Work Text:
The USS Retribution floated poised beside the Enterprise like a question mark at the end of a tense question. Its engines had long since dimmed and grown cold, though her ventral lights still glimmered like tiny sparks in the vast expanse of the void.
Spock found Captain Kirk in a nook behind the armory. His shoulders were slumped, the composed image he commanded his crew while on the Bridge had been shed the moment he entered the space. Spock knew from experience - he’d seen it happen himself. Here, he could simply be Jim .
Jim looked up as Spock drew near, “Sit,” he said, his gaze returning to the ship beyond the window. Spock sat perched at his usual place.
Spock had checked Starfleet records and discovered the Retribution had a crew of 325 souls on board; the Enterprise could take them on if an evacuation was warranted, though it would strain their own resources. He found himself hoping against illogic that it would not come to that. It was unclear what, precisely, was happening on board.
The Enterprise had received two separate communiques requesting assistance. The first came from Captain Farrell of the Retribution shortly after she ordered an All Stop when her crew had begun to exhibit curious signs of mental distress following the interception of an SOS. The second was from the First Officer, who was in command of the bridge and first heard the SOS, which described a staggeringly different report of activities. Neither report explained the other, and both left more questions behind than solutions for answers.
Jim’s brows pinched as he rubbed his mouth, elbows on his knees and chin in his hands. He turned his head, and his eyes flicked up to meet Spock’s determination and anger burning therein.
“What do you think?” he said into his palm, he had not yet shed the Captainly tone, Spock noted.
“It is unclear, Captain,” Spock said and Jim heaved a sigh, slouching back into the bench and stared at the neighbouring vessel. Spock allowed himself the small satisfaction that his jab had poked the very button Jim so easily flaunted. Jim glared.
“No,” Jim said curtly. He caught his bottom lip between his teeth and worried it; his eyes flashed and expression shifted more quickly than Spock could decipher. "I really do think that I need to go over there."
"Captain…" Spock unfolded his hands and laid them flat against his knees. He would argue that Jim’s safety would very possibly be at risk if he were to board the Retribution. He knew it would fall to deaf ears. Spock knew the thrill of discovery and the siren call of exploration was the Captain’s Achilles’ Heel. Jim stood up, his face already pulled into a determined expression - one that Spock had begun to associate with a personal sense of dread.
"I'm not sure what's going on, you heard those comm calls, they didn't make sense! I know, you don't think it's safe, but I have a gut feeling - I think it's a people issue, not anything dangerous."
People are dangerous , Spock thought, but he bit down the urge to refer the Captain again to the long annals of human history. Spock would be sure to notify the Transporter Room to have coordinates and Away Team supplies prepared for the eventuality of a stubborn Captain.
"I will accompany you." Spock announced. An unknown like this posed too much of a risk, and the captain did have a penchant for discovering more trouble than expected. If Spock trusted anyone to keep Jim Kirk out of trouble and, most importantly, safe , it was Spock himself.
"No, Spock,” Jim bit off, “I need you here on the Bridge. We have two situations - one on the Retribution and one that they had responded to. If there actually is a distress signal from somewhere other than a Starfleet vessel, then I want to be able to respond - me from the Retribution and you from the Enterprise . Then, we'll get the Retribution and her crew to the nearest Starbase to have them all properly investigated." He looked like he truly thought this was an acceptable plan.
“Captain,” Spock tried again and resisted the impulse to rise to his feet and tower over him; he had little authority to assert here. He twisted in his seat to look up at Jim instead, leveling him with an expression that he hoped would be read as disapproving; the sensation of frustration curled in his gut and he struggled to dismiss it. He allowed the twitch of his lips and watched Jim’s eyes flick there, and he frowned, now aware of the magnitude of Spock’s disagreement. Jim, however, remained steady as he looked back to Spock’s eyes and held his gaze, unwavering. Spock huffed - something that could have been a sigh; he forced his shoulders to relax. “You will bring an away team with you,” he said.
Jim, frustratingly, shook his head.
"I'm going to evaluate what’s happening first.” he said. He sensed Spock’s argument before it had even fully formed on the tip of this tongue and raised a hand to stop it, digressing, “I’ll bring a security officer, but I want to go see what's happening before I bring more of our crew over. If I'm wrong and there is some sort of disease or phenomenon that is affecting crewmen's minds on that ship, I don't want to risk my people."
Nevermind that the Captain’s life was just as significant as any crew member, perhaps more so! Spock’s frown deepened.
"Send me instead, and you will remain on the Enterprise ."
Jim had the audacity to laugh at that. His eyes gleamed, affronted. “And miss out on the opportunity to see one of the Federation’s newest battle-ready ships? No, Mr. Spock, you will have command of the Enterprise and I am to go to the Retribution . You will back me up on this on the Bridge, please.” He stepped away from their bench, bringing the conversation to a close and Spock rose to his feet as well.
“ Jim ,” he said. He wasn’t sure how he had intended to end that sentence - to argue further, or to implore him to remain safe. Jim would, of course, shrug off any sentiments he could possibly conjure to share and so he said nothing.
Jim clapped him on the shoulder as he moved to exit the space, his hand warm through the fabric of Spock’s uniform. “We’ll talk more when I get back,” Jim said. His smile was a promise, but Spock found he did not trust it. Captain Kirk’s shoulders regained the rigid line of a man in charge, his chain raised and he stepped out into the hall with confidence.
Be safe , Spock thought.
= \ \ / / =
Jim was gone and Spock had never experienced space so black as this.
The planet loomed, uncharted and unnamed, like an obsidian orb against a black velvet curtain. The closest stars were nothing more than distant pinpricks to the naked eye, it was almost hidden. From the magnified view on the screen of the Bridge, silence reigned as they observed the smouldering wreckage that was once the USS Retribution .
His fingers flew across his console; all his sensors, all the scans he could initiate, their data slid across his screens with unfavourable results: nothing. He could detect no life signs on the planet, humanoid or otherwise. There was nothing down there; no echoes, no flora or fauna, no mineral readings, it was like the planet did not exist. And yet, when he peered into his scope, he could see it there, black like a pit, hanging suspended in the nearly starless sky, ominous.
He straightened and looked back to the view screen; his breath caught in his chest as he watched smoke curl from the shredded hull of the ship that had, only minutes before, been suspended in space next to the Enterprise - whole, safe, and with their Captain on board.
The Bridge felt empty without Jim's presence to fill it.
Which was illogical. The entire Bridge crew was there, filling it out. They worked, scanning and listening, making such smooth, fine-tune adjustments to the ship that the corrections went unnoticed. The clack of fingers flying across console keyboards filled the spaces left between their silences. Sitting in the Captain’s seat truly made one a conductor of a specialized symphony, and the ship flying through space was the music.
Spock was unused to being the Maestro, he preferred to be First Chair - knowing that Jim was there, not here, felt like a discordant suite.
The music faltered and ceased, one last sour note ringing too loudly when Spock watched the Retribution burn through the invisible planet's atmosphere and crash. The roiling cloud of smoke and fire crawled upwards like a festering bloom across the viewscreen, disappearing into the black of space at the edge of the picture.
If he closed his eyes to the viewscreen, he could hold reality at arm’s length for a moment - long enough to gather himself and reestablish his mental and emotional stability.
= / / \ \ =
He had been surprised to discover that Jim, while loud and gregarious, often sought out silence and solitude. It was one of the very few things they had in common, a fact that he kept to himself, greedy for knowledge of the man he newly served under and unwilling at present to share.
Silence was his domain - the ringing noise of a quiet room unwound the taut line of muscle in his shoulders similarly to sinking into a hot bath. He could sink into silence, wrap himself up in it, and bask. Quiet spaces other members of the crew actively avoided or endeavoured to fill with idle chatter were the ones in which he felt most at home. The fluff created to fill in the gaps between meaningful sound, in Spock’s opinion, created more tension than alleviate discomfort. And, he had found, any attempt to suggest that the cessation of speaking would be beneficial always resulted in making matters worse.
The quiet was where he was finally free to untangle his thoughts, slide into meditation, and make sense of the pandemonium of the day. With so many humans, his shields often needed maintenance. Each brick carefully laid had to be inspected, to ensure their strength in order to keep the battering ram of emotions from breaching his walls and knocking him over. He could not do this with humans hovering over him, curiosity bleeding out of them like an open wound - he was simply a curiosity, a mystery to be unraveled and inspected. Humans loved puzzles.
Spock learned to love his loneliness.
He had few friends; and even fewer of those that understood his need to find a place that he could call his own outside of his quarters. His quarters, while empty of any other, were pressing in uncomfortable ways, tipping towards oppressive. There, he more often felt trapped by the surrounding of his own possessions. And by solitude. He had spent so much of his life behind the doors of his own room he longed for there to be more that could belong to him. His labs were a logical solution, but the constant desire to continue working was harmful for his concentration over long periods of time; he found he was unable to rest his mind with the temptation of just one more experiment constantly looming over him.
