You've Got to Step Up, Stranger
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: Gen
Series: Becomes, a Woman
A/N: This lovely lady is my first ever OFC. She'll be the only one in the series who isn't actually seen in the movie. All credit to Tegan and Sara for inspiration.
They've been on red alert for an hour, and she thinks that a ship full of geniuses should be able to figure out that blaring klaxons an hour into an emergency is not conducive to the kind of concentration needed to keep the ship running. But nobody's too worried about that, because the Captain's gone. Of course. This is the Enterprise; their away missions tend to follow a pattern. Easily quantifiable. Commander Spock should probably have this down by now. Maybe he does. However, Captain Kirk does not tend to give such numbers credence.
There is a reason she hates Alpha shift.
When she goes home on leave, her mother gives her medicinal teas and tells her to meditate. Tells her how weak her aura is, how battered. She knows this, but normally she does not mind. She likes the press of bodies, the brushing of auras against her own. It is energizing; it helps her do her job.
But this? This is a mess. This is the thick, heavy feeling of fear, apprehension, anxiety. Starfleet trains their cadets well; only the youngest, greenest among them show any signs of fear, and the officers are always calm. But she can feel their energies, bright, glaring reds and yellows and oranges. This, they cannot hide. It is too much.
"Yeoman Quin!" She's hearing someone calling her name, and she's trying to distinguish voices, to count stripes so she knows whom to answer first. It is dizzying, and then the ship rocks left, and she's trying to ignore the sound of explosions and shouted orders, trying to isolate the voice calling her name.
"Yeoman Quin!" There's a hand on her shoulder, firm, insistent. She spins around. It's Hannity, looking pale and shaken. Her auburn hair is coming loose from its ponytail, and she keeps glancing back at her console, nervous. "Rebecca Quin, right?"
She nods. Hannity relaxes a little, barely visible, before snapping back to attention. "You're needed on the bridge."
Quin nods, and Hannity puts a comforting hand on her shoulder. Then she's gone, back to her station, trailing muted red energy behind her. She's pressing one hand to her earpiece as the other flies across the console.
Quin stumbles into the lift, breathing heavily. Uhura's standing there, her hand pressed to the controls. Quin straightens, gluing herself to the wall and saluting, trying to suppress the secondhand terror gnawing at her stomach. Uhura smiles, calm, her aura dark blue. All Quin feels is determination, resolve.
"Quin, right?" Uhura says, and Quin wonders how she can smile so brightly when the Captain's gone and they're all probably about to die.
"Yes, sir," Quin murmurs.
"They're going to have you take over communications. Think you can handle that while I go help Spock save the Captain's dumb ass?"
Quin nods, numbly. She's a bit in awe; she's never heard an officer talk like that. The informality is kind of refreshing, but also sort of terrifying.
Uhura's eyes are liquid steel, indomitable and burning. "You sure? If you can't, tell me now. Nobody'll judge you."
Quin bites the inside of her cheek. "I can do it."
"Good. Tell Lieutenant Davis she has the conn."
"Yes, sir."
"Good luck."
The lift opens on the transporter room, and three deep, cleansing breaths later Quin is on the bridge, ruthlessly quashing the swirl of negative energies around her.
Davis, a dark-skinned Human woman with multi-braided hair, is at the helmsman's station, eyes locked on the viewscreen.
"You have the conn," Quin tells her. She can see the spike of red in Davis's aura and the way she pushes the sensations down.
Then Quin slides into the Communications station, smiling at Madeline, the Science Officer and the only calming presence on the bridge.
Four years of the Academy and another years' training on the Ulysses kick in, drowning out the auras and stressed voices on the bridge around her.
There's half an hour of silence planetside, and Quin can feel the way Davis is tensing in the command chair.
And then there's Uhura's voice, staticky but there. "Uhura to Enterprise." Quin's fingers dance over knobs and buttons, isolating their frequency.
"Lieutenant Uhura, this is the Enterprise. We read you." Quin is on autopilot, she can hear it in her voice. The entire bridge relaxes, releasing a collectively-held breath. Relief, but it sounds like it's hell down there. There's phaser fire, muffled in the background.
"Look," Uhura says, her voice clipped, strained. "Spock's emotionally compromised, and we haven't gotten to the Captain yet. If you have to, you need to tell Davis to go. Got that?"
"Yes, sir," Quin says quietly, wanting desperately to disagree. She can see Davis spin around in her chair, can feel it when she recognizes Quin's tone. The aura of the bridge is suffocating. Quin is not naïve; she knows what this means, just as much as Davis does.
If the Captain dies, if Spock and Uhura and Sulu can't save him, what chance in hell do they have? She wants to turn in her chair, to ask Madeline. Quin is sure she knows the odds, could calculate them in her head, but she's a little scared to know.
Two hours pass, interminable. Quin's drowning, oversensitized, trying to keep it together. Because this is her job, and they might all die if she can't control herself. Her aura is flickering, weak. She'll have to meditate for hours after this.
If she's still alive after this.
She hates that this is her life, hanging helplessly somewhere between sanity and death.
And then Sulu and Uhura are on the bridge, and nobody bothers to tell Davis to move because Sulu's taking the helm and Uhura's barking orders, voice powerful, but hoarse, tired. And Davis is frozen in the command chair, watching the bridge move around her.
"Quin," Uhura says, reassuring hand on her shoulder. She smiles when Quin turns, sighing in relief. "Good work, Yeoman." Quin nods, allowing Uhura to take her station.
Madeline, Hannity, and Charlene Masters fill it all in, later, the chaos on the bridge, until Aella Beauvoir shows up with drinks, courtesy of Doctor McCoy. Aella insists that it's against the rules to drink after a crisis if they're going to spend the time talking about said crisis, and she's the one who brings the alcohol, so they're all at her mercy. They drink, and they talk about normal things.
It is madness, Quin's still being here. Her mother tells her this constantly, tells her she should come home, should teach or something. She doesn't know why, but she's still here, and she loves it. It is… She doesn't, always. She hates it, some days. But then, there is something about the energy of this ship, of her people, that keeps her here.
Her aura may be damaged, perhaps beyond repair, but she does not regret. She calls Davis in to join them, and she feels whole.