Star Trek: The Accident
Warning: Language.
CHAPTER THREE
The Red Alert warning sounded nothing like a life support alarm, but McCoy had already scrambled from the inactive biobed and was reading the life function display.
Brain: fine.
Heart: fine.
Lungs: fine.
McCoy's heart hammered against his ribcage as he reread the display again, making sure it hadn't changed in the last second. Maggie was fine. She was fine, he told himself, running a nervous hand through his hair. But if it wasn't the life function monitors, then the only other possibility would be—
He whirled around to stare up at the rectangular light above the door; it was flashing an angry red. A ship-wide emergency, McCoy realized a second before the captain's voice burst from the intercom.
"Attention all hands: We are being approached by a multitude of unknown vessels on an intercept course. As of yet, we have received no response to our hails. All Grade One personnel are to report to their stations until further notice. Kirk out."
McCoy hurried to the transparasteel window. From this angle, all he could see was a patch of star-filled space and a bluish nebula. No sign of any ships. Yet. In his mind's eye, he could see the impact the Red Alert was having on Sick Bay. He'd been through it before—too many times—and it never got easier. Trauma equipment would be powering on while loose objects were secured at all stations. Personnel from the opposite shift would be running in, still pulling on their uniforms or rubbing sleep from their eyes.
The hardest part though was the waiting. Once the emergency tasks were completed, the fear and apprehension would take hold, especially around the younger personnel.
It was about this time, the calm before the storm, that McCoy would give words of encouragement or ease the tension with a light-hearted joke. The captain was the boss of the ship, but it was to the Chief Medical Officer that the medical staff looked to for guidance. Only he could understand the insanity of being fine one moment and being wrist-deep in a friend's guts the next.
I need to be out there, McCoy thought. He was just about to turn away when there was movement on the other side of the window. There was a faint shimmer to the stars that hadn't been there before—shields were up—but McCoy still had a clear view of them.
There were thousands of ships, silver and angular, about the size of a one or two-person transport. They encircled the Enterprise like a swarm of insects. It was a dizzying display of perfect coordination—each ship remained an exact distance from every other—as they twirled around each other while surrounding the Enterprise.
And then McCoy watched a ship pull away from the horde. It approached the energy barrier slowly but didn't come to a stop. Instead, it flew through their shields as though they didn't exist.
McCoy stepped back as another ship slid into view, just outside the ward window. It was so close that if the transparasteel hadn't been in place, he could have leaned out and touched it. And eerier still, he got the impression that he was being watched despite the smaller ship having no visible viewports.
When the ship disappeared beyond the window, McCoy stepped forward and pressed his face against the invisible steel. The ship had drifted back and slightly up toward the portside nacelle. And then, in a deliberate move, it scraped its hull along the Enterprise's tube-shaped warp unit, leaving crumpled panels and other debris twirling in its wake. There were several bright flashes and a shower of sparks from a hull breach before the escaping air was sealed off.
Undamaged, the alien vessel turned, increased its speed, and rejoined the swarm.
McCoy watched with wide eyes as a gray panel with part of Enterprise's registry spun into the circling mass of silver ships. It hit one then bounced off another before sailing aimlessly into space.
"Son of a bitch!" McCoy whispered, feeling momentarily overwhelmed. "Why is there always so much crazy shit in space?"
"Dr. McCoy to the bridge! Dr. McCoy to the bridge! Emergency!" Uhura's voice was strained as it burst from the intercom.
"No kidding," McCoy muttered, bolting to the intercom. He punched the button. "What the hell is going on, Lieutenant?"
"Just get up here, Leonard. Now!"
"On my way!" McCoy ran to the biobed and released the gravity-loss safety netting from the bed's frame. He threw it over his daughter's still form—her heart rate remained a calm 46 BPM despite the alarm—and cinched it into place on the other side.
