Author's Note: Seriously heed the rating. War, blood and disturbing ideas are within.

Disclaimer: Not my property.

A colony is slaughtered. Kirk feels it's his responsibility to save what little he can.

Bloodshed

Weapons fire heated the already humid night, the screams of the dying thick in the choking air. The tiny house James T Kirk and Leonard McCoy stood in shook with the concussive force of the bombs raining down from the skies.

“Bastards,” Jim breathed.

The battle was won, that much was clear, but this world's battle-hungry invaders obviously didn't believe in overkill. Their love of warfare meant they were prepared to do anything to rid the planet of Starfleet's presence.

“The Uafec are a race like no other.” Kirk had told his crew as he'd briefed them, following a distress call Uhura had picked up from a tiny colony. “They thrive off creating wars for the sake of bloodshed, usually targeting new or struggling colonies. Their distress call originated from Homestead I, an agricultural colony recently affected by a blight that took out ninety percent of their crops. The Uafec have enslaved the people for their war games, and, when the colony's dead, they'll move on to the next unsuspecting world. It's enough. It stops here. We will aid the colonists and arrest the Uafec for their crimes.”

Jim, it turned out, had been unrealistically optimistic.

McCoy's hands were slick with blood as yet another security officer died despite his best efforts.

“Damnit!” He sat back on his haunches, using the back of his hand to wipe the sweat off his brow. “ Jim, Ensign Owens is dead.”

Jim looked at McCoy, his eyes the only thing standing out from the blood and grime smeared across his face. “ We're out of time.” He stood, tossing his clearly broken phaser aside. “Stay here, wait for Spock's call. I'll create a diversion.”

“Whoa, Jim, wait. You can't go out there. It's suicide!”

A bomb shook the house, debris raining from the ceiling. “Bones, everything here is my fault. All our people died because I brought them here, and I will be damned before I let their deaths mean nothing.”

McCoy stood, rapidly moving to Jim's side. “And what do you plan to do? Take on that damn army by yourself?”

Jim didn't meet his friend's gaze. “You know as well as I do that there's a small group of colonists barricaded into a bunker just down the street. I'm going for them. The Enterprise can use my communicator to lock onto their position and beam them up.” He looked out of the small window and into the heavily patrolled street beyond. “At least we can save a few of the colonists.”

“Jim, you can't do that. You'll never get there. It's suicide!”

Jim turned, the force of his gaze causing McCoy to back up a step. Jim's eyes burnt with guilt and anger, both emotions tainted by deep anguish. “Bones, everything here is my fault –”

“No, not everything –”

“ – Our people died because I brought them here, and I will be damned before I let their deaths mean nothing.” Jim moved for the door.

“The street is crawling with guards. You can't... Jim, stop.” McCoy already had a hypo of sedative, prepped for an officer who had died before he'd been able to use it. He grabbed it from the floor and raced after Jim. “Damnit, Jim, wait!”

Jim felt a hand curl around his shoulder. He knew what McCoy intended to do and Jim couldn't let him finish. Jim's elbow cracked into McCoy's chin. Head snapping back, McCoy didn't have a chance to stop Jim spinning around and knocking the hypospray out of his hand.

Jim didn't pause for a moment as he grabbed McCoy in a chokehold. McCoy fought back, but he couldn't overpower his friend. The next thing he knew, he couldn't breathe.

“I'm sorry, Bones, but I can't let you to stop me.”

McCoy was fighting back frantically, arms and legs lashing out, but Jim had combat training – and experience – that McCoy couldn't hope to match.

“I'm sorry.”

It was the last thing McCoy heard before he blacked out.

“Doctor McCoy, can you hear me?”

McCoy gasped awake, sitting up before he thought to do so. Spock was kneeling by his side, face as impassive as ever, but something troubled lingered in his dark eyes. “Doctor, are you well?”

McCoy had only one thing to say. “Where the hell is Jim?”

