A/n: Thanks for reading and especially for the feedback! :D Also, that Into Darkness teaser trailer? Asdksd;jhgflaj AWESOME.
McCoy accompanied the last of the wounded back to the ship, while Kirk and a pair of remaining ensigns took the shuttle. Once back aboard Enterprise, Kirk met Chekov, Spock and a few others on the bridge.
"What do we have, ladies and gentleman?" the captain asked.
Spock went first. "Based on the scans I've completed, the ship is not salvageable. The damage is far too severe and wide spread. There are also thirteen more deceased crewmembers at various locations aboard the ship."
Kirk frowned and turned to Chekov. "Do we know what happened down there?"
"Based on ze logs and minimal amount of data we were able to recover," said Chekov. "Ze damage caused seems to have been caused from inside. Zere were traces of explosives in some of ze lower decks, though it zeems zome of the charges inflicted only zuperficial damage."
"Were they attacked? Boarded and left for dead?"
"The evidence suggests not." Spock answered.
"But was anything missing? Valuables?" Kirk pressed. "Starfleet said the drive was extremely unique and valuable, so if they were boarded, why not take that? Or at least disable it?"
"Perhaps they didn't know about it." Uhura piped up. "Engineering was sealed off, so it's possible the crew was able to secure the drive before they were boarded."
"I repeat, that there isn't sufficient evidence to suggest another ship was involved." Spock said. "There are no traces of other warp signatures, and as Mr. Chekov stated, the blasts that incapacitated the ship were not exacted from the outside. It appears that the charges we found traces of were mostly situated at strategic locations to create maximum damage."
"Are you saying one of the crew caused this?" Kirk straightened.
Chekov shook his head. "I cannot be certain."
"It was perhaps an accident," Spock put in.
"There were explosive charges set up by accident?" Uhura raised her eyebrow.
"We do not know their function if there were charges, and more precisely, Mr. Chekov only detected traces of explosives. There isn't enough information to suggest a logical conclusion as to why that is." Spock explained. "Aside from that, the ship is nothing like one I have ever seen—internally, it is a very strange mix of both new and old technology. It is quite possible their equipment simply reached its breaking point and failed."
"Seems like a pretty violent breaking point." Kirk said grimly. "Well, we'll know more when I've had a chance to talk to the surviving crew members."
McCoy entered the bridge.
"Speaking of—Bones, report?"
"They all had a laundry list of injuries," said the doctor with a sigh, glancing down at his PADD. "Most of them are easy fixes. The broken bones will take a little longer, of course, and one of the women is in a coma which I'm not sure she'll pull out of. She had extensive internal bleeding."
"Can you determine what caused them?" Spock inquired, wanting to confirm that McCoy's assessment matched up with Chekov's.
"Best guess? The older guy, Ealick, he said something to Kirk about explosions. And by the state of their ship? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together."
The comm crackled to life. "Scotty to Captain Kirk."
Kirk nodded to Uhura who pressed a button on the console before her.
"Go ahead, Mr. Scott."
"We're on our way, Captain."
"Right. I'll meet you down there, Scotty. Kirk out."
Kirk headed down to the shuttle pod bay to greet Scotty and his small team of engineers as they were disembarking. The special warp drive from the Chronos was packed up in an enormous crate that required almost six ensigns to slide it from the pod and onto a small hovercarrier.
"Cap'n, you gotta see this." Scotty gestured, his eyes bright with excitement and wonder. He popped open the lid of the crate.
Given Scotty's earlier description of the drive being "alive", Kirk didn't know what he'd been expecting to see, but this was not it.
The drive was huge, tubular, pulsing with coils of light, and humming softly—or buzzing. Neither word was correct for the sound he was hearing, but he couldn't think of a better one. Its core was a strange, shiny grey-green color, and it looked wet and soft to the touch (though he was fairly certain he couldn't be paid enough to touch it). Metal intertwined with what he supposed were "skin" covered darker green tubes, and the various panels seemed out-of-place and arbitrary. Slots for smaller drives were clustered close together towards the bottom, where a clear liquid seemed to be seeping towards the edges of the crate.
Kirk stared, feeling equal parts intrigued, confused, and repulsed.
"Queer bit of business, isn't it?" said Scotty.
"You could say that." Kirk managed and tore his eyes away from the bizarre piece of machinery. "Why would they need this? Why not just have a… normal engine?"
"Well, I've only read the theories," the engineer scratched his head. "I can't be certain."
"Best guess, Mr. Scott."
"She's built to create a dynamic warp field. The theory is that it'll allow a ship to get close to blackholes and singularities, without getting sucked in."
Kirk recalled the disaster with Nero a couple years ago. If Scotty and those theories were right, having this drive aboard and functioning back then would've made the mess much more manageable.
"Wasn't that an isolated incident, caused by Nero and the Red Matter?"
"Science says maybe not." Scotty shrugged. "Maybe this ship was looking for them."
"Looking for black holes?"
"It's just a theory."
Kirk couldn't imagine anyone looking for storms and black holes in space, but then again, back on Earth he had been the type to chase a tornado or two, so he supposed it wasn't all that different.
