REPOST: TOS A/U, 2/6, New Minglewood Blues, [PG13] K/S

[Killashdra]

New Minglewood Blues (sequel to Deep Elem Blues)
TOS A/U, K/S, h/c, part 2 of 6
PG-13 for Violence and Other Unpleasantness

Red lights across the board -- they were almost ready to
go to warp. Spock had already brought the cloak online, as
soon as they'd left orbit. They only had a little further to
go, and they'd be at Cochrane's Limit for this system.
The new upgrades were online; the throaty purr of the
impulse drives filled the air, and sensors showed all clear...
No, wait. What was that? Something was just dropping
out of warp. There was something familiar about that
configuration... The Vulcan's hands moved quickly, easily, as
he brought the close-range sensors to bear. He held up one
hand, a signal for Jim to hold off on warp for a minim...
Yes! It was an Orion freighter, very much like the one
that had captured the two of them all those years ago. But
this time, they had a cloaked ship, and a lot more options.
"Jim... look." And he pointed to the pertinent section of
the display.
The human leaned forward, read what was there -- and a
predatory grin spread across his face. "You thinking what I
am, Spock?"
"I -- yes." As he said that, his hands flickered across the
controls, zooming in on the Orion, compensating for their
shields, trying to maximise the amount of information
gained without letting them be detected.
Unaware of Dirhja's cloaked presence, the Orion asked for
and was given an orbital slot. A flurry of encrypted comm
traffic ensued, then, between the freighter and a station on
the ground. Meanwhile a picture was slowly taking shape on
Dirhja's viewscreen: armaments, shields, engine capacity,
life signs -- a *lot* of life signs. Spock flicked a glance at
the human, one elegantly slanted eyebrow raised. His
fingers danced across the keyboard, bringing up stats for
that type of freighter. Standard crew complement was
thirty to thirty-five. Jim reached out and tapped the
screen, the hazel eyes alight with interest. The readout
showed sixty-five sets of life signs -- and thirty of them
were concentrated in two of the belly compartments.
Almost certainly those were cargo holds...
Jim's grin grew a little wider. "Spock -- this might be a
live one. Those just might be a load of slaves, on their way
to market."
The Vulcan nodded. <<Slaves -- or possibly, ...soldiers.
We need... more data.>> He bent over the keyboard again,
fingers flying. Once, every move he made had been as fast,
as graceful, as this.
Once, the spoken word had been just another tool to him,
a scalpel with which to dissect the truth from the lies, the
facts from the fancies, intent from result. Once. He had
lost that, long ago, in a hail of fists and boots and clubs.
Jim had been forced to watch, immobilized, as it was done.
He had felt his friend's mind vanish into a flare of white-
hot pain, then black nothing. For years afterward, he had
thought that the Vulcan was dead. He had looked dead, as
they'd dragged him from the room. There had been so much
blood...
It had been Orions who had first captured them, and sold
them to the masters. It had been Orions who had stood by
and laughed, as Jim was locked into a cage and given to the
surgeons. And afterward, once his body had healed, it had
been Orion fingers, on the controls of the wire, that had
begun his education in what it really meant to be a slave.
Once, in another world, in a different life, Jim had
believed that hatred was wrong. But it had been a different
man who believed that, a man strangely innocent, for all his
years in the Fleet.
Spock caught his attention, tapping at his arm. <<Here
are... the scan results. Thirty-five are... Orions. None of...
the Orions are in the ...holds. Twenty-five are human. Three
are a type... unknown, to this computer. One is an Andorian...
and one... is Vulcan.>> The black eyes were wide; from
surprise, or from shock... Jim rubbed at the bridge of his
nose; he could feel a headache starting. This they did not
need. How could they ever persuade a Vulcan not to give
them away?
And yet -- aye, there was the rub. How could they *not*
intervene? They couldn't -- and looking over at Spock, Jim
realized the Vulcan felt the same way. They could not rid
themselves of this unwelcome knowledge; they could not
turn away, and thereby consign thirty souls to the same
hellish fate that had once swallowed them. No matter what
it might cost, they had to get those people free, if they
could. And it was always possible that a Vulcan might
respect the argument of Privacy...
Jim turned back to his own controls. While Spock worked
on refining their data, he ran a quick inventory of their
weapons and other options, and brought as many online as he
could without dropping their cloak. Whatever they decided
to do, the more choices they had, the better. He reached
into his pocket, and made the headache go away. Then he sat
back, and stared at the ceiling, thinking. They needed a
plan... The trouble was, they needed a plan they could
survive executing. He could think of plenty of glorious
suicidal plans at the drop of a hat. Useful ones took a little
more work.

