The shuttle rocked back and forth, buffeted by the gale force winds that swirled around outside, the inertial dampeners did nothing to subdue the feeling that the shuttle's occupants were on a rollercoaster.

McCoy grumbled from the back of the shuttle as the medical bag he was holding slipped from his grasp and a hypospray fell out. He leaned as far down as his safety harness would allow him to go and stretched his fingers till he could reach it. As he straightened up he glanced out the window, saw swirling flakes of snow spiralling around outside. He swore as he looked at it, thinking about the people they were searching for. It was already cold enough outside and if there were any survivors of the wreck they would already be hypothermic from the cold air that had been present since they had arrived on the planet. The snow that had started to fall within the past few hours would only add to the hypothermia and it had the added detriment of decreasing visibility and further obscuring any thermal readings, thereby making the shuttle crew more difficult to find.

In the front of the shuttle, Spock's eyes scanned the console, intently searching for the thermal signatures that would identify the missing crew members or shuttle. The addition of snow along with the anomaly's effect which had intensified over the past few hours as the planet went through its death throes, only made his job harder. Spock was glad that the task required his full attention allowing him no time to dwell on the events of the past few hours.

Kirk glanced sideways at Spock. "Any luck?" Kirk said. The Vulcan contented himself with shaking his head slightly without looking up, which to Kirk was more indicative of his current mental state than anything else. His usual reply to Kirk's query would have been something along the lines of how luck was subjective and failed to fully account for the circumstances.

As the ship rocked again, Kirk risked another glance away from his own instruments and looked sideways at Spock's console, from what he could make out there was still no indication of the missing crew or the shuttle. An unbidden thought surfaced. They had very little time to find the crew and most likely they were searching for dead bodies. And if they couldn't be found in time they might have to be left behind. Kirk rebelled at the thought, not only because if they weren't found it would seem like a personal failure on his part, but also because three of his crew was dead already and he had to find the others alive or dead, he couldn't give up.

"Captain I'm picking up a faint thermal signature approximately 5 klicks starboard" Spock fed the coordinates into the helm, and Kirk turned the shuttle in the indicated direction, straining to see something through the blur of white that cascaded down. Within seconds of the course change a shuttle came into view. The shuttle was severely damaged. Flames leapt up amid the twisted metal, they were undiminished by the snow that swept down. "due to the interference from the shuttle's warp core explosion and the anomaly's effect, I'm unable to ascertain with any certainty whether there are any life forms present without doing a direct scan. " Kirk focused on finding an area to set the shuttle down, ignoring the fact that one of the reasons they couldn't detect a life sign reading was that there was probably no one alive to cause one register.

The shuttle had barely settled in the ground and its engines put on standby, before Kirk took off his safety harness and started moving towards the back of the shuttle. The exited the cockpit and found the others already grabbing gear. After a quick check they exited the shuttle. Outside the cold wind ripped through their insulation suits, chilling them to the bone, the winds threatened to tear their feet from under them. They hurriedly moved toward the shuttle wreck fighting the wind the entire way.

Spock pulled out his tricorder and did a quick scan. He looked up and spoke confirming what they already could see, the shuttle was so severely damaged that it was impossible for anybody to have survived the explosion. Spock moved closer as near as the flames would allow, then looked back at the captain fighting to be heard over the wind as it tried to snatch his words away. "Captain there are faint molecular traces of at least one human, in the shuttle, but I cannot determine how many individuals were inside at the time of explosion."

McCoy looked up irritably at Spock emotionless words, removing his chin from the relative warmth of his collar as he did so. He would have replied to the Vulcan with a comment along the lines of "why can't you just say some of them might be alive you green hobgoblin" If he wasn't so cold that his teeth were chattering violently.

Kirk turned and gave an order to the rest of crew; they fanned out searching the nearby vicinity for signs of any other people. They searched for several tense minutes, the time growing more critical with each moment. Spock was the first to call out, "over this ridge I'm picking up faint life sign readings."

