keen on being cramped in a shuttlecraft for that long, it would be a nice chance to get to know each other more. The Captain intended to make the most of it. 

“Ready to get a move on, Lieutenant?”

B’Elanna looked up from where she had been collecting her mining equipment. “Aye, Captain. According to the shuttle’s scans, there’s a pocket of dilithium not far from here. Unfortunately with all the uneven terrain, this was as close as I could get us.”

Janeway smiled, grabbing a tricorder, a phaser, and an equipment belt. “Well then, I hope you don’t mind walking.” She remarked, tossing a phaser to the half-klingon.

B’Elanna rolled her eyes, smiling, and the two set off in search of the crystalline material.

-

As the duo approached a small stone butte, both women's tricorders started going crazy. Exchanging a glance, they each split up, going separate ways around the rockface. Several spike-like pillars jutted out of the ground around and atop the butte, making navigation slightly difficult.

While the Captain tried to locate the dilithium’s source, she was distracted by a strange scuttling sound coming from behind her. Quickly, she spun around, putting her tricorder into the belt, and pointing her phaser towards the source of the sound.

Her gaze fell upon a small tunnel opening at the base of the hillock. Emerging from the gap was one of the… strangest things the Captain had ever seen. It was humanoid, with long slender legs covered with some sort of legging-like material. The legs seemed to be the only part of the alien that was covered. That, however, wasn’t what shocked her. Because instead of arms, this creature had four spider-like limbs sprouting from its shoulders and shoulder blades. The two front appendages had hands attached at the end, however the limbs coming from the shoulder blades ended in sharp, menacing pinchers. There were four, yellow eyes on the creature. Two large ones located on the typical place for a humanoid, and two smaller ones placed in the centre of the face, not too far above the first pair. Instead of lips, this creature had the mouth of a spider, with long curved fangs extending from the dark flesh. The rest of its body seemed relatively normal, with ashen-grey skin and scraggly black hair.

Long story short, it was horrifying. Each of its eyes looked around, apparently trying to find whatever it was that had drawn it from its hole. That’s when its gaze landed on Kathryn. Immediately, it made a surprised hissing noise, scrambling back a step or two despite the fact that Janeway wasn’t even all that close to it.

The Captain held her hands up, phaser pointed at the sky now. The creature tilted its head as she spoke. “My name is Captain Janeway, of the Federation Starship Voyager. If you can understand me, I promise you, I come in peace.”

A strange clicking sound began to emit from the creature’s throat as it took a few weary steps forward. Although it was difficult, Janeway could make out the tones of a voice through the harsh sounds.

“I do not know you.”

“I come from a long way away. We are here hoping to use some of your resources. You see, we are lost and are trying to get home.” The Captain explained. She kept her grip firm on the phaser, but still kept it pointed upwards.

The whirred, clattering voice spoke again, it’s one of its right hands reaching out towards Janeway’s face. Crusty, nail-broken fingers drifted across her cheek, and Kathryn did her best not to flinch at the gritty, sandpaper feeling. “You are an outsider.”

Kathryn nodded, smiling a bit. “That’s right.”

“You are not from here. You are not like me…”

The Captain watched as the creature seemed to come to some sort of conclusion. She relaxed a little as it pulled its hand away.

“I’m so glad we could come to an understa—“

“You are food.”

Faster than she had ever seen anything move, the creature lashed out and knocked the phaser out of the Captain’s hand with its hand-ended-arm. It tucked its human legs to its chest, used the spider-like appendages to lunge forward.

In an instant, it was on top of Kathryn, its pincered mouth snapping dangerously close to her face. The Captain let out a yelp of surprise as she grappled with it. All at once she was trying to keep its mouth away from her, while also battling the swiping that was slicing the air dangerously close to her abdomen.

Then, from father down the rock formation came a voice. “Captain!”

A stream of phaser light connected with the alien’s face, and it was thrown off Kathryn and onto the ground. The creature made a loud shrieking noise, and it fell to the ground with a thud. As it tried to scramble back up B’Elanna shot it again, rendering the creature unconscious.

Janeway let out heavy breaths, sitting up as her Chief Engineer ran over.

“Are you alright?” She asked, helping the Captain to her feet.

