Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek.
Warning: May contain mild cursing and violence, may contain hints of Spock/Uhura and Chekov/Eprouve
Notes: This is my first ever Star Trek story, so some things may be incorrect. Don't shoot me xD. Also, although there is an OC in this story she is *NOT* the main character. Kirk's POV.
Chekov muttered an inaudible, quick apology to Hikaru, then shrunk back to his work. His shoulders were raised and his head was down, his back slid farther down on his chair than he normally would be sitting. Chekov was blushing, as if ashamed that he had even thought about asking the innocent question.
The other ensign, Emily Eprouve, broke the long silence with a rather painful sounding cough. "Uhm, we are no longer orbiting Vulcan, Captain." The young girl announced, eyes flickering from Kirk to Chekov.
Jim blinked in surprise, his stare at Sulu broken by Eprouve's raspy yet sweet voice. "Very good, Ensign. You may go back down to the armory, if you'd like." Kirk told the Tactical Officer.
Emily nodded and headed toward the exit, examining the suddenly harsh Lieutenant Sulu and the upset navigator. She shook her head with a sigh as she walked to the elevator. Sulu was most likely just having an off day, and Eprouve had other concerns. For instance, taking back all the phasers that she had handed out to redshirts who were going to fight the Klingons on Vulcan. The ensign scowled; while she didn't mind being the Tactical Officer, she found that her unofficial jobs were more enjoyable. Orbital Engineering was fun, but she found that when she needed to hack into something—a computer, a starship, an old-fashioned lock—that was what she was best at. Emily found that job the most fun as well as the most important and useful. Spock was also able to do it, but Eprouve did it better. Her other job on the ship was the Interrogation Surgeon. She found it fun and interesting, but it was often frustrating and cruel. The Starfleet Officer was secretly glad that she almost never needed to perform her interrogational duties.
Back on the bridge, Kirk was paying special attention to Mr. Sulu. The helmsman was rhythmically tapping his finger on his compboard—or rather, jabbing his nail into the screen over and over again. His other hand was supporting his head, his fingers combed into his jet hair.
Kirk decided to take the risk, and sat up a little straighter. "Shield and weapon systems reset, Mr. Sulu?" He asked. The helmsman stayed in his position, as if trying to avoid looking the captain directly in the eye. Sulu scowled, the hand that he was tapping with contracting into a fist.
"Yes, sir." Sulu growled through gritted teeth. His glare into the nothingness in front of him was dark enough to stab through even the proudest of Starfleet officers. Chekov stared at his apparently livid friend, then turned to the captain skeptically. Kirk shrugged, his eyes showing that he was just as confused as the ensign.
The ship travelled through the void of space at approximately warp five. The emergency excursion to Vulcan had used quite a bit of the starship's power, so they tried not to waste too much energy. The pattern of a harmless query being asked and Sulu responding with hostility went on for hours. Kirk even suggested to Hikaru that it might have been a good idea to head down to sickbay, but that only made Sulu angrier. He denied that anything was wrong, and used his best efforts to try to convince the crew that he was neither ill nor stressed. Pavel tried to reason with his friend, only to be insulted and threatened. Soon the whole bridge, excluding Spock, was verbally fighting with the helmsman. It did not go on for too long, however, due to the Captain becoming more irritated than he had been in weeks.
"Quiet!" Kirk yelled angrily. Silence fell over the bridge, leaving an eerie sensation in Jim's eardrums. He was standing now, pacing around Sulu and the other officers, his brow contracted in frustration and his jaw set in a disappointed frown. "Now listen here." Kirk commanded. "I am the captain of this starship, and I won't have any inter-crew fighting on here—verbal or otherwise. Understood?" Various "Yes, sir"s were spoken quietly from the crew, though Sulu remained silent, his eyes locked in what seemed to be a permanent glare. Kirk sighed, shaking his head in disappointment.
"Just…everyone, go…do something else. Anything. You know what? Go eat. Now. Just get off the damn bridge; and when you come back, I expect everyone to behave appropriately." The Captain ordered, rotating away from the direction of his crew. "I simply can't believe this. It's outrageous! Starfleet Officers behaving like children…" Kirk trailed off. His point had been made, the workers on the bridge looked down in shame, with the exception of the helmsman who was the cause of the chaos. Kirk exited the area and marched down the hallways of his starship. He couldn't think of any cause for the incident; unless, of course, Lieutenant Sulu was lying and was under either physical or emotional stress. That was the only reasonable explanation, but what could be wrong? The helmsman had seemed perfectly normal before Kirk and Spock beamed down to Vulcan.