The others hurried forward toward the place Spock had indicated, McCoy took the lead his own discomfort was forgotten at the thought that he had people that needed him. At first glance as they cleared the ridge there was nothing there, just a blank expanse of white snow and sharp jutting rocks. Then they spotted a figure lying on the ground, a thin film of snow almost obscuring the body. McCoy hurried forward and knelt next to the prostrate body. It was Lieutenant Havarii. He felt for a pulse with one hand while the other operated his tricorder. After he felt a steady beat beneath his fingers, he looked at the results of his scan. The Lieutenant had a severe concussion, a broken arm and was hypothermic. Nothing that he couldn't fix once they were back on the Enterprise. He indicated for the security man standing nearby him to take the lieutenant to the shuttle.

McCoy stood up hoping to find another person but all he saw was snow. The crew continued searching for several minutes more before, a guard said "Sir I found another one". McCoy hurried to the still from it was Chekov. Snow crusted his pale face, his lips were blue. His entire shirt front and pants were soaked with a dark stain that McCoy could only identify as blood. The guard that had found the boy was Roth.

As McCoy assessed the ensign Roth said quietly almost to himself. "So it was Kelly in that shuttle, she's the one that's dead." McCoy glanced up at Roth's words but almost immediately turned back to Chekov. The ensign must have been closet to the blast his body had a lot of damage. One of his legs was twisted under him at a bizarre angle. A shard piece of white bone peeked out through a rip in his trousers and a thick stream of blood trickled out the injury.

McCoy swore under his breath, as he ran a scan on the ensign fearing the worst. The scan came back indicating that he had a lacerated spleen, numerous bruised internal organs, a concussion, broken ribs, and an open fracture to his tibia. McCoy quickly splinted the leg, bringing the bone back into a rudimentary alignment with a sharp jerk that caused Roth to look away. He gave orders for the young Russian to be picked up, and hurried alongside the security guard carrying the ensign. The others quickly piled into the shuttle, the mood was sombre. They were gratified that they had found the two they had alive, but everybody knew the other person who had been on that shuttle was almost certainly Kelly. She was the only person unaccounted for. McCoy confirmed that assumption.

The doctor stood next to the bunks where Chekov and Havarii had been strapped in. While holding onto a handrail with one hand to avoid falling, he gave Chekov a hypospray to bring his blood pressure up. Then he started fluids, gave oxygen and healed the blood vessels in the leg so they wouldn't bleed anymore. He was reluctant to heal it anymore without doing surgery, because he didn't want to risk nerve damage, but he stabilized the ensign as much as he could. Plus he didn't have the equipment he needed to do any major surgery anyway.

He was still puzzled though by where all the blood had come from. He had cut the ensign's clothes off looking for additional injuries and although the Russian had purplish-blue bruises covering his chest and abdomen. He had no open injuries there to account for all the blood. Even his leg hadn't been bleeding enough to have soaked his clothes with as much blood as he was covered with, and even if it had been: how did blood from his leg get on his chest? McCoy had an uncomfortable hunch; he grabbed his tricorder and ran an analysis on the blood. He waited a moment as the results came back; they were a match for Ensign Kelly. Judging from the blood soaking the ensign's uniform she had bleed out almost half her blood volume on to him.

McCoy looked down at the unconscious ensign, whose chest rose and fell labouredly as he struggled to breath; he knew that Chekov and Kelly were very close. He wondered would Chekov remember what had happened when he woke up. McCoy certainly didn't look forward to telling him if he didn't.

XXXX XXXX

A transmission broke the silence of the shuttle, a crackly, voice speaking "Captain -are several ships coming - behind you, we can't raise - shields until –" The voice cut altogether, but Kirk knew what it had been saying, the ship wouldn't be able to raise its shields without leaving the shuttle trapped outside. He pushed the engines to their limits. The gravity generators in the shuttle couldn't begin to compensate. They all felt their insides tugged unpleasantly as acceleration pushed them back. An alarm started to sound behind him, he didn't glance back. His entire focus was on piloting the ship. The alarm continued, he wondered why Spock hadn't fixed the alarm or at least silenced it. "Spock can you turn that off" he asked not looking away from his task.

He heard Spock reply quietly, "that's not one of the ship's alarms captain that's one of Doctor McCoy's monitors." Kirk tried to ignore the sound as he realized what was going on.

