[Sometimes Choices Have to Be Made]

[kirktastic]

The beeping came suddenly from off from the side of his desk where he sat in his office. For a second Kirk was grateful that no one was in there with him as he jumped, just a little startled. Grabbing his comm and flipping it open, Kirk got out "Hello" before realizing it was only an alert.

The alert was coming from Jim's communicator, down there on the planet, trapped with Nero. Knowing that Jim had managed to sneak out two messages before, a small shiver of worry passed through him as he realized what only an alert could mean. It had to be a warning that something was happening - something that Jim couldn't sneak away to tell him. Considering the circumstances, there were very few things that the warning could have been. Kirk could only hope that getting out this warning wasn't putting Jim's life in danger.

Kirk thought about what George had said the other night. The idea had gotten stuck in his head - transported against their will. He had thought about it, laying in bed at night when he couldn't sleep. Could there be a way to do just that? To transport not only Jim and Spock, but the Romulans as well? If something was happening right now, something that Jim thought was worthwhile enough to have to warn him about, then maybe it was their only chance. He had a good feeling that whatever was taking place wouldn't give him much time to think this over.

Just as Kirk started to get out of his chair, the computer spoke to him as simultaneously a red alert appeared on the console before him. Sensors indicate the Narada is no longer aboard this ship. Repeat - sensors indicate the Narada is no longer aboard this ship. Kirk felt a cold fear run down his spine as he stared at the diagram of the Enterprise the computer automatically pulled up. It showed the Narada's last known location in Jim's quarters with the single red dot disappearing and reappearing over and over again.

With that in mind, Kirk found himself rushing down toward the nearest transporter room, with his comm still in hand. "Captain to Lt Commander Scott - Captain to Lt Commander Scott!" When Scotty didn't reply fast enough, Kirk snapped off a curse and hit the transporter room at a dead run. Kirk looked to the startled ensign behind the controls. "Ensign - the last known coordinates of the Narada should still be in the system, pull them up for me," Kirk said quickly as he slid in behind another console. His fingers flew over the screen, and using the coordinates the ensign pulled up, he scanned for information about the Narada.

The Enterprise's powerful scanners swept across where the Narada lay dormant on the surface of the planet below. To his utter amazement, the powerful shielding that had not only protected the Narada from every attack they had launched her way but kept them from doing something like this before was down, as if it had never been. To his greatest fear, Kirk could also see that her power levels, which had previously been so low, were now quickly picking up. That had to be it. That had to be what Jim was warning him about. The Romulans had done exactly as they feared - they had managed to not only locate but mine up the dilithium without the use of the plasma drill Kirk had helped destroy.

There was no time to think about what he had to do or talk to any other officer if this was the right course of action. Kirk looked to the confused ensign beside him and said, "Prepare - four to beam up." The computer recognized Jim and Spock's signatures immediately - it was Nero and Ayel's that Kirk had to locate. It wasn't hard, there seemed to be little else in the immediate area around the Narada. The mining must have scared everything off, Kirk thought to himself off-handedly. He had no doubt that every second counted. After all, it was impossible to say how long it would take for the Narada to get her shields back up.

Kirk hadn't realized he was holding his breath until the computer finally located Nero and Ayel's signatures. Something else that George had said came into his mind. He wasn't sure that Stockholm Syndrome was the right term for it but Kirk understood what his father meant. He didn't know how Jim and Spock would react to what he planned to do. With that in mind, he carefully divided the instructions to the transporter. Spock and Jim would be sent the conference room on Deck A. He instructed the computer to lock the door on the conference room and put his own personal code as the clearance needed for the lock.

The next set of instructions were a little more difficult to do in such a hurry. Choosing two open rooms in the brig, he set each one to its highest level of security. Only the captain would be able to lower the force field that separated the Romulans from the rest of the ship. Knowing the anger he had seen in Spock's eyes, and knowing the revenge in some people's hearts, even in his own, Kirk had to ensure that his crew was protected from Nero, and Nero from his crew. I'll need to speak with Security myself, Kirk thought quickly as he typed.

As he finished the last of the instructions to the computer, with the transporter locked on the four life signatures below, Kirk could only hope that he was doing the right thing. He looked to the ensign beside him and nodded only once. "Energize."

