Chapter Text
“Captain.”
Kirk turned in his seat to face Uhura at her station, giving her his undivided attention at that tone he recognized so well in her words. “What is it?”
“High priority message received from Starfleet Command, routed through Starbase 11. Priority one, Captain’s eyes only.”
Kirk nodded, standing from his chair. “Pipe it into my quarters,” he commanded. He glanced to Spock and once he had his eye nodded at him. “You have the helm,” he stated before heading to the turbolift.
It took him only a couple minutes to move to the desk in his quarters, dropping into his chair and immediately reaching to turn on the small view screen on his computer. “Okay Uhura, connect me,” he spoke.
Within seconds the face of Commodore Stone appeared on his view screen. Kirk bit back the frustrated groan that threatened to escape him. Despite how the incident with Benjamin Finney had ended, he still could not quite get over the fact that Stone had both accused him of acting so maliciously and had simultaneously been prepared to sweep the entire incident under the rug. “Captain Kirk,” Stone said by way of greeting.
“Commodore.”
Stone didn’t mince words. “I am about to transmit some data to your ship. This data is a securely encrypted message that must be imputed into your ship’s computer banks to automatically play at the designated time. I am under strict instructions to inform you that it must not be viewed or opened before hand. Do you have a microtape ready to receive it?”
Kirk quickly reached into the drawer of his desk, pulling out a random blank tape and sliding it into the reader on his computer console. “Ready and waiting.”
Stone nodded, reaching to press a button on his end. The computer beeped methodically for several seconds before it fell quiet. “Data transmitted. Remember captain, nobody is to view it before the proper time.”
“Understood. And the proper time?”
“I am sending along the precise stardate to your PADD. Confirm receipt before ending communication, if you please Captain.”
Kirk did groan this time. “Give me a moment to have it brought to me,” he said, reaching for his comm button. “Uhura, please confirm that my PADD is on the bridge where I left it.”
“Affirmative, captain,” came her answer a moment later, and he got the distinct impression she was holding back a laugh.
“Yes, thank you. Have somebody bring it to me please. Right away.” Kirk gave Stone an apologetic smile, meeting his stoney face. It would seem the displeasure in their relationship was mutual. He looked away, letting out a quiet sigh as he stared at the wall opposite his desk. At the slide of the door he grinned, unable to hold back the joy as he saw Spock striding into the room. “Thank you Mr. Spock,” he said, taking the PADD from him with a grin. “If you would, please wait just outside. I will need to discuss with you after I’m done.”
“Affirmative, captain,” Spock said, giving an almost imperceptible little nod of his head before stepping back out.
Kirk leaned back in his chair a bit, typing his code into the PADD to open the screen and going for his messages. “Alright, message received, commodore,” he said, glancing over it and reading the stardate.
“Very well.”
And just like that, the commodore had disappeared from his viewscreen and Kirk felt himself relaxing. He looked down at the stardate in front of him again, letting a frown settle on his face as he thought about this. Whatever could be so important that it needed to be read at a precise time 72 hours from now and not a moment earlier?
Kirk stood from his desk and headed back out into the corridor with the PADD and the no longer empty microtape. Red, he thought, looking at it, taking a moment to hope it wouldn’t end up being a premonition of things to come. He idly handed the tape to Spock as the door slid closed behind him, starting down the hallway as he spoke. “I’ll need you to encode instructions into the computer to have the data on that tape unencrypted and automatically played at a designated time, not a second early, and also to prevent any personnel from attempting to view the data beforehand.”
“Of course, sir. Any other information?”
“Nope,” Kirk said with a chuckle. “Apparently it’s highly confidential and even I’m not allowed to know. Now, I suspect you have news for me or else you would have just sent a yeoman with my PADD. What is it, Mr. Spock?”
Spock stiffened at his side and Kirk instantly turned to face him fully, sensing his tension. He felt uniquely privileged in his understanding of Spock’s body language, like he was one of the only people on this ship, perhaps the only one, who could understand him so well. Nobody else would be able to see Spock’s clear and obvious (to him) distress. “Mr. Spock?” he prompted again, voice a little softer.