The C.O. walked through the corridors of The Enterprise, arriving at the mess hall five minutes after he had left the bridge. The mess hall was relatively quiet, there were only seven or eight officers there—after all, it was still a little early to be eating dinner, but it was as good an excuse as any to be able to get off of the bridge and away from the hostility. Kirk just was not in the mood for any kind of problems that day, after speeding to Vulcan from half way across the galaxy for no reason and wasting some of the starship's energy. Doctor McCoy and Scott were among the few crewmen in the mess hall, however, and they both looked quite surprised to see the captain.
"Hey, Jim. You're here early." Bones said, watching Kirk stick a card into the food synthesizer. Kirk waited for his usual meal, then took the tray to the table that the doctor and the engineer were sitting at and sat down, looking a bit distressed.
"I skipped breakfast and lunch, I was a bit preoccupied." Kirk said bitterly, taking a bite of the synthesized food. "Mr. Sulu started acting strangely. He seems agitated and he was openly hostile to the bridge officers, particularly Mr. Chekov and myself." The captain explained. "I'm sure Spock and Uhura are on their way as well."
Scotty's eyes narrowed. "Hostile? Him, too?" He asked quietly. "The lad who was runnin' the transporter today, he was actin' jus like tha' way ye describe Mr. Sulu." The engineer explained. "And when all of ye were beaming down te Vulcan, he almos' transported all of ye right into space! It nearly looked like he did it on purpose as well!"
Bones and Kirk exchanged worried glances. "On purpose?" Kirk repeated.
"Aye, sir."
"Well, that's just wonderful." The captain said sarcastically, holding back a groan. "Do you think they're sick?" he asked McCoy, not quite ready to deal with another contagious deep space illness. It seemed that Sulu was always infected first, and his fencing skills often made him dangerous when he was delusional. Leonard leaned back slightly, looking troubled.
"I'm not sure, Jim." The Doctor replied, staring up at the ceiling. "But Nurse Chapel was behaving the same way." His brow contracted in exasperation. "I don't understand! She was perfectly fine before we transported to Vulcan…Christine never left sickbay while I was there." Bones sighed quietly. "I'll check them out in a little while. Maybe it's just stress, we have been rather busy lately."
Kirk fell into a slumped position, looking bitter. "Whether it's stress or a disease, I won't tolerate it on the ship. Three officers are showing violent hostility, and I want it taken care of." He grumbled. McCoy elbowed the Captain's shoulder, rolling his eyes.
"Calm down, Jim. I told you, I'll call them down to sickbay after—" The CMO was cut off by Spock and Uhura entering the mess hall. Uhura's facial expression showed that she was goaded, aggravated and insulted; she separated from the science officer and headed to the food synthesizer.
Spock, as always, was emotionless, but his posture showed that he was disturbed by something. Instead of getting his meal, he strode toward the table and spoke to Bones.
"Doctor McCoy," he started. "I am slightly concerned with the health of our helmsman, Lieutenant Sulu, he—"
"I already know, Spock." Leonard interrupted hastily. "Captain Kirk just finished explaining to me. It seems that two other officers are behaving in the same fashion and I intend to take care of it once I finish here." Spock raised an eyebrow, then nodded and walked to the food synthesizer as Uhura was going back to the table. She put her tray on the table and sat down, scowling.
"That Sulu, he's such a jerk today!" Nyota muttered angrily. "What's gotten into him?" she asked rhetorically. Some time went by, Spock came back to the table, other crewmen from the bridge started entering the mess hall, all looking either angry or confused, or in Chekov's case, a little upset. Sulu entered immediately before Chekov did, and instead of going to the table that he, Chekov, Eprouve, and a few redshirts would normally eat at, he went to a table that was in the far left corner of the room—the one farthest away from all the others and had less chairs. Scotty and Bones exchanged glances, but Kirk was focused on the ship's navigator. Pavel looked depressed as he watched Sulu sit down so far away from civilization. Kirk saw him sigh, then head over to the table that his other friends were sitting at—and everyone at that table was also watching Sulu, dumbfounded.
Kirk frowned, sympathizing for the officers. He might have gone over and said something to them if it weren't for the transporter officer walking in along with Nurse Chapel, both of them with the same ferocious glare that Sulu had on. The CMO sat up a little straighter, about to speak to the nurse.