“I am uncertain.”

McCoy got to his feet too fast and his vision fuzzed out. Spock caught and steadied him until he was conscious enough to keep himself upright. “How long was I out?”

“Unknown. But by the time we beamed down, the streets were devoid of life.”

McCoy was out of the house and running, Spock easily keeping up. There was only one place Jim could be, only one...

McCoy burst into the bunker where the enslaved colonists had been. He nearly vomited at the sight of the walls, splattered as they were with blood and flesh. Despite what every instinct screamed at him, McCoy didn't back out. He was a doctor; blood was the currency he dealt in. Tunneling his vision, McCoy ran down the hallway, long legs eating up the distance. He reached a door, crashed through it, and nearly slammed into Jim.

“Jim...” Whatever McCoy had to say was lost when his eyes took in his surroundings.

“Bones,” Jim said without turning. He was holding something in his arms. “You okay?”

McCoy couldn't answer. He couldn't get his eyes off the bodies piled in front of him. There were colonists and Uafec laying there, every body a bloodied mess. He'd never seen such carnage.

And Jim stood in the center of it all, seemingly unscathed.

“Captain, are you injured?” Spock inquired, standing next to McCoy. If the scene around them bothered him, he was hiding it remarkably well, even for a Vulcan. The stench was eye-watering.

“I'm fine.”

There came a child's soft cry.

“One survivor,” Jim said, turning to face McCoy and Spock. “Look.”

McCoy was too distracted to look, his eyes locked onto Jim's blood-soaked face. The man's skin was completely stained, his hair too. An unpleasant chill worked its way through him, defying the room's cloying heat.

Spock spoke up. “Captain, this child is...”

“Tired.” Jim's laugh was strange, unnerving. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

Spock turned to McCoy. “Doctor, is there anything you can do?”

McCoy looked. The child, barely more than a baby, was bleeding out from a wound to his chest. No medical technology known to the Federation would be enough to save him. “It's too late,” he softly told Spock.

Jim shushed another weak cry.

“Captain, how did you survive?” Spock asked, his mind moving onto other matters.

“I fought,” he murmured, voice low to avoid disturbing the child.

“How?”

“I fought,” Jim repeated. His hands trembled, but he flexed his fingers to hide it. “Everyone did.”

Jim seemed satisfied with the answer. Looking at the slaughter, McCoy wasn't certain he wanted the details.

“Jim, we need to go back to the ship.” McCoy stepped forwards, his feet carefully picking a path between bodies. “I need to check you out, you're covered in...”

“It's not mine.”

“None of it?”

“None of it.”

The child breathed out, and didn't breathe in. Jim didn't stop rocking him.

McCoy had seen tragedy, knew how to compartmentalize, but never had he struggled so hard. “Jim, he's gone.”

“No, he's sleeping.”

“He's dead, Jim. Let me take him.”

Jim cradled the child tightly. “You can't. You'll wake him.”

McCoy looked at Spock, said 'help me' without saying it out-loud. Spock responded with the tiniest of nods.

McCoy swallowed hard before he spoke. “Jim, I'm a doctor. You think I can't handle a toddler?”

Jim turned away, stepping deftly over the bodies at his feet. “He kept crying for his mom. He only quietened down when I picked him up.”

Softly softly wasn't working. “Jim, he's dead. Look at him, he isn't breathing.”

“Shut up Bones.”

“He's lost too much blood.”

“No...”

“He's...”

“I said shut up!”

Spock stepped close to Jim. For once, the young man seemed completely unaware of the oncoming attack. Spock's strike was swift and sharp: his fingers pinched Jim's neck and barely a second passed before Jim was slumping, the child's body falling from his arms.

Jim crashed into the ground and, for a moment, his blood-stained body melded into the tableaux of death. McCoy crouched next to his friend, checking his pulse. Finding it rapid but steady, he nodded to Spock.

“Spock to Enterprise. Three to beam to sickbay.”