Fic: Uncertainty Principle (2/4)
Title: Uncertainty Principle (Part 2 of 4)
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Bones gets a lesson in quantum mechanics, Chekov goes on an away mission and things go wrong, Jim has a very bad day, and everything may (or may not) be Scotty's fault.
CHAPTER II
McCoy nearly collapses to his knees as he finds his feet on solid ground. He wills his vision to stop its incessant spinning and heaves a gigantic breath in a moment of incomprehensible relief.
“The transporter seems undamaged,” Spock remarks beside him.
McCoy replies with a nerve-wracked laugh. He waves Spock's flat gaze away with one hand. “We've gotta find Jim.”
“These are the coordinates obtained from the ensign's communicator before the incident.”
McCoy's gaze wanders for a moment. The monotonous red-orange landscape plays tricks with his eyes but he can detect something in the distance. “Over there,” he barks in Spock's direction.
The Vulcan ignores McCoy for the simple fact that he has already made several strides away from the doctor toward a very familiar shape in gold and black.
The two find Ensign Chekov with legs akimbo. He has a paranoid look on his young face. The ensign is covered in red-orange dirt, though his face is perhaps a shade paler than normal. He jumps visibly when he sees his comrades looming over him and struggles frantically to his feet.
“I found him, sir! I found him!” he exclaims as he grapples at McCoy's arms and shakes them.
McCoy regards the enthusiastic reaction with quite the reverse sentiment in his expression. “Calm down, Chekov.” He gingerly extracts himself from the Russian's vigorous grip, which the latter is reluctant to rescind. “You mean the captain?”
“The captain, sir.”
McCoy draws in a deep breath and releases it. “Was he in one piece, kid?”
The Russian tilts his head, confusion in his eyes. He is lost in thought for a moment before speaking seriously: “I think so, but I am afraid he might not be for long, sir . . .”
McCoy snorts in frustration and throws his arms up in desperation. “What―”
“Please inform me as to the events that transpired here, ensign,” Spock offers laconically.
Chekov draws a deep breath. “The transporter nearly dropped me off the edge of this cliff, sir!” he points confidently to the infamous drop looming dangerously in the distance. “I saw the Captain go over the edge! I tried to go after him but could not, sir!”
“And what happened to the captain, ensign?”
“He was chased away by a giant lizard, sir!” The young ensign looks between the doctor and the Vulcan and hastily decides to clarify. “I do not know what it was, sir. I tried to go after him but it tried to eat me.” He hastily adds: “the captain ordered me to stay here and . . . took the thing away, sir.”
McCoy inwardly flinches, imagining the numerous unhealthy ways that Jim being chased by a giant lizard could end. “Sounds just like Jim,” he snaps. He sees the phaser next to the young ensign. It looks wildly out of place beside him. “Is that the captain's?”
“He threw it at me to defend myself before he ran off, sir.”
McCoy cannot stop the audible groan that escapes his lips. Jim, you idiot.
In response to the silence Chekov attempts to dust off his uniform but realizes almost sheepishly that the motion is useless. Instead he gathers the captain's abandoned phaser, regards it gingerly, and stows it away at the belt of his uniform.
“Can you walk, kid?” McCoy asks.
“Aye, sir. I am not hurt.”
“Which way did the... lizard... thing...?”
“It went west, sir.”
“Lead the way, ensign.”
*****
Kirk trips and curses, drags himself to his feet and takes off running again. He inwardly regrets ever having entertained the notion that he could outrun something that takes one leaping stride for every five of his. For something so ponderously large it moves quickly, menacingly. His pursuer gives a low, throaty growl. Kirk glances over his shoulder for an instant, sees the looming yellow eyes. With a haggard gasp he turns back and tries to hasten his pace.
The ground suddenly arches up into a looming cliff to his left. Kirk does not take a moment to think and jumps against it; the creature is so close he can smell its breath but he begins to climb anyway. The alien slams into the wall of stone with a force that nearly tears Kirk from the face. It rears up clumsily on its back legs and reaches a serrated claw in his direction. It catches on his leg and rips; an unbelievable sensation blossoms from just below Kirk's knee and he chokes down a groan of pain. But still he climbs. I'll be damned if I let this thing eat me, he thinks.
A long tongue lashes out and licks tentatively at his wounded leg. Kirk freezes out of instinct. The tongue swipes over his wound again and an uncontrollable shiver courses through him. The feeling is just so damn unnatural.
