"Do you have an antidote?" Scotty asked quickly, clearly worried about his friend. McCoy shook his head sadly, "No I don't. When I agreed to come down here, I wasn't expecting to be dealing with this sort of thing. The best thing for Keenser is to be back aboard the Enterprise." Scotty knew that the Doctor was right, but they were still stranded on the planet until the snow storm died away. Keenser squirmed around, his skin was hot to touch. "He's running a fever, a high one." McCoy said as he placed the back of his hand on the Engineers forehead, "Can you help get it down?" Scotty asked. "Yes I can give him a… God dam it!" McCoy yelled as he looked around frantically, "What's wrong?" The Scotsman asked. "I left my medical bag on the desk, out there." As he spoke he pointed towards the door. "It's got all of my medical equipment in, I can't do anything without it. I'll have to go get it." McCoy slowly stood up, only for Scotty to grab him firmly around the wrist.
"Are you insane?! That thing will kill you if it finds you!" Scotty cried, McCoy managed to release his wrist from the Scotsman's grip. "That's a chance I'm willing to take." He replied as he took out his phaser once again, changing its setting. Scotty was about to argue with him, but McCoy cut him off. "Scotty, I need what's in that bag to keep Keenser alive until we can get him back to the ship." Scotty's face turned even more white, if that was even possible. "He… He could die?" McCoy turned and placed a hand on his friends shoulder, "I won't let that happen Scotty, I know how close you are to the little guy." McCoy could clearly see tears slowly forming in Scotty's eyes, but the Scotsman just blinked them away. "I'll be back shortly, if things get really bad I'll come right back." McCoy slowly walked over to the door, but turned back when he heard Scotty call his name. "Leonard." "Yes Scotty?" "Be careful." He nodded before stepping out of the room.
McCoy was walking slowly, trying not to make any noise so he didn't draw too much attention to himself. He just wanted to get his medical bag and get back to the others, without having to deal with an oversized arachnid. With his finger gently resting on the trigger of his phaser, McCoy was ready to shoot anything that moved. "I never thought I would be sneaking around a Federation outpost." He muttered to himself as he peered around the corner to check if the coast was clear before stepping out. His destination seemed much farther away than he had originally believed, perhaps it was because he ran to the room from it instead of sneaking, it wasn't as if he couldn't run, it was that he chose not too, since McCoy didn't want to risk being noticed. McCoy just wanted to get back so he could help Keenser, even if he couldn't completely rid him of the venom, he could help him feel more comfortable.
McCoy turned a corner and immediately beamed at what he saw, it was his bag sitting on the desk just where he had left it. Still wishing he had brought it with him in the first place, McCoy slowly began to walk towards it. "So far so good." McCoy whispered as he continued to walk (more like tip toe) over to the desk, he constantly was looking around just to make sure nothing was trying to sneak up on him. After what seemed like several minutes, he finally reached the desk. McCoy sighed in relief that he had made it, "Well, that was way easier than I thought." He said quietly as he reached for the bag, only for him to hear a loud hissing noise coming from above him and several drops of some sort of liquid plopped down onto the desk, burning through the metal. McCoy froze and his mood quickly changed, he knew what that this meant. "Me and my big dam mouth!"
Thinking quickly on his feet, McCoy grabbed hold of the bag and dived to the side not even bothering to look up. As he scrambled to get up, he saw that the desk was now in pieces and stood on top of the rubble was the tarantula, looking even more menacing, if that was even possible. McCoy just fired at it since he didn't really have another option, he had no intention of trying to kill it since he knew that was an impossible task to do alone, he just wanted to disoriented for long enough so he could slip away, unseen. But of course, it wasn't going to be as simple as that. The arachnid seemed to have become completely unaffected by phasers, which wasn't a good thing since that was all McCoy had to defend himself with. It wasn't as if he could just sedate the thing, it would take too big of a dose and it would take a while to take effect. "Seriously!" McCoy cried inside his head, there was only one thing for him to do. Run like hell. McCoy didn't waste any time, he took off running occasionally firing his phaser backwards, despite knowing it was basically useless at this point but that didn't stop him from trying.
At one point when he looked back he saw that the spider was no longer chasing him, but McCoy didn't know where it had gone so there was no chance of him resting. When he turned back around, he was greeted by a long, scrawny leg which slapped him across the chest, sending him flying across the room, he dropped his bag before slamming hard into the ground on his shoulder. McCoy glanced up to see the arachnid had been the one to attack him, "Bloody hell that hurt! What does that thing have for legs, swords?!" He muttered as he struggled to his feet, almost instantly he could tell that he had dislocated his shoulder, the pain that was searing through it was a clear indication of that. There was also a large slash across his chest, it didn't look too deep at first glance but he couldn't be too sure. McCoy pushed past the pain and just took off running, grabbing his bag as he went. He didn't want to give the spider another chance to attack him, once was enough in his eyes.
