I do not own Star Trek or anything to do with said franchise. However, I own Alianna Lordeck and co-own Sindari Lordeck and this plot. This fic is based on the new movie, and thus, takes place in the alternate universe of the movie. It's rated for lots of bad language and some sexual scenes (let's face it, it is Captain Kirk we're talking about), and violence and some drinking. You know, standard stuff. Should be lots of fun and I apologize in advance if any of the information about Star Trek is wrong. I've tried to do research, but hey, with eleven movies, five live-action shows and one animated show, along with multiple books and such, getting all the facts straight is kind of hard. Anyways, enjoy.

Ain't No Rest for the Wicked
Chapter Seventeen: The Final Confrontation.

Kirk had radioed a team to come and detain some of the Klingons who had been stunned and checked that everyone was getting off the Klingon vessel okay. There was no need to stick around. Now he was running through the corridors, looking for Alianna. He knew he'd find her near the bridge, attempting to obtain surrender from the Captain; the ship was dead in space and most of the crew had been either stunned or killed. Knowing the Klingons however, Kirk was sure the Captain would fight until the end and even if Alianna managed to kill the Captain, the first officer would fight in his stead. Kirk was worried for Alianna, because he knew she would fight as well. And probably get herself killed.

He tore around another corner and saw her at the end of the hall, near the turbolift doors that would take her up to the bridge, but there was something wrong. She was leaning on the bulkhead, inching ahead slowly and leaving a trail of blood drops behind her. The image of her blood pooled on the floor came back to Kirk and he ran to her side, arriving just as her knee gave out and she stumbled.

"Damn it Ali," he said as he helped her back to a standing position. "You're going to get yourself killed."

"So?" she snarled. "We need to stop these Klingons."

"Ali, we have."

"We haven't won yet." She attempted to pull away from her Captain, but he kept his arm around her waist and didn't let her get away. Her hair had come partially unbound and the stray locks stuck to the sweat on her face. She was pushing herself hard. "Jim," she said, her voice containing all the anger and bloodlust she was feeling. "Let. Me. Go." When the Captain gave her a look that said no such thing was going to happen, she set her jaw, her hand flexing on her phaser and Kirk could see an idea forming behind her green eyes. "Sorry about this Jim, but there's something else going on here that I've got to do myself."

"Wha—"

He didn't get to finish the question. With all the strength she could muster and fuelled by adrenaline, Alianna lifted the phaser and smacked the butt of the weapon against the tape on Kirk's nose. Fresh blood poured down his face and his blue eyes rolled back in his head as he collapsed back against the bulkhead, not completely unconscious but just dazed from pain and unable to stop her.

"I'm sorry," Alianna breathed before she stumbled into the turbolift.

"Where are Ali and the Captain?"

Bones looked over his shoulder at Sindari, the frown on his face deepening. It had been far too long since they'd heard anything from Jim and they hadn't heard anything from Alianna since the mission had started. Bones knew that the elder Lordeck had probably run off and Jim would be following her but he couldn't think of a reason Jim wouldn't be able to respond, unless something bad had happened. "I haven't heard from Jim in a while," he admitted, regretting those words immediately.

Sindari's lips pulled back over her teeth in a grimace that turned into a snarl at the end and her cheeks flushed to a deep red. "We need to get over there."

"Sin—"

"I know my sister, Bones! We need to get over there and find them before she does something incredibly stupid and gets herself, maybe the Captain and maybe all of us killed!" She ran her hands back over her hair and started pacing between the weapons console and her spot beside the doctor, clearly agitated; he could almost hear her teeth as the ground together. "And that's if something hasn't already happened..."

"The last I knew, she was headed for the bridge," Bones said grudgingly.

His act of caving to Sindari's demands was rewarded with a brilliant smile and a sigh of relief, both gestures brief and soon replaced by the fire and determination that had graced her fair features before the attack had begun. As the weapons officer headed for the transporter room, Bones secured three security officers to join them as they searched for Kirk and Alianna; he may have been decent with a phaser, but Bones knew if they ran into anymore angry Klingons when they were over there, he and Sindari would probably be decimated.