McCoy straightened then hesitated for the briefest moment to look down at his daughter's face for, very possibly, the last time. Without the energy shields, the Enterprise was defenseless. And if the alien force decided to attack, there was little hope they'd survive.
Then, pulling in a deep breath, McCoy let his training take over. He ran from Sick Bay, an emergency medkit clutched in his hands. It took nearly thirty-eight seconds to reach the bridge, and during that time, he prepared himself for all sorts of horrible scenarios. Had Jim been injured somehow? Chekov? Why the hell Starfleet never incorporated safety restrains for the bridge crew was beyond him.
But when the turbo-lift doors slid open, McCoy realized it was something much more serious than a concussion or a dislocated shoulder.
Spock was lying on the floor in front of the science station, clutching his head and yelling so hard that the cords in his neck stood out like docking cable. His body seized suddenly and one leg snapped out, striking the science station chair. Despite being made of durasteel, the chair shaft broke in two. It was a disturbing reminder of the strength so discreetly controlled beneath the Vulcan exterior.
McCoy quickly went through a mental list of medicines that would work on Spock's unique physiology and filled the medkit hypospray with a mix of painkillers and muscle relaxers. He dropped to his knees next to Spock's head, but dispensing the meds proved impossible. Spock had begun to twist violently, as though he were grappling with an invisible foe.
"Stop it, you damned fool!" McCoy barked. "I'm here to help."
The commander's head snapped back and forth, and at first McCoy thought it was part of the seizure until Spock's hand shot out, seizing his wrist.
"Doctor, you must—you must knock me out!" Speaking was clearly difficult for him but the words continued in choked gasps and grunts. "They are reading . . .reading my mind! Taking things! I—I can't —you must stop them!"
Luckily, Spock had released his grip before the convulsions began again, or McCoy doubted that his hand would still be attached to his arm. Without hesitating, he dropped the hypospray's cartridge and reloaded it with a heavy tranquilizer, one strong enough to take down a fairly annoyed Horta. Which meant that McCoy hoped it was strong enough for the commander.
McCoy pressed it against Spock's neck but instead of the familiar hiss of medicine being blown into a patient's bloodstream, the unit gave a faint clicking noise of protest. Hyposprays were designed to release medicine on contact, but it wasn't activating. McCoy pressed harder. More clicking. Jammed?
"Fuck all!" he roared, and smacked the back of the unit with his hand.
"Bones! I need someone at that station!"
McCoy didn't bother answering Kirk as he raced through the hypo's settings. And then he realized that the problem wasn't with the hypo at all, it was Spock's blood pressure. Normally it was much lower than a human's, but with the stress and seizures, it was no doubt off the charts. He would need Spock to relax for the medicine to enter the bloodstream.
"Sorry-not-sorry about this, Spock," McCoy muttered, pulling his arm back. His fist connected with the Vulcan's jaw, and McCoy felt the snap of two fingers breaking. Damn hobgoblin, he thought as he grabbed the hypo with his good hand and pressed it against Spock's neck. McCoy let out a satisfied grunt at the familiar hissing sound.
"I always knew you were hardheaded, Spock, but —" McCoy fell silent as his eyes met Spock's dark ones. They looked vulnerable, afraid even. McCoy had never seen his friend look like that before, and it unnerved him. Finally, with a look of profound relief, Spock's eyes finally slid shut.
Immediately an officer that McCoy didn't recognize jumped over Spock's still form and knelt over the viewer.
"Sir! They're disengaging!"
"Leaving?" Kirk asked, voice tense.
"No, Sir. Just . . . waiting, forty clicks off our starboard bow."
The bridge fell silent except for Uhura's voice calling out damage reports. "Deck Two, sections 4-B through 7-D, reporting life support failure. Deck Four breach has been temporarily sealed. Deck Seven, sections 1-A and 2-H report no power. Deck . . . "
Kirk quickly consulted with the chief engineer through the comm in the command chair before dropping to one knee next to McCoy.
