Waiting is a funny business. After the adrenaline spikes of the day, the running around, the being thrown into a pit, even with the impromptu "nap" he had, thanks to their "hosts," exhaustion and boredom dragged at him. If it weren't for the ever-ready Commander Spock, and the eager young Kelly, he'd suck at his internal resources, apply a stim, maybe do some breathing exercises, and push on.
As it was, protected position, armed guards, superior Vulcan hearing? McCoy took a seat on the corner of Fanna's pallet, phaser in his lap, leaned against the crude wall, and allowed himself to dose.
So when a pained grunt and the crash of technology hitting a dirt floor jerked him awake, he didn't feel too guilty for throwing himself over his charge, rather than more sanely turning on his hand lamp and firing into the dark.
The sharp prick of a needle hit him in the side and a deeper darkness flooded his system.
When consciousness leaked back into his brain, a high pitched squealing filled his ears. A numb tingling started at the end of his extremities, building in intensity until his veins were burning with it.
McCoy grit his teeth and waited out the sensation; he'd dealt with a variety of sedatives over the years, human and alien. Whatever they'd used wasn't built for his system, but it was close enough to be effective. At least for a little while.
He didn't feel anything tying his hands or feet, so they assumed he'd be out for a while yet.
The sniping, for anything that high pitched might very well've come from his shrew of a ex-wife, drew away, along with a few sets of heavy footfalls.
McCoy chanced opening his eyes.
Cool, grey rock face of a cave wall swept up over him. Quite the cavern, considering how the dark enveloped the roof of the place. Pools, various sizes and cut into the walls and floor all around, glowed. Bioluminescence or chemicals, he couldn't tell without a medical scanner.
Medical scanner!
He reached for the strap he'd left crossing his chest while he'd been napping, surprised to feel the sturdy canvas still secure.
No alien technology he could see; no cameras telling on him. So, he reached for his scanners and started a general sweep.
Bioluminescence, then. He immediately turned his swirling wand to Fanna, prone at his side. Deeply asleep. Nearly in stasis. Her respiration and heart rate, no, hearts rate, so incredibly slow. But he didn't see any detrimental effects to her mind or body.
A quick scan of his own system showed liver and kidneys in distress. Likely, he'd be jaundiced for a few days after this escapade, even if he got back to the ship soon for treatment.
Fanna's communicator was left back in her home, but McCoy's was still in his bag. Of course, we're too blasted deep underground for it to work.
He shut the unit and tossed it back in his bag.
Alright, McCoy, take stock. You've got a medical scanner, one comm unit, a dermal regenerator, wound sealer, Jim's Epinephrine, tri-ox, and some basic painkillers. And an unconscious girl, likely over a hundred kilos. Not that I'm gonna put my back out even attempting to carry her.
So, try scouting ahead, see if I can get an idea of how to get out of here, leaving Fanna unprotected and by herself? Or, stay here and wait for Jim and Spock to find me.
General track record, they'll stumble across me. Eventually.
Question is, will our new hosts be back by then.
After a few more minutes of gnashing his teeth, he ripped a strip of fabric free from his undershirt and tied his open communicator to Fanna's upper waist. Everything that'd been left behind – Fanna's communicator, his phaser, his flashlight – had been loose and left behind. As if their captors simply lifted them up and those precious items dropped.
Hopefully, if Fanna woke up and he wasn't there, she'd understand to keep it with her.
The tricorder barely illuminated more than the little pools of glowing pond scum.
The ceiling of the cave was chipped and pitted. Dry. A "dead cave," without stalactites. Not a normal formation back home on Earth, especially with so many pools filled with life, but who's to say what'd be normal here?
McCoy only saw one entrance to the big cavern, so he headed for it.
Before the glow of light stretched to the lip, he turned it off and headed for one of the walls. He might not've taken all the tactical courses some of crew did, but he'd heard enough horror stories after the fact to know the basics of what not to do. Bad enough his heeled boots echoed loud enough to wake the dead.
