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Paul woke in confusion, his world a hazy blue, like dreaming or when he was high on spores. He tried to move but found he was stuck. No, not stuck. Handcuffed. His hands were pressed into the programmable antimatter of the spore drive. Heavy rings of a plastic-like material held him in place and attached him to the controls.
He blinked out at the room beyond the glass. It appeared to be empty. Even sans Aurelio, his mind was thrust back to Osyraa and the neural blocker. To the last time he was handcuffed to his invention.
Panic started to set in. Where was everybody? Engineering was never left unattended. Who had handcuffed him? What did they want? Were Hugh and Adira and Tilly alright? Fuck, he didn’t know anything.
He was helpless. Again.
As his thoughts spiraled downward, his breathing sped up until he was gasping for air, hyperventilating. He yanked at the metal holding him hostage, not noticing when they bit into his wrists, drawing blood.
The sound of the door opening startled him out of his panic attack. He craned his neck to look.
Tilly! He’d recognize those red curls anywhere. He opened his mouth to call out for her but his voice stuck in his throat as he registered the Cardassian behind her. She had a phaser out and pointed at Tilly’s head.
The Cardassian shoved Tilly into the control console. “Get it ready to jump,” she ordered.
Tilly didn’t move, just watched the Cardassian. The alien made a frustrated noise and put the phaser back to her head. “Now.”
Tilly continued to stare at her in defiance. Paul would be proud he wasn’t afraid for her life. “Tilly, just do it!”
Tilly turned her gaze to her boss and mentor, eyes wide. Now he could see just how scared she was. She shook her head at him, just a little. She wasn’t giving in that easily.
Impatient, the Cardassian snapped over her shoulder, “Bring in the other one.”
Paul knew that whoever the ‘other one’ was, he wasn’t going to like it.
An Orion stepped in this time and trapped in his grasp was Harrington. Paul winced but it made sense. Start by putting back the people they took from engineering to make the engine work.
Harrington also had a gun against her head, tucked under her jaw and forcing her neck to stretch. The Orion nodded and the Cardassian turned back on Tilly. “Get ready to jump or she dies and then someone else and another someone else until I run out of people to kill or you make the damn ship go!”
Tilly sniffed, close to tears, and nodded even as Harrington shook her head. She turned to the controls and looked up.
Other than that one glance, Tilly had avoided looking in the spore cube. She’d known all along she would find him there. Knew it as soon as she realized Paul wasn’t in the room with everyone else. She looked up.
Tilly and Paul locked eyes. His were full of trust and surety, like he actually expected her to find a way out of this mess. Hers were scared, like she didn’t know if she was doing the right thing as she booted up the drive and inserted the spores.
The Cardassian opened a com. “Get ready on the Bridge. We’re about to jump.” A pause. “Now!”
Tilly was slow to react, forgetting that ‘now’ was addressed to her, as well. She apparently didn’t move fast enough. The Cardassian leaned over and pushed random buttons until she found the one that released the spores and started the jump.
Paul screamed, slightly muffled by the thick glass but Tilly still heard it, had to turn away from him convulsing and trying to pull his hands free, further damaging his injured wrists. Desperate to help but not knowing how. Meanwhile, Paul screamed and screamed until the jump completed and he fell, body limp, wrists still attached.
Tilly didn’t look to make sure they made it to where they intended. She stood in shock, staring at Paul.
The room was silent for all four minutes until footsteps were finally heard from outside. This time, led by a scruffy Human, Dr. Pollard stumbled into the room.
The Cardassian pointed Dr. Pollard to Stamets, still hung by his wrists. “Find out what’s wrong with him,” she growled. “Quickly, or I might get antsy.” She gestured to Tilly and Harrington, still in the room but held away from any equipment.
Hugh was bouncing his leg anxiously. He and others had tried to activate their personal teleports, but the function was being blocked. And now the intruders kept taking people who didn’t come back. The order that they took each person was concerning.
First, Paul was nowhere around, which meant they were after that damn spore drive. Captain Burnham was also concerningly missing. Then Tilly, again because of the spore drive. Another engineer, Harrington. And finally, Detmer was pulled off in the direction of the Bridge.
The Human who had collected each of these people returned. This time they asked for a doctor, confirming that at least one of the missing crew was injured or worse. Tracy was closer to the Klingon who was searching the crowd, so they saw her before Hugh when they both raised their hands to volunteer.
Adira shivered nearby and Hugh put an arm around them. It was warm in the room but Adira couldn’t stop shaking. Hugh did his best to comfort them but he was feeling a bit shaky, too. He was simply better at hiding it under the professionalism. It was a mask he could don quickly and sustain for hours.
The mask cracked about ten minutes later when Tilly and Harrington were released back into the room. Tilly’s eyes found his and she rushed over.
