For Author's note and Disclaimer, see chapter 1
Chapter 12
A quarter of the way through the coffee and nutrient bar that was supposedly going under the guise as breakfast the three of them looked up as the wall com sounded, distortion heavy through the line. The first word or so completely lost in the hiss, crackle and pop before a voice that could be barely recognizable as Scotty's voice carried through.
"...ptain, Doctor, come in."
Jim got up and hit the button on the wall, "This is the Captain here, what's going on?"
"Bit of a ...ess, Captain, ...ulkhead collapsed, Two men ...jured."
"McCoy here," Bones simply pushed the captain aside in a manner that Jim doubted many other ship surgeons would dare to do. "How bad is it?"
"...ot too bad, so 't…..eems, but we ...eed ye ta ...ome down here."
"On my way," McCoy simply headed for the door, not looking behind him.
"We'll be there in a few minutes," Jim said for himself before he threw a glance over his shoulder to Spock. "Head to the bridge, I'll let you know what's going on later."
"That will be fine Captain," Spock inclined his head. Allowing Jim to chase after McCoy who had quite some speed when he wanted to. He figured the older man would be going past sickbay first, get a tricorder, the small emergency kit. There were officers he knew who would have slapped him down for the way he stepped in. McCoy did not care about rank when someone was hurt. He couldn't be made to care about rank then no matter what they tried to threaten him with.
That was one of the thing the Captain had been against when they both served as officers. Bones wasn't scared of a gold braid and he wasn't afraid to speak his mind if he felt there was a need for it. Naturally this rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and while it was one of the things that had made Jim decide he wanted him with him when he was promoted, he knew Spock had not been in favour of this trait at first. The Vulcan had found it hard to see that it was no sign of disrespect at times. It was just Bones who figured any and all life, the well being of the crew always took precedence over saluts and uniform.
By the time Jim made it down to engineering Bones was just catching up with him, with a couple corridors and turbolifts closed off it took longer. The doctor did indeed have a tricorder slung over his shoulder and the small black leather pouch in hand. He scanned the room as soon as he entered, running his eyes over the two men on the floor to see whom he would need to attend to first.
"Jennings got a broken arm, Lynyrd took it over his back so he did," Scotty cut in where he was crouched down by the two of them. "We had a wee bit of problem with the lines running behind the bulkhead, tried to get to them, and don't you know it the whole thing came loose."
"Hold still, I don't want you moving yet," Bones listened with half an ear to the Chief Engineer and his Captain as he ran his scanner over the injured man, studying the readings on the screen with a small frown. "Alright son, I'm going to turn you over a bit, Scotty, give me a hand."
"Right," Scotty inched in and took Lynyrd's shoulders, helping to turn him over enough so that Bones could run a hand over his back, feeling the bumps of his spine, the tension in the muscle and the heat in one spot. "Alright, there's no damage to the spine, some swelling, pulled muscle and cracked ribs, easy enough to sort out," he mused as he unfolded the leather pouch and took out the hypo. It did not escape Jim how the man winced at the sight, even though he had been gritting his teeth to that point.
Bones ignored it, choosing the vial he wanted and setting the dosage before injecting it into his arm. "Give it a minute, then get him down to sickbay," he ordered, turning to the next man, picking up the scanner again. "Broken arm, nothing more," he stated after a second. "I'll give you something for the pain and you can walk there," setting the dosage again he pressed it to the shoulder and listened to the hiss. Details like that told you what you needed to know.
Chapel was already getting the biobed ready when he arrived there with the engineers, a relief, and he was glad to see that she had already dressed warmly. Since there was no need for it in Jim's quarters he had not yet done so. Sure, with Jim's boots there was room enough for double socks which was a relief, but it wasn't as if he could take the time to worry about sweaters when he had patients, even if it wasn't anything life threatening he wouldn't do that to them. He simply grabbed a short sleeved scrubs and pulled it on over as he studied the readings on the biobed.
Three hours later both men lay shivering under several blankets, the bone regenerator had worked fine and the fractures were set and healing. All they needed was to be off duty for a week or so in order that they were able to fully rest up.
"Either of you have a livable cabin at the moment?" he wanted to know as he rubbed his frozen hands together.
"I do, sir," Lynyrd nodded slowly.
"Alright, I'm not cruel enough to keep you down here in the ice age, you can both go up there to rest. I'll have a nurse check in on you regularly, off duty for at least two days," he stated. "If there is anything, you let me know the very second, got it?"
