Another explosion, further away this time and smaller, roused the Captain and he pulled himself towards the console the traitors had been using, (though it was now slightly on fire). Groaning as his abused back connected with the heated metal, Kirk cautiously reached a hand up to probe his aching ribs for damage. A few shifted under his touch, causing him to wince. "Broken" Jim mused aloud, "Bones is gonna kill me". His continuing search abruptly stopped as his fingers came into contact with something jutting from his side. "Damn", Kirk lamented " this is gonna suck". Before he could regret his decision, he grabbed the chunk of metal and yanked it out. His vision went white and his head swam as he gasped, trying to breathe past the pain in his injured ribs and punctured abdomen.
He heard shouts nearby as crewmembers from engineering were drawn to the source of the explosion, brandishing fire extinguishers. "Captain!" A worried voice exclaimed. Kirk began to pull himself up and a hand under his elbow helped him stand. He glanced to his side, offering a brief smile of thanks (it came out almost as a grimace but who was judging).
A jumble of voices surrounded him as more of the crew began to arrive from deep in the depths of the ship.
"Captain, what happened?"
"Are you alright?"
"Who did this?"
"Someone call medbay"
At the last shout, Kirk's snapped his head up, "wait, don't call anyone, we have an emergency situation and we need to keep this contained. I don't want word getting out that there are traitors onboard and starting a panic."
A noise of protest sounded from the young man still hovering by his elbow. Kirk held up a hand and continued, "That's an order." He glanced at the figures gathered around and tried to hide a wince as his wounds throbbed, he noticed that someone had gone to help Scotty who still lay on the floor, though he didn't appear to be any worse off than before, thankfully.
He scanned the console, quickly deeming it useless in figuring out what the traitors had done due to fire damage. "Someone get me a PADD" he began, rapidly forming a plan in his head. An ensign scurried off to full fill this request as Kirk continued, "and start trying to contain the damage. Fix what you can but be careful and don't leave engineering. Who's good with the computer systems?" A young woman to his left responded "I am, sir". The captain nodded in her direction "good, you're with me. The rest of you get to work".
The ensign with the PADD reappeared and handed it to the captain, "thank you" Kirk said as he took it and immediately began tapping away (after wiping some of the blood off his hands onto his already dirty pants) trying to figure out and reverse whatever the traitors had done to the ships controls. The ensign beamed and scurried off again to help his crew mates.
The man who had helped him up again made himself known, "Captain, I understand you wish to keep this quiet but you need medical attention"
Distracted, Kirk glanced in his direction "I'm fine, ensign...?"
"Carter, sir" he replied "and no, you're not fine, you're barely standing" to demonstrate his point, he poked the captain in the ribs.
"Shit!" Kirk swore as Carter called his attention back to the injuries covering his body. The pain again threatened to overwhelm him and he swayed on his feet, the PADD almost crashing to the floor as it was momentarily forgotten. Carter caught his elbow and helped lower Kirk onto a nearby ledge that was only slightly singed.
Indignant at this treatment, Kirk pushed Carter off, "don't do that" he hissed, glaring at the man before going back to feverishly typing a complicated line of code into the device in his hands.
The ensign tried again in a softer tone, "I've taken some first aid classes, please at least let me try to stop the bleeding"
Intent on his work, the captain gave him a surprised glance and gave a noncommittal noise that was interpreted as permission. Passing the ensign the captain had asked to stay (who was currently standing awkwardly by the wall watching the exchange), Carter grabbed an emergency med kit off a nearby wall and returned to the captain.
Finishing off the code and mapping out the next step of his plan in his head, Kirk beckoned the other ensign over and proffered the finished code. "Take this and upload it into the system, it should get the security systems back up so they can't take control of the ship. Oh, and it should sound the alarms to warn the bridge crew in case I can't stop the traitors myself. I already tried the communications channels, they've been shut down as well."
The ensign scanned the PADD and her eyes widened, stunned at the intricacy of the hastily written program and the captain's thorough diagnosis of the traitor's hacking. She quickly found a moderately undamaged console (at least this one wasn't on fire) to type the code into.
His first task done, the captain again tried to stand, noticing that Carter had managed to bandage a few of his larger wounds while he was focused on the code. His quick job had effectively stopped the bleeding, at least for the moment, but that didn't mean it hurt any less.
"Captain, please, you shouldn't be running around" Carter tried to keep him still with a hand on his shoulder.
"Thank you for the bandages but there are more important things at stake here than a couple of broken ribs and a little blood loss."
"A lot of blood loss and some serious burns" Carter interjected.
"I'm fine" the captain repeated more forcefully, "look, there are traitors on this ship trying to take control. They think I'm dead so I have the advantage for the moment but I have to act fast before they get to the bridge. "
"I'll come with you" he tried.
"Too dangerous, besides, I need you to stay here and help Scotty and anyone else injured in the explosion."
"Yes, sir" Carter replied reluctantly.
Kirk pushed off the wall and made his way to a door near the back of engineering that he knew led to a hallway that was seldom used, passing crew members frantically putting out fires as he went. He stuck to rarely used passageways (and the occasional air vent or Jeffries tube) to get back to the bridge, thus passed very few crewmembers. Even without his command gold shirt and covered in blood (or maybe because of the blood) he was still recognizable but quickly waved off the concerned crewmembers' help and told them to return to work as usual, still not wanting to call attention to the situation.