The Captain was so far away in similarity to himself he was not confident he was the correct choice as a First Officer to serve under such a man. He was quiet, contemplative, and never guessed an answer that could be given accurately with additional information. The Captain, however, was loud, he flirted with spontaneity like it was as familiar as an old lover. He acted on intuition more often than logic with such confidence that Spock was left reeling in the wake, disconcerted and hot under his collar. The Captain so frequently did things without noticeable consideration that Spock wondered at the speed of his mind - it must be faster than Spock’s, which was impossible to determine without knowing him deeper than passing remarks on the Bridge.
It meant something to him to discover they had the predilection for silence in common. He was not sure exactly how to pin down the definition for how it made him feel, only that it took him by surprise that someone who desired to spend their whole career lost in the expanse of space would find the quiet as calming as he did.
Spock had stumbled upon him quite by accident in the forward lounge, late in the ship’s night when both of them should have retired to their quarters hours previous. He almost turned to leave again, but his Captain had waved him further into the room and patted the space on the bench next to him - an invitation to sit.
Not wanting to be rude, Spock had joined him. He prepared himself for conversation, shifting his focus and readying to speak about things he did not find as worthwhile as humans did.
However, the Captain had turned to him and smiled softly.
“I don’t feel much like talking right now, I hope that’s alright,” Spock had only been able to incline his head in response, taken by surprise. “I imagine you are feeling the same.” Then, he had turned to face the stars stretching ever outward in front of them and allowed silence to reign.
Never before in the presence of another, Spock had slipped into the first level of meditation, calibrating his emotional fortitude and processing the events of the trying day. An hour and a quarter later, the Captain had risen to his feet, dropped his hand to Spock’s shoulder and squeezed.
“Thank you, Mr. Spock,” he said, “I needed that.” And then he left.
= \ \ / / =
“Commander!” Uhura called, “I’m getting something - communications with the Retribution are back online!”
“Patch it through!” Spock stepped away from his console and resumed his place in the centre seat; the arms of Jim’s chair creaked under the force of his fingers gripping it; he leaned forward.
Just before the sound of a blood-curdling scream, Spock felt a tingle crawl up his spine, and wrap around the base of his skull - the telltale sign of a psychic attack. He slammed his shields in place, and still his temples felt like they were pierced through with a hot knife. The tension on the Bridge exploded into chaos and shouts of agony.
The chorus of cries were excruciating; worse so was the single voice that rose out among the rest, painfully familiar and ice settled in the pit of Spock’s gut as he recognized it immediately: Jim.
Spock whirled towards Uhura whose face was contorted into a horrified gasp of pain. She blinked up at him, and met his gaze in a desperate attempt to understand what was happening - what was she hearing?
“Disconnect the comm!” Spock shouted - and hoped she understood him over the din.
She slid off her seat and crumpled to the floor, folding in on herself, head held tight between her hands.
Spock struggled to stand; it felt like the ship was lurching sideways beneath his feet, though he knew, logically, the inertial dampeners were still engaged and operational. He stumbled to Uhura’s station, fell against the controls and fumbled with the dials until the bridge fell silent once again.
"The Keptin!" Chekov cried out, his eyes were wide and wild; there was fresh blood running from his nose over his top lip, gathering in a gruesome pool that threatened to spill down his chin. Spock reached to help Uhura back to her seat; tears streamed down her cheeks.
"We cannot be certain the voice we heard was the Captain," he said levelly. He wanted to believe it, wanted to know that Jim had somehow survived the devastation of the crash. Logic was hope’s enemy and Spock strangled both with composure.
Could something else be responsible for the sound of their Captain’s voice? He could not rule out a connection to the distress signal that the Retribution had picked up prior to the SOS they had sent to the Enterprise . Yet even with her more advanced technology, any kind of subspace message would have been heard by Enterprise and Lieutenant Uhura. It did not make sense.
“We all heard him! We have to rescue him!” Sulu’s voice was strangled, like an ahn-woon was tied about his throat. Spock glanced around at the Bridge crew, their faces glowing with a fervorous hope that he had already chosen to set aside.
Spock shook his head in an attempt to dismiss the desperate desire to chase after that voice, to search for Jim on the planet that was a ghost to their sensors. He stared into the viewscreen: nothing but a shadow of a planet that felt impossible to resist, reaching. He resisted the urge to shake his head into clarity in front of the crew again.
“We cannot yet without more information,” he stood to his full height, shoulders back, and hoped he channeled the same confidence that he knew they missed. He felt he was a pale imitation by comparison.
“What are you talking about?!” Sulu whirled on him, rage and fear contorting his face into something ugly. “Don’t you care ? That was clearly the Captain’s voice! And likely the whole rest of the crew! They need our help!”
“Calm yourself, Lieutenant,” Spock said. “We will be unable to help them if we are unprepared.”
“You’re a monster,” Sulu spat, looking him up and down like this was the first time seeing him. “You feel nothing, don’t you? You don’t care at all for the crew of the Retribution or our Captain!”
All it took was three long strides and Spock was standing toe-to-toe with the helmsman, his hands flexing at his sides as he struggled to restrain himself from physically lashing out.
“I will not repeat myself,” his voice wavered somewhere between calm authority and blatant emotionalism. “Calm yourself.”
“You’re sick, you know? You unfeeling, cold-blooded bastard.”
“Sulu!” Spock ground the name between his teeth.
“You have always wanted the Enterprise for yourself! And here is the perfect opportunity!” His laugh was bitter, “Well, you can’t have her!”
Like lightning, Sulu spun back towards his station and threw the ship’s throttle forward. The engines jumped, the ship shuddering back to forward trajectory with more power than necessary. She hummed, straining to gather the speed Sulu was demanding, her bow pointed right at the Retribution’s remains in the distance.
“Return this ship to ready status, Lieutenant,” Spock demanded. He looked back to the viewscreen, the glimmers of orange and blue where the warp nacelles had begun to burn. He understood the desire to go there, but driving the Enterprise into the orbit of an unknown planet was not the logical decision to make. “Lieutenant Sulu!”
The helmsman was unresponsive and held the throttle in the upward position, eyes trained on the viewscreen as Spock’s had been.
He would crash the ship and kill everyone on it.
Spock threw himself against the other man and wrestled for the controls. Sulu was a trained fighter and squirmed away with ease, and rammed an elbow into Spock’s abdomen. Spock grunted. Like oil, Sulu twisted out of Spock’s reach, careful of his fingers and cleverly dodged any opportunity for Spock to pinch him to stillness.
“He’s dying !” Sulu’s voice was like poison, “and it’ll be your fault when he’s dead !” Spock barely registered the echoed sentiments around the room.
Spock roared. He lashed out, reaching for any part of Sulu that he could get his hands on. His fingers closed around the sleeve on his uniform and he pulled with all of his strength to throw the helmsman back into his own controls. Sulu’s face hit the console with a crack, blood coughing up from between his lips and a bitten tongue.
Spock took the helm, controls in a whiteknuckled grip as he returned the levers to neutral. The ship shuddered once more as reverse thrusters struggled to bring her back to a stop, hovering just outside of the black planet’s orbit. With his other hand around Sulu’s neck, though not quite squeezing, Spock leaned over him and growled, “Security, remove Lieutenant Sulu to the brig. I will not tolerate this level of insubordination.”
Sulu glared as he stormed from the Bridge flanked by two red uniforms, who shook their heads as if confused.
He drew back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “From any on this Bridge,” he announced the rest of the room, all eyes wide and trained on him like he was the threat that loomed over them. “We will rescue our Captain,” he promised, “and return him here where he belongs.”
= / / \ \ =
The Captain was tucked into a corner of the upper recreational room. His face was pulled into a tight smile that he offered to those that approached, likely a disguise to appear friendly when all he would rather be was left alone - though not isolated. Spock felt as though he was looking into a mirror.
He made his way towards him; the Captain looked up at him as he stood by the table, he had a look about him that reminded Spock of a wounded animal caught in a trap. His mouth was turned upwards at the corners, an approximation of warm and friendly, but several steps to the left from accurate.
Spock inclined his head in greeting.
“I wish to show you something,” Spock said. He only had to wait for 6.3 seconds, their eyes never breaking contact, before the Captain rose to his feet, nodding.
“Of course, Mr. Spock,” he said quietly, his mouth still in that pained, false smile. Spock watched his lips waver in their shape; he wished that the Captain would make no expression at all than this pale imitation of the man he normally presented himself as.
Spock turned led him without preamble or further speaking down several decks. There, behind the armory was an alcove that was always forgotten, overlooked and passed by. A low bench sat tucked against the wall facing a small window. It was not very large and did not offer the same views as the forward lounge, but if you stood on your toes and craned your neck you could see the bottom of the port nacelle, and from the bench you could see the stars.
This small corner of the ship, where no one else came, was what Spock claimed as his, away from the labs or his quarters. This area was where he could sit and gather his thoughts after difficult missions, to reorganize his emotions and regain the threads of control that often lay frayed in his mind. This was his silence, and his solitude, and now the Captain, normally all noise and large presence, stood in the middle of it, arms folded around himself and looking very small.
