Title: Of Human Friends
Series: Tales from the Lower Decks
Written for: st_20_fics Table, Prompt #015 - "Who's going to believe that?"
Characters: Spock, Kirk, OC Matthew Turner (seen elsewhere such as A Celebration in Infinite Combinations and Insontis)
Warnings/Spoilers: written by me? :P
Series Summary: The adventures of an ordinary Maintenance man aboard the Enterprise, and his observations of the developing trifold powerhouse which is Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.
This Bit Summary: Captain Kirk attracts trouble everywhere he goes, even during routine maintenance inspections. Ensign Turner learns that Mr. Spock is, shall we say, less than tolerant of freak accidents.
This Bit Word Count: 2329
A/N: Having abandoned my NaNo temporarily because it had ground to a very painful, very boring halt (and I only do NaNo because I enjoy writing; once I start hating a fic I know it's time to give it a break and plan a little better the second time around), I am beginning this series of ficlets/oneshots for st_20_fics, with the prompt table linked above. They will all be Triumvirate-centric, more so than these introductory ones, so just bear with me while I establish an OC POV and let some initial time pass before moving on to the better ones. I'm just fooling around and having fun here, people, so expect anything from crack to angst and all the universes in-between.
There's one thing in all the galaxy that's the nightmare to end all nightmares for any crewman worth his uniform insignia, and that's to be busy trying to avert a crisis yourself (or worse, have no warning at all), only to hear over an open intra-comm that the captain's down.
Shipside or planetside, makes no difference; when the Bridge or Landing Party crew's too frantic to remember to close the channel to anyone but Security and Medical, then you know it's bad. Usually the captain is supposed to be invincible to his crew; and Captain Kirk's the worst of that lot's old-school thinking that I've ever encountered. The man could be half-delirious with a fever and still pull off his Bridge duties well enough to fool anyone except Mr. Spock - in fact, he did, that time he came down with Vegan choriomeningitis; no one knew a thing about it until the captain just keeled over in Officers' Mess one day. But that invincible front disappears when emergency channels are activated by crewmen who are more scared than careful to preserve captainal dignity, and that's the worst possible feeling for any crewman trapped in the middle of an already bad situation.
The stupid thing is that the incident in question was a fairly routine accident. No renegade Romulans attacking us under heavy cloak, no intruders beaming up covertly with shore leave parties, no surprise drops out of warp into highly magnetic asteroid belts, no ambitious pirates to contend with - nothing of the kind, and nothing that should have been hazardous. Just a simple, deadly malfunction of circuitry and equipment during a routine inspection, that resulted in the captain being trapped with one of the Engineering crew in a little-used Jefferies tube with an electrical fire blocking his only exit.
Our fabulous and ferocious Dr. McCoy (who, thanks be to whatever lucky star follows this ship around, had been seeing to a minor burn in nearby Recycling and Processing when the alarms sounded) broke at least three laws of physics getting to the scene when Scotty's panicked call shook the ship, frantically hollering to both Medical and Maintenance about malfunctioning fire suppressant systems on Deck Fifteen. Scott's comm produced a massive wave of panic, understandably, but was effective enough in getting immediate response from all of us within two decks' earshot.
I'd like to say we'd have been just as quick to respond if poor Ensign Thomas had been the only one trapped, but there's that added little spark of extra panic that lends super-speed to situations where the captain's in danger. Kirk hates it, says he's no more important than the lowest member of his crew (and it gives poor Giotto fits when the captain has no more regard for his life than that), but it's fact that the captain's the most valuable crewman and therefore gets the highest security protection.
It's also fact that Captain Kirk would just as soon boot anyone out an airlock who voices that opinion out loud, and that's just part of the man's charm.
From where I crouched at an access panel with Marta from Security, both of us at this point trying to torch a section out of the wall so that we could get the captain out, I could hear Scotty's thick burr swearing at the malfunctioning suppressant system, growing increasingly wild over the sinister noise of flames crackling and snapping, fueled by what was probably a coolant leak pooling in the only exit from that particular disused Jefferies tube.
