Disclaimer: God help us all if I owned Star Trek. haha.
Lunchtime, the bane of any new crewmember's existence, Christine mused as she juggled her tray in one hand with a bottle of purified Mars water in the other.
She had been on the ship for a little over a month now and still hated having to search for a place to sit. She spotted McCoy sitting in the back of the mess hall, at a medium-sized circular table, and immediately headed towards that direction.
As soon as she sat down, she saw McCoy slip something from a steel flask, into his sweet tea. She shot him a dangerous look. "You know alcohol consumption onboard, other than that provided by the mess crew, is completely illegal, right? You could get immediate suspension if someone saw that."
"Well, Chapel," he took a swig of the tea and swallowed, obviously comforted by the spirits, "No one's gotta know, do they?"
"Is this seat taken?"
McCoy immediately jumped at the sound of the acting captain behind him, immediately stuffing the flash into his pocket, hoping that the Vulcan would not notice.
"Bug off, you green-blooded--" But was interrupted by Christine kicking him in the knee underneath the table. She gave him a look that she hoped translated as revenge is sweet. "I mean…sure, have a seat."
A moment of awkward silence passed between the trio as Spock sat down.
McCoy coughed. "I gotta hologram from Jim earlier. He said him and Nyota are gonna head back to earth on the next shuttle."
"That is efficient, considering the lacking of medical personnel employed on starbases," noted Spock in his usual formality.
"Yeah, I guess she's still gotta tell her parents, and his mom and step dad…I'm sure they're gonna be just dandy when they hear bout all this," McCoy replied grimly.
"Hopefully everything will all work out in the end," said Christine, feeling slightly awkward because she was the only one of the three who were not on close terms with the expecting parents. She also noted that Spock was probably not too excited about the news, so she tried to be as neutral as possible.
"Uh, well, I'm gonna go…get some more tea," McCoy jumped up and in fact went to go sit with Scotty, who handed him another flask directly behind their captain's back. Christine could not help but roll her eyes in annoyance -- they knew of the possible trouble they could get into.
Christine lifted her bottled water up to her lips and took a drink so that it would give her an excuse for the sudden lack of conversation.
"Your offspring must be in decidedly good hands if you resolved to take part in such a long-term mission, Lieutenant," the Vulcan articulated as Christine took a sip of her water.
She swallowed quickly after she heard this. "My what? I don't have any children, captain."
"Then I must be mistaken; on your Starfleet profile, there is a child in the holographic with you."
"Oh, you must mean Naomi -- No, she's my sister's kid. I watched her a lot when Abigail, her mother, was in classes, so I'm not surprised she's in the picture."
"I apologize for my assumption."
"It's fine, anyone could make that mistake if they didn't know." She picked at the dry Orion lettuce in her salad and decided that a large amount of dressing would make it edible enough for her liking. She didn't touch anything else on her plate, though; her mother had come from a very nonconformist family that followed a vegetarian diet, and Mrs. Chapel wanted to pass the same rituals onto her own children; Abigail had dropped the eating habit when she was a teenager, but Christine managed to stick with it and was very glad, because many of the alien planets that she had visited her father on were vegetarian in nature.
She looked over at Spock's plate, and realized he only touched his salad also. She couldn't resist smiling; Vulcans were vegetarian too. But unfortunately she never harbored the chance to visit the arid but beautiful planet. Its sudden annihilation seven months prior had completely demolished the chance. So many lives lost in such little time; the catastrophic event saddened her. She could not even imagine what Spock had felt at the loss of his planet.
But, she suddenly remembered reading somewhere that a new colony was being built on a small, but habitable planet not far from Venus. An anonymous Vulcan had taken it upon himself to dedicate his life to the rebuilding of the near-extinct race. Christine wondered why Spock decided not to retire from Starfleet to aide in the rejuvenation; she knew that he was a very accomplished member of Starfleet, but on the inside she betted that there was some sort of longing he felt to help.
McCoy sat down again after nearly ten minutes of absence. "It's okay, don't worry, I'm back," he added sarcastically with his return.
Christine looked over at him and rolled her eyes, but smiled a little as she noticed Spock give him a look of rare perplexity.
Nearly three weeks after the start of her new post, Christine found out that the ship was going to enter the orbit of an uninhabited Class M planet by the name of Rutilus, named for its yellowish-red appearance. Its surface, according to her calculations (which, much to her annoyance, were constantly being checked over by the ever-precise Spock), was not unlike that of Mars -- rocky and desolate.
It was not until the morning of the Enterprise's arrival in the planet's orbit she was notified that she was assigned to participate in the examination of the surface. Her, along with three other crewmembers -- Spock, McCoy, and an ensign who specialized in xenogeography -- were going to beam down to the planet's deserted surface at 0900 hours and take soil samples for Starfleet's research databases.
"I don't see the damn point of me going down there," grumbled McCoy as he walked alongside Christine to the transporter room on Deck 6.
"Surface tremors are rather frequent on these sort of planets. Also, the ensign is inexperienced and there is also the possibility of an injury," explained Christine, who was tightening her utility belt that had a personal communicator attached to it.
"Yeah, well, it's the captain's own damn fault for sendin' the kid down there anyways," he complained.
