"Ann." Kirk said patiently. "Come out from under the table, Ann.
We're safe now."
She stared at him, eyes huge in her pale face, and pulled back when he reached a little further towards her. Kirk suppressed a flash of irritation. He still had four Romulan ships out there, even if they DID seem to be helpless, he had a ship in minor disarray and the awkward half-kneeling half-crouching position he'd assumed to see under the table was beginning to hurt his back. He took a deep breath. "We won, Ann. Everything's going to be fine. You can come out now."
Behind Kirk, Regna shuffled hir tentacles. "Willing to attempt physical extraction of the Professor if required, Captain." s/he said. "Possibility of minor damage only."
"Hear that, Ann? If you don't come out I'll send a Sulamid in after you."
She blinked, eyes still fixed on his face. "Is it really over? The Romulans are gone?" she whispered.
"They're disabled." Kirk told her. "We're seeing them over the border.
I promise you, we're stable."
"For now." she said.
"It's always for now." When he took her hand, she didn't pull away.
"Come on. Let's get you to sickbay"
Ann let him help her out, and climbed to her feet unsteadily. Ensign Regna shuffled a little more, and said: "Apologies, Professor."
"What for?" she asked, and Kirk was relived to see a ghost of a smile on her face. "I didn't see YOU under that table."
"Did not think to adequately secure you." the Sulamid said. "Failed my primary responsibility under regulations."
Ann took a deep breath, and as Kirk watched approvingly, she laid one hand on one of Regna's main handling tentacles. "I panicked." she said quietly.
"Not your fault, Regna. You couldn't have expected it. It wasn't regulation Starfleet behaviour."
"That was well done," Kirk said to her as he guided her down the corridor to the turbolift. Ann looked as if the sight of cracked panels and loose circuitry wasn't doing anything for her nerves.
"Sulamids take their responsibilities very seriously."
"It was just the truth. I shouldn't have bolted under the table.
When the gravity started to fluctuate - I could feel things hitting the ship - well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. A lab table isn't much protection against a torpedo, but it felt safer."
"I'm sorry." Kirk told her. "It's not always that bad."
"Sometimes that bad if often enough for me." she said wryly. "I'll be glad to get home."
'We'll get you there as soon as we can," Kirk promised. He saw her in the door of sickbay, and then turned to go back to the bridge. Ann hesitated, watching him walk back up the corridor, and when Nurse Chapel spoke to her she started.
"I'm sorry, what did you say?"
"I said come in," Chapel repeated, but her tone was mild, and her expression understanding. She had seen the look on Ann's face as she watched James Kirk walk away: she had seen it before, in a mirror.
Captain's log, Stardate 3912.4
We are speeding back to the Ser Etta System at Warp 8, after seeing the Romulan ships back over the border into the Neutral Zone. We have, as yet, had no message from the communications relay buoy we left in orbit before departing, and we are all hoping that this indicates the continuation of the storms. If, when we return, the storms have abated, then something else has prevented the landing party from communicating with the Enterprise.
Injury, illness ... death...
"Lieutenant Larssen. Lieutenant Larssen. Lieutenant Larssen."
Go AWAY! she thought wearily. Why wouldn't he let her rest here in the snow, where it was so warm and comfortable? Surely she had done enough now to make up for her errors? Couldn't she be allowed to sleep for even five goddamn minutes...!
"Lieutenant Larssen, respond. I require your presence within the base. Lieutenant Larssen, respond."
"Yes." she snapped tightly, getting to her hands and knees. She was somewhere between the relay post and the wall, with no idea what direction to go in.
Larssen realised suddenly that she had heard Spock clearly although she was out of the effective range of the hard relay. It was even more unforgivable that he would disturb her if he had, after all,
gotten the system working. She dropped the tool kit as a marker and crawled forward cautiously, hoping to see the wall. When she didn't,
she backed up, turned in a different direction, tried again.
"Lieutenant Larssen, respond."
"I'm coming, damn you!"
