DISCLAIMER: The Star Trek characters are the property of Paramount Studios, Inc and Viacom. The story contents are the creation and property of Djinn and are copyright (c) 2019 by Djinn.

Here I Come to Save the Day

 

By Djinn

 

 

Kirk ducked as one of the Catrarian pirates swung at him. He kicked back, connecting with another pirate—but not all that hard or in a very sensitive place. His goal was to get kidnapped, not beaten up so badly his girl wouldn't think he looked pretty as he was rescuing her.

 

But he couldn't be taken too easily. He had a "my shirt will be ripped in this encounter" reputation to keep up, after all.

 

His shirt wasn't ripped, but the knees of his pants were fashionably distressed by the time he let them subdue him. "Okay, okay, I give up."

 

He tried to look upset as they searched him both a little too physically—"Hey, hands!"—and with tech. They extracted his subdermal locater, and one of them held it up with the Catrarian version of a sneer.

 

"Damn it all!" He grabbed for it, but the Catrarian dropped it and crushed it under its boot. "You'll pay for that!"

 

"So much for the infamous Captain Kirk's ability to never lose," the Catrarian said.

 

"We'll see about that." As comebacks went, it was weak, but seemed to be in keeping of what they expected. "Unhand me," he said, trying not to bury himself in the part but enjoying being marginally in control of something.

 

Dealing with Sybok had really annoyed the shit out of him. The subsequent missions hadn't been much better. He'd had a way better time his first voyage on the Enterprise, before Command had figured out the way to slow the great James-T down was with reports and regs.

 

Then Chris had gone and gotten captured by these idiots. Not that it was her fault. Who expected to get kidnapped from an emergency operation—from people who weren't even supposed to be on the damned planet?

 

They weren't supposed to be on this one either, but fortunately Starfleet intelligence was tracking them with a great deal more gusto now that one of their own had been taken. Turned out these asshats had been raiding all along the planets bordering the neutral zone, never taking enough to make Federation authorities suspicious.

 

Well, that was going to end. Now.

 

Okay, not exactly now. But soon. And because of him. Because what was he?

 

A big fucking hero, that's what.

 

Not the guy who gets his ship hijacked by his best friend's brother—a brother Spock couldn't have mentioned sometime during the years? Could Kirk have looked any stupider to Command?

 

Spock was still making it up to him. Although if he didn't quit letting Kirk win at chess, he was going to stop playing. It was no fun winning if your opponent wasn't even trying.

 

"Say goodnight, Kirk," one of the Catrarians said and injected him with something.

 

The world went black.

 

##

 

He woke in a cell, with a Catrarian holding a hypo standing over him. "Your nap is over."

 

"Wasn't much of a nap." Although he felt pretty rested. He hadn't been sleeping well since Chris had been taken.

 

The Catrarians manhandled him out of the cell, down a corridor and onto the transporter platform, again going places no man had gone before with their hands. Well, okay, some doctors had. And a roommate at the Academy.

 

Okay, so men had been there, but no Catrarians had.

 

But before he had to defend his honor with more vigor than he was already doing, they let him go and backed away, pulling out weapons. "Stand still."

 

Since it would put a serious dent in his plans to arrive on the planet dead, and he wasn't sure if their weapons had a stun setting, he complied. But he pouted as prettily as he could.

 

The transporter took him, and the next thing he knew was heat and dry air. Felt like the dessert. The air seemed alive in a way the ship's air—as much as he loved being on the ship—never did. He stopped himself from sighing happily and looked around as if he had a chance in hell of escaping.

 

"We know who you are. Don't even try it." More Catrarians. More weapons.

 

He waited like a good boy.

 

"Excellent choice, Kirk. I'm the commandant here. You will work. Or you will die."

 

"Not a lot of range in your vacation package."

 

"Ever the comedian."

 

He shrugged. The guy had practically thrown him the line.

 

The commandant pushed a button on his belt and a section of the fence behind him disappeared. "It's a force field. Touch it and you will die. We make it visible so we don't lose valuable workers. But we don't have to. You understand?"

