Staying Alive
Because McCoy isn't completely wrong about shuttles
Giotto and McCoy ran through the foliage as swiftly as they could while half-carrying the Captain between them. If not for a pair of cracked ribs, Sam would have been tempted to just sling the younger man over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, but as things stood the Doctor was trying to spare him by taking the lion's share of the Kirk's weight.
"Dammit Jim," McCoy gasped. "If we ever get out of here, I'm putting you on a diet."
"I'm not heavy," Kirk responded, wincing with every jarring hop. "You're out of shape, old man."
Sam resisted a comment. The doctor was about two decades his junior. And the Captain was a little heavy. "Almost there." He nodded toward the partial clearing where they'd managed to bring the shuttle down.
As soon as they reached it, he helped to boost Kirk inside and then closed the hatch. While the doctor went to work on the piece of barbed projectile still lodged in the Captain's thigh, Giotto pulled the panel covering access to the propulsion couplings. A basic knowledge of shuttle mechanics was required for all 'fleet personnel, but it had been a long time since he had had to use it. In fact, it was a good thing that there was a closet tech geek hiding under the Captain's cocky coolest-guy-in-the-room exterior because Sam seriously doubted that he would have been able to figure out which pieces of local low tech equipment could be used to replace their damaged components - especially since that they'd had to 'grab and go' after failing spectacularly to barter with the planet's highly xenophobic inhabitants.
Sam shot a quick prayer to anyone who might be listening while he secured questionable-grade connectors into place with spare clamps and duct tape. It wasn't pretty, but it only had to hold long enough for them to lift off and they needed to do that soon, before the posse of hacked off natives could track them down and finished what they'd started.
Ignoring his protesting side, Giotto pushed himself off the floor and powered the shuttle enough to check the pre-flight read-outs. The connections he'd made registered as okay, but they'd lost a fuel cell and that was something they weren't going to be able to replace here even if they dared another foray into inhabited areas.
"I don't like the look on your face Sam." The Doctor was eying him nervously. McCoy's opinion of shuttles had been pretty low even before they'd crashed here and he'd spent most of the way down cussing and swearing in between dry heaves that if they died he was going to follow Kirk around eternity saying 'I told you so'. This news wasn't likely to improve matters.
Kirk levered himself up. "Chief, what's wrong?"
"How are feeling, sir?"
"I've felt better," Kirk glanced wryly at his bandaged leg and the inflatable brace McCoy had fixed around his knee, "but I'll be alright."
"Good. Then you should be able to get the shuttle into orbit -"
"Dammit Sam, how bad are you hurt?" The doctor was on his feet and waving a scanner at him before he could finish.
Giotto held a hand up. "Not too bad, Doc, but we've lost a lot of fuel. We're about 90 kilos too heavy to make escape velocity."
"Infernal flying death traps," McCoy muttered. "Well, neither of you should to do any heavy lifting but I'm not that outta shape. Just tell me what equipment to jettison."
"It's not that easy Bones. We use nearly everything getting to orbit so there's not much excess weight," Kirk exchanged a look with Giotto. "Except for the passengers."
"And this is a pre-warp society. Even out of what we could remove, there's not much we can leave on this world without violating the Prime Directive," Giotto added. It was a lousy option, it really was the only one. "Just tape the ribs for me Doc and -"
"Whoa, Chief," Kirk interrupted. "I may be hurt, but that doesn't mean you're in command here. The Enterprise will be looking for us by now. Help get me stashed somewhere safe and I'll stay put until you can come back for me."
"Are you outta your mind Jim?" McCoy exploded. "You've lost blood, you've still got a hunk of metal festering in your leg and you can't even walk. There's no way you can elude a search. So much as suggest that again and I'll declare you unfit on the spot." The doctor crossed his arms. "If anyone's staying it's me. I sure as hell don't wanna ride in any damn jury-rigged shuttle anyway."
"You're going to have to." He wasn't a doctor, but after a lifetime in Security, Giotto had seen a lot of injured men. The ones who looked like the Captain were usually going to require more than basic first aid. "We don't know how long it will take the Enterprise to find you and the Captain needs a doctor."
Kirk glared. "Again, Chief, I don't remember stepping down from command."
