Disclaimer: I don't own anything Star Trek it is all property of Gene Roddenberry, J.J. Abrams, Paramount, and whoever else owns rights to the franchise. I am not making any profits off of this so please don't sue me.

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Chapter 8

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While Lt. Bansali had finally made her appearance and come down on It'vek like the very hammer of God himself, it must be reminded that a small group of people had broken off from the larger group and fled down the corridor that led to where the USS Enterprise was securely docked.

They had after all had a more urgent matter to attend to and could not afford to stay and watch the ruin of It'vek.

And that matter was getting a more or less dying James T. Kirk to sickbay as fast as was in their capabilities.

Commander Spock had swept his grievously injured Captain into his arms and flown down the long corridor with Dr. McCoy somehow managing to keep up with him while also using his medical scanner to further assess the Captain's dire state of being. Kirk himself had promptly lost consciousness just a few moments after Spock had started running with him in his arms. This had sent fresh tendrils of fear through Dr. McCoy because it meant that Jim had lost a great deal of blood both from the deep slashes that marred his shoulder and from the internal injuries he had most definitely suffered received during It'vek's brutal assault from just the night before.

Spock for his part had not let up in the furious pace he had been running at with Kirk in his arm. The Vulcan had kept on running with a look of raw determination written across his usually blank face. Dr. McCoy had managed to keep up, most like from the adrenaline that was pumping through his veins.

Together they had gotten Jim safely to the anchored USS Enterprise.

Now they were all inside the Star Ship's sickbay stabilizing Captain Kirk and getting him ready for surgery.

Spock stood at a distance to keep the way clear for Dr. McCoy and the other members of the medical staff. Dr. McCoy was all but scrambling into a pair of surgical scrubs and then he was running off to scrub his hands as thoroughly as he could. A nurse already dressed in the proper surgical attire was carefully but quickly cutting an already barefoot Jim's ruined dress uniform shirt off of his prone form. The ruined material once a bright and brilliant was now dull and putrid looking with deep, muddy red staining nearly all of it deep. After she had cut through the material the nurse carefully pulled it free from a pale and unresponsive Jim Kirk. She let the ruined garment fall to the floor and instead focused all of her attention on cleaning up the deep crimson blood that vividly stained the Captain's ghostly white skin.

The Stats monitor that hung above Jim's head showed that his vitals were a little too close to the dangerous mark. But thankfully they weren't fluctuating, things were still critical but he wasn't getting any worse. Everyone was praying that that fact didn't take a nosedive at any point right now.

Spock's eyes were glued to the scene of the nurse as she first pressed a compress over Jim's shoulder to staunch the wounds that were still weakly bleeding. Then the nurse began wiping away the sticky red liquid the covered nearly all of Jim's chest. The woman was fast and efficient in the task that had been assigned to her. She cleaned up the blood and then turned her attention to the compress covered wounds. With careful and gentle hands the nurse slowly pulled the compress away to reveal the angry and blood wounds left behind by It'vek's cruel hand. The Nurse quickly reached over to the small table with medical instruments neatly laid out on it and picked up a small cylindrical device. Spock recognized it as a dermal regenerator.

The nurse began running the device with practiced strokes up and down one of the bloody claw-marks. Spock felt a small, illogical wave of relief floor him inside as he saw that with each careful and calm stroke of the regenerator the mark slowly began to fade and shrink from a long angry curved line, to a light pink patch before disappearing entirely into smooth, unbroken pale skin. The nurse quickly set about giving the same treatment to the remaining wounds on Jim's shoulder and to the other fresh cuts that littered his skin from the night before. About ten minutes later she had just finished with the last cut that lay over Jim's him when Dr. McCoy and his surgical team came bounding in with purpose. They were decked out in deep blue surgical attire and looked more like a small band of soldier ready to go into battle. And in a way this was true, they were getting ready to combat a rather strong and unpredictable opponent.

Internal bleeding.

Maybe they would also be fighting against death itself only Dr. McCoy didn't want to think of it that way, neither did his surgical team. They were going to do everything they could to make sure that James T. Kirk survived through this.