There was the wall. Leaning heavily against it, Larssen got to her feet and stumbled onwards. Commander Spock's dry, insistent tones nagged at her. She was needed in the base, she was needed in the base... the doors were in front of her. She crawled over the threshold, pulled her legs up to allow them to close behind her, and waited to be told what to do. Oddly, it seemed to be snowing inside now, the floor of the corridor as warm and comfortable as the snow had been... With the portion of his attention that was concerned with Lieutenant
Larssen, Spock noted the opening and closing door and the presence of an additional life form in the base. He dismissed her from his mind.
She had been silent for an unusually long period of time, even after he had brought the additional power on line, and he had begun to consider taking the time from his work to go out and retrieve her.
Fortunately, for time was very short now, that had not been necessary.
The message that she was required had been enough to rouse her, and it was not, in fact, a lie: he required her not to freeze to death.
Spock keyed another sequence, and regarded the blinking error light impassively.
That was the frequency modulation unit...
Larssen felt herself lifted off the warm floor with a grip like a mechanical cargo handler, and tried to find the words to protest. She was stumbling along the corridor, being dragged along, and she could not seem to manage to get her feet under her and form words at the same time. Commander Spock was speaking to her, and his voice seemed to be coming from off to her left and to be directly in her ear at the same time. She could not understand what he was saying, tried to tell him so, and was dumped into a chair.
Only the grip on her arm kept her from falling out of it again.
Everything came clear for a second then, Spock bending over her,
implacable.
"Lieutenant, I must set the frequency manually. Do you understand?
This requires that you inform me when the modulation indicators match.
Can you hear me?"
Larssen nodded, her eyes only half open. Spock pulled her around to face the console. "Sit here." he instructed her. "When the numbers on this screen match the numbers of this one, tell me. Can you do that?"
"... don't ... know." she said honestly. Spock sensed only a confused feeling of - warm snow - and he shook her slightly.
"One more thing." he told her, and Larssen had the hallucinatory impression his voice was gentler than it had been. "Then the message will be sent. Lieutenant?"
" ... yes ... sir..." Larssen could see the screens through the falling snow.
Match the numbers. Stay awake and match the numbers. Only one more thing she needed to do before she could rest. "... go on..."
Not without a sense of misgiving, Spock left her sitting at the console, and moved as quickly as he could to the access tube.
Slinging his tool kit over his shoulder, he began to climb. Although he was in better shape than the Lieutenant, he was in some physical discomfort from the effects of the trek, but this was of no consequence. He located the relevant access panel, removed it, and bent to his task.
Larssen kept her eyes on the screens. Numbers were streaming past,
and it was hard to keep them straight, hard to look from one screen to the other when her attention wanted to wander and she wanted to close her eyes and sleep, but she managed it. The right hand screen number dropped rapidly, stopped, climbed again. She leaned closer, her vision blurring, blinked hard. Right hand numbers rising, 104329,
104330, 104331... 104335. Stopped. She looked at the left screen.
104335. The same. She felt a sense of triumph.
"...Match, sir." she whispered. In the access tube, Spock did not permit his hands to shake.
"Keys Alpha Smith Delta to transmit," he told her.
Larssen wanted to protest. One more thing, he had told her, not two.
One more thing. She dragged her right arm up, and punched the keys with the end of the gravitronic driver she had taped to her mangled hand. Alpha. Smith. Delta.
Commander Spock was speaking to her again.
No, he was not speaking to her. "This is Commander Spock of the USS Enterprise with urgent information for the Federation Council." he was saying. "This message has priority one. All ships, immediate relay.
Message starts..."
Done. Larssen thought with immense satisfaction. She let her hand fall away from the keyboard and listened as Spock's voice went out into the void, carrying the information so desperately needed. Done.
The snow was thicker now, she could hardly see the room around her,
and it was strange that it would be snowing inside but it had been snowing so long it was not very surprising. She could not see the screens now, only the warm snow.
Bob. she thought. I'm coming.