"Ah, Ms. Chapel," McCoy started. "if I could have a word with you for a minute, I—" he cut himself off, watching the nurse walk right past him, the transporter officer looking back over his shoulder, his livid eyes stabbing through Dr. McCoy. The two officer walked directly over to the table that Hikaru sat at, none of the three of them going to the food synthesizers. They sat in a triangular pattern and quietly began speaking to one another, but Kirk could not hear them above the noise of the mess hall. The Captain faced his exasperated friend, now looking more irritated than confused.
"Well, it looks like I won't be able to take the easy way out of this one," McCoy sighed. "I'll tell them to report to sickbay as soon as possible." The doctor rose, but was not able to get to the three ill officers.
The Enterprise had begun to shake violently, twisting and turning as if there were an earthquake in space. McCoy was unprepared for this and fell the moment he stood up, not hitting the floor due to the Captain's swift intervention. Kirk helped the doctor back onto his feet, gliding out of his seat in the process. Various officers fell to the ground, Scotty and Spock were clinging to their table for dear life. Jim stood up, taking a few involuntary steps backward and gave his orders as the food synthesizers began to spit out various pieces of fruit and meat.
"Quickly, everyone who belongs on the bridge—" The Captain was cut off, the starship quickly changing course, knocking him off of his feet and into a wall. Kirk winced and hoisted himself upward, trying to avoid an airborne orange. "Get there now, and engineering, we need stabilizers! Find out what's going on and fix it!" he tried to command over the sounds of crashes and screams. Jim heard various "Yes, sir"s and "Aye, Captain"s, and watched ten crewmen make their way to the exit either by crawling or by attempting to walk. Ensign Chekov was the first one out, followed by Scotty, then Spock, then Uhura. Kirk looked back over his shoulder to see Sulu and the other 'infected' crewmen, seeing that none of them were making any attempt to move.
"Go, Jim!" Bones yelled over the chaotic noise, falling to the left. "They'll need you on the bridge, I'll take care of those three!"
"No, no, forget it for now!" The C.O. shouted. "The ship as rough as she is now, someone's bound to get injured; take Christine and go back to sickbay—" Kirk fell, a run-away chair knocking him over. He struggled to get back up, then continued. "Once this is cleared up, I'll give the order and you can check them out. For now, deal with the rest of the crew!" McCoy hollered a confirmation, and slowly began to make his way over to the nurse. Kirk darted in a zig-zagged line to the exit, failing to run straight. The moment he was out of the mess hall and in the corridor an announcement was made over the intercom.
"Captain Kirk, you're needed on the bridge. Commanding Officer to bridge, please." Uhura announced. Kirk quickened his pace; something was obviously very wrong. In the hallway, various officers kept tripping and losing their balance, and one crewman was already unconscious. The Captain arrived at the bridge, out of breathe.
"What's happening?" He demanded breathlessly, making his way to his station. Spock, Uhura, and one other officer were gathered around Chekov's station; both Ensign Chekov and Spock were frantically messing with the controls on the navigator's compboard. Chekov looked back over his shoulder, his eyes wide with unspoken panic, then turned back to his work.
"Sir, the coordinates—" Chekov started, nearly falling out of his seat after the starship gave another lurch. "They have been reset!"
"What?" Kirk hissed. "To where?!" Spock had another go at fixing the station, but his efforts proved fruitless. Chekov just shook his head, appearing to have given up. He sighed and turned, facing his captain, his face grim and a chip on his shoulder.
"Klingon." The navigator replied grimly, his eyes dim with the horror of the truth. The Captain was silent for a moment. If they were to arrive at Klingon, they'd surely be interrogated, tortured and killed. This was a truth Jim Kirk was not willing to accept.
"Well," he said quietly. "Change them back."
"We cannot, sir…even Mr. Spock has tried—" the ship gave another quick jerk forward, knocking one of the officers of his feet. Lieutenant Uhura helped him back up again, the irritated look that had been on her face was replaced by an expression of worry.
"What about the rocking? Are the ship's stabilizers down?" Kirk inquired after a long, depressing silence.
"Mr. Scott is working on it now," Spock told the captain. "We believe that someone hacked into the computer to change the coordinates and disable the stabilizers." he said, continuing to work on Chekov's station.
Kirk fell backward, having nothing to hold onto to support himself. "Keep trying; has anyone contacted Ms. Eprouve yet?" he asked, lowering himself into his chair. "And for goodness's sakes," Kirk pointed to the nameless crewman. "Take over Mr. Sulu's position! I don't think the Klingons are going to just let us pass through without a fight."
"Yes, sir." The officer sat at Sulu's station and activated the shields and phasers. Kirk stared forward grimly, fists clenched. He didn't need to guess twice as to who reset the coordinates and disabled the stabilizers of The Enterprise. He just didn't believe it.