"Oh," Jim exhaled, "I didn't even know this was here."
"Most walk right by," Spock agreed. “If you do not mind the periodic clang of repairs being made to shuttles in the hangar, it is my preferred spot to hide.”
“You come here?” The Captain turned to him; the smile was gone, but neither was he frowning. He looked more relaxed than he had when Spock had first found him.
“Yes,” he nodded, “I often find this to be an excellent spot for meditation. I invite you to come here if you find you are in need of seclusion.” He was not sure what to do with his hands, so he clasped them behind his back and stared out the window. The awkwardness of human-made silence was descending and he swallowed the desire to fill it with more words - to explain himself like he was a child caught with something that did not belong to him.
“Mr. Spock,” the Captain’s voice was not chiding, but Spock prepared himself for a lecture regardless. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you for sharing this with me.”
They stood in awkwardness and Spock could feel the Captain’s eyes boring into him like terraforming drills. He suppressed a shudder and returned his gaze to his Captain and was caught there before he could look away again.
“Are you sure you want to share this with me?” The Captain took half a step towards him; in the small space of the alcove, this made their interaction feel irrationally intimate. The air grew warm - which was impossible. The ship was designed to maintain a strict 21 degrees centigrade in all common areas of the ship.
“You looked like a man that could use a secret.” Spock replied.
The Captain smiled.
= \ \ / / =
The atmosphere in the Captain’s ready room was akin to an uninvited guest interrupting the koon-ut-kal-if-fee .
The Doctor continued to drum his fingers on the table, despite Spock having asked him twice to cease his fidgeting. The noise of it was knocked around in his skull like stones in a jar.
“The Retribution received some sort of distress signal, potentially from this planet,” McCoy repeated. “There has to be some reason for it.”
“I do not disagree with you, Doctor,” Spock looked at him, then pointedly at his hands drumming on the table. They did not stop. “However, we also cannot rule out the consideration that the signal may have been falsified in order to lure us here.”
“I’m not certain why we are arguing about this,” Mr. Scott slammed a fist on the table, shaking it, “the Captain may well still be alive down there. We need to go in and get him.”
“We have no way to beam to the surface at present,” Spock reminded him, “our sensors have no data; we risk the potential of beaming the landing party into open space or directly into the ground.”
“Then we shuttle a crew over,” The Engineer insisted.
“We could have them set up signal repeaters,” Uhura added, “we may not be able to get any readings on the planet, but if we had something from the Enterprise down there to attach a communications signal to, we may be able to beam a crew out again if necessary.”
Spock nodded.
“I suggest two parties to go planetside,” Spock said, “one to set up any instruments to allow for ship-to-planet communications and teleportation, and another to investigate the USS Retribution and search for survivors.”
“If there are any,” McCoy groused, “an impact like that - shit, I’d be surprised if there was anyone left even intact at all.”
Spock inclined his head. The doctor continued to glare at the tabletop, shoulders hunched inward. The bags under his eyes were heavy. The fact that the doctor seemed to have lost hope in their Captain was indeed worrisome. He, too, needed to believe that Jim had survived, despite the odds. He had survived worse, surely this would not be the thing that would bring him down. For perhaps the first time in his life, he refused to believe the logical facts that lay before - he needed emotional confirmation. He needed to see a body in order to believe the worst, yet most rational, to be true.
“I will lead the team to set up communications and transport capabilities,” he announced. “The second team to board the Retribution will need to be comprised of security, medical personnel, and an engineer. McCoy,” the doctor’s eyes flicked up to meet his, the drumming of his fingers finally ceasing, “prepare your department for mass casualties.” He raised his hand to halt the protestations that were doubtlessly about to spill forth, “despite the likelihood of survivors, it would be best to prepare for any outcome.” The doctor slumped back in his chair and nodded. “I will leave Department Heads to select crew members for the party; the rest of you should remain on board the ship. Should anything occur to the landing party, I do not want the entirety of the senior staff compromised. Lieutenant-Commander Scott,” Scotty sat straighter in his seat, “In my absence, Mr. Scott, you will have the Bridge.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
*
The alcove space was empty, he paused, and allowed himself a private moment to calm his thoughts. Jim was missing and that was one difficult emotion he did not want to tarnish their shared space with. He continued past it.
The Chief of Security waited for him at the hangar bay.
"Officers Stenton, Howe, and Wong," he said by way of greeting. The Red Shirts snapped to attention at their name, relaxing into parade rest when Spock nodded at them. He moved to introduce the additional crew that were equipped to search the Retribution’s wreckage.
"Excellent," Spock said, turning towards the young Dr. Clara Ortiz, a promising astrobiologist from his own departmental rotation, cinching up the last of her envirosuit.
"You didn't think I was gonna miss checking out a ghost planet, did you?" she grinned in the face of his raised eyebrow. He struggled to think of a reason for her to stay behind, other than it would have been his preference, so nodded and donned his own landing gear.
He boarded the shuttle and began his pre-flight checks as the rest of the party settled into the seats behind the small cockpit. On his order, all flight deck personnel retreated to the viewing platforms as the shuttle engines roared to life. The noise ripped away to silence as the rear ship hangar door groaned open to the vast emptiness of space. The landing pad rotated and, once aligned, Spock launched the shuttle free of the USS Enterprise and into the darkness.
*
“Let’s get the emergency lights set up right away,” Spock called as he stepped out of the shuttle. “Then, we will set up the communications relay.” The darkness was all-consuming. The fires from the Retribution shone brightly on approach to the planet; however, now on its surface, it was like any signs of destruction had been extinguished. The light from their equipment seemed to reach less than normal into the dark.
He did not wait for an affirmative response before setting out, clicking on his torch and walking a perimeter of the shuttle craft, one hand remaining on its hull.
The sound of his breath was loud inside his helmet. He swept his light out into the darkness - but there was nothing other than the gray dirt and the dark. By the time he made it back around to the craft door, a tripod floodlight had been erected, creating a bright, white-light circle. Dr. Ortiz peered down at a tricorder while Officers Stenton and Wong were knelt next to the communications relay, plugging in wires and confirming settings.
The communicator on his hip chirped - a good sign. He flipped it open. "Commander Spock here.” He allowed himself relief.
“Commander, this is Scotty. We just got a read on your communication signal now, sir.”
“Thank you, Mr. Scott.”
The Recovery Team lit their flashlights, checked over their gear a final time, and strode off into the pressing darkness with a final salute. They disappeared several feet from the emergency light, the sound of their footsteps muffled.
Two more spots of light joined his creating sweeping circles in the darkness as he clipped his communicator back onto his belt.
Spock shone his light upwards - had he not flown the shuttlecraft from the ship to the planet’s surface, he might have been inclined to believe that they were inside a cave system. The light was swallowed entirely by the darkness, disappearing, even the stars hidden from view.
"The atmosphere is oxygen-nitrogen, Commander." Dr. Ortiz's face was illuminated by her tricorder and Spock moved closer to examine the readings. There was little to read and less that made sense. The air around them was indeed breathable without the safety gear, but it was as if they were standing in a pocket of space. Pointing the tricorder at any of the landing party yielded typical results; however, as soon as it was pointed at the space beyond their small circles of light, all readings went flat, like there was nothing.
They all clicked off their EV helmets and set them aside.
“It’s almost as if anything beyond the light doesn’t exist - that’s weird, isn’t it?” Dr.Ortiz looked up at him, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.
“Illogical,” Spock said; though, he had no other way to explain the readings.
“Well, we know that we are here,” Officer Stenton leaned over Dr. Ortiz’s opposite shoulder, peering down at the tricorder readout, “maybe it’s the distance? I can walk that way a bit and you can see if you can still read me.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” the doctor said, “we might be able to understand the interference on the planet and use that to locate any of the survivors from the crash.”
Stenton’s boots struck the ground heavily as he walked, his spot of light separating from the rest of the group like a cell dividing, waving erratically with each casual swing of his arms. The light from his torch illuminated his legs and feet, the rest of him faded into the darkness. Without his light, he would be entirely invisible. He asked, voice steady and confident, “Can you read me still?”
Dr. Ortiz pointed her tricorder at him, the data confirming his presence.
“Loud and proud,” Dr. Ortiz called back, pointing the tricorder right at him. He kept walking.
“There is no interference at all at this distance,” she mused. Spock had not taken his eyes off of Stenton, but turned now to gaze at the readout from the device she held towards him. Indeed, he could see the biosignature from the Officer, the steady thrum of his heart rate, even faint signatures from the materials that made up his EV suit. “Not even the slightest drop. Maybe it’s not distance at all?”
She swung her tricorder away from Stenton, and all readings flatlined like she was pointing at nothing, then back and they spiked up again.
“The tricorder should still read his signatures, even when not pointing directly at him,” Spock mused. It was almost as if the darkness itself was the disturbance.
“Try turning your light off,” he suggested, looking back towards Stenton. He threw a thumbs up, then his torch clicked and he disappeared entirely.
“No, I’m still reading him there,” Dr. Ortiz said, swinging the tricorder away, lifesigns dropping away.
