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Sticking a bunch of psychotic, deadly trained soldiers in a tin can and shoving them into the blackness of space is asking for trouble. Making half of them barely more than teenagers is insanity. Reaper still stuck by his belief that space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence. The disease and darkness was still omnipresent, but since he found Jim, the silence of space was almost no more. Space was a place where he and Jim thrived, shouted, fought, and fucked. Space was noisy and these days, more crazy than not. It was a long time since Reaper had been able to laugh, but living aboard the Enterprise had done just that. It’s made him laugh and feel alive, but also scream and grumble with frustration. The greatest frustration is his golden boy, Captain James T. Kirk, fearless leader of the lunatics and behind most, if not all, of the madness on board the ship.
Enterprise was a petri dish for Jim to test out his theories, not so much the skills he had learned in the Academy. Jim was in no way a traditionalist. The first six months of any Captain’s tour were typically bloody. Jim was ruthless, but his culling of the crew had an unusually high number of suicides and mental breakdowns in the first six months while he weeded out the weak. The Enterprise was Jim’s training ground for greatness before taking on the universe. If he could invoke duty out of fear amongst this scary crew, then Reaper had no doubt his boy could do so with entire worlds. This universe was in for something they had never dealt with before. Other leaders had ruled by fear, but Jim was actually getting the best of the best to follow him out of respect and realization that serving Jim was in their best interest. It took a scary son-of-a-bitch to inspire loyalty here.
The position of Captain’s Woman remained unfilled onboard the Enterprise. It was no secret that the Captain and his CMO were not only allies, but everything to one another. Reaper was sure as hell glad that he was attracted to men and could do without women with their wiles that manipulated men, reducing them to pawns. Men might have physical power, but women had strengths in other ways. On other ships, the Captain’s Woman was a matter of social status and acted as an informal alpha amongst the female crew members. There were matters the women handle amongst themselves that even the Captain wasn’t privy to. Uhura was without a doubt, the Captain’s favourite and only trusted female crew member. She was more than capable of managing issues amongst the female crew. Jim had no problem when the female crew members took matters into their own hands and metered out justice to any abusive male member of the crew. Uhura had only had to cut off a tongue twice and other dangly bits once so far. Reaper hadn’t re-attached any of them, trusting her judgment. Generally, everyone also tried to steer clear of the volatile relationship she had with Spock.
Only one idiot had dared to call the Captain’s lover the Captain’s Woman. What happened to that idiot served as a warning to the rest of the crew: don’t insult or mess with the CMO! They never found the body or even a drop of blood. The security officer simply disappeared. It was another lesson Reaper added to Jim’s roster. Sometimes it was best to leave your followers and enemies guessing. Their imaginations could come up with their worst nightmare. Sometimes, the unknown was far more frightening than the gruesome truth.
Reaper thought he had seen everything Jim’s twisted mind could conjure. He was wrong.
++++++
When Nyota chose to speak, it was something worth saying. When she tracked Reaper down in the Med-Bay, he knew it was serious. If it had been anyone else but Reaper, they probably wouldn’t have heard her coming. She was a stealthy, skilled woman. It didn’t hurt that she was also stunningly beautiful.
Uhura licked her bottom lip. “The Captain’s started a contest.”
“Excuse me?”
Nyota cocked her hip and leaned against one of the examination tables, her short skirt riding up her thighs. “A contest?”
Reaper pinched the bridge of his nose. He felt a dreadful migraine coming on. “Clarify. Now!”
“He’s scary when he’s being playful,” Nyota chuckled. The noise had always sounded a bit off since they reattached her tongue. “He’s started a scavenger hunt.”
“A fuckin’ scavenger hunt?”
“You heard me the first time.”
“Why?” Reaper demanded.
“Figuring out his motivations is your job, not mine. But, on the surface, it’s a crazy way to test the skill set of the crew. To even get to the memo you have to get through seven layers of encryption and then the damn thing is in Vulcan.”
“Of course it is,” Reaper grumbled. This sounded like one of the stunts Jim had pulled in Academy. “Give me the details.”
“I can’t do that.” Nyota smirked and had the audacity to bat her eyelashes at him. “It’s against the rules.”
Glancing at Nyota from under his too long bangs, Reaper growled a warning. “Rules don’t apply to me.”
Nyota’s teasing faltered and she shivered, reminded of what this man was. “Each item on a list is worth different points. The participant with the highest number of points at the end of the game wins. The rules are no helping anyone else, no killing or serious maiming, and we can only play off shift. Any violation of the rules, or anyone putting the ship in danger will result in, I quote, ‘A seriously pissed off Captain.’”
“Tell me the scariest thing on the list,” Reaper demanded.
