Work Text:
“Here you go, sir,” the young man said, handing him a PADD.
“Thank you, Yeoman…?”
“Thompson, sir.”
Kirk nodded with a quick smile, crossed his legs, and flipped through the report on the PADD. Routine requisitions all. Replicator parts, components for a new gravimetric scanner, self-sealing—
The bridge blew to pieces in a concussive roar of shearing metal and displaced atmosphere and flying debris and the brilliant flare of shorting circuits.
Klaxons pealed. Smoke billowed across the bridge. Consoles sparked and erupted in flame. The viewscreen was gone, just gone, but Kirk could see the stars, because behind the emergency forcefield that had snapped into place was empty space.
Uhura was staggering toward her station, her hairline bloodied. Sulu was on the deck, groaning. Those were Chekov’s feet, sticking out from beneath the console, twitching slowly. Yeoman Thompson was on his back, eyes wide open, half his skull missing.
Voices were crying out, muted in his ears as if through water. Kirk gasped, where he was folded over the railing, where the force of the blast had propelled him as if from a cannon from the Captain’s chair. Pain sparked and skittered across his side with each breath. His vision dimmed, and swam into focus again. His crew. His ship. He pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the agony that flared through his ribs, the tang of iron in the back of his throat.
“Status report!”
It was Spock who answered him. “Hull breaches on Decks 4 through 16—severe damage throughout the ship—report coming in from Sickbay now, Doctor McCoy to organize search and rescue from Deck 14—Nurse Chapel en route to the bridge as we speak.”
Spock was still at his station, or back at it, peering through his viewer. His face was illuminated starkly by the sparks showering from his console. But he was alive. He was on his feet. A relief Kirk could hardly name flooded through him. He tried to make sense of the words Spock had just said.
Twelve decks, torn open, just like that. The stars shone bright through the wound in his ship. The forcefield twitched and shuddered, the emitters straining against the vacuum, or damaged by the blast. Fire raced up Kirk’s chest. The smoky, battered, bridge dimmed again.
“Captain. Jim. Jim. Are you alright?” Spock’s hand was on his arm. Kirk couldn’t remember Spock crossing the distance between them, from his console to the railing.
“I’m fine,” Kirk said. “Who did this? Can we fight them? Are they coming back to finish the job?”
The Enterprise had been cruising at an easy Warp 2. There had been no ships in sensor range. No cloaked vessels had revealed themselves to fire. An unknown life form, perhaps. Advanced weaponry. Sabotage.
“No one attacked us, Captain,” Spock said.
Kirk blinked. Shook his head. The pain in his side was climbing, stealing his breath. “What?”
“The Bains system was the site of an interplanetary war approximately one thousand Earth years ago,” Spock said. “Neither civilization survives. We were unlucky, Jim. Our sensors failed to detect the explosive until it was too late. Like the land mines of old Earth. Left behind. Forgotten.”
“No,” Kirk breathed.
Spock’s expression remained stony, but Kirk could see the depths horror unfolding, too, behind the rigid lines of his face. “The chances of our encountering any such device were sixteen thousand, eight hundred and fifty-two to one.”
Kirk pulled away from Spock’s grip, his heart pounding in his throat. He dragged in a steadying breath and pain sparked hot across his ribcage. “Casualties?”
“Unknown as yet. Conservatively, perhaps a hundred injured or dead. Several ships’ systems took damage as well, including ship-to-ship communications.”
Translation: they were on their own.
Kirk wanted none of the understanding behind those dark eyes, nor any of the sympathy on Spock’s face. A hundred injured or dead—and for what? For what?
Anger coursed through him suddenly. “I want all available personnel assigned to search and rescue or to repairs of critical systems. We need ship-to-ship communications restored. We need—help.”
Spock hesitated, long enough that Kirk’s gut clenched again. “What? What is it?”
“There is another matter that requires your attention,” Spock said.
“Explain.”
“Given the extent of the hull damage,” Spock said carefully, “even if crews effect all possible repairs, the breach containment fields will fail in approximately four-point-zero-two hours. When this occurs, there is a seventy-four-point-four percent chance that cascading structural failures will result throughout the ship’s systems—including the matter/antimatter reactors.”
“You mean,” Kirk said, glancing up at the thin layer of energy crackling and stuttering above them, the stars twinkling in the vacuum beyond it, “these forcefields are going to fail in four hours, and when they do—there’s a very good chance they’ll take the Enterprise with them.”
