This is a new fic. It's a fusion set in the Star Trek universe. Don't ask me the Star Date, because I haven't figured it out yet. Lets just say it pre-dates events from The Next Generation. I am not planning any cameos from the characters from Star Trek. (no promises) This is the result of the 'Let's Write Sherlock Challenge 17: Crossovers and Fusions.' (Which may or may not make it into the challenge because after I post this I have to figure out how to TAG in Tumblr.)
Warning. Sensors indicate that there may be Johnlock in the final chapters. Slash is possible but not certain.
Warning. Rated M because that's how I roll. (okay to be specific, there could be violence, adult themes, references to suicide, sex, adult themes...oh wait I'm repeating myself, again. I'll post more specific warnings if needed.)
I blame I'm Nova for setting me this challenge (and for inspiring me and encouraging me and for telling me how). Oh wait, even better. Let's dedicate this to I'm Nova, because dedications sound so much nicer than blame. :D
Cyborg
Chapter 1. Running the Rapids
The ship's hull groaned ominously.
Of course any weird sounds would seem ominous. After all, only a few inches of over-stressed metal stood between him and a sudden, cold, painful death in the vacuum of interstellar space.
The ship groaned again and the engine made that that funny keening noise, which mimicked an Aquilian banshee.
John was no engineer, but that eerie, high-pitched squeal coming from the engine couldn't possibly be a good thing. Then too, the red warning lights were strong hints that something was wrong, very wrong. He looked at the cryptic signals blinking all over the control panel and bit his lip.
Regretably, they did not teach navigation or ship maintenance in medical school, not even at Starfleet. Still he could try...Maybe...What if...what if he pulled power from the shields? He tentatively pushed a couple of buttons. Different lights turned red. He did not know if this was good or bad.
Just then, a charming, feminine, synthesized voice interrupted his musings.
Warning: Matter/anti-matter drive reaching critical overload. Advise disengaging warp drive and proceeding on impulse power.
"Oh yeah, impulse power, that'll get us the hell away from those bloody pirates," grumbled John wrinkling his forehead. Things must be getting worse, more of the buttons were flashing red.
"Bloody hell," he muttered, checking the sensor arrays for some miracle. Well he tried checking the sensor arrays; it took a bit of concentration and a brief uplink with the computer to display the scans in a format that made sense to him.
The news was not good. That interstellar dust cloud, which he'd naively planned to hide the yacht in, was still over an hour away at warp 5.8, which was apparently this vessel's maximum speed. And even that speed was tearing the little yacht apart.
Not that it mattered anymore. Because the their pursuers could go a hellava lot faster than warp 5.8.
"Looks like we're not going to make it, sweetheart," he said rubbing his eyes.
On the other hand, 'it ain't over till the batwinged Twil-lady sings' was one of his dad's favorite sayings. Besides, John was innately stubborn (got that from his mum), so he had to keep trying.
'Probably would help to know where the bloody pirates are...' he thought. 'It's possible that they might've run into some space junk and spaced themselves or fell into an uncharted singularity.'
He uplinked in order to select a globular scan, which covered all possible vectors. 'Hmm. It looks just like that game I used to play with Harry, Spacer 3000,' he thought widening and minimizing the views then widening them again. 'That little green dot must be us..." he tapped his finger thoughtfully on the screen '...and that big, green, almost stationary dot is them...'
Stationary? Well hell, the space buccaneers were already here. Damn.
And bloody hell, they just fired phasers, not fifty yards off to the right side. They missed me? Maybe it was a warning shot?That communications packet would have come in handy right about now.
Warning: Incoming Photon Torpedo.
'Oh, hell.'
The torpedo exploded just to the left of the yacht. The ship trembled in the shock wave, and the engine's cry of distress went up at least an octave. And if that torpedo was just a warning shot, then John didn't want to find out what a direct hit felt like.
Like he had a choice. He bemoaned their lack of communications. He took a couple minutes to try messaging diirectly with the pirate ship using his personal communication link. Either his signal was too weak, or they were blocking messaging or maybe the pirate ship's telecom software was non-Federation or...
John wiped his sweaty brow and bloody nose, and he fought the urge to bang his head against the undecipherable control panel. He might as well drop his speed, since the pirates were already here. No reason to keep upsetting that screaming engine…
Warning: Shields Failing.
"Like those shields were ever gonna stop thier weapons," he muttered. He unconciously pursed his lips as he worked at the control panel, finally figuring out how to slow down their speed, and then, wonder of wonders, he successfully diverted power from the engines back to the shields.
He smirked, feeling like Captain Dirk James, the hero from Spacer 3000.
"Maybe that'll keep everyone happy for a while?" he asked aloud.
Or maybe not.
Even on impulse power, the engine's protest was skirling higher and higher. Not good. Defintely not good. He pinched his lips with his fingers and stared vacuously at the blinking lights and electronic gauges. His finger hovered over a red warning light.
'Damn!Damn! Damn!' thought the pilot, 'I knew i should have finished reading How to Fly Small Interstellar Craft for Dummies when I had the chance.'
He looked around wildly, hoping for divine inspiration…any inspiration.
"Ideas?" he asked.
He received no answer.
"Right. It's not as though you're gonna answer. Bloody prima dona," he muttered some more.
Only an hour ago, he'd tried synching with the on-board computer yet again. And once more it had been another humbling, painful experience, because the bloody, on-board computer was clearly insane. In the end she had stupidly advised that he surrender and throw himself on the mercy of the heartless pirates, using this piece-of-junk spaceship as a ransom.