"Yes sir," he nodded.
"Help them up Nurse, and, well, stay up there somewhere for the time being," McCoy urged. He wanted to stay somewhere where it was warm for five minutes and he wasn't going to let Chapel stay down in the cold if he didn't.
"And you Doctor?" she enquired as she helped the man to sit up.
"Going up for a word with the Captain," he decided. He could have called up and queried where the man was, but the bridge was one of the warmer places on the ship, and he only had the scrubs over his tunic. At the moment the skin on his arms and chest seemed to have lost the ability to interpret touch. Going looking for the Captain would be warmer than sending out a com call after him.
Normally when he went to the bridge McCoy would stand himself just behind and to the right of the Captain's chair. At first it had been equal parts because it was the side he came in from the turbolift and the furthest away from Spock's science station. Not because he truly disliked Spock, but because when he came aboard with the Captain Spock was a seasoned science officer while McCoy was a new name with a loud mouth and grumpy temper. Spock claimed, quite frequently that he did not belong on the bridge, served no purpose on the bridge and should quite frankly remove himself from the bridge.
Keeping Jim between him and Spock made it harder for the Vulcan to help him on his way with force, until Jim put his foot down and informed his new found best friend that his previous best friend could be where he wanted to be. Nowadays it was mostly because it was easier and he was out of the way, he was a nuisance, not daft. If something happened that made it important for the people who actually performed functions on the bridge to actually be able to perform them without tripping on him.
Sure, under normal circumstances he knew what most of the stuff did, he knew which blinking lights were good and which were bad, and could operate several of the panels if need be. Never to the efficiency of the assigned personnel, but enough that they would not by accident drop something that they should not drop on another ship because he tried to ask them how they were doing.
It was just common sense to have a general idea of what it was all about, since he was there often enough to have on occasion lent a hand in the operations.
Now he was not interested in that at all, Jim was there alright, in the damn chair that creaked and lilted a little to the side, following the general state of disrepaired and held together with spit and bailing wire look of the rest of the ship. Uhura glanced up when he entered on her side, and pulled back confused when he instead of going to Jim's side went to stand beside her. Splaying his hands out over her communications board, fingers wide, about an inch or so over the surface of the board.
It made some noises that he didn't think it should make, but then half of the wires from it were trailing on the floor by her boots.
"Bones?" Jim gave him an amused smile as Spock turned around, one eyebrow raised as he watched the peculiar behaviour.
"Got them both patched up, sent them to their quarters to rest," there was a slightly peculiar feeling in the skin on his upper arms and over his thighs as some meagre amount of heat started tickling the skin and reminded it that frozen was not the normal state of tissue. "Can't keep them down in sickbay but I'll make sure someone keeps an eye on them."
"Doctor, may I enquire to the purpose of your actions?" Spock turned around full as Bones flexed his fingers.
"I'm trying to thaw up, what does it look like?" he demanded. "All those lights and gizmos gives off heat, don't they?"
"While correct, the amount of residual heat is insufficient as a means of heating," Spock frowned while Uhura reached over and took one of his hands between her own.
"You're cold as ice," she exclaimed.
"Is it worse down there?" Jim frowned a little worried.
"Not really, but I didn't have time to grab my mittens," he shrugged as he gently extracted his hand from Uhura. Her hands were warm and yet he barely felt it. Getting his warmed too fast though would only cause them to throb, better to warm slowly. "I got the biologistics coming down in two hours. I'll be warm enough by then."
"Alright," Jim nodded. "Scotty didn't really have anything to add. He wanted to know when they would be back on duty though, they're a bit short staffed."
"I know, but I'm not letting them down there before again just yet. I want them off duty two days, if we could swing it I'd say a week, but I know that's not really possible at the moment. Two days will ensure there are no lingering effects though, they're tired, they're not eating properly, if I allowed it before then they would likely just cause another accident."
"Alright," Jim nodded grimly. "It sounds reasonable to me." it was not good, but he knew where Bones was standing. If he cleared them too early, they could at worse wind up with later disabilities caused by the injury, and there was no way Bones would order a man to risk that. He could not order Bones to order it. If it happened, even if it was just a partially lame arm it could be the end of the man's career, if Bones had been the cause of that, the man would never forgive himself and Jim knew it.
TBC
Thank you all for reading, please review, The Cricket is hungry...