Kathryn nodded, “I’m fine. It didn’t manage to hurt me at all, thanks to you. Great timing.”

B’Elanna blazed past the praise, obviously frazzled. “What the hell was that thing?! Scans didn’t indicate any life signs on the planet’s surface.”

Janeway shook her head, and nodded towards the hole it had crawled out of. “Something tells me these things don’t live on the surface.”

The half-klingon put her hands on her hips, looking around as if to try and spot any more exit points that the creatures could emerge from. After a moment of collecting her thoughts, she looked back at her Captain. “And you’re sure you’re okay?”

Janeway raised her hands, “I’m alright, promise.” She thought for a moment, before nodding to the engineer, “did you find the dilithium?”

B’Elanna’s eyes lit up at the reminder and she nodded. “Yes, I did. There’s a small vein barely visible on the eastern face of this rock formation. It shouldn’t be too hard to mine out.”

The Captain nodded, “right. Let’s get to it then. I want to be off this planet as soon as possible.”

“Agreed.”

With that, the Captain followed her Chief Engineer towards the dilithium source. On her way out, she made sure to grab her phaser. Something told her she’d be needing it.

-

Harvesting the dilithium took longer than either woman felt comfortable with. With the knowledge of a new threat, neither one wanted to be taken by surprise again. The speed on the creatures had been a shock, and there was no telling when another one might emerge. So they took turns, one would work on extracting the dilithium from the rock face while the other kept watch of their surroundings. Every half-hour or so they would switch.

By the time they had gotten it all and started making their way back to the ship, two hours had passed. It had been a pretty generous amount of the ore, and they decided that would be good enough. They were acutely aware all the pounding would probably draw more creatures to the surface, and they didn’t want to take their chances hunting down another vein.

Just as the shuttle craft came into view, about one hundred feet away, their fears were confirmed. The skittering, scraping sound of many kegs on stone caught both women's attention. The sound was coming from behind them, and it didn’t sound all that far away.

“Run.” Janeway ordered, her voice was eerily calm. Not having to be convinced, B’Elanna and Kathryn both started sprinting towards the shuttlecraft. 

About halfway to the shuttle, a small herd of the spider-aliens came into view behind them. Jumping out from behind the many clusters of rock formations and barreling towards the two star fleet officers. Janeway was able to count seven of them after a couple glances behind her, and they were gaining fast.

Like the other one, when trying to move fast they didn’t use their human legs. Instead, they curled up their body, and used their spider-like appendages to throw themselves across the rocky terrain. It seemed like a pretty effective tactic.

“Captain!” B’Elanna yelled worriedly.

“I know!”

“They’re gaining!”

“We’re almost there! We just have to get to the shuttle!”

Both girls seemed to run even faster. The shuttle was close now, and even though their lungs were burning, Adrenalin spurred them onwards. The terror of being caught by the arachnoids outweighs the pain of sprinting over one hundred feet with a load of dilithium slung over their backs.

They neared the craft, the aliens were dangerously close now. Practically right on their tails. They breaths came in heavy, panicked bursts. The Captain’s heart rammed inside her chest, and the blood rushing through her ears was almost enough to drown out the fear enduring clacking that thundered behind her. As she ran for her life, she prayed on whatever deity controlled the Delta Quadrant that neither of them would trip.

Finally, after what seemed like both hours and milliseconds, each raced into the shuttlecraft. B’Elanna entered first, so Janeway yelled out towards her. “CLOSE THE DOOR!”

B’Elanna slammed her hand down on a control panel as Janeway reached the shuttlecraft, and the door began closing. But not fast enough.

“Fly the shuttle! Get us out of here,” Janeway ordered as she pulled her phaser out. Three of the spider-aliens launched themselves into the air, and slipped through the small gap between the closing door and the rest of the shuttle.

The Captain fired her phaser as the first one landed, hitting it once in the chest, and once in the face. As the alien crumpled to the ground with a shriek, the second one lunged at her. She shot but missed as its hands wrapped around her shoulders and slammed her back towards the front of the shuttlecraft.

“Captain! The aliens on the outside are clinging to the shuttle! I can’t shake them!”