"Oh, and there's sommat else, Cap'n." Scotty reached down his tool box and held up a battered PADD. Its screen was dark, and severely cracked, and the device looked burned. "This was wedged up under the drive's enclosure. Can't have got there without someone deliberately sticking it there."
Kirk took it from the engineer curiously, turning it over in his hands. "Do you think it's salvageable?"
Scotty blew air out his lips, making a skeptical noise. "I doubt it. There might be some undamaged data, but it'll be a helluva difficult task to get it, I s'pect."
Kirk handed the PADD back to Scotty. "See what you can do."
"Aye."
"And Scotty? Keep that—er, drive, out of sight, protected, and private."
"Aw, but Captain…"
"I know you're dying to gush all about it, Scotty, but we have our orders. The less people that know about the exact nature of the drive, the better. Sorry."
Scotty's shoulders slumped in disappointment but he nodded in understanding.
Kirk next made his way up to sick bay, where McCoy was continuing to tend to the wounded crew from the other ship. He had given them all sedatives to help them sleep, while he administered various hyposprays of medicine. He'd gotten the names of the surviving crew from the older man, Dal, and he passed the information on to the captain. Kirk thanked him and left McCoy to continue his work, promising to check in again soon.
When Holly opened her eyes, her first thought was that she could see properly—her eye wasn't so swollen anymore. For a quick moment, she felt disoriented as she took in the whiteness of the room around her, until she remembered the rescue. She tried to sit up, and was met with a sharp pain in her ribs.
The doctor, McCoy, came hurrying over and swiftly injected a hypospray of painkilling medication into her arm. "Sorry, your ribs are going to pretty tender for a while."
Holly relaxed as the medicine swept through her. "Wow," she breathed. "That stuff works quick."
McCoy smirked slightly. "It had better. It's expensive. I'm—"
"Dr. McCoy, I remember."
He nodded. "Good." Now that the medicine was in her, he helped her as she eased into a sitting position. "I need you to answer a few questions for me. Do you know your name?"
"Holly Cameron." She answered. She remembered having to go through a similar routine with Jem a year earlier, when she'd tumbled off the ladder in the engine room and been knocked out for several hours.
"D'you know where you are?"
"A Starfleet ship. I don't know the name. I was on the Chronos."
"Good. We're the Enterprise, by the way. And do you remember what happened before you fell asleep?"
Holly swallowed. She didn't want to remember—her mind flitted between chaos and fire, and a freezing cold hallway with corpses at the end of it.
"Yes." She croaked out, tears blurring her vision.
McCoy regarded her grimly, clenching his jaw. "I'm sorry. I have to ask."
"I understand." She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. "Are the others…?"
Holly turned and could see her friends in some of the beds in the bright sick bay, but was struck by how few there were. She remembered there'd only been six of them—five, she silently amended—but it somehow looked like fewer, spread out like this, laying down and covered with sheets and bandages.
"We're taking good care of them," McCoy assured her.
She nodded—she didn't doubt that. "What… what happens next?"
"We're going back to Earth," the doctor replied. "I imagine Starfleet will have new assignments for you all."
Holly nodded again, feeling small and numb. She didn't know what to say and tried not to think, to remember. Dr. McCoy didn't seem to know what else to say either, as he shifted uneasily and glanced over his shoulder. Finally, he cleared his throat.
"You'll all be in sick bay for a little while—a week or so—for observation. Thankfully most of your injuries weren't too severe, so it won't take too long to heal. Your ribs are going to be sore for a couple weeks, but I can give you painkillers to take the edge off."
"Thank you." She murmured.
"When was the last time you ate?"
"I can't remember."
"Hmm." McCoy frowned. "I'll have something brought up for you—"
"If it's all the same, I'd like to go back to sleep."
"Of course."
Holly lay back down and pulled the thin blanket up to her chin, turning so her back was to the doctor. She appreciated his help, but didn't much feel like dealing with anything at the moment. She shut her eyes, unsuccessfully keeping in tears, and heard his footsteps recede.
It was comforting to hear the calm, muted activity of the sick bay. The soft hum of machines, the sound of the doctor and nurses walking back and forth, filling out paperwork and charts, checking the status of their patients, the faint whoosh of doors opening and closing. Holly wasn't that tired, but she couldn't bear to talk either. She just laid there, letting her mind fall blank as she listened to the gentle noise around her, and eventually she dozed off.
The following day, when Holly and the others were all awake (and had eaten something, on doctor's orders), they were introduced to the Captain and the first officer. Captain James Kirk was very good looking, with vibrant blue eyes and light brown hair that seemed golden in the right light. Officer Spock was Vulcan, quiet, and very polite. She'd only met a couple Vulcans before and found them to be difficult to read—Spock was no different.
They expressed their grief over the loss of the Chronos and most of its crew, and informed them that the warp drive was secure aboard Enterprise. Per Starfleet's orders, they had set a course for Earth and estimated arrival in about six or seven weeks. Kirk apologized for that, but they were too far out, and the Enterprise was having some stability problems with one of their own warp manifolds, so they couldn't push the engines too hard. He promised that his "engineering genius" was working on the problem, however.
