Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them

[captaincocksure]

Who: Jim Kirk, Leonard McCoy, Jones, Tadhg MacEibhir, Martha Jones, Hasibe Ozcelik

What: Those who would help the good captain rescue tinies, assemble!

Where: the catacombs in the north Spatters area.

When: The 1st, starting at 6 pm. The day after the events here

Notes: Lineup for the log may change as I consult with people. Tag in, talk with Jim, talk with each other, whatever you like. Claire wrote the first four paragraphs, for setup—thank you! :D

Warnings: Mentions of child abuse and murder, plus additional NPC menacing of children, and Jim being violent and briefly torturing someone for information, in the narrative set-up behind the cut. Also tl;dr, look, the words just came out, okay.

Ketch Heath, on the official city map, ends at a point. In reality, there are no clear divisions, no lines on the ground or any neat borders where grass ends and dreary fog-covered dirt begins; the buildings continue, tacked onto streets that haven't been kept up in hundreds of years, cracked and overgrown - shanty towns and wooden structures intersperse the framework of things both old and hauled in through the fog. To miles past what passes for the border in between the edge of the canton and the Spatters, down a crumbling alley, a meeting is taking place.

The area is otherwise deserted - there's not much viable, picked clean and dirty, and the occasional lookout that can be seen peering through cracks in old boarded up windows assume anyone not dressed like a Militia agent has been invited. (Because who else would know where to go, and when?)


Inside a ramshackle building lined with plastic sheeting and lit up with glowing orb lamps, something between an auction and a political negotiation is taking place: children, tiny-bodied and blank-eyed, being bartered for. One couple is discussing a lengthening of their contract. The slavery is hauntingly creative, from sexual sadism to plans harvest nightmares to sacrifices, destroyed and healed, destroyed and healed again. But there are no children on the premises; they're kept somewhere else, set up to be delivered to clients in secret, one at a time.

The ringleaders take great care to hide their tracks when the meeting is over - northward, to the cliffs before the coast, and the catacombs deep in the rock, where the fog border pulls only at the edges.

The three of them duck into an entrance, probably secure in the knowledge that they haven’t been followed. But their knowledge is wrong. For just after they duck into the catacombs, Jim Kirk follows them.

He saw what went down at the meeting earlier. He crept along the edges of the gathering, listening, recording what he could with his CiD, video and audio, without giving himself away. He knows what these people are up to.

And he knows, tonight, he’s going to stop it.

The people who wanted the children, while despicable, can be rounded up later. He followed the ringleaders here because he wanted to see if he could find the children. This is a good place to hide them; remote, out of sight, easily defensible.

Well. Against most normal threats. Tonight, they have a well-trained Starfleet officer with a Glock tucked into the back of his jeans in their midst.

He hides himself in a small chamber near where the ringleaders vanish into a larger chamber. Thirty minutes’ listening and watching tells him the three of them have two guards who rotate in and out of this large chamber. There’s an opening on the far side that probably leads to another passageway.

Three ringleaders and their two guards… So it’s five to one.

Jim likes those odds.

There’s no grace or stealth in his approach. He wants the element of total what the fuck does this guy think he’s doing surprise on his side, and, honestly, he’s too infuriated, too disgusted, (too heartbroken,) to be any less direct right now.

He waits until the first guard’s roaming puts his back to the chamber opening, and he rushes straight for him. He’s on the guard before the man has a chance to do much about it, furiously raining blows down on his head and face until the guy crumples. The second guard’s on him at once, but Jim makes quick work of him, too, slamming him against a wall and giving him as good a pummeling as the first guy.

A bullet whizzes past his ear, heralding the arrival of one of the ringleaders. Jim gets his gun in hand, and he fires once. He’s surprised by the recoil and then he remembers, this is a handgun, one of those old-time projectile weapons, not his phaser.

Which means one hit doesn’t neatly solve all his problems. Sure enough, this guy, while clutching his midsection, is still coming across the chamber. Jim levels the gun and snaps off two more shots. The guy goes down, tumbling to the floor, where he remains still. Another ringleader appears in the corridor. Jim doesn’t waste time, he drops that guy, too, with two more shots, before moving down the corridor.

