Chapter 1

'She is going to explode'. He thought as he came around.

The life-support systems were long since shut down. His vision was obscured by the thick smoke. The acrid smell of churned wires burned his aching lungs. He coughed painfully a few times and tried to sit. His left leg was caught beneath what was left of his command chair and a few other debris. He couldn't move it without wanting to scream from the pain. 'Shattered knee cap, probably.' he thought vaguely. The pain in his chest aggravated cruelly with every inhale, but none of that mattered any more.

The only thing that occupied his mind was scenes of death and destruction. His crew, his ship... everything was in utter ruin. And what tormented his conscious more than anything else he had ever come to face, was this doubt that was eating at him even in these last seconds of his existence. Doubt that maybe he had made the wrong choice. That he could avoid this disaster had he done something differently. That if he had found another solution, then perhaps his crew would have not suffered so many casualties.

He coughed again. The taste of blood strong in his mouth. Half sitting near what was left of the navigational console, he looked around the bridge. Didn't know it was the agony of seeing the wreck of his beloved ship or the thick smoke in the air that brought tears to his eyes. Almost every console on every station emitted smoke. A few other were on fire. Except for red emergency lights, he was in utter darkness. The sound of klaxon that was warning complete system failure was deafening in the otherwise deathly quiet bridge. In his dazed state of mind, the alarm seemed vaguely ironic. As if it was warning his own impending doom. But he didn't need reminders, did he?

He tried to move, to find a more comfortable position for his last minutes, but only managed to cause himself more pain. He shut his eyes tight and gasped as the agony in his chest flared. He tried to calm his mind, to force himself to start breathing again.
Slowly… there you go.

He took shallow, rapid breaths. He couldn't mange deeper ones. He wasn't getting enough oxygen. It didn't exist anyway. The fire had taken it all. He opened his eyes again and tried to take his mind off the pain, the loneliness… the death…

Glancing at every station, he tried to picture his senior officers, calm and composed, as they were doing their routine tasks a month ago, a day ago. But the image of them, injured and dismayed, yet still maintaining their position, invaded his mind. It made him proud. It made him sad beyond words.
Spock….

He had been in the engineering deck when those last horrible blasts were shot at them, trying to manually reroute whatever power was left in the backup batteries to enforce the almost non-existent shields. That deck had been utterly ruined. No one has survived that. That was when he had ordered the evacuation. He couldn't accept any more blood on his hands. Spock was like a brother to him. The pain of his loss was just too much to bear for him. I should have given the evacuation order sooner… I should have seen it coming … I should have…

His mind was drifting again. He couldn't concentrate. For a split seconds, he forgot why he was in so much pain.

He had practically pulled rank and ordered everyone out of the bridge. He stayed behind, of course. If anyone could do anything with the remaining power, it would be the captain.

He was right here, alone on the bridge, trying to somehow dodge the blasts and raise the offensive Klingon commander at the same time, when the last photon torpedo shook the ship violently and thrown him around. He could only remember a moment of suspension before watching helplessly as a bulk head rushed toward him. After that was blessed nothingness.

His beautiful ship, he thought with misery, was in complete wreckage. If Scotty had not been injured that severely in the main engineering, then maybe he could save her, maybe she wouldn't be exploding now. He wished, more desperately than any other time in his career, that Scotty was here. To help…her. His beautiful woman...

He thought about his crew. Their shuttles were probably light-years away by now, knowing the last remaining Klingon war bird, drifting powerless in space–just like my own ship–couldn't even move. the Klingons must have done some miracle just to keep their life support systems operational, especially after those photon torpedoes Chekov sent their way. Pavel's aiming was impeccable. Hadn't missed, as always. The thought made him smile with pride. But the smile was pain filled and short lived.

The Klingon backup forces would not make it in time. The explosion of the Enterprise's over-loaded matter-antimatter reactor chamber would swallow both ships. Nothing would remain.

More than any other injury, the vision of his crew as they left the ship hurt him. He could still hear their protests as he ordered them out; see those gloomy faces and Uhura's tearful eyes as they locked with his for the last time. Pleading him, silently, to let her stay. Let them all stay. They had believed in him so fundamentally. Their unwavering devotion to him, even in those horrible last seconds, when any other would run for his life was even more heart breaking, because now he was not sure if he deserved so much loyalty.

'Captain, please! Don't do this …you don't need to be alone for this … Let us help you…' she had urged, pleaded with her eyes. Even so, he had yelled them to leave, pleading in his own twisted way to stop tormenting him further. Demanded them to escape their inevitable demise, knowing it was the one thing that he could not bear, not even in death. He had enough innocence blood on his hands as it was.

He knew it was his last orders as he gave them. They all knew. They all wanted to share his pains and sorrows. But it was his burden, his responsibility. After all, he was the captain.

He was becoming dizzy. ' lack of oxygen.' he thought to himself. He started coughing again. pain. Worse than before. He whipped the wetness off his lips with the back of his hand. Blood. Maybe the chunk of metal that he had been smashed into had broken a rib or two after all.

'Well… at least Bones isn't here to make a fuss over it.'

The thought of his best friend, as the guards dragged him to an escape shuttle, squeezed his heart so badly he closed his eyes against it. He could remember his frantic shouts, pleads and then curses until the communicator had been snatched out of his hand. Demanding over and over to let him stay. To be with him when it happened. calling out his name in a way that tore at his soul, if not his captain mask. He hopped that someday, his friends would forgive him. He was grateful that their positions had not been reversed. He didn't know if he could forgive, if it had been.
'I'm sorry, Bones… I'm so sorry… '

'They are safe, Jim. They are all safe...' the voice sounded suspiciously like McCoy's. His head swam. He was suffocating in an ocean of blood and smoke. The pain was everywhere. He couldn't even pinpoint the source. He was looking through a thin and narrowing tube. He was so-o tired. He just wanted to sleep and never wake up. And when he saw the unconsciousness coming, he readily gave up his tenuous grip on awareness. He could still hear Bones speaking to him. The words were not harsh or accusing. And that was more than enough for him. It was more than he deserved. It was good to hear that soothing voice in these last seconds. Even though he knew, in reality, Bones would hate him. Somehow the imaginary whisper chased away some of his loneliness and self-loathing. He closed his eyes and just listened. Any minute now…. he would go in peace…