Oh my goodness, this might be the longest chapter I've written so far.
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The night passes by without incident, which Bones is thankful for. Yet he can't help but sigh when he wakes up after a restless night to find himself on Spock's couch, still trapped in the Vulcan's body with no idea how to cope.
So he settles for pulling on Spock's uniform – God, Spock was way too organized – and slips out of the room while Uhura is still sleeping, blankets still pulled up over her head. It's only oh seven hundred hours, so the hallways are quiet and still, devoid of any life.
His feet take him towards the med bay by instinct, feet echoing strangely in the deserted halls. He passes his own room, where Spock is sleeping, and resists the urge to go in and collapse in his own bed. Rubbing his eyes, Bones continues on, self-consciously touching his new pointy ears. The thought occurs to him: I'm going to die with pointy ears. Damn.
"Commander Spock?" A voice snaps him out of his thoughts. He turns to face a nervous looking man, who is clutching a screen with images on it. "Commander, I have the data on those shuttles that you requested yesterday morning. I'm sorry I took so long to get it back to you but-"
"It's fine," Bones interrupts, taking the screen from him. He hesitates when he looks at the data – I can't read any of this.
"What do you think, sir?" the man asks. Bones furrows his brow.
"Uh…" he begins nervously.
"Ensign Fritz." Kirk's voice reaches the two of them, and Bones almost swears out of pure relief. The captain reaches the pair, smiling as always with that charismatic grin, even at seven in the morning: "Aren't you on duty right now, Ensign?"
"Yes, Captain, but Commander Spock asked for these yesterday and I just thought I should run them along to him."
"It's seven in the morning – you're lucky you caught him at such an early time," Kirk says, still smiling. "Anyway, you'd best be going along now. Big day ahead."
"Aye, Captain." Ensign Fritz salutes before heading back the way he came.
Kirk reaches out to take the screen from Bones' slack hands. "You're lucky I was around," he says with what would sound like a touch of superiority without the tired notes to his vocal cadence.
"What are you doing up?" Bones wants to know. "You never get up before ten and even then some days I have to drag you out of bed to get to the bridge."
Kirk shrugs, not looking at Bones. "I guess I just wanted an early start to today."
Bones looks closely at Kirk, who only waves him away. "You haven't been sleeping," he accuses the captain. "There are dark circles under your eyes. Are those blasted allergies to the pollen keeping you up again?" The two of them round the corner into the med bay, where Bones promptly locks the door behind them. "Because I should remind you that I've been telling you to take your medicine since day one of you falling ill-"
"Look, I'm just a little worried." Kirk rubs at his eyes. "I'm just… I've been up all night trying to find out what this could possibly be." He sinks onto the bio bed, dropping his face into his hands. "I've got nothing," he says, his voice muffled.
At a loss for words, Bones stands there for a moment while Kirk recomposes himself. "Up all night?" he repeats, finally.
"Aw, damn it, Bones, don't give me a hard time for trying to help-"
"You know that I'm grateful to you for even getting off your ass to try, Jim, but you can't stay up all night. It's not good for you. It's illogical, even." Bones swings himself up onto the bio bed opposite Kirk.
Kirk cracks a smile. "Ain't that what Spock would say?"
"Stop trying to imitate a Southern accent, you'll never get it right."
They both chuckle at that for a moment. Finally, Bones looks at Kirk. "So you really stayed up all night for Spock and me?"
"Well-" Kirk shrugs, not meeting his friend's eyes. "I mean, I guess I figured Chekov would appreciate it if I listened to what he tried to tell me once in a while, you know? And see if I understood what the hell goes on in his mind." He cracks his knuckles and it echoes in the dead silence of the room.
Bones smiles as gently as he can. He knows that that's Kirk's way of saying well, yeah, course I did, I care about the both of you.
Suddenly, the alarm goes off, blaring loudly and startling the pair. Instinct makes both leap up, boots hitting the floor and racing towards the door. Kirk pulls it open with a little too much force and almost jams his fingers until Bones grabs him and forcibly throws him out of the room.
There's a sudden flurry of action in the hallways as officers leap out of their rooms, swarming towards their posts and almost tripping over themselves as they struggle to pull on shirts, pants, shoes. From up the hallway, Bones sees Spock emerge from his room, face serene and calm even in the midst of chaos – if anyone was paying attention, they would know that there was definitely something wrong with the doctor. In reality Bones was never that serene, even when the ship was casually drifting along in space.
"Captain on the-"
"Yeah, yeah," Kirk says brusquely. "Status report, Mr. Sulu."
"It appears that we've been ambushed by the Argelians, Captain."
"Ambushed?" Kirk spits the word out as though it's poison in his mouth. "I hate it when people ambush us, can't they just attack us like men head on and be done with it-"
"Actually, Captain, that defeats the purpose of the tactical-"
"Not now," Bones hisses to Spock.
"Engage shields," Kirk orders.
"Shields are already engaged, sir."
"Can we get out of here?"
"Negative," Chekov says from Sulu's side, fingers dancing across the wildly flickering screens. "Ahead of us is the Argelian Belt, sir."
Kirk curses. "I thought we had a few more days before we hit that blasted thing."
"Ahh, yes, keptin. It appears that the data we were given regarding the Belt was faulty and outdated."
"The Argelians gave us that-" Kirk stops, his eyes narrowing. "Oh."
"We could fire back, but they're cloaking themselves. Not anything we can't pick up, it's just that our targets are shaky at best," Sulu informs him. "We could regroup. The nearest station is two sectors away."
