(Note: This is a sequel to, and contains spoilers for, 'Mirror Universe Turnabout' and 'Infiltration')
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Spock woke with a headache. It was the same headache that had been plaguing him since Dr McCoy had restored his brain to his body on Sigma Draconis VI. Though he never said so out loud - in fact often claiming the opposite - he had a high regard for the Doctor's abilities, so it did not seem likely to Spock that he had botched the operation. Then again, the ability to surgically remove and/or restore a brain had only been granted to Dr McCoy by a teaching machine belonging to an advanced civilisation, and then only temporarily. That ability had been ebbing away as he was completing the surgery. It might be prudent to have the Doctor examine him again, but not before he had gotten up and reported to the captain that he was now fit enough to resume his duties.
For Spock, showering, getting dressed, and breakfasting in the commissary were all fairly mechanical things he gave little conscious thought to, preferring to engage his mind with more interesting matters as he worked through those mundane tasks. On this morning, as he entered the commissary, Lt Uhura beckoned him over to the table where she was currently eating alone, her accustomed mealtime companions having presumably not yet risen. After getting breakfast from the dispenser, he joined her there.
"Good morning, Lieutenant, I trust you are well?" he said, enquiring after her well-being in the manner humans expected.
"Good morning, Mr Spock, and yes - I'm just fine. But how are you? It's only been two days since you underwent major surgery."
"Dr McCoy is a competent surgeon."
"He is, but that's not what I meant. I can't imagine a more major violation of someone's body than removing their brain. That has to have been a traumatic experience. How are you coping?"
"I am well."
Uhura stared at him for a moment, then sighed in exasperation.
Spock had never understood this need of humans in general and women in particular to know how he felt about things. Logically, how something *was* was of greater significance than whatever an individual might feel about it, which would rarely be of any real importance.
"Are you ready for the operations meeting?" Uhura asked.
"Naturally."
The operations meeting was, as its name implied, a monthly meeting in which senior ship's personnel reported to Captain Kirk on matters relating to the day-to-day operation of the Enterprise. It was useful for resolving conflicts between departments and getting things moving that had stalled. Here the Captain's ability to issue executive orders often proved particularly useful. After they had eaten, Spock and Uhura went directly to the conference room.
"Ah, Lt Uhura, Mr Spock, pleased you could both join us," said Captain Kirk, as they entered.
Scotty and Dr McCoy were already seated in their accustomed places.
"Before we get started I'd like to welcome Mr Spock back to full active duty."
"Hear, hear," said Scotty, "well done, laddie!"
"Thank you, Mr Scott, though I cannot claim any credit for my recovery, I..."
He was interrupted by the ship's alarms sounding and the conference table computer terminal activating. Sulu's face appeared on all three screens.
"What is it, Mr Sulu?" asked Kirk.
"Something small on a collision course with the Enterprise, Captain. It appeared out of nowhere. And I mean that literally. It popped into existence right in front of us. We've tried taking evasive action, but it's still headed straight for us."
"Do we know what it is?"
"It's a small ball of energy, perfectly spherical, almost six metres in diameter, and scans indicate the presence of both tachyons and chronaton radiation."
"So it's some kind of bubble of time energy? Is it possible there's an intelligence guiding it?"
"While possible, I would theorize that is not the case in this instance," said Spock, "and that it is being attracted by our warp core emissions. If so, we won't be able to outrun it and it will only speed up the closer it gets. It should pass harmlessly through the structure of the ship, though its effect on living beings is less certain."
"Affirmative, Mr Spock," said Sulu, "it's almost upon us and it will pass through the ship at..."
"What is it, Mr Sulu?" demanded Kirk.
"Captain, it's going to hit you in the conference room!"
There was no time to act on his warning. Spock threw his hands up as the energy bubble burst into the room and engulfed them...
..and then found himself under a fierce sun, and lying on sand. Nor was he alone.
"Damn!" said McCoy, feelingly. "This sand is hot!"
And it was. Very. Along with the others, Spock quickly leapt to his feet.
"Is everyone OK?" asked Kirk.
"No," said Scotty. "It's like being in a bannock oven. Och, this is no place for a Scotsman. We're from a land of low grey skies and constant drizzle. This might as well be Hell."
"It is ferociously hot," said Uhura, "and I speak as someone from a hot country."
"Anyone have any idea what just happened to us? Mr Spock?"
"Clearly, contact with the 'time bubble' has shunted us to somewhere else in time and space."
"Over here!" said McCoy, leading them to where several items scooped up with them from the Enterprise had landed in the sand. Usefully, these consisted of four phasers and a tricorder.
"Damn, not a medical tricorder," he said, "so you'd better take it, Spock. And I'm a doctor, so I'm not carrying a phaser."
"Strange," said Spock. "As predicted, the bubble passed harmlessly through the structure of the ship or pieces of it would have appeared here with us, yet it picked up these items, none of which are organic."
"We need to find cover, and fast," said Kirk, shielding his eyes from the glare, "if we don't we're not going to survive very long."
Spock's Vulcan hearing had detected something the others hadn't.
"I believe we may find something to our advantage on the far side of that dune," he said, pointing to one of the many that surrounded them.
"Lead on, Mr Spock," said Kirk.
They fell in behind him in a single file as he led them up and over the dune. On the other side of it they found five live horses.
And five dead riders.