"This place is hotter than a Vulcan sauna," Dr. McCoy mumbled, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve.
He was utterly exhausted and lethargic, and for what felt like the first time in days, he had a moment to collect his thoughts. Unfortunately, he didn't really know where to start. He guessed he'd lost about 150 or 160 patients since their arrival, but most of them had been too far-gone to save anyway. Still, it didn't make it any easier.
He'd been gruff with his team – and some of his patients to boot – but all in all, everyone had performed well above his expectations. He knew Battaglia was due for a promotion and he intended to see that he put in the recommendation the moment they got back to the ship. And though Nurse Riley looked like she was about twelve years old and was still wet behind the ears, she had natural talent for the nursing profession. He'd been unsure about her after their first few encounters, but she was going to do just fine. Then there was Christine…
So much for trying to keep her off his mind. For all their awkward difficulties, he had no problem admitting she was the best nurse he'd ever met. He loved that she could take charge without barking orders and could be tender with her patients without being too emotional. It was rare to find someone who possessed competence, intelligence, confidence, and an unyielding worth ethic. It was like the woman had no flaws.
Leonard laughed to himself. That definitely wasn't true. Christine Chapel could be flighty and moody and completely intransigent. He felt like he knew three different versions of her. There was the fun, carefree Christine he'd met at speed dating who could carry on a conversation about anything and eat her body weight in pizza, the frozen and emotionally conflicted Christine who occupied herself with denial and crying, and then there was Nurse Christine Chapel. She was complex, but he figured everyone was, in their own way.
He was about to go back to giving checkups when he heard a flurry of laughter behind him. It was the sort of sound that seemed to reach across all cultures, languages, and species – it was the sound of boys up to no good.
He managed to make eye contact with the youngest – a boy of about five – for a fraction of second before his golden eyes darted away in shame.
"Care to tell me what's so funny?" Leonard asked.
The boys started to scatter but Leonard noticed something red and shiny in one of their hands and knew right away what it was.
"Where did you get that?" he snapped, pointing at the transporter beacon and checking his left sleeve.
Leonard's was still safely secured to his shoulder, so his best guess was the boy had taken Christine's. He didn't even try to deny it: he stopped, turned on his heel, and held it out in his palm like an offering.
"Well?" Leonard asked. "Care to tell me where you got that?"
The boy looked down at the ground and mumbled something unintelligible. "Stealing is wrong," he growled, plucking the transporter beacon from his outstretched hand. "And these aren't toys. They're very sensitive equipment."
Before he could lay into him further, the communicator on his belt chirped. Leonard sighed and slid the beacon into his pocket. It was hard to be mad at him: Suliban didn't even have enough food or water, let alone toys for the children play with. "Go on, go play with your friends."
He flipped his communications device open and said, "McCoy here."
"Dr. Mc- the- it's getting- stand?"
He activated the transmit button and said, "You're breaking up. Please repeat."
"Dr. McCoy, do-transp-to Enterprise-by-"
He glanced around at the shiny walls of the dark cave and scowled. The engineers had said there would be a lot of signal interference due to the high concentrations of iron, lead, and gallacite in the cave rock and he was standing deep within the cave system.
He started walking back toward the entrance, waving to the nervous little girl to signal that he would be coming right back, and continued trying to make contact with the ship. "Please repeat."
"I- again, standby for transport- minutes," said Ensign M'Ress, one of the junior communications officers.
"What?" he snapped in frustration.
"Dr. McCoy, you- Nurse Chapel are on the last transport- room has a lock on your beacon," M'Ress said. "Standby."
"Are you telling me you're transporting us out of here now?" he sighed. "We have more work to do, that's unaccept-"
"Bones, there's another ion storm heading your way and sensors are detecting an increase in seismic activity," cracked the captain's voice through the communicator. "It's not safe down there."
As if on cue, the ground trembled slightly and he heard a few nervous groans and yelps from the hundreds of Suliban huddled against the walls.
"Jim, you can't expect us to just leave these people here," Bones replied, realizing just how precarious the situation was.