“Precisely,” Spock said. “I must therefore recommend a full evacuation of the crew.”
The bridge fuzzed out again. Kirk was vaguely aware he was still on his feet, one hand gripping the railing, the other wrapped around the fire in his side, but his mind was tumbling in space.
“Jim,” Spock was saying. His hand was on Kirk’s shoulder again. Grounding him. “Nurse Chapel should arrive shortly. I believe it would be prudent if she examined you.”
“I’m fine, Spock,” Kirk snapped, pulling away. He couldn’t allow himself to lean into Spock’s grip. The luxury of crumbling under Spock’s touch, his care, his concern, not now—not ever.
Kirk had long since accepted that what he wanted from Spock was impossible. There were a million things he could have in this galaxy and a million he couldn’t have. What he felt about Spock—what he felt about any of it—didn’t matter at all.
“We evacuate,” Kirk said. “This system was inhabited once—I want a survey of suitable planets in range. Meanwhile, I need those search and rescue and communications assignments, and I need Engineering working to give us every second of those four hours of breach containment.”
The turbolift doors hissed open. Nurse Chapel and a team of orderlies dispersed across the bridge with medical tricorders and triage equipment. Kirk stared as they worked. Twelve decks of this. Many hit harder, no doubt, than the bridge had been.
“Consider it done,” Spock said. “Captain. Are you certain you’re alright?”
The pain in his side was savage, flaring with every breath, every shift of his torso. His ribs were broken, that much was clear. But he was still standing, and there was work to be done. The desire to sit, to rest, to give in, while Spock took over, even for a moment—impossible. This was his responsibility. His ship. His crew. His disaster to oversee.
“Bruised, is all, Mr. Spock,” he said lightly. “A suitable planet. I want it in half an hour.”
Spock nodded, though Kirk didn’t miss the way his lips pressed together in silent disapproval. “Where will you be, Captain?”
“Deck 14,” Kirk said. “Bones will no doubt need all the help he can get.”
Spock’s answering gaze was soft. Understanding. It was, all of a sudden, more than Kirk could bear. He spun on his heel, leaving Spock and the smoke-filled bridge behind. As the doors closed, he caught a final glimpse of Spock’s slim form silhouetted against the stars, his worried gaze following Kirk out.
—
Kirk found Bones elbow deep in carnage.
The worst damage was belowdecks, where great swaths of the outer and inner hulls had been blown to pieces, the explosion reverberating far into the skeleton of the ship. As on the bridge, emergency forcefields had snapped into place to contain the atmosphere, but entire sections of the ship had been reduced to rubble or sheared away. Kirk stared out at the stars, twinkling at him across a shadowy jungle of scorched bulkheads and crumbled debris, thick metal struts exposed like the ribcage of some great beached leviathan. The air reeked of chemicals and was thick with smoke, the expanse of rubble flickering with flame the automatic systems hadn’t been able to suppress. Cries of pain and distress sounded from within.
Kirk forced himself to face Bones again, turning his back to the gaping wound in his ship.
“Well, you’re right about one thing, Jim,” Bones said grimly. “I could use all the help I can get.”
In the short time since the explosion, Bones had been hard at work, organizing medical and security personnel into search and rescue teams and impromptu triage centers. Already two dozen crew members lay on cots and stretchers in various states of injury, some dead to the world, others convulsing or groaning in pain. Sickbay had been hit too, Bones had told him in low tones, but it hardly mattered. Better to pull as many from the rubble as they could and focus on keeping them alive until a temporary infirmary could be erected at the evacuation site. It still made Kirk’s head spin to think about it. The Enterprise, no longer the safest port in any storm.
“Tell me what I can do,” was all he said.
Not much, was the answer, absent the specialized medical or communications or engineering skills needed to help the wounded, maintain the forcefields, or call for help. So Bones sent him into the rubble to dig.
Alongside medical and security personnel in blue and red, Kirk worked mechanically, in accordance with his long-ago disaster relief training: locate first the walking wounded or others visible amid the rubble and deliver them to Bones. Then scan with a tricorder for life signs or searchable voids within the collapsed decks and bulkheads, remove the debris by hand if necessary, and check for those whose life signs might be obscured by the rubble.
It was physically demanding work, made no easier by the pain shearing through his ribs with every breath. Didn’t matter. These were his crew members trapped under the debris, crying out for help, some in agony, some dying, too many already gone.
