Image courtesy of --hmmm, i don't know....Disclaimer: Paramount owns Star Trek. I own only the stories my Muse gives me
Summary: A dark turn in Uhura's life and the lengths Kirk goes to in order to fulfill a promise.
How many had raped her now? She had lost count when she had lost consciousness. Uhura tried to turn and retch. She was down to dry heaves, but still her body rebelled. She was naked and shivering on the hard cold floor. The first had been the worst - she could still feel his weight crushing her down on the floor and the searing pain as he drove deep inside her. The Orion had grunted and sweated and so had the next and the next, until it all became a blur of pain and sweat.
She had fought as best she could, but the bindings holding her hands over her head bit deeply into her wrists. Blood had flowed freely down her arms to be mixed with their sweat. She had spit and cursed them and gotten beaten again for her resistance. She no longer cared. At least if they killed her now, she wouldn't have to endure any more abuse.
The overwhelming waves of terror still struck her and reduced her to a quivering mass on the floor. The Orions took great delight when this happened and it seemed to excite them more. Several fights had erupted as they fought between themselves to take her during such a 'terror attack'. The waves of blind panic had to be from the drugs and medical procedures their 'doctor' had conducted on her right after the leader had beaten her senseless. Uhura was barely able to string two coherent thoughts together before another wave would wash over her. The panic seemed to get worse when someone came near her, as if another presence triggered the effect.
During a respite between assaults, she laid quietly on the cold floor, trying to conserve her strength and thoughts. At least two of her attackers were sitting in the room talking amongst themselves. She focused on listening to their conversation, trying to get her brain to work. The Comm Officer thought she caught a statement about a search for her and a need to 'move the others' before they were found. Her heart skipped a beat on hearing there was a search for her, but who were the others? Were there other women being held captive as she was? Uhura felt one of the aliens draw near and tensed for another violation of her body. Instead, she felt the bindings on her wrists and ankles sliced away.
"I prefer my women able to fight back. It makes it all the sweeter when I conquer you." He taunted as he fell down upon her.
Uhura fought with what strength she had, but she was hardly a match for someone nearly as strong as a Vulcan and four times her mass. The panic struck again and she vanished into mindless oblivion. Too bad oblivion couldn't last forever.
When she became lucid again, Uhura found she was alone and unfettered in a small shadowy room littered with crates. She tried to scan the room as best she could from her position on the floor. The Lieutenant mustered all the strength she had left and pulled her battered body towards the only exit she saw. A solid door was locked tight in front of her, blocking her way to freedom. Uhura spied a panel to the left of the door and pulled herself up to palm it. With irrational hope, she pleaded for it to accept her print and allow her escape. It didn't budge.
Enraged, she clawed at the end of the panel with what was left of her long nails. Uhura managed to get one nail beneath the panel and pop it out. She thanked God it wasn't intended to be a security control from this side of the portal. Once the cover was off she looked at what she had to work with. The mechanism was alien, yet circuits were circuits. She started to cross connect the panel and escape when she heard guttural voices outside the door.
"We have the other females onboard now. When I give the signal, kill the Starfleet female and beam aboard. We will blast our way out of port; several others will launch with us - the Federation starship will not fire on us all. In the chaos, we will escape."
Uhura realized her time was short and she couldn't exit as she had intended. She reviewed the circuitry in front of her and decided to rewire the panel to overload when triggered from the other side. The Starfleet officer would try to shield herself behind the crates in her cell, but the blast would be substantial. Uhura took satisfaction in knowing that her death wouldn't be the only one.
The Comm Officer finished her hot-wiring and dragged her body behind the crates stacked along the far wall to wait for her assassin. Numbness began to overtake her body and she realized she might be dead before the blast ever happened. Uhura was so tired; she welcomed death as a release from the pain. The external and internal assault on her small frame had been brutal. There wasn't any place on her body that wasn't bloody and bruised. She suspected her internal injuries were still worse.
She lay there, unaware of time. Her mind drifted to her friends onboard Enterprise and what she thought they might be doing to find her. They were looking for her, of that she had no doubt. In her imagination, she could see them all, but the only one that seemed to see her back was Jim. With so little time left she saw no reason not to allow herself the familiarity of his first name. The name she never felt she could utter in his presence. Now, it was too late. She felt the hand of death brushing over her eyes, trying to break the gaze his spirit had fastened with her own mind's eye. Her mind was floating between the mortal sphere and the beyond when the room lit up like a beacon from heaven.
