The plan to haunt their friends commences. Do you think it'll work?
The 23rd of December dawned abruptly.
Spock woke up half an hour earlier than he was used to, disturbed by a loud thud. At least he assumed this was what had interrupted his sleep as he was not usually prone to inexplicable sleep disturbances. Resigned to the altered routine today, he got up and laid out his uniform for later, preparing for a shower.
Under his desk, Christine rubbed her throbbing forehead. She could already feel a bump forming. Having woken up abruptly from her restless slumber, she had sat up rather too fast without taking into account where she was and had hit her head against the underside of Spock's desk.
Turning around, she saw that Saavik was still sitting against the wall, eyeing her mildly curious.
"Couldn't sleep?"
"I did not attempt to."
"Of course, you didn't." Christine shook her head but didn't have the energy to admonish her. And then she noticed Spock vanishing into the bathroom. "Oh no." She sighed, having had an idea a moment too late.
"What is it?" Saavik asked, thinking that disappointment was a rather disproportionate reaction.
"I could have left a message in the condensation on the mirror or the shower."
"Hm, indeed." Saavik raised an eyebrow. "But it is perhaps inadvisable to follow him into the bathroom when he is planning to shower."
"I don't think this is the time to be considerate of his privacy," Christine answered, carefully crawling out from under the desk.
Saavik blushed as she followed. "That is not what I meant," she said. "But we have to keep in mind that we are vulnerable to organic matter just as organic matter is vulnerable to us." She paused for emphasis. "Water is very much organic."
"Why, yes," Christine mumbled, "how stupid of me."
"This is not the time for self-recriminations, Doctor."
Christine smiled surprised. "Why thank you, that's kind of you, Saavik."
"I was merely stating facts," the young Vulcan said, without missing a beat. "For us to escape our unfortunate situation, we have to keep alert. Any emotional distractions will only hamper our mission."
Christine Chapel opened her mouth and closed it again. She shot Saavik an exasperated look, answered by an innocent raise of an eyebrow.
When Spock had finished his shower, he emerged from the bathroom to get dressed, prompting Lieutenant Saavik and Christine Chapel to quickly turn around to not invade his privacy even more than needed. When the Vulcan had finished getting ready for the day, he left his cabin, the two lost Starfleet officers following in his wake.
Once on the bridge, Christine and Saavik started a series of attempts at attracting their comrades' attention, disturbing their routine station by station.
Saavik started by leaning over the navigation console and laying in a different course, carefully avoiding the hands of Pavel Chekov lying on the controls.
The navigator didn't seem to notice at first. Kirk, however, did, after a few minutes.
"What's that course you've laid in, Mr Chekov?" he asked tersely as he passed the navigation console after having talked to Spock on the side of the bridge.
"I...I don't know, sir. I haven't laid it in."
Kirk frowned. "Are you sure? Do we have a malfunction?"
"Uh...Negative, Captain."
"Alright, Pavel, carry on and keep an eye on your console, please." Jim Kirk exchanged a quizzical look with his first officer.
"Yes, sir," Chekov murmured, sounding quite embarrassed.
Lieutenant Saavik left her position next to the viewscreen where she had waited with Doctor Chapel and started another attempt. She moved over to Sulu's console, pushed some buttons, and stepped back as the helmsman's eyes shot to his display, shocked as the ship suddenly decelerated and breaking thrusters fired.
"Captain!" he exclaimed, half turning in his seat.
The intercom beeped simultaneously.
"Engineering to bridge!" Scott's voice rang out of the speaker. "We're slowing down to a halt. What's the issue up there?"
"The issue, Mr Scott, is that I never gave such an order!" Kirk leant forward on his seat. "Mr Sulu, what's going on?"
The helmsman shook his head. "I don't know, sir, she just slowed down suddenly."
"We didn't do anything, Scotty," Kirk said. "Must be a spontaneous engine failure. Maybe there's some damage from the ion storm."
The engineer disagreed. "That's not possible!"
"Explain, Scotty."
Scott faltered but persisted. "Captain! I know this engine as well as the old one. She'd never do that."
