Chapter 18

Around the Sun

The Romulan commander scoffed and snapped the locket shut with a click that echoed into the stunned silence. Then he laughed a short cruel thing full of dark mirth. He laughed again and again and again. Eventually hysteria at their blank, unbelieving faces wracked his body, throwing back the tattooed head and making him clutch at his sides.

"I can't believe you didn't know." He shook his fist, the black thong dangling from it, and stepped down in front of Jim whose eyes were fixed on where the hologram had appeared. "Your captain." he taunted stepping through the throng of his own men to stand face to face with Spock. "Your lover." He was so close now, but the Romulans' grip on Spock was tight, all but unbreakable. "Your T'hy'la." He spat the Vulcan word as if it dirtied his mouth and basked in the desperation of Spock's renewed struggles.

"You didn't know that either yet, did you Spock?" He retreated now, stepping back to stand beside a bound and dazed Jim. "Didn't know what a treasure" he brushed a hand through Jim's limp golden hair making the human flinch, "you had found." He sighed dramatically, "And lost so quickly." Smirk returning, he ripped Jim's head backward harshly exposing his delicate neck.

"I have heard many screams in my time Spock," long fingers dragged across quivering skin, "Human, Andorian, Klingon, Vulcan. But never have I heard the scream of a Vulcan forced to watch their one true love," he batted his eyelashes at Spock, "their soul mate, die before their very eyes." Ayel stepped forward and presented his commander with a long three pronged blade that bit into the panting human's skin. Spock fought like a wild thing, thrashing desperately against his captors, dark eyes focused intently on the man who was a threat to his beloved.

Uhura screamed at Spock in Vulcan. Words that promised retribution and revenge, words that Spock only barely managed to heed, subsiding back into the criminals' hold. Nero's expression was unchanged, hideous glee sparking in his deranged eyes.

"I think, perhaps, that is a sound I would like to hear." With that he lifted the dagger; hoisting it high to plunge it into the tender throat of the exposed human below him, but a quiet statement pulled him up short. Spock's voice was calm, utterly unconcerned with what was occurring around him and Nero's rage flared as he took in the indifferent expression on the Vulcan's face. Spock's words, however, were anything but uncaring.

"You shall never have the chance."

"What?!" Nero spun, dagger slicing through the air.

"You shall never have the chance to hear the scream of a Vulcan whose mate has been torn from them." Spock's eyes were dark and cool as Nero spread his arms and laughed.

"Uh, Spock, I appear to have an excellent opportunity to do that exact thing, right now. In fact, I think I'll go back to killing your little captain."

"No." The word was quiet, but it seemed as if the entire ship turned, for a moment, to ice as Nero registered the contradictory statement.

"No?" His grip on the weapon was white-knuckled now.

"No," Spock repeated, "but you will die screaming." His gaze burned, "And I shall watch."

Nero laughed with false bravado, shaken by the Vulcan's assertion, but unwilling to show it before his crew. "Well Mister Spock, I think you're bluffing!" The reply was immediate.

"Vulcans do not lie."

The ship shook, tilting dangerously, sending all of its passengers stumbling and knocking the weak and bound Jim into a tumble down the steps. Spock used the unsteady footing to knock away his captors and launch himself across the deck to his battered T'hy'la. He gathered the unconscious Jim in his arms, protecting him from both people and debris sent flying by the rapidly rocking ship. Nero fell, attempted to rise, and fell again as he screamed for his crew members to capture the humans who tore themselves free to gather around the huddled pair. Uhura slammed her hand over an unremarkable pin on her jacket, activating the hastily designed and incredibly basic subspace communicator.

"Now Monty! We've got him! Beam us now!" Almost immediately their molecules began to disperse into flickering orbs and their former captors snatched and clawed at nothing but empty air.

For the first time in months the Enterprise's transporter pad began to glow with the returning molecules of her senior staff, including one she hadn't known was missing. Gracelessly they untangled themselves from each other, scrambling out of the way of a growling doctor who lead one silent Vulcan and the precious prize he carried, to sickbay at all but a run. The rest of the group scattered, knowing they would be needed elsewhere. Before they parted, one for the bridge and the other to engineering, Uhura threw her arms around Scotty and held on for as long as the brief seconds would allow.

"I know lass." He whispered into her hair, both of them holding back tears. "I know."

Already having reached the bridge, and panting heavily from their sudden sprint, Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, and Ensign Pavel Chekov worked frantically over their stations, fingers flying as they struggled to hold together a ship that was whole, but only just. As Nyota entered the bridge and strode purposefully to her own station she noticed that beneath their shared console a pair of feet with mismatching shoes, one wearing a dark boot and the other a vintage (though not technically so at the time it was purchased) red and white Converse.

The sight cut ever so briefly through the frantic stress of the moment and the smallest smile passed over her face. Command's going to have a shit fit if….no when, when we get back. The bridge doors slid open breaking through her thoughts and Spock stepped up to the captain's chair, not taking a seat, but remaining stiff beside it. His face was set in stone, emotionless, but that could mean any number of things and no one had the chance to ask or dwell as Uhura called out that Nero was hailing them.

"On screen." Not a second later the snarling Romulan, face flushed green with rage, appeared before what was left of the Enterprise's bridge crew.

"SPOCK! You will not deny me my victory!"

"Your…victory" a sliver of emotion peaked through he all but spat the word, "has already been denied. Mr. Scott and Mr. Chekov have disabled your weapons systems while you were…preoccupied, and, if my calculations are correct, the last vestiges of the red matter left on your ship have begun reacting this very minute." True to Spock's word the Narada trembled, this time without the impact of the Enterprise's torpedoes. Spock stepped up to the viewscreen, his usually expressive eyes impassive as they held Nero's. "May your katra burn for eternity in the halls of Bogozh."