From what I could hear, the captain and Ensign Thomas seemed calm enough – calmer than I'd be at the prospect of being burned alive in my own ship due to a freak accident, definitely – but Scott was anything but, and the arrival of a smallish cyclone in the person of an equally frantic Chief Medical Officer only fueled that fire, if you'll pardon the pun. Dr. McCoy was already coughing amid the roiling smoke because the idiot hadn't stopped long enough to pick up an oxygen-flow mask like the rest of us (security procedures were rigorously drilled into our heads, captain at risk or no captain at risk), and I was relieved to see Lieutenant Masters slap one on his face with a glare of admonition that the man of course ignored totally, too busy gesticulating furiously over the noise of the fire and alarm systems.
A shower of sparks indicated we'd cut through the wiring of the access panel properly, and we started in on torching the durasteel beyond – at its thinnest due to the wiring in the access panel, and probably the captain and Thomas's only hope of scrambling out of the small oven they were sitting in at that moment.
"If we don't get through this in sixty seconds, Scotty's going to have to decompress the corridor to kill the oxygen flow," Marta murmured, slightly muffled through the protective mask. Her flaming auburn hair was hastily knotted back from the heat of the torch as she stubbornly rammed it home, the stream of compressed super-ionic lasers sparking dangerously against solid metal.
"He's going to have somebody's head for not noticing a coolant leak, and gods help whoever was responsible for replacing that corroded fire suppressant foam and ventilation system," I agreed, beginning to worry a bit for the first time, as I saw that we'd made very little headway in the industrial-strength durasteel.
A series of small thuds from within the wall told me that one of the trapped men was still alive and conscious, at least, and most likely exploring the tiny prison again for an avenue of escape.
"Who designs Jefferies tubes without two exits, anyway?" Marta snarled, ramming the torch into the small dent we'd made in the steel.
"That's why Scott ordered this one disused, because it doesn't really have a function other than wiring ports, and he regarded it as a safety hazard," I answered tersely, looking back over my shoulder. We'd very few portable fire suppressant units on non-essential decks, because the Enterprise's built-in systems were top of the line and supposed to be able to care for any such emergency without even needing computer coding to engage. That meant this freak accident couldn't have happened at a worse location.
Finally, through the haze of electrical smoke, I saw that a trio of engineering personnel, properly masked, had managed to haul down one of the huge fire suppressant hoses from the access junction four corridors over. How they managed that, I'd no idea, because the thing weighed a fair ton, but thank heavens they did manage it, because the odds were very much more in favor of their success than in mine and Marta's.
Scotty was yelling into a communicator now. "Masters, get that override done, now!" he bellowed, as the Engineers shoved past them with the hose. "I dinna care if ye have to reprogram the entire suppressant system and shut down th' engines t'do it, but divert that power to the hoses in Corridor Seven! Turner, Marta!" We both glanced up, and shut off the torches at the CE's gesturing, relieved that the burden of saving the captain's life no longer lay solely in our fairly hopeless hands.
The fire suppressant hose suddenly jerked into life, spraying bits of creamy foam in every direction - and not a minute too soon; Dr. McCoy looked about five seconds from just wrapping himself in a blanket and playing the idiot superhero. He'd have probably gotten both himself and the captain killed, and that would've left the rest of us poor fools to deal with Mr. Spock afterwards. It's enough to give a fellow night terrors.
A fair bit of teamwork and far too much suppressant foam eventually killed the blaze, while coating the corridor in sticky yellowish goop for fifty meters in every direction. All of us were coated with the stuff, thanks to the widespread beam from the oversized hoses, and I did feel a sight awful for Maintenance, who were going to have to clean up the mess. Dr. McCoy looked a bit like a festering snowman, covered in a thick glop of sickly foam from the waist down (he'd shielded his face when the spattering started), and poor Scotty! Our gallant chief had had full exposure to the stuff and eventually had to be nearly chiseled out of its hardened state, refusing to be seen to until the captain and Thomas were safely on their way to Sickbay.
Thomas was unconscious from smoke inhalation when we dragged him out of the Jefferies tube but otherwise fairly unscathed. Kirk, on the other hand, had taken the full brunt of the fire, obviously having shoved his subordinate behind him and thereby protecting him from the blaze itself. Our (I say this with the utmost fondness and respect) idiot captain's tunic had evidently caught fire at one point, and when McCoy hauled him out of the Jefferies tube he was sporting pretty nasty second-degree burns in addition to the smoke inhalation. Thus they both were in bad shape by the time our CMO had stopped ranting about godforsaken unnatural flyin' tin cans with faulty circuitry an' idiots runnin' 'em and got down to business with that gentle ferocity that never ceases to amaze me.
