Chapter Text
“I’ve heard that word a lot lately,” Kirk says. “Perfect. Everything’s perfect.”
McCoy smiles. “That’s right. That’s just what it is.”
“I am fully in control of my faculties, Captain. You do not need to monitor me.”
Kirk’s eyes flicker between the empty transporter pad and his first officer’s rigid stance. “Forgive my caution, Spock, but considering the last few days I’d say it’s justified.”
“I appreciate the concern. However… unwarranted.”
“Well, good.”
A faint beep draws both their attentions to the transporter console.
“That’ll be the first group,” he says as Spock rounds the panel and pulls down the lever. The pad hums to life, its five empty circles replaced with a shower of sparks and the outline of vaguely humanoid features.
In total, nine crew members materialize. Most are two to a spot, with one stunned or unconscious crewmate propped on the arm of the other. A red-shirted security officer stands watch on her own circle, but her phaser grip is loose, exhaustion written in her pale complexion and sloppy stance. Kirk bites back the instinct to tell her to straighten up, that she’s still got a job to do. The white stains on her collar and chest glare under the pad’s fading glow. He feels the chemical sting in his own eyes when he looks at them.
They can afford one security officer a little laxness. The danger was never really physical, anyway.
He rubs his hand against the beginnings of a bruise along his jawline, not yet bloomed but growing more sore by the minute. Not primarily physical.
“Cargo Bay 4,” he says to her as she steps off the platform. Her crewmates follow, dragging their feet, or the feet of the people they carry. The rest march wearily to the door, but he grasps the officer’s arm as she passes, keeping his touch light. She freezes, allowing the rest to pass her into the hallway. “Take this,” he murmurs low enough not to carry, and presses a hypospray into her empty palm. “Keep them asleep until Dr. McCoy arrives.”
“Sir,” she nods. Her phaser grip tightens.
The fabric of her uniform is torn at the shoulder, twisted around the thorn of some scraggly branch. Kirk plucks it out and smiles, what he hopes is reassuringly. Her face reddens and she ducks her head.
“Sir, I-”
“Off you go.”
Group after group of exhausted crewmembers follows, each more bedraggled than the last. One ensign has a bloody nose, and the fingers gripping her arm are covered in scratches and coffee-stained with grit. A couple people still struggle against their crewmates, frozen in tableaus of violence under the transporter beam, and he’s grateful for Spock’s strength when it’s directed towards keeping an enraged engineer from lunging at the pad controls, rather than a well-aimed blow at Kirk’s jaw.
Spock’s subsonic transmitter hasn’t done the job perfectly, but at least they don’t have hundreds of violent people to contend with: by his count, less than 15 among the returned crew are still under the thrall of the spores. Still, it’s enough to deplete what rationed sedative they have left, and Kirk catches another officer and sends him on a search for more hypospray cartridges. The man returns sheepish and empty-handed. Seems Bones’ laboratory is meticulously organized, but not particularly well labeled. He starts doing the mental math of how many people are left unaccounted for, and searching his mind for a contingency plan once their last dosage is spent.
“Only 22 of the crew remain on Omicron Ceti Three.” Spock says, answering Kirk’s unasked question. He wonders, not for the first time, if Spock’s telepathy extends past the touch of fingertips. Or maybe he just has an expressive face – he’s been told so before.
Kirk clutches the hypospray and its few remaining ccs of melorazine as the next group materializes. From here on out, they’ll have to rely on less pleasant means of restraint until the cavalry arrives.
Speak of the devil.
Kirk’s face breaks into a relieved grin as he catches sight of a familiar brown swoop of hair in the electric cascade of the beam. “We’ve saved,” he says, and Spock doesn’t return his smile, but he thinks he’s relieved as well. At the very least, his shoulders lose a bit of their tightness.
Who knows? Maybe when it comes to his first officer, he’s picked up a little telepathy of his own.
“Our prodigal doctor returns,” he says, still smiling as he steps forward, but before he can make it two paces Sulu leaps off the pad and presses him back, his dark eyes flashing a wordless warning. Kirk lets himself be pushed.
At first glance, there’s nothing abnormal about Bones’ expression. His warm, relaxed grin is familiar after a job done right. That smile has been a balm Kirk’s come to treasure after grueling mission, over a tumbler of bourbon and inconsequential, easy talk. But the smile feels out of place here in the transporter room, too familiar for a shared space, with no alcohol to loosen McCoy’s lips from its usual stubborn frown or wry smirk.
Bones rocks on his heels. It’s a treacherous bounce Kirk has rarely seen since Academy days. “Captain,” he says, and the loose smile remains, and Kirk knows the next words will be lies. The tell is too obvious, too easy to spot after years of poker tutelage in underlit bars, and he knows McCoy’s ticks better than anyone. “I think that’s everyone.”
“There are still 16 Federation lifesigns on the planet.” When did Spock get so close? Kirk hadn’t heard him move, but he feels his reassuring weight as his back.
Bones betrays no guilt at being caught in the lie. If anything, his grin widens. “I didn’t see anyone else. But you must be right, Spock. You could never stand being anything else, could you?” The bite is there, but it’s a playful façade of his usual animosity. There’s nothing of substance behind the remark, like it’s nothing but muscle memory.
Sulu’s holster is empty, his phaser lost somewhere on the planet, but his hand hovers about his hip regardless. If Kirk had his own phaser, he doesn’t think he’d draw it. From a strategic standpoint, he doesn’t want to create an altercation by anticipating one. From a personal standpoint, he’s not sure he could fire on Bones, any more than he would have fired on Spock earlier in the day.
If Bones comes at him, he’s got backup. There’s no need to escalate.
“Shouldn’t we send a search party down to retrieve the rest of the crew?” McCoy’s words are reasoned, and if it weren’t for the eerie grin, almost believable.
“I think that would be wise,” he says, his own poker face not forgotten. “Spock will lead that team. I need you in Cargo Bay 4, Bones. Seems that subsonic pulse put some of the crew threw the ringer, and we’ve still got a few folks who haven’t shaken off the spores.”
“Of course, Jim. I’ll update you once I get a handle on the situation.”
Kirk spares a brief glance at Spock, and he prays whatever telepathy he possesses, it reaches him in this moment. Spock’s face is impassive as always, betraying no twitch of understanding. “Great, you do that,” he says, returning his gaze to Bones. “Dismissed.”
Bones barely passes Kirk by a few inches before Spock’s hand shoots out and grasps him about the neck. The freeze frame lasts only a moment before Bones crumples to the ground, Kirk’s hands too slow to stop his fall.
“Let’s get the rest of the crew aboard,” Spock suggests. Kirk stares at the ground where his friend lies. “Nurse Chapel is among those who haven’t returned. We could use her expertise, wouldn’t you agree?”
He nods, and watches as Sulu drags the limp body to the door.
Right. Straighten up. He’s still got a job to do.