The creature sits back on its haunches and flicks its tongue almost methodically. It makes a series of disgusted sounds and tosses its head. Completely forgetting Kirk it turns and shuffles away, its meal obviously spoiled.
“Well, same to you, asshole!” Kirk calls after it in with an air of wounded satisfaction.
He clings to the face of the rock for a moment more, his eyes vigilant. Satisfied that he is alone he makes a move to descend, but the pressure on his injured leg causes his head to spin. He tries to focus his whirling vision but quickly loses purchase and drags down the slope and to the ground with a resounding calamity. His head feels incredibly fuzzy, his entire body is so heavy, and damn, this planet is hot. He reaches down to the wound, alarmed at the presence of blood. The last thing Jim Kirk thinks is my leg shouldn't hurt this much, before he prods at the wound with one finger and is instantly unconscious.
******
Something large is loping toward them in the distance, quadrupedal and vaguely reptilian in appearance. McCoy can only think of it as the bastard child of a lizard and something almost mammalian, with the front end of the former and the back end of the latter. He could not afford much more investigation, however, because said creature was charging haplessly in their direction, churning up dust.
Chekov makes a surprised sound at McCoy's shoulder.
“Is that the creature, ensign?” asks Spock.
“Aye, sir.”
"No sign of Jim,” McCoy offers, whether hopeful or disappointed he is not sure.
The creature comes to a full stop as it spies the three men, seemingly confused. Its yellow eyes flick back and forth and settle on Chekov. It makes a throated sound of pleasure―or of recognition.
McCoy's eyes freeze in horror on a large clawed foreleg suddenly sweeping in their direction . . .
Oh, shit.
The thing throws itself toward Chekov and scatters the three men. It smothers the ensign with a monumental roar that splatters saliva across his face. A hundred possible tactical options flash through the young Russian's mind in an instant. None are helpful to the situation, save one: the creature's tongue hangs ponderously and invitingly between its horrendous teeth. For reasons Chekov does not take time to contemplate, he reaches out and grabs hold of the tongue, leans all his weight against the earth, and pulls.
The creature rears back on its hind legs with a shriek of surprise. Still firmly attached to the tongue―which is leathery, sticky, and warm―Chekov is flung about as the beast jerks its head hither and yon with series of infuriated, guttural sounds.
Momentum slams the ensign against creature's exaggerated neck. Pain shoots across his side as he encounters scaled skin as hard as diamond. His grip on the tongue slips and he slides, clinging to the rigid, scaled hide. One hand grapples at a raised ridge of skin that runs along the creature's backbone, another grabs loosely somewhere behind the eye. The creature turns its head, attempts to snap at Chekov, but the ensign uses the creature's momentum to swing one of his legs up and over. After a breathless moment of weightlessness Chekov is straddling the creature's neck just behind its head, clinging furiously to the taught skin. He knows his grip will not last long . . .
This entire exchange occurs in only a few precious seconds. Spock has his weapon focused on the reeling creature, but hesitates to attempt an attack with the ensign in such close proximity to his target.
The creature is writhing in absolute irritation. It attempts to claw at the ensign but can not achieve the necessary angle to reach him. It pauses its thrashing, exhausted. The one thought burning in Chekov's mind takes over. He releases his white-knuckled grip and searches at his belt, uttering a prodigious cry when he finds the phaser still tucked away there. It feels enormous and foreign in his hands. He recalls somewhere in Earth's history about the weak points of certain creatures . . .
Fear does not give him time to hesitate. He scrambles closer to the creature's head, balances the nose of the phaser against the exposed yellow eye, and pulls the trigger.
The close proximity of the blast assures that the shot hits home. The creature attempts a horrified shriek but is cut short; a cloud of copper-colored innards bursts forth from its destroyed eye socket and straight into the face of Pavel Chekov. The impact throws his balance; the creature flings its head in desperation and the ensign is thrown clear. He braces himself for impact and rolls several times across the dirt, coming to rest on his side with a surprised cry.
The alien's body is buckling in spasms of pain. Though the blast may not have been enough to kill it, its agony is so strong that the three men have been completely forgotten. It turns and stumbles away, leaving a trail of putrid, copper-colored fluid in its wake. Spock watches as it retreats. McCoy turns his attention to the unfortunate hero of this exchange and he whirls on his heel to regard the ensign.
Chekov has manged to sit upright. He is covered from his head to his waist in the foul blood from the alien―in close proximity McCoy can see that it is thick, slimy, and clings to every part of the ensign with extreme tenacity.