There’s a blur of movement in his peripheral vision. Jim turns just in time to see the last ringleader running toward a chamber to his right, carrying something long and dark. Jim sprints after him, and he realizes the thing he was running with is a rifle, now leveled at something in the chamber beyond. He fires two shots at the man’s leg, hitting his knee and just above it, and the man shrieks and goes down. Jim all but jumps on him, kicking the rifle away, his own gun trained on the fallen man.

And then he looks up.

Eleven years ago, Jimmy Kirk was mostly a good kid. He wasn’t like his older brother Sam, who was always in and out of trouble, and who ran away from home one afternoon after a particularly bad fight with the stepfather both the Kirk boys loathed. The car they’d been ordered to scrub was their father’s, not their stepfather’s, Sam had confided as Jimmy chased him down across one of the family’s wheat fields. The jerk thought he could just move right in and take everything that belonged to their father, and that wasn’t fair.

Jimmy thought so too. He wanted to strike a blow on behalf of his family—his real family, not this interloper who’d come in and tried to make himself their father. So to avenge his father and brother, and to deprive his stepfather of his stolen treasure, Jimmy took the car and ran it right off the edge of a cliff, letting it fall to its end at the deep bottom of Riverside’s rock quarry.

Their stepfather had arranged for Sam to go on a work-study trip off-world, ostensibly to better his education and to help him learn useful skills to help at the Kirk family farm. But Sam was long gone, and their stepfather was so incensed with Jimmy, that he decided to send Jimmy in Sam’s place. So fourteen-year-old Jimmy Kirk shortly took his first trip off-world.

To a Federation colony called Tarsus IV.

To a place hit by a crop fungus, three months into his stay, that wiped out the entire colony’s food supply.

To a place where one man decided he could play God with the lives of innocent colonists.

To a place where this so-called God knew the children would more readily trust someone their own age over adults… so he turned the children against each other, indulging some with his favor to get them to hunt down and kill the rest.

Jimmy Kirk was fourteen years old, the oldest in his cabin. He was in charge, because he was the oldest. He was supposed to protect the other ones, the little ones. All nine of them.

But he failed, and his friends killed the little ones, and tried to kill him when he wouldn’t join them.

Kodos may have become the legendary Executioner, but he was far from the only one with blood on his hands in that godforsaken place. And even more than a decade later, Jim Kirk counted himself as one of those people. He had pulled no triggers but he was just as responsible, he was sure, for death as so many of those who did.

Jim looks up, and he sees nine children, all under the age of ten or so, seated along the far wall of the chamber.

He’d hidden them in the cellar, told them to be quiet--

They’re glassy-eyed, staring at nothing in particular, silent and motionless.

Just hold still, and be quiet, and wait for me here, I promise you’ll be safe--

He has to force himself to move, to kneel in front of each one, touching their faces, their wrists, checking for pulses, respiration, any sign of injury beyond some marks on two girls’ wrists, or anything wrong. They’re breathing, they’re alive, there are no visible wounds or clues as to what’s wrong. But they just sit there, staring.

The bodies on the ground, all glassy-eyed and staring, lying where they’d fallen--

Jim stands up, and rounds on the last ringleader, who’s trying to drag himself toward the corridor.

I’m the oldest. I’m in charge here.

He picks up the rifle, hefting it…

The new governor, he gave us these bandanas. And food. We’re on the list, so are you. He chose you, Jimmy. Come with us, we’ll get you a rifle too…

He can’t do it. He tosses the rifle away; it clatters to a stop against a cart that holds some kind of machinery, looks medical in nature. There are vials of something on the cart, and syringes. There’s more machinery on shelves below, and lengths of rope—that explains the wrist marks, he thinks.

He collects his gun, and he advances on the man, ready to menace him. But then he thinks of the children.

He handed the little one over to them. They promised they’d take care of him.

And he thinks of what they might see, even if they show no outward sign of comprehension.

He ran and he ran and he could still hear the gunshots, even as he ran away.

Jim grabs the guy by the back of his shirt, and hauls him out into the first chamber. “What have you done to them?” he demands, pointing his gun at the man’s face.

“Go on, shoot me. Kill me and you’ll never find out.”

Jim is not, by nature, a cruel man. But these are children, being bought and sold into all manner of abuse, and he is not going to stand for this.

I’ll take care of you. I promise.