"What the hell happened to him, Bones?" he demanded, looking with concern on the Vulcan's still form.
"There's nothing physically wrong with him, " McCoy said, gazing down at the tricorder in his hands. After a moment, he tossed it on the open lid of the medkit and looked at the captain. "But Spock said that they were reading his mind, taking stuff. Information."
"About the ship?"
"He didn't say. Or couldn't," McCoy added. He shook his head, disturbed by what he'd seen. "I've never seen him like that before. Frantic, you know? Desperate."
Kirk's lips flattened. "How long before the sedative wears off?"
"Hell if I know for sure, but I'm not taking chances." McCoy flipped open the communicator from the medkit. "Nurse Chapel, get Jones and Henson up here on the double with a gurney."
"Who was—"
"Spock." There was barely a quarter of a second's pause as Chapel absorbed the news; she had feelings for the commander, McCoy knew, but she continued in a neutral voice that, if possible, would have made the Vulcan proud.
"They're on the way, Doctor. Anything else?"
"Prep another biobed in the Critical Care Ward with additional restraints."
"Yes, Doctor."
McCoy flipped the communicator closed. "So who are your new playmates, Jim?" He peeled a sealant from its backing and placed it over a gash on Spock's forehead. The Vulcan had struck his head repeatedly against the deck, undoubtedly trying to knock himself out. "I don't recognize them from the neighborhood."
Kirk watched the doctor's hands as they worked. "Not my neighborhood, Bones, we play nice. No warnings, no hails from these bastards. I've never seen that style ship before, either."
"They were aerodynamic and those thrusters they were using were short range burners from the look of 'em. Could they have come from one of the nearby planets?"
"You've been tinkering outside your field, Doctor? When did you take an interest in aeronautic engineering?"
McCoy tossed the crumpled backing back in the medkit. "Remember that blonde on Rigel IV?"
"The short one with the nice—"
"Uh-uh. She was a transport ship architect."
Kirk made an impressed sound then gave McCoy a look that implied the doctor had been holding out on him. "These ships didn't come from any of the planets in this sector, they're all gas-based. So that begs the question, just where did they come from? And more importantly, what do they want?"
"I've got two answers for you, Jim." They stood as the turbo-lift doors opened to let the nurses with the gurney onto the bridge. He watched the two men lift Spock's limp form onto the gurney and continued only when they had begun securing the safety restraints. "The first one is: I don't give a shit. And the second: I really don't give a shit. Let's just get the hell out of here.'"
"No, tell me how you really feel, Bones," Kirk quipped, then shook his head in frustration. "I'm in agreement, but I'm afraid that's impossible." He held up his hand to silence McCoy's protest. "I just talked to Scotty: the port nacelle was damaged in the attack. It's going to take at least four hours to patch it; we got impulse till then."
Perhaps he'd become more of a cynic lately, but some part of McCoy had known they wouldn't be able to just sail away. They'd rolled the dice too many times; luck didn't last forever, even theirs. "So we're sitting ducks," he concluded.
"Sitting maybe, but ducks armed with photon torpedoes and phasers nevertheless."
The nurses were maneuvering the gurney onto the turbo-lift. McCoy jerked his head in their direction. "I gotta go, Jim. I don't know how long that dose will keep him out for."
He turned to go, but Kirk grabbed his arm. "When he's restrained, I need you to wake him," he said urgently. "I have to know what they were searching for."
"And what if they start reading his mind again?" McCoy asked. "With everything Spock knows about the Enterprise, it would be like handing over the self-destruct passcode. Hell, he probably programmed half those codes. Jim, I don't—"
"We have to take that chance, Bones," Kirk said, his voice lowered to a murmur that only the doctor could hear. "Their ships can penetrate our shields and—" Kirk's shoulders sagged slightly "—we're just running out of options."
McCoy's lips twisted into a grim line, but he nodded. "All right, Jim. I'll call you as soon as I get him strapped down."
Please review.