***
Kirk led a patrol down another endless corridor. They had received little overt resistance, but felt overwhelming resentment at their intrusion into the resident's personal areas. He didn't care; he had less than two hours to find Uhura before he had to defy Komack's direct order. Yes, he intended to ignore the Admiral's order and continue the search until they had inspected every nook and cranny of the station and the docked ships.
Suddenly, a deafening roar and deep tremor shook the Enterprise team and threw them to the floor. Kirk rolled up to his feet and flipped his communicator out in one fluid motion.
"Kirk to Enterprise. Pinpoint that blast and get me a location and an explanation." He started to run in the direction of the blast and the rest of the team followed.
"Captain, sector Ten level Two in the Orion conclave. Source unknown. No hull breach at this time." Spock reported smoothly.
"Orion conclave?" Kirk questioned. "Didn't we search them first?"
The station security logs were inconclusive, but the eight missing women were all young and exotically beautiful. It made sense to use those facts to search the Orion section for any proof of their rumored slave trade. One piece of evidence could banish them into exile from most trading communities.
"Affirmative, Captain. Both security branches searched the Orion quarters with negative results. And we now have six ships launching from the station - all from the Orion vicinity." Spock announced.
"Hold fire. Scan all ships breaking free and set a trace on each for as long as you can. Send a general broadcast that we will cripple the next vessel that tries that trick. Kirk out."
"The Enterprise captain pulled up short as he rounded the corner and met smoke and flame. Station emergency teams appeared and tried to contain the flames. Kirk's team entered the wreckage cautiously; looking for the cause of the blast and any wounded. In the far corner, behind the remnants of an inset wall, a jagged opening beckoned into a once hidden room.
The Enterprise team entered one at a time, each man securing a position deeper into the blast center. Conduit hung in shreds from the ceiling; storage crates were shattered and lying in a heap towards the far wall. Kirk flashed his handlight around the base of the rubble and caught sight of a hand protruding from beneath the pile. The hand was brown, not green, and it moved feebly.
"Degas, over here. Help me move these crates!" Kirk shouted to the security officer nearest him.
The space was too confining for more than he and Degas to work. As the last of the debris was moved, Kirk saw Uhura's naked body, lying lifeless on the floor. Her color was an ashy gray, not the warm mahogany he was used to seeing. He dropped down to her side and searched for a pulse along her neck. Relief flooded him when he felt a feeble beat.
"Get Doctor McCoy down here now!" Kirk ordered over his shoulder to Degas. He yanked his shirt off and wrapped it around her fragile body.
"Uhura, can you hear me?" Kirk bent down low and asked the unconscious officer.
He was afraid to touch her because she looked so broken. Her once beautiful face was bruised and swollen, blood oozed from a large gash over her eye. The other injuries he could see, from what his shirt didn't cover, were enough to make a cold chill rip through him. He clamped down on his emotions - he had to get her safe - get her aboard Enterprise, before he could allow himself to consider what she must have gone through.
"Fan out and search the entire area. See if any of the other missing women are here. And I want to know why we missed this room on our initial scans and search." Kirk ordered to the gawking security team. He wanted the area secure, but he also wanted to minimize Uhura's exposure.
The sparkle of the transporter brought the Chief Medical Officer to within three feet of his patient.
"Oh my God-" McCoy intoned in a strangled whisper as he caught sight of the Lieutenant's crumpled form.
Kirk moved to the other side of Uhura, making room for McCoy to assess her injuries.
"Bones, help her." Kirk pled in a desperate tone. "I got a faint pulse, but she's hurt very badly." His eyes asked the Doctor to perform a miracle.
McCoy squatted down and began to run his Feinberger over the broken body of the Comm Officer. He tried to remain calm and objective as the injuries mounted: severe concussion, broken zygoma and maxilla, broken ribs, lacerated liver and spleen, badly bruised kidneys, extreme vaginal and anal tearing, multiple contusions and lacerations over her entire body. Her blood was loaded with a myriad of unknown toxins, he didn't understand how she was still alive.
"Jim, we've got to get her to Sickbay now or we're going to lose her." McCoy advised in a choked voice. He was sickened from seeing Uhura so badly abused.
Kirk reached down and scooped up Uhura's limp body as if she were a child.
"Call for beam up and tell them to clear the corridors." He ordered McCoy. He cradled her body as gently as he could and awaited the transporter.
