Fic: at length did cross an albatross, Parts 1&2/?
Title: at length did cross an albatross (Parts 1&2/?)
Author: Me :)
Rating: pg (kirk has a bit of a potty mouth)
Pairing: K/S
Summary: The Enterprise's crew is forced to relive their darkest memories. Fun times? Not so much.
Word Count: 2018 for the two.
Disclaimer: I don't even own the action figures.
A/N: Written for the 'Kirk must cry!' prompt at the xi kink meme. Not sure if the OP saw it - I took my sweet time in posting - so I decided to venture outside the kink meme. The title is from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge.
A/N reboot: So much thanks to sahviere for the beta job. She is utterly spectacular.
"Scotty!” the Captain barked, his finger pressed down upon the com unit of his seat. “Now would be a good time!”
“I canna do it, Captain! The core, it’s overloaded.” Mr. Scott’s words carried with them an uncharacteristically high level of anxiety. “The containment field is all but buckling under the strain! Merciful God!”
Spock’s gaze flickered down to the science station console. “Readouts show engine core function to be within normal parameters.”
“Scotty?” Kirk angled his head further down towards the com unit, his voice raised. “Scotty, focus! The engine is fine! Do you hear me? Scotty!” The Captain released and depressed the button repeatedly, but received no response from engineering. Frustrated, he slammed his palm against the panel and pushed himself up. “Goddammit.”
The Captain sidestepped the littered remains of Ensign Chekov’s station and crossed the bridge, entering the turbolift. “Engine room!” he snapped as the door slid shut.
Essentially alone, Spock took a moment to reaffirm that all necessary systems were stable and functional. Life support, including temperature regulation and air recirculation, was undamaged. Shields were at fifty percent, but would be capable of optimum function were the situation to warrant such. Engines were maintaining at levels sufficient for extended planetary orbit, but at present lacked warp capability.
The bridge was near silent apart from the gentle hum of technology and the shallow breathing of Lieutenant Sulu, who lay unharmed but unconscious several feet from Ensign Chekov’s mangled station. Spock keyed an auditory alarm to sound should any essential systems alter their functioning in any significant manner. He maneuvered himself to the communications station and reissued the warning beacon, advising all who received it to avoid travel into the area.
An electromagnetic anomaly had been detected seven point two days prior, carrying from the source location into neighboring sector 348 of the Alpha Quadrant. The abnormalities in pattern and frequency of its waves had crippled a supply vessel en route to a nearby class M planet in the late stages of colonization outfitting. The Enterprise had been sent to investigate on the assumption that the ship’s advanced shielding would preclude any onboard equipment malfunction. The conjecture had proven correct; however, the effect of extended electromagnetic exposure upon the ship’s crew, regardless of shields, had not been anticipated.
The results appeared to be mainly hallucinatory in nature, pervasive and lasting. Fear was the most evident symptom, in many cases inciting violent outbursts from the afflicted. Spock had only to glance at the prone form of Mr. Sulu, whom he had necessarily subdued to prevent the destruction of the entire navigation station, for an example.
The decline of the crew as a whole had been rapid, though not instantaneous. None had been obviously immune and as such all were a danger to the ship. Non-essential crew still mentally fit had been remanded to their quarters. Those who were not mentally fit had been sedated or stunned.
Power had been diverted from the engines to the sensors upon their arrival in the sector, leaving only thrusters with which to maneuver. In the time necessary to make the ship warp-ready, most of the essential crew had succumbed to the anomaly's influence. A brief period of lucidity at its commencement allowed for most to be quarantined and sedated before damage was done.
At present, taking into consideration Mr. Scott’s last communication, the Captain and himself were the only two of the essential crew yet to necessitate confinement. It would not be accurate to suggest Spock was immune to the effect; rather, his own hallucinations were immediately recognized for what they were, allowing him to maintain adequate functional capacity.
The hallucinations, though manageable, were disquieting. At irregular and unpredictable intervals, Spock would glance at a console or move to adjust a sensor and be subjected to a sudden visual aberration, such as observing his mother lying on the floor, her lifeless eyes open and directed upon him. He had seen Vulcan on the view screen, his planet consumed in a vortex of red, a figment identical to the reality of not so very long before.
Occasionally, the vision had altered. The red matter had been too potent and the black hole had expanded too far, poised to engulf the Enterprise. The bridge crew had taken their stations, calling out vital information regarding shield function and warp speeds. As in the final encounter with Nero, Mr. Scott had ejected the core and detonated, yet the blast had not been sufficient to free them. The hull had splintered, the ship had pitched forward as it had been drawn in and rent apart…
But Spock knew the illogicality of those situations. And as such he was able to endure them with minimal impedance of his performance. His mother had been destroyed with Vulcan. Her form could not be on the Enterprise just as Vulcan could not suffer annihilation a second time.
A piercing alarm pulled him from his thoughts, signaling a fluctuation in the ship’s performance. Efficiently, Spock silenced it and retrieved the analysis of the offending system. The engines were powering down. It seemed Mr. Scott was acting upon his delusions of a warp core breach and had initiated an emergency bypass. Such an action would leave the Enterprise effectively stranded for fifty seven hours, minimally, with a full crew working continuously to correct it.
“Spock,” Kirk’s voice issued forth from the science consol, “I need you down here now!”
“Yes, Captain,” Spock replied, swiftly locking the controls of his station. He crossed the short distance to the turbolift, and as the doors slid shut they did so upon a novel hallucination. A body, dead eyes staring at him as his mother’s had, slumped against the battered navigation station. The mottled bruising around this Kirk’s throat was condemning. Spock’s sharp gaze focused on the circular area of deeper color positioned to the left of the prominentia laryngea. To where his thumb had pressed into Jim’s flesh, seeking to crush the fragile airway beneath.
