Warning: there's some pretty foul language in this chapter. Because of some gore. And general chaos.
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Technical Difficulties
Chapter 12: Of Service and Sacrifice
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It was terribly ironic.
In the haze of the chaos and smoke, Kirk and Spock both silently assented.
Ironic to the point of ridicule. If Shakespeare had written it to be so, he would have been flogged from the theatre by the masses. If Aristotle had theorized it, he would have been thrown bodily from Greece. If Dave Chappelle had joked about it, he would have been blacklisted from his own television show.
A captain grounding his own ship in battle?
Absolutely absurd.
But that was what happened. The spontaneous takeoff and stop of the Enterprise combined with the sudden halt of the Sealion resulted in disaster. It was all a bit technical. Basically, the plotted patterns of the two ships had been exactly the same, as Lieutenant Sulu had purposefully rerouted the path of the Sealion to the Enterprise. Since the Sealion had ground to a halt just as the Enterprise flew into an unorthodox warp, and since the two ships were traveling the same path, there was only one result: the destination would be reached, but not in the way most would expect.
The Enterprise rammed the Sealion into the face of Mars.
Both ships were sleeping silently in the empty expanse of red deserts, survivors crawling from the debris.
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Having such an affinity for the ship really made it difficult for Scotty to see it in pieces like this. Engineering, which had been his nest, was now in shambles. The crash had dislodged innumerable bits and parts that covered everything; a man had to fight his way out with a phaser. Unfortunately, Scotty hadn't had a phaser, so he had to pull together some loose junk lying around and throw it together to make a suitable blasting machine. Actually, he was starting to like the little thing; it was a simple design, and needed far less power than a regular phaser. The only downside was that it couldn't be set to a higher setting than stun. That was fine with Scotty; he never liked setting anything to kill anyway.
But before leaving, he made sure to collect all of his tools; the ones he couldn't live without, anyway. Strapping tool belts around his waist and both his shoulders, and grabbing a satchel bag for good measure, Scotty hunted for as many helpful tools that he could fit. He ended up circling Engineering two and a half times to find everything. But find everything he did, and he made his way to the exit. He missed most of rush hour mass exodus that way anyway.
It was packed with people in the hall, all trying to push their way through, but getting nowhere. Scotty guessed that the door was inoperational, and casually made his way to the front through the use of a chipper, charismatic smile and his rank.
Nobody could see exactly what he did. Once he reached the problematic, sticking door, Scotty hunched over the controls. People could barely see his shoulders working at something for a moment or two – and then he stood up and pressed the button. The door opened. He made his way out into the hall, which was even more packed. The emergency exit terminal was near the lower levels, and that was where everyone was filing.
As Scotty wormed his way through the crowd, he caught patches of destroyed sections of wall in the corners of his eyes. He stopped to fix each one, taking the shards of metal and pasting them back up with care to cover the open machinery. He really couldn't bear to see the Silver Lady in such a state of disrepair. Gradually, he made his way to the bridge for further instructions from the Commander.
He was doing this because there was no longer any communication online, from what Scotty could figure anyway, and so he went directly to the source instead of just waiting around. He liked being direct and talking face-to-face just fine, even though communicators always tickled his engineering sensibilities with their comical flirtations, just waiting to be improved. Besides, there were a bunch of wee little systems on the bridge just waiting to be fixed.
Of course, most people were using the Jeffries tubes to climb to the lower levels, since the turbolifts were down from the shock. Scotty beelined for the closest turbolift, and had it fixed in a jiffy. Not only would traffic flow become easier, and therefore safer for evacuation, he would be able to reach the Bridge without climbing through who knows how many godforsaken tunnels.
Scotty really loved technology. It made his life so much easier sometimes. But for the moment, he had to concentrate. Right now, his goal was to get to the bridge, where Spock and the main crew would definitely be.
He had no doubts.
On this ship, the highest-ranked officers were not cowardly nor arrogant nor conceited. All of them would be right where they were supposed to be – in the heart of the turmoil, so that they could set it right again.
Scotty really liked this ship.