Close up he could see the unshed tears in her eyes and the slight tremble to her hands. Hugh lifted his other arm and Tilly dove for the offered comfort, settling herself opposite Adira.
Hugh gave her a moment to collect herself before asking, “What’s going on?”
Tilly shook her head against his shoulder. “They had Paul attached to the spore drive so he couldn’t pull his hands out of the drive controls,” she whispered. “I had to program the jump or they would have killed Harrington but this Cardassian woman messed around with the controls and Paul was screaming.” Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat.
“He was unconscious or something and they brought in Dr. Pollard. They dragged us out before we could see what happened,” she finished, answering Hugh’s next question before he could ask it.
Hugh pulled both Adira and Tilly in closer. The news was hard to hear but not surprising. He was still worried but now he was mad, too. When was Paul going to get a fucking break? The spore drive put a target on his back and Hugh wondered if it was worth it. He also knew that Paul would step in every time if it meant saving others. Saving him.
“Do you know where we are?” He asked Tilly.
“Sort of?” She answered. “The coordinates dropped us off in empty space, but that’s all I know.”
Hugh sighed. He wanted to do something, regardless of the four Klingons guarding them. But Tilly and Adira needed him, and getting himself in trouble wouldn’t help anyone.
His only option was to sit and wait.
Tracy pulled back from her examination with a heavy sigh. Physically, Paul seemed fine. Scanning his brain, however, gave her nothing but gibberish. Even when he was lost in the network, the scans had some logic to them.
“Well?” The Cardassian behind her snapped.
Tracy took a deep breath before she replied. “I don’t have enough information,” she began. “If I could take him back to sick bay, I’d know more. And if I had some help. Dr. Culber, specifically. This is his area of expertise.” Both neurology and Paul.
The woman considered this and finally nodded. “Fine. Diver will escort you and this other doctor.” She motioned for two burly Klingons to come over. “Carry him,” she ordered.
Paul was detached from the drive controls. The cuffs stayed on, now connected to each other. One Klingon tossed Paul over his shoulder. Tracy winced. The other Klingon grabbed her arm firmly, just this side of bruising, and dragged her along.
A Human, presumably Diver, led them through the halls. The invaders had a surprising knowledge of the ship’s blueprint and took them along the quickest route to medical.
Diver left them at the door. To get Hugh, Tracy hoped.
Now that they were in her space, Tracy pulled herself together in Dr. Pollard. “Put him there,” she said, pointing to the nearest biobed.
While they settled Paul in, Dr. Pollard went to work, setting him up with a biofunction monitor. Once his condition was displayed above him, she started a neural scan.
“This is going to take some time,” she informed their guards.
The two grunted and moved to stand by the door. One of them stayed while the other went back out into the hall.
Tracy rolled her eyes. Like she was going to try and escape while Paul was catatonic like this. And Paul himself wasn’t going anywhere. They were well and truly stuck.
Time ticked by, not that Hugh could have told anyone how much had passed. Tilly and Adira had moved to sit on their own and the three were talking quietly to each other.
There was a small bit of commotion as the Human from before entered the room and spoke to one of the guards, and Orion. After a brief conversation, the Orion stepped back and the Human stepped forward.
“Which one of you is Dr. Culber?” He shouted.
Adira froze and Tilly looked like she might stop him. He motioned for them to stay put and stood. “I’m Dr. Culber.”
The Human nodded. “Come with me, then.” He grabbed Hugh’s elbow and steered him along.
Hugh was in great shape and could probably break out of the hold and take off, try and get somewhere he could call for help. It was the logical thing to do. But Hugh’s heart told him this was something to do with Paul, so he let himself be dragged to the medbay.
The first thing he saw upon being shoved into the room was Tracy standing over Paul’s still body.
“Is he…” Hugh began, fearing the worst.
“In a coma,” Tracy replied to the unfinished question.
Okay. That wasn’t great but it was better than dead. His eyes flicked to the monitor. The readings were steady if confusing.
“I’m running a brain scan now,” she continued. “It should be done any minute now.”
Hugh nodded, his focus mainly on Paul and the steady beeping that was his heart beating. It was a little slow but not concerningly slow. Hugh was intimately familiar with concerningly slow.
A small chime indicated that the scan had finished. Tracy pulled it up on her badge and huffed.
“Tracy?” Hugh prompted.
She shook her head. “Doesn’t seem to matter what I scan, his readings don’t make any sense.” She flicked the holopad so Hugh could see it.
Hugh read through the results, frowning. According to these, Paul should be up and moving around, like normal. His brain, organs, body were all functioning within healthy parameters. There was no indication of why he should be comatose at all. Yet there his unconscious body lay.
