These characters are the creations of the Star Trek series all the way up till the 2016 movie. None of them belong to me. I am just barrowing them for a compelling adventure. Some fullfilling fiction from a fan. Bless you for reading!
Quote:
"I've been thinkin' maybe I've been partly cloudy, maybe I'm the chance of rain...
Stars lookin' at our planet, watching entropy and pain
And maybe start to wonder how the chaos in our lives could pass as sane...
I've been thinking 'bout everyone, everyone,
you look so lonely,
but when I look at the stars,
I feel like myself...
when I look at the stars,
I see someone else"
Stars ~ by Switchfoot
Jim sits in the stillnes between tasks, listening to the beeps and whirs of the enterprise's systems. It's been a hard week and today has been no exception. His final draft of the condolences for grieving starfleet members, sighned and sent off last night. Altamid... what hell. Along with that, Checkov's death has wreaked serious havoc. Although many died during Krall's swarm attack, this one did a real number on Jim's bridge crew. The young Russian had survived, even through all that crap on Altamid, only to be snatched from them a couple weeks later.
Sulu refuses to replace him, rejecting all candidates sugested thus far; usually by finding some loopholes to claim they're incompetent. But lately that has been edged by outbursts on his part toward trial candidates. If he doesn't chill out, Jim's gonna have to sick Bones on him for some forced RR. He warned Sulu this morning that, once they reached the Magellan outpost, Jim would need his decision. Thereby, if the man does not pick, he'll have to live with whomever they choose for him. Trust Spock to follow this up with a discreet recommendation that Jim hold off, presently, on pressing Sulu for a candidate. If Jim hadn't nearly grown lizard skin to adjust to the Vulcan's pesky habit of adding a correction to the thing Jim just finished doing; he might do something rash, like spill his coffee.
Hmm… too bad, I guess it was invevetable. Jim marvels looking down at the somewhat burning damp spot near his knee. Jim grunts with a iritated rub of his forehead, atempting not to curse.
"I would assume you desire to change your atire, Sir."Spock says from beside him.
"No-duh Sherlock." Jim grinds out.
"Pardon." Spock backpedals.
"Naw, just… what were you saying Comander?"
"I would advise we avoid provoking Sulu further Captain, in case doing so would damage the smooth operation of the bridge."
"What are you thinking, Mister Spock?" That would be fine except that it goes against Jim's very nature. He wants to 'fix' it - now. To allow his crew to mend in stability, which he'd love to provide them, but can't. He can't fix the fact that Chekov is gone and he can't fix the way it's impacting his command staff.
"If a candidate were to take the station while Sulu's state remains this disturbed it would undoubtedly hamper their ability to work well together throughout the foreseeable future, Captain. The results would be an unhealthy mental integration of the new employee,as well as a sixty eight percent decrease in the projected functionality of both stations."
Uhura moves close to the captain's cair to hand him a rag. "You wanna run that through the universal translator for me, Lieutenant?" Jim says sopping up the dark liquid. Of course she'd know he didn't need anything but he'd use the jibe at Spock's expense for Uhura's sake. She's been concerning him with her silence this morning. If only he could coax a smile from the woman.
She affords Jim a weak smirk.
Spock shoots him a raised brow. "I believe we should leave it empty for now and allow Sulu as much time as bureaucracy can grant."
"Sure, sure, that'll be fine. We'll inform him." Jim relents. He could afford Sulu that time.
~~~
At level three of the hollow deck, Jim is still riled up by the frustration of this morning. He normally designates for their 'swashbuckler out of the eighteenth century' (as his first officer has entertainingly referred to Sulu as) to perform these battle assessments. Instead, Jim will shoulder this one. No big deal. He actually enjoys the mental challenge of combat. There might be a tad of an adrenaline junkie in him too.
Jim catches the elbow aimed at his jaw in the nick of time. His opponent is pulling a ton of stops which makes them less predictable. But the moves the man avoids -though wise considering- sets an edge of concern to Jim's brow. His opponent is using entirely upper body moves, and although he's thrown his captain over the man's shoulder a couple of times, it was with less agility than his normal.