When they materialized in the transporter room, Spock and Scotty were behind the console. The Chief Engineer was struck dumb by the sight he saw in Kirk's arms. The mask that Spock wore hid nothing from his captain when they looked at each other. Kirk's face demanded vengeance and Spock's look told him he would get it.
"Spock, search through the tracing scans of the ships that launched and find me the Orion vessel that undocked from the explosion site. I want it hunted down. I want that ship, I want the crew, and I want any prisoners they may have onboard." Kirk ordered as he ran off the transporter platform and headed for Sickbay at a dead run. McCoy ran with him.
Once in Sickbay, McCoy led Kirk through a maze, to the back where their isolation unit was located. It was the most secure and private area in Sickbay.
Already there waiting for them was Nurse Chapel. She gasped at the sight of who Kirk gently laid down on the biobed. This bruised and battered form couldn't be her best friend!
The Captain stepped back as the CMO and Head Nurse took over. Their shock and sadness was pushed aside as they worked together quickly and quietly to save their friend. Uhura had yet to regain consciousness and McCoy was muttering under his breath about the risks of surgery being as bad as waiting.
Kirk went to McCoy's office and called Spock for an update on tracking the Orions.
"Captain, we have detected an ion trial leading towards Orion space at bearing fourteen Mark six. It bears the same unique masking signature we discovered at Bengali."
To everyone on the bridge, Spock could have been reporting on the weather, but Kirk saw the deadness in Spock's eyes and heard the lack of inflection in his voice. It was too subtle for most humans, but to Kirk the change was dramatic. Spock only shut down all outward behaviors when he was bordering on total loss of control. Seeing such barbarism done to someone he knew so well, someone so delicate and gentle as he knew her to be, was pushing the limits of his control.
Kirk could relate. An icy cold calm had descended upon him as he had watched McCoy and Chapel treat Uhura's injuries. For two days, he had been on the bare edge, searching for his Comm Officer. To find her had brought relief, but the state in which he had found her had brought rage. Now, waiting to discover if she would survive, it gave him a moment to reconcile those feelings and use them to help track down her assailants. In this, he had the advantage over Spock; Kirk knew how to channel the dark emotions he felt into a plan of attack. Spock would have to suppress them in order to do the same.
"Very good, Spock. Pursue and overtake. Advise Command we have found Lieutenant Uhura and are in pursuit of her abductors and the possibility of other captives. If they can't wait on us, then they need to send another ship to do border patrol." He knew that last part wouldn't go over too well, but his duty was clear. He must contain a known threat, and rescue civilians, before he could worry about patrolling a section of vacant space.
"Jim, I need you in there now. Uhura has come to and she's delirious and terrified." Kirk hit the mute button as McCoy spoke from the doorway. "I can't give her a sedative yet, between her head wound and the drugs they've pumped into her, it would kill her."
McCoy wasn't really sure what Kirk could do to help calm Uhura. He hoped her faith in the Captain could reach her in the place she was now.
All of the Bridge tried to listen, hoping to get some news on Uhura. Everyone knew she had been found near the explosion, but not how hurt she was. Kirk's order to clear the corridors had not given them much hope.
Kirk released the mute button and spoke to his First Officer.
"Find them, Spock."
He signed off and hurried to the isolation room. However, he wasn't prepared for what he walked into. Uhura was screaming with what was left of her voice and fighting both Chapel and McCoy as if her life depended upon it. It sickened him to know it probably had. Kirk moved up to the head of the bed and grasped Uhura by the shoulders. He tried to put his face into her field of vision. Her eyes were so swollen, he wasn't sure if she could see him or not. The bioscanner was alarming on every level. If they didn't get her calm soon she would die from cardiac arrest.
"Uhura! Listen to me - it's Captain Kirk and you're safe aboard Enterprise. We found you and you're safe now. Calm down so we can help you - "
"Captain! Captain Kirk? Oh thank God...Did you find the other women? I rewired the panel to blow up when they came to kill me...you've got to find them, the Orions are going to sell them as slaves...they didn't know I was Starfleet when they captured me." Flooded with relief, she tried to tell him everything at once.
"You're safe and we're tracking the Orion ship now. We will rescue the other captives. You saved yourself, Lieutenant. That blast allowed us to find you; they have new technology that blocked our scans. Spock has figured out a way to track them using that signature." He had her attention now and the bioscans were coming out of the danger zones.
