Chapter 22

Despite the fact Kez was used to porting over large distances in the blink of an eye, nothing could have prepared her for the feeling of transwarp travel. When they materialised in the open engineering bay it was all Kez could do not to wretch her stomach up. Kirk was in no better state. Even though he could feel Kez's knuckle-white grip on his own hand, he felt woozy and foggy in the brain. But as both figured materialised fully and staggered on the deck, there was a sense of relief between the both of them that they were still intact.

"Are we alive?" Kirk laughed as he bent over, gasping for air. But Kez seemed to be focused on something else.

After a second she turned her worried gaze on him, "Where's Scotty?"

They looked around anxiously and suddenly realised that Scotty had materialised – in one of the spaceships cooling tanks. It was all Kez and Kirk could do to watch in horror as Scotty moved with the pressure of the fluid in the pipe like a worm in a tube.

"Get him out!" Kez shouted suddenly as she began running underneath the pipe, looking for a door or hatch that she might open to get Scotty out.

"You're the porter! You get him out!" Kirk shouted back, feeling his heart race and, taking an alternate approach, moved towards a control panel and began tapping in reams of code which all flashed as errors.

"I can't, not with the pressure in the pipe as large as it is. Isn't there an override function?" Kez shouted as she came to a stop, watching Scotty's puffy cheeks become a pale colour and his eyes grow alarmingly wide.

"I don't know the override!" Kirk grumbled, concentrating hard, trying to block out the external pressures so that he could focus on getting the manual function code right. Hopefully, then he would be able to open up one of the hatches in the pipe.

"Manual control; enabled. Pressure; calculated. Emergency pressure released; located." Kirk mumbled to himself as his fingers worked the control panel in front of him.

Kez watched in horror as Scotty made his way down the pipe further and towards the distributor pump where he would be inevitably torn to pieces.

However, at the final moment, a valve released its pressure and in turn, ahead of Scotty, a panel came away from the underside of the pipe fell away and unceremoniously dumped a couple of hundred gallons of water onto the deck and one waterlogged engineer.

Kez slid up to Scotty and checked his vital signs; pulse, airways and reaction to pain. Kirk joined them just as she pinched Scotty in the arm. He flinched away, "Ouch, lass! I'm okay! . . Soggy, but okay."

"Thank God." Kez leant back on her heels and sighed, "There is no way no one has noticed our arrival."

Kirk nodded in agreement, clutching Kez's shoulder for support as he tried to calm his rapidly beating heart, "I entered at least twenty wrong codes which all raised error warnings so I'm assuming they'll have security coming for us. Preferably I want to get to Spock of my own volition rather than being dragged there by some over-psyched cadets."

Spock watched the monitor as Chekov frowned over the controls.

"Keptin, we're detecting unauthorised access to one of the auxiliary cooling tank control boards." He clicked another control and brought up the second screen, "Appropriate codes were not entered. There are thirty-two errors on record."

Spock raised an eyebrow, "Send a security team to check it out. Tell them to take sidearms. Set them to stun."

Just as security entered the lift and the doors closed, there was a deep cracking in the air. Uhura stood and McCoy squinted as three figures appeared on the bridge of the ship. Uhura couldn't contain her relief to see that her best friend had survived the suicidal decision she had made to port out of a starship at warp. Kirk was with her, looking as rugged as ever and then a shorter, older man, who looked drenched and was dripping water onto the deck around where he stood.

Spock contained any relief if he felt any.

"Surprise," Kirk said, holding his arms out dramatically.

Kez thought it wise to stay silent. She knew what had to unfold; Kirk had to compromise Spock, and it was going to be hard to watch. Scotty seemed to have the intuition to stay silent and try his best to blend into the background.

Spock ignored Kirk and turned to Scotty anyway, "Who are you?"

"He's with me." Kirk smiled, drawing Spock's attention back towards him.

