McCoy woke in an alarmingly white room.
It was clearly some kind of medical suite, but even so, there was not a single surface that wasn't white. He hated it. It was so clinical and detached, and trying to get any blood off those floors and walls must be a nightmare. It'd be like, well, like trying to get blood out of a white floor - no comparison was necessary, it was just a ridiculous design flaw.
Slowly, he tried to sit, only to find that the world swam before his eyes, blurring and twisting in unhelpful ways. Everything hurt, his neck felt clumsy and thick, the swellings on his wrist pulsing uncomfortably. Wait.
There were swellings on his wrists and neck, and everywhere. Red, raw looking skin glowered at him as he lifted his hand slowly to in front of his refocusing eyes.
"What the…" he trailed off, looking agape at the injury. It was unlike any disease he'd ever seen. Except perhaps the mumps, but that had been eradicated centuries ago - he only knew what they looked like because Pomperoy had a strange fascination with long dead diseases.
"Hey, take it slow," said a voice from in front of him. McCoy flinched from the sound, and then forced his reluctant gaze to focus. A veiled individual stood in front of him, gesturing as though they wanted to ease him back down on to the bed but were afraid to touch him. "You are both very ill."
Both?
McCoy glanced to the side and saw a Vulcan, still unconscious, with the same strange looking lumps on his skin.
"How do you feel?" The same voice asked, echoing slightly as the hooded female inspected his face, a kindly expression on her face. Though the voice seemed to belong to her, her head tilting as the words sounded, her lips did not move. McCoy shifted back on the bed.
"I feel like someone has infected me with an unknown disease," McCoy snapped. "What have you done to us? Where are we?"
On the other bed, Spock slowly lifted himself into a sitting position. The woman touched McCoy's shoulder and he shrugged the hand away wildly, ripping his arm back with such a ferocity that she stumbled back a few steps. It was a mistake.
The small device was in her hand before McCoy realised what was happening, and in a matter of seconds he was sedated.
The Enterprise had come across a small vessel, seemingly scavenging in the debris field. Kirk had sighed at Uhura's suggestion to hail them, and gestured for her to go ahead, sorely missing his First Officer. It wasn't that Kirk was unable to decide what to do without Spock, just sometimes it was nice to have the support of logic. He was all too acutely aware that he was prone to acting on instinct, and that blew up in his face far too frequently for him to like having no Vulcan on board.
The screen burst into life, the video that sprawled into life showing only clutter and mess, rapidly pulled away and tossed to the ground. Kirk watched the performance, expressionless, waiting for the clattering to stop.
"Whoever you are," a voice said as some rope appeared to be shoved to the ground. "I found this waste zone first."
"You can keep your waste zone," Kirk said, leaning back in his chair. "We're not here for your debris, we just want to find our people. I am Captain Kirk of the starship Enterprise, would you be willing to assist us?"
"As you are not interested in my 'debris'," the being on the screen grinned. "Well, I am delighted to know you, Captain. You have a very impressive title, I must say."
"What might we call you?" Kirk said, forcing a smile.
"Neelix. No fancy title, I'm afraid," Neelix said cheerfully. He frowned. "Did you say you were looking for your people?" Kirk nodded sharply in response, standing, just to do something. "Let me guess, you were whisked away from somewhere else in the galaxy and brought here against your will?"
Kirk faltered, looking up at the screen in surprise.
"Sounds like a story you've heard before," he said, darkly.
"Sadly, yes. Thousands of times - well. Hundreds of times," Neelix paused. "Maybe fifty times? - But the Caretaker has been bringer ships here for months now."
"The Caretaker?" Kirk echoed, stepping closer to the screen.
"It's what the Ocampa call him - the ones who live on the fifth planet? That's where he takes them, I don't know anything more." Neelix paused, shrugging unhelpfully.
Kirk rubbed his forehead slowly, his mind struggling to think of a way out of this situation. They weren't going anywhere without Spock or Bones, and they would not just roll over and let this 'Caretaker' abandon them 70,000 lightyears from home. The fifth planet seemed oddly familiar to him, something about it stirred in the back of his mind, but he couldn't quite place what.
"Mr Neelix?" Kirk said, lifting his head to look back at the view screen. "Would you say you know this area of space well?"
Neelix beamed at the captain. "I am renowned for knowing it well," he beamed. He paused, then frowned. "Why do you ask?"
"I think we should visit this fifth planet - would you be willing to act as a guide?" Kirk asked, half a smile forming on his face. Things always seemed more manageable when he had a plan.
Cat drew the unlucky straw for greeting Neelix in the transporter room. She was fairly certain it was retribution for being a pain in Kirk's arse on the array, so she didn't object to playing hostess, and simply went to wait in the room without any arguments. She wished she could have seen the confusion on Kirk's face when she didn't fight back - it would almost make up for the fact that within the first five minutes of being on a ship, Cat was flung to the far reaches of the galaxy. But she just had to imagine it, furrowed brow, slightly agape mouth and all.
