Snippet 7 :-)

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When Christi next awoke, the first thing she noticed was that she was extremely uncomfortable. She was not lying in her bed - hell, she wasn't lying down at all. She was sitting up, her hands pinned behind her as though they were tied behind her back - and she couldn't see a thing when she opened her eyes.

That is, until someone yanked what felt like a tattered sack off the top of her head, exposing her to a blinding array of...torch light that was flickering all around her.

"Read this," a gruff, angry voice growled near her ear, and a piece of torn paper was shoved against her. It was then that Christi's eyesight - with the help of much blinking - began to clear...and she saw what seemed to be a communication screen from the Star Trek movies situated in front of her on a rickety old table.

...what the hell...?

"And read it all, rat," the voice spoke again - and this time a dark, ridged face with a black beard came to snarl threateningly at her. "You have one chance to do this before we chop you into something tasty for the grublar's. Got that?"

Christi noticed several more things at that moment. One, she seemed to be having some kind of god-awful life-like dream about a typical captured-by-Klingons situation. Two, she was more than just tied up. She was hurting. Her jaw was extremely sore, the ropes around her wrists were grating into her skin, and one of her eyes felt swollen and bruised.

If this was real, it was JUST her luck.

"I won't ask you again," the Klingon lifted the piece of paper in front of her - which was sloppily scrawled with some English words for her to read. "Read it. Out. Loud."

Christi blinked at the words, gazing at them for a brief moment before they squinted. "Federation, we...are...being...held hostage by -" she stepped, her eyes going to a wide daze. "What?! What the hell is this?!"

"READ IT OR DIE!!" The message was shoved closer to her face, the paper almost brushing her nose.

"I can't read it that close!" Christi shouted, feeling a swell of panic that made her heart race.

The paper jerked back slightly. "Read it. This is your last chance."

Christi blinked again, her eyes fuzzy for different reasons now. "Federation, we are being held hostage until you accept our terms listed on the screen. If they are not met by the next Earthen Monday we will kill one captive." Her voice rose in panic as she read the last part. "Please help us."

"Finally. Get her back in the cell." The Klingon said, ripping away the paper, before stuffing the old bag right back over Christi's head and yanking her off of the stool she was seated on.

The next thing she knew, apart from having been dragged the entire way, was the feeling of being bodily chucked onto the cold, hard ground somewhere else in the vicinity. The sound of a large metal door clanging shut came after that.

Someone quickly pulled her up, then, untying her wrists quickly and taking the bag off her head. Christi beheld the faces of three very concerned, Star Trek redshirts after that, all of whom looked quite concerned.

"You okay?" The one girl, someone who Christi somehow knew as Mary, asked her. "What'd they do?"

"Did they question you?" A guy asked - his name was Paul. She knew that.

"Did they hit you with stuff?" The third redshirt, another guy, who's name was Peter, asked.

"Yeah..." a fourth redshirt appeared then - and this one was, most unmistakably, Mel. Her eyes were huge and dazed on her face. "...I thought they were going to feed you to something."

Christi almost melted when she saw Mel, her throat closing on her as she nearly began to cry in relief. "Ummm..." she said, trying to get a grip on things as she thought back to what happened. "All I remember is having a bag pulled off my head and having to read a note." She sighed and shook her head as the cool started to come back to her head. "Apparently we're being held hostage by the Klingons so the Federation has to give them something or other."

"Figures," Peter grumbled, nodding. "That's what we thought. So far they haven't returned Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock yet...we're beginning to fear the worst."

"And Dr. McCoy, Commander Rorek, and Mr. Scott are still talking in there," Mary pointed to the cell adjacent to theirs - separated by bars...which Christi could now see held all of the people Mary had just named. "They're probably worried sick. Mr. Spock looked so sick when they took him this time."

Christi looked with wide eyes at the cell before turning to Mel. "Spock? What happened to Spock?" she asked, although Mel could tell she had the smallest of smiles on her face. "Tell me what happened, again?"

"Oh, it was awful," Mel said - and Christi noticed, suspiciously, that Mel seemed to be having the same trouble not smiling while she talked about the terribly dramatic subject. "They came in for him first, because they wanted to rough him up as an example, I guess...and when he came back, he looked all pale and sick, and there were these lash-marks all over his body. Then they came in AGAIN and grabbed him and Kirk, and...yeah. You don't wanna know what they had to do to Rorek to get him to let go of Spock."

Christi's smile grew, although she tried gallantly to hide it. "Awww that's horrible...and he's out right now too? With Kirk?"

"Yeah. Kirk they're probably just questioning, but Spock...I dunno. They get pleasure out of roughing him up," Mel said, trying hard to look concerned - but she was failing as much as Christi was. "...poor guy."

"I hope they don't kill him," Mary said, her worry genuine as she glanced at the other cell. "That would just be awful. Oh, we need to get OUT of here!"

"Nah I'd prefer to stay here," Christi said with a big, plastered smile at Mary.

Peter was peering as far as he could past the cell door. "Well we're definitely not doing it this way..."

"Ohhhh, my gosh! Here they come!" Mel suddenly shrieked, lunging forward to plaster herself against the bars. "They're bringing Kirk and Spock back!"

