MISSING
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Disclaimer: Ah, it's been a while since I wrote one of these. Well, if you were wondering, I don't own Star Trek.
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Basic summary: Kirk disappears, and as Spock and McCoy investigate, they learn that all may not be as it seems...
A/N: This is just an idea I had one night. It's still very much in plot bunny form, not quite developed into a multitude of plot rabbits (I'm not so sure what I'm talking about either…). But if you like it, I promise there will be more to come.
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The first blast was absorbed by the ship's shields. So were the second and the third. But, as always, Scott's prognosis was not good. "We canna take much more of this," he reported through the intercom.
Kirk grimaced in annoyance. "We can't fire on them," he said curtly.
"Shields down by twenty-four percent, Captain," Spock reported. He stood hunched over his console, manipulating the controls with one hand and holding on to the edge of his station with the other. The ship rocked with another blast. "Thirty-two percent," he amended. "Captain, if we do not return fire there is a good chance that the enemy ship will penetrate our shields and damage the ship."
"Yes, Spock, I know," Kirk said distractedly. "Lieutenant Uhura, continue attempting to contact the enemy ship."
"They're not responding," Uhura said. "Captain, do you even know who they are?"
"I have a vague idea," Kirk said. Spock recognized the captain's tone as the one he used when he knew more than he could admit. I have a vague idea could very well translate to I know exactly who this is, but I can't say it aloud. His reasons would not doubt be good, too.
From the corner of his eye, Spock saw a blob of energy approaching in the viewscreen. He braced himself with one hand, trying to get a reading of the energy at the same time. This time, when the energy made contact with the Enterprise, it shuddered violently under everyone's feet as the artificial gravity attempted to correct itself.
"Shields at fifty-five percent," Spock read. "Captain, these blasts seem to be growing stronger. However, I have yet to fully analyze their make-up."
"Keptin!" Chekov exclaimed. "Please, why are we not attacking?"
"We can't," Kirk snapped. He jammed his finger down onto the intercom button. "Scotty! Channel all available energy into shields." He looked at Chekov. "Now is not the time to question orders. Uhura, any luck?"
The communications officer shook her head. "No, sir."
When the ship rocked again, Spock was nearly jarred from his feet. Stumbling, he caught himself with both hands on his viewer. He heard someone cry out in the background and the hissing of a console as it blew out.
"Captain, shouldn't we at least go to red alert?" Sulu asked.
"Yes, put us on red alert, Uhura," Kirk said.
The shrill bursts of the klaxon started, adding to the noise. "Shields at forty-two percent," Spock reported through the din. A flash of light on the viewscreen warned him of yet another blast.
Suddenly, the deck pitched and fell from beneath everyone's feet. Part of Spock's science station exploded, spewing smoke onto the bridge, and he fell back against the railing, toppling over it as the ship lurched again. The lights dimmed suddenly and he landed clumsily on his wrist and side. Both began to throb dully but he struggled to his feet. Another blast shook the bridge and he stumbled back to his console. They were coming more frequently, he realized, nearly tripping over the rolling body of Ensign Chekov (who was very much alive, and spewing curses in Russian).
A good part of the science station had short-circuited, but the viewer was intact and he was able to read, "Shields down to twelve percent, Captain."
The bridge was loud and hazy with smoke. Hearing no acknowledgement of the report from his captain, Spock glanced at Kirk's chair. But instead of the seeing the captain, grim and holding fast to his chair, he saw the tell-tale shimmering of a transporter beam.
Then another blast of energy hit the ship, collapsing the shields and jarring the Enterprise's gravity to a nearly horizontal angle. As the floor seemed to become vertical, Spock fell past the empty command chair and toward the opposite wall.
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McCoy had been next to the right wall when the Enterprise turned on its side. He hadn't fallen more than a foot or two, and now kneeled on the wall-floor. He pressed the intercom button to the bridge. "Jim, what's going on?" he asked. "Jim?"
No answer.
Standing unsteadily, unsure of whether the gravity would return to normal by its own power, he made his way from his office to the main room in Sickbay, glad that he had strapped his patients to the biobeds at the first lurches of the ship. He found Nurse Chapel on the wall-floor, nursing a bump on the head but otherwise fine.
"I'm heading up to the bridge," he said. "I have a feeling they need some help." He didn't bother to say that no one had answered his call.
Reaching the door was difficult, because he had to climb up part of a wall in order to hook his hands into the side of the doorframe and pull himself up into the door. He managed this by pulling one of Sickbay's few loose, small tables to the wall-floor right beneath the door and standing on it.
In the corridor he found crew members in various states of injury, none too drastic, for there was no way to fall for very long in the confines of the narrow corridor. Though with that thought, McCoy remembered the hallways that ran perpendicular to this one—those would have turned into long, dangerous shafts.
Well, there would be plenty of time to deal with that later, provided the aliens didn't blast the ship to pieces.
Ducking through the horizontal door to the turbolift, McCoy said, "Bridge." He felt the pull of movement as the turbolift started on its way.
The bridge was a scene of total pandemonium. The air was thick with smoke, the blaring of the red alert klaxon, and the groans of the injured. McCoy paused for just a moment before climbing down various consoles from the turbolift door to the bridge's new wall-floor.
Most of the bridge crew had fallen to the new wall-floor of the bridge, though a few seemed to have held tight to their stations. McCoy worried most about those who worked on the opposite side of the bridge, for, excluding some rec rooms and the mess hall, it was on of the widest spaces on the ship.
He reached Chekov first. The young Russian was conscious, but barely so, and lay mumbling to himself under the lip of one of the consoles. Waving a mediscanner over the ensign, McCoy found that he had sustained a few minor injuries (a sprained ankle, a few bruises and lacerations, a mild concussion), but nothing serious. McCoy administered a stimulant and pain relieving hypospray.
Chekov's eyes widened and he sat up, nearly banging his head on the console. "What happened?" he demanded.
"The gravity changed," McCoy said by way of quick explanation. "Now, I need you to go up to Sickbay yourself. Normally I wouldn't do this, but I'd rather not have to move everyone myself."
A few crew members who had already been working on the side of the ship that now served as the floor were perfectly fine, and they picked their way through the wreckage on the bridge toward McCoy. He ordered them to assist the injured in reaching Sickbay, but not to move anyone who seemed like they shouldn't be moved. The orders were vague, McCoy knew, but he didn't have enough time or effort to spend on elaborating.
He found Spock after a few minutes of tending to the bridge's injured. The Vulcan was unconscious, his lean form draped in an uncomfortable position over someone else's console. McCoy glanced up across the bridge at what had become the ceiling and saw Spock's science station. He waved his mediscanner over the prostrate Vulcan. If Spock had been on the other side of the bridge during the gravit shift, he had fallen quite a distance. The mediscanner reported a few cracked ribs, a fractured wrist, and a dislocated shoulder. McCoy breathed a sigh of relief despite the smoky air. None of those injuries were life-threatening.
He had wished for stretchers a few times since arriving at the bridge, but carrying them through the sideways Enterprise hadn't seemed particularly efficient. Instead, he woke Spock with a hypospray and planned to make an uninjured crewman act as a living crutch for the Vulcan.
Suddenly a strong hand caught McCoy's wrist. He looked down, and of course it was Spock. The Vulcan's jaw was clenched against the pain, but after a moment of obvious effort his face smoothed slightly.
"Spock—" McCoy began.
"No," the Vulcan interrupted, his voice gravelly, "The captain—Jim—is gone."
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