There was rustle in the darkness, a smudge of movement where Stenton had been standing, a gasp of breath, and then silence.
“Did you see that?” Officer Wong wandered closer to Spock, he pointed into the darkness.
“Wait, Stenton, did you move?” Dr. Ortiz swung her tricorder back to his last location, the device no longer registering any lifesigns at all. “Call out, buddy, I’ve lost your signal!”
“Officer Stenton,” Spock called, squinting into the dark, “turn your light back on.”
His order was not followed and Spock frowned. He looked at Dr. Ortiz’s tricorder, which continued to display nothing. She waved it around, searching.
“Officer Stenton, what is your status?” Spock called again.
Rather than the voice he was expecting, Spock’s communicator chirped.
"LP1, come in."
"Spock here," he said, still contemplating the dark, willing Stenton to reappear and rejoin their group. What was he waiting for? He was not accustomed to ill-timed human humour. He glanced at Dr. Ortiz, who was fiddling with the settings on her tricorder, and Officer Wong was worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth aggressively. They were both distressed.
"Commander, we've made it to the Bridge of the Retribution ."
Spock's breath sucked into his chest, cold and terrifying, "Report.” He ducked his head, turning away from the rest of his landing party and gripped the communicator tightly.
"There's a lot of bodies, Commander. It looks like they died on impact."
"And… the Captain?" he held his breath.
"Not present, Commander. His body is not here."
"Check the ready room."
"Already did, sir,” came the crackling reply, “It looks like someone may have gone out the viewscreen. We have taken a sample of the blood here to compare against both ship’s crew manifests."
"What were the results?" Spock forced himself to loosen his grip on his communicator for fear of breaking it.
He turned back towards Dr. Ortiz; Officers Howe and Wong watched him with blatant interest. The doctor chewed on her lip, her tricorder momentarily forgotten in her hands.
“Landing Party Two,” he asked into his communicator, “please respond - do you have the results of the blood test?”
"Commander -" a crackle.
"Landing Party Two. Is the blood Captain Kirk's?”
"Sir - there's something outside the ship - something-"
"The blood, Officer! Is it Jim’s?"
"It's!"
"Landing Party Two!?” There was nothing but static in response to his repeated attempts to reestablish communication. Finally, he switched channels, “ Enterprise, come in."
"Scott here, Commander. I've just lost my readings on the LP2. Are you able to communicate via your short range?"
"Negative, I’ve lost contact as well."
Something cold wrapped its hands around his insides. He turned to where Stenton had been standing and swept his light over the spot.
A large puddle of red, like a pail of paint had been tipped over, was soaking into the gray earth; a single boot lay on its side, the cuff of it frayed like something had chewed it. Spock’s hands shook and he felt his mouth drop open.
“Stenton?!”
A cry echoed like a shot - terrible and pained and unmistakably their Captain. A shiver ran down Spock’s spine and he turned towards the source and peered into the darkness.
= / / \ \ =
Spock did not consider humans to experience any more or less emotions in comparison to a Vulcan; it was all in how these were displayed. Emotions ran deep in Vulcans, so much so that they are often and easily overlooked, out of reach, in favour of logic and reserve. Humans were loud with their feelings. And while often long-lasting and turbulent, they ran more like water down the side of a mountain than like his canyon river, twisting and cutting deeply beneath the surface.
Captain Kirk, he had found, was a man of several veneers the likes of which Spock found uncommon in humans - perhaps with the exception being Captain Christopher Pike. Kirk had a way of being loud on the surface and masterly hiding a more quiet, deep cutting feeling so different than the one her projected it must have been exhausting to maintain such a duality.
It was not often the cracks in his masks opened wide enough to allow the true emotion below to bleed through. And those who noticed were few, far between, and carefully selected.
Spock wondered if he had been bestowed the privilege of the vulnerability beneath by accident.
The first time he had been privy to such a display he had been startled him from a shallow meditation.
He blinked, clearing away the haze of his inner mind, focusing on the stars sliding past the small window like streaks of paint across a black canvas. Something had disturbed him - a wet sounding gasp behind him made him turn around.
The Captain gripped the entrance to the alcove like it was the only thing holding him upright. His mouth was open, drawing air inward faster than he could expel it. His eyes were wild.
Spock stood.
"Captain?"
“Spock, I’m so sorry,” he choked on something, words or emotion, Spock was not sure. He had never seen his Captain look this vulnerable, so far away from the strength he normally exuded while on the Bridge, even in the face of difficulty. “This is just the product of some wild, human emotionality.” He gestured towards his face, “I will find somewhere else to - be.” He made a visible effort to claw back the emotions, to hide them behind the cracking porcelain facade he so carefully built up for everyone else. He had not anticipated Spock’s presence at this time.
The day had been arduous, and the loss of crew members weighed heavily on Spock’s mind as well; he had been meditating to resolve the inner conflict that could threaten to cloud his logic if he left it unchecked. He had known his Captain took such losses upon himself with all the seriousness befitting a starship captain, but this looked like personal grief. Did the Captain have a deeper connection to the officers that lost their lives than Spock had previously been aware?
He mentally scanned back through their records - and his Captain’s - and found no logical connection. Friends, perhaps?
But Spock knew that the Captain mostly kept the company of the ship’s physician, the Chief Engineer, or more recently himself. His friendships were few, and while friendly with all of the crew of the Enterprise , most seemed to be kept at a regulatory arm’s length. Being Captain was a lonely undertaking. It was a recent development that Spock had decided to expand his mere duty as First Officer and avail himself to the Captain on a personal level in order to help shoulder the burden of leadership as a friendly companion.
It was entirely possible that the Captain had connections outside of his knowledge; this thought sat uncomfortably in his gut and he struggled to dismiss it entirely. If he were to discover the answer to this, he would have to ask the question.
“Were you close to Officers Allan and Hughes?”
The Captain blinked at him, his breath still shaking in his chest as the question slowly turned over in his mind. He shook his head, eyebrows drawing together.
“I - no, I was not close with them,” his voice sounded thin, like fabric stretched taut and near tearing. Spock tilted his head.
If he had not been close with the officers, then this visceral reaction failed to make any rational sense to him. He looked his Captain up and down for any further clues that may point to the source of his evident agitation. Was he injured?
Jim laughed once; the sound was without humour, but his expression had melted into something akin to fondness. Spock frowned.
“I was not close to them,” he repeated, voice now nothing more than a whisper, “but their deaths-” he paused, closing his eyes and taking several deep breaths, “every soul on this ship is my responsibility. I failed them. I failed to keep them safe, and now there are two families who will not see their loved ones return home.”
“Ah,” Spock continued to watch his Captain standing in the entrance of their alcove. He wished he would fully enter it and allow his emotions - no matter how illogical - to wash over him in the safety of the hidden space, away from any pairs of potentially prying eyes. He wanted to share this burden, despite not understanding the extent of it.
When the Captain opened his eyes again and found Spock’s, Spock sat slowly back on the bench and patted the space next to him. He had seen others make this gesture, and after a moment, the Captain stumbled fully into the space and sank onto the seat.
He was still reining in his emotions, hands balled into tight fists on his knees and eyes shut again to the world.
“Captain, if I may…?” Spock waited for a response; he received none, so took that as permission to continue. “I may not understand the logic behind the depth of your reaction, but I wish you would not feel the requirement to shield me from it.” The Captain took a measured breath in through his nose and released it out of trembling lips.
Captain Kirk was a rigid pillar of strength that reassured all that, despite the loss to the equilibrium, there would be balance again on the other side of their grief. He was filled with comforting words, a strong hand placed on a shaking shoulder, he was someone to turn to for guidance and hope. He would reach out to the families and friends of those who had lost their lives in the line of their duty and face head-on the crushing wails and emotional demands that came with delivering such devastating news. He did it bravely and unflinchingly. He carried the responsibility on his shoulders and made it look like he did it with ease.
That same man, Spock realized, took on everything that was thrown at him and bottled it up. Now, he was seeing all of that gathered and carried emotion release again. It was unjustifiable and unproductive, but with each gasping sob that filled the space of their alcove, tension seemed to ease. Not sure what to do, he simply sat next to his Captain and listened to him unload his burden. Eventually, Spock found it within himself to place his hand on Jim’s shoulder and he gripped it tightly as he gasped for breath between each wracking sob.
In due course, Jim quieted, the silence punctuated only by sniffles.
“Thank you, Mr. Spock. That was exactly what I needed.”
= \ \ / / =
The pool of blood was almost less concerning than the sound of their Captain's voice that rose out of the dark and echoing landscape. He repeated his rank and station and demanded a response. Any response. Like a cruel twist of a knife, Spock heard Jim call his name out in a desperate wail.
Spock considered responding; he bit it back. The others did not seem to have heard it. Was it merely an illusion? Was it the remnants of some manner of psychic weapon? He needed more information. They had no visual markers with which to follow, there was an unknown enemy in the darkness, their Captain was still missing, though his voice seemed to be calling to them from a distance. They could follow it, but was it actually him or were the creatures that inhabited the planet attempting to lure them away from safety?