" Nurse, have you taken care of all the minor lacerations?" Asked Dr. McCoy sternly.

" Yes doctor, I have. but I haven't cut off his trousers yet." Said the Nurse.

" I'll do that myself, right now clear out of the way." Said McCoy before he turned his gaze to the members of his team and continued.

" The rest of you take up your positions."

The medical personnel all nodded and did as they were ordered by the CMO.

Taking in a steadying breath Dr. McCoy stepped forward but paused suddenly, his gaze turned to the side and his eyes settled on the tall and pale Vulcan who was standing at a good distance with his eyes glued to the pale and unmoving figure who was laying on the operating table. The Vulcan seemed to sense that he was being watched because his dark almost black eyes shifted from Jim's unconscious form to meet Dr. McCoy's gaze. The two men stared at each other both their faces unreadable yet to them they could see it all so clearly.

" Save him Doctor McCoy." Spock seemed to say through his eyes.

" I am going to Spock, I'm not gonna let him go." Was McCoy's silent reply.

Then with a small nod the Doctor turned back to the monumental task ahead. He had a life to save, and that life belonged to his Captain, to his friend whom he had hurt very badly with his misconceptions and assumptions of what had happened.

The undeniable truth of what had really happened had naturally cut him down to size.

Dr. McCoy quickly battled back the wave of anguish and guilt that threatened to rightfully drown him. Now was not the time to feel such thing, he had a job to do and he was damn well gonna do it. With that in mind McCoy quickly donned his surgical mask and strode forward with purpose and spoke.

" Nurse please hand me the scissors and get the sheets ready, the rest of you please help me turn him onto his front then look away." He ordered as the Nurse handed him a pair of surgical scissors.

The other members of the surgical team all helped McCoy in repositioning a boneless Jim Kirk and then respectfully went so far as to turn all the way around and give the injured Captain some dignity. McCoy was tight-lipped behind his mask as he methodically and carefully began cutting of Jim's dress-trousers. The blades of the scissors easily cut through the black fabric, the doctor cut from the the very end of Jim's left pant leg all the way up to the waist till he was completely through, then he made quick work of Jim's boxer which to his silent dismay had some small, tell-tale red stains on them. Clenching his jaw to the point of pain McCoy turned to the nurse and asked for the sheets. Once Jim's lower half was covered McCoy began to pull off Jim's now well ruined trousers and boxer. They came free easy enough and the doctor handed them off to a nurse to be discarded.

" Alright people, let's get to work fast." Ordered Dr. McCoy.

Where he stood, Spock felt frustration seep in because the doctor and his small surgical team had now effectively obscured his view of the Captain. Then Spock's sensitive herig caught the sound of fast approaching feet. Rapidly switching to full alert Spock silently stepped away from his place in sickbay and made his way to the door. He stepped out into the corridor to see who it was that was approaching so quickly. He assumed that it was the rest of the senior crew. He was sort of correct because the remaining members of the Enterprise crew were on their way, but they hadn't even reached the ship itself yet.

Spock could see now that the sound he had heard was being made by a woman with fiery red hair who was rapidly closing the distance to the sickbay. As she drew nearer Spock could see that her red uniform was in complete shambles, rumpled and splattered with strange blue liquid. Spock could also see that her hands looked like they had gone ten full contact rounds with a brick-wall, all bloodied and slightly torn up looking. As his eyes settled on her face Spock saw the deep amber eyes and recognition instantly dawned on him.

This had been that mysterious woman who had saved Jim's life. She had been the one to break It'vek's arm when he had been bringing down his knife to stab Jim clean through the heart. She had been the one who had yanked Jim out of that Antarian scum's grip and pushed him out of the way right into Spock's waiting arms.

Now this woman was running at him at full speed. Spock naturally stay where he stood, stoic as ever.

The woman seemed like she was going to plow right into him as full force, so it took Spock mildly by surprise when the woman abruptly came to a halt just a step away from him.