-----///-----

Jim wasn't going to like this one. Spock knew that, as
well as he knew his own name. But it might work, and he
hadn't been able to think of anything else. Judging from the
scowl on the human's face, neither had he. And this -- well,
it was going to need a lot more polishing, but he had the
bones of it assembled, anyway.
The hardest thing would be persuading Jim to play his
part. He would have to be onscreen, and he might have to use
the voice hardware, and Spock knew that he wasn't going to
like any of it.
Still, for a human, Jim could be ruthlessly logical, when
the need arose.
He was glad, now, that they hadn't got around to
swapping out Dirhja's computers. This wouldn't have been
possible without the original hardware and datafiles. But it
should work, if he could put it together right. He had enough
now to run a short demo, at least. Then it would be for Jim
to choose, what he was willing to do. Computer beeped at
him then; it had finished the integration between voice and
vid, the last bit he was waiting for.
Spock leaned over and touched the human's hand. <<Jim
-- I have something... to show you.>>
The human jumped a little, startled by the touch. His
mind had been miles away, focused on the viewscreen image
of the Orion ship, worrying over alternatives he didn't like.
<<Sorry, Spock -- I was just thinking. What is it?>>
<<I wish to show you... a program, I am working on. It...
may be a solution to our... problem.>> He looked up, then, to
meet Jim's eyes, seeing the tension and frustration on his
face. Spock hesitated, but he had to say the rest of it. <<I
must... warn you, t'hy'la -- you are not going... to like this.>>
The look Jim gave him, then, was both curious and
apprehensive. <<Duly noted. Go ahead and run it.>>
The Vulcan reached out and typed in a single command.
The image on the main viewscreen shivered and vanished
into rainbow sparkles. When it coalesced again, it showed
!M'zh!w*hee sitting in the "captain's chair" -- they never
used that one, themselves, preferring to run Dirhja from the
cockpit instead.
The image was detailed and realistic. In the background
were the members of her former crew, still basically
sketched in -- but !M'zh!w*hee looked as solid and as real as
either Jim or Spock. And in the foreground knelt a still
image of Jim himself, exactly where she had always made
him kneel, for hours on end, sometimes for days. Spock had
seen that, in his memories...
Only !M'zh!w*hee was fully animated; she could be heard
making a greeting to the captain of the Orion ship. Jim
focused on the screen, the fierce hazel eyes narrowed in
concentration. The image finished giving her greeting, and
the sequence ended. Jim kept staring at the screen,
thunderstruck. All the colour had left his face.
"I... am... sorry, Jim." Spock frowned, fighting to get the
words out. "I --" He stopped, frustrated. The words he
needed were simply not there. Instead, he used the
mindspeech. <<I did not mean... to shock you, t'hy'la. I
thought... they might drop their shields, for... *her*. Then
we could use... the transporter.>>
The human was silent, for what seemed like a long time.
Then he turned to face the Vulcan, and grinned. The colour
had begun to return to his face, as he thought it over. The
odds were pretty damned good that !M'zh!w*hee hadn't told
any of the Orions about the theft of her ship. Her pride
would have demanded that she hide such a defeat, especially
from the despised greenskins. The more Jim thought about
the idea, the better he liked it. "Spock, they just might, at
that. She gave *my* nervous system a hell of a jolt!" The
grin grew wider. "You did all that just now? Not bad,
Spock, not bad at all." He had finally put the bones of a plan
together, himself -- but he liked this one better.
The Vulcan nodded, accepting the compliment. Now came
the hardest part, and he knew Jim would not be happy about