The cave would largely protect them from the ion storm, but it wasn't exactly an ideal location for riding out an earthquake. He was in the middle of wondering whether it would be better to die from radiation or get crushed to death when he noticed several members of the ship's security team ushering people further into the caves and reassuring them that everything would be ok.
"I know it's tough and we all want to help these people, but you and the rest of the crew are my number one priority," Jim replied. His words were no longer broken but the signal was still terrible. "We're leaving the supplies on the surface, and once it's clear, we'll send you back down. It's been 40 hours – you're all due for rest anyway."
Leonard thought of his promise to Neesia, the orphaned Suliban girl. He'd told her he would stay the night to make her feel better, and now he was being ordered to go back on his word. Before he could protest, the captain added, "The final transport will be in five minutes. Make sure Nurse Chapel gets the word and your transport beacons are active."
"Jim, please-"
"Kirk out."
Leonard slammed the communicator closed and swore under his breath. The thought of leaving Neesia alone tore at him. She reminded him so much of Joanna – the excited eyes, the soft pitch of her voice.
"Please don't leave," begged a man, reaching for his arm. "You promised you would help my mother and that was hours and hours ago. She still needs medicine."
He fought to repress gnawing guilt. He understood the captain's position, and yet… It was easy for Jim to tell the away team they had to pack up and leave – he wasn't the one who had to explain it to the desperate people they were leaving behind. Soon Leonard was inundated with more pleas and demands for help and he tried to keep his thoughts focused on ushering the last of the security team back toward the mouth of the cave for transport. When he arrived at the aid station, he realized two things in almost immediate succession – Christine wasn't there and he had her transporter beacon in his pocket.
Leonard looked at the three security officers and asked, "Hey, you seen Nurse Chapel?"
"No, not for hours," Lieutenant Rawlings replied. "Was she on one of the earlier transports back to the ship?"
"No, she was coming to the aid station about twenty minutes ago-" His words caught in his throat. Christine had been coming to the aid station, until she ducked off to help a boy find his little sister.
His communicator chimed again and he fumbled it open. "Scotty to McCoy, I hae a lock on yer five beacons-"
He shoved his thumb down on the transmit button so hard it cracked the joint. "Four: there are only four of us. Christine- Nurse Chapel is unaccounted for."
"What're ya talking aboot? Yer standin' right next ta her. I see it on scans."
The ground rumbled again, harder this time, and screams echoed from further back in the cave where nearly a thousand Suliban survivors were huddled for shelter. "Dammit, I don't have time to explain. A kid stole her transporter beacon."
"Ah, well, that's a wee bit of a problem," Scotty replied.
"Why? Just scan for human lifesigns and try to get a lock that way."
"I can barely get a lock on those beacons," the chief engineer wailed. "I cannae find any lifesigns through all that gallacite."
Leonard's mouth went dry. He barked into the communicator, "Pull everyone else up. I'm going to go find her."
"I cannae do that," Scotty insisted. "Orders are to bring everyone. I'll just beam ya aboard and we'll try to-"
"No, dammit!" he closed the communicator and rushed back down the maze of tunnels toward the makeshift orphanage. The security officers started to follow him, but they didn't seem eager to push their luck while wearing red shirts.
The moment he felt the warm, hazy sensation of the transporter, he ripped the beacon from his sleeve and tossed it, along with Christine's, to two women crouched along a low wall.
He kept running further and further into the dimly lit caves, trying to avoid tripping over people or getting bogged down in panicked questions. When he finally made his way back to the temporary orphanage, he instantly spied Neesia.
"You came back!" Neesia cried, lunging forward to hug him.
"Yeah, listen sweetheart, have you seen Christine?"
"Who?"
"The human lady who was with me. The one with the yellow hair?"
"She went to find Arjia." Two Suliban women approached, interested in Leonard's unexpected return. "She was screaming."
"Screaming? Is she ok? Where did she go?" Leonard asked.
The ground shivered once again and Neesia's eyes grew wide. "Down that way. That's a bad place. No good." She pointed a chubby finger in the direction of a crevice in the wall.