At his science station, Spock raised an eyebrow at that irrational explanation.
Jim Kirk sighed. "Run a quick diagnostic, Scotty," he said.
"It cannae be. Not because of the wee storm. The Enterprise wouldnae do that. It just doesn't happen." He paused before sighing, "Aye, Captain."
"I didn't know this ship was already as dear to him as the old girl," Jim said, turning to Spock.
The Vulcan tilted his head. "I suppose he is feeling rather protective, as he fixed most of its manufacturing errors himself."
"Scott to Captain," the voice from the intercom said.
"Yes, Scotty. What's the result of the diagnostic?"
"Everything in perfect condition, Captain. There must be another explanation."
"Understood, Scotty. Keep me informed. Kirk out."
He huffed a sigh of displeasure as he gave Commander Sulu the order to resume course with decreased speed.
In their line of sight but unnoticed, Saavik stifled a sigh.
Christine waited next to the young Vulcan until the excitement on the bridge had died down somewhat and walked towards the captain's chair.
"What are you doing?" Saavik asked.
Christine smirked. "I'm going to make some noise. If manipulating the engines didn't raise some alarm bells, maybe this will."
She touched the control panel on the armrest of the command chair, activating condition red.
In a second, chaos broke loose. The alarm sounded, the lights dimmed, the computer terminals flashed with the alert graphic, and the computer announced, "Red alert. Red alert."
"Sir, weapons systems and shields powering up!" Chekov called, staring disbelievingly at his control displays. "But...there's nothing out there."
The navigator turned his head and Kirk saw he had as little an idea of what had caused this as he did.
"All decks report normal!" Commander Uhura exclaimed, shaking her head in a gesture of bewilderment.
"All engines stop!" Kirk ordered. "And kill the alarm."
The alarm stopped, changing from a deafening blaring to a deafening silence as the ship slowed to a halt. The lights brightened again.
Jim Kirk sighed. "Run a level two diagnostic on all affected and correlated systems," he ordered, then turned towards his first officer. "Mr Spock, any idea what just happened?"
Before Spock could answer, the doctor's irate voice broke out of the intercom.
"What the devil is going on up there?" McCoy roared. "First, we stop, then we go again, then the alert, and now we've stopped again! If this is what space travel has come to, we'd be better off in a one-horse open sleigh."
Spock raised an eyebrow and seemed on the verge of retorting something.
Jim beat him to it and said, "I don't know, Bones. We're trying to find out."
The invisible witnesses to this chaos looked on, helpless, as even these dramatic attempts failed to steer their friends' thoughts in the right direction. And who could blame them? How often do we think, when something appearing to be a technical issue disturbs us, that it must be some deceased friends trying to tell us they are alive?
Saavik and Christine continued their efforts.
To James Kirk's irritation, bridge officers seemed to acquire a strange habit of clumsiness, dropping objects and stumbling against their chairs as if someone else had moved them in their way.
Nyota Uhura suddenly dropped her earpiece to the ground, having just put it into position. Pavel Chekov tripped over his chair as he returned from talking to Spock at his station. The science officer himself seemed unaffected by whatever had put a spell on the others, but Jim Kirk almost feared that this was only due to the fact that he was safely seated in his chair and held no objects that he could have dropped.
And what it was that was affecting his friends, Jim felt certain he knew. A slight drop in people's concentration after losing one of their own was always to be expected. Until now, the crew's general efficiency was undisturbed and he decided to let these occurrences slide, shrugging them off as the effect of a sudden loss and the stress of the current situation.
The two losses, Doctor Christine Chapel and Lieutenant Saavik, who were the causes of these occurrences, did not see any indication yet that their friends might become sensitive to their presence. One time, though, they almost believed they had succeeded.
Spock had been talking to Commander Uhura when she, seemingly out of nowhere, factually out of Christine's interference, had dropped the data PADD she had been holding. Well-meaning, in his usual polite manner, Spock had instructed her to get a grip on both herself and her equipment. Those were not his exact words, of course, but to Uhura, he might as well have used them.
