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Lieutenant j.g. Derek Hale coughed his way back to consciousness. It took him a moment to remember what was going on. He had been heading to the USS Beacon's bridge to stop whatever stupid revenge plot his allegedly comatose Uncle Peter had going on. Judging from the emergency lighting and the smoke filling the turbolift, he was too late.
Still, he had to try. It took him a moment to orient himself and find the emergency access panel, but then it was just a matter of climbing up to the bridge level. And forcing the bridge doors open, but that was easy with his strength.
Inside was carnage. Captain Myers was lying in a pool of his own blood, very obviously dead. Peter barely looked human, holding Kate Argent up by her neck. He was actually glowing, something Derek had never even heard of a werewolf doing. McCall, the kid that Peter must have bitten, was barely holding himself together; he looked like he'd already tried fighting Peter once, more fool him. The rest of the bridge was full of the kids the Beacon was supposed to be ferrying around the sector, and yet more Argents who weren't supposed to be on board at all. Cadet Stilinski seemed to be in charge somehow, which given the kid wasn't in charge of his own mouth half the time was not good.
Much as he wanted Kate dead for what she'd done, Derek had an oath as a Starfleet officer to uphold. "Put her down," he shouted, then shifted and roared out a challenge to his nominal Alpha. Not that Derek had ever planned on following the man who had murdered his sister.
Peter turned his head slowly, fixing Derek with an insane grin. "If you insist," he said, and squeezed his hand. The sound of Kate's neck snapping was audible even without enhanced hearing.
Derek leapt forward, knowing it was too late but having to try anyway. Peter added insult to injury by throwing Kate's body at him as he slipped aside, heading for Chris Argent instead of facing the challenge as Derek had hoped.
"Now!" Stilinski shouted, and several phaser shots rang out from the kids. One of them actually clipped Peter, though it didn't seem to do more than make him glow brighter and piss him off. Dodging did slow him down enough that Stilinski had one of the bridge's containment fields up before Peter could reach Chris. The Argents were conveniently on the other side of it apart from their daughter, Allison, who was coincidentally the only one actually supposed to be there. And who seemed to be the only one capable of hitting Peter, as she promptly proved again. Peter ignored her.
"Lydia?" Stilinski shouted. Peter started pushing on the containment field. Incredibly, his claws were slowly breaking through. Derek started for him, but Miss Martin's words brought him up short.
"Twenty seconds to impact," she said far more calmly than the words merited.
"Impact?" Derek demanded. "Cadet, what the hell?"
"No time," Stilinski shouted back. He fired at Peter, and predictably missed. "Just don't be near Peter when we hit zero."
Derek would have dived at Peter and to hell with Stilinski but there was too much phaser fire for him to risk getting close. The kids might or might not have jacked their phaser output up to the level necessary to kill a werewolf, but even getting stunned would have been a bad plan. Instead he moved round to cover Allison. If Peter decided she was easier prey...
"Stand down," he told McCall. The kid just glared at him and stayed stubbornly in position to jump in front of his girlfriend. "McCall, your insides are nearly on the outside. Stay back."
"I'm not letting him near Allison," McCall declared.
Derek didn't roll his eyes by dint of heroic effort. "You won't do her any good dead," he replied. "He'll have to get through me first."
Peter whipped around. "You think you can stop me, Derek?" he snarled. "You think you're better than Laura? She was an alpha, Starfleet trained, and she couldn't stop me. You're only alive now because you weren't worth killing."
Derek saw red, but he wasn't fool enough to charge. Starfleet Academy had at least trained that out of him. "Oh yeah?" he said instead. "Prove it. If you're such a hot-shot—"
And then Peter was on him. Even with all of his werewolf reflexes and Starfleet training, Derek only just managed to block the blow that would have taken his head off. Peter was stronger and faster than he had any right to be, even as an alpha werewolf. If Derek had any breath to spare he would have taunted Peter, trying to bait him into a mistake, but as it was he couldn't even spare the attention to come up with a good taunt. Peter was scoring little hits on him, and of course they weren't healing the way normal wounds would.