Spock narrowed his eyes, "How did you beam onto this ship while it is travelling at warp?"

Kirk kept the twinkle in his eyes, "Oh Spock, you're smart. You figure it out," he nodded over to a station on the bridge, "Ask your chief science officer, he might know."

"As captain of this vessel, I order you to answer the question." It wasn't a shout but Kez thought she could see a glimmer of frustration in Spock's eyes.

"Well, I'm not telling." Kirk kept the smile plastered on his face. "Does that not frustrate you? My lack of cooperation? Does that not make you angry?" Kirk pushed harder for a response.

Spock turned to Kez, "As a member of Starfleet and under penalty of court-martial, I order you to explain how you came aboard this-"

"Don't answer him, Kestrel." Kirk grabbed her hand and squeezed it. Kez bit back her tongue.

"I can't do that, Spock."

"You will answer me." He ordered sternly. Every heartstring in Kez's chest pulled at that point. She could only drop Spock's gaze. She knew she was hurting him, betraying her first friend in the whole galaxy. And inside, that killed her.

Scotty held up his hands, "And I'd rather not take sides if that's alright."

Spock was slowly becoming visibly frustrated, trying to make sense of the situation he found himself in.

Kirk squared up to him, "What is it about you, Spock? Your planet was just destroyed. Your whole civilisation was wiped out. Your mother murdered – and you're not even upset?"

Spock stared back at him, unblinking, "Your presumption that these experiences interfere with my abilities to command this ship is inaccurate."

"Did you see what he did? To your home? Your family?" Kirk pushed on.

"Of course, I did ..."

Kirk stepped forward, getting into Spock's face, "Tell me, Spock, what's it like not to feel? Anger. Or heartbreak. Or the need to stop at nothing to avenge the death of the woman who gave birth to you?"

"Step away ..."

"You must not feel anything!" Kirk persisted, "It must not compute for you. You must not have loved her at all!" Kirk shouted at Spock's face.

Kez barely had time to blink before Spock landed the first punch, right into the side of Kirk's face. It seemed to have taken Kirk by surprise as well as he reeled back, raising his hands to defend his face from the next assault, but Spock was already upon him. Every block Kirk made, Spock powered through it, landing three punches for every one Kirk tried to land. The pounding was relentless.

Kez looked around at everyone, all of whom were too dumbfounded to even be trying to break up the fight.

Spock threw Kirk against the control panel, smashed a punch into his face before grabbing Kirk around the neck and squeezing hard.

Kez ported over, McCoy reaching out to try and stop her, to keep her out of harm's way.

"Spock, Stop!" She screamed, pounding on his back and arms trying to get him to pay attention to her. But he was deep in his bubble of rage, only squeezing harder.

"Spock!" Kez screamed again, watching the colour drain from Kirk's face.

"Spock!" Another voice sounded as Sarek stepped towards his son.

For a moment Kez thought it wouldn't work, then, ever so slowly, Spock began to release his grip, then all at once fell back into the reality of the situation.

He regarded his best friend stood next to him, her fists clenching his uniform as if she had been pulling hard at it, her face tear stained and eyes wide as if she no longer recognised him. He let go of Kirk, who slid to the floor. Kez followed him down and Spock watched numbly as she scooped up the sandy-haired man, crying, as she tried to clean the blood from his eyes and stop him weaving in and out of consciousness. Spock almost envied Kirk, there was once a time when Kez used to help Spock after a fight, but now he could only watch as she regarded Kirk with the same, if not more powerful and deep, love and affection that she had once shown Spock. Spock had to look away and moved swiftly over to McCoy.

"Doctor. Under Starfleet regulation six-nineteen, I hereby relinquish my command on the ground that I have been emotionally compromised. Please note the time and date in the ship's log." Spock then pushed past the staring physician and exited the bridge.

All was silent.

"I like this ship!" Scotty declared suddenly, making a few people jump in surprise, "It's exciting!"