In the back of the shuttle McCoy had hastily unstrapped himself, ignoring the acceleration that threatened to drag him to the deck as he struggled to make it the few feet to where his patient were strapped in. The sounds of a failed life support sensor going off gave him a cold chill. He glanced at the monitor that was confirming what he already suspected, one of crew they had rescued on the planet was dying. Ensign Chekov's monitor showed his blood pressure sinking fast, his pulse increased trying to keep up. "Damn it " McCoy muttered to himself as he looked down at Chekov's entirely too pale face. It was like all the blood was draining from the ensign's body. He frantically fumbled for a hypospray, as he realized what had happened. When the shuttle had suddenly accelerated, the force had caused something in Chekov's body which was already bruised and battered from the shuttle explosion and crash, to rip apart. Now, blood was gushing from one or more organs and vessels spilling into one of his body cavities.

"You two!" he barked pointing to the people nearest him as he grabbed a surgical laser. "come here!"

The two people he had randomly selected were Uhura and a guard .They looked startled but came to stand near the doctor; he passed the apprehensive guard and Uhura a pair of gloves and said "put these on."

Sterility was the least of his worries. He pulled on a pair himself then picked up the laser and cut open the ensign's abdomen. Fresh blood welled out the wound, the guard looked sick. McCoy grabbed some suction and then fumbled in the abdomen for a moment before grasping something. He asked for clamps which Uhura passed after the guard had spent a second confusedly searching for them.

McCoy snatched the clamps and hurriedly sealed off a vessel. He only had a few clamps and soon they ran out. Desperately, he grabbed one of the larger vessels that was still bleeding and pinched it off then he told the guard to hold it. When the man made no move to do as he was told McCoy grabbed the guard's hand and placed the man's fingers firmly around it yelling "damn you hold it!".

The guard's face was a nasty shade of green now, but he held the clamp in place. McCoy worked quickly isolating what was bleeding and trying to clamp it off. Soon both Uhura and the Guard had both their hands in the young Russian's abdomen. McCoy saw the blood pressure stop decreasing as quickly, but he couldn't do anything more yet. He couldn't use seal off the blood vessels in the unsteady shuttle. He didn't even really have the tools he needed to do it, The little he had accomplished had been done with a micro-cautery tool that was only supposed to be used for minor repairs, not full-scale surgery in the back of a rolling cramped shuttle.

Up front Spock and Kirk focused on getting the shuttle to the ship. The anomaly's interference, caused the ship to roll and tumble. Kirk tried to keep it as steady as possible, half-way aware of the surgery going on behind him.

Spock began. "Captain, the approach velocity is exceeding guard-rail limits. We'll-"

"We'll make it " Kirk said, his eyes solely focused on his controls, the shuttle bay doors opened to greet him. The shuttle skimmed in. It was approaching to fast, people ran out the way as the craft threatened to crash into the walls.

"Captain, We—"

Kirk didn't hear his first officer's words. Kirk directed the shuttle down slightly toward the deck floor. The shuttle's nose dipped downward and it dug into the metal deck, and awful grating noise filled the air. In the background McCoy was yelling something. The shuttle was hurtling going toward the wall at a rapid rate. At the last few moments, Kirk turned on the thrusters for a moment causing the ship to spin around and set heavily on the floor.

Kirk sat back from the controls. That had been to close for even his comfort. From behind him he heard McCoy shout at him. "Damn you and your hotshot piloting!"

McCoy had picked up the micro-cautery tool as soon as the shuttle had stopped spinning. Miraculously most of the clamps had still managed to hold, even during the chaotic flight in. The guard and Uhura still held some of them in place. The shuttle doors opened and the medical staff was already waiting.

McCoy was sealing off vessels even as they loaded the ensign onto an antigrav stretcher. The security guard he had commandeered for the procedure had, had enough. When the medical staff appeared the guard pulled his hand out of the body letting go of the clamps and turned away from them all gagging , his face a sick shade of green. Uhura still held on, McCoy mentally cursed the now retching guard, as he hurried to seal of the vessel ends which the guard had released. Chekov's face was silent and still. . McCoy hurried alongside the stretcher, praying that the ensign would make it.

