Hot. Hot and dry. The heat was so oppressive around him that he didn't feel like he could get enough air. Jean-Luc pushed through the disorientation. He had only barely lost consciousness, he thought. He remembered the entry and descent, Will's valiant effort to control the landing as power failed completely.
He felt pressure on his shoulders and chest. When he opened his eyes, his brain initially refused to interpret his surroundings. Finally he sussed out the shuttle was on it's side, and not entirely intact.
Movement ahead of him caught his eye. Data was lowering Will from his seat-which now was three metres up in the air. Will groaned. Jean-Luc found Deanna's mass of dark hair, she was still strapped in to her seat. Painfully he turned, to see how Beverly fared, but to his horror, her entire seat was gone. Adrenaline shot through him, bringing clarity to his mind.
The shuttle had apparently rolled before coming to rest on it's side, against a large rock formation. The metal had crumpled around the unforgiving stone, and the shuttle was bent at an angle. The point of the angle was where Beverly's seat had been...
Uncooperative hands fumbled with the harness that held him to his seat. Finally he was able to release himself, and climb down, ignoring the dull pain across the front of his shoulder, the sharp lance low in his ribcage when he tried to draw a breath. The agony in his heart was far too commanding to even notice the physical pain.
He crawled along the wrecked wall of the ship, climbing over the nav console. There, wedged into the corner where the back wall to the command cabin separated it from the rear compartments, he saw a flash of copper.
Heat pressed around him, the air felt thick, heavy to breathe. She had said there wasn't much oxygen. Enough, but not a lot, he reminded himself. Deliberately he slowed his breathing, inhaling through his nose. Passing out again would help no one. He scrabbled down into the corner, the crushed wall leaving little room. He could not see her face, only the back of her head. Her body was hidden beneath the broken wreck of her seat. He pulled at the seat, but it was firmly wedged between the two walls. He realized it probably prevented the walls from crushing together completely.
"Mr. Data," His voice was rough. He could almost taste the heat. Heat that could not touch the cold ball of dread in his stomach.
"Sir." Data's voice came out with a grunt. Jean-Luc looked over to see him supporting Will's descent from his sideways chair to standing.
"As soon as you are done assisting Mr. Riker, please come help me." Will looked over to the dark corner at the sound of his Captain's distress.
"Go." He told Data.
Data nimbly moved over the debris to the Captain's side. "Sir?"
"Can you move this chair?" He couldn't even reach her jaw to find a pulse, he could not see if she was breathing. Fear threatened to push away rationality.
"Of course, Sir." Data bent to the task. At first the seat would not budge, but then with a groan of metal, he slowly, carefully lifted it off the Doctor.
Jean-Luc reached her side, carefully he pushed hair away from her face, frantically feeling for a pulse. Her face was so pale... He had to concentrate on slowing his own breathing again before he could feel anything but the tremble of his own hand. Then it was there, the steady, slight push against his fingers. He remembered to breathe.
Sweat dripped into his eyes, stinging. He carefully ran his hands over her, neck, back, legs, arms... nothing appeared grossly injured. Still, his hands paused on either side of her ribs, should he turn her? If her neck or back were injured...
"That had better be Jean-Luc." Her husky words broke through his veil of panic.
"Beverly!" His mechanical heart was not capable of missing a beat, but it felt as if it had. He removed his hands from her ribs, realizing how intimate the touch had been. "What hurts?"
"Everything." She groaned. A pause, as she inventoried limbs and functions, as his panic pushed up his throat with bile, "But I think I'm mostly intact." She tried to push herself up. "Ow." Her right wrist buckled with a sickening crunch they both could hear.
"Should you be moving, Doctor?" Jean-Luc's voice was far from steady.
He had a point, she supposed. "Emergency Medical Kit?" She asked.
Jean-Luc found one passed in front of his face. "Thank you, Data."
He pulled the tri-corder out, detached the probe, and ran it over her prone back, neck, spine... Satisfied himself with the readings, he handed the device to her to read.
"Good." She said, weakly, but with dry humor. "I was right, I'll live." Reaching her left hand for him, she let him pull her up into sitting position. When she closed her eyes for a moment against the pain and nausea, his hand tightened on hers.
"I'm OK, Jean-Luc." Her grip tightened in return. Her eyes opened, clear and lucid. "How is everyone else?"
He tried to wave away her hand with the scanner. Saw her eyes narrow. She pressed lightly on his collarbone. "This hurt?" He winced. Gently, she probed his ribs. "How about here?" Solemnly he nodded. "Well, you'll live too. But be careful until I can fix you." Her eyes were soft on his for a moment, trying to convey a message just beyond his grasp.