Nero screamed. First in rage and later in pain as his ship broke up from the inside out, but he never stopped, never seemed even to draw breath. The death of the Romulan crew of the mining ship Narada was not a peaceful one and the wail of her commanding officer filled the Enterprise until the silence, which descended once the forces of the cosmos had pulled the dark ship apart, rang sharply in the ears of humans and Vulcan alike, though Spock paid it no attention.

"Ensign Chekov." The head of the seventeen-year-old in question popped up from where his eyes had been locked, unseeing, on the viewscreen and turned to his commander.

"Y…yes, Keptin?" His breathing was ragged, though the hand that clasped his own did calm it slightly.

"Confer with Mr. Scott as we discussed. Engage warp immediately once all calculations are inputted."

"Yes sir."

"Mr. Scott," Spock stepped up beside the captain's chair and called down to Engineering. "Has the transporting device on Earth been moved to a location at the appropriate distance from the civilian population?"

"Aye, sir. Transmitting coordinates. Also, Cap'n, I've got the engines running but if we don't get moving I'll nay be able to get them back in this century." Translation: if they didn't get out soon, they wouldn't. With a glance to Chekov who returned a confirming nod as he finished inputting the last of the calculations, Spock checked the location and passed the coordinates along to Sulu's station.

"Very well Mr. Scott. Mr. Sulu, destroy the transporter."

Even in the daylight the flash that struck in a supposedly empty field near Riverside Iowa, the world's largest lightning strike people would called it later as they marveled at the decimated land, was bright enough to momentarily blind old Jack Parker as he worked on his own farm several miles away. Blinking away spots as he tipped back his hat incredulously, Jack caught sight of his wife wiping her hands on her apron as she stepped down off the porch to stand beside him. For a moment they stared in silence before Christina laid her head on his shoulder and spoke.

"He's gone, isn't he?" Her voice was melancholy, but resigned and she sighed quietly as Jack wrapped his arm around her waist. Now Jack Parker was a simple man; hardly ignorant, but far from the dreamers his son and wife were. However, there were some things he just felt, deep in his bones and with no explanation, this was one of them.

"Yes," he answered quietly pulling his wife into his side and clasping their hands so he could splay them both over her heart, "and no."

The Enterprise shuddered into warp, rattling and clanging ominously as she gained speed, aimed straight toward the blazing yellow Sol. On steady feet despite the rocking deck beneath them, Spock exited the bridge confident in the abilities of those he left behind to get them home safely if even the smallest chance of doing so existed. The theory they were attempting to put into practice, the possibility of time travel through the extreme speed gained by using the gravity of the sun to propel them outward or as Mr. Scott had crudely put it, a sling shot, was an amazing scientific leap, especially if it succeeded, and Spock, the Enterprise's most renowned scientist was running away.

There was no crew, no one to see as Starfleet's most stoic, unruffled officer sprinted through the halls of the quaking ship, barreling down the most direct path possible to the sickbay. The automatic doors were almost too slow, scraping his shoulders as he burst through them. The only two occupants of Sickbay both had their backs to the door, but the back of one was tense as he tried to keep his balance and clean and heal the deep lacerations on the back of the other.

Letting some of his control drop, Spock staggered across the bay until he sank down into the chair (magnetically attached to the deck just like the many beds surrounding him) on the other side of Jim's bio bed. His brilliant blue eyes were closed but his expression was peaceful despite the chaos around him. No doubt Dr. McCoy had administered a heavy duty sedative and painkiller as quickly as possible once Spock had finally set his injured human down. Spock reached out to take the limp hand of his beloved in his own just as klaxons began to sound, signaling a red alert throughout the entire ship due to the severe temperature spike on the ship's hull. As they gained speed the ship's shivering grew worse until McCoy activated the restraints on Jim's biobed, all except those which would irritate his back, and collapsed onto a nearby chair himself.

Something shattered in the doctor's office, medical instruments clattered to the floor, a chair was shaken loose from its magnetic coupling and skittered across the deck, but Spock comprehended none of it. His attention was focused completely on the man who lay before him. Even as a strange high-pitched whining pierced the air and the temperature inside the ship began to rise as the thermal protectors on the hull failed, Spock kept his gaze on Jim. Fighting the inertia of their forward movement Spock leaned down to press his forehead against Jim's.

And then there was nothing.

Hi! So I wrote this at 2 or 3am and actually waited until morning to proofread it! (I'm so proud of me!) Oddly enough there wasn't much to fix and although I'm not entirely pleased with this chapter I can't think of any way other way to write it so...here it is!

I'm really sorry about the whole cliffhanger thing these last couple chapters (actually, honestly sorry). I just can't seem to stop.

Barring any unexpected muse input the next chapter should be the last one. Despite how long it's taken I am incredibly surprised by that; I did not have any sort of faith that I would actually finish this when I started writing it so go me!

For those of you who haven't seen Star Trek: The Voyage Home which is TOS movie number 4 my sling-shot around the sun time travel idea comes from there, and they explain it a lot better in the movie, but I really couldn't get a whole involved in depth explanation to fit so I'm thinking that Spock and Scotty and Chekov had the way home all figured out a long time ago and they were just waiting for the transporter to be done.

Ok, now that I've rambled I hope you're still enjoying (the story not my babbling), so review and let me know what you think!

TTFN

SilverDragon Out

PS: I can't fix the stupid thing where the chapter number at the top of the page is off center, but I'm too OCD to stop doing it when I've done it to all the other chapter...sorry.