Uhura fic: Behind Every Good Doctor
Here's my first entry for the Uhura is Awesome Fest, that is now going on at the where_no_woman comm. Check it out!
Title: Behind Every Good Doctor...
Rating: PG for violence.
Summary: #33. Uhura must perform first aid on an injured McCoy on an away mission.
Notes: For the Uhura is Awesome Fest. Thanks to the lovely mews1945 for the beta read.
Behind Every Good Doctor...
“You will exercise caution,” Spock
said, as he and Nyota strode past a worried-looking Kirk into the turbolift. He
turned and waited for her to join him, then continued his lecture as the door
closed. “The reports of the Gtzgaz vary tremendously.”
Nyota nodded. “I’m impressed.”
Spock tilted an eyebrow at her. “In
what way?”
“Gtzgaz. It’s not easy to
pronounce.”
Spock redirected his gaze at the
door in that lofty manner that was supposed to convince everyone he was above
the emotion of irritation. Nyota found it moderately amazing that not everyone
seemed able to see through his “no emotions” act as easily as she did.
“The topic is your personal safety,”
Spock resumed. “I wish to impress upon you-”
“You have. I’m prepared.”
“This is not a normal
first-contact negotiation.”
“I know. I’m prepared.”
“Because I want you to-” The door
opened, and Spock lowered his voice. “Take the appropriate precautions.”
“I’ll be armed and wearing
infrared-detection like the rest of the team.”
“That is not what I meant.”
Nyota sighed. “I promise to dive
behind the nearest boulder and cower the moment the situation demands it, sir.”
Spock nodded. “Thank you,
Lieutenant.”
He strode briskly toward the
transporter room. Nyota allowed herself the luxury of an eyeroll before
following him.
The situation inside the transporter
room was moderately chaotic- everyone bumping into everyone else as science
officers and the security team tried to secure their gear. Nyota looked again,
and realized that “everyone” was simply Dr. McCoy, who was doing an even better
job than usual of trying to appear clueless about Starfleet landing party
procedure.
“I’m a doctor, not a body guard!” he
snapped at the hapless guard who was trying to hand him a phaser.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the young man
said. “Everyone must go armed. Captain’s orders.”
“You can tell Jim Kirk to shove
those orders where the moon don’t shine!”
For the hundredth time, Nyota wished
McCoy and Kirk hadn’t been old Academy buddies. He was the only one on the ship
who could get away with making remarks like that, but it didn’t improve team
cohesion. Nyota took the infrared device that the closest guard handed her and
fixed it over her ear. Everyone else was already wearing theirs, even the doctor.
Nyota wondered who’d managed to pin it on him.
“Who says these Zeetgats are going
to fire on us anyway?” McCoy demanded of no one in particular.
Spock was his typical composed self,
efficiently seating his gear in place as he continued forward to examine the
transporter settings. “In the six reported encounters with the Gtzgaz, violence
erupted in four of the incidents.”
“That was a bunch of miners.” McCoy
resettled his medical scanner over the phaser belt that the guard had somehow
managed to buckle around him. “You and Uhura are trained in first-contact
procedures. You’ll do fine.”
“The Gtzgazians are not the only
variable.”
McCoy rolled his eyes. “If you’re
going to remind me about that stupid jungle feud-”
Spock was firm. “You will
follow the captain’s orders.”
Coming from Spock, this was high
praise of Kirk’s assessment of the situation. But McCoy just snorted and took
his place on the transporter pad- in the back, behind the guards, as the
captain had no doubt told him to. McCoy wasn’t nearly as rebellious as he liked
to pretend he was. Nyota took her place beside him.
McCoy surprised her by leaning close
to her. “Anything happens,” he said softly, in that slight Southern drawl of
his, “you stay behind me.”
Nyota glanced at his phaser. “Do you
even know how to fire that thing?”
McCoy straightened with assumed
pride. “I’ll have you know I’ve been able to hit the broad side of a barn when
absolutely required.”
“Really?”
“Without fail- nearly two times out
of three.”
Nyota smothered a chuckle. “I think,
Doctor, you had better stay behind me.”
“Where you could block, what, thirty
percent of my body at the most?” He shook his head. “No, Lieutenant, when the
fur starts to fly, y’all just stand back and let the team handle it.”
“Take those words to heart, Doctor.”
The three-guard team filled the
central slots of the transporter. Spock, naturally, took the position up front.
Nyota wished he wouldn’t make himself so very visible, but clearly Spock felt
that his duty as team leader meant, in fact, leading the team. The situation
was potentially hazardous enough that Starfleet recommended that one of the two
commanding officers remain onboard. As Spock was more familiar with the
Gtzgazians than Kirk was (through his massive research, which he shared with
Nyota), Kirk had naturally assigned him to lead the landing party. The only
reason Nyota didn’t protest was because she was also assigned to the landing
party. Somehow a situation seemed less dangerous if she was there to react to
it in person.