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Shifting his body part by part, slowly and purposefully with his eyes closed, Kirk catalogued the extent of his total injuries. Currently, he could move his right arm tolerably well. His left arm – "Fucking shit!" – wasn't doing so hot. He peeped one eye open a crack, and, yep, it was a bit crushed by a fallen thing. Jim wasn't so sure what the thing was exactly, maybe it was a piece of ceiling. But that didn't really matter at the moment. There were more important things to worry about, like the fact that he couldn't move his legs. Or feel his legs, for that matter. Looking down, he looked right back up. Yep, why don't we just not look at that right now, that would be a good idea. Too much gory stuff down there. Lots of it. Jim hoped fervently that he still had legs. As long as he had most of the stuff needed for legness, Bones could fix it. Ever since Jim saw how perfectly Bones had fixed up Scotty, he believed Bones could fix just about damn near anything. As long as he had the basic structure to fix… but why don't we think of something else. Like the rest of the injuries. Yeah. Okay. So. Arms, legs, what's next? Head? Yeah, the neck moves well, and I can see wreckage and smell burning and hear everything falling apart and taste my own blood and for the most part feel pain, so my basic senses are still functioning, so that's good. My mind might be pretty fucked over by this point, but hey. It'll pass. Torso? Heart's beating, some gashes, nothing too major. And I still have my balls and dick, so that's wonderful. It would suck if they got chopped off by some flying shrapnel or some shit like that. But the bad news? Um, losing a shit ton of blood, an arm is crushed, my legs are unresponsive, I'm in a ship that's fucking falling apart and is probably going to explode pretty soon if it hasn't already, and goddamn it, I have no idea where the fuck Finnegan is and I have no way to defend myself if he comes along. Oh, and the Enterprise just fucking crashed into a planet's fucking side, which is a helluvva bad thing. So bad I can't even think about it right now.
Fucking shit.
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After fighting his way through the throng, Scotty finally got to the main deck. His first instinct was to check all systems for operation status with a flick of his eyes. What he saw wasn't all that great normally, but it was fantastic under the circumstances. Some general lightboards had been cracked on bridge mid-right, which was basically superficial, like a cracked computer screen. Though they would have to be replaced later in case of more cracks and eventual breakdown, the machinery still functioned and, for the most part, was legible.
Uhura ran up to him after just seeing him, with grime and shock on her face.
"Scotty! The communicator is down! We can't get it online!"
Apparently during the crash, Scotty mused as he stepped up to the thing, bent down, and worked at it with his hands, the signals completely froze. Connect a node here, tune in a signal there. Bingo!
Scotty stepped back with a grin. It always gave him a little burst of joy to see a part of the Enterprise come alive again. She worked like a charm when you treated her just right.
"Ah've fixed it, lass."
Uhura's face stretched in surprise before relaxing in appreciation and thanks. She grabbed him by the face and determinedly planted a kiss on each cheek before sitting in her chair and fiddling with the controls, putting in her earpiece.
Scotty moved on. The science station had been affected by the same trigger that had thrown off communications and was also quite physically damaged in terms of the controls, though not in the deeper and more important mechanical functions. All wounds on the science station were basically artificial. A young science officer was staring dumbly at the fizzing controls with a blank look on his face, blood dripping down his forehead. Scotty clapped a hand on his shoulder and cheerfully informed him that he should probably go see the good Doctor. The wee lad happily complied. Scotty got to work on the station, and in a few minutes, had it down to a few options. He chose the one that involved him, the station, and a nice little wrench. Then, it was finished. He screwed in some quick little new improvements he'd been thinking of for awhile and then was on his way to the next station.
He crossed the main part of the bridge to the sensors, and saw that nothing was the matter with them. Well, that was a relief. Next was the security system, which was partially operational. Scotty fixed that in a jiffy. Thankfully most systems were online already. Then he went to Tactical, which was also partially damaged. Hm. This would be a bit difficult, because the mechanical aspect was almost untouched, but the data had been erased and the computer system had been significantly altered into jibberish. Also, the phasers, torpedos, shields were all separately damaged in themselves, so he would have to patch teams directly to the sites. Thinking quickly, Scotty typed in some basic tactical codes for the foundation of the system and then set up an algorithm that delineated the varying offshoots of each type of tactic. Hopefully, the computer would refill itself with all needed information. They would be able to restock on tactics later in repairs, and Scotty was pretty sure that the commanding officers that ran the ship would remember most tactics and be able to use them without a database anyway. But just to be sure, he got that little program running.