But... the echoes could work for him too.
He paused at the entrance, listening with all his might. Low whispers lead him down a narrow passage, which opened up in a spiderweb of other passages.
He tugged out the tube of wound seal and laid a smear, just large enough for the tricorder to pick up, down the direction he chose. At each new turn, he repeated the procedure.
The screeching sound he heard earlier growing steadily louder.
The passages narrower.
The little pools of light sprouted farther, and farther away.
Until, finally, he was plunged into total darkness. The only indication of his travel the last flicker of green growing smaller and smaller behind him, until a curve finally extinguished even that.
A hand out to either side traced the walls. Not even stretched that far, now. He stopped, periodically, to open up his tricorder and swing the medical scanner around. The screen, even set to its dimmest, bleaching the cones and rods. The distance too great to pick up anything past the slime on the walls.
So, on and on he went through the dark. Fingers grazing dry dirt, then stone, then something moss-like, and back again. The screeching oddly soothing with its rhythmic quality; as much as nails on chalkboard could be, anyhow. He stooped, as the ceiling closed in; an odd ledge here or there threatening to give him another goose egg.
McCoy paused in the dark, as the sound of choked sobs echoed down to him in pathetic little hiccups. A sharp smack of flesh on flesh silenced it.
He picked up his pace, pushing forward until he tripped over something large, warm.
The thing whimpered and cringed away.
McCoy reached out without thought, relief flooding him as his fingers touched bare, tough leathery skin, prickled by the occasional coarse hair.
His fingernails dug into thin, narrow shoulders, eliciting another whimper. The rhythmic chalkboard sounds ahead continued on, unheeded.
Conscious of how easily sound carried, he groped a bit until he could cover the wide, small-tucked mouth.
"Keep quiet," he whispered. The hiccuping ceased, and he felt a nod against his hand.
McCoy kept a hand on an upper arm as he backed up the narrow crevasse. Every so often he felt a hesitation from his new companion, but a little tug got the feet moving again. That incessant scratching quieted to a irritating whisper.
"Who are you?"
"A friend of Fanna's," McCoy whispers without hesitation. "Are the rest here too?"
"In other tunnels. Jaina is in this one, with me."
A tickling at the back of McCoy's skull was all the warning he got before a rockfall slammed into his shoulder, shoving him bodily into his unseen companion.
A multitude of hands hoisted him out of the rubble.
"Hurry! Run! They'll beat you if-"
Another mass of rocks descended; the cascade opening from on high and pouring out over them.
"Come on!" McCoy grabbed the kid by the arm – no way he was letting this one out of his sight... feel, whatever – and ran like the dickens.
Running, occasionally bringing the tricorder up just long enough to get a read on where the hell they were headed, quickly extinguishing the light and plunging his poor rods and cones back into subterranean darkness. Great mixture for coming up with a plan to get the hell out of here.
Ugly, wet, hacking coughs followed him, shaking the arm he held.
A few yards farther back, something between that chalkboard sound from before and what might've been a million millipedes preforming synchronized marching relentlessly hunted them.
At one of the larger junctions, McCoy took a big chance and headed down a new path; no way he was leading whatever that was back to Fanna. Here and there the path was again dotted with the bioluminescent pools. Blinding bright after hours without. The ability to see tantalizing. Calling the doctor to glance back, see exactly what kind of monster steals children from their beds and drags them down into the deep.
When he got a look, he wished he hadn't.
Down another dark tunnel, and another. Then another large junction, with several choices.
That maddening sound paused here, before plunging after them. Tireless. Relentless. But-
A sliver of an idea. Just a tiny spark, but-
"Can they see?" McCoy hissed to the child.
"I... dunno."
He grit his teeth, pulled out his tricorder and wished to all hell he'd snagged someone else's, for once. Up close medical scans, like a walking-speed search for the clotting proteins from that styptic, no problem. Trying to find a blind alley while-
There! He felt it, more than read the scan, but hell it didn't matter. He shoved the boy ahead of him into the narrow passage and scooted back as far as he could get. A hand back over the kid's mouth and snout to keep him even from breathing.