Spock spoke to the transporter
chief. “Energize.”
McCoy murmured to Nyota, “Here we
go.”
The landing party materialized in a
rocky clearing, crowded on one side by a towering cliff, and hemmed in on the
other by a wall of jungle. A thick canopy of tropical foliage, redolent with
strange smells, dripped mournfully on them from above, evidence of a recent
sprinkle from the overcast sky. The drops pattered almost silently onto the
clay-filled soil. In front of the party were three cave openings that looked
dark and threatening in the damp gloom.
Spock immediately stepped forward
with his tricorder. “I register recent activity within all three tunnels.
However, the one on the left shows a higher residual temperature in the
footprints. The presence of three clawed toes indicates that these would belong
to the indigenous population. I estimate no more than six minutes have passed
since-”
Spock’s communicator beeped. Knowing
he’d hate to interrupt his scan, Nyota responded on hers. “Uhura here.”
“How’s it going?” Kirk asked.
“Spock says we’re hot on the trail
of some Gtzgazians.”
“Is that a direct quote?”
“We’ll probably be taking the tunnel
on the left,” Nyota continued, watching Spock completing his assessment.
“You realize that we’ll probably lose
you shortly after you move inside.”
McCoy leaned close to talk into her
communicator. “I’m for moving inside anyway, Jim. It’s wet out here.”
“Be sure to keep well back. Let
Spock take the lead on this until we know where we stand.”
McCoy rolled his eyes. “Yes, Dad.”
Ahead of them, Spock gave the
signal. Nyota said, “We’re moving inside now.”
“Go get ‘em, Ace.”
Nyota put the communicator away and
drew her phaser. McCoy looked surprised, then apparently remembered that he had
a phaser, too. He drew it, looking as if he wasn’t quite sure where to point
it.
Nyota gently pushed his wrist down
until it was aimed at the ground a meter in front of him, then nodded with her
chin at the entrance. “After you.”
His misgivings present in his
expression, the doctor did as he was bid. “More important, after them,”
he grumbled.
They ended up entering the tunnel
side by side. The natural light fell off rapidly as they progressed and the
walls closed in. Nyota found herself ducking occasional outcroppings and
side-stepping some of the bigger boulders that had resisted the Gtzgazians’
efforts to clear a trail. Ahead of her she periodically glimpsed Spock’s blue
shirt between the red uniforms of the guards. He was in front, as usual. The
handheld light he used illuminated the side of his face and one pointed ear. In
front of him was solid black.
Suddenly the cave opened out. As
Nyota came up, she saw Spock sweeping the area with his lamp. Its beam revealed
no fewer than four entrances, all veering away from the central firepit like
the spokes of an enormous wheel. A number of boulders littered the area, like
bulky stone chairs left at an abandoned fireside.
“Meeting area?” McCoy ventured, his
words reverberating in the narrow space.
A strange whisper cleaved the air.
Spock dropped instantly to crouch on fingertips and toetips, blocking most of
the light as he did so. The guards behind him were a fraction slower. The one
ahead of McCoy cried out, and seized his right arm in pain.
“Hells bells,” McCoy muttered, then
rushed toward the spot where the injured man was standing, the instant before
Spock damped his light completely.
Hearing another projectile whistle
past her head, Nyota dived behind the closest boulder. Cowering
accomplished, sir, a sarcastic voice commented within her head.
“Cover!” Hershall, the
security team leader, called belatedly. “Go to infrared.”
Nyota tilted the infrared pane
forward over one eye. Through it, she could see a blazing bright-green shape
against the blackness- Spock, darting down the second passage, one of the
slightly cooler human shapes immediately behind him. To her right, another
shape fired- a stun, the white beam aimed over the heads of the departing team
leaders, travelling deeper into the passage. A few feet farther over, two more
shapes coalesced into a confusing blur on the ground.
“Projectiles,” the guard who’d been
firing, Hershall, said over his shoulder. Nyota belatedly realized he was
talking to her. “Too small for arrows. Darts, I think.”
“Then it’s not the Gtzgatians,” she
said confidently. “It sounds like their neighbors, the forest people.”
“The feud,” Hershall answered,
obviously recalling his mission briefing. “They probably suspect we’re going to
ally with the Geetzgatians.”
“They suspect correctly.” Nyota
looked, but the glimpse of brightness that had been Spock had vanished up the
hall in pursuit of the ambushers. “Well, don’t just sit here. Back up Spock!”