 

It wasn't advanced logic. Jesus. "Yep." The commandant frowned—shit, was he not taking this seriously enough? "But I'll find a way out."

 

There—that was the look he wanted. The vaguely superior, never met James-T—the man who could mind-fuck an android without breaking a sweat—look. "In your dreams, Kirk."

 

Who wrote these yahoo's dialogue? Central casting?

 

The commandant motioned for him to go through the opening, so he did. Slowly, as if he was having to decide if he was going to fight. Once he got safely through it, the missing fence part rematerialized.

 

He waited for the commandant to say something about not trying to find his girlfriend, but apparently the Catrarians hadn't done as much homework as they thought.

 

Or Chris wasn't here.

 

But no. Starfleet intelligence was sure here was the only place they used.

 

He thought there'd be guards to meet him but nobody came out. What kind of prison camp were these idiots running? Then again, when the food and water was probably where the noise and dust were—just ahead where the hills started, about a five-minute walk—and a "touch me and die" fence was your other option, they might not need guards.

 

He started walking.

 

##

 

Kirk swung the pickaxe in the tunnel, glad he'd been hitting the gym more since the whole Sybok thing. He worked his way down the line, asking each of the prisoners next to him if they'd seen a human woman with extra sass and vivid blue eyes.

 

A Tellarite he asked started to swear. "Damn it, that Andorian picked today for you to come."

 

"There's a pool?"

 

"Yeah, your girlfriend started it."

 

"And she didn't pick today?"

 

"I don't think she picked any day. She just runs the thing."

 

Kirk started to laugh: it was vintage Chris. "What's the buy-in?"

 

"Nothing. It's not like we've got anything to bet with."

 

True. Well, other than their bodies. Which he didn't want her to be betting with. At least she'd gotten morale up. Only—"What does the Andorian win?"

 

It better not be her.

 

"I have no idea. It just helped us get through the day, you know?"

 

"She's good at motivating people in trying times." He leaned in. "So where is she?"

 

"What's it worth to you?"

 

"You just said we have nothing to bet."

 

The Tellarite laughed, only it came out a snort, which was pretty unsettling. "Well, if I put my mind to it..." He actually waggled his eyebrows. "Getting the great Captain Kirk to give me the blo—"

 

"Okay, I'm going to go find her on my own." Sometimes it sucked to be this pretty.

 

He found her two tunnels down, stage whispering, "Is he here yet? How's my hair?" to the—hell, he wasn't sure what kind of alien she was working next to.

 

"Honey, I'm home."

 

She turned, a big grin on her face. "I knew you'd come."

 

"Well, yeah. We never get to see each other otherwise. This is what I'm reduced to—getting myself captured so we can have some fun."

 

Down the tunnel, there was a high-pitched scream and then someone shouting, "I won?!"

 

"He won the pool on when you'd get here."

 

"Yeah. Had to hear about that from a Tellarite. One who wanted me to get a little friendlier with him than I did."

 

She laughed then moved closer. "I warn you. I stink."

 

"I don't care. I'm not smelling my best either." Primarily because he'd gone without a shower for a couple days so he wouldn't notice the funkiness as much once he got here.

 

He sort of felt bad for the bridge crew who had to put up with it.

 

Oh well. His ship, his stench.

 

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Her breath was not the freshest, but he wasn't the kind of guy who held that against the woman he was rescuing.

 

"So you're here to save us?"

 

He nodded as he pushed her against the wall. God damn, he was horny. "Do you think we can do it without showing them much?"

 

"Yes. But we're not going to. You do know the Catrarians took your transponder, right?"

 

"Well, they took the one they could find." He laughed as he let her go. "You're not the only one who gets to try out cool new tech."

 

"My hero."

 

"Damn straight."

 

She made an impatient gesture. "So...why are we still here? Starfleet's going to get us out of here, right? If they know where we are."

 

"Yes."

 

She waited and then swatted him when he just gave her a silly grin. "When?"

 

"I'm a little unclear on that. I may have told them not to rush." He sighed. "I actually did tell them that."

 

"Why?"

 

"Because I need a vacation. And Starfleet won't let me have a real one this soon after taking command. So...we'll have one here." He pulled her back to him. "You sure you don't want to try..." He let his hands stray under her shirt, and she moaned.

