McCoy eyes the bulkheads of the bridge, the view screen, and the winking readouts. There's more red on Sulu's panel than McCoy feels like there should be.

"You said the Franklin wasn't designed for inter-atmosphere flight," McCoy says to Scotty beside him, who only nods.

"I did."

"We're landing this hunk of tin on a planet. This planet. Again."

"We are. Though we can take off this time." Scotty winks. "Made a few wee modifications."

"Not hunk of tin." Jaylah shakes her head. "My house is composite titanium alloy."

Scotty tips his head towards her. "Well, there you go."

"God help us all," McCoy mutters.

"Quarter impulse, Mr. Chekov," Sulu says.

Scotty leans towards McCoy. "You may want to buckle up, Doctor."

It's some special type of hell that Altamid is so beautiful, mist rising up from the forests just like it would if it were dawn at home. This is a better view of it from up here, sun soaked mountains and low hanging clouds. Much better than the sight he'd gotten the first time around, squinting out a viewscreen as their ship arced a fiery burn towards the bottom of that canyon. Now, there's no sickening jolt of falling, and hopefully there won't be the accompanying shock when they crashed into the rocks.

There's not, but there's still a bump and McCoy has to grab the console in front of him. Spock glances over, but McCoy turns away before he has to hear that sitting would have been the logical choice.

"Ready?" Jim asks the moment the ship settles. Spock is beside him in two quick steps, pushed up out of his seat and ready to go. If he's any worse for the wear of a poor night's sleep, McCoy can't tell. That morning, Spock had been dressed and gone before McCoy could finish rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"Let's get this over with," McCoy says.

On the threshold of the hatch, Jaylah catches Jim's arm.

"Your hopes are useless here," she says.

Jim nods with a quiet intensity that was once brashness, a loud laugh and a clap on the arm. Half the time these days, Jim is now so subdued that McCoy isn't always sure he'd recognize him if he hadn't been there along the lengthy road of Jim growing up.

"We have to try," Jim says and that at least is familiar, as is the drop in McCoy's stomach as Jim opens the hatch and the filtered air around them is replaced with a billow of dust from outside.

He hates this. So, so much.

The mine camp is too still this time around. There's no drone army waiting for them, no stink of ionized air, no coppery, iron smell of blood clinging to the hulking, yellow structures that fill the space the Franklin doesn't take up. Instead, it's a gentle breeze shifting tree branches at the edge of the forest and the call of what might be a bird up high above them. McCoy wanders after Jim and squints upwards, but he can't see it against the bright of the sky.

Spock's shoulder to McCoy's chest pushes the air out of him with a grunt. They pitch downwards, the sky kicking up overhead and the hard crack of gravel meeting the back of his skull.

Near them, someone screams and McCoy shoves up against Spock's weight draped over him.

"Stay down," Spock says, a hand pressed to McCoy's shoulder. Spock squeezes off two shots and then a third. McCoy didn't even see him draw his phaser.

There's another one strapped to Spock's hip. McCoy stretches for it but misses, his hand patting empty at Spock's thigh. A singe of heat streaks over his shoulder and he pushes up against Spock far enough to fumble for the phaser, firing it blindly in the direction the bolt came from.

When silence finally settles, it rings loud. There's the whisper of the breeze and above them, birds wheel, black in the blue sky. The mountains swim, twisting and growing and when McCoy blinks, he's sure he's going to throw up.

"Jim," Spock says and pushes off from McCoy.

McCoy's foot slides out from under him when he tries to stand and he stumbles for his first step and his second. Then, he spots a yellow shirt and gold hair and the long streak of red blood.

"I'm fine," McCoy hears, rough and familiar, followed by a cough.

McCoy's there in a scrabble of loose dirt beneath his boots, shoving Spock out of his way.

"Jim," he says.

"Bones." A hand closes on his arm. Blue eyes blink from beneath a drip of blood and then there's a smile, twisted up at the corner. "I'm ok."

McCoy sinks back onto his heels. In his hand, the phaser is innocuous. Identical to before his shot, not smoking, not warm, no indication that it was fired at all. Sulu has both hands wrapped around his own phaser and beside him, Chekov has his back pressed to an outcrop of rocks.

"Manas," Jaylah says. Scotty has his hands half held up next to her and Uhura hasn't lowered her phaser, elbows locked and the gun held out in front of her. "He is here, still. He did not die."

"Maybe-" Jim licks at his lips and drags the back of his hand through the blood on his face so that it smears. "Bones, you're a good shot, right? You may have got him."

Some remnant of Spock's weight on him squeezes McCoy in the chest.

