Disclaimer: Don't own anything Star Trek related. Only thing I own is Isula.
Chapter One
Isula Barrett was lost. Being new to the ship, this was to be expected, especially from someone like her, with no sense of direction. She had regularly gotten lost in her four years at the academy, and now, even though she'd finally made officer, her sense of direction had shown no improvement. Every corridor on the U.S.S. Enterprise, her new home, looked the same. She knew the sounds of the engines were getting louder, calling her to them, but she just couldn't find them. Just as she was about to give up and try to find her way back to the bridge for better directions, or, better yet, a guide, she ran into someone. Literally, chest to chest, or rather face to chest. She backed up immediately, and bent down to help him pick up the files he had been carrying, apologizing profusely.
"Still wet behind the ears, aren't you," he said, more as a statement than a question. They both stood, and Isula handed him the papers she had picked up.
"Excuse me?" she asked politely, recognizing him as a doctor by his blue shirt.
"New to the Enterprise?" he asked.
"Guilty as charged," she said. "How could you tell?"
"You looked kinda lost," he said.
"Hah," she said. He shot her a funny look. "I always look kinda lost. Normally because I am."
"Where ya heading?" he asked.
"Engine room," she said. "I've already gotten directions from three different people, all of them saying the same thing, and yet I still can't find it."
"Well," he said, "if you keep going down this hall and take a right at the 'T,' then the Engine Room is at the end of that hall."
"Thank you, Doctor…" she said, trailing off at the end.
"McCoy," he said. "Leonard McCoy."
"Lieutenant Isula Barrett," she said, sticking out her hand. "Assistant to Chief Engineer Lieutenant Major Scott. Thank you, Dr. McCoy."
He nodded, and continued on his way, and she continued the way he pointed out. She made it to the Engine Room, and Lieutenant Major Scott was waiting for her. She let the sounds of the engines rush over her before making herself known.
"And she finally arrives," he said, his Scottish accent noticeable, but not thick.
"Sorry!" she said, making her way down numerous staircases to where he was standing. "I got lost."
"Yes, yes," he said. "Bones paged me already, telling me you were on your way. Tell me, does that happen often to you?"
"All the time," she said, shaking her head. "At the Academy, I was constantly getting lost going from class to class. My roommate would have to send out search parties for me just about every other night."
"It's a wonder you got anything done," he said with a laugh.
"Somehow I managed," she said. "So, now that we've had a good laugh at my expense, what are we up to, Lieutenant Major Scott?"
"Scotty," he said. "Call me Scotty."
"Then I must insist you call me Izzy," she said.
"Izzy?" he said.
"Well," she said, "if your parents had settled you with a name like Isula, you'd find a reasonable nickname, too."
After another laugh, they got to work, maintaining the engines and keeping the Enterprise running at her best. Six hours of engine grease later, Izzy was lost again, this time trying to find her room. Another hour of wandering, and she still couldn't find anything, except for the cafeteria, which she had passed about four times already.
"Lost again?" came a voice behind her. She whipped around to find a chuckling Dr. McCoy leaning against the wall.
"Yes," she said, ignoring his laughter, instead rubbing her nose, which she was sure was covered in grease, just like the rest of her uniform. "I'd love to clean up, but I can't seem to find my room."
McCoy sighed before pushing himself off of the wall. "What number?" he asked.
"34879," she said, looking at the floor.
"This way," he said, taking her by the elbow, as if to direct her through the halls.
"Do you do this often?" she asked. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Help poor, pathetic greens find there way?"
"Not really," he said.
"Then why are you helping me?" she asked as they rounded a corner. "Is it because I looked extra pathetic?"
"No," he said, leading her through a door, which, it turned out, led to the med bay. "It's because you never got your physical."
"Ah," she said, taking in the room. "Shoulda known you'd have ulterior motives."
He walked into the room, stopping once he realized she wasn't following him. He turned around to find her standing in the doorway, frozen in fear . He followed her eyes and found her staring at one of the beds just an instant before she started screaming.
McCoy, acting on instinct, grabbed a hypo full of fast-acting sedative and jammed it into her neck. Her scream cut off as she slumped forward into his arms. He carried her over to a bed and laid her down on it before paging the captain.
"Jim?" he said into the communicator.
"Kirk here," came the response of his longtime friend.
"I've got a sedated lieutenant here that you might want to take a look at."
"I'm on my way, Bones," Kirk said. A few minutes later, James Tiberius Kirk, Captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, walked into the room. Just as Bones finished telling him what happened, Izzy began to stir. She sat up quickly, breathing heavily as she looked wildly about the room.
"Lieutenant Barrett," Jim said, "calm yourself, or I'll have the good doctor sedate you again."
Her eyes darted to him, and she instantly and visibly calmed at the sight of his Starfleet uniform.
"Forgive me, Captain," she said quietly.
"What the hell was that?" McCoy asked.
"Relapse, sir," she said.
"Relapse from what?" Jim asked.
"It's all in my file," she said, "but I can tell you now if you have the time."
McCoy looked at Jim, and they both nodded to her.