“Ansell is hurt-”
“McCoy and I can handle it. Go on!”
After a moment’s hesitation,
Hershall scuttled after the others. Nyota hurried toward the two men a couple
of meters from her side. They were just bright shapes of green against the
stone-cold and therefore pure black floor, but she could clearly see one of
them was crouching over the other, who was doubled over, clasping some part of
his body.
“How bad is it?” she asked, pulling
out her communicator even as she crouched next to the pair.
“I can’t tell,” the crouching man
answered, his young voice startling her. “I can’t see.”
She stared, only then making out the
ghostly shape of his face through her pane. “Ansell?”
“Yes, sir. Dr. McCoy is down.”
Nyota felt a rush of fear. She
stooped, but of course couldn’t make out any details. She was now close enough
to hear the doctor’s hurried breath. He was gasping in pain.
Not waiting another moment, she
whipped out her communicator. “Enterprise, come in. Request emergency
beam-up.” She paused. “Enterprise, do you read me?”
“Triberellium.” Ansell gestured at
the roof.
Nyota stared. “We’re cut off?”
Ansell shrugged. “We were afraid of
that.”
“Well, we can’t just- wait a minute,
you were hit!”
“It’s not bad, sir. My right arm is
grazed, that’s all.”
Nyota chose to take him at his word.
She pointed at a squarish shape near the mouth of the second passage. It glowed
lightly with ghost fingerprints, left behind by the warm-bodied being who’d
recently handled it. “Over there. Commander Spock’s tricorder. Get on it, and
tell me if any unfriendlies are headed our way.”
“Yes, sir!”
He scampered off, while Nyota leaned
over McCoy. She could now make out the ghostly seams of his uniform, the darker
(cooler) shape of his hair and outer clothes, the white heat that escaped
between his hands, which clutched at his upper thigh.
She reached forward, hoping to help.
“Let me see.”
“Got… to keep, pressure…”
“I’ll apply pressure.”
“Probably the femoral artery,” McCoy
gasped. “Damn!”
Nyota worked to worm her way between
his hands. Over her shoulder, she heard the whine of the tricorder start up.
Her hand touched something soft.
“Not that!” McCoy gasped.
“Sorry.” She worked her hand lower,
met wetness.
“There.” McCoy directed her hand,
indicating how she should apply pressure. “Like that.” He was shaking.
Nyota found herself starting to
panic. If McCoy passed out, could she save him with her limited field training
in medicine? She raised her voice. “What’s the story, Ansell?”
“I’m reading our party and three
alien forms. They’re about 50 meters off, moving away. No other readings.”
“Then get back here and give me a
light.”
Ansell hurried over. As Nyota glanced
his way, she saw through the infrared pane the streak of bright green leaking
from his right bicep, fading as it trickled toward his wrist. Blood. Ansell
squatted, setting down the tricorder and grabbing the lamp off his belt. He
turned it around and switched it on.
Nyota sucked in a breath. So much
red. McCoy’s pants were dark, but red blotches stained the blue of his uniform
shirt, caked his hands, spilled over the flesh of his thigh that had been bared
by the flight of the dart. It must have passed between his legs, slicing his
thigh open on the inner side.
Nyota’s heart sank. “Oh, Doctor. You
should have stayed behind me.”
“It’s the artery,” McCoy gasped.
Nyota’s mouth was dry. “What do I
do?”
“In my kit… the knitter.”
Ansell tucked the light under his
arm so he could rummage in the doctor’s kit, which was still draped over the
stricken man’s shoulder. McCoy simply lay against the rocky floor and panted,
eyes closed. His lips had a bluish cast.
Ansell held up a shiny tubelike
object. “Is this it?”
McCoy tried to open his eyes,
failed. “If it’s got a… white knob on the end, that’s it.”
“What do I do with it?”
“You’ve got to… stop the bleeding.”
“How?”
“Just… point it.”
Nyota pressed harder against the
wound, hoping to hold back the bleeding by sheer will power. “Doctor, neither
one of us is going to use an instrument we can’t name and hardly know how to
handle in… in such a vulnerable spot.”
“It bonds like tissue to like. You
can’t screw it up.” His words were a whisper now. “You have to try.”
Ansell shot Nyota a desperate look.
She read it clearly; he didn’t want to be the one who failed to save McCoy.
Nyota said, “I’ll do it.”
Relief flooded Ansell’s face. “I’ll
press where you are- “
“You have to keep your hands away.”
McCoy’s words were mumbled; Nyota had to lean close to hear him. “Work fast.
Once you let go, you’ll have… seconds.”
“Hold the light steady,” Nyota told
Ansell. “And open up the tear more. I need to see where I’m working.”