XXXX XXXX

Kirk, unstrapped himself from the shuttle's safety harness, and made his way out of the shuttle adrenalin fuelling his movements. He passed the stretcher carrying Chekov but barely spared the sight a glance. He had to concentrate on what was happening now; he could worry about everything else later. if there was a later. Behind him Spock followed. They ran through the corridors, racing towards the bridge. Crew members who hurried through the halls made way as they saw who the two running figures were. Others who weren't as observant or were to slow were pushed unceremoniously out of the way. Spock and Kirk reached the turbo lift that led to the bridge and hurried in. Kirk slammed a hand against the door closure mechanism and gasped "bridge". The seconds it took for the turbo lift to move seemed like years. The doors had barely opened before Kirk pushed his way out onto the bridge. Sulu glanced behind, then quickly vacated the captain's chair. Spock took his own place at the science station relieving the ensign who was there.

Kirk had just taken his seat when the ship was rocked. "Shields at 91% " said Spock's calm voice. On the view screen, four colony ships loomed ahead; in loose formation. The colony ships were apparently better equipped at weaponry than they had appeared to be at first. A shudder ran through the Enterprise and another blast hit them "shields at 88%" came Spock's calm readout. Sulu was at the helm was skilfully manoeuvring the ship between the blasts of phaser fire that crisscrossed through space .

"Mr. Sulu take us away warp six." Kirk ordered. Sulu complied almost instantly. Kirk felt the familiar indefinable sensation as warp, engaged then abruptly, the feeling dimmed then abruptly stopped.

Sulu turned around confirming, Kirk's suspicions "warp drive was damaged sir."

Kirk called engineering. Scotty answered, knowing what the Captain wanted to know without asking. He sounded like he was far from the intercom "Captain, the warp engines will be back online in about 3 minutes, I'm working as fast as I can."

Kirk clicked off allowing Scotty to get back to his work. He knew Scotty was possibly the best engineer in his fleet, and was incredibly fast, but the few minutes it would take for him to fix the engines they possibly didn't have.

"Shields 83%" a voice read out, the four ships were surrounding the enterprise recognizing an easy kill.

Kirk had no intention of giving it to them. He studied the layout for a moment before an idea presented itself. It was a plan born more out of the desperation of the moment than conscious thought. He turned to the engineer at the engineering consol and said "at my signal I want you to cut the power to all the power in the ship, and divert it to the shields and impulse engines, and shield the power coming from there so it seems faint." The engineer turned around and aid "even life support sir?"

"Yes" he turned away from the lieutenant and told Sulu "get ready, I want you to steer us right between those two ships that are closest together. Make it so they both have to turn towards each other then drop between them, make it seem like it's an accident and the engines have failed completely." Sulu glanced back clearly startled but obeyed. The others were staring at Kirk clearly wondering what he was planning, but there was no time to explain. Ensign Lara began telling the crew what was about happen through the ship intercom, then the engineering lieutenant cut the power, the bridge grew dark, except the blinking red alert lights. The air seemed colder as life support was turned off.

Kirk resisted the urge to call Scotty. If the engineer said three minute, three minutes it would be and calling him would only irritate the engineer not change the time needed for repairs.

"Shields at 76%" Spock relayed calmly as the ship shook again. Kirk knew that he couldn't wait any longer if he did they wouldn't have enough shields for his plan. At the same time if Scotty didn't get the engines fixed in time they were dead anyway. Either way it was a gamble with the stakes being their lives.

"Now Sulu" Kirk said.

Sulu complied instantly. The enterprise neatly moved between two ships forcing the vessels to turn to continue firing. The manoeuvre blocked the other two ships from firing, but the weapon fire from the two vessels at close proximity was more than enough to destroy them. The Enterprise seemed to shudder in its movement as it came to a halt directly in between the two ships. To the ships it appeared the Enterprise had suddenly lost power.

They were now between both ships and each had a clear shot at them.

"Shields at 70%...65%...57%...45%" Spock calmly relayed the countdown as each second reduced their shields further. Kirk would have liked to tell him to shut up, nobody liked a countdown to their potential death, but he knew the science officer was just doing his job.