He stands on the man’s knee, where his bullets entered. The man screams and writhes under him. “What happened to them?” he asks.

“OhGodgetoffgetoffmeohgodyou’rekillingme--”

“Who said anything about killing you? I’m just going to stand right here until you answer me.”

“Oh, God, fuck, fuck, I can’t—all right, all right, please, it’s the toxin—“

“What toxin?”

“I don’t know. The stuff in there. I don’t know what it is, we bought it, we just give it, oh, Christ, my leg, we give it to the kids and they behave. They’re good for people.”

The governor knows you’re a good kid, Jimmy, just like the rest of us. He chose you.

“Where are their families?” The man glares up at him, and Jim puts a little more weight on the man’s knee. “Do you need me to repeat the question?”

“AAAUUUGHHHgone, I don't know, I don't know--”

“If you’re lying to me—“

“No! I swear, it’s the truth. Please let me go, please.”

Jim lets up, but only to move back into the other room to gather the rope. He moves quickly, gathering up each of the five men, binding the ones who are still alive (the first two he shot are long gone), and dragging all of them into another small chamber, out of sight.

Because he’s still thinking of the children.

He can’t take them anywhere. He’s alone, with no means of transport, and he’s not even really sure they’re all okay. But he has decided one thing: they are not staying in this goddamned tiny room here at the back of the catacombs, with this creepy cart. He puts away his gun, and he goes back to them, kneeling in front of the row of limp, vacant-eyed bodies.

“Hi.” He summons the warmest, most friendly and open smile he can manage. “I’m Jim. I’m gonna help you guys, okay? I’m gonna get you out of here. Is everyone okay?”

Silence.

“…Okay.” Goddamn, that’s creepy. “Okay, so the first thing we’re going to do is get out of this room. I want to get us up closer to the entrance, so I can call for some help, and they can get to us more easily.” Us, not you. They’re all in this together now.

I’m the oldest, I’m in charge of all of us. I’ll take care of us.

“Can anybody stand?”

Wordlessly, six of the nine boys and girls rise to their feet. They stand there, blank-faced, arms limp at their sides, like they’re awaiting orders. Jim fights for all he’s worth to keep that smile pasted on his face. “Okay, great. That’s great. Uh, how about… why don’t you guys hold each other’s’ hands, and I’ll carry your friends?”

They link hands without making a sound. Jim coaxes one of the remaining three to take a piggyback ride, and he lifts the others onto his hips. He herds them out of this chamber, down the corridor, out of the big chamber where he jumped the guards, out toward the entrance. He keeps up a stream of chatter as they walk, keeping them all informed of where they’re going, what they’re doing, and who he is; he talks to soothe himself as much as he does all of them.

They stop at a largish chamber within sight of the entrance. Jim gets the children to sit again, trying to keep them close to each other for warmth. He strips off his leather jacket and the wool sweater he has beneath it, draping them over the kids as best he can, leaving him in just a thin t-shirt.

The other chambers are clear, he knows this—he checked them as he rounded up the children’s captors. Said captors are secure, tied and dumped in a chamber far into this cluster of caves. But Jim is still in a bit of a panic, it’s hard to breathe, he can’t calm down.

This is not Tarsus IV, he tells himself, over and over, gulping down deep breaths as he takes out his CiD. He has to wait a moment for his hands to stop shaking so he can pull up his contacts list. Call McCoy, he’s got to call McCoy—

There’s a tug on the leg of his jeans. Jim looks down to see the smallest of the children, a brown-haired little girl who can’t be more than about four, has closed her little hand around a fistful of his pant leg. His breath catches, shaky; it’s the first sign of life he’s seen out of any of them.

Jim bends and scoops her up, settling her over his right hip, arm securely around her. “It’s okay,” he says softly, touching his cheek to her forehead. “I’ve got you. Those guys can’t hurt you anymore. Any of you,” he adds, a little louder. “You’re all safe. I’m going to call for some help now. I’m calling my friends, I promise they’re good people. We’re going to help you.”

He paces the chamber, the little girl balanced on his hip, a little awkward with the CiD in his left hand as he makes a few calls. Once he’s done, he goes back to sit with the rest of the children, the little girl now in his lap. “They’re on their way,” he tells them. “They’ll be here soon.”