Dark brown, almost black eyes stared into those of deep, bright amber. The red-haired woman's chest heaved from the exertion of having run so far so fast. She stared up at Spock with her soulful eyes and Spock could see clearly that there was quiet despair swimming in there red-honeyed depths. It was the red-haired woman who spoke first.

" The Captain?" She whispered breathlessly.

For reasons he couldn't quite place Spock suddenly found it very difficult to speak. But through sheer will he forced his voice to work.

" They have begun performing surgery on him to stop the internal bleeding." Said Spock before he turned his gaze to the closed sickbay doors.

Then Spock turned his gaze back to the slightly disheveled looking red head standing before him.

" May I please know your name?" He asked.

Unconsciously the red-head stood to attention and complied.

" I am Lieutenant Mirna Bansali, one of this Star Bases surveillance monitors sir." Said Lt. Bansali as professionally as she could manage.

The adrenaline was starting to wear off and yes, she was beginning to feel every cut and bruise on her hands but using her will she continued to stand at attention.

" At ease Lieutenant." Said Spock softly.

Bansali instantly relaxed and the two stood together in silence before they both caught the sound of yet more fast approaching feet. Spock looked ahead while Bansali turned and sure enough more people could be seen hurriedly making their way down the corridor towards sickbay. At the front running with surprising speed for someone his age was Ambassador A'tal along with the three other delegates, a curly brown head just a few steps behind them informed Spock that Ensign Chekov was right on their heels, and at the very back were Scotty, Sulu, and Uhura. All of them seemed to be literally stampeding as one towards where Spock and Lt. Bansali stood.

Spock strode forward and took a few steps away from the sick bay doors. At least he could stop all of them before they cause a commotion close to the sickbay doors and end up distracting the medical personnel who were performing a very delicate task within. Spock stood and waited but then something red caught the corner of his eyes, he turned to see Lt. Bansali, blood splattered and with her hand still bleeding lightly come to stand beside him. He could tell that this young woman was exhausted and also in a fair amount of pain herself and yet, she was unwilling to leave him to hold the gate as it were by himself.

Sure enough a few seconds later the both of them where being bombarded by the deluge of people, all concerned and solely focused on the current state of one Captain James T. Kirk.

" Commander Spock, please tell me how Captain Kirk is doing." Said Ambassador A'tal.

" How iz Cepten Kirk doing?" Asked Chekov with tears glistening in his eyes.

" Aye Mr. Spock, please tell us what is goin' on with the Capten." Said Scotty.

" Please Spock, how badly has he been hurt?" Asked a tearful Uhura.

They were all shouting and speaking all at once not giving Spock the chance to actually say something and quite frankly Lt. Bansali wasn't in no mood for this crap. Drawing in a deep, lung filling breath the lieutenant parted her lips and let her voice fly loose at full volume.

" SILENCE!"

There were a few startled noises at the sheer power of the red-haired woman's voice but then there was complete silence just as she had requested for. All eyes including Spock's went to the Lieutenant. She didn't so much as twitch under the many gazes now one her and with a soft huff she spoke.

" Thank you, now please all of you calm down and let Commander Spock actually speak and inform you of the situation." Said Lt. Bansali revealing that she was under regular circumstances a very soft spoken woman.

The large group of people all gawked at her for several moments before Spock shook himself and got to informing everyone like he was originally intending to.

" Everyone, at this very moment Dr. McCoy is performing surgery on Captain Kirk in order to stop him form internally bleeding to death. The situation is critical therefore I must ask that all of you remain calm and not raise your voices loudly out of respect for the Doctor and his medical team. What they are doing is very delicate and very serious. All that any of us can do now is wait and hope that Dr. McCoy is successful in his endeavours to save Captain Kirk's life." Said Spock with the clinical matter of factness he was known for.

But on the inside Spock likened what he was feeling to something slowly cracking into peices when subjected to having a large weight pressed on top of it.

It may have been that everyone was feeling that way from Lt. Bansali, to Ambassador A'tal, all the way down to Ensign Chekov.

And true to Spock's words the best they could do now is wait.

And hope for the best possible outcome for this entire harrowing incident.