Deanna's drawn out "Ouch" came from the front of the shuttle. Without words, Jean-Luc helped Beverly to stand and move to them, careful of her right wrist. The heat inside the shuttle was oppressive, exacerbating the low oxygen levels.
Will stood, as if guarding over Deanna, his left arm hanging at an awkward angle. "Shoulder?" Beverly inquired. His affirmative nod was short, his concern obviously for the Counsellor, not himself. Deanna sat on the 'floor,' a cut on her temple with colourful bruising already forming. A run of the tricorder over her showed only minor bruising and scrapes apart from a concussion.
The Doctor let out a breath. Things could have gone much, much worse. It spoke to Will's exemplary skill that any of them were alive to walk away from the landing. "I think we should get outside. Without life support, the shuttle is nothing but a solar oven."
They nodded their agreement. Data led them to the side doors-now above their heads. Releasing the magnets that held the table in place, he moved it beneath the portal. "I had three of a kind." Will said, noting the cards and chips scattered everywhere in the room.
"Sure you did." Deanna teased, drawing grins from Beverly and Will.
Data climbed up and pushed the doors open. "I believe I'll be able to open the cargo doors from the outside." He said. "It would appear it will be easier for all of you to exit there than climb,"
"Thank you, Mr. Data." The Captain said. Relief clear on his face. The air coming through the opened doors was slightly cooler than the sweltering interior. The weary and battered crew clambered their way to the back of the shuttle, finding the bay door opened enough for them to squeeze out by the time they arrived.
"Data, would you please fetch me as much of the emergency medical supplies as you can find?" The Doctor quickly triaged her patients in her mind. "Into the shade... " she directed the other three.
She approached Deanna again, "Any dizziness or blurred vision?" She asked, peering into her eyes.
"No." Deanna started to nod, but thought better of it. "Just a whopper of a headache."
Will had settled close to the Counsellor. Sweat dripped off his forehead, down his nose. "I'm afraid Data is going to have to set that shoulder Will..."
He grinned at her. "Too tall for you, huh, Doc?"
She scanned him again with the tricorder. "It will feel better once it's back in place. Plus, then we'll be able to get your jacket off." He rested against the bottom of the shuttle, which was now upright, behind him.
The captain was sitting on one of the sideways landing gear wheels. She approached, as Data came to her with the med kits. "See to the others first." He said.
"Don't be ridiculous. Your injuries are the most serious-broken ribs can collapse a lung, in this oxygen... " She placed the bag down next to him on the huge wheel, rummaged in it with her left hand.
"I can make it an order." His voice was menacingly soft. He gazed out on the torrid landscape, not looking at her.
"You wouldn't dare." Her anger rose, matching the heat of the desert around them.
"Please." His tone softened, surprised her with entreaty. "Treat them first." Now he did look at her, green, gold and brown mixed in his eyes. He placed his hand over hers where it rested on his arm.
She could refuse his orders, but she could not resist him when he asked like this.
"All right." She conceded, not hiding her discomfiture, "But let's get your jacket off first." She unzipped it for him, carefully pulling the sleeve down over his injured collarbone. She frowned at the bruising his tank top revealed.
He knew that frown. He closed his eyes. "Please." He repeated, quietly. He knew she could override him. He felt her fingers brush his arm. Heard the anger and confusion in her voice.
"Fine." She stepped away from him to tend to Deanna and Will.
He watched her, from hooded eyes. He needed the time to regain control of his emotions, to rein in the stark fear and relief that had flooded him by turns just moments before. He felt like he had been punched in the gut, and it had nothing to do with his ribs or collarbone or the low oxygen level of the air.
He watched her familiar, competent movements as she did her job impeccably. Deanna had helped her remove her own jacket. The toned, graceful lines of her bared arms fascinated him beyond measure. They always had, when he had occasion to see her in formal or casual dress that bared them...
He heard them chatting, unable to hear the words distinctly, but could tell by the tone they really were allright. All of them. The comfortable banter assuaged his worry, lifted one weight from his shoulders.
She finished with Deanna, then motioned Data over to help set Will's shoulder. She administered a hypospray, then directed Data, who quickly righted the dislocation. Will's expression softened when the procedure completed.
He watched as she gently helped Will out of his jacket. An unfamiliar curl of jealousy niggled at him when her hands traced Will's bare shoulder and arm, dipping beneath the tank-top to check him.
The heat shimmered around them. A different sort of heat rose within him when she twirled her long copper hair into a knot, securing it with the stylus from the tricorder. Since there was no chance of a cold shower, he began to calculate the time it would have taken their distress beacon to reach the Enterprise, and how long it would be before they should expect contact. Long hand.