Back on the Klingon vessel, Sindari took point, her phaser out as she moved quickly through the halls. Bones hadn't known her that long, but he knew her weapons skills were beyond that of most the crew on the Enterprise, and it was impressive to see her in action. They made their way through the corridors, now mostly cleared of the unconscious Klingons—who were now in the brig on the Enterprise, screaming for freedom and threatening to tear the Starfleet idiots limb from limb, but not necessarily in those words—keeping their eyes peeled for any sign of Kirk or Alianna. When they found the scene where Alianna had been stabbed, Bones almost had to resort to ordering two of the security officers to restrain Sindari from running off at full tilt; they had already lost track of two of the senior officers, they didn't need to lose another one.

"There isn't enough blood here for a serious injury, Sin," the doctor said, trying to keep his voice calm and comforting.

Sindari's chest heaved as she took several deep breaths, attempting to calm herself down. "You're sure?"

"Positive."

She stepped away from the security officers, who had moved to stand close on either side of her. "All right then," she said, her voice still tight. She took another deep breath and retrieved her phaser from the hands of the tallest officer, giving him a glare in return. "Let's keep moving."

The five officers continued their journey through the halls until they reached the last section before the turbolift, where they came to a halt. A faint groaning could be heard, and it was the reason the team had stopped; it could be Kirk or Ali, but it could also be a Klingon, waiting for someone else to attack, to fight, to kill. Sindari rounded the corner phaser first and ahead of the rest, her mouth bunched and eyes narrowed as she peered through the gloom. Her finger had actually tightened a fraction on the trigger before she realized who she was looking at.

"Bones! The Captain's up here!" she called upon identifying the source of the groaning and lowering her phaser.

The doctor surged ahead, followed closely by the security officers. Sindari turned her back on the scene and walked backwards to join them, phaser raised once again. When she was sure there was no one following them, she appointed two of the officers to keep the hallway secure and then knelt beside the Captain, who was just coming around thanks to something Bones had injected via hypospray into the side of his neck. Kirk groaned loudly and he closed his eyes as he pushed himself up until he was sitting with his back against the wall rather than slouching and half on the floor. He opened his eyes wide, looked around and shook his head.

"I'd better not have a reaction to this injection, Bones," Kirk grunted.

"Where's Ali?" Sindari asked before the doctor could respond with some sarcastic quip.

Bones and Kirk both looked at Sindari, disproving and displeased respectively. "She ran off towards the bridge after she knocked me unconscious with the butt of her phaser," Kirk answered as he ran his hands backwards over his hand, scratching idly at his scalp as he did so.

"Did she hit your nose?" Bones asked, looking a little more closely at his friend's face with his dark eyes shrewdly narrowed.

Kirk nodded and raised a hand as if to rub the bridge of his nose, only at the last minute changing the gesture to rub his chin, still looking a little dazed. "She hit me good. I think she might have broken it again." He shook his head slightly again, a small grin on his face, clearing the last of the cobwebs from his mind. "Have you found her?"

"No. You're the first one we've seen," Bones said.

Sindari scowled loudly and got to the feet. "I'm going after her."

"Just wait Sin. You're not going up there alone." Bones gave Kirk another once-over. "You'll be fine. I'll get one of the security officers to take you back—"

"I'm not going back, Bones. We're going to find Ali."

"Damn it Jim, I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker! If you get yourself hurt again, I might not be able to do anything about it. And you could get yourself killed!"

To reinforce his decision, Kirk pushed himself to his feet without enlisting help from any of the officers around him. He shot McCoy a look and then turned to Sindari, readjusting his gold tunic as he did so. "Before Ali ran off she said something about having to take care of something on the ship before she returned to the Enterprise. Do you have any idea what that could be?" he asked, face deadly serious.

"No. Can we please go get her now, sir?"

Kirk took a deep breath, winced as it hurt his nose, and then nodded. He retrieved his phaser from where it had fallen on the deck and took point as they made their way to the turbolift that would take them to bridge level.