Ansell reached forward and pulled on
the doctor’s torn trousers. They slit further apart, revealing the doctor’s leg
and his hip and the dark blue boxers he was wearing, the whole area soaked and
slimed with blood.
“How do I turn it on?” Nyota asked
Ansell.
He turned the knitter around. “This
button. I think you just press…” He did, and the white knob turned orange,
emitting a chirp.
“Good. Get it ready.” Nyota
addressed McCoy. “Is that it? I just… wave it around down there?”
McCoy panted, or maybe that was a
grunt.
Nyota licked her lips. “Here we go.”
When she took her hands away, blood
actually spurted over McCoy’s opposite leg. Nyota seized the knitter from
Ansell. Blood-slicked hands fumbled, then caught on the textured surface of the
button. The knitter turned on with its high-pitched hum.
“Right there.” Ansell focused his
beam on the doctor’s thigh. “That’s the worst part.”
“Get that fabric back. I can’t see
what I’m doing.”
Ansell hurried to comply, careful to
keep his hands away from the wound.
“Is it working?” Nyota worried. “I
can’t see if I’m doing any good.”
“I don’t know. Keep going.”
Nyota waved it around some more,
trying to move evenly over what appeared to be the traumatized area. “McCoy,
are you still with us?”
No answer.
“McCoy! Damn it, don’t space out on
me. Are you conscious?”
A weak moan met her ears.
“Is it working? What else do I have
to do?”
He was alive. She could feel him
moving gently against her, his body shaking in time to his breaths.
Ansell looked terrified. “Can you do
too much? You know… over-knit the tissue?”
“I have no idea.” Nyota turned the
knitter off. Gently, she prodded the wound.
“No bleeding,” said Ansell
hopefully.
“Right. At least we can move him
now.”
When Ansell moved to grab the
doctor’s shoulders, Nyota shook her head. “Check the vicinity first. Find out
if anyone’s coming this way.”
Ansell grabbed the tricorder and
dashed off, leaving the light on a boulder behind him. Nyota heard the
tricorder start, marking Ansell's progress from entrance to entrance.
“You can,” McCoy rumbled.
Relief flooded through Nyota at
hearing him speak. She leaned closer. “Can what?”
“Overknit tissue.” He took a
shuddering breath. “Nice job.”
Nyota laughed, suddenly like a bark.
She shook out her hands, which had begun to tremble from nerves. “I doubt your
staff will agree with you. They’ll probably de-knit this, or whatever they do,
and knit it together again properly.”
“You stopped the bleeding.”
“Yes, with all the elegance of
smashing a nut to get the meat out.”
“That’s a dangerous phrase... to use
on a man… who has his trousers open.”
“Not to mention his- “ Nyota broke
off, feeling her face flush with heat.
McCoy gave a gargled cackle. “And
you said you didn’t know.”
“Know what?”
McCoy’s eyes opened a slit. “How to
turn it on.”
Nyota almost swatted him for his
impertinence, then checked herself. “Are you sure you just almost bled to
death?”
“Darlin’, if I hadn’t, I’d be doing
a lot more right now than just talking about it.”
Nyota laughed. “You’re impossible!”
McCoy grinned and lay panting, spent
from his bout of conversation.
Ansell dropped down beside them.
“They’re coming back. Commander Spock and the others, I mean.”
“All right. We’ll wait for them.
There’s no point in you straining your shoulder if you don’t have to.”
“I won’t tell him,” McCoy gasped.
“Tell him what?”
“How you ripped my pants open the
moment we were alone.”
Nyota pursed her lips, while Ansell
grinned. “It was Ansell who did that.”
“Under your orders.”
“I’m a sucker for a pretty thigh,”
Ansell said.
“Good. Meet me in Sickbay later,
since it seems Uhura isn’t going to act on her pent-up lust. After all, she’s
had plenty of opportunity.”
“I was probably in her way,” said
Ansell. “I could pop off for a moment if you two would like to be alone.”
“Will you stop!” Nyota snapped, then
smiled in spite of herself. “Doctor, as you probably can tell, you’re revealing
quite a bit of yourself just now. How about if I... just cover you up a bit?”
“Better you than Spock.”
“All right, I’ll just take this
loose flap here, and move it over there, and take this piece here, and move it
down there. Better? Now I’ll just tuck this in a little- ”
Ansell coughed.
Nyota looked up. Spock and the rest
of the security team was standing in the tunnel’s entrance. Even in the poor
light, Nyota could see that his eyes were focused on where her hands currently
were- deep in the doctor’s lap.
His soft voice conveyed to her
practiced ears a rare confusion. “Lieutenant, would you care to explain your
actions?”