Comments

[mirror-brightly.livejournal.com]

The world tilted axis, dirt shifted and became floor, hollow-hard and plastic. The bright swell of gravity churned and pushed him by his shoulders, shoved him down, pulled listlessly in echo. He hadn't blinked, the flash of color, of atmosphere light became something dry and strange. His lungs caught against his throat and he coughed as he twisted.



Everything was bright, bled silver and blue at him. He knew even if he didn't and his teeth clenched.



He lashed out, curled a fist and struck. The fields were bright and blue and scalded as they cracked, sent splinters up his arm and shoved him back. The ground had no footing, it was no better than a wall, and he fell back, connected against the ridge of a bed. His bones felt closer, floated up toward the surface, and he hissed as he pulled himself up. There were no words, not in Lloannsu, Rihannsu, or any of the languages he knew for this. He let out a shout, terrible and wordless, and his voice escaped out with it.

The language of liars. He would waste no more words for it.

[loyalty-ever.livejournal.com]

Everything burned, amber banding to white and white and white. It stabbed his eyes out, opened them again with that familiar-weird clash of sound, different in color, different in pitch and sensation. Gravity gripped him too soon, too hard, and planted him ass-first on more sleek white, blinding awful material that threw his face back at him, distorted and strange.

It was so clean it probably squeaked when they hosed it down.

Someone was screaming, high and hard, and there was the harsh sizzle of a high-set forcefield. He scrambled to his feet, the low angry hum of his own field warning him back, keeping him from looking across. The shout died away to rapid breathing, slowly quieted. Ayel bit his tongue and reached down into his boot. No telling when they would come, what they would carry, how many of them there would be.

A cell. His very own cell aboard the Enterprise.

They won't get away with it, she'll never let them--that was his first real thought, inane.

They could. They had. He was a prisoner again.

If he started, if he opened his mouth, he'd never be able to stop screaming.

[mirror-brightly.livejournal.com]

There was time, time and silence and the buzzing blue field before him. It prickled his ears, his neck, and danced uneven where it caught the air, sparked and flashed against particulate matter. There was no dust here.

Watching the barrier made his eyes twist. The color meant nothing, reflected back in blinding brightness, clear and worthless. He saw past it, watched the door, and lost more time. It burned, kept burning.

Maybe it was just his hand, but his eyes held it.

The silence continued, unfamiliar whispers of air brought strange sounds that weren't really sound. He closed his eyes against it and tried to think in sound, not the liar light. Did light lie? Here it did, everything lied.

He turned, pressed back against the wall behind him, and folded his arms. He had a knife, long one, in his coat. He'd left the rest in his right boots, not these radiation tipping work boots. Unprepared. He was so unprepared.

A sound, shifting of air cracked his eyes. Something was moving behind him, against the wall. He twisted his head, tried to see, and his eyes stopped him. Was he seeing?

That face. It was a hundred years and thirty, wrong.

She was staring back at him, against the side of his head, where his cheek met metal. He could see her watching. She was in the blue light of the field, the ledge of the threshold. Her dark eyes were focused and sad, staring through the lines of his grief, through the prison he'd written her into. An appendix for a lost corpse, a life already grieved.

He was unprepared. His teeth clenched and his fury echoed in her face. She was mad at him, but he didn't need her any more, didn't need a shield, a soldier. Did he? Her face calmed but there was bitterness there. He'd failed.

He had to fix this.

Nero closed his eyes, shut her out and exhaled a soundless apology that resounded with her name.

[loyalty-ever.livejournal.com]

The cell facing his was empty.

They'd taken Nero somewhere else. Think of him by that name here. He will need that name and its anger.

He was elsewhere. Ayel had to find out where. And that meant finding a way through the field, to get at the lock panel.

Not to escape. No good running through an unfamiliar layout and trying doors at random armed with nothing but a knife. If he could get to the interface, he could talk to the ship--find Nero and warn Narada away from here. These people rattled on about peace, but they were scientists, and scientists lived to dissect things. And they had already proven they could and would promise him anything he wanted to hear.

Like friend.

