This chapter will alternate between the Doctor and Kirk's perspective.
The ship was like nothing he had ever seen before.
Now that his eyes had cleared from the excess moisture of the fires and explosions from the TARDIS, he could clearly see his surroundings.
It was some kind of console room, with computers and flashing lights. So many lights and buttons. The giddiness and the initial shock of the moment struck him as it had when he had first regenerated into this body. He wanted to run and examine every computer for data, run and press every flashing button.
Frightened human eyes stared at him from various chairs and positions, with expressions ranging from shock to tentative curiosity.
But he had come here for a different reason, hadn't he? Come on, Doctor. Think. Focus.
"So," He said, and lurched forward as if to stand, only to be forced to his knees again. "okay. I'll stay down then."
"Explain yourself." The man, Kirk, commanded.
"Well..." he let the sentence trail off without completing it. He couldn't tell them why he was here, couldn't tell them about their world dying and exploding like a popped balloon. That wasn't why he was here. "My ship-that police box over their-materialized onto yours...I was in a bit of a hurry and forgot to check for shields, so-"
He wasn't sure if anyone was understanding what he was saying, but the captain seemed to accept his answer. "Alright then, Doctor. We'll figure out a way to get you home in just-"
Home.
"Captain Kirk, sir!" The voice was high and panicked and both the Doctor and Kirk turned towards it. a young man was fiddling with the controls at one of the desks. He looked up as Kirk vaulted over the chair in the center to place a hand on his shoulder. "Yes, Sulu, what is it?"
"Three Klingon ships. Incoming."
Klingons?
Running a hand across his face, Kirk sat down in the center chair and spoke into the intercoms. "All crew, report to battle stations immediately. This is no drill."
The hands on the Doctor's arms tightened as he was pulled to his feet. "Captain?" Now that they were close, the Doctor could distinctly tell the difference between his captor and the humans on board. This man's voice was slower, deeper. For some reason, the tenors of the voice echoed with untold wisdom. Without listening too closely the Doctor could detect the faintest sense of telepathic ability.
Alien.
He smiled. It seemed as if he wasn't the only lost creature among these humans. However, here they were working together. Perhaps the human population had evolved since he'd last been to Earth.
"Leave him, Spock," Kirk threw the words almost casually over his shoulder. "He's not going anywhere and we have a more serious problem to deal with."
Released, The Doctor slowly turned in a circle. "You humans..." he whispered the words almost to himself. "Look at you lot, running through the stars in this magnificent thing. Brilliant."
An alarm sounded throughout the room, and he could hear it echoing faintly throughout the rest of the ship as red lights began to spin above their heads.
The crew glanced up, but seemed undeterred by the commotion. "Captain," Sulu spoke the words calmly. "They're locking torpedoes."
"Raise shields."
Good idea.
Behind him the TARDIS shuddered. She was uncomfortable with this new ship and this time period. The vibrations from her distress pounded like a migraine behind his eyes. "Settle down, you're fine." He shot the words in her direction. "You've been to the end of the universe and back, this is nothing different."
"Captain, they're firing!" The words had barely left Sulu's mouth when the alarms became high pitched wails as the ship lurched sideways, controls smoking, computers spitting sparks.
The Doctor flattened himself to the ground, covering his head. Just in case, he groped in his pocket for his screwdriver, finding comfort in the cold handle.
"Scotty, damage report?" Kirk was shouting over the commotion. Pulling himself from his chair he made his way over to the other alien-Spock- and bent close. "How are we doing?"
The other man, presumably Scotty, and Spock answered simultaneously. "They have advance weaponry, Captain. We can't-"
"Hold on!" The shout came from Sulu. "They're firing again!"
"Why aren't are our shields up?" Kirk growled, gripping the back of Spock's chair until his knuckles turned white.
"They are, sir, thats the thing! Somehow the ammunition is getting past them!"
Ducking his head, The Doctor reached out and grabbed onto one of the chair legs, securing himself in his position on the floor. The pounding in his head wasn't from the TARDIS, he realized, it was his own knowledge. It was time telling him that this was bad, very, very bad...that him coming here wasn't time being rewritten at all, it was time happening exactly as it was supposed to.
The future and the present flashed through his mind, intertwining until they were only a burst of fire and smoke. He couldn't see where this was going, couldn't tell what possible futures there were. All he could see was flames and searing emotion, in all times forthcoming.
And that terrified him more than it should have.
The second blast from the Klingons was enough to send several crew members to the ground. Smoke curled around them in choking clouds.
"Is everyone alright?" Kirk's hoarse shout broke through the sudden, terrible silence. "Spock? Sulu?"
Spock's unruffled reply came from somewhere to the Doctor's left. "I am uninjured, Captain."
"Fine, sir."
Coughing, The Doctor pulled himself to his feet. The once shiny control room was in shambles, covered in a layer of grey-black smoke. Occasionally, sparks flew from one machine or another. But the humans appeared uninjured.
