It was a miracle that they had even found the ship in the swirling blackness of space. It was no pleasure cruiser, not with that heavy shield, but it was a model with minimum weaponry and it's distress beacon was of miniscule proportions, reaching only five kilometers into the vacuum.
"We're only reading the standard distress signal, Captain." Uhura spun towards the gold-clad figure. "Nothing else. There's also quite a bit of interference; we've traced it to the ship as well."
Kirk nodded from his chair in the center of the bridge. "Mr Spock?"
"Most of the ship is too heavily shielded for us to determine the number of life forms. I do not detect any in the non-shielded area, which I suspect is a transporter room."
There was a moment of silence as the small ship finally appeared in the distance, slowly approaching. It was small, much smaller than the colossal Enterprise, and was drifting aimlessly, covered in asteroid pock marks where the shield did not extend. Visible through the miasma of gas and dust surrounding it were the words USS Miranda.
"Anything, Lieutenant Uhura?" Kirk stood, striding in her direction.
"Nothing new, Sir. We're broadcasting our standard First Encounter signal."
The young Starfleet captain straightened and walked toward the door, straightening the hem of his uniform jacket.
"Mr Spock, you're with me. Standard security detail to transporter room one; have Dr McCoy prepared to beam over in the second round with another security team if we need them. Mr Sulu, you have the comm."
The pair of Commanding Officers swept out of the bridge and down the hall, meeting their red-shirted security team at the transporter room. Standing tall on the platform, the Captain looked at the technician. "Energize."
They beamed off the Enterprise and into a graveyard. All three security men sucked in a breath at the carnage that surrounded them. Their Captain's face tightened, briefly masked by a layer of pain and anger before melting back into professionalism. "Spread out and search the area in a group. Be careful; we don't know what caused this." His eyes traced the bloody arm of an Ensign, hand clutching a huge knife that had apparently been used to kill his partner at the transporter controls before taking his own life.
Spock was kneeling by the body of the young man who had been murdered, tricorder in hand. "There are no signs of any traceable disease, Captain, nor any other observance. If his comrade had not stabbed him, he would still be living." The Vulcan stood in one fluid motion, still reading the results of his scan.
Kirk nodded. "Go," he said to his team. "Head toward the Medbay and Engineering; Commander Spock and I will take the Bridge and Science. It's not a big ship so it shouldn't take long. Report every five minutes." Something crunched loudly into the ship, sending the small craft swaying in the arms of space. "And hurry; I want to be off of here before we hit something big or something big hits us."
The team nodded their assent and hurried out the door. Kirk flipped open his communicator. "Kirk to Enterprise." The link crackled and popped for a second, long enough for one of Spock's eyebrows to defy gravity, before Sulu's voice came across the signal.
"Sulu here, Captain. What is the situation?"
"There's something wrong." Kirk snapped crisply, moving out and the door and down the hallway towards the bridge just behind Spock. "Every crew member we've seen so far is dead," he stated, passing another trio sprawled lifelessly on the floor, like forgotten dolls. "We don't know why; there's nothing medically wrong with them. They've... all killed each other. And themselves."
Spock cleared the door, dragging away a man in science blues and allowing the sensor to read his presence. They strode onto the bridge, Kirk still conversing with the waiting Enterprise. "Start preparing a medical team; Doctor McCoy and three - no, four - others. If we find anyone, we're going to have to move them back to the transporter room to get them out through the shields, unless we can shut them off from the bridge." He surveyed the room, brain spinning and stomach lurching when he saw the other men in the room. Three in all; two in communications and navigation, respectively, and one, slumped by the front of the bridge, in commanding gold. They were all dead; his stomach heaved when he used a hand to check the pulse in the captain's neck, only to have his fingers sink into the silt throat.
"Estimated time of death, Mr Spock?" Kirk turned to his first officer who was kneeling yet again, this time by the communications officer, and running the scanner over him.
"I would say only a few hours, Captain," the Vulcan answered. "That would also account for the management of the ship and her shields, as well as the asteroid damage from several hours of directionless drifting."
Kirk nodded, lifting the communicator again. "Kirk to security."
"Thompson here, Captain."
"Any signs of life where you are?"
"Negative, Sir. Dead only; every crew member. All male, no signs of outside forces."
"Meet at the transporter room in five minutes, then. If there's nothing we can do, we'll have to leave it here and report it to the Federation." Even though he hated leaving the mystery unsolved, there was something unnerving about this ship of the dead, and he would be quietly glad to leave it.
Suddenly, a small gasp caught his attention. He turned, frowning at Spock, who looked at him, frowning in a most illogical manner. "You heard it too?" His First nodded, then tipped his head almost imperceptibly at one of the freestanding science stations. Quietly, Kirk walked towards it.
"Hello?" He realized how silently he was walking and made his footsteps purposefully louder. "Is there someone there?" A delicate hand peeked from behind the station, followed by a pair of green eyes. As soon as the eyes made contact with Kirk's own, the face visibly relaxed and more of the woman appeared.
"You're not from our ship..." She was cut off by another sharp gasp and she curled around her very pregnant stomach, still hidden behind the console. "Please... help me, Captain." Kirk was next to her before the sentence was out of her mouth, pushing aside scattered PADDs and bits of broken circuitry to kneel next to her. He gripped her hand as the contraction rode through her body, leaving her quietly panting. "Spock, call McCoy, tell him we're going to need a delivery room ready. We'll meet the security team in the transporter room and beam over right away."