"Ohhh, I can't look," Mary wailed, covering her eyes.

"Just - keep them closed, Mary," Christi instructed, hurrying up to the bars as well. "Pete, watch over her, will you?"

Peter looked between Mary and the two sisters with slight hesitation. "Ummm...sure..."

"Oh god..." Christi breathed as the door to the other cell opened and McCoy and Rorek leapt to their feet. "There they are there they are!"

The Klingon guards through Kirk and Spock into the cell, causing Christi to squeal as McCoy and Rorek leapt forward to catch them. The guards left with a door slam.

Mel eagerly pushed for a spot next to Christi in looking into the other cell as the group scrambled, huddling around the two members of their group who had been returned to them...and obviously not in good condition.

"Spock, look at me - no, don't do that, look at me!" Rorek said, grabbing the Vulcan's face with his hand to turn it back toward him when it drooped almost lifelessly against his arm. The color of Spock's face, from what Christi and Mel could see, was absolutely deathly pale. "McCoy!"

McCoy was working wordlessly on Kirk, not even seeming to notice anything around him as he worked and tested things that Christi couldn't even make any sense of. "That's how I would react," she whispered to Mel, nodding to McCoy who was now patting Kirk's cheek and saying something to him that no one could hear. "The whole world would just go absolutely numb."

"You're right. You'd go even more blonde than usual," Mel said, not taking her eyes off the scene before them.

Just then, at that moment the door to the other cell opened again. The Klingons entered again - this time with what seemed to be another Federation officer. "Here," the first one said gruffly, shoving the blue-shirted officer forward. "For the Vulcan."

"Lesh'ar," Rorek said quickly, the second he saw the Vulcan, motioning desperately to him. "Come here, now. He's barely breathing!"

"They may have partially collapsed his windpipe," the Vulcan doctor said, moving swiftly to kneel beside Rorek and press a long-fingered hand to Spock's throat. "I was there when one of them hit him. It will be fortunate if his neck isn't fractured." His hands were already moving, reaching for a few of the tools strapped to his belt.

Mel stared, blinking slowly at the new Vulcan. "...is that...our new...?"

"Omg it's LESH'AR!!" Christi almost screamed, clapping her hands and nearly jumping up and down in delight. "Omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomg!!! He's SO cute!!"

"He is rather dreamy," Mary sighed tentatively, the lack of response to Christi's antics suggesting that the other redshirts were used to seeing this sort of behavior from the two sisters. "And he's a good doctor."

"Come on, Spock, breathe!" Rorek was speaking again in the other cell, still bent over the Vulcan while Lesh'ar worked with calm, quick hands over him. "God, he's gonna die...fix his neck already!"

"Patience," Lesh'ar said, his voice gentle but insistent as he finally slowed his hands, pressing on either side of Spock's neck for a full three seconds with one of his smaller tools in hand, before he pulled back, pressing his fingers lightly over Spock's throat. "...it is done. His windpipe is restored. Come now, Spock, take in a breath...that's it..."

Christi went up on tippie-toes to peer over Rorek. "He did it...he's breathing." she said, her heart fluttering when she saw Spock suddenly cough and gasp for breath, his eyes screwed shut as he leaned forward and fought for air. The two of them supported him until he finally lay back, his breathing beginning to calm. "God...did you SEE that?!"

"No," Mel said blankly. "...he did it too fast. Poor Spock. They busted up his throat. Klingons are assholes."

"He will need to lie flat," Lesh'ar was speaking again, and he moved, lifting Spock effortlessly from the floor and carrying him to one of the cots by the wall. "Bring the water if you would, Commander."

Rorek moved quickly to obey, taking the water from Scotty when the CEO gave it to him, and then moving back to give it to Lesh'ar.

"I'd be surprised if Spock didn't get sick just from breathing in Klingon B.O. for the past few hours," Mel muttered, watching. "Vulcans aren't meant for this crap."

Christi wasn't listening. The only thing on her face was bliss. "Did you see how easily he carried him...?"

"Yeah. That's a Vulcan thing, seesta," Mel said, elbowing her with a grin. "I still can't believe he's here. We haven't seen him up until now. They must've been keeping him separate to make sure he didn't break out of the cell or poison the guards or something."

"I love Vulcans," Mary sighed.

"Yeah, well, Spock looks really cold," Paul said, looking around their cell. He got up afterward, walking over to their cots to grab the thin, raggedy blankets from them. He came back up to the bars. "Hey, Rorek! Doctor Lesh'ar!"

Rorek and Lesh'ar glanced over, and Lesh'ar nodded almost immediately when he saw the blankets. "Thank you," he said, even as Rorek stood up to go get them.

"Yeah, thanks," Rorek said, taking the blankets. "You guys hanging in there?"

"Yeah," Mel said quickly. "Now go give Spock the blankets."

Rorek gave her a look, before he turned to walk back to the cot, opening the blankets to spread over Spock's faintly shivering form. Lesh'ar tucked the blankets around the younger Vulcan, keeping an arm around Spock's chest to add to the warmth as he continued to run his scanner over the rest of Spock's body. He seemed perfectly calm - a stark contrast to Rorek, who was all but pacing around him.