Beneath her hands, McCoy started to
laugh.
The End
Title: Behind Every Good Doctor...
Rating: PG for violence.
Summary: #33. Uhura must perform first aid on an injured McCoy on an away mission.
Notes: For the Uhura is Awesome Fest. Thanks to the lovely mews1945 for the beta read.
Behind Every Good Doctor...
“You will exercise caution,” Spock
said, as he and Nyota strode past a worried-looking Kirk into the turbolift. He
turned and waited for her to join him, then continued his lecture as the door
closed. “The reports of the Gtzgaz vary tremendously.”
Nyota nodded. “I’m impressed.”
Spock tilted an eyebrow at her. “In
what way?”
“Gtzgaz. It’s not easy to
pronounce.”
Spock redirected his gaze at the
door in that lofty manner that was supposed to convince everyone he was above
the emotion of irritation. Nyota found it moderately amazing that not everyone
seemed able to see through his “no emotions” act as easily as she did.
“The topic is your personal safety,”
Spock resumed. “I wish to impress upon you-”
“You have. I’m prepared.”
“This is not a normal
first-contact negotiation.”
“I know. I’m prepared.”
“Because I want you to-” The door
opened, and Spock lowered his voice. “Take the appropriate precautions.”
“I’ll be armed and wearing
infrared-detection like the rest of the team.”
“That is not what I meant.”
Nyota sighed. “I promise to dive
behind the nearest boulder and cower the moment the situation demands it, sir.”
Spock nodded. “Thank you,
Lieutenant.”
He strode briskly toward the
transporter room. Nyota allowed herself the luxury of an eyeroll before
following him.
The situation inside the transporter
room was moderately chaotic- everyone bumping into everyone else as science
officers and the security team tried to secure their gear. Nyota looked again,
and realized that “everyone” was simply Dr. McCoy, who was doing an even better
job than usual of trying to appear clueless about Starfleet landing party
procedure.
“I’m a doctor, not a body guard!” he
snapped at the hapless guard who was trying to hand him a phaser.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the young man
said. “Everyone must go armed. Captain’s orders.”
“You can tell Jim Kirk to shove
those orders where the moon don’t shine!”
For the hundredth time, Nyota wished
McCoy and Kirk hadn’t been old Academy buddies. He was the only one on the ship
who could get away with making remarks like that, but it didn’t improve team
cohesion. Nyota took the infrared device that the closest guard handed her and
fixed it over her ear. Everyone else was already wearing theirs, even the doctor.
Nyota wondered who’d managed to pin it on him.
“Who says these Zeetgats are going
to fire on us anyway?” McCoy demanded of no one in particular.
Spock was his typical composed self,
efficiently seating his gear in place as he continued forward to examine the
transporter settings. “In the six reported encounters with the Gtzgaz, violence
erupted in four of the incidents.”
“That was a bunch of miners.” McCoy
resettled his medical scanner over the phaser belt that the guard had somehow
managed to buckle around him. “You and Uhura are trained in first-contact
procedures. You’ll do fine.”
“The Gtzgazians are not the only
variable.”
McCoy rolled his eyes. “If you’re
going to remind me about that stupid jungle feud-”
Spock was firm. “You will
follow the captain’s orders.”
Coming from Spock, this was high
praise of Kirk’s assessment of the situation. But McCoy just snorted and took
his place on the transporter pad- in the back, behind the guards, as the
captain had no doubt told him to. McCoy wasn’t nearly as rebellious as he liked
to pretend he was. Nyota took her place beside him.
McCoy surprised her by leaning close
to her. “Anything happens,” he said softly, in that slight Southern drawl of
his, “you stay behind me.”
Nyota glanced at his phaser. “Do you
even know how to fire that thing?”
McCoy straightened with assumed
pride. “I’ll have you know I’ve been able to hit the broad side of a barn when
absolutely required.”
“Really?”
“Without fail- nearly two times out
of three.”
Nyota smothered a chuckle. “I think,
Doctor, you had better stay behind me.”
“Where you could block, what, thirty
percent of my body at the most?” He shook his head. “No, Lieutenant, when the
fur starts to fly, y’all just stand back and let the team handle it.”
“Take those words to heart, Doctor.”
The three-guard team filled the
central slots of the transporter. Spock, naturally, took the position up front.
Nyota wished he wouldn’t make himself so very visible, but clearly Spock felt
that his duty as team leader meant, in fact, leading the team. The situation
was potentially hazardous enough that Starfleet recommended that one of the two
commanding officers remain onboard. As Spock was more familiar with the
Gtzgazians than Kirk was (through his massive research, which he shared with
Nyota), Kirk had naturally assigned him to lead the landing party. The only
reason Nyota didn’t protest was because she was also assigned to the landing
party. Somehow a situation seemed less dangerous if she was there to react to
it in person.