Spock’s hands went behind his back in a near perfect parade rest. “Within a minute of you stepping off the bridge, we received a distress signal that would seem to originate from a currently undesignated planet several days away.”
Well that was no good, but he knew it wouldn’t quite explain the tension in Spock’s shoulders nor the need to hold himself straighter and with more formality that Kirk had learned was his apparent way to deal with stress when he could not escape to meditate. “Continue,” he prompted.
Spock hesitated for a second. “Captain, the last known ship in that region of space was a Vulcan science vessel conducting planetary surveys.”
Oh. That would explain it. “Understood, Mr. Spock. You are dismissed for the remainder of your shift. Go meditate,” he said. Spock was ready to argue, he could see the man about to speak and he quickly held up a hand. “Go. That is an order. Take the microtape with you and deal with it first thing in the morning.”
Spock nodded at him, the smallest little incline of his head, and moved a few feet back down the corridor in the direction they had just come from towards his quarters adjoining the captain’s.
Kirk shook his head with a concerned but amused smile on his face as he resumed his walk to the turbolift. Spock was far more transparent than he thought he was. He had learned much about Spock over the couple years of his command of the Enterprise, one of which was that little could upset the Vulcan enough to cause him to express himself emotionally. Or, at least to unintentionally do so. Spock was wound up tight, layer upon layer of mental and emotional shields, but every once in a while something came along that knocked a hole in enough of those layers that Kirk could practically see the storm simmering underneath.
Usually it was danger to the few members of the crew that Spock seemed to care about, Kirk thought. Namely himself and Bones, usually, followed by Uhura (who Kirk was pretty sure Spock counted as one of his friends, if Spock ever willingly admitted to having friends). On occasion, it was the safety of Spock’s own family, as it was during the disastrous trip to the Babel conference a few months ago. Every once in a while, indeed only a few times in the last two years he had known Spock, there presented some danger or insult to his people that could punch that hole through the man’s carefully presented facade.
Kirk stepped into the turbolift, calling out for it to bring him to the bridge. Once, over a game of chess in one of the rec rooms, Spock had tried to claim he felt no love for his people, calling such feelings of attachment and care for somebody based only on the fact they shared a species illogical. Kirk had, of course, pointed out that every intelligent species in the known universe had shown favoritism towards their own and it was completely normal.
Kirk stepped out onto the bridge. “You’re relieved,” he told Sulu, quickly settling back into his vacated chair. “I hear we’ve got a distress signal. Any details?”
“No sir,” Uhura said clearly. “It’s an automated starship signal. No call sign to indicate the vessel.”
“But the last known vessel in that area was a Vulcan survey ship. We have a duty to investigate any danger to fellow Federation members. Set a course and give me the ETA.”
“Already set the course, captain,” Sulu announced. “ETA is 70 hours at cruising speed.”
Kirk nodded. “Start us on the way then. Use higher warp factors as we can to cut travel time. Get me there in 60.”
Kirk was impressed they’d managed 64 hours. He was roused from sleep by the alert from the bridge and couldn’t have been prouder of the combined efforts of his navigation and engineering crews to get there as fast as possible.
When Kirk made it to the bridge he found Spock already there, waving away the ensign left in charge of the science station over the Gamma shift to take over. Kirk was sure he would already be starting to run the scans as he took his seat. “Report.”
Kirk swiveled around to focus on the ensign behind him, a Mr. Kerr he believed the name was, sitting at the communications desk. The young man stiffened at the attention on him, nervously standing. “Um, uh, there’s no indication of a signal, sir.”
Kirk just offered what he hoped was a calm and placating smile. “See if you can pinpoint the original location,” he instructed. By the jumpiness in the young man’s return to the chair he had only half succeeded, and he was relieved to see that Uhura was now stepping off the lift. It seemed the young ensign was as well, as he quickly tried to vacate the chair to hand it off. “No,” Kirk said quickly, catching both their attention. “Uhura, if you could, please help our young friend to pinpoint the original broadcasting locations of emergency distress signals. Kerr, right?” he waited for the nervous nod. “You just graduated, correct? It is understandable that you’ll not have the hang of everything yet. Pay close attention.”
