Chapter Text
This is a disaster, Jim thought.
The moment he materialized on the Farragut’s transporter pad, Jim experienced a spike of anxiety like he hadn’t felt in years. He was not an anxious person. He prided himself on his ability to keep a cool head in dire situations. The last time he’d felt anything similar had been in the aftermath of Tycho IV and even then, it had taken a Starfleet counselor with the determination of an angry Klingon to get him to talk about it for an hour.
Jim took a deep breath and stepped down off the pad where Lieutenant Reyes was manning the console.
“Kirk,” Reyes said, nodding curtly. “Good to see you. Captain Lula is waiting in the conference room to brief you.”
“Thanks, Reyes.”
Straight to business. Kirk shouldered his bag all the way through the narrow and dimly lit corridors of the Farragut to the conference room just behind the bridge. The light that had been flickering in the bridge corridor when Kirk had left was still flickering. The conference room seemed smaller than it had before Kirk had visited the Enterprise.
“Jim.” Lula smiled tightly, which was about as friendly as things got around the Farragut. “Good to see you. I know this is all rather abrupt. Consider it a compliment.” Lula spoke from his seat at the table where the security chief, science officer, engineering chief, and a few lieutenants Jim knew closely were waiting. Minutes ago, Jim had been dancing with Spock. He dropped his bag and took a seat, folding his hands in his lap under the table because they were shaking and he did not know why.
“I do, Captain. Now tell me what I’m getting into.”
“Three years ago Starfleet took pity on the pre-industrial people of Felner II and installed a giant drill in an uninhabited section of their planet. The purpose, to geothermal energy enough to warm it to a temperature conducive to survival, though half of the planet is still wretchedly cold most of the year. Now that the climate has stabilized in some regions, formerly iced over rivers have melted. Pastures have greened. That means the population has taken to migration as populations are wont to do. The drill must be moved again. That was going to be the mission. An important but not immediately urgent mission. Then the drill shut down completely and the closest Starfleet outpost which periodically observes Felner II to make sure things are going smoothly does not know why.”
“So we’re moving the drill,” Kirk said.
“Moving it, starting it back up,” Lula’s science officer, Commander Zheng, agreed. “And investigating the cause of its shut down if at all possible. We’re looking at severe weather. This mission will be difficult. That’s why we needed you on the job, Commander.”
Jim almost looked over his shoulder to make sure Zheng was not addressing someone else and the captain seemed to recognize his surprise.
“Gotta new stripe for you, Kirk,” Lula said. “Soon as you get back here. But why stand on ceremony? If anything, I need you to hold that authority right now, so let’s say that rank up is as good as done.”
“Yes, sir,” Jim said. “Thank you.”
This was what he was made for, Jim thought. This was what he was good at. So why did it feel like the walls were caving in? Still, he’d always been great at compartmentalization. Probably one reason he got along so swimmingly with Spock, after all. Jim acknowledged the mounting causeless panic and set it aside, focusing only on the mission and the captain’s briefing.
They were to transport down in only thirty minutes. Jim had just enough time to drop his stuff off at his quarters and get into gear.
The meeting was brisk and to the point. But just before the captain could call it, Jim said, “Captain, I’d like to stop by sickbay for a minute before we transport.”
Everyone looked at him with alarm. “Are you sick, Jim?” The captain frowned.
“It’s nothing,” Jim assured him. “Pike keeps his silver lady like a meat locker. Think I caught a cold is all. Just need a hypospray and I’ll be right as rain.”
“That’s fine then,” Lula said, visibly relieved. “You can meet our new doc while you’re at it. Just be quick.”
The fact that he was lying did not escape Jim. It just did not seem like an act befitting his new station to take the time to explain that he’d just partaken in a Vulcan sex marathon and was feeling some kind of emotional side effect in the aftermath.
A doctor, however, was sworn to confidentiality unless he could not fulfill his role, and Jim certainly could.
That made him feel a little better about things.
Until he met the new doctor.
“It’s just a little anxiety,” Jim said, narrowing his eyes. He over-enunciated as the new guy did not seem to be hearing him, his big buggy blue eyes laser focused on his medical tricorder. “That’s it.”