As the doctor stares down at him, Chekov can not discern whether the look in the older man's eyes is meant to convey irritation or muted relief. The young ensign attempts a smile, but the alien blood dripping down his face does little for the childish expression.
“That was a... stupid thing to do, kid.”
党Understood, sir.” Chekov wipes away a coagulated mess falling into his eyes with his palm and shakes his hand vigorously to remove the substance. His expression is oddly self-satisfied. “But I am tired of something trying to eat me, today... sir.”
McCoy thinks of offering a hand to the ensign, but thinks otherwise as the gleam of copper-colored alien bits glares back at him. He merely nods in mute understanding.
“The creature came from behind that ridge.” Spock has holstered his phaser and is motioning with his eyes in the direction of land where a craggy outcropping of rock rises sharply, creating yet another cliff in the fashion that seems so prominent on this planet. “If this is indeed the same creature that accosted the ensign upon arrival, it would be logical to assume that Jim is in that direction.”
Chekov drags himself to his feet and McCoy watches him with an expert's eye. Astoundingly, there are no open wounds on the young ensign, though his many scuffles in the dirt have turned his normally marble-colored skin an interesting shade of orange and the alien's innards have plastered his hair to his head with copper-colored gelatinous ooze. There is the beginning of a bruise, already a deep red, along the ensign's rounded cheek.
“Are you okay, ensign?”
The young man nods to the doctor, but McCoy can detect the stiffness of his movements. “I am fine for the moment, sir.” Chekov replies. “But I would appreciate a shower, soon, if possible.”
McCoy's fingers trace a path along the ensign's back, slowly turning the younger man in the direction of their first officer. The Vulcan has already begun a path toward the looming tower of rock. McCoy urges Chekov forward and the two hasten to join him.
******
Harsh light is beating down on his face and Jim turns his head away from it, groaning. The nausea is incredible but he fights it down with rigid gasps of air. He's covered in dirt and grime and lizard saliva―the smell of the latter is enough to make him want to empty his stomach again. He scrubs a hand over his eyes and pulls it back sluggishly; the heat radiating from his skin is astounding, yet he feels so cold that a sudden shiver threatens to tear his bones apart from one another.
Fantastic. The lizard did something to him. Just his luck.
His mind wanders as he stares pitifully at the sky, clenching his rattling teeth against the spasmodic shivers. Thoughts that appear into the forefront of his brain and are immediately chased away before he can fully acknowledge them. Hours . . . days . . . his conception of time has suddenly become completely elastic and he has not the strength left in his mind to care. He remains in this stasis until, through the haze, something slams into the forefront of his brain with the force of a torpedo.
Pavel Chekov.
Damn.
He rolls himself prone, pushes onto his hands and knees. Instantly he collapses and drops his forehead against the dusty earth, breathes sharply through his teeth. The pain in his leg is excruciating. He curses at the offending appendage and, using the stone cliff for support, drags himself onto one knee. After an effort that seems monumental in its scope he is able to clamor onto his good leg, utterly exhausted. He tests his weight on the injured leg and nearly drops to his knees again, gripping the wall of stone frantically as he breaks into a series of winded coughs. He comes to realize that walking will be near impossible after this, but the other side of his consciousness argues that he can not abandon the ensign. The protection of his crew was his responsibility as captain, leg be damned. He had to go back for him.
Kirk turns his head and spits out the taste of bile at the back of his throat. He pushes away from the wall and tries to steady himself on his feet, but this is nigh impossible. He gently moves his injured leg forward and is disconcerted to discover that it feels like it is made of stone. Kirk steels himself, grits his teeth against the agony he knows will come, and steps forward with his other leg. He lets loose a string of colorful language he is glad no other soul is around to hear, but counts the endeavor a success. He intrepidly manages another step, another round of voracious curses. It is unbelievable labor; already sweat drains down into his eyes. Kirk can not divert his attention to think about the humor of the situation, but his limp makes him look like a dead man reanimated to walk upright and manages to be both frightening and humorous in kind.
He is stumbling in the direction from where he came and manages his lurching pace for all of twenty steps. As he places his injured leg forward for the twenty-first it all but collapses underneath him, completely dead and numb. Kirk lurches to his side and clings to the sheer rock face and drags his nails deep into it to support himself. He is determined to go on, but his entire body is in complete paralysis. There he remains, balanced on his good leg, leaning against the rock face. A weighty sigh escapes his throat, another bone-rattling shiver follows, and his vision swirls until the world around him becomes imperceptible.
To Be Continued.