"Warp Engines online sir" Sulu said. His finger was poised over the control that would engage warp drive. Kirk didn't give the order that almost the entire bridge crew wanted to hear instead he said "lower the shields to 25%".

"Sir!" The Lieutenant at Engineering said incredulously.

Kirk said "Do it"

"Sir, I'm not! That's suicide—are you crazy?" the engineer yelled.

Kirk didn't have time to argue or explain. He turned to a guard and said "take Mr. Felton off the bridge, confine him to quarters." The man was dragged away shouting "he's going to kill us all!"

Spock had reduced the shields after the engineer had refused to follow orders. The ship shuddered again and Spock reported "shields at 20%."

The other bridge crew was staring at Kirk. Kirk ignored their looks his attention was focused on the battle going on outside. He waited for the ships to take the bait. The colony ships, took it, they couldn't resist the easy target the Enterprise.

"Sir, they're firing photon torpedoes!" The ensign at navigation said somewhat hysterically, turning wide-eyed to Kirk. Still, Kirk didn't order the shields to be raised or them to move.

The ensign at navigation made a wild lunge for the helm controls. Sulu blocked him, and knocked the young man aside. A security guard stunned the ensign as he tried to grab the controls again, then quickly secured the unconscious man and took his place at navigation. There was no time to remove the stunned ensign's body they left him lying on the floor.

Tense milliseconds passed, Kirk waited till the torpedoes were almost about to breach the shields before he yelled "Now!" Warp was engaged instantly. The Enterprise shot out from between the two ships.

The colony ships didn't realize what had happened for a moment. Then as they realized and tried to move away it was too late. The torpedoes bereft of the Enterprise as a target instead streamed toward the colony ships. The colony ships didn't react in time and the torpedoes struck in a series of explosion. The bridge crew all stared at the viewscreen in shock still processing that they were still alive. Spock reported the results of Kirk's manoeuvre "one of the ships has minimal structural damage, although their engines appear to have sustained some damage, I am unable to ascertain the extent. The other ships' warp containment field is decaying currently at 15%..8..3 "

Then the ship blew apart. The other colony ship that was near it had been trying to get away but it wasn't quick enough. It was caught in the blast. After the explosion faded away, Spock said "The other ship's engines and weapons are offline. They appear to be completely disable, shields at 40%, multiple hull breaches."

Seeing the plight of there two sister vessel the other two colony ships renewed their attack with vigour.

Within three minutes the Enterprise even with shields brought back up and warp drive active had shields at 35% and hull breaches across nine decks. There was an air of futility in the crew's actions.

As the ship shook and more damage reports filtered in Kirk remembered how his father had sacrificed himself to save his ship. Kirk thought bitterly that he wouldn't even be able to do that. His death would serve no purpose and if they died now the Romulans would be free to go through with what they were planning. Kirk refused to accept that this was the end. He didn't believe in no-win scenarios. But as much as he refused to see it. Death was fast approaching.

Sparks flew and a console blew apart badly burning a woman. Her screams filled the bridge, but nobody went to her. They didn't have the time. When the end seemed seconds away, Spock said "Captain another colony ship is approaching."

Great Kirk thought bitterly it wasn't enough for two of the ships to kill them, they had to make it a party.

The new colony ship didn't start attacking them instead it turned toward the other two ships and began firing on them. The other two ships were taken by surprise and within second one was completely and efficiently disabled. Engines, weapons, and shields were completely destroyed. The second ship had its shield reduced to 50%. Then abruptly the fight between the new ship and the remaining colony ship ceased. They hung motionless in front of each other. The bridge crew watched tensed for what would happen but for seconds nothing happened.

Then ensign Lara said "The colony ship is sending a transmission to the one that just arrived"

"Can you intercept it?" Kirk said.

Ensign Lara said " aye Sir, it's not encrypted or anything."

The communication appeared on the viewscreen. Solkar was standing on the damaged bridge of a ship, behind him they could see other vulcans.

"T'Kas" the man said "You must cease this attack on us now! You are going against your own people!"

Ensign Lara turned around and said "The new ship is sending a reply now."

Kirk nodded and another image appeared on viewscreen side-by-side with Solkar's. The new image was of T'kas. She stood on the bridge of a ship. Her face was calm but her voice was intense as she spoke "Father, what you are doing is wrong. We cannot attack them they have done nothing to us!"