"I am sorry, sir, I did not mean to drop anything. But you have to consider that I am mourning a friend," she said indignantly. "I am fully capable of fulfilling my duties, but at the same time, I cannot forget Christine and what happened to her."
Spock sighed. "I know, please do not think me insensitive," he said softly. "She will not be forgotten."
For just a split second, Christine smiled at Saavik, thinking that he might have put some of the sparse clues together. But it immediately became clear that he had merely been trying to comfort Nyota.
Not to be discouraged, Saavik stepped up to the communicator's console and quickly accessed the ship's library. She selected a random entry out of the list of frequently played sound files and tied it into the intercom system. Seconds later, the crew were further confounded by Bing Cosby's 'I'll Be Home for Christmas' streaming from the speakers on the bridge and elsewhere on the ship.
"What's happening now?" Jim Kirk asked, slightly annoyed.
Uhura shook her head. "I don't know, sir, it just started playing."
"Well, shut it off," Kirk commanded, "and run a diagnostic on the communications system and the library computer."
"Couldn't we also talk through the intercom?" Christine asked Saavik as the song and the ensuing confusion had died down again, and it was clear this attempt had failed as well.
"We could use the intercom," Saavik said, "but no one would hear our voices."
Christine Chapel nodded. "Because of the temporal flux," she murmured, slightly embarrassed that it hadn't occurred to her before she asked the question. She was decades older than Saavik and technically her superior officer. What should the young Vulcan think of her if she went on asking questions like a cadet?
The young Vulcan in question regarded her with a raise of an eyebrow that Christine, inferring what it would have meant from Spock, understood as a gesture of good-humoured amusement. For a second, she wondered if Saavik, being a telepath, had been witness to her inner monologue. But Vulcans generally used physical touch for telepathic communication and would not listen in to someone's private thoughts without invitation.
Some time passed, filled with similarly futile attempts and they saw that they would not have much success on the bridge. Eventually, they decided to leave with Spock at the end of the shift at the latest, even earlier if possible before they got into an accident should the bridge become more crowded come shift change.
It turned out that it was already crowded enough to get into an accident. The Captain had been drinking coffee and Christine had been standing foolishly close to his chair.
Jim Kirk put down the coffee on his armrest and spun around towards Spock, oblivious to another presence close by. His cup of coffee fell over, hitting the deck with a metallic clang and spilling the content over the floor.
"Are you alright, Jim?" Spock asked, raising an eyebrow in a manner that the Captain would be tempted to understand as being amused if he didn't know it was mild concern.
"Yes, yes, I'm alright," he grumbled flustered. "The stress of the accident and these continuous malfunctions must be getting to me as well."
Meters away, Christine cradled her hand to her chest, accompanied by another Vulcan's eyebrow-raise of mild concern. She had not been fast enough in stepping out of the way when the Captain had turned, and her wrist had collided with the cup of steaming coffee. The hot liquid had spilt over her hand and part of her leg, inflicting painful burns. Horrified, she remembered that they were vulnerable to contact with organic matter. And the coffee, very much organic, had seeped through flesh as if it were a sieve.
"You need to have medical attention," Saavik said and pulled on her other arm.
Another crewmember had just entered the turbolift and the two quickly slipped in behind them. To their relief, they exited on the deck of their destination and so they reached sickbay without further inconvenience.
Without a second of hesitation, Saavik pried the doors open, and they entered. Christine sat down on a biobed in the deserted main ward as Saavik borrowed the necessary equipment.
Her hand was already reddening, swollen and covered in blisters. Her medical feeling told her that she had been very lucky and would have to deal with mainly second-degree burns, probably even just a first-degree burn on her thigh. But in some areas, the skin on her hand had become numb and was acquiring a distinctly white colour, speaking for third-degree burns. And she didn't yet know how badly the deeper tissue had been affected. Her non-medical feeling told her that it was damn uncomfortable and inconvenient.
"Found everything?" she asked Saavik as she returned with a small pile of equipment.