it... <<There is one more thing. I can... animate her fully, and
the crew, a little. I can... make her answer... questions, to a
point. But it will... be easier, if I do not also have... to
animate you.>> He fell silent. Only Jim could decide if he
was willing to do this, but the need was real. Even with
Jim's help, pulling this off would take everything the
computer could do, and all the skill he had. Dirhja's onboard
system was fairly powerful -- but a lot of this would have
to be done in realtime, since there was no way of knowing
in advance quite how the Orion captain would react -- and
this computer was nothing compared to the ones he'd had on
the Enterprise. So he waited -- but while he waited, he
turned back to the computer and began to refine the images
of the crew. They could not take too long in choosing what
to do; at some point the Orion would just leave orbit and
continue on her way.
There was silence for a time, the only sounds the tapping
of the keyboard, and the soft hiss of air in the vents, that
sound no spacer ever really notices, unless it stops.
"All right. You're right, dammit. I'll do it." The
expression on Jim's face was bleak, resigned. It was --
unpleasant, to see that and know that it was his doing. But
it could not be helped. Jim got up and went to the
replicator, tapping in a series of commands. After a minim,
he took a pile of silver fabric out of it and vanished into the
'fresher. He said not a word, but Spock could feel, as if it
were his own, the complicated mess of emotions swirling
through his friend's mind -- anger, tension, fear and shame,
all mixed up together. He felt it when Jim retuned the wire
and made it all go away. How long could he keep on doing
that? And what would come of it when he could do it no
more? Spock didn't know. There was nothing he could do
about it, at the moment.
When the human emerged from the 'fresher he was clad
once more in the sleek silver catsuit and sandals he'd worn
the night they escaped from the masters. About his neck
was a flat band of decorative chain, with a plaque in the
center emblazoned with !M'zh!w*hee's sigil. Such a collar
was the mark of a favoured pet -- it did not damage the
pelt. Spock's had been plain cold iron; he bore the scars
from it still, for they lacked the necessary equipment to
regenerate his skin.
For a moment, when Jim stopped and looked down at him,
the Vulcan had to fight the impulse to kneel before him --
that habit had been beaten into him, over the years, that one
of such status be deferred to always. He shook his head,
remembering where he was and who this was. Neither of
them outranked the other. Not any more.
"Does it look right?" Jim's voice was light, even amused,
though at what cost, Spock could only guess. His thoughts
were opaque again; it would require a deliberate effort to
read them, and that, the Vulcan would not do without cause.
They had little enough privacy, as it was. One had to draw
the line somewhere.
"Yes... It is... perfect." He motioned for Jim to sit down,
and ran the program for him again. This time, the crew
were as real as *she* was, and he had deleted the still
image of Jim. Sitting where the Vulcan himself was sitting
was the image of a tall, thin Orion, absorbed by his
intruments.
After it was done, he met Jim's eyes again. <<Does this
look good? It will show... on a monitor screen, *here*.
You... will be able to see ...the monitor. They... will not. This
way... you will know... what her image is doing.>>
"Spock -- I can't tell it isn't *her*, until I look over and
see that her chair is still empty." He gestured downward, at
what he was wearing. "I hate wearing this shit again -- but
you're right." It was hard for him to admit that; Spock could
feel it -- but there were no illusions between them any
more. They knew one another too well for that.
<<Jim -- it *will* work.>> And the human nodded.
"Yeah. I think it will, at that."

