Enterprise was steady on the orbit of a colorful planet Mirena. On a surface, an emerald green jungle was competing with rusty orange deserts and mountains. Rivers were like blue ribbons scattered across the pattern.

After repeated attempts to regain connection with the ground team turned out to be unsuccessful, they decided to make an investigation group to beam down on the planet's surface.

"Mr. Sulu, Dr. McCoy, you come with me." Captain announced finally.

"Sir," Uhura made him halt the moment he stopped speaking, already on his way to a turbolift.

"If I can express my opinion, I think it would be wise to have me at the beam-down team, since I can communicate with the natives, even though only at a basic level, if it comes to a contact. As you may know, they're barely speaking regular." She looked truly concerned.

Kirk considered it for a while. Then, he turned to his first officer.

"It's a logical reasoning. It would seem to be prudent to conclude lieutenant into the away team."
Uhura's face warmed at Spock's support.

"OK." Kirk broke it out. "Lieutanant, Mr. Sulu." Then he turned to Vulcan. "Mr. Spock, you have the conn." And so they headed out of the bridge to the transporter room.


It's been nearly forty minutes since the investigation team beamed down to surface.

"The connection's still failing, sir." A worried ensign at Uhura's place turned to look at commander Spock in askance.

"Mr. Scott iz working on it." Chekov added.

Despite of uncomfortable mood that settled upon all crew on the bridge, Spock stayed calm as ever.

"Mr. Chekov, keep tracking them down. If captain and his team do not find an efficient method of reestablishing a contact with Enterprise within two hours, we will beam them up. However, in order to offer them a possibility of an action, it would be untimely to apply our interference right after they landed." He explained with a solemn voice.

Chekov knew first officer was right, but he couldn't help being nervous.


Two hours after the beam down, Chekov was practically chewing on his fingertips, trying his best to concentrate on tracking all members of the away team. Everybody except Spock looked tense and worn out.

"Commander Spock to chief engineer. Mr. Scott, what is the progress of reestablishing of our connection to the surface?"

"I'm workin' on it. Must' be somethin' there."

"Understood."

Spock eyes flickered to Chekov. "Mr. Chekov, I need you in a transporter room. Lock on the team and beam them back."

Chekov almost breathed out with relief. He hurried to a transporter room to comply with the orders.

All right, he locked on them and– "Sirr. Wee cannot beam zem up." He reported, eyes wide with disbelief.

"What?! Are you sure?" Instead of Spock's, McCoy's exasperated voice thundered at him.

"I am trying!" Chekov replied anxiously.
"Prepare the shuttle. Engage a team of five security officers." Spock reacted promptly.
"I am going to prepare to sickbay for emergency." McCoy huffed. Just before he stepped into a turbolift, a cracking sound of static electricity broke through the loudspeakers.

"–Enterprise. Kirk to Enterprise. Do you hear me?" the sound wasn't clear, but it was obvious from captain's voice that he was anxious.
"This is Enterprise. Report a status of the team." Spock said without superfluous courtesy.

"Spock. Thanks God." Captain's voice echoed relief. "Can you beam us up?"

"There has been some sort of hindrance in signal when we tried to do so two point thirty five minutes ago." Spock replied matter-of-factly.
"Ah. Wait, I think I could do something about it." After that, there has been a sound of shuffling and few half-murmured curses later Kirk's voice pierced through again. "Try it now."
"Mr. Chekov." Spock indicated through a comm as Chekov was already slipping his fingers across the panels.

"Three to beam up." Kirk announced.

Chekov locked on them and– …beamed them. As soon as they started to materialize, Chekov noted something is wrong. Standing on the transport pads, there was captain Kirk and two women. Uhura and – Chekov didn't recognize the other one. 'Wait!' he thought to himself, panicking.

"Where iz Sulu?" he addressed his captain at best attempt to not let the panic leak into his voice. He didn't quite managed.

"He's still there. He's been captured. Try to lock on him and beam him up, too." Captain replied, frowning in worry while coming closer to console by which Chekov stood.

Chekov let his fingers to find appropriate signs as he tried to lock on the missing helmsman. But it didn't work.

"Dammit." Kirk cursed looking over Chekov's shoulder. "We need to go right back."

"Mr. Spock." Captain started to give instructions, while Uhura helped the other shaken woman to the exit. "Meet me at the armory." Kirk continued already rushing into place of their appointment. "To Dr. McCoy. You go with us, so better be there, too."

Chekov calmed enough to stop his hands shaking and followed the captain. When he entered the armory, captain Kirk was already distributing phasers and other weapons to the rest of them. It took him a moment before Chekov gathered enough strength to approach the captain.

"Keptin, I would like to parrtake at ze rescue mission of lieutenant Sulu." He announced honestly.

Kirk halted in his movements, regarding the young navigator with compassionate look.

"Mr. Chekov. I know Sulu's your good friend. He's mine, too. And above all, he is a member of my CREW. But I need you here. You're the one who can beam us up however damned the conditions are. Me and Spock are trained in close combat. And Bones goes, too. Besides, I am also taking some security officers with us." He said reassuringly. "I need you to look after the Enterprise."