Nyota’s smirk was back and without hesitating she answered, “A picture of you smiling.” Reaper grabbed for a hypospray and she held up her hands in mock surrender. “It’s worth the most points: a holographic picture of one Doctor Leonard McCoy smiling. The Captain warned he would know if it wasn’t genuine.”
Reaper’s grip tightened on the hypospray. The entire crew had learned to fear the CMO’s hyposprays. “Get the hell out of my sight.”
Nyota nodded and sauntered towards the exit. “I figured it was better if you found out sooner rather than later.”
Reaper stormed into this office and called up the internal system. He had to run a complex algorithm to find the appropriate file and rolled his eyes at the dummy file Jim had set up. The encryption showed Jim’s typical signature, but Reaper knew it had been dumbed down just enough so that only the very best of his crew could access it. His Vulcan was rusty, but Reaper got the gist of the memo. Sighing, he hit his head against the headrest of his chair. It was quite brilliant in a lunatic, unorthodox way. It was a way of testing the crew’s ambition, skills, ingenuity, and stealth. Reading down the list he had a feeling his Med-Bay was going to be increasingly busy. Besides the entry related to him, some of the more interesting items included one litre of rotgut from Scotty’s still, a video of the participant successfully completing an Okinawan kata and an Andorian battle aerobatics sequence back-to-back, a rubbing from Sulu’s etched nihontō, a dozen Tarvorkian cakes, and a recording of Spock swearing. But, the most interesting of all was the prize the mystery prize listed as “Captain’s surprise”.
Reaper typed an encrypted message to the Captain’s chair. I KNOW, BRAT.
The response came back twenty-two seconds later. TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH, OLD MAN. WANNA PLAY?
Reaper groaned because he could hear the Jim’s teasing laugh in his head. Nyota was right about one thing. It was dangerous when Jim was playful.
++++++
“Stay still,” Reaper snapped and repositioned Chekov’s hand as he ran the dermal regenerator over the boy’s thumb. “You know my rules.”
“Damaged goods are not useful to anyone,” Chekov repeated back dutifully and rolled his eyes.
Reaper had an ironclad rule that if you were injured, you reported to his Med-Bay. If you dared to suck it up or try to heal yourself, he would find out and it would be worse in the long run. He ran a different Medical than any other ship on the fleet, but with negative reinforcement in the way of hyposprays, the crew were beginning to become trainable.
Sulu all but growled as Reaper continued to touch the younger man. Sulu was pacing back and forth, glaring daggers at the doctor. Everyone knew that neither Sulu nor Chekov tolerated others touching what was classified as theirs. Their possessiveness and territoriality were annoying, but kind of endearing.
“Don’t make me sedate you, Lieutenant.”
“Aren’t you done yet?” Sulu snapped, but kept a respectable distance.
Reaper probed the burn. “Tell me exactly what form of stupidity caused you to get burned?”
“Scotty has set the booby traps,” Chekov admitted and shrugged. “He is most… vicious and inventive.”
“At least you didn’t come in with a bite from Keesner.” Bones finished with a stinging hypospray simply filled with vitamins. It wasn’t necessary, but Bones felt like inflicting pain. The hypospray would inflict a nice bruise on a slender neck that was already filled with hickies left by a possessive Sulu. “That would’ve rotted the flesh from your bones.”
Chekov smirked and flexed his finger, testing the freshly healed skin. “Keenser and I have an understanding. How do you think we got that close?”
Reaper raised a questioning eyebrow at Sulu. “I thought the rules of the came were clear about not assisting one another?”
“I wasn’t there to help him,” Sulu snapped and crossed his arms over his chest. “I was there to stop him.”
Chekov only had eyes for Sulu and licked his bottom lip. “Lieutenant Sulu is most… troublesome. He does not like me playing this game.”
Sulu was watching Chekov with a hungry, jealous gaze. “You’re in no need of a surprise from the Captain.”
Chekov threw his head back and laughed with delight, slapping his thigh. Glancing at Reaper, he gestured toward Sulu. “He is perfect, no?”
“He’s something alright, kid. Now, get the hell out of here, and no fucking in the corridors…” Reaper shouted after them as Sulu grabbed and manhandled a still laughing Chekov. “Or, the turbo lifts!”
“Sorry, didn’t hear you, doctor!” Chekov responded just before the doors snapped shut.
Reaper messaged Jim. SCOTTY HAS BOOBY TRAPS. THIS IS GETTING OUT OF HAND! YOU’LL NEED TO DISINFECT THE TURBO LIFTS AFTER CHEKOV AND SULU ARE FINISHED PLAYING.
Jim’s response made Reaper crush a hypospray in his hand.
WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE WHAT THE ONE WITH THE TRIBBLE DOES!
