Time After Time

"Keptin! Keptin Kirk!" Called the ensign. Kirk opened his eyes to discover Chekov shaking him. Suddenly feeling exposed, he covered himself with the sheets on his bed. "What?" He moaned, sleepily. "Why did you come in? Couldn't you just call for me?"

"We did, Sir. You never answered." Kirk looked at the screen. Sure enough, there were three missed hails.

"Okay, point made. Now what?" Kirk wondered.

"We recieved orders from Starfleet to meet Admiral Kahbreiny at Alpha Centauri, but on our way to the destination, we were interecepted by this wierd ray." replied the excited Chekov.

"And?..." Kirk grunted at the russian.

"Well, We have arrived at Earth... in the early twenty first century." finished the ensign. Kirk jumped up.

"What the Hell! How did we do that?"

"We don't exactly know, Keptin." Chekov looked uncomfortable."We believe that the ray was actually a tunnel through space time."

"Okay, I'm Coming." Kirk got out of bed and put on his escorted him to the bridge. Spock looked up at Kirk when he walked in.

"Okay, Spock. What the hell happened?" Kirk queried. Spock's eyebrow rose in his customary fashion.

"Apparently, we somehow managed to be pulled into a tunnel through space time, and judging by the pollution content in the atomsphere, we have arrived at the early half of Earths twenty-first century, more specifically, the year engines were damaged in our transition and Mr. Scott is currently repairing them. Until then, we are hidden behind Earth's moon." Spock deadpanned. Kirk nodded.

"At least we haven't been seen." Kirk noted. Right after the words passed Kirk's lips, a warning alarm sounded. Scotti, Chief Engineer, came over the com.

"Captain, I have ta tell you some bad news. On our passage through the space tunnel a large piece of our warp nacelle was pulled off." Kirk was pissed.

"And where the hell did it go?" Kirk wondered aloud, then it hit him...

"I'll be damned...It's on Earth, isn't it?"

"Aye Captain."Scotti replied. "And we need that piece if we're ta get outta here, sir."

"Fine." Kirk ended the hail. "Damn." Spock nodded at Kirk.

"Mr. Scott is , If we fail to obtain the warp nacelle, we might inadvertively change the past, and therefore the future." Spock stated.

" An alternate reality?" Kirk asked.

"Precisly." Spock replied. Kirk thought it over for about half a second before telling Spock to get ready to beam down and find the damned nacelle.

.

Spock met Kirk at the transporter pad already armed with his phaser and communicator. Kirk smiled when he saw Spock check to see if he had his own stuff. Scotti walked in. " We managed to discover where the warp nacelle landed. It was in the upper part of the US. In ...North Dakota?" Scotti checked. " Yes, North Dakota." Kirk nodded.

"Thanks, Scotti." Scotti nodded and the beaming process began.

...

Kirk looked around at his was quite chilly and was snowing. Spock looked sleepy. Damn! He had forgotten that vulcans couldn't survive in cold temperatures!

"Spock! Are you okay?" Spock shook his head.

" I can't last much longer than a few minutes in this weather." Kirk swore to himself and pulled Spock close to his body to warm him up. He then pulled out his communicator to call the ship.

"Scotti?" He asked. His call was met with static."Scotti! Can you hear me?" No reply. They stumbled around for a minute before Spock moaned and cuddled into Kirks chest.

"It's okay, Spock. You'll be okay." Spock shook his head.

"Captain? Jim?" Spock managed.

"What?"

"I hear people. They are coming." Sure enough, a few seconds later a squadron of weird cars came over the hill to where they were sitting. A group of people got out of the were all armed, and had their weapons aimed at them.

"Put your arms in the air!" Kirk hurried to do what they said. Spock was delusional and unable to respond.

"Stand up!" Came the command. Kirk straightened, allowing Spock to fall to the ground. Immediatly, two men ran over to Kirk and frisked him. They pulled him away from Spock, who stirred slightly as another man poked him with the butt of his gun. One of the friskers discovered Kirks phaser and communicator and took them to the Head Honcho, who asked what was wrong with Spock.

" Not used to the cold I guess." Kirk replied. The men pulled Spock onto a gurney and put him into the back of a truck which immediatly drove away. The Head looked Kirk up and down.