It hadn't been much of a shocker to Scotty that Commander Spock hadn't called him to attention yet. At the moment, Spock was probably devising the next move, and figuring out the particulars of each crewmember's actions in his plan. Scotty glanced over to see him reclining on the captain's chair, eyes narrowed on the blank, cracked viewscreen, both hands woven together, crossing his mouth and alighting, just barely, on the tip of his nose. Scotty finished up Tactical before finally moving to Helm.
"Lieutenant Sulu, what'se situation?"
Sulu glanced back at him before rising from his place and giving him full access to his station. "I can't localize the trouble, sir. None of the controls are in operation."
Scotty thought for a second, knowing that either every single one of the controls was individually damaged or that they were all affected at the same area, the only cross-section where all of the control systems intertwined. Since the odds were astronomically low for each control circuit to be individually damaged, Scotty went for the other option. He opened the panel with a flick of his wrist and a cutting beam, and then laid facedown on the hard floor with his bag of tools next to him. Searching for the connector circuit with a flashlight and a flux coordinating sensor, he found the little bugger quite easily, though it had been misplaced and damaged in the crash. Pulling out his decoupler, Scotty manually worked the circuit back to perfect condition. With a few sparks and flickering of lights, when Scotty flipped the switch, Helm control was back online.
Scotty turned to Navigations. The wee lad who always firmly believed in Mother Russia was there, looking confused and slightly singed as he continued inputting different altercations of the same function, receiving no reply from the machine he worked on. Scotty didn't even have to take a step, he just bent down and opened up the metal exterior panel and got working on the responsive controls section of the circuitry. It seemed as though a rogue shard of metal had broken off the back wall of the panel and sliced through quite of bit of circuitry, which meant quite a bit of detail work on reparation. Bit by bit, he got through each separate control, and each time he finished one, he heard a triumphant whooping in Russian, complete with enthusiastic beeping from the panel controls going haywire as the lad excitedly pressed them all. Head and shoulders completely buried in the station, Scotty snorted into the machinery.
Scotty slid from the Navigations machinery at last, and quickly fused the panel back on to the station. A quick pat of affection on the belligerent station and Scotty moved on. What was left? Well, there was the cracked viewscreen. It wasn't working at bloomin' all, so Scotty figured he'd take a crack at it before Commander Spock called him to attention. It was a simple operation enough, and Scotty even got to rid the screen from those cracks real quick before Spock was ready for him.
"Lieutenant Commander Scott." Spock was standing now, hands clasped behind his back.
"Yessir, Commander Spock, sir." Scotty saluted his commanding officer with his laser welder and a smile.
"Update on the Enterprise's conditons requested."
"Well, sir, Ah jes' fixed all th' controls on th' bridge. Life support and all uther such functions are normal. Howev'r, all weapons are currently daewn, bein' tha' they're all individually damaged. Though warp engines are currently daewn as well because o' th' malfunctioning or malproportioned Heart, th' impulse engines are jus' fine. Shields went daewn temporarily because of th' crash, but they're all foine an' dandy naew, sir."
"Thank you, Lieutenant Commander. Your next task will be first to stabilize the condition of the transporter. We must beam the Captain back as soon as possible. Medical assistance should be in the transporter room to receive him, as he is injured. Contact the bridge if this is not the case. After this task is accomplished, please proceed to the next most important ship function, in this case, the weapons systems. Use individual discretion for the next task after this is completed."
"Yessir." Scotty set off again.
Spock turned to his other officers.