-----///-----

Finally, everything was ready. Jim took his place,
kneeling beside the empty chair where !M'zh!w*hee had
always sat. Spock gave him a signed countdown, from five.
At two, the human drew in a great breath. At one, he
shivered -- and became someone quite different, simply...
flowing, from Jim, whom Spock knew very well, to a
haughty stranger he had never seen before.
It was the same man, and yet it was not. Every line of
his body spoke of eloquent disdain for anyone of lesser
station. This one was pampered, held in high esteem, and
well he knew it. He sneered as he glanced around the empty
room, showing his opinion of Dirhja's holographic crew in
that scornfully curled lip, that supercilious lift of brow.
Again Spock had to fight the impulse to drop to his knees.
He knew better -- but the skin between his shoulders
crawled, in expectation of a blow that never came. He
blinked, shook himself, and sent the opening commscreen
*she* had always used to the Orion ship.
Their reply was very quick; they had obviously dealt with
!M'zh!w*hee before. Perhaps a minim went by before the
captain himself came onscreen, sweating and bowing
obsequiously -- and visibly counting the profits he stood to
gain. From their initial response, Spock had drawn his
name, and the name of his ship, for *she* would have known
them.
On the monitor, her image paused to run a lazy hand
through the kneeling human's hair. In response Jim arched
and preened, as if he were a petted cat. His timing was
perfect, as well it might be; Spock had drawn that
particular bit straight from his memories.
Lazily, she turned to face the Orion captain's onscreen
image. *<Captain Akkhaz't'sht -- greetings. I hear you have
cargo of interest to me.>* She spoke in her own tongue, as
the masters always did; it was not for them to speak in the
way of their inferiors.
The Orion bowed very deeply, avarice and fear at war in
his every motion. His reply to her was signed, the same
signs Jim and Spock had learned as slaves. So must all do,
who would speak with the masters, for they forbade that
any should speak their tongue, unless it were pitched as
they themselves spoke it -- and hardly any could do so,
unaided. "Lady," the man signed, "may it please you, I have
thirty new-caught. Most are these humans, as you asked me
to seek; some few are of other kinds, such as fell into my
hands. Will you make purchase this day?"
She had *asked* for more humans? That was
disquieting, but there was no time just now to consider it.
Fingers flying, Spock bent over the keys again. Onscreen,
*she* leaned back in her chair and appeared to think.
Kneeling beside her, without uttering a single word, Jim
showed his complete disdain for the disheveled and
subservient slaver. He, after all, was !M'zh!w*hee's
favoured pet; this other was merely a hireling -- and an
uncouth one, at that.
The Orion was shivering and fidgeting, but he made no
comment, for none had been invited. He must wait, as all
who dealt with the masters had to do. She would speak
when *she* was ready. Spock let him wait and sweat,
having the crew onscreen perform routine tasks, letting
time pass. While he did this he was busily downloading
sensor data into the transporter, calibrating and fine tuning
it, getting everything ready. They would only get one chance
at this; it *must* go right the first time.
He brought Dirhja's engines back up to full readiness,
though he kept them idling for now, set at zero thrust. He
wanted no power buildups to give away their intentions.
Finally he was ready. Onscreen, *her* image stifled a
languid yawn and stretched, as one new come from reverie
might do. She glanced at the Orion, much as if to wonder
what he was waiting for. At last, she spoke. *<Thirty new
caught? You have been busy, Captain...>* She seemed to
think for a moment. *<Very well. I shall take all thirty of
them. How soon can this be done?>* The Orion looked
rather unhappy; perhaps he had hoped to sell a few of them
on the side, for extra money. It made no difference.
!M'zh!w*hee was legendary for her temper, and her zeal in
nurturing a grudge. If she wanted all thirty, then that was
what she would get.
The Orion captain bowed again, even deeper, then
straightened. "I can deliver them at your command, Lady,"
he signed.
She sat a little straighter, then. As Spock laboured over
the keyboard, she told the Orion, *<Do so, then. I shall
inspect them; if they meet with my approval, you will be
paid.>*
Left unspoken was the possibility of them not being
approved. The Orion onscreen grew, if anything, even more
nervous. "At once, Lady," he signed. "Lowering shields now;
prepare to receive cargo."
Onscreen, Spock's counterpart signed that they were
ready. On his console, display confirmed it; Dirhja had also
lowered her shields. *She* lifted one leisurely hand.
*<Proceed.>*
Spock sat back and watched, as sensors showed thirty
new sets of life signs appearing in Dirhja's belly hold. That
was convenient; he had been prepared to snatch them if he
must. Instead they were freely handed over. He waited a
moment to confirm that transport was finished, then had
*her* image tell the man to wait while she inspected them
herself. Then he signed off.
The instant the screen blanked, Jim bounced up off the
floor and ran for the pilot's station. Spock was already
seated at copilot; with a few keystrokes he brought Dirhja's
cloak online, heeled the helm hard over, and brought them up
to full impulse. Jim took over then, flying a twisting,
dodging course to take them clear of all the orbiting traffic
that couldn't see them. As soon as they got to Cochrane's
Limit, he put her into warp and set course back toward the
Vortex, the closest thing they had to a home base. That
done, he turned on the autopilot.
Finally, he changed back into his Free Trader motley, and
the two of them secured the bridge and headed below to
interview their newly-arrived passengers.

