A/N: And now begins the portion that is the companion piece to 'The Awakening.' That story is now told from the POV of Kirk and Spock as opposed to the unknown young boy. The ensemble cast of TOS will start to feature in the story.
Chapter Three
Kirk opened his eyes to the blood-red glow of emergency lights, obscured by a thickening cloud of lung-crushing smoke. His face was wet and sticky. He reached up to touch it, his fingers coming away smeared with crimson. "Spock!" he groaned, unsure if he'd spoken aloud or only in his mind.
Suddenly a face materialized in Kirk's field of view, hovering just above his. "Captain. Jim," it said as Kirk rolled onto his stomach.
"My head's killing me, but other than that I can't complain," Kirk replied in response to the Vulcan's unasked question. "You?" he prompted.
"Aside from some minor contusions I am uninjured," Spock replied. He then began crawling toward the shuttle's door. "However, we must vacate this space with all due haste, lest the vessel explode." Climbing to his feet, the Vulcan thumbed the switch, opening the hatch. The smoke immediately began pouring out through the breach and the stifling nature of the atmosphere within the shuttle eased slightly.
Kirk struggled to rise on wobbly legs, but would surely have fallen had the Vulcan not grasped him about the waist, tugging a gold-clad arm across the narrow shoulders. As one, the two moved toward the safety of the vessel's exterior, Spock settling his captain on the ground twenty meters or so from the damaged craft.
Kirk immediately stretched out on his back, a wave of vertigo crashing over him as if he'd suddenly found himself dangling by his ankles from a great height. His head was throbbing. "Rest, Jim," the Vulcan instructed, his voice uncharacteristically tight. "I shall be back momentarily." He rose to his feet and headed for the smoking hulk.
"Spock, don't!" Kirk called after him, the sound of his own voice ricocheting through his skull with blinding speed, but his first officer was gone, the blue-clad back disappearing through the open hatch.
Kirk struggled to raise himself to a seated position, but the world pitched violently as he did so. Must've hit my head harder than I thought. He gingerly lowered himself to a prone position once again.
He closed his eyes, willing himself not to be sick. He lay that way for some time before a soft voice startled him as a hand closed on his upper arm, exerting more force than he expected.
"Captain…?"
"I'm okay, Spock, just a little shaken up. Status of the shuttlecraft?"
He felt a prickle of satisfaction as the Vulcan slipped into professional mode once again. "I have extinguished the fire, and the navigation, communication and propulsion systems are all intact. Warp capability is offline at the moment, but I should be able to effect repairs."
Effect repairs? Why? Are we too far out of range to be able to call for help? He was about to ask for clarification from the Vulcan, but once again, Spock's voice shifted slightly. "Your head wound is bleeding, Captain," the Vulcan informed him. Kirk felt his head gently lifted, blood carefully wiped from his eyes as sure hands cleaned and bandaged the cut. "Unfortunately the sole medikit the craft was carrying did not include a tissue regenerator. Without one, I have no way to seal the laceration." Kirk's head was settled gingerly into the Vulcan's lap. A scanner whirred above him and a hypo hissed against his arm. The throbbing in his skull lessened somewhat, as did the nausea.
"I have detected no broken bones or internal injuries, but you have suffered a con—"
Without warning Spock's attention shifted. He began speaking in his native tongue. Kirk's first impulse was to question his second-in-command, but a warm hand settled on his shoulder. "An unexpected situation has arisen which requires my attention, Captain." Kirk felt himself eased to the ground as Spock climbed to his feet.
The incomprehensible discussion went on for several minutes. Sensing danger, Kirk instinctively did his best to remain still and non-threatening. Something was wrong, but what? Just where were they? He couldn't recall any inhabited worlds between Vulcan and Starbase Four. In fact, he was certain there were no bodies—asteroids or otherwise—in the vicinity with a class M atmosphere, yet they were able to breathe on the surface of wherever this was, and Spock was clearly speaking to someone. But why? How? If he could just work it out, but his thoughts were still in a fog, jumbled, disjointed, his temples pounding in time to the beating of his heart.
The conversation between Spock and the mysterious stranger ended with the scrabble of feet on stone, the footfalls receding hurriedly as they echoed off the rock walls around them.
"What was that all about? Are we back on Vulcan?" he asked as Spock dropped to his knees beside him. "You were speaking Vulcan, but it must be an archaic form I'm unfamiliar with. I couldn't make out any of it and it seems my translator implant was damaged in the accident."
"You are correct, Captain, we are on Vulcan, somewhere in the L'langon Mountains." Spock paused ever so slightly. "I recognize the terrain."