"Lieutenant Uhura, contact Starfleet Headquarters immediately, and inform them of the collision and crash. Ask for any assistance possible and, in particular, medical staff and engineering staff. We are also attempting to detain a criminal by the name of Seamus Finnegan, a Starfleet officer, on the charges of kidnapping and harming a Starfleet Captain, so inform the Council of an impending hearing."
"Yessir." Speedily, her fingers flew over her controls, inputting all the correct frequencies in half the time it would take anyone else. Messages like this were the easiest to send, because this was what Uhura did all the time. She had too much practice in inputting these emergency frequencies. With a flourish, she finished the last touches on the last urgent transmission.
"Inform the Mars Coalition of our unseemly arrival and explain the circumstances, vaguely if possible. Also, send a request for the Mars facilities closest to our location for further assistance."
"Yessir, sending messages now, sir."
This took even less time, because the frequencies didn't have to be exceedingly politically correct, just formal and desperate. Beep. Sent. Done.
"Lieutenant, continue monitoring frequencies. When there is a response, inform me."
"Yessir."
Spock turned to Helm and Navigations.
"Navigations, set course straight for Starfleet Headquarters Starbase. Helm, be at the ready for takeoff by means of the highest impulse setting when I give the order."
"Yessir." Said the two officers in unison.
Spock sat down in the captain's chair once again, slinging one leg over the other. He pressed a button to communicate directly with the transporter room.
"Officers on duty in the transporter room, please respond."
He waited for a second. Nobody responded.
Quickly, Spock contacted three units to go to the transporter room. Two security teams to scope out the scene and be present for Finnegan's arrival and an extra medical unit to salvage any survivors. Scotty would be arriving shortly, so there would be no need for an extra engineering team.
Now all he had to do was wait.
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Scotty flipped his wee communications device open as he briskly made his way to the transporter room. He had sent a three-man team to handle the job just earlier today, and was quite buggered out that nothing had been properly done about it. There were going to be some severe repercussions for the team that couldn't even fix a wee transporter malfunction in the space of a few hours. Hours, for god's sake! Scotty wouldn't have minded nearly as much if the team hadn't been able to complete the job with only twenty minutes or some tiny scrunch of time like that, but really, two hours and no progress? It was like they were children playing around with their decouplers! Scotty needed a nice Scottish whiskey. He sighed. Nobody was responding.
Perhaps he would give a nice demonstration after this whole mess to enlighten his engineering teams on this sort of thing. After all, it wasn't their fault that they had such a malfunctioning transporter; that thing goes down too much as it is. Perhaps Scotty would have to look into it a bit more closely after this. Perhaps the fault did not wholly lay with the team.
Scotty knew that sometimes his fellow engineering officers could be a bit less enthusiastic than he, but he knew that they weren't stupid. He had seen for himself how smart they all were. They just needed a bit of training, that's all, and they'd be shipshape and ready for any more emergencies. Perhaps Scotty would begin to train each of his officers individually and then put them into specialized groups for shipwide emergencies. Starfleet had trained all of Scotty's engineers well, but only in the basics of every shipwide function. That simply wasn't good enough in this type of situation; though the officers knew the basic methods of controlling ship functions and fixing common technical mishaps, they were all newly instated officers from the Academy and had no real experience to build something from scratch, like Scotty could. Though they had superficial knowledge of the ship, they needed the essentials. Scotty would teach them that, and more. He would build the ultimate engineering teams.
But first, he would fix this finicky transporter, eat a sandwich, fix the ship's weapons systems, and then drink some whiskey.
He rounded another corner.
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Jim had used his remaining arm to free his crushed legs, but was having serious trouble freeing himself from the heavy piece of ceiling that had mangled his left arm. Trying to level it off with one hand was doing absolutely nothing; he needed a wedge, something to manually lever the damn thing off. Desperately, he whipped his head around in search of something suitable.
All he could see was smoke, destroyed panels, and blinking controls, excluding his own bloodied and battered self. There was nothing for him from the chair he was trapped on, nothing for him on the control panel… Perhaps he could use a broken off piece of panel…? Jim reached out with his free hand and scrabbled at the scrapmetal there, looking for a loose shard. He felt smooth metal, with a gash in it here and there. Nothing for him to use…
Then he had an idea. A horrible, horrible idea. So horrible, it just might work. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, Jim came to terms with it, began to overcome his complete and utter terror of such a thought. He locked his gaze on his mangled legs.