 

The alien next to them said, "I'm a sucker for romance. Go for it and I'll cover you."

 

"This is M'Hr'Gaha'L. They're Dil'G'Rv'Ehn."

 

Damn. She didn't even stumble over the weird clicks between syllables. His girlfriend was the best. And M'Hr'Gaha'L was second best as they gave him and Chris as much cover as a tall, slender nonbinary biped could give two people madly going at it in a badly lit tunnel. Which was to say, enough.

 

More than enough, he even had fun being furtive as he came. "I missed you," he whispered in Chris's ear as she came a little more loudly than he expected. "Also, keep it down or everyone's going to want a piece of me."

 

"Maybe they'll want me," she said as soon as she could talk, biting his ear not terribly gently.

 

"Well, they will if they're smart." He let her down, which was a bummer because the feeling of her legs around him was the best thing ever next to having his ship back—except when Spock's stupid brother was on it.

 

"I missed you, too, by the way," she murmured.

 

"Wondered if you were going to get around to saying that." He winked and handed her the axe she'd been holding when he found her.

 

"Eventually." She touched his cheek gently, then turned and began to tear up her piece of tunnel wall. "This is a great workout but kind of one sided."

 

He liked what the motion was doing to her boobs. He thought M'Hr'Gaha'L did too; they even shared a moment over their mutual admiration of his girl's assets. Then he got to work.

 

"What are we digging for?" And wouldn't the tunnel collapse eventually if they kept this up? This is why you shouldn't let the prisoners decide how to run the joint.

 

"No idea."

 

Lamest operation ever. "If this were my work camp, there'd be some organization."

 

"Don't get any ideas. I like your vacation idea—I'm tired of never seeing you, too. So you can't be in charge."

 

"The two ideas are not mutually exclusive." He began to grin. "Remember when we were in Paris on leave, and I put you in those restraints, and you had to do everything I said and..."

 

"Shut up."

 

"Very adult comeback." He laughed and got to work. "I love you, by the way. Jeez, do I have to say everything first?"

 

Her laughing was his only answer.

 

##

 

He and Chris—and everyone else—were sprawled in a big cavern that was a few tunnels down from the one they'd been working in. There was some really minerally tasting water that Chris said was safe to drink and some weird mushroom things that everyone was chowing down on. He was skeptical but Chris handed him one with a stern look.

 

It wasn't as bad as he expected. "Don't you think this is a weird kidnapping operation they've got going? I mean what's the point of this?"

 

"I don't know."

 

"Why is anyone even working?"

 

"Because one time people stopped working, and the guards came in and killed people until they went back to work."

 

"Shit."

 

"Yeah. I have a theory."

 

"Hit me with it. You know I love your brain." They were in a secluded corner and he was loving other parts of her too. He'd always been aces at multi-tasking.

 

"They didn't ransom me, right?"

 

"Right. I mean we knew you were gone and Starfleet intelligence figured out who took you. But the Catrarians never told us."

 

"And we don't seem to be doing anything by digging. No one ever finds any gems or minerals or anything remotely useful or valuable."

 

And he'd seen a caved-in tunnel on the way to the cavern, so he wasn't wrong about the mining operation being potentially deadly.

 

"I think they're feeding off us. Our emotion, I mean. Our frustration, maybe?"

 

Might explain why they'd been groping him—his annoyance may have been a tasty snack. Like that glowing thing that had made the crew and the Klingons fight. Except no because—"Wouldn't they have stopped your pool then? If you made people happy? And they're letting us have sex and I know that's making me happy."

 

"Hmm, good point. Maybe any emotion will do—they just have to keep us all together to get critical mass. It's the only reason I can see to do this. And maybe they don't need that many of us—why they're so circumspect with how many they take. I mean who even knew they were a problem before this?"

 

"Not me, that's who. I guess I was lucky they fell for my clever trap. They might have resisted my charms if they were at quota." He grinned at her smile. "God, I've missed you."

 

"I know. I wish we could spend more time together." She sighed.