Kathryn yelled in frustration as she kicked the creature off of her. It clung on to the sides of the shuttlecraft with its pinchers, cutting through control panels, shuttle walls and internal wiring as it was flown back. 

“Structural integrity at fifty percent!”

The third spider-alien tried to take a lunge at B’Elanna. The Captain, not having any of it, put herself between the creature and her crew man, sending out a phaser beam that knocked the creature sideways and into the side of the shuttle’s windshield.

She cried out in pain as the other arachnoid’s pinches sank deep into her hips, pulling her back and towards it and tearing through her flesh as it did so. 

“Captain!”

“Keep flying!”

“They’re tearing through the outer hull!”

Janeway twisted in the spider-aliens grip and kicked out, hard. Her heeled boot connected with a sickening crack with the alien’s chin, and it let out an ear piercing shriek. Sensing that its friend was in pain, the other alien recovered from its crash and lunged forward. Its pincers sunk into her arms, clamping down and causing her to cry out in pain. 

“Something’s torn through the impulse engines! We’re starting to descend!”

“Try to level us out!”

“I can’t!”

Gritting her teeth, the Captain ripped her right harm out of the pincer’s grip. A large gash opened up, and blood gushed from the wound, but she didn’t care. As the alien’s hand tried to reach for her phaser, she took the whole of its arm into her grip and twisted as hard as she could.

The creature shrieked, relaxing its grip with the other pincher just enough for her to twist free. The spider-alien with the broken jaw lashed out with one of its limbs, but Janeway was faster this time. She levelled her phaser and sent two quick beams at the beast. One shot the arm just as it was about to slide through her chest, and the other shot it right in the forehead. The creature was sent backwards again, and knocked unconscious.

Suddenly, a pain unlike anything the Captain had ever felt in her life erupted from the back of her left shoulder. It was a cold kind of pain, shooting down her arm and causing her whole body to cramp up. In her deliriousness, it took her a moment to figure out that the remaining alien had bitten her. It’s fangs sinking deep into her flesh and causing her arm to spasm in agony.

The Captain gasped, wrenching her shoulder away, and sending the butt of her phaser right into the alien’s temple. The force of the blow sent it crumpling to the ground, and the Captain fell down right beside it. Her breathing heaved, and her body still twitched from the sensation of the bite.

“Captain, we’re going to crash!”

Janeway hauled herself off the ground with her right arm, tucking her left gingerly into her side as she looked out the windshield. B’Elanna was right. The shuttle was going down. Whatever those aliens had done it had compromised their engines. As she looked on in horror, a dark shadow on the side of a large plateau caught her eye.

“B’Elanna! There, that opening in the cliffside!”

“It’s too small, the outer walls will be completely shredded!”

Kathryn nodded, “and the aliens along with it!”

That’s when Torres seemed to understand the Captain’s plan. Her eyes lit up, and she veered the shuttle steering to direct them towards the tunnel.

“Captain, maybe you should do this! I’m not exactly a fancy flyer like Paris.”

Janeway shook her head, “It’s too late to switch controls now, we’re almost at the opening. I believe in you, B’Elanna! You can do this, you’re more than capable!”

B’Elanna grimaced as they rocketed towards the opening. “We’re about to find out! Brace for impact!”

Both women grit their teeth, gripping hard onto their seats as the shuttle crashed into the cave. The loud, sickening sound of metal scraping against stone filled the hull as the exterior of the shuttle was torn apart. The shuttle rattled violently as it bounced off the floor and ceiling of the tunnel and came to a slow, screeching halt buried inside the tunnel.

Both women sat there for a moment, stunned and shaken as they tried to take in everything that happened. After a moment, B’Elanna looked over at her Captain and gasped hard at the sight.

“Captain! You’re hurt!”

Janeway opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by the sound of weakened, desperate scratching on the shuttle bay door. Apparently the creatures had survived, but their attempts to get inside didn’t seem as effective as they had been on the shuttle’s engines.

“We have to go.” The Captain instructed, forcing herself to her feet. She stumbled over to the side of the shuttle and pulled out two backpacks. Each held two 1L canisters of water, a week’s rations, flashlights, phasers, a fire starter, and tools to set up a homing beacon. “Go get the med kit, and put it in one of these.” She ordered.