"How the hell did you manage to sneak into our base?"

"Base?" Kirk queried.

'Don't play stupid, this is a confidential military base. How did you manage to get inside without our sensors picking you up until just now?"

Kirk didn't reply. He was too busy wondering how the hell they managed to beam into a secret military base without knowing it. So much for not being seen.

...

The doctor was hooking up his patient to the monitors when he noticed that his vitals were all screwed up. " What the...?" he started. His patient's heartrate was at 250 beats a minute, and his blood pressure was almost non-existant. He took a sample of blood only to discover it was green. That, mixed in with the pointed ears suggested the impossible: his patient wasn't human.

...

The Head was on his way to dinner when the doctor ordered him to medical to see something urgent. Upon arrival, the doctor quickly took him to the back to see the renegade they had picked up earlier. The one with the messed up doctor presented his case to the Head.

"You really believe that this man is an alien?"

"Yes, the blood tests came back. His blood is copper-based rather than iron based, and is extremely diluted. That's why he was affected by the cold more than the other man." replied the doctor. The Head couldn't believe it.A real alien... and he found it.

"Put him in the study tank..." The Head ordered. He was going to go interview that other alien for details.

...

"I'm not an Alien." Kirk answered the Head. The Head smiled and nodded.

"Obviously, but can you say the same about your friend?" Kirk was silent.

"I thought so." The Head murmered as he pulled up a chair.

"Okay, spill. I want to know everything about your friend. What is he?"

Kirk remained silent.

"If you don't tell me, I'll torture it out of your friend."

"But thats illegal!" Kirk blurted.

The head smiled wryly,

"Only on humans."

...

Spock woke to discover himself in a strange sort of giant tank. He was laying on a highly uncomfortable cot, under a thick blanket. There was a cottonball taped to his lower arm, so he concluded that they, whoever they were, took blood, and upon finding it green, decided him an oddity. Hence the tank. Whether or not they knew he was an alien was still a mystery, however Spock was 97% sure they had reached that conclusion. Which means they were probably questioning Kirk at the moment. Spock groaned. He shouldn't have come. Spock took a minute to take in his surroundings. Upon turning his head he discovered that he was collared. Spock wondered why, but decided to save that thought for a later time. Other than the cot, there was a small wooden chair, a folded table, and a latrine behind a screen. He noticed that the walls were mirrored, so his every move was probably being recorded or watched. Deciding to test his luck, Spock tried to open the door. It was locked. Before Spock could let go a shock from the collar caused him to stumble back a few feet, so that he couldn't reach the door. The door opened and a tall man walked in carrying what looked suspiciously like a cattle prod. Spock recognized the man from before he passed out.

"Sit down, Vulcan." Spock eyed the prod and repositioned himself on the cot.

"Do you know what this is?" the man nodded at the cattle prod in his hand.

"Yes." Spock replied.

"Good, then we can skip to the important stuff." The man responded.

"How are you familiar with my species?" Spock queried.

"Your friend, Kirk, is full of information." the man said. Spock wondered what they did to get kirk to disclose information of that nature to their captors. He voiced his concerns aloud.

"Easy, we threatened to torture you." The man continued, ignoring spocks glare. Since you have no doubt realized that you are imprisoned here you may wonder why." Spock said nothing. the man continued unfazed.

"You are being held by the US Government as a matter of National security. Your presence here may be for hostile reasons and so we will study you and your technology in order to learn as much as we can about you. afterwards, we will most likely hold you until you die, then we will disect you and learn even more." Spock still didn't respond. The man continued,

"We have collared you with our latest technology, which keeps you from leaving this room without the proper permission." The man got up to leave and turned around, having forgotten something.

"I don't know how you refer to your superiors on your planet, but here you call them 'sir' or 'ma'am'. You will refer to me as 'master' or 'sir'. Are we understood?"

"Yes...Sir." Spock couldn't bring himself to say master.

"Good. We'll have your dinner in here in less than an hour. A salad, no dressing, and water. 'till then, make yourself comfortable, you'll be here for a while." The man left, laughing at his stupid joke. Spock was tempted to engage in the human art of 'shooting the bird' but managed to maintain his vulcan control...barely. Spock layed on the cot and began to meditate in an attempt to calm down.

...