Solkar spoke, angrily "T'Kas can't you see they are apart of the federation. They seek to control the whole galaxy. They control the government of entire species and hundreds of planets, through the guise of making them federation members. Their prime directive is nothing, but an excuse to keep down anybody that might rise to challenge them. They have secret organizations that they used to clandestinely kill and torture people. Is this not wrong? How can you support this hegemony?"

T'Kas replied "Father, they may be controlling part of the galaxy, but that is not what bothers you. You want to control it yourself. And the federation largely has been good custodians; they have managed to live in peace with each other. The Romulan Empire and this colony have not, there is a history of murdering and killing that spans our entire existence!"

Solkar was openly furious "Peace! T'Kas, peace is weak, we were made to rule. Not be subjugates of somebody else! Why do you not see the innate rightness of this and support us!"

T'Kas said with tears in her eyes as she spoke "Because, I cannot go along with wrong!"

Solkar's face was icy when he replied "Then T'Kas you are my daughter no longer and you will die." Then the screen blanked and the two colony ships renewed their attack on each other. The Enterprise was all but forgotten, as the two colony ship's sought to destroy each other with a ferocity that was awful to behold. Within minutes Solkar's ship with its weakened shields was disabled.

"Solkar's ship's containment field is degenerating; they have approximately 6 minutes left till containment breach." Spock reported.

There was another communication. The viewscreen lit up with two images side-by-side, to show Solkar standing on a bridge hazy, with smoke. Dead and injured Vulcans lay scattered behind him. T'Kas was on the other side of the screen. Her expression was agonized as she pleaded "Father, please, surrender, and let us rescue you."

Solkar spoke coldly, "T'Kas will you renounce your ideology and join us?"

T'kas said quietly "I will not"

"Then I would rather die, than be saved by you"

Then the screen blanked abruptly, and almost immediately after Solkar's hip blew up, followed by the incapacitated one near it.

Spock spoke "The remaining colony ship is activating its engine's, apparently they did not sustain as much damage as indicated or they have had sufficient time to repair them."

"There's a general broadcast coming from that ship" Ensign Lara added.

Kirk nodded and an image popped up on the view screen. It was T'Son, the Vulcan woman appeared deranged. Her eyes were wild and her face had flushed a dark green. She screamed "Traitors! You all will die" Then two photo torpedoes were launched at the Enterprise and the ship flew towards them. The Enterprise veered out the way, but they weren't T'Son's target. The torpedoes hit T'Kas ship damaging her engines. Then they all watched as T'Son turned at the last moment towards T'kas's ship, the injured colony ship tried to move away , but T'son didn't care , she manoeuvred her ship as close as possible then detonated it. The explosion appeared much larger than it should have been.

A large chunk of T'Son's ship careened into the other colony ship, tearing off a section. Bodies and shuttles tumbled out the gash, before T'son's ship gave its final explosion , swallowing the debris in a wash of light.

There was silence for a moment as they all waited for the surrounding space to clear enough so they could get a reading.

Spock scanned his screen then reported "T'Son's ship was destroyed it appeared she detonated her warp core in such a way that the resultant explosion was three times what it should have been." He continued "T'Kas's shuttle bay was destroyed, her ship has multiple hull breaches and her warp core will go critical in approximately 10 minutes."

Kirk asked "How many are on her ship?"

"At least 200 life forms captain, possibly more. Some are fainter due to their lesser mass."Spock replied.

Kirk that the Vulcans on T'kas ship had no way of evacuating with their destroyed shuttle bay. This whole scenario felt like the Kobayashi Maru all over again. Kirk quickly ran through the possibilities available discarding each one almost immediately. They couldn't use the shuttles; they were too small and would take far to much time to evacuate. As his frustration mounted Kirk called engineering, an out of breath Scotty answered "Captain?".

"Scotty have you found a way to make the transporters work?"

"Captain, the transporters have always worked, but I canna get the beam to stay together enough to transport somebody reliably."

Kirk clicked off. Ensign Lara said "Captain T'kas's ship is hailing us."

"On viewscreen" Kirk replied.