-----///-----

"What a zoo, Spock! What the hell are we going to *do*
with these people?" Jim leaned back in the pilot's chair,
rubbing the bridge of his nose, trying to ease the headache
that had returned full-blown, while they had been running
their ruse.
<<Several have... written here, that they... wish to be
dropped at the Vortex. That... will remove six of... them, at
least.>> Spock didn't look too happy, himself. They had just
finished reading the padds that their passengers had filled
out at Jim's request. There was no healer among the thirty,
unless it was one of the three furries -- and since they
apparently spoke neither Standard nor the speech of the
masters, there was no way to tell. How they were going to
communicate with them, Jim didn't know. They used sign
language among themselves -- but it was nothing like the
signed speech that Jim and Spock had learned as slaves.
The Andorian was unconscious, and they could not tell
why, or how bad his condition was, for although they did
have a rudimentary medkit, they had no data on Andorian
norms. And the Vulcan youth, whose name was Sek'hel, was
from the city of T'lingShahr, of a family of crafters that
were bound into Spock's kin in some way -- Jim didn't
understand quite how; Vulcan families were notorious for
their intricate convolutions of kinship. It was pure luck
that the boy had not recognized the Vulcan; apparently, they
had never met, and Spock did not look much like his old self
anymore. The youth was a musician, just a boy, really. His
uncle, with whom he'd been traveling, had been killed in the
raid that took him prisoner. They couldn't just drop him in
some random place; he'd led a sheltered life in that city of
artists and musicians, and this had been his first trip
offworld -- but they could hardly go to Vulcan, either, with
no Federation ID or registry. Problems, all the way.
They had told the passengers only that their names were
Jim and Selek, and that they had once escaped from
captivity themselves. Given that Spock was scarred at neck
and wrists, Jim figured that was obvious. And Selek was a
name the Vulcan had used once before, years past; it was
easy for him to remember. Neither of them mentioned any
other names.
The only bright spot in all this was the family of Rom
Garou.
They had come to the front, after Jim had finished
speaking, when all those rescued were talking among
themselves, trying to decide what they wanted. They were
a group of five, all related, by the look of them -- mostly
small, olive-skinned, with black hair and high cheekbones.
There were two men, and three women, one of whom was
just a girl. The oldest was a tiny silver-haired woman with
a much-wrinkled face -- yet for all her diminutive size, the
others treated her with a great deal of respect. One of the
men was the obvious leader, far and away the biggest of
them; he was not only tall, but large in girth, as well. At
Jim's nod, the man had begun to speak. "Jim, Selek -- I give
you greeting, and thanks. You gave us your names, so I will
give you mine. I am Yojo Vakako; I am rom baro of our
kumpaniya. I have this to say to you -- you two have freed
us from the hands of O Beng the Devil, and we Rom do not
forget such a thing. We wish to help you. If there is a place
on this ship where we can cook, we can feed these people,
and keep them entertained. We are five, here -- would this
be of help to you?"
Jim and Spock had looked at one another; the Vulcan had
nodded, almost imperceptibly. Jim turned back to face
them. "Would that help? Yes it would, Mr. Vakako."
The man demurred, saying, "Just Yojo is fine, Jim." Then
he'd pointed a thumb at Spock, and grinned hugely. "Now this
one, hey! He could be Romany chal -- he has the look of it,
does he not?" And his family nodded, smiling themselves.
Spock had looked nonplussed, but said nothing. Yojo
continued. "Only the ears are not right -- and who's to say
where a Rom might have wandered, years in the past, hey?"
Jim had to smile -- now that they mentioned it, Spock *did*
have a look about him, much like theirs. The darker skin,
the long nose, the sharp cheekbones -- it was true, he could
have fit among them with little more than a headscarf to
hide his ears. He wore his hair longer now than he ever had
in the Fleet -- it hid some of the scars, and helped to
change the shape of his face. In the mining camp, it had
helped to keep him warm. Thinking about it, Jim had
laughed, and been rewarded with the Vulcan's customary
look, of long-suffering patience, which he used where
another might have smiled. It was a look that Leonard
McCoy would have recognized instantly, and never mind the
changes that all the years had wrought.
After a moment, Yojo had hitched a thumb toward the
door, and said, "Well enough, then. What say you show us
where is your kitchen?" He had been as good as his word;
though Dirhja had only the smallest of kitchens, her food
replicator was brand new. Ever since then, the Rom had
served up a variety of foods, something to suit almost
everyone. At the end of ship's day, they sang, danced, and
juggled to amuse the others, helping to make the journey in
the crowded cargo hold less tiresome. They had also won
damn near a bar of latinum off of Jim, playing poker, until
Yojo caught them at it and made them give it back.
And, after all, Jim reflected, staring at the viewscreen,
they *had* pulled it off. The Orion captain had practically
wet himself when he saw what he thought was !M'zh!w*hee
onscreen. He had fallen all over himself in his hurry to
please *her*. Jim just wished he could've seen the
expression on that captain's face, when he realized what
had happened. Talk about "great moments in sports"!
But what the devil were they going to do now? *That*,
Jim mused, was a damned good question. He only wished he
had as good an answer. It looked very much as though Dirhja
was going to be pressed into service as a passenger
transport, for a time. He just hoped they could get them all
on their way without too many side trips.

-----///-----

End of part two.
Greywolf the Wanderer
--borrowing Zepp's account.
--mail me at grey...@snowcrest.net