Gettting loose meant first finding a flaw in the white. And he hadn't yet. It was too bright. Much too bright.

And there was something wrong with their grav system, or Earth was heavier. It kept pulling him off-balance, made him stumble, had him faltering in the single-colored confusion of the room.

Even the bed slat was white, smooth and blinding, so bright it would glow during a power outage. Too thick, too hard to snap properly. All one piece. He hadn't found a seam anywhere, nothing to suggest wiring, the recorders he knew were in the wall, the charges that must be in the floor. He couldn't even pry out the panel protecting the damned lights.

He'd check again. As soon as the spangles cleared from his eyes. They were starting to water in protest. The sheer dazzle of this room was building to a hard, slow throb behind his forehead.

He shut his eyes, sheltered them with the heels of his hands. Hair brushed at his fingertips.

He jerked upright. His head would have bounced on the wall, and did, but he had hair and it was wrong, bizarre, tufted and soft. Freakish. Chilling, after so long without. And his face had been wrong, too, in the floor, distorted and strange.

Oh. Air and Fire and Rain.

They were scientists. Scientists experimented all the time.

What had they done. His heart was trying to take up the rhythm in his head, pounding hard. Didn't want to look, didn't want to look, didn't want to see--

A dead woman glaring back at him, snide and cold, gangboss strength given the lie by long, sharp bones.

Sharra.

It had finally happened. He was mad. This was what going mad felt like.

Conference Room - Deck A

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Whatever came, he hadn't had a choice (http://mirror-brightly.livejournal.com/8024.html). His priorities were the lives of those on the ship, followed by Spock's, his own, and after that, the life and honor of the Romulans. Life being foremost. He had done as ordered while a prisoner, but every prisoner makes do with what he has. And Jim had offered no harm to his captors. The warning was his only way of curbing what was sure to be an even worse decision ahead.

But the beam-up was still slightly unexpected, disorienting in a way he did not remember the transporter being. Most of the time. He was reminded, dimly, in some survivalist sector of his brain, that the feeling he had right now was usually accompanied by a displacement in more than space. But as the familiar contours of the Enterprise materialized around him--relatively--he was grateful to be safe, and something close to home.

But what of Spock? Of Nero and Ayel, and where was the Narada during all this? He turned around, to find...

"Spock?"

Re: Conference Room - Deck A

[sehlatbear.livejournal.com]

The familiar feel of the transporter taking him, unexpected but immediately recognized, was like a grief song.

Spock opened his eyes aboard the Enterprise.

"Captain?"

He was not often left speechless.

"Remarkable."

Re: Conference Room - Deck A

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim's breath caught. Somehow--maybe it was the bond, maybe just his sure instincts--he knew this was Spock. But Spock... with a deep, throaty, feminine voice, and a uniform suddenly too loose that nevertheless stretched a little across the torso. There was so much to take care of, to determine--the Romulans, the dilithium, what the ship was going to do with her masters gone--but surely he could be forgiven for marveling at this for a moment.

Spock was a knockout.

And then something occurred to him, a note in his own voice, which had not been his at all. He looked down to see too-small hands disappearing inside his sleeves, pants threatening to slip, and, most notably, the gentle rise of his chest under the dirt-stained tunic. Grabbing his pants in one hand, he looked up at Spock, beaming a familiar smile on a face one would have to look closely to find similarities in cheekbones, lips, eyes.

"Spock," he said again, partly for the novelty of hearing his own honey-rich mezzo. "We're girls." And he started calculating how much time they had to take off their clothes and check this out.

Re: Conference Room - Deck A

[sehlatbear.livejournal.com]

"Indeed, Captain."

Spock turned in a slow circle, surveying his body. And then he surveyed Jim's body.

Quite changed. The smile was the same, however. It was almost jarring to see it, that smile on such a female face.

"I shall, of course, endeavor to reverse this change as quickly as possible."

They were in a conference room - there was no sign of Nero or Ayel. Had they been a victim of these changes?

Re: Conference Room - Deck A

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

"Why?" Jim asked with another disarming smile. "You're gorgeous. I could kiss you. Can I kiss you?" He blinked, a line settling between his brows. "Unless I'm not gorgeous."