They should return to the Enterprise and call off the expedition. Spock grimaced. Four officers presumed dead and one missing in less than 30 minutes of planetfall.
He flipped open his communicator. “Commander Spock to Enterprise .”
“Scotty here, Commander,” came the reply.
“Are you able to register our lifesigns while on the planet?”
“No sir,” Scotty replied, “just the relay you set up and your communicators.”
“Set the ship to Red Alert, Mr. Scott, we appear to be engaged with hostile lifeforms.” Spock rolled his shoulders.
There was a pause and Spock was about to snap the device shut when, “Have you found the Captain yet, sir?”
“Negative.” He responded. “Standby for the return of the Landing Party, Mr. Scott. If you do not hear from me within 6 hours, you are to take the Enterprise to the nearest Starbase and report the Retribution and her crew as lost.”
“Commander-”
“Spock out.”
He clipped the communicator back to his belt and turned to look back to Officer Howe standing at the far end of their circle of light. His face was set into one of grim determination, his eyes glancing back to where Stenton had last stood. He was afraid.
The flash of movement just outside of the circle of his torch's light caught his attention, like a ghostly fish moving through rippling water. He tried to track it, sweeping the light to the side, but he could find no being.
"Did you see that?" He asked. “Officer Stenton?”
Dr. Ortiz moved to stand closer to him, her breathing still ragged with shock and a myriad of other emotions he had no time to decipher. She drew her shoulders back and gathered herself with a shaking breath and peered into the darkness around them.
"No," she said slowly, "I - wait, over there."
Spock turned the light to follow her pointing finger. There was nothing, and he might have sighed, but another flash of movement out of the corner of his eye caused him to swing the light to the other side.
There was a hiss of air, only a few feet from where they stood, like a rustle, though there was no body. The hair on the back of his neck rose.
“I think,” Dr. Ortiz whispered, “I think we are safe in the light.”
“They may be drawn to it,” Spock postulated.
“So whatever is out there is like the boogeyman?” Officer Wong dragged the tripod of the floodlights closer, he settled it in the dirt between them and gripped the stand tightly.
Spock was disinclined to agree to the analogy, but Dr. Ortiz hummed in agreement next to him. He looked back at the strip of darkness that now lay between them and their shuttlecraft.
Jim’s voice carried over to them again, calling out.
“He’s calling for you,” Dr. Ortiz said.
“I suppose it should be reassuring that you are hearing the same thing.” Spock looked to her and she was studying him closely like he was a specimen to be better understood.
“You do not think it’s real?” She asked.
“I am disinclined to take anything at face value on a planet that seems to be entirely composed of secrets.” The likelihood that the distress signal that the USS Retribution had intercepted was false rose to 78.9%. And with the death of Office Stenton, the possibility that he was hearing the real Captain Kirk calling out to them dropped to a measly 3.2%. The only thing that was now keeping the percentage in the positive was the fact that he was not the only one hearing Jim’s voice.
Spock knew the landing party were waiting for orders; what were they going to do?
The potential for more loss of life was high - too high. He was unable to confirm the danger and no facts with which to plan for their safety. He knew the Captain well enough to know that he would not consider his own life worth the risk of so many - including Spock, but he was disinclined to agree with the mental version of his Captain. And the real one. To Spock, Jim was worth every risk.
He had made his decision.
“I am going to follow Captain Kirk’s voice,” he announced. “I will take the floodlight with me as I go. You three will return to the Enterprise .”
He reached for the light, but Officer Wong only gripped it tighter.
“No disrespect, Commander, but I am not going anywhere - I want to help find our Captain.”
“Likewise,” Dr. Ortiz said, “I would like to find out what happened to our crewmates.”
Spock looked between the two and then over to Howe, who shrugged and shuffled a step closer. He said, “Yeah, I guess I wanna stay, too. The Captain would come back for any one of us, we can’t leave without him - even if he is - yanno.”
Spock nodded once.
“Alright,” he digressed. “Then we will move together as a group with the light. We will follow the sound of Captain Kirk until we locate him or the being responsible for his voice.”
= / / \ \ =
Waking to the confines of sickbay had been, in a word, distressing.
Spock had not allowed Dr. McCoy to keep him for very long - his Vulcan physiology had seen to the majority of his recovery while he had been asleep. Still, the bite of the hypospray to his neck still smarted, though he would never give the good doctor the satisfaction of knowing he had caused any kind of discomfort.
That, and he could not stand to stare at the stark ceiling for any longer than absolutely necessary.
The sickbay was home to too many lingering emotions; painful memories that haunted him any time he was present within the bulkheads that made it up.
Their Captain, while courageous, was a danger to himself more often than Spock considered appropriate. He had stood at the foot of his Captain’s bed too many times to be comfortable, uncertain of the prognosis, and waiting to hear of the possible outcomes too many times. He had lain awake, unable to sleep or achieve satisfactory meditation while the fate of their captain hung in the balance too many times. Too many times he found himself nearly emotionally compromised because of one man; too many times surrounded by medical equipment humming and beeping, frenzied medical staff working efficiently to save their leader.
He had not found a resolution to his quandary, and he was forced to face that fact every time he was in that space. He was not certain what to do with the emotions that welled up within him whenever he thought about his Captain motionless and too pale atop the starched sheets of a biobed.
He fled at the first opportunity.
But, he found he did not wish to return to his own quarters to continue his rest and meditation. So, to the alcove he went, hoping to sort out the turbulent emotions that had accosted him the moment he had awoken.
He had not expected to find Jim there, elbows on his knees and head caught between his hands.
He looked up when Spock cleared his throat, announcing his presence. His eyes were red-rimmed and his cheeks blotchy. He stood, shaking out his limbs.
“Spock! I - Bones released you already?”
“Not exactly,” Spock looked to the window.
He declined to elaborate, instead taking up his post on the bench and leaning back against the bulkhead, staring out the window. His back ached; unreasonable, really. Had he stayed in the medbay he could have seen to that and would have been without the discomfort now. Still, the thought of staying there turned something unpleasantly in his gut. And, this way, he tilted his head towards his captain, he could at least have Jim’s company.
He looked distressed.
They had shared several intense emotions within the space of the alcove, so it was not unprecedented to find him here, working through something without the rest of the crew noticing and without the confinement of his quarters. Spock, too, preferred their alcove rather than tarnishing his sleeping space with the tumultuousness of some of his thoughts. Most often in relation to the very man that sat next to him - now was not the time.
He was forced to admit to some curiosity to the source of Jim’s disquiet.
Perhaps he had received unpleasant news while Spock had been unconscious - it had happened before. Spock had been the only one to see Jim work his way through the passing of his grandmother - the news of which had taken him by surprise, both in its sudden delivery and the realization that he still had deep-rooted emotionality tied to anyone back on Earth. Jim had not spoken to any one of his relations in several years, and when he did he wore a mask so tightly Spock thought it was just as much for himself as it was for anyone else that saw him. Jim had convinced himself that he was unfeeling regarding his family, and it had been a revelation to discover that that had not been entirely the case. However, as far as Spock was aware, his mother remained in good health, as well as his young nephew. He contemplated asking what was wrong, but to hear it was to do with anything other than Spock’s recent brush with death made something in his chest ache. That was a selfish feeling, and one he would require to meditate on at a later time.
It would be inappropriate for Jim to have been waiting at his bedside, wringing his hands.
He wondered if the thought to do so had even crossed his captain’s mind…
“I was so worried for you, Spock,” Jim sat next to him, their shoulders nearly touching as he, too, leaned against the bulkhead. “I didn’t want to lose you.”
“One does not generally set out to become captain of a starship with the mindset that losing any crewmember is reasonable, Jim.” Spock repressed a sigh.
Jim shifted next to him, turning his head. Spock could feel his eyes boring into the side of his face and he allowed his captain time to gather whatever words he was struggling to put forth.
“Spock,” Jim said softly. From the corner of his eye, Spock saw one of his hands raise, like he was going to reach out and touch him, but he hesitated, the appendage hanging awkwardly in the air between them before he dropped it back to his lap. “I find the prospect of losing you unreasonable.”
“As I said,” Spock turned to meet his gaze and was unprepared for the passion he found there. Jim searched his face - what he was looking for, Spock could not even begin to hypothesize. He bit down on his bottom lip, worrying it between his teeth in that way he was wont to do.
Jim shook his head, “you specifically,” he reiterated after several moments. “Most of all, I do not want to lose you .”
Spock considered this. The loss of a First Officer would, no doubt, be a distressing ordeal. However, he was confident in the crew of the Enterprise . Should they suffer his unfortunate loss, there were several crewmembers he would feel comfortable stepping into his shoes and taking up the mantle of his role. Perhaps not the dual position he held - he might consider separating the duties of both the Science and First Officers. Further consideration revealed that, perhaps, he should make a notation in his records that he would recommend Dr. Ortiz to replace him in the Science Department, and Lieutenant Sulu would also do exemplary as a First Officer - he was well on his way to captaining his own ship in the future.
