"Give me all call. Chief Madison, report immediately. Chief
Madison, report immediately."
"Ma'am," Rand said, "I have Drysden from main engineering."
"Drysden, is there a problem?"
"Ma'am? Drysden said, "You want Madison?"
"Yes, I do." Larssen said, biting back other possible answers.
*Want* was not the word she would have used, given her choice.
"He went out."
Out. Out, on a starship. "Out? Out *where*, exactly?"
Larssen said, with a bizarre vision of Madison stepping
across to the docking bay for a surreptitious cigarette.
"After Brand. When Brand came down for the EVA suit
he explained what - what was - and then he went, and then
Madison asked what the fuck was going on - sorry ma'am,
I mean, that's really what he asked - and then he took an
EVA suit too. And he went."
"Thank you Mr Drysden." Larssen said with what felt to
her to be improbable calm. Delicately, she closed the channel.
She had sent Brand because he had EVA experience, and
because of all the crew on board who did, he was the one with the
least relevant experience to getting and keeping the ship
running. That was *not* a description she would have applied to
Madison. "Ms Rand, I will be on deck 3."
The turbolift took forever. The run down the corridor, at
her best staggering speed, took longer. Larssen was still
trying to remember where there might be another EVA suit when
she came around the final corner to see two suited figures in
front of the air lock. One on the floor, the other stooping
over it, unfastening the helmet. It came off, revealing
Brand's red hair, Brand's face gone dead white.
Covering the last five meters with a turn of speed she
would not have believed herself capable of, Larssen dropped to
her knees beside the Yeoman. "Brand." she said, reached into
the EVA suit and found a pulse. "Thank god. Brand, can you
hear me?"
"What," said a voice above her, "do you fucking care,
lady? You sent him out there to fucking die for you. No thanks
to you, he didn't. I'd say you should get the fuck away from
the poor boy now, wouldn't you?"
Madison had his helmet off. It was Larssen's experience
that anyone unhelmeted in an EVA suit looked faintly
ridiculous, a normal size head floating above the bulk of the
insulated and inflated suit, but Madison did not look foolish.
He bent down over her and Larssen felt herself shrink away.
"I said," Madison said softly, stripping his gloves off,
starting to unfasten his suit, "get the fuck away from him.
Get away from him. Get - the fuck - *away* from him."
"Madison," she said, trying for reason, trying for calm.
"Madison, we had to get the port grapple -"
He had her by the shirtfront and dragged her off feet. This
was not the anger she had seen on the trip to Starbase 18,
that had him recklessly yelling in a Drovna's face. He
wasn't yelling now.
~He will kill me,~ Larssen thought. She tried to prise
his hand open, tried to get purchase with her feet to
kick out at him, twisted and dropped in an attempt to
use her weight to force him to lower her. None of it
worked. Madison shook her hard, hard enough to rattle
her teeth, and dragged her close to him. When she
struck out he used his other hand to catch her wrist
and twist it brutally. Larssen yelped in pain. He was
stronger even than she had guessed.
"You just fucking do it, don't you?" he said. "You just
look at the lives you have to spend and weigh up what
they're worth - worth to *you*, fuck you, not to the
people they belong to. People's live belong to them
fucking selves, lady. They belong to themselves!"
She found it somewhere, some memory of the captain
facing down an armed man, a dangerous situation, with
nothing more than his face and his voice and his
training. She called it up and made it present until it
laid over her face and her body and her mind like a
mask.
"Madison," she ordered, "let me go!"
His hand opened involuntarily and she fell, twisted her
ankle and staggered painfully. For a minute they stood
facing each other, Larssen trying to hold him with her
stare alone, Madison's hands closing and opening at his
side as if he had her throat in his grasp.
The he looked down at Brand. 'He couldn't take the G."
he said roughly. "I'll take care of him. Go and run
the fucking ship."
"I'll be in life support." Larssen said. "Get down to
engineering as soon as you can." When he looked at her,
she stared him down.
Life support wasn't pretty, but it was functioning. They'd
be able to last out to the perimeter, and then long enough
to give them some chance of being picked up.
"What time is it?" Larssen asked Shimona.
"Minus two hours."
"I'm going to sleep." Larssen said. "You're off watch in
shifts, two at a time. I'll pass the word to engineering."
She did that, via Rand, stumbled into an empty office
and lay down on the floor. ~Did it,~ she thought numbly.
~Did it, did it, did it. Everyone's alive.~
"And - zero." Chekov said as the chronometer ticked over.
"Anything further on comm.?" Kirk asked.
"No, sir." Uhura said. "Monitoring all frequencies,
Captain." She paused, listened to something over her
earpiece. "Commodore Whittaker is asking for use of
the subspace relay again, sir. He wants a channel to
Starfleet Command."
"Same answer." Kirk said.
"Aye sir." She murmured into her comm. Captain
Kirk's regrets, Kirk knew she was saying, but since the
Enterprise was at yellow alert all communications
channels must be reserved for emergencies only. He
would be notified as soon as a channel became available.
Whatever Whittaker answered, Uhura's lips were tight
and her eyes hooded when she broke the connection.
"Commodore Whittaker's priorities are not quite the same
as those of the Enterprise." Kirk said.
"That's a six point three, sir." Sulu said cheerfully.
"You're going to have to do better if you want to
maintain your record."
"Record?" Kirk asked.
"As three time runner up in the ship wide
understatement stakes." Sulu said.
"Only runner up?"
"That's the best *anyone* can expect to do," Sulu said
cheerfully "when Commander Spock's on board."
"Of course." Kirk said. "Foolish of me." He tapped the
arm of his chair. "Uhura, anything further on - no, of course
not." It was impossible to sit still and wait any longer.
"Ms Uhura, you have the conn. I'll be in Engineering."
"Aye, sir." Uhura said, routing her boards through to the
command chair and coming down to relieve him. "I'll
page you with any further transmissions, Captain."
"I know." Kirk said, with a rueful grin, and
murmured: "Sorry about that."
"About what, sir?" she asked, eyes wide in feigned
innocence.
"About teaching my grandmother to suck eggs." Kirk
said, and headed for the turbolift.
"I'm not sure," Uhura said as the lift whisked the
captain away, "whether to be worried I'm starting to
show my age or worried the captain's eyes are going.
Sulu, do I look like a ninety year old to you?"
"I'm not getting into that one." Sulu said. "Do *I*
look like a fool?"
"Hmph." Uhura settled herself in the centre chair.
"You helmsmen are *all* the same."