Chekov would be delighted by the trust given to him by his captain, if it wasn't for the unfortunate circumstance. He kind of sunk in, but followed the rescue team to the transporter room obediently. There was already another officer at the control panel.

"Mr. Scott, wait for us in the transporter room. Mr. Chekov. You have the conn." Kirk told him just as they shifted to transport pads. "Energize."


And there he was, left on the Enterprise, actually in charge of it's command. He couldn't lose it now. He collected himself within a minute and walked his way to the bridge.

He sat into the command chair hesitantly. But when he spoke next, his expression and voice were steady.

"All sensorz on ze alerrt mode. Spot on a rescue team's witalz. A deep scan of ze planet's surfes in a range of fifty milez wiz Starfleet baze being a cinter. An emerrgency unit frrom sickbay to a trransporter room." He decided.

The crew, slightly taken aback by the ensign sitting in the command chair, finally regained their senses and started to work with all the professionalism at the task.

After a while Uhura showed up and Chekov felt a bit better, very eager to listen to what she had to tell him.

"What haeppen'd?" he asked her just as she came to stand next to him.

"There was some kind of… misunderstanding." She started hesitantly. She met him with her chocolate-brown eyes. "At first, when we reached the station, it was abandoned. It didn't show any signs of a fight, though. So we went on with our research, realizing the comms were out only when we wanted to report on the odd situation. When captain led us to a technical compartment, there was a mess in one of the offices we went by. Papers were scattered all over the place, file cabinet turned over and some glass supplies broken. But that was it. As we went on, we have found some traces of phaser blasts around the doors. Still, nobody's there. Sulu was scanning everything with his tri-corder, but nothing showed what might had happened. Then we reached the transmitter room and found a woman locked in there. She was one of the scientists, she was scared, but lucky to have a replicator within the closed area. From her we got to know what it was that happened there before." Uhura paused, glancing away only for a moment before she continued. "Well, let's leave that out for now. Captain was busy with resetting the transmitter, which was obviously fiddled with by someone before. Meanwhile, Lenora – the scientist we've found – went out with Sulu to look for a particular item that might have helped us to save the rest of the base personnel. It seems they were waiting for a weak moment and they struck. I rushed out as soon as I heard the rumble. I haven't seen it all, but as Lenora told me later, they captured her first. Sulu blasted them off with a phaser. As he shielded Lenora and was moving back, they managed to knock his phaser out of his hand and attacked anew. They had some kind of ancient weapons, long ones with blades on either side - quite frightening as they were. Luckily, Sulu managed to get one of those. And by the time I reached Lenora and drag her back into the transmitter room, he made things really hot for the intruders. But then he got a blast from a phaser." She revealed uneasily. Chekov's face turned white by those words.

"They must've somewhat got a hold of it during the fight. Thank God, they didn't know how to set it from stun to kill." With those words Uhura made another pause. Chekov watched her breathlessly. "So they stunned him. Captain stormed out, but it was too late and there were too many of them. We saw them dragging him away and barely managed it into the relative safety of the transmitter." Her tone changed to be more personal, trying to make him understand, as she said: "I had to drag Kirk in. I bet, he wouldn't let go, if he didn't get a big punch right into his ribs, that actually brought him down in. I shut the door in the last second." Chekov nodded slightly and she added "Lenora thinks they brought Sulu to the place where they hold the rest of the captured.", feeling sorry at that.

"Oh, grreit." The commanding ensign sighed with a heavy accent, irony filling his voice.


Since there was really nothing much he could do, Chekov was at least trying to lock on Sulu, so they could add his vitals to monitoring of the rest of the crew down on a planet after Uhura took over a charge of it and pulled the vitals up, when a familiar voice broke in.

"Enterprise. Spock to Enterprise. Prepare a facilitation of an additional crew. Fifty two people to beam up."

Chekov's eyes widened in surprise and he could hear sights of relief around him. "Aye, ssir." He replied. "And Sulu… Hawe yu Sulu?" he asked with a thin voice, his heart sunk in a stomach.

"Yes, we do." Spock replied emotionlessly.

Vulcans never lies. With that thought Chekov gave out all necessary commands to prepare the ship for the newcomers and made his way to the transporter room again. It felt like if a piece of ice in his guts finally started to melt.

He checked personally at the control console to make sure there are no interferences with a beaming frequency and waited.

The chief engineer had made his way to the transporter room as well. Now he was standing behind the transporter control panel.

"Scotty, do you hear me?" captain Kirk's voice popped up once again.

"You bet on that I do." The engineer replied in his specific way, ignoring regulations by refusing to call his captain "sir".
"Then beam us up and out of here. Start with me, Bones and Sulu. Spock and security officers go last."

"Copy that. Energizing."

The moment they appeared at the transporter, Chekov gasped at the view. Sulu was conscious, but badly beaten up, hanging between McCoy and Kirk. As soon as they stepped out of pads, McCoy gently placed Sulu on already prepared stretcher and led them right to the sickbay, surrounded by emergency unit medical staff. As they passed by shocked Chekov, Sulu tried to grin a bit, saying "Hey, man."

"Welkom beck." Chekov chocked at his own words.