Spock spoke to the transporter
chief. “Energize.”
McCoy murmured to Nyota, “Here we
go.”
The landing party materialized in a
rocky clearing, crowded on one side by a towering cliff, and hemmed in on the
other by a wall of jungle. A thick canopy of tropical foliage, redolent with
strange smells, dripped mournfully on them from above, evidence of a recent
sprinkle from the overcast sky. The drops pattered almost silently onto the
clay-filled soil. In front of the party were three cave openings that looked
dark and threatening in the damp gloom.
Spock immediately stepped forward
with his tricorder. “I register recent activity within all three tunnels.
However, the one on the left shows a higher residual temperature in the
footprints. The presence of three clawed toes indicates that these would belong
to the indigenous population. I estimate no more than six minutes have passed
since-”
Spock’s communicator beeped. Knowing
he’d hate to interrupt his scan, Nyota responded on hers. “Uhura here.”
“How’s it going?” Kirk asked.
“Spock says we’re hot on the trail
of some Gtzgazians.”
“Is that a direct quote?”
“We’ll probably be taking the tunnel
on the left,” Nyota continued, watching Spock completing his assessment.
“You realize that we’ll probably lose
you shortly after you move inside.”
McCoy leaned close to talk into her
communicator. “I’m for moving inside anyway, Jim. It’s wet out here.”
“Be sure to keep well back. Let
Spock take the lead on this until we know where we stand.”
McCoy rolled his eyes. “Yes, Dad.”
Ahead of them, Spock gave the
signal. Nyota said, “We’re moving inside now.”
“Go get ‘em, Ace.”
Nyota put the communicator away and
drew her phaser. McCoy looked surprised, then apparently remembered that he had
a phaser, too. He drew it, looking as if he wasn’t quite sure where to point
it.
Nyota gently pushed his wrist down
until it was aimed at the ground a meter in front of him, then nodded with her
chin at the entrance. “After you.”
His misgivings present in his
expression, the doctor did as he was bid. “More important, after them,”
he grumbled.
They ended up entering the tunnel
side by side. The natural light fell off rapidly as they progressed and the
walls closed in. Nyota found herself ducking occasional outcroppings and
side-stepping some of the bigger boulders that had resisted the Gtzgazians’
efforts to clear a trail. Ahead of her she periodically glimpsed Spock’s blue
shirt between the red uniforms of the guards. He was in front, as usual. The
handheld light he used illuminated the side of his face and one pointed ear. In
front of him was solid black.
Suddenly the cave opened out. As
Nyota came up, she saw Spock sweeping the area with his lamp. Its beam revealed
no fewer than four entrances, all veering away from the central firepit like
the spokes of an enormous wheel. A number of boulders littered the area, like
bulky stone chairs left at an abandoned fireside.
“Meeting area?” McCoy ventured, his
words reverberating in the narrow space.
A strange whisper cleaved the air.
Spock dropped instantly to crouch on fingertips and toetips, blocking most of
the light as he did so. The guards behind him were a fraction slower. The one
ahead of McCoy cried out, and seized his right arm in pain.
“Hells bells,” McCoy muttered, then
rushed toward the spot where the injured man was standing, the instant before
Spock damped his light completely.
Hearing another projectile whistle
past her head, Nyota dived behind the closest boulder. Cowering
accomplished, sir, a sarcastic voice commented within her head.
“Cover!” Hershall, the
security team leader, called belatedly. “Go to infrared.”
Nyota tilted the infrared pane
forward over one eye. Through it, she could see a blazing bright-green shape
against the blackness- Spock, darting down the second passage, one of the
slightly cooler human shapes immediately behind him. To her right, another
shape fired- a stun, the white beam aimed over the heads of the departing team
leaders, travelling deeper into the passage. A few feet farther over, two more
shapes coalesced into a confusing blur on the ground.
“Projectiles,” the guard who’d been
firing, Hershall, said over his shoulder. Nyota belatedly realized he was
talking to her. “Too small for arrows. Darts, I think.”
“Then it’s not the Gtzgatians,” she
said confidently. “It sounds like their neighbors, the forest people.”
“The feud,” Hershall answered,
obviously recalling his mission briefing. “They probably suspect we’re going to
ally with the Geetzgatians.”
“They suspect correctly.” Nyota
looked, but the glimpse of brightness that had been Spock had vanished up the
hall in pursuit of the ambushers. “Well, don’t just sit here. Back up Spock!”
“Ansell is hurt-”
“McCoy and I can handle it. Go on!”