What if he was a hideous woman? It wasn't that Spock was in any way unattractive as a man, but somehow Jim would not have picture... this. He shook his head at his own vanity, and moved to the door. First to find Jim, find out where Nero and Ayel were...

"It's locked!"

Re: Conference Room - Deck A

[sehlatbear.livejournal.com]

"Now hardly seems the appropriate time, Captain."

However, he took Jim's query seriously. Jim's body was strong and well-put together, the figure restrained and elegant. His mouth - her mouth? a matter to settle later - was generous and appealing.

Yet it was all quite strange. Spock did not consider himself a superior objective judge of female attractiveness. However, that was not an answer that would please his mate.

Spock prodded at the bond - just to be sure. It was intact, as strong as it had been previously. That much, at least, had not changed.

His brows drew together at Jim's exclamation. Locked - forcibly beamed into a locked room. The possible interpretations of this were less than ideal.

"Jim, you described to me some conflict between yourself and your counterpart. Could it result in this?"

Re: Conference Room - Deck A

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Oh god. He was ugly. Spock hadn't ignored his question--he'd looked at Jim, and not answered, which was a totally different thing. Appropriate time, his ass. It was always an appropriate time to tell him he was a fox, if such a thing were true. Oh god, his ass. Would it be undignified to crane his neck around to see it?

It would be, which meant Jim had nothing to look at but his bondmate-turned-pinup, which was not a little distracting. The need to touch her--him--whatever was almost overpowering. If he had a cock, it'd be... Jim blinked. Oh. That was interesting.

Holy shit. He had a vagina.

Okay, focus. "Hmm? Um. Right. Right, Jim was not happy about the Narada getting dilithium, and didn't seem inclined to trust any hostage situation. He was more than a little inclined to shoot first, et cetera. As far as conflict, he didn't." Jim glanced at the door again. "Unless he intended to beam us all up together, I can't see why he'd beam us into a locked room. And I can't imagine him being angry enough to beam us into a room with them, at any rate."

Re: Conference Room - Deck A

[sehlatbear.livejournal.com]

The transition was disturbing. This was not his body, not his bondmate's body. Leonard. Would Leonard be repulsed? Spock found himself pondering the question with an odd detachment.

"Perhaps you should attempt to contact him."

Spock moved closer to Jim, half reaching out for the familiar touch but awkward in this body. His center of gravity, his balance, it was all shifted. The... the breasts were unrestrained and their movement was neither unpleasant nor pleasing - it was simply disconcerting. Extra flesh that all, in a bodily sense, felt rather unconstrained.

Jim's body was less extravagant, closer to what Spock would have considered ideal, if he had considered this sort of transformation. And, he eyed Jim's ass as close to distractedly as he ever was, he appeared to have maintained more salient features than just his facial ones.

Re: Conference Room - Deck A

[original-fine.livejournal.com]

Jim was distracted from his own awkwardness in this new body by the shift of Spock's breasts under his uniform. When he reached out to meet Spock's fingers with his own, would Spock receive that jolt of arousal? Jim tried to suppress it, for Spock's sake, for the sake of this situation, which was far larger than being turned into women and even that was potentially very serious. He'd been in another woman's body before, and not much liked it. What if someone was running around wearing his? Of course there were two at least on this ship alone, but his actual body.

He turned from the contact, smiling reassuringly (he hoped--it wasn't his face, or if it was he wasn't familiar with its workings) as he went for the comm.

"Jim Kirk to the Captain," he said, hoping the computer wasn't going to be picky about his voice patterns. "We seem to be locked in a conference room. Unless you want to walk in on something prurient, I suggest you join us in the near future."

He switched off the unit and glanced around at Spock, his expression suddenly delighted. "Spock! Were you looking at my ass?"

Re: Conference Room - Deck A

[sehlatbear.livejournal.com]

Even the touch of their fingers - slender fingers, Spock noted, though still with a certain strength - was different. The contact buzzed but it traveled through him differently, was not the comforting gesture he had so quickly grown used to.

His hair was long and felt heavy on his back. Unacceptable.

"I wished merely to be complete in my examination, Captain."

It has remained an attractive feature.