For now. A voice whispered in the back of the Doctors' mind, but he ignored it.
"They're requesting communication, sir." This command came from a woman. Her hand was pressed to her ear and there was smoke stains on her uniform, but the Doctor instantly liked the steel pressure of her gaze. In an odd way, she was like Rose.
"Put it on visual, please, Uhura."
A creature the likes of which he had never seen before flickered into existence on the screen in front of him.
It was absurdly alien, with scarred features and an inhuman, haughty expression. It's forehead was lined with ridges, whilst hair tumbled down past its' shoulder in dirty tangles. Wary of the situations that could arise when one mixed humans and aliens, the Doctor tentatively stood up, moving to stand beside the Captain.
"This is Captain Kirk," Kirk said, stepping forward so he was in the screen's view. "We-"
"I know who you are," The voice was a guttural snarl.
"Well now, let's play nice," This was his area of expertise. The Doctor held out a hand to block Kirk as the Captain stepped forward.
"Doctor-"
"Captain."
"Captain," It was Spock, surprisingly, coming to his defense. "This man seems to know what he is doing. I think it is logical that we allow him to proceed. He has an air of knowledgeable confidence."
Kirk rolled his eyes and stepped aside, but the Doctor was already focused on his audience.
"So," he said, spreading his arms. "What are you attacking these people for? Have they violated the laws of your-"
The Klingon let out a roar so loud that the entire crew flinched. The Doctor raised an eyebrow. Something very bad, then.
"They killed our children. They murdered our families."
Oh. Something like anger burned in him at that...but if these were the last humans he was ever going to see, he wanted the whole story before making any sudden decisions.
"I'm sorry," he said, making the words as gentle as possible. "I understand."
The Klingon snorted, but before he could say anything the Doctor cut him off. "No. Listen to me, I do understand. I do. I'm a Timelord."
He received a blank look.
"Timelord?" Kirk muttered from behind him. "Is this some kind of joke, sir?"
They didn't know?
"Oh, of course, you don't know...well," He waved his hands in gestures he hoped would help prove his point, though of course they never did. "I am the last of my kind. Just me. They're all gone...they're all dead. There's no one else. And my children are dead too," He said when he sensed an interruption coming. "And my grandchildren...everyone. They're all gone. So I do understand. And trust me when I say I know why you want to kill them. But these men and women have families too-"
The Klingon let loose another screech of anger, his face twisting into a furious contortion.
"Captain, they're firing at us!"
"Please!" The Doctor had to shout to be heard over the commotion of the panicking crew. "You need to listen to me."
"Down!" Kirk grabbed him by the arm and yanked him to the ground as the ship trembled with another blast.
'Tell me what is going on," He forced all the authority into his voice he could. "Now!"
Kirk gave him a hard look. "I have a situation right now, Doctor. We can't talk about this until my crew is safe." He released his grip on the arm of the time traveler, and threw himself into the central chair.
As the crew abandoned the attention that was being wasted, the Doctor turned and sprinted back to the TARDIS, leaving the humans to their own devices.
Back in the commanding chair, realization slowly spread across the half stunned brain of one Captain James Kirk. Realization of death, realization of disaster, and realization of one singular mistake. A mistake that shone out from the hundreds of others; a mistake that decidedly crushed all others in perspective.
Lifelong flippancy and laughing in the face of danger was finally coming back to haunt him. This was not the Kobayashi Maru experiment. There was no easy escape route, there was no ammunition that could sink these enemies.
Kirk spun his chair round and shouted for someone, anyone, to call Command, to get reinforcements, and to get his precious Enterprise out of harms' way.
Things cannot possibly get any worse. I'll thank God for that, at least, he thought to himself, pacing nervously around the perimeter of the bridge. However, irony decided to smack his ass one last time, as Sulu called from his place, "Sir! Communications are completely null and void! I'm not getting any reception at all!"
The tension of the ship increased tenfold at these words, and panic welled up in Kirk's head, threatening to drown him. Swear words were echoing from the general direction of the blue box. Ignoring these, Kirk looked around the frightened faces of his crew, his family, and he felt them blur. Suddenly, all he could think about were the screams of a hundred children, a hundred women, a hundred civilians. All he could see was fire, and the echoing sounds of laughter. Whose idea was it, anyhow? What force pushed him to give the order to shoot? And there, of all places? Rash stupidity. He had been warned about it since he was a small child; likely a gift from his father. Had he ever listened to the adults, the teachers, the policemen? No. Stupid, stupid, stupid...
He looked up, locking eyes with his best friend. Spock, calm and collected as always, was slowly making his way towards his chair. Perhaps to give advice, to support him until the end, as always. Kirk barely even registered a new shaking of his ships' floor.
Rocked off his feet, Spock never made it past the first console.