"You're in command sir, but I'm in Security. I'm required to disregard orders that put you in danger. Now quit being a hero," Giotto cocked an eyebrow. The doctor routinely insisted 'hero' was just another word for idiot and he wasn't far off. "I've got no intention of staying down here. I'll take a survival pack and make for those hills the locals were so superstitious about. I can hole up there until you're able to retrieve me. But none of us are getting rescued unless you get this thing into orbit before it's too late."
Considering that he could already hear crude motors in the distance, they were already cutting it close. Giotto grabbed a survival pack. "Doc, help the Captain into a seat at the helm. I'll see you both in a day or two."
He left, closing the hatch behind him before McCoy could finish fishing a hypo out of his pack. It had been a nice try, but his wife had been in medical so Sam had developed a certain awareness of hypos meant to keep him from taking risks. As soon as the shuttle began to lift off, he started to circle toward the hills. With any luck, whatever demons the natives imagined were hiding there wouldn't be any worse than the natives themselves.
.
"Spock! I never thought I'd say this, but damn am I glad to hear your voice!"
You could almost hear eyebrows lift on the other side of the subspace connection. "It is gratifying to hear yours as well, Doctor. May I speak with the Captain?"
"He's passed out," McCoy sighed wearily. They'd been circling the damn planet for better than a day waiting for someone to respond to their distress signal. "It's a long story Spock, but he'd lost a lot of blood and we had a pretty rough lift getting off the planet and -"
"Doctor," Spock interrupted. "May I speak to Mr. Giotto?"
Sorry hobgoblin, the other rational human isn't available either. "Sam's still on the damn planet. Now stop wasting time and do whatever you do to figure out where we are and get the Enterprise over here!" For all the good he could do Jim right now, he should've been faster with a hypo and left Sam on the shuttle. At least Sam could pilot the damn thing.
"Calm yourself Doctor. We have your coordinates and will rendezvous in 1.37 hours. Please endeavor to keep the Captain stable until we arrive."
"I wasn't plannin' on lettin' him die Spock," McCoy growled into the comm. "You just work on getting here before something else goes wrong."
"I shall endeavor to do so. Spock out."
Damn irritating green-blooded computer. Leonard shut the comm and checked on Jim. Then he tried to remember what he was supposed to be looking for on the shuttle read-outs. The infernal things really were instruments of Satan. Starfleet could court martial him if they liked, but he was never getting into another goddamned shuttle for any reason less than life-or-death.
.
Giotto watched as his comm, lying on the opposite ledge, rose half a meter in the air and was crushed in a flash of translucent teeth. The creature yowled angrily.
Yeah, crunching a comm in your mouth probably did give a nasty shock. Served it right for destroying his only way to contact the ship. Sam drew a knife in his uninjured hand and crouched waiting in case the thing tried to leap the divide to come after him.
It was little wonder the natives thought these hills were inhabited by demons. The predator was nearly invisible - barely a shimmering outline easily mistaken for heat-distorted air rising from the rocks. If the creature's focus hadn't been drawn to the static from his comm, it might have taken him. Giotto watched the one clearly visible part, a front paw marked by his own blood, pace the ledge before turning away. It seemed to have decided that the rest of him probably tasted as bad as the comm and he wasn't worth the effort.
Sam let out a slow breath and settled back against solid rock as reaction set in. He drew the first aid kit from his pack and ran the scanner over the gashes in his hand and arm. Nothing worse than bacteria. Good. The slash marks were deep, but poison claws would have been really bad. He winced applying the Plas-skin spray. It stung like anything but it would cover and disinfect the wounds.
Without his comm, the original estimate of a day or two until someone retrieved him was probably on the low side of how long he'd have to survive down here but he had no doubt someone would come for him. Kirk was nothing if not tenacious and he'd been pissed off about Giotto making the decision for him. The Captain would find him if only to finally get the last word in, which would probably be nothing compared to whatever Denise would have to say - that is, if she was still speaking to him after this. She had been the one to initiate the relationship, but his staying behind hit every issue she had about taking it any further. Sam sighed inwardly. He was good at his job, but his love life would be considerably less complicated if he'd majored in history.
For now, he had to focus on survival. There was probably more than one predator like that around and he needed to find a defensible place to camp before nightfall. And he also needed to leave some clues for a search party. Giotto scratched a blaze on the cliff wall and a warning: the sign for unseen danger.
AN: That there's not much you can strip from a shuttle comes from the TOS episode The Galileo Seven (someday I'll write a fic with Giotto chewing Boma out for his behavior in that one). A bit of a rocky start for romantic fic, but it does center on someone in Security.
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