Space: The Final Frontier | Star Trek

Chapter 42

With my second rough landing in a matter of minutes, I, along with Jim and Krall, fell through the air before smacking hard onto the top of one of the nearby buildings. Trying not to look down at the terrifying fall below and the structures all around me, I slowly pushed myself up to my feet again.

"You lost!" Jim shouted after Krall, who was on his feet again as well. "There's no way you can make it back there. Give up!"

"What, like you did?" Krall spat. "I read your ship's log, Captain James T Kirk. At least I know what I am! I am a soldier."

With a groan of pain, Jim stood up. "You won the war, Edison! You gave us peace."

"Peace is not what I was born into." Krall caught sight of the broken glass from the core as it drifted past in one of the air currents. With one final glance towards us, he jumped off of the building and into the current.

Flipping open his communicator, Jim sighed. "Scotty?"

"Captain, he's using the gravitational slip-stream to carry him back to the center." 

Tucking his communicator away again, Jim turned to me with a look I knew all too well.

"Oh, no." I shook my head, terrified of what he wanted us to do.

"Oh, yeah." He nodded before following Krall's lead and leaping into the stream.

I watched in slight horror as Jim floated through the air after Krall and knew, even though every fiber of my being was telling me it was a bad idea, that I had to go too. "And Bones complained about flying a little ship," I grumbled to myself before running toward the edge of the building and throwing myself off of it.

Looking ahead at Jim, I noticed he had his body pointed straight like an arrow and copied him in order to move faster and pick up less resistance.

In the distance, Krall had made it back to the tower and was slowly climbing back up to the core. Jim and I, however, were slightly off course and only just managed to grab the side of the tower as we flew past. With Jim reaching out to snag my hand to keep me from blowing past in the stream, he pulled me down to the building before we started the climb up.

By the time we had caught up, however, Krall had already activated the device and thrown it up into the core. "No!" Jim panicked as the artifact drifted through the core, emitting what looked like thick, black smoke.

Noticing us, Krall began to close the core's hatch. Jim rushed to stop him, but Krall grabbed him by the neck with surprising ease. "Edith." Jim choked out as Krall held him with one hand and slowly pushed the heavy hatch shut with the other. 

"Captain, we have to stop the processer now or everything breathing in Yorktown is dead!" Scotty's voice was low but audible.

As Jim swung at Krall, sending him stumbling back a few steps, my eyes shifted from the ladder to the two men fighting in front of me. "Jim, hold him off!" I yelled as I bolted for the ladder.

Beginning my climb, I locked eyes with Krall over Jim's shoulder and watched as he pushed his way towards me. I tried to climb faster, but just as I was about to reach the final step, a large hand grabbed my ankle and yanked me down hard.

I let out a scream as I struggled to hold on; my leg being yanked again and again downwards as I pulled upwards. "Jim, little help here!" I called for assistance as my hands began to slip from the ladder.

With a growl, Jim launched himself at Krall, sending us all tumbling back to the floor again because Krall had refused to let go of my leg. "You can't stop it." Krall wheezed as Jim and I clambered to our feet again. "You will die."