 

"You could do more than wish. You could transfer out of ops and over to a certain ship that a certain guy you kind of like happens to be the captain of. I mean, if you were a good girlfriend."

 

"I don't want to work for Len."

 

Holy crap! Was she actually considering this? She usually changed the subject. He met her eyes. "Okay."

 

She took a deep breath. "And...I don't want to work for Spock."

 

"Everybody works for Spock. He's the first officer."

 

"I mean in the science department. He's still science officer too, right?"

 

"Yeah, big show-off." He made sure her clothing was covering all the important bits then cuddled in next to her. "You want to be my yeoman?"

 

She whapped him.

 

"You want me to be your yeoman?"

 

"Yes." She took a deep breath. "Okay, seriously, I want to make up a job."

 

"Hey, I'm the king of spontaneous bullshit. Do you want to be the early warning detector in case Spock has any other secret brothers?"

 

"You really need to let that go."

 

"Says the woman who doesn't want to work for Spock." He frowned. "Why don't you want to work for him? You afraid you won't be able to contain yourself if you're near him. Don't want to break my heart?"

 

"No, I don't want to be stuck in the science department. I've moved on."

 

"From that and medicine. Don't move on from me, okay?"

 

"I won't. You constantly surprise me." She reached down, laughing as she brought him back to life. She played for a little while to amazing results, then waited while he came down. When she started talking again, her voice was way more serious. "The thing I really, really love about Ops—that makes me feel young instead of wearing me down like the emergencies do—is working with young officers. All the things we do, it's such great training. And we do so much cross training. I've watched Jan grow in ways she never would have on a ship. So why not have a ship where a person could do that? Your ship would be amazing since you're very energized to indulge me." She wasn't looking at him anymore. "Is that stupid?"

 

"No. I love it." He kissed her gently. "I would have loved it even if you hadn't given me a really great hand-job. How close are you to pitching it?"

 

"Super close. I've had time, while I was waiting for you to get your ass in gear and rescue me, to really work things out. It would be for crew who demonstrate extreme potential."

 

"The Jans of the bunch." He grinned.

 

"Exactly. Maybe young officers but maybe not. Maybe regular crewmen. Get them so ready that OCS would be redundant."

 

"Between the two of us, I'm sure we could sell it. You want to report to me?"

 

"No, I can report to Spock. He is very cute, after all." She laughed at his expression. "I want to sleep with you. So let's not have you be the guy I report to."

 

"Oh, fine, if you insist." He took her hand. "I love this idea. Spock will too and he'll have ideas. He enjoyed being at the Academy—working with the cadets." He touched her face. "You're really going to come home?"

 

"If they approve it."

 

"We'll make them approve it. I want to explore the stars with you." He nuzzled her neck. "You're also going to have to pull a Spock and do two jobs—be that early warning system for stealth siblings."

 

"Fine. But I'm pretty sure he doesn't have another secret family member we don't know about."

 

"Yeah, you say that now..." He couldn't help it: he just had to lie back and grin like a fool. He had his ship back, a nice rest on this stupid planet, Chris coming home to him.

 

Life was amazing.

 

Until suddenly the cave was lit up. "Prisoners, do not panic. We're from the Federation. You're safe now."

 

A whole lot of cheering sounded.

 

"Well, shit. I thought we'd have more time." He pulled her to her feet, adjusted their clothes, and strode to the entrance, saying in a ringing voice. "This is Captain Kirk. Who's in charge?"

 

Chris muttered as she followed him out of the cavern, "You are, darling. Just can't share the spotlight..."

 

"Shut up. I'm doing this for us."

 

"Ah, Captain Kirk. Vasquez here." A commander stepped forward. "We were told you were here. Commander Chapel, glad you're okay."

 

She nodded.

 

"You clearly have this well in hand." Kirk put on his best voice, the one his crew always stood up straighter for.

 

And so did this guy. "Yes, sir."

 

"Outstanding job." He held his hand out. "Communicator?"

 

Vasquez looked conflicted.

 

"Something wrong, Commander?"

 

"Well, she's supposed to come with us."

 

"She who?" He heard Chris snicker.