“I feel like you are misunderstanding my sentiment,” Jim sighed, facing the window and slumping back into the bulkhead.
“Clarify,” Spock requested.
“I feel like you are thinking about the trouble it would be to fulfill your duties if you were to - you know.” Jim chuckled softly, turning his head again to regard Spock with mirth in his eyes. “Am I right?”
Spock frowned and Jim laughed.
“Oh, Mr. Spock, whatever am I going to do with you?”
= \ \ / / =
The sound of Jim’s voice echoed curiously around the landscape.
Thrice they had to change directions, skirting around steep embankments or outcroppings of stone that appeared out of nowhere as soon as the light fell upon them. The blinking lights of the shuttle had long disappeared behind them, no longer marking the distance they shuffled together, careful to remain within the light.
Officer Wong swung the circle of his torchlight beyond the one they stood in, searching, and Dr. Ortiz continued to scan the areas ahead of them. Several times something had sparked readings, only to die away before either she or Spock could discern what it was the sensors picked up. Spock wondered at the accuracy of the device; he was forced to consider it to be malfunctioning, and he regretted not bringing more than one along on their journey. In theory, it had passed Quality Control testing before being assigned for active duty; but still, human error could not be discounted.
He felt a shiver curl up the base of his skull like a tendril of smoke. A telepathic attack.
His own shields would hold, but the rest of the party were susceptible. Dr. Ortiz was closest and he ripped off a glove with his teeth, diving for her, scrambling to connect skin to skin before the attack came, desperate to shield her as well as himself. Officer Wong reached for them, likely hoping to prevent their fall, clasping hands with Dr. Ortiz at the last possible moment.
It slammed into him like a shuttle at warp.
He struggled to maintain a wall that covered not only his mind, but the doctor and Officer Wong gripping her other hand as well. Dimly, he was aware of both of their consciousnesses, startled and confused as to what was happening. They froze on the ground, backs arched as something tried to claw into their minds. Spock felt himself scream, but he could not hear it over the roar of blood in his ears.
Then, just as suddenly as it had come over them, the presence drew away again.
Spock released Dr. Ortiz, who scrambled away from him, clawing at the ground in her desperation, she emptied the contents of her stomach with a gruesome splash just outside of the circle of light. Officer Wong sat up, rubbing his forehead; he watched the doctor.
“What was that!?” Officer Howe cried. He tore at his hair, his eyes wide, the whites of them flashed in the torchlight. “They need us!”
“Officer Howe, calm yourself!” Spock struggled to his feet; his limbs felt weak, the ground tilted like the planet was trying to tip him off of it. He staggered and dropped to one knee before regaining his balance.
"Captain Kirk!" Spock looked up in time to see Officer Howe’s torch fall from his hands as he tore off into the black. Spock had just enough time to turn his own beam of light onto his red back before he was lost to the darkness and, like a ship on autopilot, he lurched after him.
"Officer Howe," he called, "you must stop running!" The red shirt in front of him dodged in and out of the beam of light keeping him in sight. He zig-zagged around boulders he could not have possibly known were there, yet he avoided them with expert precision. "We must stay together!" He could hear Dr. Ortiz and Wong following them, calling out for both of them to stop, to wait.
Spock ran.
He could hear Jim’s voice in the wind, crying for help with notes of desperation. Please be real!
He reached for the red shirt in front of him, breath pounding. His fingertips grazed the fabric and then he saw the flashes of movement.
Spock slowed his pace and stopped just as Howe skidded to a halt in front of him by several spaces. He was also panting and Spock could see his breaths like small puffs of smoke in the frigid air.
Dr. Ortiz and Wong, like a clattering shuttle, drew up next to Spock. Wong dropped the stand light between them encircling the three of them in white like a bath; the air warmed noticeably. Spock kept his eyes on Howe, not much more than an illuminated pair of feet caught in the beam from Spock’s torch.
Flashes of faint light, like smudges, circled around them. Too fast to see, but like specters circling a drain, they closed in closer and closer.
Howe's feet turned towards them.
"You must make it into the light!" Spock reached and relief washed over him when an answering hand clasped firmly between his fingers. He hauled Howe towards their group and watched his face, now clear of the madness that had overtaken them, stepped closer to their circle.
"Thank you," he gasped, and Spock could feel through his skin the crazed determination that had coursed through his veins a moment ago drain away, replaced by growing uncertainty and fear.
The smudges drew closer, the air disturbed by their silent movement.
"I'm not sure-" Howe's face contorted.
Still gripping Spock's hand, there was a terrible yank back towards the darkness.
"Howe!" Spock watched in horror as their connection was severed and Howe fell to the ground. He scrabbled at the gray earth in their circle of light, desperate for purchase as he was dragged back by some unseen force of the dark.
His eyes, wide and wild like an animal caught in a terrible trap, looked up and met Spock's one last time as he was dragged back. His fingers dug trenches into the earth, and he was swallowed up with a sickening squelch that echoed worse than a phaserfire in Spock's ears.
= / / \ \ =
Spock could not remember the last time he had felt genuinely happy; he allowed the emotion to pass through him unchallenged and enjoyed it, fleetingly, before swallowing it down (Vulcans cannot lie, he quietly reminded himself and, quieter still, calculated the time since he last felt happiness as 15.4 days ago - when Jim had finally achieved a win against Spock at 3D chess in his quarters).
Jim’s laugh filled their alcove as he recounted a particularly amusing moment with an ensign that had occurred during the day’s excursion to the planet’s surface. Spock was not able to follow the story - Jim was talking too quickly, tripping over his words, sentences punctuated by wheezing laughter; the corners of his eyes were wet with mirth. Spock found it did not matter that he was not sure exactly where the story fell off the rails - he was sharing in his captain’s euphoria regardless.
The moment was quickly overshadowed by another consideration; one that had him freeze in panic.
He wanted to kiss Jim.
It took the entirety of his concentration to banish the inclination. He felt the smile that had curled at the corners of his mouth, one that Jim had not yet noticed, fall away. He clasped his hands together in his lap and tore his attention away from his captain, his superior officer , and refocused on the stars outside the small window. He ignored the very small, very human part of his mind that whispered that this space was different. There were no roles here - no captain and no commander, they checked those roles at the threshold. Here, they were simply men sharing in the experiences of living on a starship together, exploring space. At least, that is how he privately considered the zone to be.
This is where they met in order to unpack difficult emotions from missions that had gone awry, or share in the joy of moments that would be inappropriate for a commanding officer to openly take delight in. Here, he was free to openly gaze at Jim and allow wonder to fill him up until he was bursting with feelings he didn’t understand and had no idea how to unravel.
This was not the first time the thought had crossed his mind; the idea of kissing Jim crawled into his consciousness for the first time one evening over chess. Once there, it dug in, took root, and grew, there in the dark spaces at the back of his mind. Spock had attempted to neglect the thought, shut it out, starve it of attention and hopefully kill it, but it flourished anyway.
Jim rubbed at his mouth with his hand, peering down at the chessboard with such a determined concentration, like he had even a remote chance of turning the game around and winning. He did not, but Spock felt disinclined to point this out and have his Captain turn a disappointed expression onto him. He much preferred the contented silence that had settled and was not about to disrupt it.
He could have won the game three moves previous, but he deigned to draw out its length and continue to enjoy the Captain’s company.
This way, he could observe the Captain's mouth and all the ways it twisted and turned into emotional expression without interruption or impeding his work on the Bridge. Small treats, he reasoned, were logical and motivational. He found his efficiency increased by 8.3% when he allowed himself these indulgences - such as appreciating the aesthetic beauty of Jim's lips.
He wondered what they would feel like against his own.
Before his Captain could take note of the flush rising up in his cheeks, impervious to his control, he ended the game in a single, ruthless move.
"Goodness, Mr. Spock…" the chair creaked as Jim sat forward, looking at the board as his face melted into confused awe. "Had you been planning that move all along? I've never seen you play so…" Spock raised an eyebrow as he moved to stand and depart. "I mean," Jim faltered, "that came out of left field. I thought for sure you were going to take the game a while ago, but then you… and now… Well, regardless, good game, Mr. Spock. Your win is truly deserved." He stood, smiling, "I look forward to our next match."
"As do I," he inclined his head, "goodnight, Captain."
He retreated and did not look again at that mouth, pulled into a shaking smile.
“-Sulu tried to pull her out,” Jim wheezed, pulling Spock from his reverie, “but only ended up falling in himself and - hey, are you alright?”
Spock blinked at the window; his heart hammered in his side and he dared not look over to the man next to him.
“Spock?” Jim leaned forward on the bench, straining to enter Spock’s line of sight. Spock closed his eyes.
“I am perfectly well, Jim,” he lied.
“Okay… did you not like my story?” He heard Jim’s knuckles crack - a nervous habit.
“It was amusing,” he said, “although I must admit I am not entirely certain what exactly occurred.”
“Oh, well, nothing… important.” The tone of Jim’s voice was the exact opposite of what it had been only moments before - Spock had done that.
Guilt coursed through him and he forced his eyes open, to turn and look at Jim.
