This Side of Angeleyes
The transporter beam released the two figures into the hallway of the deserted research station. A thin layer of dust had settled. Dust found its way; even lightyears from earth on an empty station on an exoplanet, the dust settled mere weeks after the last of the researchers had left. The two Starfleet officers left the first footprints in the silver-grey sheen, as they moved a short distance further down the hallway.
The Vulcan pulled a tricorder out of his excursion jacket and started scanning their surroundings. Even when not on an exploratory mission, his science officer's instincts would not be silenced. But he soon closed the tricorder again, as the display showed no more than the readings expected from an empty building. Captain Kirk smirked at Spock's idiosyncrasies as they waited for the other two to arrive.
Before long, the beam spat out Dres Chapel and McCoy, apparently having been interrupted in the middle of a squabble concerning their method of travel.
"…know they arrived safely, so we should as well.", Dr Chapel just finished saying. She exchanged a knowing glance with the officers already present. McCoy's transporter phobia had not decreased in the slightest during the decades.
"We would have taken the shuttle if it was possible, Bones.", Jim tried placating him. "But the magnetic storm is still in its final throes, and we have to transfer the research data before it can get lost in a new wave. We can't even beam in more than pairs yet because it's still mixing up the signals."
"As long as it's not me that gets mixed up…", McCoy grumbled. And he followed Spock's indicating wave to a nearby door, shooting him a frown just for good measure, and just in case Spock had been the one to recommend him for this mission.
The main lab held the central access point to the station's computer bank, along with the biggest experiments and research equipment, all in a state of abandoned disarray. Spock pushed a ceiling beam from a row of computer access terminals to their right while his shipmates kept a safe distance. It fell with a resounding clang. The magnetic storm had forced the handful of scientists to evacuate hastily, and they had swiftly decided to be relocated to a different, more modern station for the price of losing some equipment, but at least not losing their lives or most valuable data.
"These terminals are still fully functional.", Spock declared and immediately began accessing one of them.
Silence soon fell over the working colleagues after they had all keyed in an individual access code and begun transferring the research.
McCoy was sifting through the data, inserting data stick after data stick to extract the comprehensive information, foregoing what had already been included in the station's last messages sent to Starfleet Command.
"Why did you come when you still don't like the transporter?", Christine asked from his right, immersed in the same tasks. "Surely you're not the only one qualified to transfer data. In fact, any member of the crew could do this."
"They were adamant about there being sensitive data concerned.", Kirk answered. "So, I got orders to involve as few people as possible. Spock and I are allowed to sift their data because of our seniority, and we needed two people more because we needed four access codes in total to log in for data transfer. And as they are mostly concerned with their medical research, they preferred the two senior medical officers to any other additional people." He shrugged his shoulders in a manner that seemed to make clear how little he thought of these paranoid security measures.
Spock was the first one to finish, taking his time to inspect the room.
Apart from some empty desks and discarded research, there was a dark structure that loomed in the back, taking up nearly the whole width of the room. It consisted of a glittery, rugged wall with a control panel protruding into the room from its middle. A scorched wire was sticking out of it.
Spock stepped closer, raising his tricorder to the panel, and started scanning it.
Chapel joined him, having just finished with her transfer.
"What is this, Mr Spock?"
"That is precisely what I'm trying to discern. This whole structure seems vaguely familiar." He turned to the wall and raised his tricorder to the glittery surface. "This material seems to have conducting abilities.", he said.
"Whatever it is, it's broken.", Dr Chapel announced from her position at the console, pointing towards the wire sticking out on one side. "It might have been a generator of some kind, or a means of energy collection."
"I doubt it. The interior circuits of this wall seem too complex for that.", Spock answered while stepping directly up to the dark surface projecting from the ground. "It's emitting a faint whining sound.", he said while inclining his head towards it.
Dr Chapel watched from the other side of the panel, eyeing the whole structure uneasily, but curiosity got the better of her and she walked up to the wall as well, answering Spock's questioning look from the other side of the console with a shake of her head.
"I can't hear anything." But as soon as she had said that, the noise grew louder. "Now I do!", she exclaimed.
McCoy looked up from the case he was stuffing the last of the data sticks into.
"Spock! Get away from that thing, both of you!"
But the whining noise had started to fill the room even before he had finished calling out to them, and Spock and Christine barely had time to turn away from the machine, meeting McCoy's eyes, when the whining reached its zenith and the wall lit up so brightly that the light enveloped their forms completely.
"Jim, no!" McCoy yanked the Captain back who had started towards the pair of them. "It's a mind-swap machine."
"It's what?"
But Jim remembered the moment he had asked. He remembered Janice Lester and the machine she had used to exchange bodies with him. And now he knew why this machine seemed so familiar to him as well; it looked like a newer generation of that machine from years ago.
He didn't have time to dwell too much on it. Something seemed to have gone wrong with the machine atop that. The light ceased as abruptly as it had come. Spock and Christine slumped to the ground. Jim and Leonard hurried to pull them away from the machine in case it recharged.