The longer Hugh looked, the more he could convince himself that Paul was just sleeping.
Leaning against the bed, Hugh slid his hand along Paul’s jaw. “Paul,” he said softly. “Where have you gone now?”
As if in answer, there was a quick movement and a pale hand was wrapped around his wrist, gripping hard and holding it in place. Hugh and Tracy watched Paul’s heart rate skyrocket for just a moment before settling back to where it was before. Hugh looked down. Paul was completely still, as if he hadn’t moved at all.
For a moment, Hugh stood still, waiting to see if Paul would do anything else. He didn’t try to pull away, rubbing his thumb repeatedly across Paul’s cheek. His eye above that twitched but didn’t open.
Hugh leaned down to kiss his forehead. “C’mon Paul.” Parts of Paul tensed and relaxed, tiny movements that Hugh only saw because he was looking closely. His lips pressing together. The flutter of a finger. “Come back to me.”
Paul released a long breath. His eyes were still closed but Hugh felt a change. It was so subtle he couldn’t place what it was exactly, but he knew that Paul was awake now. Hugh rested his forehead against Paul’s. “Paul?”
Paul mumbled something that Hugh didn’t understand, but it was enough. Enough for him to know that Paul responded to him, that he was conscious and aware.
“Honey, can you let go of my arm?” Hugh asked. His muscles were starting to hurt from the constant pressure.
Slowly, Paul released his fingers until he detached enough to pull away. Hugh didn’t let him pull too far before taking Paul’s hand in his own.
“What...” Paul began in an almost-whisper. “Where...” He struggled with finding the most important question to ask.
Hugh hushed him and directed his free hand to pet Paul’s hair. “It’s okay, take some time. Someone messed with the controls in the middle of your jump and you lost consciousness. They pulled me and Tracy out of the mess to come treat you.”
Paul groaned softly. “Tilly? Adira?”
“In the mess hall and okay. They were there when I left. They’re scared and worried, but they haven’t been hurt,” Hugh explained.
Paul relaxed back into the biobed and finally opened his eyes. They flicked over to Tracy, then the guard at the door, and finally landed back on Hugh. “Plan?” He whispered. Hugh shook his head.
Paul’s eyes darted around the room, assessing things for potential use. He looked back at Hugh and Tracy. “Is anyone else outside of the mess hall?”
Hugh nodded. “Detmer. They dragged her off so she could run the Bridge side of things.” He frowned. “That was a while ago, though. She may not be there anymore.”
“Hopefully she is,” Paul huffed. “I need our guard distracted.”
“I’ll handle it,” Tracy volunteered. She put her hand on Hugh’s arm before storming up to the guard and yelling at him with incomprehensible medical terms that Hugh knew didn’t go together. Her opponent looked thoroughly confused.
Paul took his chance. Blocking with his body, he opened up a holopad and typed in a quick message. Once it was sent, he closed the pad and counted in his head, listening to Tracy to make sure their watcher was still distracted.
He counted ten seconds and reopened the holopad. There was a message waiting there for him.
Ready when you are.
The longer Tilly and Adira waited for everyone else to come back, the more nervous they got. Adira was on the verge of full-blown panic when the ship unexpectedly tipped to the side. Crew and hijackers alike lost their footing.
Tilly wavered but managed to keep standing, which gave her the advantage over the nearest Klingon, who had fallen. No time to hesitate, she darted over and kicked her in the head as hard as she could before reaching down to grab the other’s weapon.
She turned quick, ready to face the next threat but there wasn’t one. Rhys and Owo had acted on the advantage as well and the other two guards were also downed and weaponless. Tilly nodded at them as they convened near the door.
“I need to find Stamets,” Tilly whispered.
“Go,” Rhys nodded. “Owo and I can take care of things here.”
Tilly opened the doors, watching for anyone stationed on the other side. No one was there. She couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad sign and didn’t have time to argue it out with herself.
She checked that the gun in her hand was set to stun and took the hallway that would lead her back to engineering. It was the last place she’d seen anyone and made as good a place as any to start looking.
Right in front of the doors to engineering was the unconscious Cardassian woman. She had to step over the body to get in.
Stamets was there, looking fine, with Culber and Pollard nearby. He looked up when the doors swished open. “Tilly! Perfect. Come here.” He turned back towards a console that was running a series of equations.
Culber put a hand on her arm as she approached. “You’re alright?” Tilly nodded. “What about Adira and everyone else?”
“Safe, last I saw,” Tilly assured him. “We disabled the guards. Rhys and Owo are watching over things there. The only person I don’t know about is Detmer.”
“Detmer’s fine,” Stamets tossed over his shoulder. “Right now we need to focus on getting help.”
“What’s the plan?” Tilly asked, stepping up to Stamets’ side.