"At the cost of some doors, yes," Saavik answered and began calibrating the medical scanner.
Christine closed her eyes with a sigh, trying to ignore the pain. "How stupid of me," she mumbled, "to stand so close. I should have known something like this would happen, sooner or later." She opened her eyes just as Saavik began scanning. "How long do you need?"
"A few minutes."
As Saavik scanned her leg and hand Christine waited impatiently, shuffling around on the bed.
"Oh, give me the scanner," she burst out after some moments.
Saavik ignored her.
"Give me the scanner, Saavik," Christine persisted. "I'm a doctor."
"You're a patient now," Saavik returned crisply and raised her head as she finished the exam. "But not patient enough," she added with a small smirk.
"Saavik! Was that…a joke?"
"Not at all," the Vulcan answered impassively. "Your impatience is remarkable."
"Of course not," Christine mumbled. "Well, what's your diagnosis?"
"You have some third-degree burns where most of the coffee must have hit," Saavik said, pointing to those few areas Christine had identified before. "The rest is only second-degree. The area on your leg is a first-degree burn and should heal without intervention." She raised an eyebrow as she began to carefully clean the hand, and Christine thought she saw a notion of reproach in her eyes. "I think I need not stress that the consequence of a hot liquid penetrating your tissue could have been disastrous. You have, however, somehow managed to leave your nerve endings, muscles, and bones undamaged, and have suffered no irreversible damage to your deeper tissues, thanks to your quick reflexes."
Saavik continued to apply an antibiotic cream while Christine was still asking herself if she had just been insulted. She might have quick reflexes, but they had obviously not been quick enough to prevent her from getting injured at all.
"I think that's all we can do for now," she said as Saavik bandaged her hand.
"Indeed," said the Vulcan and jammed a hypospray with a pain reliever into her arm.
They left sickbay and were back in Spock's cabin, having broken in, before he returned from his shift.
When he walked through the door, he did so in the company of Kirk, and Christine and Saavik stepped out of the way to listen to the conversation between their two commanding officers.
"Your door needs maintenance," Jim said, eyeing the wobbly door suspiciously as he walked past.
"It has been faulty since yesterday," said Spock, unconcerned, and sat in his chair while Jim remained standing. "It does, however, seem to have attained even more damage since this morning."
Before Jim could say anything further concerning the matter of the door, the intercom beeped.
"Sickbay to Spock. Spock, is Jim with you?"
"I'm here, Bones," Jim said as he pressed the button. "What is it?"
"I think sickbay's been broken into. The doors are damaged, apparently having been forced open."
"You don't say," Jim mumbled and exchanged a look with Spock.
"That's not all," McCoy continued, ignorant to the silent communication on the other side of the line. "Part of the equipment is mislaid, and someone's gone through the medical supply cabinets. But as far as I know, I'm only missing bandages, a dose of painkillers and a bit of antibiotic cream."
"Sounds like someone snuck into sickbay to treat themselves." Jim paused, then added, "Spock's door is damaged as well."
"You think there's a connection?"
Jim shrugged, a futile gesture in audio communication. "Maybe, but not necessarily. Keep me posted, Bones."
"Sure, Jim. McCoy out."
"The simultaneousness of these events might be a coincidence," Spock said thoughtfully as the frequency was closed.
He had listened to the doctor's report with his hands folded in his lap and raised a finger to his lips, as often when he was thinking hard about something.
"In the case of my door, it might be just another malfunction," he continued. "We seem to have enough of those lately. My door has not been forced open with heavy instruments of any kind and nothing has been taken. This does not exclude the possibility that the door was manipulated somehow or that something suspicious is going on." He looked up at Jim who had listened with crossed arms. "I would advise looking out for further developments or clues."
"I agree," Jim grumbled. He sighed and thumped his fist on the desk. "All these bugs are beginning to bug me."
Spock nodded. The circumstances were beginning to bother him as well.
Saavik and Christine continued their attempts at haunting the crew for the rest of the day. Using Spock as an unknowing guide, they wreaked a little havoc here and there, hoping and wishing that someone might find events odd enough to investigate their origin.