Kirk was puzzled. "But not where, or more specifically when, you expect us to be," he said, trying to reason it out. "If we were on present-day Vulcan there'd be no need for you to repair the shuttle on your own—we'd be able to call for help, or better yet rescue parties would already be en route, and you wouldn't have to use the ancient tongue to be understood. So," he asked with certainty, "just when are we?"
"At present, I am uncertain of the exact date. Based upon what our young visitor told us, I would estimate approximately 2,000 years in the past, sometime before Surak's Reformation."
"Young visitor?" Kirk had not seen the child.
"Affirmative. A young boy stumbled upon the crash site. Evidenced by his clothing and the fact that he was armed, I surmised this was not present-day Vulcan. Additionally, the star patterns are off, consistent with how the constellations must have appeared two thousand years in the past."
"And tangling with that rogue black hole caused all this?"
"It is not unprecedented, Captain. It is similar to the circumstances which caused us to wind up in the latter half of Earth's nineteenth century one point four solar years ago, or consistent with the technique we used to go back in time to witness firsthand historical events from the year 1968."
Both of those instances had nearly been disastrous. Seen as a "bogey" in the skies of Earth of the twentieth century, aircraft of the time had attempted to blast the Enterprise from the heavens. In order to prevent killing him, the pilot of the closest craft had been beamed aboard as his plane was crushed like a tin can by the Enterprise's powerful tractor beam. Unwilling to take the chance that his glimpse at the future might cause the pilot to inadvertently or even intentionally alter Earth's history, it had been decided that the man could not be allowed to remain in his own time, but would need to return to the future with the Enterprise and her crew. Only later did they discover that one of the pilot's children, yet to be born, would provide a significant contribution to Earth's history. In light of that a way had been worked out to return the pilot with the knowledge of the future expunged from his mind, and a method to use the gravitational pull of the sun to slingshot them back to their own time had been formulated.
Eighteen months later they had used the same technique to go back in time and observe a critical missile launch, its failure carefully orchestrated by Gary Seven, an emissary from a more advanced race known as the Assigners, who was sent back in time as well to prevent a catastrophe which would have negatively impacted Earth and its inhabitants. Had things played out differently, the result of that launch might have been to embroil the world in a nuclear war. It helped both of the planet's superpowers at the time restrict their nuclear arsenals in an effort to avoid another such scenario in the future.
"Can we get back?"
"Uncertain at this juncture. Everything will, of course, be contingent upon being able to repair the warp engines. Without warp power it will be impossible to use the optimum velocity generated by escaping the pull of Eridani's gravity to create a time warp which will propel us into the future. We shall be trapped here—strangers in a strange land.
"Also, we have never attempted to do so in such a small craft. There is every possibility our vessel will be crushed by the gravimetric pull of the Vulcan sun before we are able to attain escape velocity."
Kirk's head was throbbing again, and the chill in the night air was starting to affect him. "And we can't remain here. The longer we do, the greater the chances of us doing something that will irrevocably change Vulcan's future." His mind was made up. "Then we need to see about making repairs immediately." He sat up, willing the world to stop spinning, and clamped his mouth shut to prevent his teeth from chattering.
Attempting—and failing miserably to Kirk's mind—to hide his concern, Spock slipped an arm around his captain's waist and helped him to his feet once again. Kirk found that he was grateful for the warmth wherever the Vulcan's body was in contact with his.
"If the evidence is correct, and we are 2,000 years in my planet's past, then we need to get you inside, Jim. People will understand on sight that you are not of this world, and at this point in time, Vulcans have no experience with extra-terrestrials."
The two headed for the safety and shelter of the shuttle. "What about the boy? What if he raises the alarm? Comes back with help?" Kirk asked suddenly.
"Based on our discussion I do not think that is likely. In any case I shall begin repairs immediately. But should the child return with assistance, it is my belief that I can 'bluff my way' out of the situation, as long as they are not made aware of your presence."
"You, bluff Spock?" Thoughts of the Fizzbin incident on Sigma Iota II left a metallic taste in his mouth, the taste of failure. Spock had no inkling of how to bluff during that episode. "I didn't think you had it in you."
"You forget, Jim, I have learned by watching the master as it were." He deftly changed the course of the conversation all the while steering Kirk toward the rear of the vessel's interior. "Come," the Vulcan continued, lowering Kirk onto a wall-mounted cot in the shuttle's aft compartment, "You have suffered a minor concussion. I have given you the proper medication to prevent hemorrhaging and swelling, but you must rest now."
As inviting as it was to sink into the softness and give himself over to oblivion, Kirk fought the impulse with every fiber of his being. "Can't," he mumbled, trying to swing his legs to the floor, "we've got work to do." The last thing he remembered was Spock's hand closing on his shoulder.