Alianna was crouched in front of the bridge access panel, the cover pulled off and her fingers working as deftly as she could make them in the confined space. She wasn't the most skilled hacker, but she'd broken through a door or two in her time and she had never let something as inconsequential as a door stand in her face when she was determined. But this door was giving her some trouble. She was unfamiliar with Klingon technology. For the few moments she'd been working, Alianna had been trying to ignore the sounds of fighting, screaming and phaser fire that had been emanating from the bridge. Not only was it a distraction, but she couldn't determine who was shooting, who was screaming, or anything. It was making her nervous.

Just as she thought she was getting close to getting the doors to open, there was a loud thud, followed by a series of beeps. Someone yelled something in Klingon and the door slid open. Three Klingons, all bleeding from various wounds and looking scared—an expression Alianna had never seen on a Klingon face before—came tumbling out.

Alianna backed up, aimed her phaser and fired, knocking all three Klingons out. The bodies fell into a pile in the middle of the hallway. Satisfied they weren't going to move anytime soon, Alianna lifted her head and took a step towards the bridge, but what she saw standing there made her stop, mouth open slightly and eyes wide enough to show white all around. The expression of surprise turned to anger quickly and her green eyes brightened with rage.

"What the fuck are you doing here Dad?" she snarled.

The human the Klingons had only known as the Green-Eyed Man frowned deeply, but he didn't lower his phaser and he didn't switch it from the kill setting. "Stopping the corrupt Federation from taking over the galaxy," he said by way of greeting.

Pieces feel into place in Alianna's head. As she'd been running through the ship, she'd seen signs of a human living on the Klingon vessel, so she had gathered that the Klingons had had help in obtaining and using the weapon as she'd expected, and that they had continued working with said human to abuse his knowledge of the Federation and Starfleet to get what they wanted. Or the human was working with the Klingons to achieve some common goal. As she'd passed the brig, Alianna had seen a familiar robe lying on the bench in one of the cells and she'd thought maybe she knew what was going on, but she'd dismissed it as impossible after a minute; her father may be an arrogant asshole whom she hated and loathed being related to, but he wouldn't betray the Federation, Starfleet, humanity and his own family. Would he?

Evidently he would. And he had.

"You're working with the Klingons?" Alianna hissed, her thoughts only serving to make her more angry. "But you're Earth's ambassador to Andoria!"

"Exactly!" he exclaimed, his face wakening with anger, his green eyes flaring like his daughter's. "I see the corruption first hand! The Federation claims to stand for peace and unity, but they turn to violence at the first sign of discontent!" He dropped his phaser but Alianna wasn't fooled. Almost as if to prove her thought, Mr. Lordeck raised the phaser again and aimed it somewhere in the general vicinity of her heart; the disrupter was of Klingon make and Alianna knew it would tear a hole big enough through her to see daylight. "I found the weapon, located a Klingon captain willing to help me turn my thoughts into reality and we began attacking ships, staring with the Marissa while you were on Andoria."

Alianna's hand tightened on her phaser at the mention of her ship and the thoughts of Joe it conjured, and she seriously considered shooting her father, but she resisted, because there was still a question to answer. "And is Mom in on this too?" she asked, fearing the answer. "Did she know that you were going to kill thousands of people?" Her Mom had always been spineless and bent to her Father's will, but she had always held out some hope that the woman would come through in the end. Before Mr. Lordeck could answer, however, another piece fell into place and Alianna screamed wordlessly, her rage overflowing. She raised her phaser and pointed it between her Father's eyes. "How could you kill your own wife?" she hissed.

Alianna's Dad actually looked startled. "I did not mean to kill you mother, but she tried to stop me from contacting the Klingons and stopping the Federation."

The young officer gaped behind her weapon. "You are... a traitor... a worthless, son of a bitch TRAITOR!" she bellowed.

"It was for the greater good! THIS IS ALL FOR THE GREATER GOOD!" Mr. Lordeck sighed heavily, his anger flooding back to the forefront; he had about as much success controlling his temper as Alianna did. "You would have been able to see that, you ungrateful little bitch, had you not run off and joined the Federation!" Mr. Lordeck aimed his phaser at his daughter's face, his weathered face turning vicious. "And then your sister followed you and now both my children are brainwashed! I should have waited until you two were back on that idiot Joe's ship before we attacked!"