"Brace!" Stilinski yelled. "Derek..."
Peter looked his way, leaving himself vulnerable just for a second. In that second Derek's claws flashed out and ripped Peter's throat open. He barely had time to realise what he'd done before Peter's claws were embedded in his stomach and agony ripped through him. Incredibly even Peter's throat was healing. Impossible, Derek thought. His legs wouldn't keep him up any longer, but Peter who should be dead was—
Everything lurched, and the glow surrounding Peter became painfully bright. Derek was aware of screaming and shouting, but Peter's howl drowned out everything. It was in his head, not just his ears; joyful at first, revelling in power, but quickly filling Derek with pain and fear. It hurt just to hear, and Derek couldn't help but add his voice to the howl.
Just when it felt like he would pass out, something gave. Peter... exploded? Derek wasn't sure, he just knew that he was suddenly the one being flooded with power. And first-hand, the power was wonderful. He could do anything, be anything. He could feel the flesh of his stomach knitting back together, but that didn't really matter. Who needed a body anyway? Who needed the pathetically weak beings littering the ship? He was the Hunter, and the whole universe was his hunting ground.
Derek lifted his head and howled a warning that should have had every being in the galaxy, corporeal or not, running for cover.
Then Stilinski shot him.
"Oh good, you're awake. Another day and I'd have had to resort to desperate measures."
Derek raised his head groggily. He was in the Beacon's sickbay, with Alan Deaton standing considerably more than an arm's length away. A sensible move, though what the veterinarian playing responsible adult for the kids was doing here Derek didn't know. McCall was sitting up on one of the other biobeds, Cadet Stilinski standing next to him.
Of Dr Hall there was no sign. Derek was a little surprised. Jennifer Hall had covered for Peter, keeping his activities secret, but Derek hadn't had any time to do anything about her before Peter hit the bridge.
"What happened?" Derek asked. He could remember forcing his way onto the bridge, fighting with Peter and losing, and then... not so much.
"Um, I shot you. Sir."
Stilinski looked and sounded uncomfortable. As well he might. "Cadet," Derek growled.
"In my defence you were possessed," Stilinski said hurriedly. "I mean, probably. We couldn't take the risk that whatever was in Peter hadn't been burned out by the energy wave, at least not until we got you down here for a proper scan. Lydia's amazing, but—"
"Stilinski!" Derek snapped in an effort to stop the babble. Was the kid ever going to learn how to give a report? "What. Happened? From the top."
Stilinski pulled himself to attention — well, near enough — and took a deep breath. "An energy being took over your uncle's body," he said in what passed for a formal manner with him. "We figured out it had taken over a wolf, we just didn't know which one. Sorry sir." He did actually sound apologetic, and there was no tell-tale tick to his heart rate. Huh. Derek ignored McCall's derisive snort and gestured for Stilinski to continue.
"So Lydia may have got her hands on the sensor logs and deduced a few things. We figured maybe we could set a trap, keep whoever it was contained, but then Captain Myers invited the Argents over and it all went to hell in a handbasket."
"You didn't tell the Captain your cunning plan?" Derek asked with all the sarcasm he could muster right now. Stilinski had a bad habit of running off with wild theories and only remembering to get permission later.
"I did," Stilinski protested. "He didn't believe me."
It was incredible, Derek had to admit. He hadn't put it all together until after the Argents had arrived. He wouldn't have believed the energy being part either if he hadn't seen Peter heal a ruined throat. "What was all that about an impact?" he asked, remembering Miss Martin's comment on the bridge. "What did we hit?"
"An energy wave, didn't I say that?" Stilinski smacked his forehead. "Sorry sir. We figured we could use the wave to overload the parasite in Peter. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing. We didn't count on it picking up power from the plasma storms. We think the Argent's ship warped away in time, but, um, we might be a teensy bit out of position at the moment."
