The report of events had been given right here in Medical. McCoy could hardly say he was as unaffected as he wanted to be. Being on a star-ship meant objectivity was a foreign concept, even if it was expected. With a full team of Med-Techs, it should have been easy to ignore "friendships" with any one crew member.

Space was difficult. Death, Disease and Danger – it was his mantra. People died routinely in the black. Sometimes doing the most routine of simple duties. It happened.

But it became hard to compartmentalize. McCoy was already screwed if ever Jim happened to die again… but he believed he was fine other than the handicap of having his best friend on the same ship. He wasn't overly social. He only mingled with the other Medical Staff, and even then it was only every now and again.

He'd been completely unprepared at the report Lieutenant Jos gave Lieutenant Commander Bandi. He'd expected there was search in progress for the missing parties of the Away Team.

"-when we met up and returned to the base alcove, we found Mr. Scott and Mr. Strauss dead, and the Array Mr. Scott had been working on, damaged beyond our collective know-how to fix. So we returned to the surface and found a –"

Dead.

McCoy had paused in his scanning of Jenson to process the sentence. And that was when he realized objectivity was a commodity that space didn't afford. Because despite his efforts and lack of un-duty related contact, he had a ring of friends that encompassed more than just Jim.

He was forced, in that moment, to acknowledge that he had friends, and now one of those friends was dead. And there was no super-human antidote to death like there'd been when Jim had died. This time, there was no second chance. No catch-all. Scotty was dead and it was only in death that McCoy admitted that the damn cheeky Scotsman had weaseled his way through his self-induced cold exterior, just as the others in his damned circle.

It left him stunned, and he turned his patient over to Nurse Chapel so that he could remove himself from public view and regain his sense of control.

Jim dying had been the worst thing he'd had to face. Since coming to Enterprise, colleagues asked if it was wise to work so close to a friend from Academy when he was Captain and McCoy was Medical. He'd always been a firm believer that Jim was stubborn enough to outwit what came for him, and that McCoy himself could fix whatever he didn't avoid. They were a pair, and a damned good one.

The last thing he'd expected was a Warp Core misalignment and Jim rushing into radio-active containment with no time for proper protective gear. There was no way to quickly fix that sort of damage. Not when decontamination was still in progress when the patient died.

The image of Jim still and not breathing when the bag was pulled back was one that still manifested in his nightmares. Because there were no options left. There were no known medical procedures he could perform to bring Jim back to life. All there was, then, was autopsy, because Star Fleet was methodical and wanted the technical aspects of everything.

But this? Now? Was even worse. A man he'd never admitted to being a friend was dead on foreign soil by natives no one'd known even existed. Jim had defied death because of sheer desperation and a unique circumstance (ironically, a circumstance that had killed him in the first place). There were no second chances now. Star Fleet had banned the use of the Super-Serum after Jim's (and technically, one Tribble, who was also still located on board) revival, even if it could be synthesized from his own blood after all of this time.

Scotty (and when had he begun to use the nickname Jim had taken to calling the Engineer? Hadn't he refused personalization?) did not have a chance. He was lost on enemy, clearly hostile (and Star Fleet, Prime Directive and lack of Technologies be damned) planet. And hours had long passed before the two men had found the bodies.

A nightmare. Space was a god-damned nightmare. He couldn't handle Jim's short term death, and he knew he wouldn't be much better now. He'd see about another staff member performing the autopsy.

Maybe he'd see about a transfer? Four more years of uncharted space with a Command Staff of friends would only lead him to his own early grave. Because space was cruel and unforgiving and death was constant that would follow like a damned shadow. Watching them die around him…

Bang!

His head shot up with the loud, reverberating crack. Far from a normal sound in Sickbay, he was instantly worried. Distantly, he was concerned over how long he'd sequestered himself in his office and not kept an eye on things. He stood quickly from his desk, swiping his eyes to clear the blur.

Screams and shouts sounded from all over. Panic and confusion turned the normally quiet and organized Sickbay into a battleground. Worse was finding the still form of Nurse Joyce, no longer bleeding from the laceration to her carotid artery, green eyes staring in surprise, unseeing, to the ceiling.

Part of him wanted to check and double check… make sure she wasn't… that he could save her… the rest of him, the physical, reactive part of him, hunched and growled like a wild animal, and he sprang for the console some feet away and smacked it. Sickbay dimmed to low lighting even as he punched the Emergency Call and shouted the type for the Computer to send out. "Code Black!" his voice was rough and dangerous.

He sensed M'Benga before he saw him. His colleague and friend slipped a hypo into his hands and pulled him down, seemingly just in time as the console erupted in a series of plinks and sparks. The hypo was a familiarity in his grasp, and he knew it likely carried a strong sedative or something equally effective in downing the enemy. All they needed to do was find the damn culprit.