Spock nodded and flipped open his communicator and nearly dropped it as the whole ship jolted violently, knocking him to the floor even with his impeccable Vulcan balance. Kirk pushed away a few PADDs threatening to fall off the table onto the woman and looked up in time to see the automatic pressure bulkheads locking down the bridge, indicating a breach outside that room. He yanked his own comm from his belt with his free hand. "Thompson! Beam up, now!"
"But Capta-" The man started to protest.
"NOW, Thompson, that's an order." He cut off the call. "Kirk to Enterprise. We have a young woman here trying to have a baby. Commander Spock and I have been sealed into the bridge by the bulkheads; there must be a leak in the hallway. Thompson and his team are beaming over; check them for any bugs and keep them on standby. We'll try to drop the shields so you can beam us over from the bridge; we're not going to make it back to the transporter room. Be prepared to beam up."
The comm crackled as another asteroid slammed into the small ship. Then Scotty's deep accent snaked through the static. "Aye, Captain, we hear you."
Kirk nodded and snapped the communicator closed. "Spock, start trying to find a way to drop the shields around the bridge. My guess is you'll need a good amount of code, since it's not going to recognize you in the system."
His First Officer nodded and began to examine several consoles on the bridge. Kirk's attention was pulled back to the young lady as she crushed his wrist in her grip, a contraction roaring through her.
Carefully, the Captain used his free hand to push away some of the debris and pulled the woman backwards until she was leaning against the side of the science console. Clearly, the baby was not going to wait until they could beam out of there and into the safe, sanitized medbay. He took a deep breath, considering the very personal nature of what he was going to have to do. "What's your name?" He asked softly, kneeling back down next to her and taking her hand again.
"Samantha." The young woman answered. "My husband is the Ambassador to Delta III."
The rest of her answer was knocked away by another contraction. Kirk rubbed her back, putting only a careful pressure into the fragile woman. "Human?" he asked as it ended.
"Yes. United States, San Fran, just outside the Starfleet base." She took a deep breath, rubbing the sweat off of her forehead with the sleeve of her shirt. "I'm supposed to be meeting my husband on Delta; we were supposed to check in at Starbase VI eight hours ago. He's going to be worried."
Kirk nodded his understanding. "Yes, I'm sure he is. We'll do our best to get you out of here, though." He smiled, that charming smile that had disarmed so many hostile alien species and smoothed so many peace talks. "I'm Captain James Kirk. This is my First Officer, Commander Spock of Vulcan."
She held out a hand to shake. It trembled slightly as he took it, engulfing the petite fingers in his own hand. "What happened to your ship?"
"We- they- the crew... they beamed down to a planet, something Regulus, and didn't come back up, half of them. It was only a few days ago. Then, hours ago now, they... went mad. They started killing each other, and yelling and screaming about how they were already dead, all of them. I hid under here, since they weren't looking for anyone who wasn't in the open, and listened as they all died."
A single tear ran down her cheek and Kirk brushed it away with a gentle thumb. Another contraction sent a wave of tears after the first and again Kirk held her hand as the muscles in her abdomen spasmed. When she had settled and was breathing steadily again, Kirk offered a further smile.
"Well Miss Samantha, I'm not much of a doctor, but you'll have to make do with me for the time being. Commander Spock will get the shields around the bridge down and then we'll beam back to the Enterprise where you can get some real medical care." Kirk looked around, locating his First. "Spock, any hyposprays of anything? And how are the shields?"
Spock straightened. "You were correct about the shields, Sir. It will take me three point nine four hours to override the coding. However, the ship should still be in a workable condition at that point in time; I do not believe we will lose either life support or experience a bridge breach, not with the strength of the bridge shields. I have not found any medical supplies."
Kirk nodded and turned to the young woman. "Do I have your permission to help?"
Samantha hesitated, then nodded her assent. Carefully, Kirk slid her skirt up her legs. There had been a session on childbirth in one of his mandatory Starfleet first aid and medical classes, but that was years ago. This was going to be tricky.
He found a small portable sterilization unit and cleaned his hands before hesitantly reaching to check how far along she was. "Nothing, yet. You're only a few centimeters."
She nodded. "If you don't mind me asking, Captain, how do you know how to do this?"
Kirk smiled, trying to project confidence. "All Starfleet cadets have to take mandatory first aid and medical classes, both human and basic xenobiology."
"And they covered childbirth?" Samantha raised an eyebrow, something so reminiscent of Spock's face of incredulity that Kirk had to smother a laugh.
"Their goal is to train potential officers and all other members of the crew in what to do during drastic situations, where somebody needs medical attention and the Chief Medical Officer is not present." A thought hit him, and he sat up straight. "Damn. This is the first human baby we've come across in the whole five year voyage and I'm the one who's delivering it. Bones is going to kill me."
Samantha's eyebrow traveled even higher. Kirk couldn't resist. He raised his voice, making sure Spock couldn't miss hearing him. "Sure you're not related to any Vulcans, Sam? Because you've got the eyebrow raise mastered."
Sam snorted a laugh and Kirk turned to see his first officer giving him the same eyebrow-raised-glare behind him. There was a lull as another contraction rippled through the young woman, Kirk wincing sympathetically as the muscles tightened.
"Ow." She tipped her head back to rest on the console as the spasm finished. Spock called to Kirk from where he was intently working on hacking into the system using various Starfleet overrides.
"Sir, I believe we have a problem." The Vulcan tapped the small viewscreen in the counter. "I have shut off the rest of the ship, keeping us from wasting resources on unnecessary systems. However, having reevaluated the remaining resources, I do not believe we will have full life support for the duration of time needed to bring down the shields and beam over to the Enterprise."
Hey everyone! This whole thing is written and will be updated once a week. There are only three parts. Feedback is highly appreciated!