He moved to the table, thighs brushing together in an entirely new way, breasts continuing to shift - he would require proper undergarments even for the most assuredly brief time they would remain in these froms. The uncontrolled body was too distracting. Even sitting down was a different motion, and his hair caught between his arm and his body, pulling uncomfortably.

Re: Conference Room - Deck A

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Kirk was already on his way down towards security when the comm came through. His mind was completely wrapped up in other things, namely (unknowingly!) the two people in the very conference room he was thinking of. He needed to tell security about Nero...

All he heard was a female's voice, and 'captain'.

"Kirk here. Busy, unless this is an emergency." He said without much thought behind it. It could have been anyone, but it wasn't Jim, Spock, or one of the security people he knew was in charge down in the brig right now so his mind dismissed it without a second thought.

[cso-spock.livejournal.com]

The moment Jim walked out of the conference room (http://kirktastic.livejournal.com/38239.html?thread=1974879#t1974879), the turbolift doors hissed open and Spock stepped out. As he came around the corner, he saw Jim standing there. The doors were closed, so he couldn't catch a glimpse of what was inside.

"Captain," Spock began, walking closer. "You had something to tell me concerning the situation?"

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"Girls. They're girls." He stared at Spock, lips twitching. "They're girls. Jim, and Spock. Are girls. They're girls." He didn't know what else to say.

[cso-spock.livejournal.com]

Girls. Spock arched an incredulous eyebrow. It wasn't the strangest thing that had happened on this ship but it was rather close, and the only thing directly related and unintentional from their transporter. He would have to tell Mr. Scott to survey the system again...

Yet, if the older Jim and Spock had been transformed, and Nero and his first had been transported as well...then that implied that they were, perhaps, female as well. Female as in -- Spock's memory triggered, biology lessons throughout his adolescence both in and out of mandatory education -- a centre of balance they hadn't adapted to yet, a shorter height, a slighter build, less muscle. Lighter, brittler bones.

An opportunity.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Even as Jim watched, something changed. It was subtle, but he had seen it before. He recognized that look from one time before, except then it had come with a hand tight around his neck and a console digging into his back. Autopilot and instinct, that look said. Spock's hands fisted at his sides, and he turned.

"Spock."

Spock was already turning, heading towards the turbolift. "SPOCK."

Fuck, fuck. Spock wasn't even stopping, just going as if his mind couldn't even hear anything around him. Jim stepped out and grabbed Spock's arm, "SPOCK!"

[cso-spock.livejournal.com]

He stopped, froze, a cat caught in its prowl through the undergrowth. A small (but vital) sense of awareness flickered into his eyes again. Relaxing a little, Spock looked down at the hand at his arm, and then up at Jim's face. "Captain." Not quite a question. He could guess why he was fifteen feet from his previous spot at a later time.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"No. No. No." He focused on Spock's eyes, his own narrowed. "If I have to lock you in your quarters until Starfleet arrives, no." Even though he hated to say it, because he wanted it too.

[cso-spock.livejournal.com]

If it came to that point, Spock would hope that he would do it himself. But it wouldn't come to that. So he didn't offer it as a possibility. "That will not be necessary." He said, looking directly at Jim and into those suspicious eyes. It was time to lock down his emotions until later, and what better time to begin than at the present.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"Don't bullshit me, Spock," Jim said, very quietly, "you know how I feel about this. You know. And fuck, maybe I'm doing everything wrong. I know Jim's not perfect but how everyone else acts, you'd think he was. Like he's never made a wrong decision before." He laughed, just a little. He knew Jim probably had, considering what he knew of them, but... shit. Everyone liked the guy, everyone seemed to agree with him... "I think this is best, whether or not you, or I, like it. Just stay away from the brig, okay?"

[cso-spock.livejournal.com]

"I will maintain my distance." And then the smallest look of uncertainty and suspicion, before it disappeared under a mask of cool confidence. "You will not change their status in the brig?" It was his kill to make. Jim didn't have anymore of a legal right to dispose of them as he did, but if there was a choice, Spock would rather take the burden on his reputation.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"...No. What's done is done, until Starfleet gets here. The Vulcans will know what to do with him. Maybe they'll agree with you," him, being the voice of reason. That was ... unusual, maybe.