Kirk swiveled back around, an amused smile on his face as he heard the almost exaggerated sigh of relief behind him and Uhura’s gentle clucking. His attention now turned to the navigation desk, where Sulu had managed to arrive and take over while his attention had been diverted. “Report.”
“Now moving at space normal speeds in estimated direction of signal broadcast. Awaiting further orders.”
Kirk swiveled over to Spock, smiling lightly as he found the man bent over the devices on his console. He rose from the seat, walking over and standing beside him, leaning casually against the console. “Report, Mr. Spock.”
Spock straightened up, glancing quickly to him before focusing on something on his console that Kirk could vaguely understand as astronomical data. “Binary star system, both stars Type A. Seven planets, all likely devoid of life although full and complete surveys were scheduled for conduction within the last few weeks. Nine orbiting satellites. No known claim on this system.”
“And what was the Federation doing here?”
“Initial scans revealed several planets had the capacity for remote mining of valuable materials, at least one of which was being considered as terraformable for the purposes of a base of operations. A Vulcan science vessel was dispatched to complete the surveys.”
Kirk nodded in thought, turning back to communications. “Mr. Kerr, do we have a broadcast location?” he asked, resisting the urge to chuckle at the very obvious jump his redirected attention caused.
“Y…yes sir,” he reported.
“Good. You are dismissed, Mr. Kerr. Uhura, what do we have?” he asked, striding over towards her as she slid into the not vacant seat.
“No additional information on signal or call sign detected. I can estimate the signal was likely only broadcasting for seconds, a minute at most, before it stopped. The broadcast location, sir, appears to be empty space,” she reported, clicking a few buttons on the console. “Navigation can confirm.”
Kirk rounded over to Sulu, who was going over the information. “Yes sir, empty space. There is nothing there,” he said.
Spock moved over towards the console, glancing at the coordinates. “Not nothing, Mr. Sulu. Scans indicated an unknown gravitational effect very close to those coordinates.” He glanced back to Kirk. “A small blip, sir. Perhaps illogically I assumed an error in the sensor readings and have set them to scan again. Though at this distance I am not sure how accurate they will be. I would advise we move a distance of at least 77 AUs closer.”
Kirk nodded to Sulu. “You heard the man. Fast as we can, safely,” he directed before moving to sit in his chair again.
It was a relatively short distance, but at the conservative speeds they moved since they still had no idea what they were dealing with it still took about 30 minutes before they reached the suggested distance. Spock quickly set the scanners running on the location of the previous gravitational blip.
It only took a few more minutes. “All scanners indicate gravity anomaly effect so minor as to present no danger. It appears only a millimeter in width, stretching in both directions as far as the scanner can get.” Kirk recognized that almost excited edge to Spock's tone. He was surprised the strange anomaly hadn't earned the almost trademark verbal equivalent of a child bouncing around in excitement. “It's quite fascinating, sir.”
Kirk couldn't hold back the quiet chuckle. There it was. “Yes, Mr. Spock, it is,” he said, already imagining how many wheels must be turning in the man's mind as he tried to figure out how many scientific experiments he could run on it. “Once we've finished searching for the source of the emergency signal, I'd be willing to hear out any proposals for studying the anomaly you have. For the moment, let's run a scan for debris, see if we can't figure out what happened to our apparently missing vessel.”
Spock nodded minutely. “Yes captain,” he confirmed, turning back to his console.
Kirk groaned and turned his chair to the view screen, speaking out to nobody in particular. “And somebody get me some coffee.” Now that the adrenaline of being woken up halfway through the night was fading, the urge to sleep was coming fast on him. “Time?”
“0421.”
Kirk wasn’t 100 percent sure on who had answered him, but he gave a little grunt of thanks, setting his head in his hand. A moment later a mug of coffee was being placed in his hand by a yeoman, who he gave another soft grunt of thanks. A few sips later he looked at the chronometer himself. 0431. Still too early. “Any reports?” he asked Spock, looking over towards the station.
