I woke up because my bed was shaking.
One second later I stood in the room, dressing quickly. I wondered what it was because it wasn't one single explosion, it sounded more like fazer fire and torpedoes. But who the hell would attack us inside the federation space?
I took my communicator: "Smith to bridge! What's going on?"
"The USS Vengeance is firing." Replied Lieutenant Uhura.
To prove that the computer voice said: "Warning, life support systems offline."
Another explosion. I lost balance and fell against the corner of the table. I lost connection to the bridge. My ribs hurt but my biggest problem was the atmosphere. There were rebreathers in a cupboard down the corridor.
I tried to open the door, but it was locked.
"Hell yes! ", I shouted sarcastically. „Computer! Open the door", still no reaction. I opened the door manually. I ran down the corridor, but security had taken them all. I took the corridor to sickbay, the best place to get oxygen from. Bones always had a secret supply of everything you need to be healthy.
"Doctor!" I gasped, entering the sickbay.
"You should sleep. You had nightshift, Lieutenant." He said totally serious.
I looked at him with a "this-is-not-funny" sidelong glance. He was sitting on the floor leaned on one of the beds. I sat down next to him and I coughed.
"Are you alright?"
"Slowly dying." I smiled.
Now he did the "this-is-not-funny" sidelong glance.
"It looks like Khan realized his threats."
"Khan?"
"Yes, he is free."
This surprised me because when I went to sleep he was still in his cell. I cough again.
Bones stood up.
"What are you doing?"
"I will grab my emergence-kit and a tricorder. Your coughs don't sound like not enough oxygen; it sounds like you are coughing up blood. Smart of you to come. The sickbay is a huge room and we are only two persons. Enough oxygen for five minutes. Five minutes more to live."
"Bones, where is your nurse?"
"Dead as the most people aboard this ship. A shelf fell onto her." He sat back down and started scanning me.
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault. You have two ribs broken."
"I feel the pain"
"Please lie down."
I did.
"Don't move." He gave me a hypospray and started regenerating the bones.
"Okay. Done! Still be careful, there are micro fractures I'm not able to repair." He coughed.
"Thank you"
"This is what I'm here for", he coughed again. With shaking hands, he turned the rebreather on.
We breathed alternating. The light shut off. It looked like the Enterprise was losing one system successively. He turned on a flashlight.
We decided that it was too dangerous to take a flight capsule. Khan would shoot us.
"I'm afraid. We are going to die, aren't we?" I asked.
"Shhh … You will survive and so will I. Everything is going to be alright." He put an arm around me.
This must have been romantic scenery. Two blue-shirts in the dark, arm in arm.
"You should go outside and look for injured people", I said.
"The turbo lifts are out of service and we only have one rebreather."
"You could leave me behind. This would raise your chances to survive."
"No, you come with me! I need assistance, you were incorporated by me and you are a biochemist. You are technically a nurse."
"I there is a rebreather in the bio-chemistry-lab."
"Good let's go get over there"
Opposite to the sickbay was the lab of biochemistry, my workplace. Five hours ago I was probing Khan's blood there and now he was the reason why I had to go there again.
I grabbed a rebreather, flashlight, and two oxygen-cartridges out of a drawer. Bones gave me a second medi-kit and we started the tour through the dark and silent Enterprise. A closed door stopped us, probably because of lower air pressure on the other side. As we tried to open it manually we recognized that it was jammed.
We returned to the sickbay.
We tried to get the life-support back online, but you can't repair what blew into particles.
After one hour we ran out of oxygen, but instead of panic we helped each other to calm down.
We generated a forcefield around the surgery area, the place we were sitting.
I coughed. I felt horrible.
"I suppose we are the only ones who are still alive", whispered Bones and coughed.
I felt a strong desire to breathe but there nothing to breath in.
Bones was the one who became unconscious first. I laid him down and put his head on my knees, I held his Hand, felt his pulse. Observing how it became weaker and weaker.
"Lord forgive me", I murmured, I coughed again, still waiting for my end.
I still don't know what I had done to deserve that he died in my arms.