14. Motion Sickness

Summary: The shuttle broke.

Warning: May contain mild profanity.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek or its characters. This is purely for personal enjoyment, not profit.

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It was all Jim's fault. Once again, McCoy had protested that he didn't want to go on an away mission, yet once again, he found himself stuck inside a tin can with that damn green blooded hobgoblin and an Lieutenant from engineering who the Doctor doubted could find the right end of a hyper-spanner, even if it bit him in the ass. So yes, it was Jim's fault; the one person on the enterprise from whom he could not refuse an order.

For once, the mission itself had gone surprisingly well. Maybe it was because Jim hadn't come with them. They had arrived on schedule, traded for all the the supplies they had come for at some very good deals. When they had left, even after stopping to take in the local culture, they had been well ahead of schedule for their rendezvous with the Enterprise.

Now they were most definitely going to be late.

It was too late by the time the storm had appeared on the shuttles long range scanners; too late to return to the planet and too late for them to outrun the storm. The storm was too fast and man, that thing was massive.

The plasma storm had damaged the shuttles inertial dampeners almost immediately; those things that stopped the rapid acceleration of jumping to warp, from smashing the crew into the walls, killing them all instantly. Without being able to go to warp, they could only limp along and hope that, when they missed their check in, the Enterprise would come looking for them.

'At current speed, it will take us four hours and 31 seconds to clear the storm.' Spock had told them. 'Unless we manage to reactivate the Inertial Dampeners, it will take us a further 143 hours and 13 minutes to reach our scheduled meeting point at full impulse.'

McCoy would have preferred to have not known that little fact. Damned Vulcan logic.

He was stuck in a tin can being tossed around, by the storm, like a leaf. All this shaking was making him Space Sick. The Inaprovaline he'd injected himself with from his medkit hadn't had any effect. He was still sick to his stomach and dizzy. He would have laid down, except there wasn't space; he would have just been in the way.

The storm buffeted the ship relentlessly. How such a tiny craft could be shaken so much and not shatter to pieces was beyond the Doctor. If they made it through this alive, he was never going to take inertial dampeners for granted again.

Lieutenant Simmons was muttering to himself and frantically tapping away at the console in attempt to keep the craft on course while Spock attempted to repair the inertial dampeners. Neither of them was doing a particularly good job of it, in McCoy's opinion, but he wasn't going to say that out loud. It was a better job than he could ever do. Give him an injured person any day.

Ensign Majii appeared to be just as out of place as McCoy. She was a linguist, praised by Lieutenant Uhura herself, not an engineer or pilot. With nothing but storm induced static on the communications array and their distress signal transmitting automatically, all the pair of them could contribute was to keep as out of the way as possible, while Spock and Simmons fought to keep them in one piece.

McCoy's stomach squirmed with displeasure at being tossed around. He stole a glance at his watch; only an hour had passed. They still had, as their first officer would say, 3 hours and 29 minutes before they cleared the storm.

'Sir, You don't look so good.' Ensign Majii said. 'You Okay?' McCoy didn't trust his ability not to throw up enough to respond.

Just pick a star on the horizon and focus on it. It was simple enough, except there were no stars outside the window. All McCoy could see was that God-damned storm. Under normal circumstances, he might have considered the swirling gases in hues of golds, pinks, purples and blues to be quite mesmerising. Right now, it was just making him even more nauseous. Everything out the window was moving; Dammit, why couldn't just one thing stay still?

McCoy swallowed thickly against the bile rising in his throat. He hadn't thrown up in a shuttle since his academy days and refused to let this storm ruin his streak; Jim would never let him hear the end of it if he did.

He groaned and closed his eyes, seeking stillness and hoping that would help. If anything, it just made things worse. He could still feel every lurch and roll.

Ah, hell.

The next lurch gave his Lunch momentum and sent McCoy hastily reaching for the shuttles tiny bathroom. The door banged back open behind him and he barely made it over the receptacle before he threw up. It was safe to say that there was something that tasted worse than Starfleet rations and that, ladies and gentlemen, was said rations making a reappearance.

McCoy heaved, and heaved. Each time the heaving subsided, it wouldn't be long before the ship lurched again, setting his stomach into revolt once more. It didn't matter that there was nothing left to bring up, or that his stomach cried in agony from exertion.

McCoy hated shuttles. They were just as bad as the damn transporter.

Solar flare, Andorian shingles, tiny crack in the hull. Disease and danger, wrapped up in darkness and silence. He'd told Jim that years ago, while sitting in a tin can that had seen less better days than this one. 13 seconds. That was how long it would take their blood to boil when exposed to the hard vacuum of space.

Sometimes being a doctor was more of a curse than a blessing; he could currently think of 53 different ways that he could die inside this piece of scrap with wings. It had been a miracle that he'd passed basic flight in his first year. It was a compulsory course that every Starfleet member had to pass that taught them to fly a shuttle in case of an emergency. McCoy had tried everything he could think of to get out of it. He'd been unsuccessful.

The only reason that he'd passed was because of Jim. Damn kid had deliberately eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, despite it containing at least three things on his deadly allergic list. McCoy had been so focused on getting the damn shuttle on the ground so he could treat the idiot, he hadn't really given anything else much thought.

Eventually, while his stomach was still far from calm, the gagging stopped. McCoy hung his head over the bowl, lacking the energy to move away or even flush.

Carrots, McCoy thought distantly, Why's there always carrots in it? He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten carrots.

'Here.' He hadn't noticed Ensign Majii come up behind him. He accepted the canteen held out to him, swished a bit round his mouth, then spat before, for lack of a better word, collapsing against the bulkhead behind him. He closed his eyes again, focusing on just taking steady breaths and maybe just a small part of him was hoping that he could fall asleep there.

'Come on sir.' Majii said softly, gently pulling him upright by his elbow. 'You can't sleep there, you'll get cramp.'

McCoy let her guide him over to one of the rear benches she'd cleared so he could lie down. It was a squeeze but if he bent his legs, it was better than the cramped bathroom. Anything horizontal was good. Somehow the motion of the shuttle wasn't so bad any more.

'You should be a nurse.' McCoy murmured, flopping a hand up behind his head. She'd be a good one, better than half the incompetent idiot sent in the last transfer. There'd been a doctor in there too, a Doctor Wilby. Incompetent pompous ass. Less than a week and several incidents later, the guy had been sent packing. Sadly, the same could not be said for the nurses.

Ensign Majii laughed then jumped, her hear going to her earpiece. 'Enterprise, we hear you...'

McCoy sighed in relief at the promise of stable ground in the near future. The Cavalry was here. About time, Dammit.