In the mess hall, Christine rang the bells that had been hung over the doors for the festivities. Ringing bells had worked for Scrooge. But then again, Marley's ghost had been very much visible. She abandoned the attempt after a short while. It would not do to linger in front of a door long enough to lead to a more serious accident. And no one seemed to pay the bells any more attention than a glance, being in a public place where a gust of wind from someone passing by could be the cause.
Saavik managed to misplace most of Mr Scott's tools in engineering but achieved nothing more than having the engineer give some unfortunate ensigns a stern speech about tidiness at the workplace.
They passed the rest of the day like this, every single one of their attempts apparently ignored or chalked up to malfunctions and coincidences. And so, they found themselves back in Spock's cabin by the end of the day, thoroughly displeased with their progress or lack thereof.
In the last attempt for today, Christine carefully turned Spock's lyre out of tune. Spock would notice, once he decided to play. She wasn't sure if the strings were organic and did not dare to touch them, however desperate she felt.
She had grown increasingly annoyed today at how tidy this ship was. She couldn't recall the old one, the old Enterprise, as ever having been this squeaky clean and ordered. Sure, she hadn't been cluttered, but there had been a brightly coloured record tape lying around here and there or a deserted data PADD on a desk. She had seen not one of those today, none of their modern equivalents giving her an easy way out in presenting a way to leave a message. The tape on which she had left her farewell message came to mind, but Spock had locked it away, safely out of reach from intruders and unfortunate officers trapped in a spatiotemporal flux.
As the day drew to a close, and their ignorant roommate had gone to bed, the two women crawled back under the desk and after making some tentative plans for the next day, started to prepare for their second night as officially deceased. They were resolved to strengthen their efforts tomorrow, in concentrating their haunts on Spock alone. If occurrences could not be written off as general malfunctions or coincidences, he had to notice something was awry at some point.
Just as yesterday, Saavik sat against the wall while Christine found it hard to get comfortable. Further complicating matters this time was her injured hand. The painkiller had worn off and it was throbbing painfully.
"I can try alleviating some of your discomforts by a mind meld," Saavik said calmly after watching the doctor struggle for a few minutes.
Christine glanced up at her and smiled quickly. "It's nothing major, I'll live."
"I am sure of that," Saavik said and raised an eyebrow at this illogical refusal. "But you are in pain. There is no shame in seeking relief."
Christine Chapel sighed and sat up against the wall next to her, which Saavik took as a sign of agreement.
"I thought a mind meld was terribly intimate." Doctor Chapel flashed her a cheeky grin. "Are you that open to it with everyone?"
"If you find it inappropriate," Saavik returned dryly, "you may choose to live with your pain." There was a spark of humour glittering in her eyes but Christine did not object and motioned her to begin.
Saavik turned towards the doctor, and gently initiated a mind meld. Through the mental connection, she tried to ease her mind and lessen her discomfort. She began to see the first effects soon as Christine breathed in tandem with her and the sharp, erratic spikes of pain in her mind died down into a dull murmur. She continued the meld, gently touching the tendrils of Christine's consciousness reaching out to her, careful not to encroach too far into the doctor's private thoughts, but to envelop her mind in a blanket of calm. She slowly disengaged the meld when she felt her fall asleep.
When she opened her eyes, Doctor Chapel's head was resting against the wall, tilted to the side, and she was breathing calmly through slightly parted lips.
Saavik raised an eyebrow. The doctor must have been exhausted. It was a curious phenomenon she had often observed in humans that they could exert magnificent amounts of energy when their power should be spent, and in other situations were quickly exhausted to the point of complete inaction.
When the slumbering Doctor started to slide down the wall, Saavik gently lowered her onto the floor. But she did leave her head cushioned in her lap. Moving her any further would be illogical, as it held the risk of waking her up, which would negate her efforts. It was only logical to let her use her legs as a headrest.
Thanks for reading. Now that this didn't work out, do you think they'll manage to get their friends' attention somehow, or at least raise suspicion? We'll find out more in the next chapter...