After a moment’s hesitation,
Hershall scuttled after the others. Nyota hurried toward the two men a couple
of meters from her side. They were just bright shapes of green against the
stone-cold and therefore pure black floor, but she could clearly see one of
them was crouching over the other, who was doubled over, clasping some part of
his body.
“How bad is it?” she asked, pulling
out her communicator even as she crouched next to the pair.
“I can’t tell,” the crouching man
answered, his young voice startling her. “I can’t see.”
She stared, only then making out the
ghostly shape of his face through her pane. “Ansell?”
“Yes, sir. Dr. McCoy is down.”
Nyota felt a rush of fear. She
stooped, but of course couldn’t make out any details. She was now close enough
to hear the doctor’s hurried breath. He was gasping in pain.
Not waiting another moment, she
whipped out her communicator. “Enterprise, come in. Request emergency
beam-up.” She paused. “Enterprise, do you read me?”
“Triberellium.” Ansell gestured at
the roof.
Nyota stared. “We’re cut off?”
Ansell shrugged. “We were afraid of
that.”
“Well, we can’t just- wait a minute,
you were hit!”
“It’s not bad, sir. My right arm is
grazed, that’s all.”
Nyota chose to take him at his word.
She pointed at a squarish shape near the mouth of the second passage. It glowed
lightly with ghost fingerprints, left behind by the warm-bodied being who’d
recently handled it. “Over there. Commander Spock’s tricorder. Get on it, and
tell me if any unfriendlies are headed our way.”
“Yes, sir!”
He scampered off, while Nyota leaned
over McCoy. She could now make out the ghostly seams of his uniform, the darker
(cooler) shape of his hair and outer clothes, the white heat that escaped
between his hands, which clutched at his upper thigh.
She reached forward, hoping to help.
“Let me see.”
“Got… to keep, pressure…”
“I’ll apply pressure.”
“Probably the femoral artery,” McCoy
gasped. “Damn!”
Nyota worked to worm her way between
his hands. Over her shoulder, she heard the whine of the tricorder start up.
Her hand touched something soft.
“Not that!” McCoy gasped.
“Sorry.” She worked her hand lower,
met wetness.
“There.” McCoy directed her hand,
indicating how she should apply pressure. “Like that.” He was shaking.
Nyota found herself starting to
panic. If McCoy passed out, could she save him with her limited field training
in medicine? She raised her voice. “What’s the story, Ansell?”
“I’m reading our party and three
alien forms. They’re about 50 meters off, moving away. No other readings.”
“Then get back here and give me a
light.”
Ansell hurried over. As Nyota glanced
his way, she saw through the infrared pane the streak of bright green leaking
from his right bicep, fading as it trickled toward his wrist. Blood. Ansell
squatted, setting down the tricorder and grabbing the lamp off his belt. He
turned it around and switched it on.
Nyota sucked in a breath. So much
red. McCoy’s pants were dark, but red blotches stained the blue of his uniform
shirt, caked his hands, spilled over the flesh of his thigh that had been bared
by the flight of the dart. It must have passed between his legs, slicing his
thigh open on the inner side.
Nyota’s heart sank. “Oh, Doctor. You
should have stayed behind me.”
“It’s the artery,” McCoy gasped.
Nyota’s mouth was dry. “What do I
do?”
“In my kit… the knitter.”
Ansell tucked the light under his
arm so he could rummage in the doctor’s kit, which was still draped over the
stricken man’s shoulder. McCoy simply lay against the rocky floor and panted,
eyes closed. His lips had a bluish cast.
Ansell held up a shiny tubelike
object. “Is this it?”
McCoy tried to open his eyes,
failed. “If it’s got a… white knob on the end, that’s it.”
“What do I do with it?”
“You’ve got to… stop the bleeding.”
“How?”
“Just… point it.”
Nyota pressed harder against the
wound, hoping to hold back the bleeding by sheer will power. “Doctor, neither
one of us is going to use an instrument we can’t name and hardly know how to
handle in… in such a vulnerable spot.”
“It bonds like tissue to like. You
can’t screw it up.” His words were a whisper now. “You have to try.”
Ansell shot Nyota a desperate look.
She read it clearly; he didn’t want to be the one who failed to save McCoy.
Nyota said, “I’ll do it.”
Relief flooded Ansell’s face. “I’ll
press where you are- “
“You have to keep your hands away.”
McCoy’s words were mumbled; Nyota had to lean close to hear him. “Work fast.
Once you let go, you’ll have… seconds.”
“Hold the light steady,” Nyota told
Ansell. “And open up the tear more. I need to see where I’m working.”