 

Vasquez closed his eyes and sighed heavily, "Commander Chapel.  Admiral Cartwright said you would want to keep her with you and he needs her back ASAP."

 

"Yeah, because he hates doing the weekly status reports," Chris said, rolling her eyes.

 

Kirk leaned in.  "Does anyone else know you've found her?"

 

"No, sir."

 

"So, just for grins, let's say she's still out there somewhere"—he gestured toward the throng of prisoners—"in that group." He leaned in, pouring every bit of the charm he was known for into his voice. "You have someone you love, Vasquez? Someone you don't get to see enough? Someone you might want to take home yourself after they were kidnapped, instead of handing her over to her obviously heartless boss?" Cartwright was a friend and far from heartless, but all was fair in love and war.

 

Vasquez sighed heavily again, then handed over the communicator.

 

"Excellent answer, Commander. If you ever need a favor, you give me a call." He didn't wait for Vasquez to think better of his decision. "Kirk to Enterprise."

 

"Spock here, sir."

 

"Two to beam up. Immediately."

 

"Understood." Spock sounded amused—to him anyway. He doubted Vasquez could tell that.

 

"I'll make sure she gets home. And that Command knows I pulled a fast one on you."

 

Vasquez had that look so many people got when they dealt with him: defeated resignation. "Okay, sir."

 

"Buck up, little camper. He's a man of his word." Chris patted Vasquez's arm, then grinned at Kirk.

 

He heard her saying, "Let's go home," as the transporter took them.

 

 

 

EPILOGUE

 

Kirk sat in the lounge with Spock and McCoy, watching as Chris did some team-building exercise with her new cross-trainees. It involved alcohol and cards and he wasn't sure what else.

 

"Any clue what she's up to over there?" McCoy asked.

 

"Nope, Bones. And I'm fine with that."

 

"God, she's got you so whipped."

 

"Guilty as charged."

 

"I have never understood that term," Spock said.

 

"And you never will," McCoy said with a wink.

 

Spock looked back at him with such a fond look, Kirk put his drink down.

 

"Something you two want to tell me?"

 

Both men shook their heads in perfect unison.

 

Hmmm. Not a couple he would have seen coming. But it did explain all the nasty comments over the years—unresolved sexual tension had to come out in some way. And he gave them more staying power than Uhura and Scotty—that one was a true headscratcher.

 

The Catrarians had turned into less of one—Chris had been right: they were psychic leeches.

 

He grinned as he saw her break away from her group and point at the dance floor, then at him. "I must go."

 

"Does she tell you which pant leg to take off first too?" McCoy sounded a little jealous.

 

"If she does, I'll never tell." He joined her on the dance floor before Spock could add some Vulcan truism to McCoy's jibe. "Hey, you," he said, as he pulled her into his arms. "What were you doing to my extra-special crew?"

 

"Just an old ops game." She leaned in and kissed him gently. "I don't have to tell you everything, do I?"

 

"Is it going to get them drunk?"

 

"Oh definitely. But can you guess the first rule of this program?"

 

"Always carry antitox?"

 

"You know me too well."

 

"I'm starting to." He enjoyed the dance, then the next few. Finally, they went back to Spock and McCoy.

 

Before they could get too comfortable, a lieutenant from Communications came in and handed him a padd. "Sir, there's a Michael Burnham who needs to commandeer the ship."

 

Spock went visibly pale.

 

Kirk turned to glare at Chris. "You had one job."

 

"I have two jobs because of you. And he said he didn't have any other brothers."

 

Spock looked betrayed. "You were asking for him?"

 

"Do you think I give a shit?"

 

She would if it had been her ship that had been taken over.

 

Kirk held out his hand and she slapped an antitox into it, then she turned to McCoy. "Len, I think we're on our own."

 

"Fine by me. Tell me about whatever you were doing with your team. Is it something I should implement in sickbay?"

 

"No."

 

"Bitch."

 

"Asshole."

 

"God, I'm glad you're here.  No one else talks to me the way you do."

 

Kirk gestured for Spock—who still looked very uncomfortable—to come with him, and as they walked to the lift, said, "Okay, so explain this Michael person to me."

 

FIN