"Ok, listen, I'll be right back," he started to explain. He was interrupted by Neesia's panicked pleas to stay and the women's appeals for information.
"Look, I'll come back, just sit tight." He didn't care much at that particular moment that he was being rude to the women. It killed him to leave Neesia, but she had people to look after her. He slipped into the narrow tunnel, finding it hard to believe Christine had managed to overcome her claustrophobia to even pass through the entrance.
"Christine!" he yelled.
He strained his ears and heard nothing but the sounds of frightened children in tunnel behind him. He called for her as he wound his way through the cramped and increasingly dark tunnel. "Christine!"
The narrow space diverged and he gritted his teeth. Left or right? Fifty-fifty. "Christine! Arjia!"
He thought he heard a sound somewhere off to the right, but he couldn't be sure. He turned on the light at the end of his communicator and shined it around the passageway. "Christine! Anyone!"
"Leonard?" It was so faint he initially thought his mind was playing tricks on him, but as he squeezed through the impossibly small crack on the right, he heard it more clearly.
"Leonard?"
There was definitive panic in her tone. He stumbled, crawled, and wriggled his way through the narrow passage, "Christine, are you ok?"
"Leonard, some rocks fell and I can't find my way-"
The ground started shaking again and he heard a sharp scream pierce the stale air. Unlike the small quakes from earlier, this one continued and grew more intense. Rocks of various sizes pinged off his head and back and dust choked his lungs. He raised his arms to try and protect his head and neck and closed his eyes, thinking he was probably going to die down here.
A minute seemed to stretch into an hour. He gritted his teeth, waiting for the end to come any moment. Eventually he realized that though he was still shaking, the ground had stopped seizing. He could hear the muffled sounds of children screaming and crying behind him and took several slow breaths. He opened his eyes and blinked furiously, wondering if he'd been blinded somehow, only to realize the orphanage's overhead electric light was no longer on and his communicator gone, probably in pieces on the cave floor.
He heard soft panting up ahead that crescendoed into a high-pitched scream. His blood ran cold. "Christine! God, Christine, are you ok?"
"Leonard, please!" she shouted, her voice garbled and tinged with fear and agony.
He could barely move, but her frantic tone drove him forward. Her breathing accelerated and she burst into hysterical sobs; he had no way of knowing if she was having a panic attack or reacting to her injuries. Probably both.
He pushed ahead toward the sound of her voice, groping blindly and smashing his head and fingers several times. She continued to cry and beg for help and his frustration threatened to boil over. The crevice started to grow wider until it abruptly fed into a much wider opening and he was forced to put out his hands and inch forward in total darkness.
"Please get me out of here!" she shrieked.
"Christine, I'm here! Keep talking – I can't see anything."
"Leonard, stop!" she choked from somewhere on his left. "There's a drop off."
He froze and gingerly surveyed the ground in front of him with his foot. He shuddered and fell backward when he realized there was nothing there and he had been less than thirty centimeters away from falling off a cliff of unknown height.
"Christine, try to stay calm. Keep talking," he ordered, rolling over on his stomach.
"Get me out of here! I can't do this!" she sobbed. "Contact the ship! Please!"
He held his breath, dreading the moment when he would have to tell her that no help would be coming for the foreseeable future. He pushed himself up and crawled slowly on his hands and knees. "Tell me what's wrong, Christine. Tell me about your injuries."
"My leg. It's crushed," she gasped. "I can't see it. I don't know where my communicator went."
He crawled faster. He was worried about blood loss from a crush injury. He was worried about her. His left hand made contact with a coarse piece of cloth that he quickly identified as a standard issue medical bag. He sighed, grateful for just one tiny glimmer of luck in this unfathomable disaster. He fumbled with the equipment and soon located a tricorder. He illuminated the back screen, and though it didn't provide much light, given the current circumstances, it was practically a spotlight. Then the battery died.
"Oh come on!" he shouted, momentarily forgetting that he should be trying to remain calm for her sake.
