Caught (Star Trek: A Mirror Cracked)

Uhura stepped off the turbolift at the end of her second, boring shift in this universe, eagerly looking forward to another night with Kirk. Without warning, two security guards fell into step next to her. "Lt. Uhura, please come with us."

She looked at them questioningly. "Where to, boys?" Her voice was full of speculation...and promise. One of the men swallowed nervously. She chose that moment to push him into his crewmate, sprinting down the corridor toward the nearest weapon locker. Not enough time, not enough momentum; she heard their feet pounding behind her.

Uhura fought the hands that grasped her. "What's the meaning of this?" She kicked out at the security guard on her left, but he deftly avoided her booted foot. Useless, the boots the women wore in this universe. Useless for either seduction or as weapons. If she were wearing her own heels, the guard would be down with a fractured kneecap by now.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," the other guard said, "but Mr. Spock's orders are to bring you to the Brig."

The Brig! Spock must know...somehow, he'd found out, they'd given themselves away, but how? Uhura's mind raced as she was half-pulled along by her captors, struggling furiously in their unforgiving grips. There was no other explanation, not in this backwards universe; no chance this was a power play by Spock against Kirk and those known to be his allies. Unless she'd underestimated them, which she doubted.

As they hurried down the corridor, Uhura saw a furious McCoy struggling with guards of his own as he was half-dragged out of Christine Chapel's quarters. A glimpse inside showed her unconscious, half-naked form being tended by one of the other medics. She couldn't see any more as McCoy and his guards cleared the doorway, but judging by the doctor's own fully clothed state, nothing much had happened before Spock set his dogs on them. She had no doubt they wouldn't have hesitated to drag him out of there stark naked had that been the way they found him. Not by the grim, unsmiling faces they presented. Same as her own guards, she noted as she allowed herself to be hustled to the turbolift.

She resigned herself to captivity. Struggling further wasn't going to get her anywhere except stunned; Kirk was unconscious when they joined him in the turbolift, Scotty sullen, McCoy finally calming once he saw they were all caught.