Not seeing any choice in arguing, Lt. Torres stood up and made her way across the shuttle hull. The door to the medkit’s buddy had a large gash through it, but when B’Elanna pulled, she found it was still able to be opened. She grabbed the med-kit and stashed it into one of the bags, before throwing the back over her shoulder.

“What about the dilithium?” B’Elanna asked, her gaze falling on the sacks of ore lying in the wreckage in the ground.

“Leave it. When Voyager comes we can beam it abroad from there. Carrying it will only slow us down.”

The Chief Engineer nodded. That was true, and as much as she’d like to protect the ore she figured these creatures wouldn’t have much care for it. They only seemed interested in hunting the Captain and herself.

Kathryn grimaced as she tried to sling the other backpack over her shoulder. Every wound on her body screamed as they were pulled, and she still couldn’t move her left arm enough to catch the other strap. 

B’Elanna stepped forward and grabbed the bag out of her Captain’s hand. “Here, let me help.”

The half-klingon lifted the bag up, allowing the Captain to simply weave her arms through the straps, and haul it up onto her back. Once it was on, she turned to the engineer and nodded. 

“Thank you.”

A scrape, much louder than the previous ones, caused both women to jump.

“We should get going,” B’Elanna suggested. Kathryn agreed, and the two made their way to the front of the shuttle. B’Elanna smashed through the windshield using a stray piece of debris, and the two helped each other out of the shuttlecraft.

When they’d each set down onto the hard stone of the tunnel, the Captain looked back at the shuttle with a slightly irritated expression.

“So much for an easy outing,” she muttered. With that, the two women pulled out their flashlights, and set off into the dark unknown of the planet’s tunnels. 

Little did they know, the trouble was just beginning.

[sayitan]

↴  𝐃𝐈𝐑𝐄  𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐔𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒    ➸    ACCEPTING  .  .  . @ensnchekov

'i’m not gonna hurt you !  see ? look ,  i’m putting down the phaser.'

pain  flared  with  every  effort  made  to  free  himself,  splitting,  red  hot  agony  that  seared  right  through  him  and  yet  neteyam  refused  to  stop.  he  twisted  and  turned,  thrashing  against  the  large  metallic  beast  that  had  him  pinned.  it's  single  red  eye  flickered  and  died  but  it's  large  heavy  limbs  trapped  him.  a  battle  won  and  lost  all  at  the  same  time  and  here,  pinned  between  it's  cold  body  and  the  earth  beneath  him,  appeared  a  human.

          neteyam's  response  was  sharp  and  sudden,  his  ears  flattened  back  against  his  skull,  lips  peeling  back  into  a  furious sneer.  he  bared  his  teeth,  flashing  dangerously  sharp  canines,  and  hissed,  the  sound  exhaled  from  somewhere  deep  in  his  throat.

          his  golden  gaze  was  wild  as  he  watched  the  human's  approach,  the  way  that  he  raised  his  hands  in  surrender,  how  his  words  spilled  from  his  mouth  in  a  breathy  rush.  neteyam  eyed  the  weapon  in  his  hands,  watched  where  he  stored  it  at  his  belt  but  the  tension  in  his  body  didn't  lift,  nor  did  it  fade.

          ❝  stay  away  .  .  !  get  back!  ❞  neteyam  ordered,  he  snapped  his  teeth  at  the  stranger,  the  sound  hard  as  he  shoved  at  the  mechanical  limbs  that  trapped  him,  straining  powerlessly.

[annikasevenshots]

Star Trek Picard: S2E1 Rewatch Reaction (spoilers!)

Only thing in my head is Star Trek: Retirement Home. let's go senior citizens!

Laris you are everything. You are girlboss. You are. The world. ♥️

Laris is just so soft. I love her.

Romance slightly more palatable this time round just wish they didn't have picard fall in love with a lookalike first

RAFFI SITTING ON THE STAGE NEXT TO PICARD SO TRUE

RAFFI WINK RAFFI WINK

ELNOR BABY ELNOR BABYYYYYYY YES ELNOR FIRST ROMULAN SO PROUD OF YOU MY BABYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Raffi's little nod at "look up" SHE IS SO PRETTY

TRANSITION TO BEAT UP LA SIRENA SO TRUE

SEVEN HI!!!!!!!! HER LIL FACE!

