Chapter 8

'Keep it together …a few more seconds…' he forced himself back to consciousness. He couldn't breathe... and the crushing pain in his chest was relentless.

"Jim, hold on! If you let go, we will not maintain the balance." Spock shouted as he felt Kirk's tremulous hands were letting go of his shirt. Kirk closed his eyes tight and griped tighter. He could feel the strain and tension in Spock's body beneath his fisted fingers.

Suddenly, he got it. In his pain dazed condition, he had forgotten that his touch-telepath friend could actually feel every pain and ache in his body with him, sense every time a slight movement put his battered and broken body on fire, as if it was his very own. 'Oh god … Spock…' he tried to calm his mind, to somehow, anyhow, stop feeling the pain. But it was impossible. This time, Spock tried to reduce the speed gradually, but it was still too much for him. He moaned involuntarily and let go of Spock as his body went limb from the enormity of the strain.

The jolt of another immense wave of pain brought him back to there and then. He realized that Spock had snatched the front of his already shredded golden shirt in the last second and was pulling him through one of the lift doors. He took Spock's hand and tried to help him in coming out of the canal. When they both finally stood in the corridor- though he was leaning heavily on Spock- he muttered "Spock... I'm sorry…" Spock untangled the ropes and put Kirk's left hand around his own shoulder. "Captain, you are not to blame. We have to go. There is no time."

Kirk looked around with difficulty. They were now in the neck of the Enterprise, the part that connected the saucer to the body of the ship, in one of the corridors that led to the escape pod storage rooms. He could see the plan now. Spock wanted to use the escape pods and shoot themselves out of the ship.

But for the life of him, he just couldn't walk anymore. He wanted to say so but it was Spock who started first, "I will carry you the rest of the way, Jim."

With that, Spock scooped him up in his arms and started walking. Despite the warning, the pain came as a surprise. A gut wrenching moan escaped his throat and his head rolled back painfully. Spock looked at the limp, broken figure in his arms and willed his legs to carry him faster. He walked the length of the corridor that led to the auxiliary launching room, heart pounding with dread and concern. Kirk was now almost unconscious. His breathing was rapid and labored. He couldn't even cling to Spock anymore from sheer exhaustion. Spock held him tighter as he was about to keel a few times.

The door was partly open. "Jim, we are there." he encouraged. Kirk opened hazy eyes. Spock pushed the opening a bit wider. And then, they stepped inside.

The room was in utter chaos. It was one of the weakest parts of the ship that had been targeted during the battle. Kirk looked around. Nothing was in one piece.

'No … can't be...'

Spock was taking him to one corner, and then he saw it too. One emergency escape pod, blackened and dented pretty badly, but it seemed functional. Spock's scans confirmed that. He let Kirk sit on its only chair. He was grateful for the small respite. His leg felt like it was dropping right off. He gritted his teeth as a particular shift of his leg almost pushed him beyond the edges of consciousness again, then closed his eyes and let himself be relax for one second. Spock powered up the environmental system and quickly checked a few more things before stepping out of the pod.

Kirk opened his eyes abruptly and grabbed his arm "where…are you…?" he wheezed. "As you can see captain, this is a one-man pod. There is not enough space for…" but Kirk was not listening. He was shaking his head as if to cut Spock off. "No … can't stay… have to come…" he started coughing. Spock noted the red blood on Kirk's sleeve as the captain whipped his lips feebly. Spock waited patiently, until the fit subsided. "Jim, look at me," there was an uncharacteristic pause. Then he continued in a slightly softer tone. "I will endeavor to find another mean to escape…" but Kirk was delirious. The pain didn't leave much rationality for him.

He was struggling to come out of the pod but wasn't succeeding. He was fighting Spock's restraining hands and holding onto him at the same time. He started coughing again, bringing up more blood. He looked at Spock's face, a painful glint in his eyes, and whispered, voice shaky with such anguish that tore at Spock's heart, "don't…do this… to me …go … let me die … with her …"

Spock couldn't take much more. He reluctantly pushed past his captain's flailing hands and reached for his neck. Kirk's tense body slackened and dropped back onto the chair the next moment.

Spock closed his eyes for a second and exhaled deeply. He had never enjoyed nerve-pinching his friends, specially this one. Nonetheless, if it meant that his captain would live, well...