“I am not distressed by your story, Jim,” he tried. He was not yet fully in control of his emotions, but he could not allow for Jim to feel hurt because Spock was experiencing romantic impulses. “Another thought simply occurred to me.”
“Oh?” Jim leaned forward again, tangible unease melting into concern. Spock wished he would continue his tale and resume his laughter. “What’s wrong?”
“It is of no consequence,” Spock could not think of anything to say that would redirect the conversation back to where it had started.
“Spock,” Jim was a stubborn man, “this is our space,” he said, “you can tell me anything here.”
Only that was not true in this moment. Spock bit down on his tongue to prevent the words from tumbling out in the face of such sincerity. He shook his head, and Jim slumped forward.
“Alright,” he said, “so long as you are certain it’s nothing…?” Spock continued to be silent and Jim sighed, stretching all his limbs like a cat waking from a long nap and stood. “Well, I better show my face on the Bridge before they start to wonder where I am.” A warm hand dropped to Spock’s shoulder. “I’ll see you later.”
= \ \ / / =
"What do you think happened to the Captain?" Dr. Ortiz's voice was startling over the sound of the gravel crunching beneath their feet.
"The ship he was on crashed into the planet," Spock stated.
"I mean… do you think he's okay?"
Spock stopped walking to turn to her. Her face glowed like some horrible disembodied thing under the lights of her raised tricorder, the rest of her body nothing more than flashes of green and amber, signs of the readouts from her life support and gravity sensors on her suit.
"I do not speculate, doctor," he said, "and as I have no facts there is no data with which to form any hypothesis." The screams echoed again, their source indistinguishable as they ricocheted through a shallow canyon they had traversed.
"I'm worried about him too," he watched her throat bob and her eyes flicked up, gazing at the dark overhead.
The specters swirled.
"Stop!" Spock called.
Dr. Ortiz came to an immediate stop beside him, and he heard Wong stake the floodlight into the ground behind them.
Dr. Ortiz held up her tricorder, chasing the swirling smudges that circled them like leaves caught in an eddy.
"I feel like there's something-" she huffed in frustration, "if only one of them would stay still long enough for me to get a reading."
With a clear mind Spock considered he may be able to calculate their movements and suggest a path to follow to achieve the same result. He shook his hair out of his eyes, watching several ghosts as they slipped by in a seemingly random pattern. Frustration mounted within him, calculations sliding though his mind with solutions just out of reach.
Jim's voice called out.
Over the last 58.1 minutes the sound had grown nearer as they walked, but his voice was losing its urgency.
Jim was running out of energy - or hope.
“Here,” Officer Wong was saying; Spock blinked, refocusing. “What if I can lure one closer - do you think you could get a reading?”
“Maybe,” Dr. Ortiz mused.
Officer Wong stuck his hand out, beyond the reach of the light, waving it. The smudges shifted, the air around them hissed, and a chill skittered down Spock’s spine.
One of the beings beyond their sight did indeed draw closer, reaching out for Wong’s hand with smoke-like tendrils of fingers; it was horrifying, the tips of them rising like steam into the air as they came into the light, all but disappearing.
“I’m getting something!” Dr. Ortiz sounded triumphant; Spock could not look away from the collision of anomaly and Wong’s shaking hand.
“It feels… cold,” he mused. “Like water.”
“Just a second more… Commander, take a look at these readings. It’s almost like-”
With a shout, Wong snatched his hand back, cradling it to his chest. Something terrible followed him into the light, wrapping around his forearm and pulling him back into the shadows. He fought against it, but was yanked off balance, tripping out of their safety and into the darkness.
Spock heard the crunch of bones and Wong’s screams died.
He shared a look with Dr. Oritz. “Do not turn off the lights.”
Spock inched towards where Wong had disappeared the gravel torn into deep gouges filling with blood and creeping shadows that sizzled as light touched it. The press of the gravel under his footsteps seemed to thud as much as his heartbeat.
“Dr. Ortiz, bring your tricorder.” His voice was met with silence. “Dr. Ortiz?” He spun. Her light, cracked and extinguished, wobbled on the ground, the tricorder blinking blindly into the void. Spock swallowed hard.
Nothing but her shoes remained.
= / / \ \ =
Spock had not considered love .
He felt a little ridiculous at the realization of it. He blinked several times, staring at Jim quietly sitting next to him in their alcove.
He had heard several humans, including his mother, describe love as a sensation that started in one’s stomach by the presence of fluttering . He could not attest to having ever experienced a flutter in his gut, but the idea of it sounded less thrilling and wonderful than it was described. The next symptom he lacked was sweating palms and a pounding of one’s heart whenever the object of their affection entered their physical space. Spock was very aware of Jim, especially when near, but neither of these two reactions occurred.
His mother had described in detail the euphoria she experienced when she first fell in love with his father; she talked of sleepless nights worrying whether or not her affections were returned. This seemed like an illogical waste of energy, but she spoke of such times with such a soft, wistful expression he did not have the heart to tell her as much. By keeping his silence, he learned that love made one overly-emotional and prone to daydreams - such as imagining a future together. In fact, she admitted that the majority of her thoughts were consumed by his father, especially early on in their acquaintance.
Spock had not experienced a change in his sleeping or meditation, and he was not experiencing any more or less emotions than normal. Additionally, outside of professional considerations he had not spent an abundance of time considering his and Jim’s future - together or apart. Certainly, he would prefer to remain close to his captain, but he did not succumb to such fanciful ideations of them exploring space together until the end of their lives.
The only thing that he did experience from these descriptions of love was the frequency in which Jim occupied his mind. This, he reasoned, was purely due to the fact that Jim was his superior officer. He saw him every day and they spent many of their off-duty hours together. It was hard not to think of someone when they were standing right beside them.
Instead, the potential for love occurred to him when he realized that Jim was somebody that Spock would do almost anything for; he would follow Jim to the ends of the galaxy - indeed, he already had. There were several people in his life he would categorize similarly, so what made Jim unique was the additional desire to kiss him.
There was nobody else that he considered performing such an act with.
Logically, this must translate to love. And, he thought, if this was too strong of an emotion to pin to the whirlwind of thoughts that were happening in his head, then he must at least be love adjacent.
= \ \ / / =
The floodlights felt like it was growing heavier with each step.
He had not seen any flashes of movement, nor felt the tingle of another mind's presence clawing to get into his own in quite some time. Similarly, and more concerning, Jim had stopped calling out; the last time he had heard his voice was approximately 38.4 minutes ago. He traveled blindly, uncertain if he was still going in the correct direction. Either Jim had grown too exhausted to continue making any noise (he allowed himself the lie that there were no other possibilities for his silence), or he had somehow wandered off the trail and was too far to hear him.
How long should he wander?
He reached for his communicator, snapping it open.
"Commander Spock to Enterprise , come in Enterprise ."
Static.
He must have gone too far away from their relay to maintain contact with the ship. His eyes burned from the strain of the dark. He might have been persuaded to admit that his feet were sore, even. The weight of his EV suit felt nearly unbearable.
He paused, planting the floodlight firmly into the ground next to him. He dropped his landing gear pack and began to strip out of the EV. He unzipped the outer layer, stepping out of the heavy fire-retardant fabric, hosing, and electronic sensors. He peeled off the shining thermal layer, leaving him in only just regulation blacks and boots. He shook out his hands and ran his fingers through his hair, now sticky with sweat.
The air pebbled his skin, the chill leaving misty breaths hanging like white clouds in the lamplight.
What if he could not find Jim? What if the beings in the shadows had him, had taken him like they had taken Stenton, Howe, and Wong? What if he had been snatched up like Dr. Ortiz? What if he would be unable to rescue his captain?
His ragged breathing was loud in his own ears; the pounding of his heart in his side felt like disrupter fire.
He squared his shoulders, took up the floodlight in one hand, and aimed his torch with the other. He would press on. He had not yet decided how much further he would search - perhaps until his own energy had failed. He had only 2.6 hours remaining until the Enterprise had been ordered to leave the planet’s orbit. But, he was determined not to leave until he knew for certain the fate that had befallen his captain; his friend…
The floodlight flickered.
Spock stared at it.
It flickered again.
Regulation said it had 72 hours of life before recharge was necessary. “No, no, no. Do not do this now!”
He shook the lamp as it made a valiant effort to cling to life.
It went dark.
A shiver ran up the back of his neck, like cold fingers brushing his skin.
He slammed his shields in place, but not before the cold tendrils of another presence gripped his mind like a vice. He pushed back.
With great concentration, Spock forced himself to move; he clicked off his torch. If they were drawn to the light, perhaps he could move unseen without it.
The hissing gasp in the air as everything went dark felt like a hot breath just behind his ears. He could not stay in one spot.
Blindly, he moved towards the direction that he thought Jim’s voice had last come from, hands outstretched.
His heaving breaths would go unnoticed so long as he remained in the dark. But, in the darkness, he could feel their fingers reaching for him, brushing at the back of his ankles, snapping at the hem of his pants, something like fingertips touching him between his shoulder blades - he was only just out of reach.