Ansell reached forward and pulled on
the doctor’s torn trousers. They slit further apart, revealing the doctor’s leg
and his hip and the dark blue boxers he was wearing, the whole area soaked and
slimed with blood.
“How do I turn it on?” Nyota asked
Ansell.
He turned the knitter around. “This
button. I think you just press…” He did, and the white knob turned orange,
emitting a chirp.
“Good. Get it ready.” Nyota
addressed McCoy. “Is that it? I just… wave it around down there?”
McCoy panted, or maybe that was a
grunt.
Nyota licked her lips. “Here we go.”
When she took her hands away, blood
actually spurted over McCoy’s opposite leg. Nyota seized the knitter from
Ansell. Blood-slicked hands fumbled, then caught on the textured surface of the
button. The knitter turned on with its high-pitched hum.
“Right there.” Ansell focused his
beam on the doctor’s thigh. “That’s the worst part.”
“Get that fabric back. I can’t see
what I’m doing.”
Ansell hurried to comply, careful to
keep his hands away from the wound.
“Is it working?” Nyota worried. “I
can’t see if I’m doing any good.”
“I don’t know. Keep going.”
Nyota waved it around some more,
trying to move evenly over what appeared to be the traumatized area. “McCoy,
are you still with us?”
No answer.
“McCoy! Damn it, don’t space out on
me. Are you conscious?”
A weak moan met her ears.
“Is it working? What else do I have
to do?”
He was alive. She could feel him
moving gently against her, his body shaking in time to his breaths.
Ansell looked terrified. “Can you do
too much? You know… over-knit the tissue?”
“I have no idea.” Nyota turned the
knitter off. Gently, she prodded the wound.
“No bleeding,” said Ansell
hopefully.
“Right. At least we can move him
now.”
When Ansell moved to grab the
doctor’s shoulders, Nyota shook her head. “Check the vicinity first. Find out
if anyone’s coming this way.”
Ansell grabbed the tricorder and
dashed off, leaving the light on a boulder behind him. Nyota heard the
tricorder start, marking Ansell's progress from entrance to entrance.
“You can,” McCoy rumbled.
Relief flooded through Nyota at
hearing him speak. She leaned closer. “Can what?”
“Overknit tissue.” He took a
shuddering breath. “Nice job.”
Nyota laughed, suddenly like a bark.
She shook out her hands, which had begun to tremble from nerves. “I doubt your
staff will agree with you. They’ll probably de-knit this, or whatever they do,
and knit it together again properly.”
“You stopped the bleeding.”
“Yes, with all the elegance of
smashing a nut to get the meat out.”
“That’s a dangerous phrase... to use
on a man… who has his trousers open.”
“Not to mention his- “ Nyota broke
off, feeling her face flush with heat.
McCoy gave a gargled cackle. “And
you said you didn’t know.”
“Know what?”
McCoy’s eyes opened a slit. “How to
turn it on.”
Nyota almost swatted him for his
impertinence, then checked herself. “Are you sure you just almost bled to
death?”
“Darlin’, if I hadn’t, I’d be doing
a lot more right now than just talking about it.”
Nyota laughed. “You’re impossible!”
McCoy grinned and lay panting, spent
from his bout of conversation.
Ansell dropped down beside them.
“They’re coming back. Commander Spock and the others, I mean.”
“All right. We’ll wait for them.
There’s no point in you straining your shoulder if you don’t have to.”
“I won’t tell him,” McCoy gasped.
“Tell him what?”
“How you ripped my pants open the
moment we were alone.”
Nyota pursed her lips, while Ansell
grinned. “It was Ansell who did that.”
“Under your orders.”
“I’m a sucker for a pretty thigh,”
Ansell said.
“Good. Meet me in Sickbay later,
since it seems Uhura isn’t going to act on her pent-up lust. After all, she’s
had plenty of opportunity.”
“I was probably in her way,” said
Ansell. “I could pop off for a moment if you two would like to be alone.”
“Will you stop!” Nyota snapped, then
smiled in spite of herself. “Doctor, as you probably can tell, you’re revealing
quite a bit of yourself just now. How about if I... just cover you up a bit?”
“Better you than Spock.”
“All right, I’ll just take this
loose flap here, and move it over there, and take this piece here, and move it
down there. Better? Now I’ll just tuck this in a little- ”
Ansell coughed.
Nyota looked up. Spock and the rest
of the security team was standing in the tunnel’s entrance. Even in the poor
light, Nyota could see that his eyes were focused on where her hands currently
were- deep in the doctor’s lap.
His soft voice conveyed to her
practiced ears a rare confusion. “Lieutenant, would you care to explain your
actions?”
Beneath her hands, McCoy started to
laugh.
The End