Co-authored with the effervescent SailingAwaySoftly.
Disclaimer: Don't own it, but we're working on that.
-_-_-_
Through the control center's panels, Spock ran some more scans of the planet's surface. There were a few thousand Klingon inhabitants, most dwelling in a relatively close proximity to the command center. From the records he found in the computer, most were men, but there were some females and children as well.
"Unless more female Klingons are brought here, the population will not survive long," he stated to Kirk. "The males will slowly destroy each other fighting over mates."
"Why are they here though? If the Klingon Empire wanted to colonize, they would've thought of that," Jim replied.
"Perhaps they are outcasts, exiles from their clans," Spock suggested. "That would account for their population as well as the pirates."
"At any rate, we're going to have to talk with them, find out why they're here."
"For now, we must keep the command center secure until the Enterprise returns. We should convene with the others."
Kirk nodded and pulled out his communicator. "Kirk to Knight."
"Knight here."
"Isla, what's your status."
"We've found Captain Dale and Lieutenant Barrow, sir. Ben's fine, but Lucy… Captain, she's dead."
-_-_-_
Isla eventually coaxed Ben into loosening his death grip on Lucy's body, but he still held her head in his lap while she examined him. He had a few minor cuts and bruises, but nothing more serious. Isla patched him up with her dermis kit and gave him a very mild sedative, telling him it was a painkiller. She knew he was mentally shaken, and there was no telling what he would do.
"Kirk to Knight," her communicator chirped.
"Knight here."
"Isla, what's your status?"
"We've found Captain Dale and Lieutenant Barrow, sir. Ben's fine, but Lucy… Captain, she's dead."
Kirk swore. "Well, you'd better come up to the control center. Troy's stable, I think, but he needs some attention."
"Aye, sir."
Arlo carefully picked up Lucy's body. She was small and light. Isla helped Ben to his feet. He was heavy from the sedative.
Then several things suddenly happened at once. Something rammed into Isla from behind, knocking Ben away from her and forcing her to the ground. There was frantic scrambling around her, and she was aware of something clawing at her. She yelped as her side was ripped into, and she struggled to get away from the huge bulk. She heard the sound of Arlo's phaser firing, and then everything was still.
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!" she shouted.
"It was a Klingon! He just came out of nowhere!"
"He was growling and kicking like a wild animal." Isla examined the body on the dead Klingon. She wasn't an expert on Klingon physiology, but he didn't look right. His skin color was all wrong, and his now lifeless eyes were strangely translucent. "I think he's sick."
"You mean, like he was rabid?"
"Maybe. Could be some Klingon form of the disease."
"Are you hurt?"
Isla examined the gash in her side. It was fairly long, but it wasn't deep. "Yeah, he clawed me. I'd forgotten how strong Klingons can be. I'll be fine." She rummaged around in her medical kit for the hydrogen peroxide. She winced as she poured some on the wound. It didn't fizz much, so there must not have been much to kill. She then applied dermis stitches. By the time they dissolved in a few hours, the wound would be completely closed.
"You alright?"
"Yeah, Arlo, I'll be fine."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, it's not deep. I disinfected it."
Arlo looked doubtful, but said nothing else. He nudged the dead Klingon with his foot. "They're even uglier when they're dead."
Isla shrugged and helped Ben back to his feet. He's been silent through the sudden attack.
"Come on," she muttered as she pulled him along beside her.
-_-_-_
"Come on, Mr. Chekov!" Scotty was yelling into the comm. "I'm bustin' my arse down here!"
It was true. He was running around frantically, once again trying to push the ship past her limits, all the while shouting commands to the bridge through the comm in between streams of unintelligible swearing.
They were close to the line, but the Klingon ships were hard on their heels, and at the capacity Scotty was pushing the Enterprise, they had no energy to spare for defense. They didn't even have time to send a subspace transmission to the nearest Star Fleet outpost. Scotty could only hope that whoever had received their distress signal would deem it necessary to pull together a defensible welcome committee.
To his extreme relief, they had. As Chekov was excitedly informing him, there were five amply-weaponized Federation starships lying in wait. The Klingons were already starting to fall back. They had no chance, and Scotty breathed a sigh of relief that it really was over.
-_-_-_
Bee sat up suddenly on the med she was occupying in the sick bay. McCoy looked up from a data pad.
"We've slowed down," he said.
"No, we've stopped," Bee amended, being much more attuned to how the ship handled.
McCoy stood. "Why?"
"I would assume," Bee said slowly, "it's because we've left the neutral zone."
The shipped suddenly rocked, but the tremors were fairly slight.
"They're firing on us!"
"No, not us. We're in close proximity to another ship's line of fire. Someone else is attacking them."
Bones eyed her doubtfully. Clearly, the pregnancy and stress of leaving behind Spock were driving her insane.
"I'm not crazy, you know," she said. "You just get a feel for the ship once you've been controlling it. Ask any engineer or pilot."
"I believe you."
"You know what this means, don't you? We're out of the danger."
He merely nodded. Strangely, he did not feel relieved. Safety felt too much like cowardice when others he cared about had been left behind. He knew Bee felt that way too. He studied her for a minute.
By human standards, she was fairly ordinary. However, that did not necessarily mean she was far from interesting. There was an… intelligence about her. She wasn't unique in that. Jim had it too, as well as Spock and Chekov. It wasn't superiority at all. It was genius. Bones didn't feel inferior to his friends. Far from it. But there were moments, faint and extremely rare flickers where it seemed to overshadow them. But it was no illuminating enlightenment – it was brief, yet dark burden, and McCoy was thankful he had no share in it. He suspected that in those instances they felt that subtle yet oh-so-defining degree of separation. The slight advantage. He shuddered to think how it would feel to be reminded that you were, indeed, a cut above the rest and how lonely it must be.
He shook himself out of his reverie. He didn't like his mind going on analytical tangents like that. But he knew it was a mental attempt to understand the nature of Bee and Spock's relationship, and he came to the conclusion that he would indeed be lucky to have anything close to that.
-_-_-_
Once the Klingon vessels had been captured, Bee relieved Sulu on the bridge, hoping to make up for fleeing her post in an earlier panic attack. He was grateful to return to his bed, no hard feelings at all.
When things in Engineering had returned to a semblance of normalcy, Scotty resumed his place on the bridge as acting captain.
Pike's face appeared on the viewscreen. "Enterprise, the U.S.S. Endurance, Cook, Pellowe, Nimitz, and Omega will be accompanying you back into the neutral zone."
"Thank you, Admiral," Scotty replied. "We're going to need all the help we can get."
-_-_-_
A/N: Sorry about the wait. Life outside fan fiction has been rather un-opportunistic when it comes to spare time lately. REVIEW. Seriously, review. The DVD just came out. You should feel inspired.