"I need you to stay calm so Doctor McCoy can treat you, okay?" He tried to pull back out of the way, but found Uhura had a death grip on his arms. The remnants of her long nails dug savagely into his upper arms. The fact that he still only wore his black undershirt was brought painfully into focus.
"No, Don't leave me!" She screamed. The bioscan readings started to climb again.
"I can't control the fear - others make it worse!" Uhura wailed such a mournful sound, Kirk couldn't force himself to pull away any further. Tiny rivulets of blood began to trickle down his arms.
"I won't leave you, Uhura. But you've got to let McCoy touch you. Would it be any easier if Nurse Chapel was the one to touch you?" He glanced around to catch Christine's eyes and motioned for her to come closer.
"No!" Uhura panicked anew when she caught sight of Christine. The Head Nurse quickly retreated.
"It doesn't matter. I don't know what they did to me - some kind of conditioning and behavior drugs - supposed to make me obedient. I was someone for them to experiment with." She ground out between clenched teeth.
"Jim, we've got to treat her now. At least get her stable enough to tolerate surgery later. You're the only one of us she trusts so completely it overrides this conditioning she's been put through." McCoy hissed urgently behind Kirk.
Kirk couldn't look at either medical officer. He kept his eyes locked with Uhura's.
"Okay, here's what we're going to do." Kirk voiced calmly to the injured woman who still clutched his arms desperately. He leaned in closer, to narrow her range of vision.
"I'm going to stay right here with you while McCoy and Christine take care of your injuries. You can hold onto me through the whole thing. I promise I won't leave you. Stare at me or close your eyes. Don't think about anybody else but me."
Kirk moved one hand from Uhura's shoulder to push her hair gently off of her face. He forced her to stare only at him. He thought it a good sign that she leaned into his touch.
"I'll try." She whispered. "I've always wanted to just look at you." The little joke made them both smile.
She anchored herself in the warm hazel eyes looking down at her. The terror was building, but she thought she might fight it down with him in sight.
It was a very hard fight. McCoy had finally patted Kirk on the shoulder and told him he had done all he could for the moment. Uhura had actually gone to sleep, or lost consciousness, towards the end of McCoy's ministrations, but Kirk had promised to stay by her side, so he stayed.
The Captain remained through the bathing and dressing Christine performed with gentle hands. Sometime during the treatment, Uhura had latched onto Kirk's gold command tunic he had draped over her naked body, and now, even in her sleep, she would not let it go.
McCoy shook his head at Christine, motioning for her to leave it alone. Whatever brought the Lieutenant comfort was fine by him. He had gotten the Comm Officer stable, but she was far from healed. McCoy had only bought them some time to discover what toxins were in her blood and plan a way to filter them out.
He still didn't have a clue as to how he would treat the terror attacks. He had never seen such a rapid and sustained fear response to just a physical presence. The mere fact that Uhura had not fought them anymore showed McCoy that his patient was much stronger in spirit than he had expected. But Kirk had known; he had known that he could get her to do as he commanded. Had that been his will or hers? McCoy and Christine had been silent witnesses to the Captain's tender touches and gentle murmurings of support to their fallen comrade.
Or, did it go deeper between them? The looks and the touches had become more intimate. Uhura's focus never wavered and never flinched from his. Only when she closed her eyes and drifted into an uneasy sleep, did she break their silent connection. Somewhere in the interminable time they had worked, the Captain had become oblivious to everyone but Uhura. As if by closing out the world in his mind, he could do so for Uhura too. It seemed to work, and for that, McCoy was grateful.
He watched as Kirk gently extracted himself from Uhura's, now slack, grasp and painfully straightened. The long hours in such intense communication had taken their toll on the Captain. Christine came up to him and gently started to treat the wounds Uhura had inflicted on Kirk's biceps. He gave her a tired smile and waited for the Nurse to finish. She returned the smile and gave his arm a gentle squeeze as she completed his care. Chris wasn't able to put into words all the emotions she felt just then. Awe, gratitude... they were just the few she could name at being allowed to see his depth of caring for her best friend.
Kirk followed McCoy to his office and lowered himself wearily into the chair. He sat silently, utterly drained, and waited as McCoy poured them a drink and handed Kirk his.
"Jim, I don't know how you did it, but I'm grateful you were able to keep her calm. She's got a chance now." The Doctor informed him and waited for a response.