The two combatants circle across from eachother in the holo room. They throw and block a couple more punches before Jim's opponent catches him by the collar and slams Jim's face to the ground. Jim rolls to his back and huffs, blowing off the irritation he always feels when it results this way. He has a ton of tricks but this man is over twice his strength. The worst part is that the man knows him so well. Even better, at times, it seems, than he knows himself.
"You were distracted Captain."
'Thank you for that 'captain obvious' Jim grumbles to himself.
"... Nope," he says instead looking up at his friend who nearly retorts. "Spock, I'm not gonna let you go planetside. You're not ready."
"I just bested you four to none in hand-to-hand combat. Exactly when did you come to this conclusion?" Spock asks with a raised brow.
"The moment before my face hit the floor," Jim drones "- Na."
The human gets up with a leap, "your moves are stiff. You're still avoiding ones that strain that injury, which means you won't pull off a proper defense, simple as that. I know there's something about this Pletoph planet that you'd just love to see but you're gonna have to sit this one out." Jim slams his palm to the panel, turning off the graphed hollow room they simulate battles within.
"I regret your reasoning is still unclear to me Jim. My healing is merely incomplete, Dr. Mcoy has already declared me fit for duty."
"Your regular duties, Spock, not battle ready."
"You yourself said it would to be an ordinary medical supply run. The federation is a known entity among the locals on Pletoph and the native's generosity is also well known."
"Yes, but we've never been there."
"More reason to have my scientific expertise."
"But not without you in peak condition."
"According to the results of my present combat assessment, you see my optimal condition. Sending two or more crew members in my stead is not mearly inefficient but likely insufficient."
"You are stubborn aren't you? Trust me Spock, if I could figure out what had you enamored with this place, I'd remove it. But you're just gonna have to stay put."
"I am incapable of being enamored Captain seeing as it requires emotion stimuli."
"Alright! Fine." Jim gets back into his fighting stance, figuring he has another decent round left in him. The man isn't going to back down unless he proves it to him. The graphed lines of the working hollow room fade to the bare gray of its disabled walls. "Once more!"
In this moment Spock recognises the human's unusually "short fuse", as they so call it; walking more on the edge of Jim's tolerance level than is normal for his personality. Seeing as it aids his cause, Spock settles. He reingages his fighting stance. It's his friend's emotional response to the tragedy, no doubt. Then again, this human has always been close to bad temper. Same goes for their ship's head doctor. Spock has chosen pretty unsteady friends but he trusts their judgment more than the rest within their race. Even Nyota is baffling in comparison.
Jim lets Spock make the first move. As the fight flits on through their familiar movements, Spock does vary from his previous tactics: trying to stretch against Kirk's claims within reason. It drags on, however. The moves are sufficient with neither party gaining ground and Jim only going so far as to negate Spock's more critical attempts.
"Are you stalling, Captain?" Spock asks.
"Now what would give you that idea." Jim grins.
After a brief scuffle ending in a hook to the left, Jim suddenly grabs an anchor point on the support beam beside him and propels his feet beneath Spock nearly toppling the other man. Spock corrects quickly, but he sees a flash blink through his captain's gaze. Jim leaps into a turn, that fakes as a kick, really landing as a jab. It makes it past the vulcan's kick block to collide with his right side. Spock sputters and Jim takes one more sweep with his leg knocking the vulcan on his back. Jim grins down at him. "Smackdown," he says.
Spock coughs. "One out of five hardly proves..."
"When I broke your stance you grabbed your side. If an enemy had seen that mid-battle, much like I did, you would be too hell in a handbasket."
"... Indeed. That would be an awkward predicament." Spock says, referring to the captain's turn of phrase.
"Still think you're performing adequately? So then!" He says slaping his legs, "What was your performance level after that last hit?"
"Less than I'd like."
"The numbers Spock; you love the numbers."
Spock tilts his head thoughtfully. "That'd be seventy-six percent of normal proficiency Captain."
