"T'Rallah, please!" Dani shook her desperately "Is she…?" her dark eyes bore desperately into McCoy's.
He ran his tricorder over the older girl "very faint heartbeat. Low blood pressure, even for a Vulcan but most definitely alive, kid. Tough, both of you."
Dani brushed the long black hair away to see T'Rallah's normally calm face contorted and was shocked at the traces of tears. She imagined her friend's time since they had parted, slowly bleeding, crawling in pain. Alone with no one to see, defying traditional Vulcan reserve and weeping. She gathered T'Rallah in her arms and buried her head in her shoulders as her own shook with a relief and a renewed longing for her home and family to be set to rights. McCoy stepped back partly to give the two space and partly to comm the other landing party and sickbay to inform them of a new arrival.
"Dani?" slurred the Vulcan girl as she stirred, brought to consciousness by her younger friend's cries.
"T'Rallah! I did it! I got help! You'll never guess who I found!"
T'Rallah's unfocussed light eyes showed she was in no fit mental state for such conjecture. "I got the Enterprise! Found them a few days after I left here. They're gonna help us find the others."
"Dani, how long has it been since you left?"
"A standard week. How long were you…"
"I have been unconscious for three standard days. I was…attempting to use this computer terminal to contact Vulcan when I fainted. I..thought of you often, zchliak. I was…hoping you were well…" T'Rallah's eyes rolled and her body seized up, to Dani's great alarm. "Doctor McCoy!"
The physician was at her side instantly, muttering profusely "Sorry kid, we got to get her back to the ship now", addressing his communicator he barked "Scotty we need a transport directly to sickbay. I got a patient here and I don't wanna be moving her that far." He suspected a dislocated shoulder from the fall out of the ceiling hatch and other injuries as well as those inflicted by the Klingon disruptors. Nasty weapons! Not that he could really approve of any means of inflicting injury on another as a person let alone a doctor, but in McCoy's opinion these were particularly cruel. And there was also the stubbornness of Vulcans with which he was very familiar to factor in to this case as well "Hey, you two, Young and Merton, go join the Captain's team, will ya?" he ordered the security officers.
Within moments the customary light, surreal feeling and visual stimuli that accompanied a 'beam-up' had come and gone, replaced by a biobed and its surroundings in sickbay. McCoy immediately yelled for Nurse Chapel as he looked around to find the place unprepared for the new patient.
"Chris, where's those blood bags I asked for?"
"Our synthesisers are not operational, Doctor. Mr. Scott's team are working on it but…"
"Dammit, I've got a patient in here that has suffered dangerous blood loss and needs immediate transfusion! A Vulcan patient!"
"I'll perform a blood typing on her to see if Mr. Spock is a match."
"And if he is, get him back up here! I'll also need osteoregeneration equipment! And you" here he turned to Dani "you'd better wait outside."
"But I…"
"Please. I promise you can come back in as soon as possible. Just, let us do our thing, yeah?"
"Spock, report" Jim called over to his XO who had spent the last twenty minutes attempting to make sense of the wrecked computer equipment. His suspicions regarding the state of the labs were proved correct. Were it not for the blackened holes exposing wires like raw wounds, he would guess that a herd of Terran rhinoceros had torn through here. Not a workstation seemed to be in order.
"From what I can deduce from these terminals, which is admittedly very little, the Klingon attackers crudely duplicated all the files. That suggests that they were here for the science team's data and had more than one specific project in mind. The advantage to us is that I may be able to extrapolate a tracing signature.". Spock's comm clicked and Jim's frown mimicked his XO's sentiment as he replied "Spock here".
"Would ya beam up to sickbay? We need your help with a medical emergency here!"
"Doctor, I was under the impression you and Dani were searching for T'Rallah."
"We found her and she's in pretty bad shape!"
Spock didn't know how he was needed but could guess and knew enough not to bicker further with McCoy. "Captain…"
"I heard. Go Spock. I'll meet with both security details and see you back on the Enterprise. Good thing we didn't need them."
"Indeed, sir" was Spock's final words before being enveloped in the transporter effect.
Dani sat at T'Rallah's bedside, waiting for her to regain consciousness. By some miracle her blood was T negative and so Spock was able to donate the blood needed for the transfusion. Typically against medical advice, he had gone immediately to the Enterprise's own labs to analyse the data he had collected. "Inform me when she wakes, Dani. Any information she could provide may be vital to our investigation." She nodded, turning back to the sleeping form as Spock gently but efficiently took his leave.
Hours later, T'Rallah struggled back to consciousness for the second time as the medication for the operation to repair her battered body wore off. "Dani, I gather we are in the Enterprise's sickbay."
"Yeah. Doctor McCoy fixed you up. With a little help from Spock. Speaking of which, I've gotta tell him you're awake. He wanted to ask you a few things. If you're up to it." She finished with concern.
"I…am unsure Dani. Please allow me a moment to orient myself."
This was a startling admission of vulnerability from the Vulcan and brought Dani back to the traces of tears she had seen earlier. "Were you crying?" she blurted, immediately regretting the question "It's just, back on the station…when we found you…" she faltered in her words.
"Yes, Dani. I was in considerable pain and became…emotionally disturbed by my concern for your whereabouts and wellbeing. As illogical as my reaction was I felt I had…failed you my friend. Your mother told us we were to stay together. Perhaps if I had disregarded my own discomfort, I may have been able to provide you with protection…"
Those words felt like a blow to Dani's gut. It spoke of T'Rallah's incredible trust and affection for Dani that she would speak of her feelings quite so candidly. The sentiments expressed, however, seemed to Dani so grossly misplaced that she felt her own eyes swim.
"Oh, T'Rallah! Don't talk like…you saved me! I would be dead if not for you so I beg you, don't...don't say those things!" she took T'Rallah's hand, feeling some telepathic emotional transfer "I felt the same. I care for you T'Rallah and I…missed you. You're like my family."
"Eh du-vah" T'Rallah leaned back, looking thoroughly spent even after a few minutes of such emotionally charged wakefulness. "Do you need to do a healing trance?" Dani asked "I'll let you rest now."
"Thankyou, Danielle" the Vulcan responded. A whole world seemed to be in that response.
A.N. Fluffy and mushy there. Sorry if T'Rallah seems OOC for a Vulcan but I created her as one freer with her thoughts and feelings than most mainstream Vulcans and she has been through an awful lot. And yes, Vulcans can do misplaced guilt like nothing on Earth! Also, Spock's blood to the rescue (again!). Let me know how it's going J
Vulcan translations: zchliak = friend and eh du-vah= and I you.