T'Kas appeared, the Vulcan woman looked drained. The image crackled and small fires littered the bridge behind her. She said "Captain Kirk, our shuttle bay's are almost entirely destroyed it would be impossible for us to evacuate in time, even if we did manage to find a salvageable shuttle" she continued "You owe us nothing, but I ask you to please let us evacuate to your ship."

"T'Kas we will do whatever we can to assist you, but we cannot evacuate you with our shuttles and—"

T'Kas interrupted urgently "Captain we can use you transporters."

"That's Suicide!" Kirk said .

"Captain if I may interrupt, there ship is transmitting us data summarizing an evacuation plan with around 50% feasibility."

The woman nodded as she overheard Spock's words and quickly detailed her idea.

When she finished Kirk stared at her aghast, "I can't allow you to do this " he said.

"Then you condemn us all to death" T'kas replied.

Spock quietly joined in the conversation "if we don't do as she asks , they all will die. This way a few will live"

Kirk didn't answer, at that moment he hated his first officer. He hated T'kas. He hated all these Vulcans. What they were asking him to do may have been logical, but that didn't make it any easier when he would have to be the one to give the order that would mean so many people's deaths. He already had too much blood on his hands. Kirk took a breath and forced the memories back and Kirk nodded at Spock. He called Scotty and told him what was about to happen. When the engineer heard he let loose a volley of oaths in Gaelic, then said "I canna do that!"

"Scotty there's no dispute it's an order!" Kirk yelled.

"Captain do you know what's going to happen, do you?" Scotty said.

"I do Scotty, but there's no other way."

"Captain there's got to be another way!" Scotty said desperately.

"Damn it, Mr. Scott! If you've got another way then f—king give it to me!" Kirk said.

The line was quiet for a second or two then Scotty said "Aye Captain, me and my lads will be down at the transporters." Then he clicked off

Kirk called Sick Bay next and relayed the information to a doctor. He heard a voice say "Damn you tell me what he said" There was a pause and somebody talking then McCoy came on line "Did you just say what I thought you said Jim, because if you did you're crazy, if you do this those people are as good as dead!"

"Some of them will live Bones" Kirk replied.

"As what?" McCoy yelled "Have you seen somebody after a transporter malfunction; they might as well have died! If you allow this you're a murderer. And I'm not going along with it"

"What the hell do you expect me to do, Bones? Leave them all there to die, because It'll be more to your liking." Kirk shouted "You want me to watch a few hundred people die because it will be more convenient for your conscience? Because either way this isn't going to be convenient for mine. If I didn't know better, I say you don't give a damn about them and want them dead because they're Vulcans!"

The entire bridge fell silent at the captain's words. The intercom was quiet before McCoy spoke again his words were sarcastic and angry "Go, on transport then, you haven't seen what's going to happen" McCoy laughed bitterly "You think you know everything, go ahead, and I'll be there waiting with the rest of the medical staff to pick up the pieces...Captain"

Then the intercom clicked off. Kirk regretted his words even though McCoy had a vitriolic dislike for Vulcans he knew the doctor wouldn't have wished what was about to happen on anybody. But there was no time to dwell on his words; they had a job to do.

T'Kas spoke "captain, please take a few adults to t-test it out, then take the children they have a smaller mass and if taken earlier in the beam while it is more stable will have a better chance."

Kirk nodded and relayed the information to the engineers stationed at the transporters. A few seconds later the required crew checked in to tell they were ready. Kirk gave the order to energize and within seconds the first people were up.

"It appears the beam is having a 46% stability rate we have 3 full transports."

The data was clean, Spock's voice was even, it didn't reflect what the entire bridge crew knew was happening in the transporter rooms.

Next chapter update will be March 20th (with a two day margin either way) So how was the chapter? Do you think Chekov will live? Did Kirk make the right decision? Thanks to all my favouriters, followers and reviewers. Only a few more chapters left. feedback is welcome and definitely appreciated! To my guest reviewer: You got a little worked up over the last chapter didn't you;) Yes, Chekov will be seriously messed up after this incident and I dislike Havarii too. I'm happy you liked how I created that little dilemma with Chekov and Kelly and basically used him to be the reason Chekov left.