"Sure," he says.

"We're here in peace," Jim calls out, still laid out over the ground. He wipes the heel of his hand on his forehead. Around his eye, there's still the rim of a bruise. "Uhura-" Jim coughs and McCoy levers him half upright, a hand under his arm. "-Are the translators-"

"-On it, Captain."

There's no more shots as Jim stands. He doesn't sway, but he doesn't straighten his back, either. McCoy would reach for his tricorder if he had it with him, but the only thing that fills his palm is that phaser.

"On behalf of the Federation, we are here to offer you safe passage," Jim says to the surrounding silence. McCoy scans the rocks, his neck pricking with the certainty they're being watched. "We can provide transport to the starbase Yorktown and from there back to your home worlds."

Jim's head turns as he looks around, the sun glinting off the shine of blood on his forehead. "We can also assist with medical care," he calls out.

"Great," McCoy says.

"Sir," Uhura says with a finger pressed to the commlink in her ear and her eyes on her tricorder. "I'm not picking up any life forms."

Jim sighs. "I practiced that speech, too."

"The rocks." Jaylah still has her staff out. "They block your signals."

"Ok." Uhura folds her tricorder closed. "If I can get up on that cliff, I can set up some relays."

"Wait until we've secured the area," Jim says. "Until then, we're going in blind."

"Another shot and that won't be a joke, Jim." McCoy nods towards his forehead. "Maybe duck a bit quicker, next time."

"Ah, well." Jim shrugs and tosses McCoy a grin. "I didn't have my own personal body guard. Uhura, set up a constant communication loop once you get those relays up and running. I want everyone on this planet to know that they have a ride out of here if they want it. And if Manas is talking to anyone, I want to know where, when and who it is. Chekov-"

"-Sir?"

"Set up beacons between here and the mines. I want to know who's around here, where they're coming from, what weapons they're packing, and what they had for breakfast."

"Yes, sir," Chekov says.

"Scotty, secure the ship. Sulu, Spock, you're with me." Jim grins again. McCoy closes his eyes at the sight. "Bones, you come too. I know your sense of adventure is just itching for this."

Jim is already on his way to the tunnel that leads into the mines when McCoy gets himself to look again. Though Spock is still next to him, an arm's length away if McCoy were to reach out.

"Jaylah?" Jim calls back.

Her staff is still out, gripped tight in two hands.

"No," she says.

"She'll give me a hand," Scotty says.

McCoy hardly blames her. The back of his neck is itching after five minutes in this place, and he doubts its just the grit dusted over him already. Though that's what happens, isn't it, when you get tossed on the ground with no warning. He bats at his uniform with his palm and eyes Spock standing there beside him, stock still.

Spock still has his phaser out. McCoy does too and he remembers all over again that he hates the feel of the thing, too cool and slick, a lethal weapon wrapped up in a shiny casing.

"Take this," McCoy says, pressing the phaser into Spock's stomach and holding it there until a too warm hand closes over his.

Inside the cave, it's the particular sort of silence that makes McCoy's skin crawl. The quiet of the moment after life support machines are turned off, the stillness when another breath doesn't come. But there's no time to pronounce here, and his sickbay smells of antiseptic and the tile always squeaked underfoot, not the crunch of gravel and this cloying, sweet rot that hangs in the dusty air. A muscle in Sulu's jaw jumps as he leads them forward.

"Did all those- their soldiers? Did they all go to Yorktown with Krall?" McCoy asks and his voice echoes off the chambers. "Are there any left?"

"Their drones?" Jim asks. He turns, his face half lit in the blue light. "Let's hope not."

"This way," Sulu says and ducks down a passage. It ends in a larger cavern, but the bigger space doesn't do anything to help with the smell. Instead, the air feels even closer and a bead of sweat edges down McCoy's back. Here, there's no chance of a breeze and the darkness is a dizzy black mass, lit only by the light of the tricorder Spock shines around and the winking indicator lights of electronics strung up above them.

In the quiet, how Sulu swallows is loud.

"Here," he says and touches a shadowed form next to him. A shoulder, McCoy can see if he half squints. A body, upside down.

His mouth goes dry and it's not the heat. He'd know that blonde hair anywhere.

"Chapel," McCoy says.

"And Masters," Sulu says and points to a second dark mass.

"Shit," Jim breathes.

"They all have this." Sulu points to the back of Chapel's body, strung up as she is. Like a side of beef, hanging there, gently swaying. McCoy's gut goes cold.