He pushed forward, the sand and jagged stones on the ground digging into his hands and knees without mercy. He followed the reverberations of her breathy sobs. She sounded so close, how had he not run into her already? "Christine, keep talking to me. Focus on me, not on anything else."
"It hurts. It hurts and I'm afraid. I'm so afraid."
"You're braver than me," he insisted, trying to keep his voice lighthearted but failing miserably.
He suddenly made contact with her soft midsection and she shrieked. "It's just me! Oh God, Christine."
He waved his hands around in the dark, probing at the void in front of him and discovering a huge boulder with a flat face approximately where her legs should be. He ran his hands downward until he found the back of her right calf, sticky with blood but otherwise uninjured. He moved his hand over to where he guessed her left thigh was: she howled and he grimaced.
"Are you hurt anywhere else?" he asked, moving his hands over her hips and along her back and ribs to check for breaks or bleeding. She was lying facedown, which made his work more difficult.
"I can't be- I can't do- not again," she muttered, her breathing ragged.
"Yes you can," he growled, sweeping his fingers along her ribs, palpating for any fractures. "Not only can you do this, you're gonna do this. I'm not giving you a choice."
"Can you stop trying to be a hero?" she squeaked. "Call for help! Get an emergency medical transport."
"Do you really think I'd be letting you sit down here like this if that was an option?" he asked.
"Oh."
Of all the things she could have said in that moment, a simple "oh" was probably the last thing he'd expected. It was so casual, like he'd just told her he'd taken the last mint or didn't like peas.
"I don't want to die alone in the dark."
"You're not going to die," he retorted quickly. "And you're not alone."
"I'm going to die…" Her words faded into whispering sobs before starting to rise back into panic.
He swallowed hard and turned his attentions back to her left leg, determined to distract her from her anxiety. "Stay with me, dammit. Did you have any pain killers, anti-coagulants, or sedatives left in your medkit?"
"No, I was pretty much out of everything," she groaned, trying to catch her breath. "That's why I was going back to the aid station."
"Did you have any cuff tourniquets?" he asked.
"No," she groaned.
He was glad it was dark and she couldn't see his scowl. He felt like he'd gone to sleep and woken up in the Dark Ages. It was difficult to assess how much blood she'd lost and was still losing in the dark, and though her femoral artery was intact – she'd be dead by now if it weren't – she was still oozing blood from somewhere.
He started crawling back toward the medkit to search for something to make a suitable windlass for a tourniquet as he unclasped his belt buckle pulled his nylon belt through the loops. He was just going to have to improvise.
"Is Jajin ok?" she muttered.
"I don't know," he admitted, using the laser scalpel to carve away one of the medkits metal handles.
"What about Arjia?"
"I really don't know," he insisted, trying not to think about the idea of two kids lost and possibly injured or dead alongside them in the dark.
"Jajin!" she called, her voice cracking. "Arjia! Can you hear me?"
"I can look for them in a minute, but listen to me," he urged, placing a hand on her lower back. "You're about to hate me, if you don't already, but I've got to get a tourniquet on that leg before you lose any more blood."
She uttered something between a cough and a whimper and sniffed, "Just do it and then go find them."
"Give me a couple of good, deep breaths," he directed her. "You ready?"
"Leonard?"
"Yeah?"
"I could never hate you."
"Huh?"
"Just a minute ago, you said I was about to hate you."
He wasn't sure what the emotion that flickered through his gut should be called, but her words had the detrimental effect of causing him to lose sight of her as a patient and see her more as the woman he had started to fall for.
"God, I'm so sorry Christine. For everything."
"Me too, now just get it over with."
He tried to wrap the belt around her leg gently, but even the slightest jostling induced agony-riddled cries. He got the belt in place, tied the loose ends around the handle of the medkit, and prepared to tighten it. There was no sense in going slow and drawing out her pain, so he twisted as fast as he could, cinching the tourniquet down on her upper thigh amidst wailing and swearing, some of it hers, some of it his.
He had just started to tie the windlass in place when she fell silent. The only sounds were his own frantic breathing and the pounding of his heart.
"Christine?" No response.