His right leg was bloodied, but he couldn't see anything particularly wrong with it; no terrible openings there. His left leg, however, had a white bone poking out from it, stabbing through his skin and gaping at him. Perfect. He grit his teeth.
And wrenched his bone from his leg.
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Scotty whistled as he finally reached the transporter room. He'd seen a multitude of broken things on his way here, but he knew he had to focus on his direct orders. His priority was the transporters. The Captain's life was probably at stake. It usually was. And Scotty would never let him down.
The door wouldn't open. Scotty paused, and the whistle fell into silence. That wasn't supposed to happen. He noted the extreme gashes embedded into the metal. It looked like someone had literally ripped the door open. And he could only think of one person who had the ability to do something like that with the marks that were left.
Slistas.
With his trusty plasma torch, Scotty blasted the door down in seconds. Though he hated to see the Lady broken into pieces, sometimes it was necessary. Like when a possible felon was roaming around on her, and possibly causing serious mayhem aboard her. He was pretty sure the good Doctor had been in here to heal the Captain when he arrived…
Through the smoke and torchlight, Scotty couldn't make out a single thing.
He whipped out his plasma extinguisher and put out the plasma flares that glowed blue in the dim light. Smoke still filled the room. Scotty's hand rifled through his three belts full of tools, looking for anything that might help him. Ah. There was something. He strode over to the life support duct and manually forced the smoke from the room by way of what someone old-fashioned would call air conditioning.
He looked around again to take in the situation.
His jaw dropped open.
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Jim's body was wracked with pain once again, overcome with trembling. Despite that, he gripped in his hand his own left tibia, dripping with rivulets of blood. His gaze hardened, his back straightened, and his trembling stopped. He would get through this, dammit. He'd already ripped out his own goddamn legbone; nothing could possibly compare to that, mentally or physically. He would survive. And he would get this damn hunk of metal off of his arm.
Grinding his teeth, Jim slid the bone underneath the huge chunk of metal, trying to find an appropriate place to shift its weight. After a few seconds, he found it, and the rocklike mass groaned as it budged from one side to the other. Jim flung the remainder of his weight onto his bone lever, and –
It rolled off. It crashed into the viewscreen in front of him. Jim's entire body relaxed, and his eyes closed in relief. A step, he'd taken a step. It was only a tiny step, but it felt so good to know that your arm is no longer crushed under a metal boulder. After basking in his momentary triumph, Jim knew he had to move. He couldn't stay here and risk being found by Finnegan; there was a small chance that the bastard was still gunning for him. He'd be killed if Finnegan was on the move. Fuck no, he wouldn't let that fucking happen. Wouldn't give that bastard the satisfaction. He had something to live for, dammit.
He needed to move. He needed to move, he needed to move, fucking goddammit!
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When the smoke finally lifted, Scotty had turned to see a huge cavity in the side of the transporting room wall, as if the entire wall had been blasted. It was almost as if someone had taken a humongous ice cream scoop and decided that metal-flavor would be delicious today and taken their fill of the transporter room. His stare traveled from the gash, which resembled a perfect empty half-sphere, to its neighbor – a diminutive thing next to such a monstrous hole, but still. It looked like something, something very reminiscent of a skull, had been pounded into the wall until the wall had started sinking back into a bloodstained pit. The trail of blood led to the floor, where there lay a prone body. In medical scrubs.
Scotty knew it was the good doctor.
But he couldn't believe it.
His knees hit the floor, and he flipped open his communicator, staring at the Doctor, unable to rip his eyes away. Even though his head turned, his eyes stayed focused on the body in front of him.
"Commander Spock, immediate medical assistance is needed. Doctor McCoy is severely injured."
A clipped response came back to him. "There is already a medical team on the way, but I shall specifically call for Lieutenant Chapel to prioritize."