“Engine room,” Spock directed, pressing himself against the cold metal wall as the lift sped downwards.
Begin Part 2
The engine room seemed quiet. Illogical, Spock acknowledged as he proceeded towards the floor’s central engineering unit; the din generated by the machinery alone measured 78 decibels. Yet the absence of Mr. Scott’s voice, ubiquitous to this area, was more apparent than he had anticipated. It was...unsettling.
“Spock!” Kirk’s call echoed down from the upper control station. Spock climbed the metal ladder, nimble and surefooted, and hoisted himself up onto the platform. Mr. Scott lay unconscious beside the nearest station, a shallow scalp wound leaking blood onto the floor. The Captain stood examining a panel several meters away.
As Spock crossed the distance between them he directed attention to the panel displays he passed. The engine controls appeared undamaged. The energy reroute had been arrested, though not reversed.
“I managed to cancel the bypass. I think,” the Captain confirmed, eyes jumping from screen to screen. “But the rest of it…” Kirk’s sentence trailed off. His focus was demanded by the monitors as his fingers adjusted the instruments, leaving a smear of blood upon the dial. Spock’s eyes scanned his Captain for physical injury, but found none. Jim was fatigued, the stress and duration of the situation plainly weighing upon him, but beyond that there were no obvious maladies. The blood was presumably Mr. Scott’s.
“I don’t know what the hell Scotty did.” Kirk flipped open a circuit panel and checked the connections. “Nothing,” he growled, snapping the door closed violently. “Fuck.”
The Captain shoved his fingers through his hair in agitation and turned to his first officer. “Do you know how to work this thing?”
Spock’s gaze swept over the readouts. “Yes.”
Despite Spock’s succinct direction guiding the tandem effort, the reestablishment of warp drive was tedious if not overly complex. Mr. Scott had nearly succeeded in his restoration efforts; there was little to do but revert what energy had been shunted away by the bypass and complete the final series of data input.
Together they worked, efficiently and swiftly. Kirk showed an unexpected willingness to occupy a subordinate role and heeded Spock’s instructions without comment. The Captain was remarkably adept at manipulating the underlying programming. This Spock found unsurprising. But as such he, having grown complacent in his assessment of Kirk’s abilities, failed to notice the Captain’s error until it was all but made.
“Do not touch that,” he cautioned sharply, but it was clear his warning would not still Kirk’s hand before it contacted the sensitive dial. Spock snapped his arm out and snared Jim’s wrist. With a quick jerk he pulled the Captain back, safely away from the instrument controls.
Spock had intended to maintain his hold for as short a time as necessary. However, the influx of emotions he encountered through the skin to skin contact temporarily claimed his attention.
Fear was certainly the most apparent. It rattled through him like loose rocks down a mountainside. But beneath that was an emotional current which struck familiar, unwelcome chords within Spock. Anger. A loathing which seemed to breathe with him, expanding beyond all logical bounds and shrouding his mind in haze. It threatened to overwhelm him. He closed his eyes and focused.
It was a moment before Spock reclaimed control of himself, pinching off the temporary connection which, had fatigue not dulled his shielding, would never have been established. Only then did he register the Captain’s struggles against his grip and the fingers trying futilely to pry his own apart. Spock released him.
Kirk stumbled backwards at the sudden lack of resistance, tripping into the thin metal railing which encircled the platform. His breathing had accelerated to two point seven times that of his resting rate and an amount of facial perspiration was observable. He turned his back on Spock’s questioning gaze.
“Captain,” the first officer said tightly, “I apologize for the intrusion.” Spock found suppression of his anxiety at Kirk’s response uncommonly difficult. “It is imperative that the capacitor flux allowance not be altered if current engine calibrations are to remain applicable. I was endeavoring to prevent an accidental distortion.”
He received no acknowledgment. Spock’s eyebrows furrowed marginally at his Captain’s silence. “Again, I apologize if my actions caused you any discomfort.”
Kirk shook his head and leaned forward, bending over the railing. With obvious effort his breathing rate decreased slightly, yet his muscles remained stiff with agitation. Such a strongly adverse reaction to mental contact was atypical. Rarely was a non-telepath cognizant of a telepathic presence within their mind, particularly with such a benign touch; the level of distress the Captain suffered was concerning.
Spock moved forward a step, unsure of how to proceed but involuntarily drawn towards Kirk. “Captain?”
Kirk extended a hand behind him, palm held vertically towards Spock, signaling him to remain where he was. Slowly, the Captain uncurled himself from around the rail. He took a few wavering breaths before turning to face Spock.
“Do you have your phaser on you?” Kirk asked quietly.
Spock lips thinned at the question. “Yes, Captain.”
Kirk slumped back against the railing. He closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face. “Good,” he murmured.
After a moment the Captain blinked, the effort to reopen his eyes almost palpable. “I’ve succumbed,” he said. There was a flash of humor in that word, but those following were sober. “I’m decent at controlling it, but if you need to take me down, you take me down. Immediately. Understood?”
“Sir.” Spock stopped, suddenly without words. He could not take issue with the Captain’s logic, but found the prospect of firing upon the man wholly repugnant.
“Don't hesitate, Commander,” Kirk said sharply. “That’s an order.”
It was. And Spock would follow it. “Yes, Captain.”
Kirk stared at him a moment, perhaps evaluating the truth in his acquiescence, before nodding. “I’m going to check on Scotty.” He crossed the platform, maintaining a noticeably increased distance between himself and his first officer all the while.
Uneasy, Spock returned to the engine control panel to continue the repairs - alone.
On to Part 3!