Stamets stepped back so Tilly could look. “We’re trying to find and contact the nearest Federation or Starfleet ship. I’m hiding it as best I can, trying to keep it undetected. Buy us as much time as possible.”
Tilly nodded, already taking up the job. “What then?”
Stamets took a deep breath and shared a look with Culber. “Then we jump to the ship and send out a distress signal.”
Tilly paused. “Are you okay to jump so soon?”
Culber answered before Stamets could. “No,” he stated, “but it’s not like we have much of a choice.
“Hugh...” Stamets started but Culber put up his hand.
“I know. Just get us away from these raiders and we’ll deal with whatever else happens.”
Stamets gave him a quick kiss. “It’ll work,” he promised.
Startled into jumping, Tilly said, “I got something.” She tapped away at the interface for a few more seconds, pulling up a set of coordinates. “It’s well within jumping range.”
Stamets kissed Culber again and set himself up in the spore cube while Tilly input the coordinates and readied the drive. “Send the coordinates to Detmer’s console on the Bridge,” he said before the door closed and he was encased in glass.
Paul would never say it, but he was nervous to plug back into the network. Jumping was starting to feel more like a gamble and it made him uncomfortable. More uncomfortable, though, was the knowledge that his family and friends were in danger. So in he went, hands dipping into the controls.
“I’m ready,” he told Tilly.
Tilly nodded and began the sequence that would allow them to jump. She put the tube of spores into the console and released them. Paul closed his eyes.
The jump initiated and Paul’s muscles tensed. He gritted his teeth through it until his mind left his body and joined the spores in their journey across space.
Coming back down was unpleasant, like his muscles were on fire. He had a massive headache and scrunched his eyes shut against it. He pulled his hands away and found that he couldn’t support himself without the connection and promptly crumpled to the ground. His lips were pressed tight together so he didn’t scream but he could still feel one building up inside him.
And then Hugh was kneeling at his side, cool hand against Paul’s too-hot neck feeling like another kind of burn. In the background, he could hear Tilly contacting the ship.
He missed something in the middle because next he knew, Hugh had been torn away from him and was replaced by the Cardassian woman. She replaced Hugh’s hand on his neck with a tight grip on his throat.
Paul couldn’t react. Too much was going on and it was disorienting him. The longer she held him down, the more his head ached until he couldn’t focus on anything but the pounding behind his eyes. Finally, blissfully, he lost consciousness.
Hugh struggled against his Klingon captor as he watched Paul’s body go limp. “Paul!” He shouted, looking for any kind of response. He didn’t get one.
A phaser fired from somewhere behind him, hitting the woman and stunning her. She finally let go of Paul’s throat.
The Klingon holding him went down, too, and Hugh didn’t spare a second, running and sliding to Paul’s side and pushing the Cardassian out of the way. His tricorder was still on the ground inside the cube. He grabbed it and scanned his partner.
Unconscious but alive. Bruising around the trachea and small puncture wounds where the Cardassian’s sharp fingers had punched through the skin. He pressed his own fingers to Paul’s pulse point. Seeing the tricorder results was one thing, but being able to physically feel the effects of Paul’s heart beating was always going to be the best way to assure him that his partner was okay, at least for now. They needed to get him to sick bay.
Hugh finally looked around. He didn’t recognize the newcomers, but they were dressed in Starfleet security uniforms and were rounding up the intruders.
Paul’s eyes opened and he squinted up. “Hugh?” He asked.
Hugh turned his attention back to his partner. “It’s okay,” he said. “Help came just in time. You’ll be okay.” Paul relaxed a little.
Hoping it would work this time, Hugh held onto Paul and tapped his badge. They disappeared from engineering and landed in medbay.
Hugh quickly lifted Paul onto a biobed. As the bed’s sensors started scanning Paul, life signs back on the monitor above him, Hugh prepared a series of hyposprays. An analgesic for the pain, beta blocker for his heart rate, sedative to help him relax. He administered each with careful efficiency.
Paul looked immediately more at ease. He let out a soft breath. Hugh reached out and stroked strands of hair away from Paul’s face. “Thank you, dear doctor,” Paul sighed.
Hugh continued to stroke Paul’s hair. “I’m prescribing you sick leave,” he ordered, voice gentle to match the movement of his hand. “At least a week. No arguing. I know Michael will approve it.”
Paul just hummed, almost like a cat purring. His eyes were closed again and he leaned into Hugh’s touch. “You should probably take some of that off, too,” he replied with a grin. “I’ve been told I’m a nightmare as a patient. You’ll probably want to oversee my care directly.”
Hugh chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do.” He pulled out a regenerator and got to work cleaning up any bumps, bruises, or claw marks his man had sustained in the past hour or so.