Chapter 7
Days on the Planet: 24
"Hey," Uhura smiled, tracing the shape of Spock's eyebrows with her finger. He lay facing her, owlishly blinking awake. She'd never seen a Vulcan with such beautiful eyes before. They were big and brown and doe-like, and of course those pointed eyebrows and those ears.
"You are feeling better?" he said, clasping her hand and rubbing his thumb over her palm.
"Yes," she nodded. "We haven't checked the crash site for a long time. I don't know if I'm up for it – will you go, Spock?"
He nodded.
"There may be contact with the Columbia."
"Yeah," she said, dragging her hand over his shoulder. "Hopefully. Just be safe, okay?"
Spock rose into a sitting position and pulled on his tattered and dirtied Starfleet jumper. He drank from the water pot deeply and Uhura watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. When he was finished, he passed the bowl to Uhura and she drank the remaining contents.
"I will return with food," he promised.
Uhura nodded and wrapped herself back up in the blankets.
"Be safe."
Spock breathed deeply as he exited the cabin they'd called home for almost a month. Around a week ago a ferocious storm had ripped through the clearing and saturated them through the small windows used for ventilation. And it had also wet all of the logs he'd chopped that afternoon, hoping to store a few more and not have to do a task that had become increasingly difficult with his depleting energy levels.
The climb to the shuttle site took longer than he'd expected.
Vegetation had begun to grow back in the large scorch mark they'd left on the ground in their wake, and small tendrils of foliage crept around the now derelict shuttle. Spock pilfered around the site, scuffing the ground with his shoes before he found a probe embedded just beside the crash site not ten metres away.
It was a larger probe and had a small opening which usually housed machinery or smaller probes on wheels which could be used to gather samples in inhospitable climates. He wrenched the latch to the opening clean off.
Inside, there was food.
Instantly he reached out for it, worried that it wasn't real at all. It was replicated food, but it was food. There were six apples just sitting there in a neat bunch and Spock tore open the packaging and began to eat one in harsh, open-mouth-chewing bites. He swallowed feverishly. There were bottles with electrolytes. Hastily he drank and then crushed the plastic bottle before realising he could have used it for another purpose. But he remembered Nyota and how he'd promised he'd bring back food though he was too tired himself to eat. If rationalised, this food could last them up to ten days – there were vegetables, soups, dairy products, multivitamins, energy bars. He tucked the probe under his arm and began to make his way down the hill quickly.
When he entered the cabin, Nyota had not moved from where she was lying by the fire. Her eyes were glossed over and tired. Her skin was lacklustre and Spock had noticed her touching her hair, and he had noticed a 68% percent increase of her black curls being shed around the cabin.
"Food," he said, opening an energy bar and offering it to her lips. "From the Columbia. They sent a probe."
She seemed to snap out of her tiredness then and snatched at the energy bar, ripping it open and chewing the muesli. When she finished that, Spock gave her the bottle of electrolytes and then an orange. As her deft fingers tried to peel the orange, fat tears began to fall where she was curled within herself. Spock leant over and helped her dig in her thumb to begin to peel from the centre and Nyota sniffed.
"Thanks," she said, pulling the orange apart from the half and eating a slice. She offered a slice to Spock, who took it gratefully.
"The time difference is great," summarised Spock.
"What do you mean?"
"If we assume this is a response from the Columbia to our S.O.S., one I sent out immediately after we received the probe on day ten, it has taken another two weeks our time to receive this," he said. "It would work out that there are 13 hours on this planet to every hour we would have spent on the Columbia."
"So how long have we been away from the ship?" Uhura asked.
"To them," said Spock, stowing the precious probe by the dry corner of a still drying-out cabin. "Perhaps thirty hours have passed since we landed here."
"What?" Nyota cried
"Do not get upset. We have enough food to sustain ourselves within healthy parametres for the next ten days – the median time it takes to receive contact with the Columbia," he said.
"Thirty hours is not long enough to find someone – it takes thirty hours to be towed back from Saturn for crying out loud," she huffed. "I need to get off this planet. It is driving me insane!"
Nyota stood up then, wobbling to her feet and pulled on her boots.
"Nyota," said Spock, tailing her as she stalked out of the cabin. "Where are you going?"
"For a walk," she sniffed. "I need to get some fresh air."
"It is not safe," he protested and reached out to grab at her sleeve.
Nyota whirled around, "Don't!" she cried, slapping his hand away.
Spock recoiled quickly and Nyota stood shocked, her eyes never wavering from the hand that had slapped at her Commander.
"I'm… I'm sorry, Commander," she muttered, bringing her hand down and hiding it behind her back in shame. "Um, Spock. I'm sorry. I lashed out."
"It is a predictable side-effect to your frustration," he said. It had not hurt, really. "You are forgiven. Please, do not leave the grounds of the cabin."
She nodded. "I will just sit over there," she said, pointing to where Spock usually cut up the wood for the fire. "I just want to think in the fresh air for a while."
He allowed it with a curt nod and returned back into the cabin to begin allocating food for the meals. He would make the care package last as long as he could for there was no real certainty when another would be arriving.
Garrovick knew he should not have been angry that the Vulcans had contacted Starfleet to send a manned shuttle in to the wormhole to retrieve the cadet and the commander, but he was. It had been in direct opposition to his orders and he was captain of this starship whether the Vulcan Ambassador and the High Council liked it or not.
As such, they were currently fitting out the shuttle with survival essentials and debriefing the two officers and the doctor that would be passing through the tear. Everyone's main concern was the time difference between the planet and the Columbia. When the Commander and the Cadet were back on board, time could be adjusted and their body clocks reset, but who could tell what was happening while they were on the planet.
Lieutenant Dawson was a competent officer and individual, and he was the best person to pilot the shuttle. Despite how nervous Garrovick was about losing another good officer, but this wasn't his decision. This was Vulcan and Terran politics and he was just a puppet, a person to be told at the end of the chain when everything had been decided.
"Safe travels, Lieutenant," he said to Dawson as he boarded the shuttle. Sarek was speaking with a few more scientists and Yeomen were preparing the shuttle for launch.
"Thank you sir," he said and saluted the captain. "Be prepared to receive word."
Doctor Ling prepared her suit, organised her medical supplies and climbed aboard.
"We cannot know the state of the officers when they are retrieved. Vulcan ships should be there within the day to take over," said Garrovick. "Do your best."
"Sir," nodded Doctor Ling. '
Sarek approached Garrovick, "The shuttle is prepared for take-off. We cannot delay."
Garrovick nodded and Sarek followed him out of the shuttle bay to the command centre. He gave the word, perhaps the final word for yet another handful of good Starfleet officers, the shuttle bay latch opened and the shuttle left the dock.
"Everything is on track," an Ensign murmured as the shuttle approached the wormhole.
Garrovick held his breath. On the screen the shuttle began to shake violently, but it remained silent. And when it lurched forward, sucked in by the massive gravitational pull, Garrovick looked to Sarek, who was still watching the screen.
"We will await a response from the Vulcan ship," said Sarek. "Return to Stardock."
"Aye, sir," said the Captain. And it wasn't just Ambassador Sarek speaking, he knew, it was Starfleet and the Vulcan High Council. He knew better than to protest. The pressed to comm the bridge. When the line connected he said, "Set a course for Stardock immediately. We can do no more here."