The soft sounds of the transporter whirring into life shook her back to attention, and she straightened her spine, folding her hands behind her back.
"Mr Neelix, I presume," she smiled as the Enterprise's vastest acquaintance stepped down of the transporter. "I am Vice-Admiral Catriona Pike, but please, call me Cat."
Neelix grinned at her, and pulled her into an enthusiastic hug, startling her. As her hands were pinned behind her back by his arms, Cat could do nothing but try to stand less rigidly; it did nothing to relieve how awkward she felt.
"It is so wonderful to meet you!" Neelix beamed. "Your technology is astonishing! You federations are obviously an advanced culture." He released Cat and started to make his way over to the machinery of the transporter room. Cat cleared her throat awkwardly and followed Neelix a few steps as he mused aloud: "What exactly…what exactly does all this do?"
Cat smiled diplomatically once more, holding her hands loosely at her side in case of another surprise hug. "I must admit, I do not know what most of it does, except that when it all works, we can beam a person from one ship to another," she paused. "And I believe the person we have to thank for the latest step in this technology is actually on board this ship, so perhaps later, you could discuss it with our Chief of Engineering?"
"Amazing," Neelix mused, walking past Cat and stirring the air beneath her nose. As a doctor, she had encountered many, many disgusting smells - often coming from an infected wound or something else that was objectively wrong with an individual. Never before had she smelt something so bad from an organism that appeared to be perfectly healthy.
"I believe I am to show you to your quarters," she said, the mask of professionalism on her face, but her stomach roiling in disgust. "There is an attached bathroom, if you would like to wash before you meet with the Captain."
Neelix turned back to her, eyes wide with interest. "A bathroom?" Cat nodded and gestured for Neelix to exit the transporter room, following him and hunting for the words to explain what a bathroom was. Once she managed to explain it enough, Neelix grinned broadly at her and exclaimed his excitement once more. Cat thanked whatever gods might exist out in this quadrant that he hadn't taken the suggestion to wash as a personal attack on his hygiene, which, to be fair, was exactly what it had been.
McCoy and Spock had been on their very best behaviour and so were permitted to leave the little medical room they'd been holed up in. McCoy prodded at the growths on his skin, trying to discern what the hell they'd been infected with and why.
"This is the second time we've been stuck together with death looming on the horizon," he muttered to Spock, glancing up from his wound. "I think I preferred the time when you had a gaping wound in your abdomen and I was completely fine."
"It is less than ideal that we are both infected," Spock agreed. "However, we do not know that this disease will result in our deaths - unless you are familiar with it?"
McCoy lifted his wrist, allowing the white cloth of the robe he wore to slide down his arm, exposing the lump on his arm. The star shaped scar that topped the growth was unlike anything he'd ever seen, the red speckled pattern on his skin looked alarmingly like an ordinary heat rash, but it was only present on the growth. "Have you seen anything like this before?" He demanded of Spock.
Spock didn't get a chance to answer as the doors to their room slid open. McCoy wheeled around to face the Ocampa that entered the room and began demanding answers from them instead of from Spock. "Why are you holding us here? Why - what are you doing to us?" He spat, standing from the bed quickly.
"You are not prisoners here," the Ocampa said slowly, stepping into the room with his small load of shoes and clothes. "In fact," he continued with a small, wry smile, "we consider you honoured guests. The Caretaker has sent you to us - so long as you are not violent, you are free to leave your quarters."
"Could you explain what these growths are?" Spock said, calmly but quickly, talking over McCoy as he opened his mouth to throw more accusations at the Ocampa.
"We really don't know," the Ocampa said, sympathy softening his face. "You must be hungry. Would you care to join me in the courtyard for a meal? I brought you clothes." He didn't wait for an answer before moving into the room and placing the shoes lightly on the ground and the clothes on the bed. McCoy watched his movements like an animal watching its prey, his jaw tightly clenched.
The courtyard was surprisingly bright and airy, given that it was underground. Spock had been the first to comment on it, surveying the cavernous room with an impressed expression on his face. It didn't seem very subterranean to McCoy, with the stretches of canals running through the site, and plant life stretching up towards a light ceiling. But once Spock noted it aloud, he realised the light from above was artificial, not light from any sun, and the plant life was all supported with technology. There were moments were the hewn rock was more visible, rugged edges between the levels that this underground city was built on.
The Ocampa who was showing them to food stopped and surveyed his own city, explaining how they had lived below the ground for 500 generations now, that the surface of their planet had become uninhabitable way back when, and the warming had forced them underground. He praised the Caretaker for splitting a chasm into the earth and finding a new home for the Ocampa, safe from the environmental threats that swarmed the upper world. The Caretaker was given credit for providing for all their needs. Part of McCoy couldn't help but wonder how useful a dependent relationship on one individual could be - even if it was a being so powerful it could pull them 70,000 lightyears across space and dump them on some random planet.