"Thankee kindly, sir." Scotty flipped his communicator closed. His body was still frozen in a kind of surreal shock.
He had never imagined the good Doctor injured. It boggled him to no end.
He crawled over to the transporter terminal, his gaze unfocused as he worked on unclasping the access panel.
A spark shot across the circuits and caught his hand.
"Ow!" Scotty exclaimed, sucking on his singed thumb.
The Lady had never hurt him before.
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The space to get to the cockpit had been tight enough when Jim had first squeezed through it. It was even tougher now that he could only maneuver his body with his right hand, his head, and part of his torso. Plus, he had to make sure he had his tibia was clipped on properly. No way in hell was he dropping it somewhere; that tibia was going to be put properly back into his leg later, thank you.
He had clipped it to his belt, readjusting a piston cord to tie around the bloody, slippery thing. He had to pull a few sailor tricks with one hand, but he got it successfully secured after some fumbles. What else was left on his belt? He had a phaser, which was a relief. And he still had that interesting alien saber, which was awesome. So he had some weapons to fight with if he was found by a certain someone, which was a definite plus. Though he only had one hand to use them with.
Hm, now that was an idea… Jim pulled the sword handle out of its sheath, and pressed the button. The sword slid out. Its green tinge glinted in the dim light. Jim stabbed the tip across his body into the wall, and dragged himself out of the chair. With a grunt, he jerked it out of the metal sheet. He continued to stab and drag until he had finally reached the door. Using the knife-tip, he pressed the release code into the door from the floor. The door issued open.
Stab, drag, wrench. Stab, drag, wrench. It became a pattern. Jim repeated it in his head, put a nice cute little musical tune to it. He reached another door after quite a few refrains, one that he somehow dimly remembered was an open barracks room. That meant beds, privacy walls, bathrooms, the whole works. That meant he had ample resources to hide, clean himself up a bit, make a few traps, and waste some time so that he could get the hell out of there by transporter without Finnegan killing him.
He knew that chances were, Finnegan would follow the bloodstains here. But he could bet on another ten minutes before he arrived.
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Finnegan prowled the halls like a wild animal in the hunt for its prey. He had sustained little injury due to the crash, having hit only a crate of spare blankets in the collision's turmoil. He was relatively unharmed. But the small cut he had gotten on his forehead let his blood drip down his face, to his nose, let him smell it. He always went a bit crazy when he smelled blood… And this was no different. Fuck whatever the higher-ups had ordered him; he was going to kill Jimmy-boy right now. He was too dangerous, too incorruptible, too resourceful. And he was injured, right now, manning the craft. And he had had the balls to trap Finnegan in his own storage room.
Grinning evilly in the dark gloom, his face lit only by the blinking glow of his red phaser, Finnegan advanced towards the cockpit.
The door opened after a pause – and the tiny space was empty, except for a heap of junk, of spare parts and strewn about the pit. The ship was ruined for good. Another reason to kill Jimmy. Finnegan's grin stretched into something feral, baring his teeth.
But… something about this situation was suspicious to him. Finnegan took a closer look, flipping out a flashlight.
There was blood everywhere.
A manic laugh left his lips, triumphant in the knowledge that his enemy was badly wounded. He shone the light to follow the bloodstained path from the chair to the wall to the floor – he was standing exactly where Jimmy had dragged his dying body. Smirking, Finnegan got on one knee and dragged a finger through the wet blood. He licked it off, smiling, laughing. "So close, Jimmy boy," he breathed. "But it's all over now."
He cackled.
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End of Part 12
tbc
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Author's note: ugh, Finnegan is SUCH a creeper. Hate him.
Questions for you! Which character makes you laugh the most? Which is the coolest/most badass? Which is your personal favorite? Does the gore/action/other thing ever shock you? What about it?
Do you like having such long chapters when you know you could get more chapters faster if they were half as long? I could pander to my readers in this respect if the majority were in favor of this idea…
Review so that I can get the oomph! to keep on typing at late hours of the night. Please. It really helps. ._.(o.o)._. (bowing) I get tired and lonely, and the reviews give me reason and focus and all that.