"That's right, that's a… twenty-four percent deficiency. See, I need my Second in complete working order. If you're done-in on some measily supply run I wouldn't have you for all the important stuff, now would I? Dr. Mcoy is doing another round of post catastrophe evaluations tomorrow. Be there. See what he can do for you."
"Acceptable Sir."
The swarm catastrophe is what his crew is calling the attack by Crawl's drones that resulted in the crash of the Enterprise into the planet Altamid closely followed by the rescue of Yorktown. That was too close on every front. "Is it possible that my recent impediment has caused you to lose confidence in me Captain?" Spock inquires.
"Nowhere near, Commander. If anything it's shown that my wildly good luck seems to have rubbed off on you. Think about it, when that swarm ship you were in hit Altima, Bones happened to be the one with you. That and we discovered the Franklin in the nick of time to beam you two out. Otherwise you guys would have been multicolored Swiss cheese. And then you two saved my ass, remember? But anyways, we shouldn't push that luck simply because you want to get back to business as usual."
"It was not luck that had me trapped with Dr. McCoy, merely my assignment to get the ship's doctor safely to medbay and the unfortunate sliding of us into the elevator shaft."
"Right, that last part is called coincidence. You'll see it works in your favor sometimes."
Spock seems unsure about that.
Jim recalls the moments after Bone's and Spock grabbed his person midair to keep him from flying out into space with the armed Abernath a few weeks ago. The ship's vulcan is indeed a formidable force but once they were safely inside the stolen android craft, that changed.
Spock's interest appears to pique when Jim asks what he would ever do without him. A brief look passes between commander and doctor.
"Now if one of you ladies would care to be my navigation assistant, perhapse we can get out of this death trap. Seems we're a fair bit out of range for the Franklin's transporters. By the way Jim, what sort of problem causes you to be parking starships in lakes? Thier a SPACE craft not an airborn submarime!" Bones fusses.
"Uh... no coment. Actually, nicesity. Lets go with that." Jim maneuvers slyly to the far front, grabbing thier tablet from where it had been cast aside against the decks prow. He figures the drones must have had navigation loaded into their cybernetic heads.
Jim sees there is not really a seat upfront in these things but there is a cleft in the floor to position in. "Would you rather navigate Spock?" Jim asks.
"No need. You certainly suffice, Jim."
Jim watches as Spock moves to the bulkhead behind them and slides to sitting, less than gracefully. Jim changes his angle at the front so he can give the man an occational bated glance. Situated against an adjacent outcrop of the bulkheads frame, one knee bent, Spock passively observes them as well. Jim notes that Bones had actually relaxed into the tasks of flying this hornet of a ship pretty well, especially now that the hype is finally down. Gradually they make their way back to the anchient ship, Franklynn, which is still awkwardly 'parked' inside the decorative lake of town square.
"So, what happened on Altamid. Spock's abridged version left out pretty much everything... non-technical." Jim says, the two humans amusedly ignoring the fact that vulcan ears could undoubtedly hear them.
"God, there's a shocker. Well, back on the Enterprise, we'd slid into that turbo lift in cordoor 103. The whole damn ship pitched when we were diving down her halls dodging drone fire. So there we were, and then it accidentally became our getaway car. The damn thing emergency jettisoned us into space! Although, I guess we should be grateful since we may not have survived long enough to hop into pods. Those bees were colliding with the pods and we were no different. Since Spock here had lost our only god forsaken weapon, we had to just punch the damned bastards. And guess what! Somehow we bumped the door seals and ejected the drones out the back of their own ship. Haa! How do you like that! Although, if I had seen that coming I would've held on better. You nearly had a doc with frozen eyeballs!"
Bones eventually goes on about the entire day. Jim is fairly lost in Bone's theatrical retelling when a glance back at Spock reveals that the tall man is asleep, head lulled against the metal hull.
"Bones!" Jim shushes him. Bones silences at his tone, "quick, switch with me." Once the doc obediently hops down Jim climbs up into the pilot's chair. Bones spins back to Jim, to give him a couple alien piloting tips he'd discovered, before investigating Jim's tone change.