“Yeah, I heard you the first time, sonny boy,” the doctor said. “I’m saying if it’s severe enough that you’re asking for meds, I’d like to get you checked out on your return from Felner II and you’re lucky I don’t ask the captain to take you off this mission altogether. Your heart rate is accelerated and your blood pressure is too high. What part aren’t you understanding?”
Jim did not like the idea of having to explain anything on his return. He felt as if he had a great secret he was driven to protect. He could practically hear Spock’s voice in his head telling him it wasn’t logical.
Spock… Spock Spock Spock… He clenched his fists. Spock was supposed to be there. With him. By his side. Nausea rolled through his stomach and he took a deep breath.
This is ridiculous. I’m a professional. I can handle missing my new boyfriend!
“What’s your name again?” Kirk said.
“Doctor Leonard McCoy,” the doctor said for the second time. “At your service. Anything hinky happen on the Enterprise you want to tell me about? Please remember, doctors do talk to each other. I can call up Dr. M’Benga anytime I like. In fact, Joe owes me a bottle of Saurian brandy over a poker game. So don’t you lie to me, kiddo.”
I fucked a Vulcan so hard we astral projected ourselves into space.
Jim calculated that if he told this McCoy about the lie of the virus on Cutlera, he might hold him back from the mission thinking he was still sick. Whether M’Benga would tell McCoy about the pon farr incident, he was not certain. But either way, a convincing enough lie now would get him on the mission he was certain he was well enough to accomplish.
“Okay, doc,” Jim said, nodding. “Well, I’m not a kiddo. I’m actually the first officer of this ship now. So you can call me Commander Kirk. Nothing happened on the Enterprise. I’m just a little anxious and I’d like an anti-anxiety med for the mission. I’ll be happy to go under your bonesaw as soon as I return. Talk to M’Benga all you like. We good now?”
“Bonesaw?” McCoy rolled his eyes, and he crossed to a medicine cabinet to load a hypospray. “I like that one. Haven’t heard it before.” He stuck Jim in his shoulder.
“I’ll give you two extra hypos just in case you need it and when you come back, I get the feeling we’re going to be having words again. Commander.”
Jim took the extra hypos and hopped down off the biobed, tossing the doc a sardonic salute. “I just bet, Dr. Bonesaw.”
“Hey now, I for one don’t need formality in this medbay,” the doc called after him. “You can just call me Bones!”
Oh Christ, it’s fucking cold, Jim thought.
By this point in his, admittedly, short but accomplished career so far, Jim had been on one or two difficult missions. But landing in the unpopulated wastes of the Northern region of Felner II and disembarking from the shuttle only to be punched in the face by a needle-sharp snowy wind on top of his increasing unease really took the cake. Of course, they were all outfitted in extreme weather gear, and Jim hurriedly pulled his goggles down over his eyes, tugging his balaclava into place. Like the other three members of the away team, his skin was covered head to toe. It had been uncomfortable on the shuttle, but now Jim was only grateful.
Mercifully, they’d landed near the drill, sitting dormant atop a sizable rig. The drill was actually a spinning laser. Every three months, the observation outpost remotely moved the drill to a new location within the perimeter of this northern region to drill a new hole. So far, a dozen holes in the current location were tagged with red flags speared through the snow. While the drill’s previous home further south had released enough energy to turn a few icy areas much more temperate, hence the migration. The drill was now located in a climate that had heated enough to go from instant icy death to merely viscerally unpleasant.
Problem being, the drill had shut down. They would need to move it anyway, yet it was strange that it had abruptly stopped drilling. That it had shut down entirely was stranger. None of the populace had yet migrated this far who would have tampered with it. The drill’s computer system had complex maintenance systems and backstops. Jim knew little (by his own estimation) about its mechanics. But that was a problem for the engineer on this mission.
“I’m freezing!” Lieutenant Goodman yelled through his balaclava. Goodman was twice Jim’s size and even he looked like the cold was really getting to him. “Even in this gear, it’s freezing!”
Jim slapped Goodman on his broad back, hardly feeling his hand hit through his thick gloves. “Let’s get these readings and then we can get back to the shuttle lickety split. Sound good?”