How exactly did he always manage to look so put together when everybody else was exhausted?
Spock took a moment to respond. “Debris field detected in orbit of planet closest to anomaly. Calculations show field consistent with the partial break up of a vessel of approximate size to the missing Vulcan survey ship.”
Kirk frowned but nodded. “Is planet compatible with life?”
“Atmosphere and temperature are compatible with life. No detected presence of water.”
Kirk nodded, turning to Uhura. “When did the signal start and stop broadcasting?”
“Best estimate says it started broadcasting approximately 40 hours before we received it and stopped within a minute.”
Kirk nodded, doing the mental math as he sipped his coffee again. 40 hours before they had received it plus the time it took them to get here minus the amount of time the body (Vulcan, he had to remember) could survive without water. Assuming no injuries on impact, it was possible they would still be alive if they had crash landed. He looked up to meet Spock’s eyes, sure the other man was doing the same calculations. The only remaining variable was how long it would take them to find and reach them.
“Alright,” Kirk finally announced. “Sulu, get us as close into orbit to the planet as we can with the debris field. And then I want every other scanner on this ship searching that planet for the vessel. Time is of the essence. It’s possible they’re still alive down there and the longer we take the lower the probability of that gets. Have transporters at the ready.” He stood from his chair and took a heavy breath. “Mr. Spock, you have the helm. Alert me if anything is found. ”
Kirk took one last look at the chronometer before he left the bridge. 0457.
He knew it would take a few hours to find anything. He could snatch a few more hours sleep.
The whistle of the comm unit woke Kirk and the first thing he did was roll to look at the chronometer beside his bed. 0923. That was way more sleep than he expected to get. It didn’t bode well that it had taken them this long to wake him.
Kirk rolled over and hit the button to open up the comm. “Kirk here.”
“Captain, something has been located.”
Kirk couldn’t read the tone of Spock’s words. He hated when he couldn’t, but so much of his interpretation of Spock relied on the subtle nuances of the man’s face or incredibly small changes in tone that could be lost over the comms. “I’ll be right there.”
Kirk hadn’t bothered to take off his uniform before falling back into the bed and so he was able to leave his room right away, carding his fingers through his hair to do his best to settle it into place as he stepped into the turbolift and then back out onto the bridge.
“What did we find?” he asked immediately, walking over to where Spock stood by the science station.
“Debris on the planet’s surface that holds a 99.3% likelihood of being a crash site for the missing science vessel.”
Kirk nodded, feeling himself relax. Spock seemed relaxed as well. “We’ll beam down a landing party to check for survivors.”
“Captain, metals in the atmosphere are likely to interfere with the transporters.”
“Then we’ll send the shuttlecraft. How long to prepare the shuttle and reach the surface?”
“Approximately 15 minutes to prepare and an hour to land.”
Kirk nodded, clapping Spock on the shoulder as he stepped away from the science station. “Then do that. Uhura, get me Giotto on the comm,” he said, sitting down at his chair. As soon as the comm line was open, he spoke with a little grin. “Giotto, I’m gonna need two of your kiddos for a landing party. No danger expected, so lets get a little experience in your greenhorns.”
“Sure you don’t want more experience?”
“I’m sure. Send them to the shuttlebay right away,” he said. “Medbay,” Kirk ordered, quickly speaking up when he heard Bones’s grumble of acknowledgement on the open line. “I want you to join the landing party. If we find survivors they’ll need prompt medical attention.”
“Great, another day of getting scrambled.”
Kirk smiled lightly, glancing up at Spock with an amused lift of his lips. “We’re taking the shuttlecraft, Bones. Get your medikit and meet us there.” The line went dead and Kirk turned to Spock, offering the man another soft smile only to be met with Spock’s usual impassive face.