Derek sighed. It was like pulling teeth. "Where are we?" he asked.
"Um, the Delta Quadrant."
Derek froze. "I must have misheard you," he said carefully, "because I could have sworn that you just said that the USS Beacon was in the Delta Quadrant, tens of thousands of light years from home. A trip that should have taken us a century."
Stilinski nodded unhappily. "Like I said, sir, we didn't count on the energy wave picking up power. At least our hull is still intact. Mostly."
"Mostly?" Derek roared. "And Lt Gentry doesn't have you up on charges?" Gentry would be captain now that Laura was dead. He would hate being taken away from his precious engines too.
"Um." Stilinski if anything managed to look more awkward. "Lt Gentry wasn't braced when the wave hit," he reported. "And Peter killed Dr Hall, and... um, we're it for Starfleet personnel, sir. Captain."
Captain? No, that couldn't be right. The Beacon was a small ship with a tiny crew compliment, but there had to be someone else. Derek couldn't be a captain. "I... What?"
"We're doing what we can," Stilinski said quickly. Derek barely heard his babbled explanation of how a starship — even one the size of the Beacon — was being run by the children it was supposed to be ferrying home. His attention snapped back when he heard Allison Argent was at the Tactical station.
"Where are Chris and Victoria Argent?" he demanded.
"Um, in the brig," Stilinski admitted. "They kind of objected to taking orders from me."
Derek could well imagine that. The Argent family always believed that they knew best. What he couldn't believe was that Stilinski had taken them down.
"They are, stop it with the eyebrows," Stilinski objected. Then he seemed to remember who he was talking to. "Sir," he added sheepishly. "Allison stunned them."
"She was amazing," McCall said dreamily. Derek sent a withering glance his way.
"You should probably talk to them once Dr Deaton lets you go," Stilinski added. He too shot an irritated look at his friend.
"Dr Deaton," Derek said disbelievingly. He looked at the man.
"I'm the nearest thing to a medical professional you have," Deaton answered, unperturbed. "Stiles drafted me as your Chief Medical Officer. You are of course at liberty to select someone else once I deem you fit for duty." Deaton smiled thinly, the smile of a man who knew Derek had no viable alternatives for CMO.
Stilinski cringed. Derek looked at him, really looked, and finally thought to focus on the kid rather than the news he was bearing. Once he did that, Stilinski's exhaustion was painfully obvious. "When did you last sleep?" Derek demanded.
Stilinski cringed again. "Um," he managed.
"Don't bother," Derek said. It would be before Peter had killed Myers, he was virtually certain. He looked over at Deaton. "You are going to certify me fit for duty now," he said firmly, "and you," looking at Stilinski, "are going to sleep. Here and now, where Dr Deaton can keep an eye on you."
"But sir," Stilinski protested.
"Now, Stilinski," Derek barked. He turned back to Deaton. "You have my full permission to tranquillise him if he gives you trouble." He slipped off the bed, managing to stand with less wobbling than he had expected. He felt...
He felt fine, actually. Peter had ruined his abdomen, but the only sign of that was the damage done to his uniform. He felt fully fit, more fit than he had ever felt to be honest. He could feel McCall, how slowly his alpha-inflicted wounds were healing, how much he itched to be up and active...
Oh hell, he was the alpha now. Alpha and captain, two jobs he had never wanted, and yet here he was doing both of them. On an undersized starship lost in the Delta Quadrant, crewed by unqualified teenagers. He was responsible for all of them, and he knew he was only going to let them down. That was all he ever did. His family was dead because he couldn't make good choices, and now all these kids...?
Acting Captain Derek Hale took a deep breath and stood up straight. He might know he was the worst possible person for the job, but it was his and no one else's. He couldn't let the others know what a bad choice he was. Not now, not ever.
Head held high, Derek went out to see what the Delta Quadrant was going to throw at him.