Bending his head forward, he pushed on, willing more energy, more power to go into his legs, to carry him faster than the things that chased him in the dark.
He stumbled, his ankle twisting painfully on loose gravel; he ignored the lance of white-hot pain that shot up his leg like he felt nothing at all. He could not spare the mental energy to block the pain entirely; the adrenaline numbed it.
He heard the echo of his footsteps off a large obstacle just in time to pull up before he ran face-first into it. He reached out with shaking hands and felt along the face of a large rock or wall; right or left?
He ducked to the left, keeping one hand along the face of it as he ran. His fingers burned, the texture of the stone tearing his skin open. He could feel the slow ooze of blood, dust and fine debris catching in the wounds and stemming the flow.
Desperately, he called out.
“Jim!”
The rockface beneath his fingers gave way to nothingness and he stumbled, crashing to his knees.
“ Jim !?”
He struggled to get back to his feet; he could feel the incoming rush of air behind him, hear the too-near hiss of movement. His ankle burned and he stumbled upward, leaping forward and back into a run.
“James, can you hear me?”
The brush of cold fingers at his ankles made his spine shudder. He willed himself to speed up, to run faster.
“James!” He could not let the creatures catch him!
Then, somewhere in the distance to his right, he heard it: a shuffle of fabric, a scratch of fingers through dirt; a groan.
“ Spock ?”
He tore off in the direction of the sound.
“Keep talking James!” Spock urged; his voice was strained and wheezing. Was he speaking loud enough? He could not tell over the roar of blood in his ears. His lungs were burning up.
“Spock-” the distant voice was choked off by a cough.
He was so close!
And then, the sensation at his back eased off and he slowed his thundering steps.
Spock dropped to his knees.
He did not take the time to analyze it, but he knew, somehow instinctively, that if he were to reach out he would find his Captain, Jim. And he did.
The first brush of fingers against familiar velour was wet and sticky. The tang of iron almost seemed to fill his mouth when he gasped, tracing his hands up. He had never touched his Captain like this before, but the feel of the jaw beneath his fingertips was familiar. He traced Jim’s face, feeling the curve of his cheek, the shape of his temple, his nose. His mouth was slack, but Spock could feel shallow breaths. He was already emotionally compromised so he allowed the sudden swelling of emotions to rise up unrestrained, unchecked; warring between each other was a wave of relief followed quickly by dismay. Jim’s injuries were great.
“I’ve found you.”
A cool hand covered his over Jim’s face.
“Spock - is - how are you here right now?” Jim rasped.
“We do not have time, I need to get you away from here. Can you stand?”
There was no answer; Spock waited only 4.8 seconds before he reached forward and gathered his captain into his arms.
The strain of standing under additional weight made him stagger forward. His ankle felt hot, the searing pain reaching further up his leg; he could no longer feel his toes inside his boot.
Jim’s body was slack in his arms and he hoisted him over one shoulder. He turned in the darkness and began running the way he had come.
Logically, he thought, he may be running straight into the creatures that had chased him. He had no other way to go - if he could make it close enough to the relay, he may be able to have them both beamed back aboard the Enterprise .
Or they would both be lost.
He gripped Jim tighter, drawing comfort and strength from the warmth still in his limbs. His heart was beating steadily, albeit sluggish. But he was alive.
He ran and he passed through air so cold it froze in his lungs.
Something like fingers clawed at his back and he howled; the tear of his uniform was unfathomably loud. The tingle at the back of his neck threatened to white out his vision and he bolstered his mental shields, grinding his teeth together. His fingers were slick with Jim’s blood and he held him tighter, afraid he would slip free from his grasp and be lost to the creatures that clawed at him, willing him to slow down and give up.
He ran on, counting footsteps and changing directions where he recalled there to be obstacles. He shifted Jim in his grasp, reaching with one hand for his communicator. He flipped it open and called out for the Enterprise .
At first, there was not even static as a response. He continued calling as he ran.
How much further? Would he make it?
The frigid air swirled about his feet, the hiss of a breath on the back of his neck igniting a full-body shudder.
“ Enterprise !” He shouted into the communicator. “Come in!”
His foot caught on something, sending him and Jim careening into the earth. They were a tangle of limbs in the dirt. Spock held tight to the communicator, even as the breath was sucked out of his lungs and the back of his head cracked on the ground with enough force it felt like his teeth rattled.
He felt the swirling air loom over them.
And then, static.
“ Enterprise !” Spock wheezed.
“Sco- he-, -ock!”
“Beam us up, Scotty! Now! Beam us now !” Never before had he yelled with such desperation. His voice cracking under the force with which he pleaded into his communicator to be heard. “Now, Mr. Scott, now!” His words were falling silent by the end, and still he tried, nothing more than a hoarse croak. “Two to beam up!”
Ghostly fingers grabbed hold of one shoulder, digging in like daggers. He would have cried out, but nothing more than a rush of air slipped past his lips. He pulled Jim’s limp body closer.
Then-
The air swirled golden; the light blinded him and he squeezed his eyes shut.
= / / \ \ =
It was the anger rolling through him that caused him the most distress.
A Vulcan should not experience such widely, untenable emotions. Or, at the very least, should not allow such feelings to fuel one's actions.
Thankfully, he had had enough control left in him to remain at his post in a rigid parade rest until the Captain had dismissed him, jaw clenched and teeth grinding together.
He saw Uhura attempt to catch his eye as he swept off the Bridge, but he shrugged off her concern with a firm shake of his head. He slammed the palm of his hand into the wall of the turbolift the moment the doors had slid shut behind him.
He went first to his quarters, but the hot air which he normally found to be a comfort felt restricting. He paced the length of the room several times, shaking out his hands at his sides in an effort to lose some of the energy crawling under his skin. He would be unable to meditate in such a state, but he was not certain what to do in order to calm himself.
He needed to reorganize his mind and, he realized, the ability to do so was not found amongst his possessions.
He considered the alcove; for the first time, he paused. There was the very real possibility that Jim would find him there. He did not wish to be found just yet.
He sat heavily on the edge of his bed without his usual Vulcan grace. His only comfort was that there was no one here to witness such a lapse in control.
Where could he go, then, if not to the alcove? He closed his eyes and imagined himself crossing the threshold and tucking himself out of view. The space had an immediate, soothing effect. He forced his shoulders to relax, like they would if he were there in reality. In his mind, he gazed out the window to the stars; they did not mock him like the ones from the forwarder lounge. Such a notion was highly illogical, he knew, they were the same stars… yet the smaller glimpse of them from the small space made them much easier to face.
"I am a fool," he told the room.
He often disagreed with the Captain’s unique methodology. Never before had he experienced such a visceral reaction at the prospect of Jim putting himself into deliberate danger.
Could he not understand how foolhardy it was? A starship needed her captain - he was not expendable. Yet, time and again Jim acted in such a way that was a direct contradiction of that fact. He relied on his team to fill his shoes in his absence so much so that he was no longer the most important person on board. Yes, he could be a pale imitation, or even Mr. Scott or Sulu, but none of them could hope to even come close to filling the empty space Jim would create by his absence, even temporarily.
Who else would Spock spend his evenings with? Who else would he share his thoughts with, his joy, would lend strength in his pain? There was no one else he had considered sharing the alcove with - only Jim.
If Jim were to board the USS Retribution , there was the very real possibility that he would not return again.
Was there a disease on board? Mutiny? Was it all an elaborate trap to lure the Federation’s Flagship to its demise? It would not be the first time.
He could not sway his captain to follow protocol and contact Starfleet command to dispatch authorities to investigate the Retribution - at such a distance from the nearest Starbase, such an action would delay their own course by several days simply waiting for a response. There was also the matter that they may employ the Enterprise to proceed with an investigation. And Jim would argue that they may as well skip the waiting and move on to the action…
= / / \ \ =
McCoy had dismissed Spock from sickbay.
He had not yet seen Jim; he was not certain how long he had been unconscious for and the good doctor was tight-lipped regarding the nature of their captain’s injuries.
Spock found him, of course, in their alcove.
The bags beneath Jim's eyes were dark and heavy; the sparkle Spock had been so accustomed to seeing was diminished and replaced something terrible: hopelessness, dismay. He was still wearing a hospital gown, bandaged tightly around his abdomen and arms. He did not look up as Spock entered, crutch beneath one arm and hobbling too awkwardly to move in his usual silence. Jim shifted his weight, making space on their bench. Spock sat.
He did not say anything, but offered his hand, palm up and fingers splayed.
Jim slid his hand into Spock's without hesitation. His head fell to the side to rest on Spock's shoulder a moment later. With their fingers laced together, Spock could feel the turbulence of Jim's thoughts. His own were just as lost and disorganized.
Jim’s voice was barely a whispered rasp, “Thank you.”
The stars outside of the small window twinkled merrily.
*
The transporter console cast the room in a soft, ambient glow; now empty. There, unseen by any of the crew members, dark shadows stretched across the floor and up the walls like a maw swallowing up the room. A flash of movement curled away from any light, hissing.
It waited.
Fin