Back in the room Scotty hadn't moved from Keenser's side, he hadn't even taken his eyes off him for even a second. He was cursing Star Fleet in his head, blaming them for what had happened to Keenser but he was also blaming himself. He should have just told Kirk and the others about the tarantula from the start, no, he should have just told Star Fleet all those years ago, maybe then they wouldn't be in this situation. "You're gonna be alright lad." Scotty said softly as he gently patted Keenser's arm, but deep down he didn't know how true his own statement was. Keenser was very unique in the fact that he was the only one of his kind in Star Fleet and not much was known about his biology, so it was always difficult to treat him whenever he got ill, which was rare thankfully. Despite this Scotty had faith in McCoy, he knew that the Doctor would find a way to help Keenser. "I hope Doctor McCoy is alright. He's been gone for a while." Delta said suddenly, Scotty glanced over to the robot who was sat the other side of Keenser. "I'm sure he's fine lad, he's probably trying to stay out of sight." He replied, but it seemed like something else was bothering him.
"What's wrong lad?" Delta looked down at the ground and sniffled. "I miss Lexie, I'm scared that I won't see her again." He whimpered, Delta then felt himself being picked up gently by Scotty then getting gently squeezed. "I miss her too lad, so much. But you can't lose hope, OK?" The Scotsman said reassuringly, Delta couldn't help but feel better. "OK Scotty and thank you." Scotty then gently placed the robot down in his lap, "You're welcome lad, now try and get some rest. I'll wake you when McCoy comes back." Delta nodded as he slowly closed his eyes. Scotty should have known that the lad was missing Lexie, she was his creator after all and not to mention his best friend, so it was only natural. Just then there was a thunderous bang on the door, which was so loud it woke Delta up. "What was that?" He asked nervously, Scotty tenderly removed Delta from his lap and got to his feet. "I don't know lad." Scotty was just about to draw his phaser when a familiar voice bellowed from outside. "Scotty! Open the dam door!" The CEO quickly hurried over and opened the door, to reveal a slight worse for wear McCoy standing outside. The Doctor ran in and Scotty closed the door, then turned to see McCoy slowly sitting down. "Bloody hell!" That's all Scotty was thinking.
Delta had hurried over to McCoy, closely followed by Scotty. "What happened?" He asked while McCoy rummaged around in his medical bag, "I'll give you one guess." As he spoke he pulled out a hypo from the bag, along with a small capsule. McCoy held them out to Scotty who just stared blankly at him, "You'll have to give Keenser this, it will help with his fever." "What? I'm an Engineer McCoy, not a bloody Doctor. What if I do it wrong?" Clearly Scotty was against the idea, McCoy smiled softly. "I'll talk you through how to do it Scotty, don't worry, it's not that hard." Scotty thought for a moment before he took the hypo from the Doctor's hand, McCoy instructed him on how to insert the capsule. Once he had done that Scotty shifted over to Keenser, "OK, so what do I do next?" "Press it hard against Keenser's neck and then press the button under your thumb, that will release the contents of the capsule." Scotty nodded nervously as he did as the Doctor instructed, he pressed the hypo on his friends neck and then pressed the button. He watched anxiously, hoping to see it working, "It takes a little while to take effect Scotty, don't worry yourself, you did everything right." McCoy stated. Scotty patted Keenser on the shoulder before returning to McCoy, who was yet again rummaging around in his bag.
"Here, let me." Scotty placed his hand into the bag and asked what the Doctor had been looking for. "A small capsule, like the one you gave to Keenser." Scotty instantly looked up and just stared at McCoy, with a panicked look on his face. "Wait, did you get…" "God no! I would have told you the second I got in if I had gotten poisoned Scotty, the capsule I was looking for contains painkillers, which I'm in real need of right now." The panicked look on the Scotsman's face faded slightly, but it didn't go away completely. Scotty soon found the capsule that McCoy had been looking for, he inserted it into the hypo and jabbed his friend in the arm. "Thanks, now I need you to help me put my shoulder back into its socket." Scotty didn't bother questioning him, instead he followed McCoy's instructions and soon his shoulder was back in its rightful place. Scotty was just putting it into a sling for him when he believed it was a good time to ask what happened again, hopefully this time McCoy wouldn't give him a sarcastic answer. "Got attacked by that bloody spider, it wacked me across the room. I landed with such force that I dislocated my shoulder." "And that cut across your chest?" "That bloody thing has swords for legs." Scotty smiled as he reached in the bag once more and pulled out a wrap of bandages. "Here let me wrap that up for you."