"When I was seventeen, my family and I were in transport to start a colony on the ice planet of Delta Vega. The ship was attacked by klingons, and we were captured. Out of my parents and my two brothers, I was the only one to survive from my family."
"And why did you survive?" Kirk asked.
"If you had read my file, you would know," Izzy said. She sighed before continuing. "When I was fourteen years old, I manifested a special ability. I found that, if I concentrated and flicked my wrist just right, I could bring forth a burst of fire."
"Pyrokinesis?" McCoy asked. "Could you demonstrate for us?" Kirk nodded to Izzy, and she held out her right hand. A quick flick of the wrist and her hand was engulfed in flames up to the wrist. Another flick, and it was gone.
"I fought them with it, but they stunned me, and I woke up on an operating table on an unknown ship in the middle of the black. They began experimenting me, awake and asleep, with and without anesthetics. They were trying to discover the phenomena that I had genetically stumbled upon. They wanted to duplicate it, give it to their ground troops. For three years I suffered at their hands, until Starfleet rescued me. I spent another year recovering, before Starfleet recruited me as a shock troop. Eventually we found that I was more useful in the Engine Room, and they sent me to the academy."
"And that's why you avoided you're physical," McCoy said, nodding. She nodded back to him.
Before they could discuss any more, the ship shook violently, and a loud voice came over the ship's intercom.
"All crew to battle stations, we've got Klingon war birds coming in firing. All crew to battle stations."
Kirk turned immediately to the doctor. "Get this place ready to take on injured," he said before turning to Izzy. "I want you to stay here and assist the doctor as much as you can. Understood, Lieutenant?" Izzy nodded, and he took off out the door at a run. McCoy then turned to Izzy.
"Do you have any kind of medical training, Lieutenant?" he asked.
"Just the same basic first aid everyone gets at the academy," she said. "And, please, doctor, call me Izzy."
"Then call me Bones," he said, rooting through some supplies, apparently in search of something. "'Dr. McCoy' takes too long to say in the middle of a crisis." He tossed something small and white to her, which she attempted to catch, only to have it clatter to the ground when her hand was too slow.
"Damn klingons!" she shouted as she stood from the bed. She bent down to retrieve the first aid kit he had thrown to her, and stood, only to be met by a raised eyebrow. "They had their sticky fingers swirling around in my head for three years. A few things about me are bound to be off after something like that."
The Enterprise shook again and again, as it took more and more hits from the enemy war birds. Injured crew members came trickling in, but there was still hardly anything for Izzy to do. After a mighty explosion not far from the Med Bay, Izzy gasped in shock.
"What is it?" McCoy asked warily as he patched up a cadet with a slight head wound.
"The engines," she said softly, as if her mind was elsewhere. "They're about to overload."
Without another word, she dashed out of the Med Bay, and, running full tilt, made her way to the Engine Room. Trusting momentum to carry her, she jumped, surpassing the first flight of stairs. She rushed down the rest of them, and was met by a shocked Scotty, who was doing everything he could to keep the engines in check.
"We have to shut them down," she said, "or else the whole ship'll blow."
"Captain?" Scotty asked into his comm. "Are you hearing what I'm hearing?"
"Just do it!" the captain shouted as the whole ship shook again. "Do whatever she says is good!"
Without another word, Izzy dashed to the main control panel and began hitting buttons, inputting the shut down sequence.
"I sure hope you're right, Barrett," Kirk growled through her comm as the ship shook yet again.
"It's either shut 'em down, or we'll be blown to space dust," Izzy said.
The ship shook once more as the engines quieted one by one, and Kirk's voice broadcasted over it.
"Prepare for some unwelcome visitors," he said. "Set phasers to stun."
Scotty immediately went to a small weapons cache in one of the back workrooms.
"Here," he said, handing a small, silver gun to her.
"No," she said, her eyes glowing. "I don't need one of those." She flicked both of her wrists, and Scotty yelped as both of her hands burst into flame.
"What the…?" Scotty said in amazement.
"Long story," she said. "Let's just say I'm not going to let those bastards take me again."
"Well then brace yourself, lass, 'cause they're coming," he said.
They waited in the Engine Room as the minutes ticked by, the only sounds and light from the life support systems and the flames on Izzy's hands. Sounds of fighting grew closer and closer, until finally the doors burst open, and thirty or so klingons burst through them, chased in by phaser bolts.
Izzy unleashed a rain of fire at them, using her mind to steady the shots as Scotty turned his phaser, set to stun, of course, on them. As the klingons were pushed farther into the Engine Room, more and more of the crew followed after them, bloodlust in the eyes of some of them.
Izzy had to be careful now. Not only did she have to be wary of the locations of the various crew members, but she could also feel her energy level dropping. She felt a rush of energy, and began going for precision rather than brute force, unleashing only one ball of flames at a time. The fireballs grew smaller and smaller as more of the wrinkly-headed klingons fell, and, after the last few were dropped, she gave into the calm of unconsciousness.
A/N: Well, I hope you liked it. This is my first venture into this fandom, so some feedback would be great. I really have no idea where I'm going with this, so, not only would feedback be great, but it'd be helpful, too. So, lemme know what you think, and, even if you don't, thanks for reading it.
Live long, and prosper.