elliewood | Fic: Consort, Chapter 24

"Something is wrong. The magnetic shield is off -- it is likely to be a trap. We should assume we have been discovered and abort."

Her first thought was that the Romulan was lying, to cheat them or double-cross them; her second, as she regarded him standing at the helm, his slanted brows drawn together in worry, was that he was a coward. Her voice was tight with disdain.

"Or, our friend has found a way to disable the shield and is waiting for us to beam him out. I say we go in." She turned away from the uneasy Romulan to appeal to the Ambassador. "Sir, we've intercepted no outgoing messages from Rura Penthe to the Empire, and we'd expect some communication if they detected a plot to free one of their prisoners. We need to take advantage of the shield being disabled and go in right away."

"It could be an unrelated malfunction," mused McCoy. "But if it were, they would have radioed the Empire for a house call to make repairs." She watched as he thoughtfully pushed at his lower lip with his thumb and first two fingers and had the sudden urge to seize that hand, to sniff and taste and suck whatever remained of her off of his fingers.

"Yes. Given the lack of any alerts issued from the prison planet, the logical assumption is that the removal of the shield was a deliberate act, either by the captain or his captors." The Ambassador stepped over to the sensor console and bent over Uhura's shoulder to study the readout as he continued. "In either case, we are wise to be cautious."

"I will not risk my ship, even for the payment you are offering. We will abandon this attempt and depart before we are noticed." The Romulan reached for the navigational controls and stiffened as a hand clamped down hard on his wrist.

"We do not flee. We continue to our destination."

All eyes turned toward where Spock stood at the navigation console, the Romulan's forearm in an impassive grip. After a moment she rose from her stool and moved toward him to lay one hand lightly on the his shoulder.

"Spock. We're not going to leave him there, if he's there. That's not going to happen." She waited for her words to have an effect, to dissipate the tension in his rigid frame, but he was unyielding, his only response to open his hand to drop the Romulan's captive wrist. He did not look at her.

She kept her hand on him anyway as she turned to the Ambassador. "We need a Plan B."

***

The Romulan's coordinates were exact; the party found themselves huddled against the driving snow just outside the prison entrance as the Ambassador lifted the heavy trap door. "Miss Uhura, you should precede us as you are armed. I will likewise bring up the rear. Proceed with extreme caution."

She slid feet-first into the opening and dropped about a meter before landing lightly on her toes, the Romulan's sidearm drawn and sweeping from side to side. She stepped aside and waved her arm, beckoning the others to follow as she scanned the narrow walls of the entrance and the wider opening below, her forehead creasing in concern.

"It doesn't make sense that they'd leave the only entrance unguarded. Maybe he was right -- it does look like a trap."

The Ambassador came up behind her. "It is not the only entrance, but it is the primary means of accessing and leaving the prison. As none among us is of a mind to turn back, let us continue. Is your weapon on stun?"

She turned over the firearm in her hands. "I think it only has one setting."

He nodded and looked over her shoulder to gaze down the weakly lit passageway. "Should we encounter any guards, I would advise that you attempt to incapacitate them without using lethal force. I leave it to your discretion, however, in the event you determine that such force is necessary for the success of our endeavor."

"Let's do it."

She repositioned the pistol and advanced down the tunnel, stopping every few meters to crouch and scan the path before them. The rock walls of the passage recorded their descent from the chill of the surface to the increasing warmth further down, the pathway widening as it grew brighter from the illumination below and the ice that lined it gradually melting into a dripping mess that muddied their boots as they progressed.

The smell hit her just as she started to sense the low rumble of activity from below, and she buried her nose in the bend of her elbow for a few moments to quell the sudden rush of nausea. Behind her, she heard McCoy cough twice and clear his throat; turning, she saw that he had dampened the noise by pulling his jacket and the collar of his shirt over his nose and mouth, his eyes above his muffled lower face suspiciously red.

She held up her hand to signal a stop when she saw the edge of the cavern wall ahead of them. "It opens up about twenty meters ahead. We're going to run out of cover," she whispered.

"We should survey the situation to inform our strategy." The Ambassador joined her at the front of their procession; together they crept to where the cavern wall dropped away to afford them a view of the scene below them while Spock and McCoy waited out of sight.

The footpath they were on spiraled down to a large central atrium surrounded by several smaller chambers cut into the rock walls, bunks with sleeping individuals evident within several of them. Prisoners milled in all directions, toward large tables for dining, their cells, or the mine elevator visible at her ten-o-clock; a few Klingon guards casually patrolled the area with far less apparent concern than the lunging dog-like creatures at their sides.

It didn't take her long to pick Kirk, his skin starkly pallid beneath the fire-lit glint of his hair, out of the roiling cacophony below; it took her only an instant more to recognize his predicament. She gestured with her weapon.

"We've got to move, now."

The Ambassador motioned to the others to approach. McCoy made a slight hitching noise as he took in the sight and looked down briefly to check the security of the medikit on his shoulder before retraining his eyes on Kirk. Spock was frozen in place, the flicker of his eyelids as he scanned the panorama below them the only discernible motion.

"Agreed." The Ambassador turned to McCoy and Spock. "I propose that Miss Uhura and I remain up here, she at this edge and I across at the other, to provide cover fire should you need it as the two of you descend to retrieve the captain. Once we commence firing, the attention of the guards will be drawn toward us, impeding our escape; thus I suggest that you do all you can to recover him without requiring the discharge of weapons until the last possible moment."

"I do not believe we will require your assistance in that regard."

She looked over her shoulder at Spock, astonished at his words and his tone, and saw him gesture over her head with an upward tilt of his chin. She turned back to stare at a point across the atrium from them, to where another passageway emptied into the main chamber, and saw a dark figure crouched, just as they were, by the edge of the cavern's wall.

"Khan. What the hell is he doing here?" McCoy's whisper reflected all the distrust she was feeling as she squinted at the bloodied figure opposite them, her weapon now fixed on him.

There was no response from Spock other than to raise one hand high, the thumb and first two fingers extended

three

then folding in the thumb

two

and then the middle finger

one

and finally the index finger to close into a fist.

They started down simultaneously, Spock and McCoy from the one side of the chamber and Khan from the other, as the Ambassador left her side to occupy a position on the other side of the passage, weapon drawn and held in a grip even steadier than her own. She cast one last glance at Kirk to see him, slack and unresponsive, rolled roughly onto his stomach, and as she looked away to train her sight on the retreating plane of McCoy's back, she heard him, incredibly, laugh.