Alianna was livid. Her face contorted into something ugly and she began shaking. "I haven't considered myself your child for a long time," she hissed. She switched her phaser to kill and watched the realization settle on her father's face. "And you lose."

She squeezed the trigger, three shoots echoing in quick succession just as Kirk, Sindari and Bones came around the corner.

"ALI!" Kirk yelled.

Alianna turned and took in the faces of her sister and crewmates. There were tears streaking through the grime on her face, but they were tears of anger; her eyes were still alight. "What?" she snapped.

Sindari stepped forward, looking from her father's still form to the bullet holes in his chest and the wall, to Alianna, standing there with her phaser still in hand and blood soaking the lower half of her right pant leg. "What... How..." she managed. Sindari blinked a few times, trying to figure out what she was seeing, but she couldn't seem to find the words or the ability to form a question.

As Kirk and Bones were looking over the scene, Alianna proceeded forward onto the bridge proper, her phaser out in front of her, ready to fire again should the need arise, and it was no longer set to stun. Alianna was not out to stun anymore Klingons; she was only out for purple blood. The bridge was full of smoke and the blaring of alarms, and she could still sort of hear Kirk yelling at her, but she ignored it all, focusing instead on trying to find the Captain. In Alianna's mind, full of anger and bloodlust as it was, they hadn't won until the Captain of the Klingons was dead. But, as she neared the command chair, she found the Captain slumped over, holes the size of her fist in his chest, stomach, neck and forehead.

"Shit," she cursed.

"You... will... lose..."

Alianna turned at the guttural voice and had to keep herself from sneering. There was a very large Klingon lying twisted on the floor between two consoles, his hair matted with blood and his uniform sticky with the purple substance. From what Alianna knew of Klingons, she determined he was the first officer, and from her meagre medical knowledge, she deduced he was nearing the end of his life. She didn't waste any time asking him what he meant by his statement. Alianna fired in a line from stomach to forehead, effectively ending his life. As she hit an artery somewhere, violet blood splashed across her face, but she ignored the strange taste in her mouth and the stinging in her eyes as her gaze found a flashing red light on one of the consoles and the meaning of the first officer's words became clear.

The ship's self-destruct sequence had been initiated.

Alianna holstered her phaser, turned and ran towards the door, cursing out loud and in her head, employing every swear word she knew and making some up as she went.

"Alianna!" Kirk yelled as she came back into the hall.

"No time! The ship is going to explode!"

The four officers took off at a sprint, meeting up with the security team at the end of the hall and Alianna doing her best to ignore the pain above her right knee and Kirk using his adrenaline to remain conscious even though there were grey spots flooding his vision. They made it a few more metres before the first explosion racked the Klingon ship, shaking the vessel and knocking the Starfleet officers off balance.

"Can you get a lock on the away team, Lieutenant?"

Uhura franticly keyed in several command sequences, but none of them worked. "No sir," she answered, voice shaking a bit. "There is some sort of field around the command deck preventing communication and transport." She turned her chair to face Spock, who was seated in the command chair, his face stoic, but his dark eyes narrowed ever so slightly. The only reason Uhura could pick up on it was that she knew the Vulcan so well. "But Commander, we need to get out of range. The multi-phasic self-destruct sequence has been initiated."

Spock seemed to weigh the options before him before he said, "Mister Sulu, pull back but remain within transporter range. Uhura, inform the Raven and the Destiny of the situation; they can pull back, and keep trying for a lock on the away team. As soon as they're outside the range of the field, get them back on the ship."

Uhura nodded, not a little bit put off by the controlled tone of the Vulcan's voice.

The second explosion shook the ship hard enough to knock the away team off their feet and send them all sprawling. One of the security officers fell through a hole in the floor and fell several decks before he was impaled on a sliver of wreckage. The other two officers disappeared in the smoke issuing from broken conduits, meeting who knew what end. The ship did not stop shaking, but the tremors lessoned, allowing Kirk, Bones and Sindari to get to their feet and make their way forward. As Kirk reached for his communicator to ask the Enterprise to beam them up, he looked around, angered at the loss of life.