The plan was unavoidably wonky. They needed to take readings of the surrounding area, then power the thing back up and upload all data activity preceding its shut down. The rest of the mission depended on what they discovered.
“Aye, sir!” Goodman said, as the two of them trudged through the knee deep snow, followed by Lieutenant Jiminez from the science division, and Ensign Javel from security.
Just taking a step took a whole half a minute, and it was difficult to get a clear line of sight through his goggles. Jim focussed on taking one step at a time. Get to the drill, get the readings, power up the drill, upload data… Still, it was difficult to even think about that when the force of the snow struck him like tiny knives; the Starfleet gear seeming perhaps not enough up to the severity of the weather. His joints ached, and every limb was increasingly frigid. The area they were moving the drill to would not be any more inviting and actually setting the rig up once they (hopefully) fixed whatever was wrong would be a pain and a half.
I wish Spock was here, Jim thought. Then all at once he was overwhelmed with a wave of longing so intense that it brought him to his knees in the snow. His head throbbed. He was suddenly very weak.
“Commander!” Ensign Javel appeared, helping him to his feet. “Are you alright, sir?”
“Yes,” Jim lied. “Just stumbled for a second.” He could hardly breathe. Dr. McCoy’s hypo had helped for a short period and now its effects were completely absent. Jim took a deep breath and soldiered on.
This is not normal, Jim realized. What is happening to me?
Jim met Goodman at the rig and the four men crowded inside the rig’s narrow compartment, sheltering the console and data banks. He found himself more useful in powering the computer back up than he’d imagined. Together they accessed the data banks and uploaded all activity for the last three months into their tricorders while studying what information flowed across their screens.
“Right there,” he said, just as Goodman chirped an exclamation. He pointed to the spike in energy across one of the data bank’s records. The spike repeated and grew larger. It wasn’t coming from the drill. “What is that?”
“Whatever it is, it peaked just before the shutdown,” Goodman said. He scanned to the end of the readout and sure enough, the mysterious energy reading coming from outside the drill spiked just before the drill’s activity took a sharp drop and the readout ended entirely because the entire thing had powered down.
“Maybe we’ll see whatever that is in the environment readings?” Goodman said.
“Javel and Jiminez, start environmental readings to the north and south of the perimeter,” Jim ordered when they’d headed back outside. “I’ll take the east and west!” It took all his energy just to stay on his feet and give orders through the roar of the snow and his balaclava. He was lightheaded when he’d finished speaking. In retrospect, it had been a terrible mistake not to report what had felt like very mild symptoms of nothing in particular to McCoy, as sensible as his choices had seemed at the time.
But it was too late for apologies now. For the good of the mission, he’d have to power through. If he collapsed or something, they’d just beam him back. They’d only taken the shuttle in order to eventually tow the drill and rig.
While finishing up his readings, hardly able to read his tricorder through the blur of whipping snow, his limbs aching from the cold and his stance unsteady, Jim was so overcome with an onslaught of emotion, he began to cry behind his goggles. It took far too much energy and concentration to finish the task and make his way back to the shuttle, trudging through the knee deep snow as he sniffed, reaching under his goggles to wipe away tears. At least with the goggles, no one would notice.
Back in the sanctity of the sealed shuttle, however, he had no reason to wear his goggles. Embarrassed, Jim stepped back into a shadow, putting on a pretense of leaning against a bulkhead, as the three other members of the away team studied the data on their tricorders.
Overcome, Jim zoned out long enough that he startled when Goodman grabbed his shoulders, a crooked frown fixed between the goggles on his forehead and the balaclava pulled down under his chin.
“Commander Kirk,” Goodman said firmly. “Sir, you with us?”
Shit. How long had Goodman been talking?
“Yeah, yes.” Kirk shook himself. “Sorry. Could you repeat that?”
He saw Javel and Jiminez exchange surprised looks, but Goodman just said, “It’s that cold, ya know. Gets in your head. We were just about to go over the environmental data here?”
Jim nodded, rallying, and they crowded around their collected tricorders.