++++++
One female crew member quickly figured out that flashing Reaper her tits wasn’t going to make him smile. Thankfully Nurse Chapel took care of that bitch. The next time he saw the woman in question, she turned as white as a ghost and skulked way. For some strange reason, she was wearing a turtle neck and pants. He was pretty sure that she wouldn’t want to be flashy anyone for awhile after Chapel had finished with her. Chapel was his head nurse for a reason, after all. Reaper was still amazed at the strange things women could hide under the confines of those tiny uniforms.
One of the thicker security officers, nicknamed Cupcake by Jim, tried to get Reaper to smile at phaser point. Jim had been looking for something other than ammo to test his torpedo tubes. They had to break his legs to fit him in the tubes, though.
The one hundred year old scotch Chekov offered him almost made him smile. It was well known that when the doctor drank a good scotch, it was almost pornographic, or so bragged their Captain. The young ensign pouted when he downed it with a completely blank expression and told him, “Nice try, kid.”
++++++
“What in the hell did you do to get Spock to swear?” Jim demanded as he stalked into his own quarters.
Reaper was waiting for him, lounging on the couch and sipping at some of Chekov’s scotch.
“That’s between, me, Spock, and Uhura.” Reaper swirled the amber liquid around the tumbler, watching the legs creep down the side. “I’ve got not idea what he said, but Uhura looked pretty shocked.”
“It took me two hours to translate it,” Jim chuckled and tossed his datapad on the coffee table. “I can tell you it’s not in any dictionary or database. I had to trace the root words back to archaic Vulcan. You are a very bad, bad man.”
Reaper patted his thigh and leered at Jim. “Sure am. You know Uhura found it hot? If she detaches his ear again, I’m going to leave him a one-eared pointy eared bastard. For the record, I used Scotty’s rotgut to exterminate some alien algae that nothing else has been able to kill.” Jim flopped onto the couch and manoeuvred himself until his head was lying on his lover’s lap. Reaper kept the tumbler in his left hand and with his right, he began to card his fingers through Jim’s hair. “That should make me the top point scorer in your foolish lil’ game.”
“All but one,” Jim said and rubbed his cheek against Reaper’s thigh. It wasn’t sexual, but intimate nonetheless. This man was the only one he could dare to drop his guard with. “No one was supposed to be able to get everything.”
Reaper ran a fingertip along the shell of Jim’s ear down to his chin. “You should know by now what you’re dealing with.”
Jim shut his eyes and relaxed with a sigh. “What did you do with the tribble?”
“The mess officer was pretty excited about a renewable source of meat.”
Jim cracked open his left eye. “You didn’t!”
Reaper managed to keep his expression neutral for several moments before he smirked. Tugging on Jim’s earlobe, he chuckled. “Even I’m not that evil.”
Jim slipped his communicator out of his pocket and quickly snapped an image of Reaper. The smirk immediately dropped from his face, settling into an irritated scowl. Jim merely snapped another picture. “That first one gives you everything on the list. The second one is for me.”
“I’ve killed men for less.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Reaper leaned over and kissed Jim’s forehead. “Am I gonna get the Captain’s surprise?”
“Of course. It’s me.”
Reaper ran his fingertips down the curve of Jim’s neck. “Oh, and what if Chekov had won?”
“There was never any doubt in my mind that you’d win. Fuck me later?”
“You couldn’t stop me if you wanted to. I’ll fuck ya until you forget your name, then use the knife. People’ll think this game was a set up.”
“I love the knife.” Jim smiled and rubbed his cheek against Reaper’s thigh. “It was a set up. Though I’ll make a point of posting the rankings.”
“You’ve been pushin’ yourself too hard again,” Reaper chided. Jim had closed both eyes and his breathing was starting to even out. “Being overly tired is a weakness. I’ll tie you to the bed if I have to.”
“That’s incentive to become an insomniac,” Jim mumbled and shifted his hand until he found Reaper’s wrist. Fumbling, he followed the wrist and seized the tumbler, setting it down on the coffee table without opening his eyes. Jim found Reaper’s hand once more and folded their fingers together. “Just gonna rest my eyes.”
“Go ahead. I’ll watch your back.”
Reaper contemplated Jim’s command style, thinking that this constructed dominance contest was another sign of his brilliance. It was a way to channel his crewmembers’ active and passive aggression, all while acknowledging most of them were still young and full of too much damn energy. The command structure made one mistake. It assumed that only one being could be in charge. Reaper liked to think of the Enterprise as a Terran wolf pack. The pack could function as a group with Jim and Reaper sharing power as a mated alpha pair. With Jim’s games and tests, the others would fall into their natural place in the hierarchy. Those not worthy would simply be left behind, or worse.
Reaper thought Jim was asleep when heard a barely whispered, “I’m gonna organize a hunt next…”
Reaper barked an unrestrained laugh. “God help the prey!”
Soon he planned to give Jim his own surprise. The games his boy was planning were all leading to something. Soon his golden boy would be ready to join him for eternity.
END.