Seven with a wrench so true

Seven's eye roll?????????? I LOVE HER

EMMET

SEVEN TACKLE SEVEN TACKLE SEVEN TACKLE SEVEN T

actually dead

SMILEY SEVEN SMILEY SEVEN HAPPY SMILEY SEVEN BABY SMILEY SEVEN

Seven's "No" at Emmet?? She is baby

"Developmentally appropriate relationship skills" and yet she's still the perfect match for Raffi <3 feral cat x golden retriever energy

Oh soji you are everything <3

oh agnes (fond headshake)

LET SOJI BREAK INTO DIPLOMATIC SONGS YOU COWARDS

hahahaha drunk agnes waltzing into the bridge

STARGAZER PAN SO TRUE 😍

HAHAHAHA PICARD TALKING ABOUT UPDATING THE KOBAYASHI MARU AND THEN HIM DOING IT IN THE COMICS

Elnor baby!! Elnor's music!!!!!

Raffi being protective of Elnor now that I know the context? Lowkey soulcrushing. God raffi you're killing me with how human you are

Raffi's little wink AGAIN YOU'RE KILLING ME HERE

BABY SMILEY SEVEN SHOWING BIG BROTHER RIOS THE SHIP SHE SCUFFED UP

seven is so punk rock and so baby about it at the same time i love her. baby punk. baby smiley cheerful baby

"What are you doing here?" RIOS AND SEVEN BEING SIBLING ENERGY THEY'RE SO BABY

"My ship" "correction: MY ship" THEY 🥺♥️

why the fUCK DID WE WRITE RIOS OUT THIS HURTS MEEEEEEEE I NEED SEVEN RIOS INTERACTION

Lieutenant Sing's hair! Pretty!!!

Listen i know the show is called star trek picard but "help us, picard" is laying it on a little thick with the main character energy

Kind of zoned out during Picard and Guinan's scene but LOL everyone telling Picard to go to therapy. lowkey laying it thick innit. Raffi's lowkey right though this season really has been Picard ripping through the fabric of time and space to heal his inner hurt. ever heard of a psych eval y'all?

Laris ❤️‍🩹

SEVEN!!! SMILEY BABY SEVEN!!!!!!!!! SWAGGERY SEVEN!!!!

God i forgot how smiley Seven was in the first episode. fenris seven was HAPPY SEND. TWEET.

Fenris Seven was HAPPY FENRIS SEVEN WAS HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAPPY. FENRIS. SEVEN. a whole BABY.

Seven's voice getting deeper when talking about the borg? and how people distrust her still? oh seven 🥺❤️‍🩹

i just. seven of fricking NINE

jeri ryan's acting ages like fine wine 🤌🤌🤌

Seven and Rios 🤝 on being careful? i actually love them both so much they can do no wrong

Seven and Rios are such an underrated duo i love. them 🥺

HAHAHA Seven taking her baby phaser from her belt. having seen her lug a CHONK MACHINE GUN this is so funnyyyyyy

LMAO JURATI JUDGING THE QUEEN'S ATTIRE BABYGIRL YOU CAME UP WITH THIS

"we require... POWER" IS SUCH A BASED LINE UNTIL YOU REALISE THE QUEEN LITERALLY JUST NEEDS BATTERIES LMAO

Ngl though this Borg Queen's costume is BASED. hell this season's costumes are AMAZING. i LOVE the embossed wiring on the fabric. love love love. shiny shiny love shiny

PICARD ZERO ZERO ZERO DESTRUCT ZERO??????????????? THIS HAS EVE POLASTRI 1-2-3-4 ENERGY LMFAO

AYYYYYYYY CONFED!VERSE!!!!!! love me some evil twin worlds mmmmmm

Picard SHOUTING for Laris?? Hehehehe

BONJOUR Q

costumes are based. they're leng. they're peng. whatever the kids are calling it these days

In conclusion I watched this instead of Rings of Power. Seven of Nine you are my actual sunshine. Spinoff when???