Holly had a hard time imagining what would happen when they arrived back on Earth. She'd volunteered for a three-year research mission, and she'd completed only two. Would she be reassigned somewhere else? Sent home? She wasn't a full-trained Starfleet officer like Charlie, so she didn't think the former was likely, but she dreaded the idea of latter. Going home wasn't an option, not now. Not after everything she'd experienced. Not after Charlie.
The Captain also promised them he'd be back the following day to assign them all sleeping quarters. Comforting though the sick bay had been, Holly was anxious to leave it. She'd never been good at staying in one place for too long and was itching to get up and walk around. Holly was eager to be useful, and the captain promised they would talk about duties when McCoy agreed they were healed enough to be put to work. Since the remaining Chronos members were not officially Starfleet trained, it was going to be a bit difficult to assign them work.
After Kirk and Spock left, Holly finally got the chance to talk to her friends. Kryst was in a wheelchair with his leg propped up, while Dal opted to hobble around on crutches. Jem was covered with deep, black bruises, and Ford was still in a coma. Holly approached them, clutching her ribs which were wrapped tight with bandages and found she didn't know what to say. She looked between them, swallowing down emotion—she was glad they were okay, but the hole that Charlie's absence created stabbed at her.
"So, this is all pretty horrible," Kryst eventually said, a bit of a wry smile on his lips. "But could be worse."
He caught Holly's eye and she suddenly felt like laughing. It was something they all took turns saying after particularly rough encounters with storms. After they came absurdly close to dying in some way, in the aftermath when someone was usually injured and they were still shaking, someone would inevitably mumble, Could be worse.
Dal chuckled, and before she knew it, they were all laughing and couldn't seem to stop. It wasn't funny, none of it was funny, and yet there they were, laughing so hard they were crying. The medical staff were giving them looks that said they wondered if sedation was needed, and Holly was doubled over, holding her ribs which hurt terribly, but she didn't care—it could be worse.
Eventually the laughter died down, and though nothing had changed, she felt inexplicably better.
"God," Holly shook her head. "It's going to be a long week."
Scotty did the best he could with the fried PADD, but the only salvageable thing was a single audio file. For starters, the recording had been partially damaged and barely recovered. Second, the background noise was incredible, so even the parts that weren't damaged were extremely difficult to make out. All in all, it was nearly impossible to make it out at all.
"Can you enhance?" asked Kirk.
"That is enhanced," replied Uhura.
Kirk frowned and listened hard while she played it again.
"—Captain Charlie—star log. I'm—engineering—drive—destroy—shore leave—been—" There was a loud explosion and some muffled cursing before the voice came back on, sounding more frantic. "Time to explain—proof—drive—down—"
More noise completely drowned him out, and Kirk wasn't even able to discern bits and pieces after that. It went on for a good minute or two, chaotic and loud. He thought he heard the same male voice yelling, but as everything was so loud, he could've been yelling almost anything. The recording turned to static and went dead a moment later.
"That's the best you can get it?"
Uhura nodded, her mouth set in a grim line.
"It's not exactly a lot to go by," said Kirk, folding his arms over his chest.
Frankly, it was almost nothing to go by. It was easy to gather that something had gone wrong on the ship, that the captain had gone to salvage the experimental drive, and that he seemed to know what was going on. They'd learned as much from Holly and the surviving crew members already, however, so the recording had turned out to be quite unhelpful.
"Play back the last part before the big explosion?"
Uhura rewound the recording and Kirk leaned forward, listening hard, trying to catch more words this time.
"I'm—engineering—drive—destroy—shore leave—been—"
"Why is he talking about shore leave when the ship is coming down around him?" Kirk straightened.
"Perhaps it is something he regrets doing or not doing?" Spock suggested.
"Still, if you thought it was your last recording..."
"He also mentions 'proof', later on," Uhura put in. "But proof of what?"
Kirk shook his head, stumped. Without a cleaner recording, they couldn't know what Captain Cameron had been trying to say. He asked Uhura to play it several more times, but they were unable to glean any new information from it.
"Is it possible to clean the recording any further?" questioned Spock.
"It's unlikely, and it will probably take a while, but I can try." Uhura answered.
"Just do what you can." Kirk said and she nodded again.
Before McCoy began cleaning up sick bay late that night, he checked over Ford's charts one more time, frowning. He heard movement behind him and turned to see Kryst in his wheelchair coming over. He had broad shoulders and thick arms, tensing with each pull of the wheels.
"Doc, how is she?" he asked.
"She could be better," McCoy replied. "The internal bleeding is in under control, but she's still comatose."
Kryst rolled up to Ford's bedside and clenched his jaw.
"We're doing everything we can," said McCoy softly, trying to offer the man some comfort. He wasn't particularly good at this part.
Kryst laughed abruptly, sharp and loud. "God, it all fell apart, didn't it?" He shook his head and buried his face in his hands.
McCoy wished he knew what to say. He hesitated for a moment, then proceeded to carry on with his nightly routine.