"Evasive maneuvers, then, Mr. Sulu." Kirk takes a seat in the chair.
"Aye, Captain."
"There is another way, keptin-" Chekov pipes up.
"I'm trusting you, Chekov. Get us out of here."
"But it's highly risky-"
"Wait, Captain. There's someone hailing us on our channel," Uhura says from behind the trio. Bones glances behind him in surprise; he hadn't heard her come in. She swivels to face them, control in every one of her features: "Should I patch them through, Captain?"
"Throw them up on the ship's conn," Kirk orders.
She flicks a switch and the crackle fills the bridge, replaced quickly by hissing. Bones visibly shudders, remembering the hissing speech of the Argelians. Somehow, it seemed even more terrifying when it was amplified on a speaker.
"Greetingsssss, Enterprisssse," the voice said. "Thiiss iss Admiral Gluk Keueitt of Argelia(1)."
"Yeah, I remember you," Kirk says impatiently. "You're the guy who tried to kill my First Commander and me. You wanna explain to me why you're trying to kill my entire crew?"
"I don't think it's a good idea for you to antagonize the guy currently attacking us," Bones stage whispers at Kirk.
"Shields at sixty percent," Sulu warns.
"You broke our contract." Gluk Keueitt sounds too excited about this fact. "You promissssed to negotiate with your Firsst Commander and no one elsse."
"I did," Kirk says flatly.
"You did not, Captain Kirk." Bones can almost hear the tongue flecking across the dry, lizard like lips of the Argelian admiral. "You dare make a fool out of uss Argelianss? We are not sss-tupid. Commander Sssspock is well known to us. You did not bring Commander Ssspock to the negotiation treaty."
"You know, Admiral Keueitt," Kirk says stubbornly, "I have no idea what the hell you're talking about. Hey, while we're at this, you want to tell me why you gave us faulty data that might have gotten us killed?"
"You were going to die anyway, Captain Kirk. I did not think it mattered much whether it was by our handss or if it wass by the Argelian Belt."
Kirk snorts. "You play fair. Now. You can either back the hell away from my ship, or we can do this the hard way."
"Shields at fifty three percent," Sulu says.
The admiral sounds like he's choking on his own spit, but Bones knows from experience that he's laughing. "I would like to see you try to attack us, Captain. You are outnumbered, outgunned."
Kirk looks over at Chekov, who has his brow furrowed in concentration, shaking his head – not ready, not ready. Then he looks at the rest of his crew, all of whom are busy trying to get themselves out of this mess.
"Any lasst wordss?" the admiral hisses.
"We've been over the treaty negotiations," Spock whispers in Bones' ear. "You know what our leveraging point is."
"Say something, then," Bones whispers fiercely.
"Negative. It needs to come from you, Doctor."
Bones feels his heart jump into his throat, but he takes a deep breath, steeling himself: "Admiral Keueitt," he says, thinking about how to channel the annoying Spock voice. To his relief, it neither shakes nor trembles. "It would be highly illogical for you to attack us now."
"Why, if it issn't Commander Ssspock himsself." The admiral sounds surprised.
"The chances of you succeeding in your attack are slim," Bones continues, watching Spock, who's holding his gaze steady and nodding slightly. "Er… it would be a grievous waste of manpower and resources for your planet, and we both know that there are little resources left on Argelia for you to use."
There is silence on the other end of the line, and Kirk motions for Bones to continue as Chekov continues to frantically program numbers. Fumbling at straws, Bones continues: "We are better off as your allies, Admiral. Do not make enemies of us."
Now the whole bridge is watching, holding their breath. Bones feels the sweat pool in his palms, and he surreptitiously wipes them down. He looks at Spock, who mouths, Weapons. "We have weapon capabilities far beyond your imagination, far beyond your species. Our Prime Directive instructs us to only explore, but do not think for a moment that if you antagonize us we will not hesitate to push back." He pauses, remembering something Sulu said a year ago: "If you test me, you will fail."
"Shields at forty six percent, Captain," Sulu whispers.
"So what will it be, Admiral?" Kirk asks. "You've heard my First Commander speak. What is your choice?"
The crackle of static is the longest sound Bones has ever heard in his life. Finally, the admiral speaks. "You win thiss time, Commander Ssspock." And then dead radio silence.
"They've cut all communication," Uhura says.
"They're also gone," Chekov adds, scanning the area.
"Gone? How can they just be gone?" Bones demands, legs suddenly feeling weak and wobbly.
"Who cares?" Kirk whoops. "They're gone – you won, Bon- Spock! You won!" and he claps Bones on the back with a lot more force than necessary.
Spock only tilts his head towards Bones with grudging praise. "Well done, Doctor," he says in an undertone that only Bones can hear.
"Don't ever let me do that again," Bones mutters.
The hint of a smile appears on the other man's lips. "I will do my best not to, Doctor."
(1) EDIT: It's been brought to my attention that the Argelians do actually exist in Star Trek, and they're completely different from how I've portrayed them in this fanfiction. I'm not quite sure how this happened, since I've never heard of them before I made up their name on the spot for this story. Still, mistakes are mistakes, so I am writing now to tell you of mine - hopefully it won't interfere too much with the story! For now, I would suggest separating the canon Argelians from these Argelians of mine. And I also suggest looking them up - they actually seem pretty cool! Thanks to user Obsessive6 for pointing this out to me - you are one dedicated Trekkie :)
Much love,
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