Holding his own, ragged, too-god-damn-old-to-be-doing-this-shit-anymore-self breath hurt like hell.
The horror in the dark grew louder. Louder. Unseen. Worse, for having a glimpsed of all those millions of tentacles, and those friggin' insane claws extending out before it. Louder. Closer. Until-
McCoy felt the rolling heat of the thing. Shivered. Bit his lip to keep from screaming out in terror. Hell, he'd swear he felt the thing brush against the knee he couldn't get tucked in.
And then, it was gone.
Just like that.
Going down the tunnel. Scythe claws stretched out before it. Searching for prey now behind it.
For one insane minute, he very nearly reached in to his bag for something, anything. Incompatible painkillers? A needle filled with air? Anything! Something to turn into a weapon and-
A deep shiver wracked him.
No.
No, never turn the healing arts against someone, anyone, anything, no matter how terrifying. Do no harm applies to all. Especially the scary creatures. Otherwise the doctor becomes the scary creature.
He clamped his hand back around the boy's upper arm and dragged him out of the niche.
Eventually the tricorder picked up his trail of breadcrumbs.
In the perpetual dark, he had no idea how long he'd been gone from Fanna's still sleeping side.
The boy slumped in an exhausted heap next to her.
"Here, let me get a look at you."
He'd tossed a hand across his eyes; the dim glow of the pool too bright for him.
Even at a distance, McCoy could see how swollen his hand was. All of them, he realized. Cuts, gouges, scrapes, from hauling rock and dirt, and the expected infection to go with it. The tricorder had a hell of a time trying to figure out if his lungs were also infected, but after a quick calibration from Fanna, the high-pitched squealing settled down to a normal distressed bleep.
"What are you?" the tuskless boy asked, eventually.
"Fanna calls me a day demon," McCoy grumbled, turning a hand over. He dug out the tweezers in his landing kit, rarely used, and damn but this set didn't meet up right. He had to dig a bit before he finally got a spiderweb thin filament out of a particularly nasty pustule.
They sat in silence while the doctor tugged out all of the foreign matter he could without soap, water, and a stiff bristled brush. It took him a good long while to admit defeat and just run the wound seal over everything. Short term solution. I've just locked an insane amount of contaminated material in against his skin with no chance of escape.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it, Doctor?
He looked up, expecting the bright questions Fanna'd pelted him with, and met only a lightly sleeping young face. Hallow cheeks. Faint bubbling sound to the breath. Pneumonia.
And who knows how many more down here.
A deep shiver took him.
No more adrenaline, buddy. He thought to himself with a wry grimace. Get ready for the crash.
Without the running, or injuries he had means to tend, McCoy was at the end of his rope.
And this damn cavern was damn cold.
Cold, and breezy.
…
McCoy nearly slapped himself in the face. If he hadn't been so damn excited to explore when he first woke up, he might've actually noticed the friggin' breeze. Not much, but any waft of air in a cave meant airflow.
And airflow means a way out. Somewhere.
An Old West flick popped into his mind. He popped an index finger in his mouth, worked up a bit of spit, and pointed towards the ceiling.
Damn, but it works.
Wet finger, plus breeze, equals slightly colder on one side.
He followed the cold spot, of course in the opposite direction from where the light originally led him.
One cavern opened to another. No thin tunnels this time. Just great, huge rooms.
The glowing pools grew shallow and small. McCoy tugged out the tricorder again.
When he finally found the entrance to this bloody mess, he wanted to kick himself.
Water. A big, dark pool.
Briny and weird tasting, but he knew an ocean when he saw it.
They were in a cavern with an under-friggin-water entrance.
I was staring at the ocean the entire day, and it never even occurred to me.
His luck? Jim and Spock would be directly above him, in the village, having a good freak out right about now.