Minutes later, they entered the transporter room where chief engineer Montgomery Scott was preparing the main console to beam them down onto the surface.
A red-shirted ensign was sitting on the edge of the platform, fiddling with his communicator. Christine groaned inwardly, annoyed; the young man looked no older than eighteen, nineteen at best. She hoped that his knowledge of alien geography outweighed his inexperience in the field.
"Mr. Scott, dissipate no time in beaming us down to Rutilus. It would be prudent that we reach the surface as soon as we are able," the Vulcan owner of the voice strode into the room and walked past McCoy and Christine, immediately ascending the platform. The doctor and first officer exchanged a glance and followed the captain, taking their places on the platform, followed by the young ensign.
"Alright then," Scotty called to them from behind the console. "It is currently 0900 hours and your return will be at 1200. We will be monitoring your frequencies. Alright?" A moment of silence passed. "Okay then…Energize," he said, pressing the buttons needed.
Suddenly, the transporter room that Christine was standing in suddenly disappeared and a completely different environment began to form around her, but instead of the white platform, she was now standing in the middle of an ocean of sand and rocks.
"Lieutenant? Doctor? Ensign Smith?" The three turned around to face Spock, who was scanning the data on his tricorder.
"According to the data, we are standing in the radius of a large encircling of mountains. It will take seventy-five minutes to walk to the edge of the gathering. Lieutenant Chapel, you will lead Ensign Smith and Doctor McCoy to the east and turn around when you reach the mountains. Meanwhile, I will go west and do the same. We will meet here half an hour before we are due to beam back up. If there any problems, use your communicator."
Christine nodded in understanding and watched as Spock turned his back to begin walking opposite of what she supposed was their assigned directions.
"I guess we should get moving," she said to the other two and began walking.
"…But the ex-wife, she's something else. It was like arguin' with a fence post…" McCoy went on, feeling that the long journey would be an appropriate time to discuss his divorce.
Christine took the time to go through her tricorder and note the geographical makeup of the planet, something the supposed xenogeography expert was not doing. Instead of doing his job, he was listening to McCoy's fascinating story on why you should never marry a freeloading, social ladder-climbing surgical assistant.
"We are going to reach a group of caves in a couple of minutes," she interrupted him about half an hour into the journey. "We can take a momentary break, since it's about midpoint to our destination."
"Good, we've been walking for ages," McCoy said.
Five minutes later, they reached the caves, which offered a decent amount of shade from the terrorizing sun.
Christine sat herself down on a rock at the edge of the shade and stared out into the horizon, searching for any sign of mountains. Suddenly, she spotted pointed peaks toward the direction they were walking. They were surrounded by dusty clouds that had previously kept the group (or Christine, rather) from noticing the mountains, making them virtually invisible to the naked eye.
"Chapel, take this. It'll keep ya from dehydrating. It's got some vitamins in it," McCoy threw her a flask. He turned to the ensign, who was eyeing the cave wall and was about to touch it, as if testing something. "Don't touch anything. God knows how old this cave is--"
Suddenly, the ground began to shake and small rocks began to fall from the sides of the cave. "Damnit, kid, I told ya not to touch anything!"
"McCoy, those are tremors!" Christine yelled to the doctor, eyeing the stone ceiling.
A loud roaring sound met the sudden collapse of the back of the cave, taking the ensign down with it.
"Smith!" McCoy called, and attempted to go after him.
Christine saw the section of the wall that McCoy was standing nearest was beginning to shake violently and he was too busy searching for the buried ensign.
She made a quick decision and decided against saving herself for once. With one quick glance towards the opening of the cave, she charged towards McCoy and threw her weight against him to get him out of the way of the soon-to-be disaster zone. McCoy was pushed two yards in front of her and she was pulled to the ground by the violent tremors. She shielded her face against the debris and did her best to cover her ears against the loud crashing of the rocks.
Almost as soon as it began, the quake ended and it was quiet, save for the deep breathing of McCoy, who was standing over her. Christine opened her eyes and tried to push herself up, but an immense weight on her bottom half was keeping her grounded. Her left leg was nowhere to be seen, nor could she even feel it. It wasn't until the shaking stopped that she realized it was buried underneath a bone-crushing boulder.
She groaned as she tried to pull her leg from underneath the rock, but was unsuccessful in the attempt. McCoy, who was frantically trying to lug it off of her leg, was also unlucky in his endeavor.
"Goddamnit, Chapel," he anxiously said in between breaths.
Her leg was numb and she realized that there was no way it was going to be free until the arrival of help. She looked up at McCoy through hot tears that began to form her eyes.
"Listen," she tried to keep herself together. She looked around for her tricorder, but realized it was crushed in the tremors. "Spock is about an hour west from hear. If you hurry, you may reach him sooner…Hurry, McCoy. This boulder needs to be moved soon or…I-I may never walk again. Now go!" She exclaimed, throwing her hand towards the west.
She watched as he raced out of the cave. Christine did her best to keep herself together, to keep herself from crying.
"God, please hurry, McCoy."
A/N: I hate this chapter, simply because I can't write action scenes to save my life.
By the way, reviews are pretty dandy :) Suggestions, as well as criticism, is wanted.