"He's got no pulse, Bones!", Jim exclaimed, having started chest compressions on Spock.
Leonard scooted over from Christine's side, her chest rising and falling almost peacefully. Flicking open his communicator, he grabbed Spock's arm.
"McCoy to Enterprise. Medical emergency! Two to beam up!"
Jim moved away hastily, and his two friends vanished in a curtain of sparks.
Stunned for a moment, he barely noticed the sniffling sound next to him.
"Jim…"
"There, there, Christine, take it easy. You lost consciousness."
He helped her to her feet, carefully supporting her by the shoulders. Swaying slightly, she raised her hands to her eyes, looking at them intently. Then she looked at the machine, knitting her brows inquisitively.
Turning to him, she asked: "Where are…the others?"
"Beamed up to sickbay. Spock's being reanimated right now, I guess. He…he didn't have a pulse. If you're steady enough we'll have to get you to sickbay as well.", he said, eager to check on his first officer. "What is it?"
Christine Chapel's quizzical expression and the way she had raised one brow seemed completely out of place on her.
"Jim…it's me, I'm not dead. I'm here, we both are."
"You both…" Kirk held Chapel's body away from him, looking into what was unmistakably a facial expression of Spock. Then it changed and Christine's softer features reappeared.
"We're both safe, Captain. We noticed too late what the machine was built for, and that it's proximity-activated. But I think we're alright.", she said with a smile that didn't quite cover her look of bewilderment.
Jim only nodded, still wrapping his head around this turn of events, but then he picked up the case with the data sticks and flicked open the communicator.
"Kirk to Enterprise. Beam us up."
Walking swiftly into sickbay, they were met not with the pandemonium of a medical crisis but with a frustrated, not to say irate Leonard H. McCoy.
"Please tell me you've got Spock in there, Christine!", he growled desperately, gesticulating at her head.
"We're both here.", she answered.
"I hope you were able to store my body adequately.", Spock added.
McCoy frowned only slightly at the abrupt change in demeanour, nodding towards a biobed at the end of the ward. Spock, or rather his body, had been put on complete life support, being for all intents and purposes a coma patient.
"It should work like this for a while.", McCoy explained while they walked over to the bed. "You've got a pulse again, all functions are preserved. You can move in anytime."
A twinkle of humour had returned to his eyes as he spoke.
"That might prove difficult, Doctor. We may need to use the machine for that again.", Spock said. At least McCoy thought it was Spock, judging by the movement of the eyebrows.
"And you'll get that machine if I have a say in that.", Kirk said.
He had accessed a computer terminal after entering sickbay and had rejoined them now.
"I just talked to Scotty.", he explained. "He's going down with his team to examine that machine and find out how to reverse this situation."
"Well, until then, you're both my patients, so I'll have to run some tests on you."
The Doctor waved them over to an examination table. The alarm of the biofunction monitor beeped the moment they had sat down.
"Well, that was expected.", he grumbled, switching the alarm off.
After Jim had left with the promise of stopping by later, Dr McCoy resumed his examination as well as he could, with the medical scanner's readings showing only misleading results.
"Well, all of Christine's brain-areas are a-ok. But other than that, I can't tell you anything.", he said after a while of concentrated silence.
He had conducted a neural scan and tried to analyse the brain wave activity of the two officers by a hyperencaphalogram. The brain circuitry pattern failed to match either of the two officers' medical records.
He showed them the inconclusive readings and said: "Physically speaking, you're in perfect health, but I don't know about your mental condition; I want you to wear a neurocortical monitor."
He pushed back Christine's hair and placed the small device on her parietal bone, just behind her left ear.
"Will they even work in our case?", Christine asked.
McCoy sighed, scratching his neck awkwardly. "Well, I don't know how well.", he confessed. "But there should be some readings. You've still got neural functions, haven't ya? There's gotta be some output. To be fair, I switched off the function to send an alarm to sickbay, because your neurological activity is constantly unusual right now. But at least this will record an encephalographic profile. If you're feeling alright, I guess you're good to go."
Helping them sit up a moment later, he added: "Out of curiosity: how does it feel? Isn't it a bit cramped up there for you two?"
It was Spock who answered, saying with an unmistakable tilt of the head: "While 'cramped' is not quite the term to describe it, it being too physical, it is putting a strain on the energy of this body. I expect us to tire more quickly than under normal circumstances."
"Otherwise, the feeling is not unpleasant so far. Imagine it as someone looking over your shoulder.", Christine tried to explain. "And you can switch places, but when you're the one looking over the other's shoulder, metaphorically speaking, you're only an observer and can't interact with the outside world."
McCoy seemed unconvinced that anything about the situation could be pleasant.
"Well, you seem to have worked out 'switching places' fast enough.", he scoffed. "Just stop by when you think anything's wrong, alright? Oh, and you're both on medical leave, if you were wondering, so don't try anything funny!"
Hope you liked it so far. How do you think it's looking in Christine's head by now? Well, you'll find out soon!