Except for the slight lift of one eyebrow that indicated question. “Go ahead down to the shuttlebay. I’ll join you in a few moments,” Kirk said, watching Spock’s shoulders relax slightly as he nodded and stepped off towards the lift. Of course Kirk was going to put Spock in the landing party, he hadn’t even needed to ask. Kirk took a deep breath and stood from his chair. “Sulu, you’ve got the helm. Switch off soon though, alright? I know you’re exhausted,” he said, clapping his navigator on the shoulder as he spoke.
“Yes captain,” he agreed.
Kirk headed off the bridge. He headed first down to his quarters, grabbing a quick breakfast from the synthesizer because he couldn’t go any longer with a completely empty stomach. It was just a ration bar, nothing too filling, but it filled the pit a little bit. As Kirk’s eyes landed on his computer he suddenly remembered the strange message from Stone and the encrypted data to be opened at a later date. He glanced at the chronometer. 0945. He did the mental math.
Something about the fact that message was set to open in exactly 2 hours and 15 minutes sent a chill down Kirk’s spine.
He couldn’t place why. He had no reason to think it was related, but it felt like it was.
He didn’t want to move from this spot, he thought. He just wanted to stand here for another 2 hours and 14 minutes. He could let Spock take the landing party to the planet himself, he considered. No, he thought, another sharp spike of panic running through his body. The last time…it was too unbearable to remember how he had almost lost both Spock and Bones. He could almost lose them again.
Kirk moved for the door of his quarters.
The shuttlebay was a rush of movement when Kirk arrived, shoving the last of his ration bar in his mouth as he walked over to where Spock was standing and over looking the last of the preparations.
“I ordered a last minute maintenance check on the craft,” Spock informed.
“And I’m sure you insisted it not set back our launch time, hence the twenty or so engineers running around frantically,” Kirk chuckled lightly. He saw the very slight lift of Spock’s lips at one corner, practically feeling the amusement coming off Spock in waves. “You do enjoy torturing them, don't you?”
Spock glanced at him and raised an eyebrow. “I am doing no such thing, captain. I am merely ensuring the crew is capable of quickly and efficiently clearing tasks put before them.”
“And if it happens to amuse you to see them running around like chickens with their heads cut off, well that's just an added benefit,” Kirk laughed.
“I do not understand that idiom, captain,” Spock admitted. Kirk was just glad that he'd reached the point of understanding it was an idiom and could admit when he didn't understand. It filled him with an amused warmth to have Spock turn to him for an explanation.
“Remind me when we're done and I'll explain,” Kirk promised, nodding over to the engineering staff member who came to announce they were done. “Alright then, let's go,” Kirk said, trying not to seem nervous.
He must have failed, because he felt Spock's fingers lightly brushing over his arm as they started towards the shuttle. He had long since stopped questioning these subtle and hidden touches. He was Spock's friend (nothing more) and it was only logical to attempt to comfort a friend in distress. He knew Spock had to have picked up on the fact Kirk was a very tactile person and drew comfort from touch. As for the fact Spock never commented on or acknowledged the touches? That was easy enough to explain away too. Spock was a private person who didn't want to shatter his own facade.
Of course the attempts to ease his mind, subtle and small as they were, did help.
Because James T. Kirk was hopelessly in love with him.
“Let’s hope this goes better than the last time I was in one of these,” Bones grumbled as he settled into his seat in the shuttle.
Kirk laughed as he set his hand on Bone’s shoulder, giving him a playful shake. “Don’t worry, I’m here. And you know I’m your good luck charm,” he teased.
“Good luck? All you’ve done is ruin my life,” Bones countered, snorting a bit as Kirk slid up into the front and settled into the chair beside Spock.
Kirk turned around then to greet the two security personnel who were now also climbing into the shuttlecraft. He remembered greeting them when they’d arrived onto the ship at the last starbase, as he made it a habit to greet all new crew. Though he would admit that it was harder to remember the names and faces of the enlisted. So they quickly introduced themselves both as Crewman Quincy, last name shared by coicidence. As Spock began the launch sequence the woman, Evelyn, explained they had met in training and been friends since. More than friends, the man, Shawn, joked.