“There it is,” Jim muttered, pointing at his own screen. “This unknown energy reading. It’s coming from below the surface. Jiminez, what do you make of it?”
“It could certainly be something affecting the drill,” Jiminez said. “Difficult to confirm without a real investigation, which will be arduous under these conditions.”
Goodman grunted in frustration. “Okay, but if we move that whole thing and then it shuts down again in its new location…”
“Right.” Kirk sniffed. His eyes were watering again. His heart ached in his chest, and worst of all, his head was throbbing. He blinked back tears again, clearing his throat. “Given the urgency here, I think our best bet is to do readings on the drill’s new location before we move it. If we get similar readings, we may want to reevaluate. If we don’t see those energy readings, then we move it, and then study the upload from the rig. Could be the shutdown is a glitch in the drill’s computer.”
“I think that makes sense,” Goodman said. “Shouldn’t take more than an hour to transport, get the readings, and get back here.”
“Won’t be any more fun where we’re going, I’m afraid,” Kirk said, sighing. “In fact, it’ll be worse.”
“Can’t wait,” Javel muttered, and tossed Kirk a little salute.
“I’m gonna assume your enthusiasm is genuine, Ensign, cause we’re burning daylight,” Jim said. “Goodman, back me up at the conn.”
“Yes, Commander.”
The trick was staying clear of any populated areas while taking the fastest route. Jim congratulated himself by finding a shortcut to the Northwest region by flying along a nearby lake. If they kept to the west side of the lake, they could avoid being spotted by the villagers on the east side…probably. He congratulated himself a second time for sneaking a second anti-anxiety hypo without anyone noticing.
“Playing it a little fast and loose, aren’t you, Commander?” Goodman said, raising his eyebrows as Kirk punched in navigation.
“Who, me?” Kirk said, smiling lopsidedly. “Just trying to avoid this taking three hours instead of one. Plus, I’d be surprised if a couple villagers seeing a gray blip in the sky for a second throws their entire civilization out of whack. They’d probably just think it was a weird bird. But don’t tell the captain I said that.”
The storm hit just before they reached the lake.
“What the hell is that!” Javel said, fastening his seat belt as the shuttle was tossed violently for a third time.
Kirk was knocked against a bulkhead, and his head rang. “If it’s an ion storm, sure came the hell outta nowhere!” He clenched his jaw, standing and clutching the console. “I’ll try compensating with inertial dampeners- ah!”
The shuttle tumbled, and he was thrown backwards along with Goodman. It felt as if a giant was shaking them around like beans in a can.
“Gotta be an ion storm,” Jim said. He’d fallen back against Javel. He fought to get back on his feet and over to the console. “Goodman, get on those inertial dampeners for me!”
“I’m trying, Commander!” Goodman grimaced, his hands flying over the controls.
Jim didn’t see the hatch blow open, but he sure felt it, the force of the wind’s current pulling him back as held onto a handle in the bulkhead while beside him Jiminez, caught out with nothing to hold onto went sliding back on his boots. Jim lunged for him, keeping one hand gripping the back of a seat, and caught his arm.
“Hold on!” Jim shouted. He had a solid hold on Jiminez, their arms linked. He shouted back at Goodman. “The hatch is still attached! Can you close it?”
“Controls aren’t responding, Commander!” Goodman said.
Fuck.
Okay, one thing at a time. “Jiminez, get in a seat, fasten up!”
“I-I’ll help you close the door!” Jiminez said.
“I’ll close the door! You get in your seat and fasten that belt!”
“Yes, sir!” Jiminez managed to pull himself into a seat, and Jim licked his lips, resisting the terrible pull of the wind as the ship tumbled about. Javel had made it to a seat and fastened his belt, and Goodman seemed secure at least.
There was a manual lever. Jim held on tight, one arm wrapped around the back of a seat as he reached over to make a grab.
Wish Spock was here wish Spock was here wish Spock was here wish Spock was-
Then the shuttle went turning end over end and he lost his hold, flying out of the hatch and tumbling down to a sprawl of blue. The water might as well have been a cement wall the way it hit him and before everything went dark he thought: Spock, I’m so sorry.
And several light years away, Spock began to scream.