Chapter 5

"He's alive!" Kirk whispered as soon as the pirates left them alone again, having locked Kirk back in the brig. He was practically bouncing with excited energy borne of sheer overwhelming relief.

"Captain?" Spock questioned. He appeared to be searching the human for any signs that something had been done to him, traumatic brain injury perhaps.

"Bones. I've seen him, on the security footage. He killed a Klingon!"

"Youse got tae be joking!" Scotty gasped.

Spock really did appear to be considering brain injury now. "Captain, the damage done to McCoy indicated…"

"Really?" Chekov's voice was small but it stopped the rest of them in their tracks. That one word was so full of hope and yet disbelief at the same time.

Kirk nodded.

The young Ensign who until now had been frozen with anguish let out a sigh that was more like a sob and collapsed back against the wall he was sat at. "Impossible." He muttered, "Moj Boze."

"It does seem improbable," Spock agreed with the Russian, "but there are instances where the release of adrenaline to the human body can cause almost super human strength in times of dire need. However we must not forget that Doctor McCoy has been gravely wounded…"

"Which is why we need to get out of here to help him." Kirk interrupted. "We need to come up with a plan."

McCoy was drifting in and out of a pain-interrupted sleep when a heavy thud on the door jolted him awake. The noise had his heart pounding as he froze, listening. Then there was another thud and he knew it hadn't just been a part of his nightmares. He switched off the regenerator, released himself from the IV and struggled to sit upright. The blood rushed to his head as he eased his battered body off the bed, the internal regenerator had nearly completed a cycle and that would have to do. The treatment would continue to work although it would need numerous more cycles before the repair could be completed. He ignored the pain as he moved around, securing the knife back into his belt, slinging the rifle strap over his shoulder and rummaging through the drawers for supplies.

The banging stopped for a moment, but just as he'd dared to hope they'd given up, it started up again with greater frequency. He had no idea how long the door would hold, presumably they'd have someone on their crew that was a better engineer than he so it was unlikely to be long. He grabbed as many bandages as he could carry and selected a handful of hyposprays and the handheld dermal generator machine and made a dash to his office.

His office was lockable from the inside, not a feature he often used while he was in it due to feeling the need to be approachable and also because of his tendency to use it to sleep in when as often happened, his shift pattern got thrown out of the window and he was needed at a moment's notice. Once locked though, only he could open it with fingerprint and retinal scans. He doubted that it would cause an engineer much trouble but at least it was one move level of security they'd have to get through.

He had a satchel hanging on the back of the door which he used for away missions where he didn't wish to carry a full med kit. He grabbed it and stuffed the dermal generator and most of the bandages and hyposprays into it, ducking behind his desk away from the door. He then used the last bandage, a specialist gel bandage that he had set aside and hastily wrapped it round his chest, over his open wounds and protecting his damaged ribs. The material was coated in a thick gel which soothed the burns, restored some of the much needed fluids to the skin and cooled the wound so that it prevented the skin from further cooking even after the damage had been done. Listening carefully to the banging coming from outside the Med Bay he adjusted himself so that he was crouched, ready to move as soon as he could. It was going to be a struggle, his vision kept fading and the pain was enough to take his breath away.

He'd hoped not to need to medicate himself until he had to, but he knew that he wouldn't get through these next few minutes unless he did. He grabbed a hypospray and injected its contents into his arm. He felt the rush as the epinephrine/opiate compound coursed through his veins, making his heart thump loudly. The drug pushed the pain and fatigue aside and he suddenly felt more alert. He would be walking a fine line with this, he knew. The synthetic adrenaline would keep him going and give him the strength to push his wounded body further than would otherwise be possible, but it would come at a price, it would put great strain on his heart and he'd be at risk of causing himself further damage.

There was a shout and then they were through. McCoy could hear them in the Med Bay now, could hear them shouting to each other, "Fuck! Where is he?", "Look at all this blood, he's gotta be in bad shape." "Yeah? We thought he was dead and then he killed a fucking Klingon!" He could hear two voices, a deep female voice was the one doing all the swearing and a gruff male, but he could hear others moving round too. If he had to guess he'd assume there were three of them, but it was hard to tell.

He could then hear them approach the office door. Someone was trying to force it open. McCoy steadied himself, making sure he was tucked behind the desk. There was a holo of him and his daughter on it that caught his eye momentarily, the pair of them grinning wildly as he wrapped her in his arms. Seeing Joanna strengthened his resolve, he had to do this to get back to her.

And then the door slid open. McCoy fired his disruptor rifle before the pirates even had a chance to see inside. He squeezed off rapid shots in the direction of the doorway. There was a yell from two different people and a man crashed through the now open doorway. McCoy ignored him and kept firing, refusing to let up the barrage, so that they didn't have a chance to enter the room. They started firing back but the shots went wide, one hit the holo of Joanna and pieces of it peppered his face as it blew apart, another of them sank to the ground.

The last one, the green skinned female ducked out of the way, behind the wall. He could hear her breathing deeply. Unable to get a clear shot he stopped firing, there would be no point in wasting valuable energy.

"I'm gonna kill you, you bastard!" She snarled. He then heard a click of a comm, "Sheen and Kit are down! Get your asses to the Med Bay!" She ordered.