I was the one who finally saw that Scotty was beginning to wheeze a bit from being coated liberally in fire-suppressant foam, not to mention the fact that the stuff was hardening quicker than usual in the severe heat of the corridor, and all but carted the fellow off to Sickbay, protesting all the way that he needed to see to the faulty circuitry diagnostics himself. After being sworn at in at least three languages by our lovable Chief Engineer, none of which were Federation Standard, I finally turned him over to Nurse Anya's capable hands and was able to breathe a sigh of sheer relief.
Annnnnnd then Commander Spock walked in.
Nurse Chapel's really the only one who can get through to him when he looks like that – usually after the captain's gone and done something really stupid like getting himself thrown off a cliff on an away mission or refusing to tell Sickbay he's not feeling well until he passes out in a turbolift – but unfortunately, she was assisting McCoy at the moment to make poor Thomas's respiratory tract not have to work so hard at its job (Captain Kirk had already been treated, sedated, and dumped in his personal recovery cubicle; yes, the man had his own by now at this point in the mission, Scotty had personally engraved his name on the end of the bio-bed).
And I wasn't quite quick enough. I tell you, you've never felt like you're in Very Big Trouble until you've been skewered by a Vulcan bent on perfectly logical verbal evisceration.
Eight long, loooooong minutes of praying that someone – anyone – would come and rescue me from a not-worried-because-that-is-an-emotion-I-always-look-like-I'm-going-to-dismember-you-slowly Vulcan, and finally McCoy registered our First Officer's presence. Or else somehow heard my frantically projected SOS. Either way, he came bustling out of Thomas's room, scratching absently at the rough emergency scrubs he'd hastily changed into upon reaching Sickbay.
"Spock, leave the kid alone," he scolded immediately, seeing and hearing my stuttering report of what Scotty intended to do about the freak accident. "It's nobody's fault because nobody's perfect. Accidents happen."
"Doctor, this ship is considered high-risk as the matter stands," was the icy response, delivered through a glare that could strip tritanium alloy. Clearly, Vulcans were perfect and expected lesser species to be so as well. "Accidents must not be permitted to increase those already dangerous odds aboard this vessel."
"And they won't again, I'm sure," McCoy sighed, giving me a not-so-gentle push in the direction of the doors. He completed the arc of motion by grabbing Spock's arm – actually grabbing the Commander's arm! Did he have a death wish? – and tugging him in the direction of the glass observation window which broke up the grey walls of Kirk's recovery room.
Miraculously, Spock didn't so much as flex his fingers toward the doctor's throat, so McCoy must have a bit of foolhardy bravery under that irritable exterior. The Commander only stepped forward in silent acquiescence, and peered into the room beyond with what his Science Labs jokingly call The Eyebrows of Doom.
"He's gonna be perfectly fine, so you can stop makin' yeomen cry in the corridors, Mr. Spock," McCoy drawled, grinning. (The doctor obviously has more guts than brains.)
"Doctor, really." Ouch, someone left his Vulcan sense of humor in his cabin this morning…
"Commander, really," the physician mocked, smirking. "Afraid you're gonna show a little human worry for your human friend, hmm? Who'd've believed it!"
"Fear and Worry are human emotions, Doctor," Spock said severely, in a tone that would make any lesser man afraid to so much as hint at his own humanity. "Please confine your dubious diagnostic skills to the captain's condition, as they obviously are at fault with categorizing a superior species."
McCoy casually scrutinized a small stain on the sleeve of his scrubs. "I notice you didn't deny the word friend," he remarked wickedly.
Spock looked rather dismally through the glass at the reclining figure of Captain Kirk. "I was not given much choice in the matter, Doctor," he said wryly. "I have been duly informed that one does not possess the option to be this particular human's friend; one is simply…appropriated, into that elite circle. With or without one's consent."
McCoy tried valiantly not to laugh, and only ended up grinning like a satisfied hound.
I, idiot that I am, was not so restrained, and so had to make a hasty exit before I discovered whether or not Mr. Spock's friend would be able to keep him from forcing Maintenance to take apart every circuit board in the entire lower decks wire by wire to prevent another such freak accident.