And realized Alianna was gone.

He tossed the communicator to Bones and ran backwards, into the thick smoke and growing piles of rubble. The ship shook with another explosion, knocking him into the wall. "Ali!" he yelled as loud as he could, aware the noise was inadequate over the roar of the ship falling apart.

Sindari and Bones appeared behind him. "Where is she?" Sindari asked, voice high and panicky.

Kirk ignored her and headed a little deeper into the smoke. "ALI!"

"Jim..."

It was faint, but in a moment of relative silence after the third explosion, he heard her. Kirk vaulted over a chunk of a bulkhead, squeezed through a small space between the wall and another piece of rubble and he found her, pinned to the floor by a section of wall that had collapsed in the second explosion. He knelt above her head, his hands fluttering around her face, afraid to touch her at all.

"Jim..." she breathed, a small smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. "What are you doing...? Get off the ship..."

"Not without you," he said, the intensity of that statement catching him off guard. Kirk pushed passed it and placed a hand gently on her shoulder, taking a moment to smile at her even as he took in her condition: the wall had sliced through her stomach completely in one spot that looked dangerously close to her spine, and there was a lot of blood pooling beneath her. "Just hold on Ali," he said. "BONES!" he yelled, turning his face towards where the doctor had been when he'd left him.

"I'm coming Jim!" A moment later Bones appeared, Sindari right behind him, and his tricorder already in his hands, ready to start scanning.

Kirk turned his attention back to Alianna's face. Her eyes had dimmed and were looking somewhere other than the face of her Captain. "Ali," he said quietly, drawing her eyes back to him. "Ali, look at me okay? Just keep looking at me."

"Jim, I'm cold..."

Kirk looked up at Bones, who pressed a hypospray against her neck as the fourth explosion rocked the ship. He gave Kirk a significant look and then went back to examining her wound, his eyes focused but his mouth pressing into a thinner and thinner line. Sindari was sitting beside the Doctor, keeping her eyes glued to what he was doing and decidedly not looking at her normally strong and stubborn sister, lying weak and vulnerable on the floor of some alien vessel.

"Ali, focus on me okay? You have to stay awake."

"I'll try..."

The ship shook harder and harder as the fifth and final explosion approached. Kirk looked to Bones and found him on the communicator. "I don't know if transporting her will work, Jim," he whispered. "Her injuries are much worse than Sage's. I don't know if I'll be able to stop the bleeding." Sindari sobbed loudly and Bones reached over to place one hand on her shoulder and give it a squeeze before turning his eyes back to Jim.

"Do it," he said and then he turned his eyes back to Alianna who was fading fast. "Ali, talk to me. Focus."

"What... do you want to hear?"

He racked his brain, but for some reason he couldn't think of a topic to give her. And his eyes were burning.

"Tell him about your time at the Academy," Sindari chimed in, her voice thick with emotion and her face covered with tears. She sobbed again and took her sister's hand.

"I... I remember Jim..."

"What do you remember Ali?" the Captain asked, his voice growing heavy.

Her eyes fluttered closed as she tried to talk, but she forced them open again. Beams of light started to whip around the assembled group. "I... I..."

"Ali!" Kirk put his hands on either side of her face. "ALI!"

Her eyes closed again, her mouth making feeble motions as she tried to speak. She forced her eyes half-open.

"ALI!"

The final explosion racked the ship just as the transporter pulled the away team out of the fire. Alianna closed her eyes and even as they reassembled in the medical bay, she did not open them.

Author's Note.

Well hell, I didn't see this coming. I FINISHED THIS FIC EARLY! *gasp*

But anyways, SUPLIZE! How many of you saw those surprises coming? And if you did, well... BLAH on you. Enjoy it anyways. I know some of the chapters have been kind of weak, but overall, I'm pleased with this fic and am glad to have it finished. I'll start the follow-ups soon, but I'm going to work on some other fics first, to try and get some of my in-progress fics... progressed.

This fic is my most reviewed fic, so I'm glad you all enjoyed it.

Oh yeah: suck on that cliffhanger.

Next Chapter: THERE ISN'T ONE!