That was it. McCoy knew he couldn't wait any longer unless he wanted the rest of the pirate crew to come down and finish him off. He slung the satchel strap over his head and shoulder and stood up, firing. He kept the rifle fire quick and consistent, feeling like a holovid hero as he strode towards the door. The woman fired back but couldn't aim without exposing her position. She held her phaser round the corner of the doorway so McCoy shot it. The phaser fell to the floor and she pulled her burned hand back and gasped. McCoy saw his chance and took it, he leapt forward and fired his next shot as she reached down for her back up weapon. The blast hit her point blank in the face and she collapsed backwards on the Med Bay floor. McCoy knew he wouldn't be able to think about what he'd just done, he also didn't have the time, he ran.

He ran out into the hallway beyond the doorway, having given a quick glance out of the door to check the coast was clear. Thankful for the epinephrine that was allowing him the energy, he found himself still stumbling over his feet as he hurried. He knew where he needed to go and it wasn't far. He ignored the body of the Klingon he'd killed who still lay across the floor in a battered mess, trying to avoid stepping in the pool of blood so as not to slip or track a blood trail up the hallway.

Someone came out of a doorway and he raised his rifle and fired catching the pirate by surprise and taking him down before he could even blink. McCoy reached down and searched the man for his weapons, wishing he'd thought about that with the three he'd left in the Med Bay. He came up with two phasers and an old Terran style jungle machete. He stuffed them into his satchel and carried on.

As he approached a junction he could hear voices coming towards him and footsteps at a jogging pace. He looked around frantically and his eyes set upon a service panel in the wall. He prised it off and exposed an air duct. He wasn't a huge fan of tight spaces but he scrambled inside and pulled the panel back into place just in time. He listened to the conversation as the intruders approached, it was in a language he didn't recognise but it sounded angry. He watched through the grate as a pair of booted feet ran passed, no doubt on their way to the Med Bay. Once they realised he was on the loose, things would become much harder. As if it hadn't been hard enough already.

McCoy lay in the dark, bandaged chest heaving as he tried to get his breathing under control. He was convinced they'd be able to hear his laboured breath through the vent. His fingers ghosted over the chest drain that he still had sticking out of his side. Thankfully it hadn't moved, despite the fact he'd only hastily secured it with a bit of medical tape. As his fingers came away wet he concluded it was still emitted fluid but the output had slowed since he'd put the archaic medical device in. His fingers continued down to his ribs, they were still holding too, which was a miracle considering huge chunks of them had been blasted away. They bandaging he'd wrapped round his torso would only protect them so far, too much pressure on them and what was left of his lower three ribs would likely crunch inwards causing all sorts of further damage. He knew that considering the level of damage he was lucky to even be moving.

The painkillers he had taken were a combination of adrenaline and nerve-blockers and normally he was highly opposed to prescribing them. For a start, they were highly addictive, but the reason McCoy almost refused to work with them was that often they disrupted the pain to such a degree that those taking them would be unaware of the further damage they were doing to themselves. They'd been designed for the battlefield, to keep soldiers going when they had no other choice, they were always part of an 'away team' med kit and McCoy had used them in that scenario on only a handful of occasions. Unfortunately, whether he liked it or not, the Enterprise had become for all intents and purposes had become a battlefield. They were starting to wear off now though, the stabs of pain getting through the blocks that they had in place. It was time for a new dose but he tried his best to ignore it for now, he couldn't afford for it to run out.

He didn't have time to lay there feeling sorry for himself, he chided. Just like he couldn't dwell on what he'd done to get there. He held the disruptor rifle across his body in the way he'd been trained at the academy. Despite Starfleet being a naval organisation, the majority of the crew had only had the most basic of training in weapons handling, and that was usually focused on self-defence and the use of phasers on their stun setting. Only the militarised Starfleet divisions went on to do further weapons training, and even then, to kill was considered a last resort. Enterprise was considered an exploratory and diplomatic vessel and as such it was a generally held belief by those in the upper echelons of the Federation that heavy armament would be unnecessary and uncouth. More than once McCoy had made his opinion on the matter known, the Federation and Starfleet Admiralty were living in a naïve fantasy world, he'd been in plenty of firefights on away missions and to send unarmed and untrained people out into the universe was reckless. Still, despite some of the dangers he'd found himself in over the years he'd still never killed anyone and had convinced himself he never would, until now.

The pirates were gone, he waited a few minutes to make sure they wouldn't hear him. He was about to push the grate away when he heard more footsteps, heavy ones at a run. McCoy cursed under his breath at how close he'd come to being caught. Of course, the corridor was likely to be full of pirates in minutes, all answering the call for assistance to the Med Bay. Instead he glanced round the tight tunnel of the air conditioning duct and knew what he'd have to do. Laying on his right side to protect his more damaged ribs, he started to crawl. His chest protested, although better than the left, his right ribs had been cracked too, the pain was enough to make his head swim. He thought for a second that he'd pass out but he fought back that feeling and continued to crawl.

Authors Note: I'm afraid I butchered the Russian language just briefly. I've written 'Moj Boze' phonetically instead of in Cyrillic so those who can't read Russian know how it sounds. It means 'My God!'

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