As if pirates understood the meaning of mercy. As if he'd abandon this ship now, after all they'd been through.
Of course they'd argued, bitterly. Of course, she wasn't talking to him…again.
Of course a few years ago, John would have just said the bloody computer was broken and walked away from it.
But that was then, and this was now. He knew she was bloody psychopathic (if not psychotic). It hardly mattered what that made him. John knew he was broken and probably teetering on the edge of insanity himself. He pressed his hand against his mouth to keep from giggling hysterically at the idea.
Warning. Incoming Photon Torpedo.
The little ship kicked and bounced in the wake of the after shocks. The bucking reminded him of a summer vacation when his family rode the rapids, back when he was a kid. He couldn't remember where the river was...
Warning. Incoming Photon Torpedo.
The ship careened to the right, and John was nearly knocked out of his seat.
Warning. Incoming...
"Shut up!"
...Photon Torpedo.
Then the ship lurched hard to the left and tilted, as if it had just crashed into the rocks lining the rapids from so long ago. The pitching ship had tossed John out of his seat, and he had landed face first onto the control panel.
He saw stars, and not the ones outside the transparent aluminum windows.
He reached up to rub his face. It hurt, and he felt an alarming amount of wetness, which could only be…
He looked at his bloody hand. Yep, he was bleeding again, quite a lot. And not from his nose but from his forehead.
The engine's keening seemed to have stopped, which would have been a relief. Only there were strange new creaks and groans, and a strange hissing sound. The lights were dimmed and flickering.
Suddenly, everything was drowned out by a strident alarm, echoing through the small cabin and burrowing into his aching head.
"Goddammit! Turn off that goddam noise!" he demanded, in vain.
Warning, replied the computer, sounding inappropriately cheerful over the blaring alarm. Mandatory engine shutdown initiated due to containment field failure.
Warning. Now operating on battery backup, shutting down all non-essential systems.
Warning. Hull breach detected. Advise emergency evacuation.
'Ohhhh. A HULL BREACH. That explains the hissing sound,' thought John. 'That's bad. Very bad.'
He dragged himself up from the floor easily. Too easily, apparently the artificial gravity was a non-essential system, but with the air leaking out into space, the gravity hardly mattered.
Warning. Life support systems failing. Advise immediate evacuation.
"And just how the hell am I supposed to evacuate?" he yelled.
Advise donning your exo-suit.
She was talking to him again. Brilliant-Not.
'No! No. No. No!" he shouted, trying to remain in his seat and interpret the flashing control panel, which was lit up like New Orleans during Mardi Gras, and about as meaningful as mimes to the former medical officer.
Put on your exo-suit, John.
"Stop telling me what to do!" he snarled.
Biting his already swollen lip, he looked behind him, a hose was spewing some vapor (probably poisonous), which was fogging up the cabin, which was lit up by sparks from some wires which had torn free from something, probably something important, like life-support.
He wondered where the hull breech was.
Put on your exo-suit, John.
"I don't have a bloody exo-suit!" he shouted.
'Never mind," he thought to himself. 'This. This is it; end of the run. You knew it was a suicide run, John. And now, now it's time to die.'
He should have been happy, but of course he wasnt.
It was farking tragic irony. Hell, it was almost funny; he should be farking laughing out loud. John had tried to commit suicide three times in the last two years, and they'd always stopped him. He'd wanted to die, so damn badly.
And now that death was here to gather him up at last, John didn't want to go. Instead he was once again stupidly praying, 'Please don't let me die,' while he frantically tried to come up with another option. Any option. One last option.
The smooth, pleasant voice of the ship, run by that sadistic, crazy computer, continued to issue warnings and advice as if any of it mattered.
"Shut up," John yelled, "I'm trying to think here!" As if that stupid computer was going to start listening to him now. He needed options. Maybe… maybe if he tried to sync with her again, now that she had the upper hand?
Breathing was becoming difficult, perhaps due to the fumes and smoke. Or maybe it was that hull breach sucking out all the air. Shame it didn't suck out the smoke. He should look for an emergency respirator.
The ship heaved sideways again, but John didn't fall because he was beginning to float in the near zero gravity.
Warning. Tractor beam detected.
'Huh. If they have a tractor beam, on us, the shields must be down," realized the former medical officer. 'And if my shields are down…Oh God, then that means they can transport…"
He heard the mosquito-like whine of the transporter beam just before the ant-crawling sensation began to disassemble him, atom-by-bloody-atom. He really hated transporters.
He barely had time to think, 'I'm sorry, Mary,' before the dying ship seemed to dissolve in front of his eyes.
A/N Thank you for reading this.
This is a multichapter fic which has been mostly written. But since I tend to edit and then re-edit and then rewrite and then rip the innards out of a chapter and then start over...well, I guess this will take a while to finish. I'll try to publish once a week like Old Ping Hai (one of my fanfic muses) and real life permitting of course.
Please review. I really depend on your reviews to tell me what's working and what isn't working. I really like constructive criticism. Any advice is appreciated: from pointing out spelling errors to letting me know if I'm too wordy or too OOC or whatever. I may or may not agree with your advice but I will learn from it, promise.
Disclaimer I do not own the rights to Star Trek or BBC SHERLOCK. This is probably no surprise to any of you :D
Ps Does anyone know where fan fiction's ABC/spell checker went to? I fear it may have been lost in a subspace wormhole or something. :D