"Awe, lovely." Lennard says upon spotting Spock. He kneels beside the unconscious man and checks his vitals. "Just keep the same bearing Jim… Blood pressure ridiculously low, per pointy-eared usual." He pokes him quizzically on the shoulder expecting another grumpy comment like he got on the rocky cleft on Altamid. No response. "Alright..." He unzips the USS Franklin uniform enough to peak at the lower left, abdominal wound.
Jim knows Bones would rather be in theor own ship's med bay for this. At least there he'd have had blood reserves that were a match. All destroyed with the Enterprise. While piloting Jim pulls out his communicator. *bee-beep*
"Captain to Uhurah?"
"Yes, Captain?" comes Uhura's melodical reply.
"Can you find a medical facility in Yorktown that has the vulcan T-negative blood; preferably one within transporter range of the Franklin. Assuming you've got a lock on us by now we need a beam-up of Spock and Bones for immediate transport to a suitable facility. I'll stay with the craft to land it before returning to the Franklin. Of course, that's if there aren't more urgent cases aboard the ship that need Bone's expertise. If he's needed I'll have him join Spock after his transport." Although her tone is collected when she gives her affirmation, still Jim adds gently, "He's stable Uhurah, just needs treatment, as you can imagine."
"Certainly Captain. Bagamnin seems up to the task of filling in for Bones and Christien will be close by. We have this end covered. Permission to assign a junior communications officer to the COM and accompany the commander to the facility, Sir?"
"Permission granted, Lieutenant."
Bones notes that the gauze patch has lighter green at its edges past the dried center and some has slipped down benieth the tape. "Yeah, it's seeping some. Dressing needs changing. It definitely got pulled when he hauled you in here. Damn fool should've left that to me."
"Right, you and what Vulcan strength exactly?" Jim teases over his shoulder.
"Vulcan strength my ass, he probably has human strength right now. Naw... actually it's about bloody time he checked out." Bones pulls gause, tape, and antibiotic from an inner pocket near the neck of his uniform. He rips Open the gause pack with his teeth. "These hobgoblins can 'supposedly' not sleep- malnourished- for weeks, but give them a traumatic injury with extended activity and those bodies of thiers are bound to give out. When he zonked out in the bat infested ruins I had to drag his ass to a less conspicuous spot. That was fun… you'd think a 'thank you Doc.' wouldn't kill him."
Bones plops down beside the hobgoblin. He should have brought a full medkit when Spock and himself beamed onto the enemy ship to disrupt the swarm. Of course, then he would've had to drop it once they rematerialized and those seconds of delay could have got himself shot in the chest. "Overall Jim, he's exhausted. Did you know he was this close to apologizing, our Spock, for how he speaks to me?" Bones says.
"You must have loved that." Jim smirks.
"You kidding, I stopped him! Couldn't stand it! I'm never going on that elderly transporter again by the way, life or…" Light beams settle on doctor and patient beinging to swirl. "Shit!"
Bones dives for Spock, wrapping his arms around the man's back. When that transport finishes there will be no wall Spock is propped up against. Jim watches their images scramble into light, with a smirk. You can tell Bones has had a long day when he can complain that much in an hour. Dang.
Spock's brow raises high from his position on the gray holoroom floor. He lets the exclamation hang for a moment before replying. "Besides the mediocre nature of this upcoming landing, which I still stand by, I concede you've made your point, Jim."
"Glad to hear it." Jim says offering his friend a hand up. As they raise him to his feet, Spock wraps his free arm about his side.
"... sorry." Jim adds.
"Unnecessary, Captain. It's merely discomfort and now I clearly understand your reasoning, which is perferable."
Jim is not sure that makes him feel much better. He rustles a hand through his dirty-blond hair. "Sure, Spock.
This story has been long in the making. I would love to hear your thoughts on where this will go and its still being written so let me know what you invision and ill see if it is feasable for the full storyline. This has been planned from the begining to end so it will become a complete story for sure. Enjoy!
