Chapter 3: Drifting

Kirk let out a low deep throated groan, and blinked twice before he was able to see, and only one eye seemed to be working. The other was filled with a blinding white light.

"Pupilary contractions are normal," Leonard McCoy said, taking his pen light away from Kirk's face. The captain blinked again, clearing the dots. "He's got a hairline fracture in two of the vertebra on his neck and a hell of a bump on his head, but he'll live. Chekov on the other hand."

"Chekov," Kirk said, he shook his head winced at the action, and looked up at McCoy and Spock, who was standing right behind the doctor. "What happened to Chekov? What happened to my ship?"

"The doctor will be able to update you on Ensign Chekov's condition," Spock said. He looked down at Kirk then towards the viewscreen. "As for what happened to the Enterprise, I am unaware. We were being drawn into a black hole, and now we cannot get any sensor readings at all."

"I don't remember a black hole," Kirk said. He stood up, stretched his arms and legs, trying to get rid of the muscle tightness, thought about cracking his neck and decided against it. Agitating a broken neck wasn't the best idea. But, black holes…

"Yes, Captain," Spock said. "You were unconscious when we located it, but it seems to have disappeared."

"Like with the Romulans?" Kirk said, slowly twisting his head to look at Spock. "It collapsed on itself?"

"No, sir," Sulu answered. Kirk turned to look at him and cocked his head to one side. He grimaced as pain bubbled out of his neck. "The black hole just disappeared. It was there, we were dead in its maw, and then it was gone."

"Well…" Kirk said. His head still ached, he still felt blind in one eye, but he was starting to take in sensory information. The bridge was a wreck, worse than it had been before he went unconscious. Panels, officers, pipes, and electronics were hanging out all around the room, and the chances of all those officers being alive was slim. The veiwscreen was dead with a great chunk missing out of the corner. And, the lights, the lights were gone, only the emergency lights were working.

"Where are we?" Kirk finally said.

"I don't know," Sulu said, he looked at the screen, just stared at it. His arm was covered in blood from the shoulder down, staining his yellow shirt a reddish-black color. Kirk looked to Spock. Spock always had answers, this time, the Vulcan just shook his head. "McCoy?"

"Jim," McCoy said straightening, and looping his tricorder strap over his head. "The most I know is we're alive. Some"—he motioned towards Chekov—"are in worse shape than others."

"What happened?"

"Are you familiar with the old comic books?" McCoy asked, bending down to Chekov and laying one hand on the ensign's shoulder. Chekov groaned from the contact, but McCoy pulled, rolling him over onto his back. McCoy went on without Kirk answering.

"There was a comic book series about a man called Batman, he had a villain called Two-Face. Two-Face was a district attorney who pissed off a criminal. The criminal pitched acid in his face during a trial, and burnt half of the district attorney's face away…"

Kirk stepped around McCoy and looked down at Chekov. What he saw would be forever burnt into his memory. And, it was burnt into Chekov's face as well, exactly half of it was a black ruin, cracked and pitted like solidified lava. Some skin had broken away, leaving the vibrant reds of muscle, the grayish tan color of tendons, and the white of bone. His eyelid had been cooked away entirely, and the orb in the socket was a milky white. It rolled to the sound of McCoy's voice, but there was no way it could be seeing anything.

"That's what happened to our young Ensign Chekov," McCoy finished. Kirk could feel his lower lip drooping, but snapped it back up. He couldn't be caught gaping at Chekov. The ensign's other eye, blue as a crystal clear lake, opened and found Kirk's gaze.

"Did we get them, captain?" The Russian accent was still thick, but it was accompanied by the dry crackling of burnt flesh.

Kirk let a glance slide towards Spock, and the Vulcan gave the slightest of nods.

"Yeah," Kirk said. "Yeah, we got the bastards."

Chekov smiled. It was a corpse grin.

"Now, ensign," McCoy said. "I'm going to give you a sedative. That will keep you asleep until we can get you to sick bay."

Chekov tried to nod, but the grimace told everyone in attendance the motion was too much. McCoy applied the hypo, and Chekov's eye closed again. The milky one rolled towards the top of the socket. Kirk expected his chest to stop moving, but it kept the slow steady rhythm of sleep.

"How long will he survive like that?" Uhura asked. Kirk turned to look at her, and she was as beautiful as always, minus the inch long gash in her forehead and the blood running freely down her face.

What did we get into? Kirk asked himself.

"As long as I can get him to sickbay he'll live," McCoy said. "The prospects are dim beyond that."

Kirk turned to the captain's chair, strode over to it, and lowered himself into it. He tried internal communications, and didn't even get a dead line. He tried another button, and another, and another, none of them worked. None of them had power. Like the lights, they were all dead.

"Primary power…" Spock started.

"Is out," Kirk finished. "What's left?"

"Life support seems to be the only functional system," Spock said. "The turbolifts are nonoperational, sensors, communications, weapons systems…"

"All nonoperational," Kirk said. He could feel the eyes on him. Sulu, McCoy, Uhura, all the other living officers on the bridge, even Spock, all of them were looking at him, expecting him to have the answers. Kirk sighed, but wasn't without ideas.

One button worked on the captain's chair. The button farthest from the end of the arm. It popped open a little cubby hole in the arm. Inside were two items: a phaser, and a handheld communicator. Kirk pulled the communicator out.

"Mr. Scott," Kirk called into the little device after its opening chime. "Engineering, do you read me?"

Static.

"Mr. Scott, do you read me?"

Static.

"Bridge to Engineering."

"Aye captain," a battered sounding Scottish voice replied. "I'm still alive down here. I can't say the same for most of my men."

"I understand, Scotty," Kirk said. "Is there any way you can perform an engineering miracle for me?"

"Systems all around the ship are down, Captain," Scotty said.

"And, we need them back as soon as possible, Mr. Scott," Kirk said.

"Understood, sir," Scotty said. "Anyway we can get medical attention down on the Engineering deck."

"I'll see what I can do," Kirk said looking at McCoy. "Bridge out."

Kirk flipped the communicator closed and looked around at the remaining bridge crew. His eyes lingered on Chekov.

"We have to get the Enterprise back in working order as soon as possible," Kirk said, stating the obvious. "Mr. Sulu, I want you to organize sweep teams. We need to know if any of those Borg things made it onto the ship in the confusion. Mr. Spock, I want to know what happened. Use handhelds to collaborate with anybody you need to, tell me where we are and what happened to the black hole and the Borg ship. Bones, medical sweeps across the ship, death toll, wounded, round up as many people as you need, and get Chekov to sickbay, use the Jefferies Tubes to move around the ship."

"Yes, sir," the three of them snapped. McCoy looked a little squeamish about the Jefferies Tubes order, but understood like any officer.

Kirk sighed again. If only he knew what was beyond the walls of the ship.

The Enterprise drifted in the middle of a debris field. The remains of the Borg cube, both of them existing in a foreign galaxy they weren't meant to be in. A galaxy far far away.