"A neural transmitter link. Crude technology, and clearly antiquated," Spock says. He circles slowly behind Chapel. What was Chapel. McCoy covers his mouth with his hand. At least here, these bodies don't smell. The stench is coming from somewhere further back in the cave. It'd be so much worse if they did, another affront to the hell Krall put Chapel through.

"Captain," Spock says, "With your permission, I would like to analyze the device inserted into these bodies. I believe it would be helpful in explaining how Krall was able to survive for so long."

"Of course, Mr. Spock," Jim says like this is routine, like Chapel isn't hanging there like a rag doll.

But Jim's eyes are pinched at the corner and Spock's face is a little too blank in the shine of his light and McCoy knows well enough that desire to cling to normalcy, the banality of professionalism. Easier that way. Simpler than giving into the dark, churning mire that sits in his stomach and wants to come out as a scream.

He saw Chapel only days ago. Left her in charge of sickbay when he went to the bridge, there at the edge of that nebula. He had given her his padd. The one with their patients' charts loaded onto it that he used to carry around during his shifts. I need that back, he always told her, and she always ignored the reminder but left it on his desk for him anyway, but now he can't recall if he actually said it that last time, or left quicker than normal, Jim calling for him over the comm.

Outside the cave, Jim bends over, his hands on his knees.

"We've got to-" His head shakes, strands of hair falling over his forehead. A few catch in the drying smear of blood. "We've got to get them down from there."

"Sir, there's no response to the message," Uhura says. Her eyes are wide, but she seems steady. The look she trades with Sulu says enough of what she also knows of that cave. McCoy read their report. She spent long enough in there to never want to go back. Sulu too. Hell, all of them, now that they've seen their crew like that, upside down and empty of everything that made them themselves.

"Nothing?" Jim asks.

"A few faint signal traces. It might be someone listening, or it might be interference," she says.

Jim nods. "Keep transmitting."

"I'm also picking up emergency beacons," Uhura says and presses her lips together for a moment. "A lot of them."

"Starfleet?" Jim asks, though McCoy is sure he doesn't need to.

"They're ours," she confirms. "Personal EPIRBs. They were activated when we evacuated the ship. We'll be able to find everyone in there, Captain, in that cave. The signals are strong enough, even with the geology."

"Captain," Sulu says. "In the back of the cave, there are bodies. The ones that Krall…" His face tightens. "Already used."

"Alright." Jim's eyes close. "We'll start with those. And let's not waste any time. I don't want to be here any longer than we have to be."

…

Above his shelves of medical texts in his office, McCoy kept a closed cupboard full of neatly folded Federation flags. It had been the best place to stash them, since an ensign wasn't going to go in there looking for a tricorder or a hypo, and they didn't need to be left out with the business of sickbay, next to neat rows of dermal regenerators and annual flu shots. When he needed to, he added more to his inventory order at provisioning stops. Three body bags sent home, three new flags needed. Yet another trip to his stock of flags, another call Jim made to a family that would keep him up that night and the next few, yet another personnel file Spock would close out of the ship logs and that McCoy would remove from his roster of patients.

Here, dry dust blows up with each body they lay down. Even Spock is sweating, dark beads showing in a line down his spine, dampening the blue of his shirt.

"Not ours," Chekov says, his arms looped under the armpits of some poor soul. Uhura, holding their ankles, is quiet. The body is humanoid as they all are, since apparently Krall had his preferences, but McCoy can't tell the species, not with how desiccated their features and skin are, that same dry grayness that McCoy first saw during that firefight on the Enterprise, back when he thought Jim would get them and the ship out of there in one piece.

They set the body with the others they've pulled out, just past where some of their own crew is already laid on the gravel in the shade cast by the Franklin. Uhura straightens again and presses the heel of her hand to her forehead and Chekov rests his fists on his waist before they move off together, disappearing back into the depth of the mine.

The Academy didn't train them for this type of death. In med school, McCoy had learned to mark the time, the cause, speak to the family, and move on to the next patient and hope he could make it to the end of his shift without having to do that twice. This, here, is senseless. The coldness of murder and to be out here so far from everyone's homes. Filling out recruitment forms and signing his name above Starfleet's crest, McCoy hardly thought he'd be helping haul the bodies of the coworkers he used to see over morning coffee. This is a cruel sort of misery, here in the heat of the day with so many lost around them, and more being carried from the mine by the minute.

"Water?" Spock asks like he isn't already holding out a canteen. His phaser is on his hip again. Jim's wearing one too and Uhura as well.