Just then, everything clicked into place. The fatigue tugging at his shoulders shrugged off. The fear and uncertainty forgotten.
He ran back to the kids, shook the boy awake enough to show him how to create light with the tricorder. Told him not to press any other buttons or play with anything else in the bag. Promised he'd be right back. With help.
Even if the two could swim, the boy's lungs couldn't handle it, and whatever was effecting her was still in her system. No, better to get there on his own, and get more hands stat.
So, with a comforting squeeze of the boy's shoulder, McCoy headed back for the entrance, did a couple stretches, kicked off his boots, tucked his tri-ox hypo into the elastic of his undies, and took several big breaths to oxygenate his blood.
One last big gulp of air and he dove in.
He wasn't a great swimmer, but like every Starfleet officer he had to be able to meet certain physical criteria. Rope climbing? Yeah, it'd taken a couple tries before he passed that test. Doctor's have instincts to save their finely tuned hands, not use put all their weight on them and drag about on coarse hemp. The five kilometer long jog wasn't too bad. The sprints were over quickly. The hundred K swim wasn't fun, but doable.
In a semi-dark cave, however, swimming took on whole new worlds of torture.
He swam forward, kicking and scooping at the water until his lungs began to burn.
He let out the breath of air as slowly as he could muster. His throat convulsed, trying to gag. Sickly sweet water filled his sinuses, burning. As he reached for the hypo, McCoy let out a involuntary cough; his mouth flooded.
He shoved against the rock floor, pushing upwards. Desperately flailed and dragged himself here and there, blindly groping, hoping, praying-
Air!
His head burst into a small pocket. He wretched up the water. Coughed and spit. Breathed deeply until he felt light headed.
In the dark, he couldn't see how big the pocket of air was, but his hands didn't have far to reach to find the ceiling.
He rested until his ears began to roar, administered a modest dose of tri-ox by feel, took in another deep breath, and disappeared back into the dark water.
Idiot. Experienced spelunkers get lost like this. No light. No rope. No guide. You're gonna die in this wet hell hole, none the wiser for-
He thrashed, desperate for the next pocket. Fingers clawed bloody in the stone.
Cold hit his fingers. He shoved his face up in the crack between two rocks. The little gap of air so small his nose barely cleared it. He had to hold as still as possible before the surface stilled enough for him to breath the couple lungfuls in.
Getting light headed, McCoy. You're not going to last like this.
Not like you can go back at this point, though.
Thought the world was supposed ta shrink down to a dark tunnel of light, not get brighter all over.
His joints tightened with each paddle, grab, pull. The edges of the rock formations steadily becoming more and more defined, until he burst out into the blue velvet of the real sea.
He thrashed up to the surface with another coughing fit, interrupted by every curse word he knew and a few he didn't.
Sure as sugar, the curve of a sandy, rocky beach swept out before him.
Dawn behind him. The weak star barely warming the sky.
By the time he made it back to the village, he was almost done dripping. The shivering was only just beginning.
Someone had him wrapped up in blankets, or the closest thing these damn giant centaurs could muster, and hot water in an oddly familiar twisted cup appeared in his hands. He drank deeply, gratefully.
Father Cannaceae's angry glowering face eventually resolved, bracketed by Jim and Spock. They all had quite a bit to say. Not a bit of it good. Well, the commander didn't have much to say, other than the occasional comment about human stupidity and impulsiveness, couched in typical Vulcan verbosity.
The moment McCoy finally got the chattering of his teeth under control, he told them all he knew.
Jim commed for even more security to be brought down.
Of course he headed the rescue mission.
Spock, not surprisingly, stayed at the doctor's side, even after a pointed look.
"Guess Vulcans don't like the water much, eh Spock?"
"My adaptations make my presence more effective on land, Doctor."
McCoy smirked and sagged back into the pile of hay he'd been tucked into. With the certainty that Jim had everything under control, and Fanna and the other kids'd be rescued in short order, the good doctor gave himself permission to fall into a deep, deep sleep.