As Spock was fastening the safety belts for Kirk, his eyes lingered for one long second on his friend's pale and drawn face. 'He will live.' he told himself again for what seemed like the hundredth time as he closed the hatch and went to shoot the pod mechanically out of the ship. He reached for the manual control. They were functional. Partially. He couldn't so much as shoot the pod. It seemed as if forcing it out with much less speed would have to do.

He watched the pod until it was undetectable. When it was securely in open space, he realized that his mind was at ease after so long a time. Since he had come around in the backup batteries control room after the hideous explosion in the engineering section, he had not allowed himself to think about anything but the captain's well-being. Even his own pains slamming at his shields, begging for his attention, could not distract him from trying to find a way to reach the bridge and consequently, his captain.

He was still manually operating the already damaged backup stations when the Klingon's disrupter passed through the perilously weakened shields. The shock wave had thrown him against a console hard enough to fade his vision to blackness. The next thing he remembered was the frightened shouts coming from his communicator. He could tell he had been out for at least a few minutes.

The violent explosion had badly damaged the engineering, and he knew that another hit on the same spot could be the end of them. The deck had sustained heavy damage, and they were losing air to multiple hull breaches. Automatic systems shut down the hatches that led to the damaged deck and at the same time shut whoever was there to die in the hard vacuum.

Many had died. He could still hear their screams and cries trough the comm as they were running for their lives, asking the bridge crew for direction, to know which corridors had been closed off and which one were safe to take. Sometimes they even pleaded anyone who could hear, for help.

He could also remember the captain's firm but rueful voice as he yelled at them, tried to help them escape the dying decks, And then his frantic shouts as he ordered the evacuation.

There was nothing he could do from here. He was stuck behind jammed doors. All systems were shutting down one after another. Lights were flickering on and off. Soon, the life-support systems would give out too. The ship was shaking beneath him, and he knew Kirk was using up the last of their power to hold back the Klingons, buying precious few more seconds to allow the crew to evacuate. And still, the enemy fires rocked the ship every once in a while.

All this strain on the damaged engines had caused the warp core to get critically over loaded. His communicator couldn't raise the bridge. He was trapped in the room. He had to get out.

He was trying to forcing his way out, when another tremendous blast shook the ship and sent him to oblivion again.

The second time, he woke up to pain and… silence. It was an eerie one. He took a breath to calm his uneasy emotions and also his pain. There were not even the flickering lights. The darkness and that unnerving silence were disconcerting, had he been out that long? He couldn't hear shouts and curses and running footsteps through the communicator any more.

Instead, there was another noise. A small cracking noise, like a communication signal struggling to establish a contact. He could hear low chatters. He had lost his communicator in the explosion. He crawled to the source and groped for it in near complete darkness. His portable communicator, with which he was reporting to the bridge, was on the deck near a smoking unit. Now he could distinguish the voice from interferences

/…terprise… in… answer if… ETA 21.3 … Enterprise come…/

He had to deliberately steady his quivering voice before speaking, raising his voice enough to be detectable through the interference.

"This is the Enterprise. The ship has sustained heavy damage and lost power. Requesting assistance…" He trailed off as he realized that his signal was not getting through the interference. He put the comm aside and set his mind to find a way out.

A ship was coming to rescue. He thought quickly for his possible destinations; Engineering or the bridge.

Given the state of the engineering section and its sealed corridors, His chances in reaching the reactor chambers in time were minuscule. The next logical course of action was saving possible survivors. The captain.

He chastised himself for thinking of his friend in that manner. He knew Jim was alive, and he realized then that he would do anything to keep him that way. Even if that included opening a sealed door to a decompressed corridor.

His tricorder told him that the pressure in the hallway beyond was slightly lower and still dropping.

'A small rupture then,' he thought. He readied himself and pushed the sealed doors apart. But they wouldn't budge. They were dented and also under slight air pressure from inside. He tried again, with more power stemming from sheer urgency. His fingers went numb but he just kept on. As they slowly parted, the whistle of escaping air intensified. Now he needed to be quick. The air was much thinner, and although it was not dangerous, he didn't want to stay there too long. He ran for the turbo-lift door and used his tool to open it. As soon as he was in the lift canal, he closed the door behind him to keep the oxygen from escaping.

When he balanced himself on the ladder, he allowed himself to exhale in relief. Now the rest was simple. The canal had many branches, and one of them led to the bridge.

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