He wanted to ask Kirk more about his interaction with Uhura, but he needed to gauge how his Captain was likely to react before doing so.
"Thanks, Bones." He said softly, but made no effort to drink the proffered brandy. Instead, he leaned his head back against the wall and shut his eyes.
The quietness of the Captain both intrigued and concerned McCoy. He decided to push the matter.
"Jim, I don't mean to pry, but you got pretty intense, and damn, even intimate, with Uhura back there. Is there something you need to talk about?" McCoy asked cautiously.
Kirk didn't move or respond for so long, McCoy thought he wasn't going to answer him. The Captain caught that McCoy used the word 'need' instead of 'want' though in his question.
"Uhura and I have talked about getting closer and what that would mean to both of us and our careers." Kirk spoke, but wouldn't look at the Doctor; he knew McCoy would see too much in his eyes.
"And? Jim, you can't leave it at that." McCoy started but Kirk cut him off.
"Why not, Doctor? We did." He bit back at the CMO.
He was too tired to be having this conversation. His anger flared and he snapped at McCoy before he could clamp down on it. He had never intended to broach his feelings towards Uhura again, not with her and certainly not with anyone else. But he could only look at her for so long, and feel her need for him, before he relinquished to her unspoken plea. She had needed him, not the Captain, but him, to tolerate the touch of McCoy and Christine.
He didn't even remember what all he had said or done. He had used his affectionate nickname for her, 'Penda', and stroked her cheek. He remembered he had shushed her whimpers and then gently kissed her brow and temple, reminding her of his promise that she would always be with him. Since Kirk was about as demonstrative with the crew as Spock, it was a given that McCoy and Christine - he had read her look too - would be taken aback by his actions.
"I'm sorry, Bones. I didn't mean to bark at you. You're not the reason why she's lying hurt in there. I'm just tired and not up to having this conversation right now." Jim gave McCoy a shadow of his normal smile. Apology and regret for his harshness evident in his sad eyes.
"Don't worry about it, Jim. Fools rush in, you know?" McCoy chuckled in slight embarrassment.
He wouldn't push Jim anymore on the subject unless he had to. In a way, he hoped Jim and Uhura could find each other. He understood the regulations, but sometimes the needs of the few outweighed the needs of the many.
At that moment, Christine appeared at McCoy's door. She spoke to McCoy, but her eyes never left the Captain's.
"Doctor, Lieutenant Uhura has awakened and become agitated once more. I've restrained her for the moment but that's only making her worse. What do you want me to do?"
"Check with the Biolab and see how they're doing on tracing all those toxins. I can't sedate her till we get those filtered out of her system." McCoy ordered Chapel and turned to Kirk, asking with his eyes what he couldn't force himself to say.
Once they traced all the toxins it would still take several hours to develop the proper filtering agents and administer them. He needed Jim to keep her calm for as long as he could. The Doctor had the internal bleeding stopped for now, but any violent movement would only start it again. Until he could safely sedate her, he couldn't do the surgeries she needed to repair all the real damage done.
Kirk nodded to them both, no one noticed Christine hadn't moved until the Captain let her know he would go to Uhura. He tossed his drink back in one gulp. McCoy looked askance at such a move, but realized the brandy would have little effect on the Captain in his present state of mind.
Christine went to the Biolab and McCoy and Kirk went back to the isolation ward. Uhura was crying and fighting the restraints imprisoning her on the bed. Kirk walked up to the struggling officer and started undoing the restraints. McCoy hung back until Jim had her unrestrained and calm. The Captain sat on the side of the bed, blocking Uhura's view of McCoy as he approached.
"Jim, it's going to be a long night, let me adjust the bed so you can get comfortable for the duration." McCoy whispered near Kirk's ear.
The Doctor lowered the bed while raising the head of it to act as a support for Kirk's back. While Kirk talked softly to Uhura, McCoy maneuvered him to where he sat forward in the bed and could reach the floor with his right leg. Kirk braced himself, then drew Uhura backward, to lean against his chest, and wrapped her gently in his arms.
McCoy walked quietly on the perimeter of the room and manually turned the lights down low. He looked back towards his patient and saw the glow from the overbed light shine against Kirk's hair. The soft golden color lent another layer of tenderness to the scene. Kirk looked at McCoy with a peaceful expression on his face and dismissed him from the room.
~ID'ic
Part 2 of 4
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