After a small pause, McCoy became aware of eyes on his back, and glanced around. A small crowd of Ocampa had surrounded them, looking curiously at Spock and himself, heads tilting to watch their every movement.
"Oh," said the Ocampa guiding them, smiling faintly at his 'honoured guests', "Please forgive them. They know you've come from the Caretaker; none of us has ever seen him." He smiled across at the crowd, a benevolent smile of a kindly ruler, and then led McCoy and Spock away.
Cat felt like an hour would have been more than long enough for Neelix to bathe and dress, and anyway, she'd run out of things to tinker with in the Sick Bay. She wasn't complaining that the Caretaker had healed everyone's niggles and injuries, but equally, she was a doctor with no one to treat. It was a little dull, and she had paperwork down to a 't' so that was entirely done. But Neelix wasn't answering the door, so she used her typical Starfleet arrogance, and just opened the door anyway.
"Neelix?" She called as she entered, hoping that was sufficient warning. The doors hissed slightly as they slid shut behind her, sealing her into the guest quarters he had been assigned. It took a brief moment for Cat to realise that the humming noise was not some music he had requested play over the speakers, but it was in fact Neelix himself who was humming. Cat had never heard the tune before, but she instinctively knew that it was out of tune. "Pardon the intrusion, Mr Neelix, but…" Cat trailed off as she drew level with the bathroom door, her words lost as she suddenly realised it was half-open and Neelix's humming was emitting from his seat in the bath. Quickly, she wheeled around, looking over at the stacks upon stacks of glasses, half filled with water about his rooms.
"Oh!" Neelix said enthusiastically. "Miss Cat, come in! Come in! I can hardly see you."
Given the quantities of steam flowing out of the bathroom, Cat wasn't surprised at that comment. She obliged in stepping inside the room, but deliberately turned to face the wall, grateful for the amount of bubble bath Neelix had poured into the tub. "I want to thank you for your hospitality - I must admit, I haven't had access to a food replor, uh, replicator before," Neelix chirped from the bath. Cat smiled wryly to herself, biting back the dry comment of 'I'd never have guessed', and instead just let Neelix continue to warble happily about the water. "And to immerse myself in water…" He sighed happily. "Do you know what a joy this is? No one around her wastes water in this manner."
"I wasn't aware water was such a commodity in these parts," Cat said, trying to keep her voice neutral. "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself so much, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to ruin your joy. We're in the orbit of the fifth planet, and so your services are required."
Neelix sat up a little more in the bath, causing Cat to stare more intently at the wall. When she signed up for a five year mission in space, she had not expected to be playing babysitter to a naked alien in a bath.
"Could you hand me the, uh, the towel?" Cat swore internally, but picked up the towel and tried to hand it to Neelix without moving her gaze towards him at all. It didn't work, and so she straightened it out, holding it so that the towel blocked her view of any of Neelix's body, walking towards him slowly. "If you scan the large southern planet, you'll find a range of extinct volcanoes. Follow the foothills north until you discover a dry river bed; you'll find an encampment there."
"Is that where McCoy and Spock are likely to be?" Cat asked suddenly, her eyes lighting up slightly at the prospect. She hadn't known either for more than a few days, but the idea that getting the back would be so simply appealed to her more than she could say. Neelix looked askance, wrapping the towel dutifully around him.
"It's not impossible, I mean - perhaps, maybe not. But we'll find them." He stumbled slightly on his words, before nodding resolutely and smiling reassuringly at Cat. She glanced at him, slightly suspiciously. She nodded slowly, then said:
"I'll go give the captain your directions. Is there anything you think worthwhile telling him?" She stepped out of the bathroom, grateful for the slight lessening of humidity, as Neelix tilted his head to the side and mused to himself.
"Well," he finally said out loud. "You'll need to bring several containers of water to barter with," he paused, glancing down at his lack of clothes and added: "Do these replicators make clothing as well?"
Cat smiled warmly at him, nodded and moved over the replicator. She quickly punched in a few keys, and a tunic not dissimilar to the one he'd previously been wearing appeared in the dispenser.
"There you go," she smiled.
"I was rather hoping I'd get a uniform like yours," Neelix admitted, a little bashfully. Cat laughed and shook her head slightly.
"Oh, no," she grinned. "I'm afraid Starfleet uniforms are earned, not just given out willy nilly. It takes serious work to look this good." She whirled around, as though showing off her clothing run-way style, and grinned over her shoulder at Neelix. "Come to the Bridge as soon as you're dressed, if you don't mind, Mr Neelix."