Bones was making some stupid joke about names and fate, but Kirk didn’t hear it. He was too focused at looking at the chronometer as they left the shuttlebay, launching out into space.
1 hour and 45 minutes.
“Estimate an hour to landing based on distance and needed trajectory to landing location,” Spock announced, setting the controls.
Kirk took a breath, staring at the sensors in front of him as he spoke. “Hey, Mr. Spock, you remembered to input that data I gave you into the computer, right?”
“Of course sir,” Spock said easily.
“Any chance we’ll be back to the ship before it plays?”
“Extremely unlikely, captain.”
Right. Kirk tried not to let that worry him.
They were halfway to the expected landing location (1 hour and 15 minutes until message, Kirk’s brain unhelpfully supplied) when Spock suddenly startled at his seat.
It wasn’t a big change, a mere shift in the science officer’s position and a tightening of his hand on the control. If Kirk hadn’t been sitting directly beside him, and it had been anybody else in his chair, he doubted anybody would have even noticed.
“Mr. Spock?” he questioned quietly, voice a whisper so low he could barely hear it himself. It was the only way in the cramped shuttle to ensure nobody else noticed, and he knew Vulcan ears would ear it.
Spock glanced at him from the corner of his eyes, an almost imperceptible motion as he tried to remain focused on the screen in front of him. Kirk followed his eyes and felt himself panic.
Their engines were running but they were not moving.
“What’s going on up there?” Bones was demanding from the back, seeming to sense there was something wrong.
“Nothing,” Kirk responded quickly to ease his mind before focusing on the sensors again, trying to figure out what was going wrong.
How could they not be moving?
“Mr. Spock, I suggest you fix this,” Kirk whispered again, flipping a control to divert more power to the engine. It helped, slightly, they were moving forward but at no where the speeds they should be. “What’s going on?” he finally asked Spock.
“We appear to be caught in the gravitational pull of the anomaly, captain,” Spock answered.
“You said it didn’t present a danger.”
“According to the scans, it didn’t,” Spock responded blankly. “The scans appear to have been wrong. The gravitational effect at this distance and angle is strong enough to be pulling us towards the anomaly.”
“Well get us out of this angle.” There was no hiding now and Kirk glanced back to see the clear and obvious worry on the other three faces in the shuttle.
“I am trying, but the power required to move any faster would risk damaging the shuttle, and as soon as we moved out of the anomaly’s effect we would go hurtling towards the planet at a speed that could cause us to burn up.”
“So our options are to be pulled into an anomaly we know nothing about and which could kill us, or go flying into the planet below, which could also kill us,” Kirk frowned. He reached for the comm unit, momentarily switching power back to it and trying not to panic too hard when they stopped moving again. At least they weren’t being sucked into the anomaly at this point, and their engine’s power was just enough to keep them stationary. But they couldn’t go long. “Kirk to Bridge,” he snapped into the comm, failing to keep his tone calm. “Immediately prepare transporters for rescue of shuttlecraft crew.”
Scotty took over the other end of the line. “Captain, you’re far into the atmosphere that we can’t guarantee safe transport. You’re more likely to be put together dead than anything else right now.”
Shit. Kirk frowned, looking at Spock. Spock met his eyes, and Kirk frowned at the look there. Fear.
“Mr. Spock, what are our chances with the anomaly. What is it?”
He hesitated. “Without further study I do not know, captain, but the most likely theory is that it is a cosmic string. Theorized but never proven to exist, they are cracks in spacetime. This one would be remarkably large for the theory.”
“And what would happen if it pulled us in?” Kirk asked.
“It would either kill us or transport us to another time and location.”
“So we face almost certain death below us or the chance to be blown across the galaxy and time above us? How much of a chance?”
Spock had to take a moment, no doubt doing extensive mental math, before he answered. “10%, I believe.”
Kirk nodded. He took a look back at his crew. Their lives were in his hands. Bones met his eyes, gave a little nod, the most honest look of trust he’d ever seen in the man. “What was that you were saying about good luck, Bones?” he teased him lightly.
And then reached over to Spock’s side of the controls and turned off the engines.