Which was easier said than done.

It was frightening. He made no claim to contrary. It was one thing to be on an alien planet with the locals trying to kill you… it was another altogether to be on your own ship… in your own damned Sickbay; the place the injured and weary turned to for peace and comfort. It was like the universe had tilted, forsaking safety for firefight.

All around, bodies were hitting the floor. And it took every ounce of will power to hold himself back. He was supposed to heal them. But in this moment, Academy and Boot Camp Training surged up and told him to neutralize the threat. The injured or dead couldn't be helped more than to remove the aggressor.

Aggressors. Plural. Three to be exact. And they were all Enterprise crewmen to boot. And that was the factor that had him hesitating. He paused his arms, hypo an inch from the neck of Jos, suddenly reeling from the entire chain of events and unable to reconcile an ally as being capable of destroying the proverbial Safe House of a star-ship in such a bold, effective manner.

The sharp sting of metal in his shoulder blade cut him from his spiraling thoughts with sharp clarity. Jos betrayed the Away Team. Jos killed Scotty on that planet. Had there even been natives? Or was that fabrication to cover the committed act? How could Jos… Jos' own best friend had been struck down by a bullet not twenty seconds ago! Had… he really…

=/=/=

Chekov stared at the stars. The patterns were different than he'd grown up with, but that didn't bother him so much, now. The stars gave him a sense of peace he didn't realize he'd lost. Twinkling…

In a matter of hours, everything he'd felt safe in…was gone.

Jenson was dead. An additional body to the Morgue… another lost friend. Jos was a traitor, held in the Brig. Friends he'd trusted back in Academy… when trust rare and he was the youngest in a crowd of two-thousand people. It'd been luck that placed them all on Enterprise in the race to Vulcan…

Gone.

Scott was an inspiration. Chekov was considered a prodigy with Navigations, but Engineering had always fascinated him. Escaping the black hole, Narada, had only cemented the technological pull. And Mr. Scott had shown him… taught him with no strings attached, only happy to share his craft in a manner most would have trouble believing.

All he had now… were stars.

Sickbay was in shambles. Only Doctor Sekotra had been unscathed in the attack. Every other medical officer were in Bio-Beds… some comatose and others unable to move… recovering from injuries. Or they were dead.

Engineering was a mess. While the repairs were daunting, the trauma was taking a toll. The duties of Chief fell to Keenser when Scotty had taken the mission. Keenser had been unseen since the news broke, and no one was handling it much better.

Enterprise herself just didn't seem to want to be fixed if Mr. Scott weren't there… leaving them stuck in place.

And Security… faith in the department dropped exponentially in less than twenty-four hours. The department that safe guarded the ship integrity was responsible for all of it. How had a traitor infiltrated ranks, avoided cameras, infected the ship, killed the Chief Engineer, crippled Sickbay… it was unfathomable.

Enterprise was the furthest a Star Fleet ship had ever been. They were too far from relay stations. Subspace Comms would take weeks. Trapped with no feasible escape. They had time to find the whys everyone desperately wanted to hear.

Sulu was down in Hydroponics. Had been since returning from Quazarti's surface. Would probably be so for yet more hours. Hydroponics was Hikaru's safe haven.

The Observation Deck was his.

He stretched out under the clear window, arms under his head, just as he'd done on a grassy hill when he'd been growing up. The stars wouldn't turn him away. Nor would they welcome him, of course, but he felt more at home here sometimes than he did in his own quarters.

Technically, he'd been off duty when Sickbay had been sacked. But his Command status had him still there. Just as it required Spock. And Sulu. And Uhura. And now, he was tired… but he couldn't find the strength to sleep.

So he simply stared at the stars.

=/=/=

Personal Log:

The plan is working perfectly. Not one of the hapless children that run this glorious ship have realized. I can't honestly believe it all fell so perfectly into place. I couldn't have planned the Captain's Physical Exam if I'd tried. Sending Mr. Scott in his place only helped. He was the one obstacle I wasn't sure I could get around, and he was taken out of the equation for me. And the natives… Jos did so very well with them.

Finally, after much waiting and planning, I can finally take the Enterprise. The Empire awaits, and this can finally over with. All that's left is to take out the rest. As the Transporters are still experiencing technical issues (after the S&R Team returned, they put on a rather vibrant display of electricity… and that smell of burning…); a perk to having taken out the Chief Engineer early on is that no one else is very good with the damn thing.. it'll be easier.

I'll have to take deck by deck. Enterprise needs a good venting anyway.

=/=/=

A/N: And now we really jump around. This was originally written so that each of the sections were their own chapters. Obviously, I didn't follow through with that. Also, Medical was one of the funner scenes to depict. It's not so detailed... one of these days I may go over this entire story and fix that, but for now, I'm content with just sharing this as it is.