"I'm fine," McCoy says but he takes it anyway. The water is warm, like it's been sitting in the sun. He closes the bottle after a sip, unsure that he'll keep any more than that down, but certain he doesn't want to throw up in front of Spock. Jim, maybe, but the last time McCoy saw him, he had his head tipped back against a jut of rock in the mine, his eyes wide open and blank. He'd stirred only when McCoy had jostled his arm, and had set off again to carry yet another one of his former crew. Dehydrated, he'd been. Still is, in all likelihood. It should be him that Spock's checking up on, but instead Spock is here, just staring at McCoy.

"I was fine," McCoy says.

"Pardon?"

McCoy points at his head and the tender lump that's swelled up over the course of the afternoon. "You cracked my head open. I would have been fine."

"Your skull appears to be intact."

"Give a guy a bit of warning next time," he says, but it's not until the words are out there, hanging in the dusty mine camp that he really hears them, the echo of annoyed surprise when Spock leaned towards him only a few days ago, soft lips and the smell of copper blood.

But if Spock's mind has tracked to where McCoy's has, an immediate jump from the parched landscape around them to the gold light of early dawn dancing across the cave walls, he doesn't so much as blink.

"Would you prefer a phaser shot to the chest?" he asks.

"I'd prefer to be anywhere else than there," McCoy says and for once, Spock doesn't argue with him.

Up on the ship, he'd at least have a place to wash his hands off. As it is, dirt is worked under his nails and into the lines of his palms. Spock's hands are probably clean, knowing him. McCoy watches him walk off and rubs his own palms together like it'll do anything against the grime.

McCoy sighs and follows him, dirt puffing up under his boots with each step.

He finds Jim winding his way through the hanging bodies. From the side, he watches Jim reach out and touch a shoulder of a former ensign, and the arm of someone who had been in Ops. Engineering, maybe, or one of Uhura's staff.

"This is a hell of a day, Jim," McCoy says and when Jim's shoulders slump, he walks over and takes him by the shoulder. "You think this is your fault."

"Yeah." Jim won't quite look at him. "I do."

"It's not."

"I agreed to the mission."

"There's no way you could have known," McCoy says. If Spock were here, he'd offer up some odds that they'd have sustained such a loss. McCoy can only squeeze Jim's shoulder.

"They're all supposed to be on leave on Yorktown right now," Jim says. He lets out a breath. "Sometimes, I think I still don't know what the hell I'm doing."

"You're too hard on yourself," McCoy says.

Jim shrugs off his hand. "Most of my crew is dead. I think that deserves some introspection."

"You saved Yorktown. That's millions of lives, Jim. Nobody else could have done what you did."

"Nobody else would have dragged their ship here and Rand would be enjoying an afternoon off with her girlfriend today, not-" Jim waves at the body next to him. "This."

"Jim…"

"It was sloppy." He crosses his arms over his chest.

"You were tired," McCoy says as gently as he can. "You needed a break."

"That's no excuse."

"You're not exactly doing a desk job here, Jim, running that ship of yours. It's ok that it wears you down."

"I know that," Jim snaps and McCoy frowns and steps backwards. "And when I don't have my head in it, shit like this happens."

"We were there with you," McCoy says slowly. "It was never just on you to realize Kalara wasn't who she said she was. Hell, us and all of Yorktown's intel too. You volunteered us because you thought you were saving lives - which you did, and you're the only one who hasn't noticed that."

Jim's jaw grinds together. They're all riding on the rough edge of the day. McCoy can feel the stew of tension in the air. Maybe Spock can too, because from across the cavern he looks over, his tricorder in his hand and Chapel hanging there before him.

"Jim," McCoy tries again. He thinks of the clink of whiskey glasses. That bottle they never got more than that one sip of. "You're a good captain. It's… Jim, it's what you're meant to be doing. This was just a bad spell of a mission."

But his assurance doesn't seem to go any deeper than a quick nod from Jim. It's cursory at best and McCoy frowns.

Get it together, he'd want to snap at him if Jim didn't look so damn defeated. As it is, he bites back the reminder he wants to give him that they're all stuck down here together, and it isn't just Jim's mess to clean up. If he's going to wallow it in, it's not exactly a one man party.

But that's uncharitable at best, and halfway to being an asshole when he doesn't need to be, not today, so he only smacks Jim on the arm and says, "What the hell else would you be doing anyway if you weren't here with us? Data input?"

"Maybe," Jim says and McCoy rolls his eyes because Jim won't quite grin.

"Great, you and Spock and a file cabinet."

"Spock?" Jim asks and his shoulders begin to soften. There's something near enough in his voice that they could be back in Jim's quarters, glasses between them at his tone. "Nah, he'd be on the ship."

"He'd be on the ship?" McCoy asks. He wipes his hands off on his shirt, over his stomach. He's not looking forward to the next body they'll haul out. Not ready for it either, not really. "He'd be on the ship if what?"

"If I was-" Jim shakes his head. McCoy feels himself frown again. Jim's not quite looking at him.

"What would you do, stick him with the rest of us? You'd be back within five minutes, bored out of your mind and driving us all up the wall."

"Probably," Jim says, his voice soft.

"Hmm? Probably what?"

"Probably, you- You're probably right," Jim says, but McCoy's had years of him - too many, he'd say if anyone asked - and years of Jim Kirk has him watching how that blonde head ducks down. There's too much held in that accompanying shrug. When McCoy only stares at him, Jim adds, "About being bored."

"I know," McCoy says slowly.

"Ready?" Jim asks and tips his head towards the back of the cave.

"You're-" McCoy holds a finger up. Jim blinks. "You weren't actually thinking about it, were you? After all this?"

"Thinking about what?" Jim asks like McCoy doesn't know that studied innocence all too well.

"Doing something else?" McCoy asks. He can barely get his mouth around the word. "Quitting?"

"Not-" Jim licks his lips. "Not after all of this mission, no."

Jim's blinking too much.

"Before?" McCoy asks and the silence that follows is crushing. He takes an unsteady step backwards. Beneath his boot, the stones and gravel are uneven. "You were going to leave? You and Spock both?"

"Me and Spock both what?"

"Captain?" Spock asks. Run, McCoy would tell him but he's too busy staring at Jim.

A slow, hot knot forms in McCoy's chest. Spock isn't helping it either, his eyes moving too calmly between the two of them like they're discussing the ship's gossip in the corridor, not stuck in this maze of rock and hanging, swinging bodies. McCoy wants to shake him.

"What the actual hell?" he asks. "The two of you were going to clear out of here? And leave us all to do- to do, what, Jim? Deal with this all ourselves?"

"No, Bones, Spock was- I would have recommended that Spock take over-"

"-Spock was out too," McCoy says and Spock opens his mouth like he might respond, but just flicks open his tricorder instead. How- how typical. Spock just standing there.

"I wasn't- Bones, I'm not going to go."

"Oh. Oh, good," he says and lets sarcasm swamp his voice. "Because for a second there it sounded a hell of a lot like you had planned all of this out."

"Bones…"

"You, off the Enterprise. Perfect. No, really Jim." He shakes his head. He'd cross his arms, but his back hurts again. "I'm happy for you."

Jim sighs at his tone, his head dipping towards the side. "I didn't take it."

"You were offered something?" McCoy asks and that simmering heat turns into a burn. "When were you going to bother to tell us this?"

"It doesn't matter, and I wasn't- I was just seeing what else was out there."

"What else was out there?" McCoy echoes. "That is the point of this goddamn five years, Jim. To see what the hell is out here. And look-" He waves up over their heads, the crew they had breakfast with and shared their ship with hanging up there. "-We found it."

"Bones-"

"-Don't." When Spock looks up from his tricorder, Bones takes the finger out of Jim's face and levers it at him instead. "And don't you, either."

"You-" Jim's head tips to the side. It's so much like Spock that McCoy can barely stand to look at him. "Spock, you were going to leave?"

Spock ducks back over his tricorder. "I do not wish to discuss the matter."

"But you knew?" Jim asks McCoy. "You- About Spock?"

"Lucky me. I wonder who else's career plans I'll find out about. Uhura? I'm sure every ship in the 'Fleet wants her. Sulu? Wouldn't exactly blame him for clearing out after all of this, would you?"

Jim's blink is as good as a 'no', but it just leaves McCoy hollowed out.

"This is great, Jim," McCoy says and throws his hands up. "Could I maybe get a reference? A letter of recommendation? There's hell of a lot of hospitals out there where the commute isn't traipsing through the far reaches of the Alpha Quadrant."

From behind Chapel, Spock stares at him. Sulu too, across the cave, and Jim with his mouth parted. Jim's eyes are too wide. Out loud, the words kindle that flare in McCoy's chest like a hot, dry wind on a spark.

"I'm supposed to be helping people, not cutting their bodies down," he says.

"Doctor-"

"-No," McCoy snaps and Spock blinks in the light cast by his tricorder. "I don't want to hear it."

"Doctor," he says again and turns the tricorder around. There's a steady green blink on it. "You are, in that case, in luck. Nurse Chapel is - surprisingly - still alive."