Spock’s voice startled him. Kirk had been tugging at a slab of bulkhead, behind which the tricorder registered a deep cavity and potential life signs. It had been science lab. A day ago, Kirk had signed off on the alpha shift science team’s request to present their work at the Vulcan Science Academy. They’d been celebrating. Two of them, the leaders of the project, had already been found dead, as twisted and burned as the bulkheads.
“Captain,” Spock said again. “Jim.”
Kirk shook his head. “Spock, I’ve got to…”
Spock pulled the broken bulkhead aside with ease. Kirk crawled into the cavity behind it, tricorder whirring, and found nothing. The life signs, mere sensor echoes. As he emerged, climbing to his feet, Spock caught him by the shoulder. Even in the flickering of distant flames, the expression on his handsome, angular face was soft.
“Jim.”
“What is it?” Kirk said, frustrated at the interruption, before he remembered. “Report. Evacuation procedures. Have you found a suitable planet?”
Spock’s hand was still on his shoulder. His thumb moved slightly, almost a caress, along Kirk’s collarbone. His gaze was still sympathetic, and increasingly worried. Kirk wanted none of it.
“Report, Mr. Spock.”
Spock cleared his throat. “Bains II is a Type L planet that has been uninhabited since the interplanetary war. There is a band around the equator where the climate is acceptable—if not ideal—to establish a temporary camp. Lieutenant Uhura is confident that if we transport down the appropriate equipment, she will be able to establish outgoing communications from such an outpost within the week. Recommend we begin evacuation procedures immediately.”
They were alone, in the smoke and shadow, the other rescue workers having moved off for the moment. Spock was standing close, bent slightly beneath the hanging, blistered deckhead.
“With your leave, Captain, I will handle the necessary arrangements.”
There it was again, the temptation to let go, to rest, to let Spock take care of it all. Kirk shook his head, disgusted with himself. “I’ll handle the arrangements.”
Kirk turned to go. The deck seemed to waver beneath his feet. The fire in his side raged and popped and seared with every breath.
“Jim,” Spock said again, making him stop and turn. “You must understand. What happened here was not your fault. You could not have prevented this.”
Kirk froze. Blinked past the sudden, unwanted burn of tears. If not for the flickering forcefield, the glittering vacuum outside might have swallowed him whole. He walked out without a word.
—
Coordinating the full evacuation of the crew, by shuttlecraft no less, to a temporary camp on a chilly Class L planet, left, at the very least, little space for Kirk to think about anything else.
The damage to the Enterprise was too extensive even to limp forward at impulse—the strain of any acceleration, Scott told him, could set off the cascading structural failures of which Spock had warned. The Enterprise’s four shuttlecrafts would have to suffice, but that meant drawing up schedules based on need and expertise, factoring in space for equipment to set up a camp and an infirmary on the planet’s surface. They also had to balance the need for personnel to engage in search and rescue efforts and maintain the breach containment fields against the need to evacuate as much of the crew as possible while the window of opportunity remained.
Huddled with his senior officers in a rec room repurposed as a briefing room, ignoring the throbbing pain in his side and taste of iron in his throat, Kirk drew up schedules and checked reports and weighed each officer’s concerns against the others until a plan was in place.
After that, he threw himself into the work: sorting and dismantling equipment, loading emergency shelters and food and medicine into shuttlecrafts, wheeling or tugging injured crew members on anti-grav pallets from the bowels of the ship to the shuttle bay as the evacuation began.
His ship, his crew. Bleeding out into space, one shuttlecraft at a time.
He saw Spock intermittently, their paths crossing as they attended to duties throughout the ship. Spock didn’t attempt to console him again, but gave a gentle touch on the arm or shoulder here or there; gazed at him with downturned lips, eyes softened by worry; provided unasked help at whatever task Kirk was working at. It was almost more than Kirk could stand. Kirk sent him away, or found another place to be himself, at every opportunity.
Eventually, Spock stopped looking for him. It was only in his absence that Kirk realized how close he was to the vacuum. But by then, it was too late.
—
Hull breach imminent. The computer’s warning piped throughout the ship, renewing as the countdown decreased. Forcefields, failing. Loss of hull integrity in…twenty-seven minutes.
It seemed a lifetime, or more, since Yeoman Thompson had handed Kirk a PADD with requisitions for replicator parts and self-sealing stembolts, but the intervening hours had passed quickly. The collapsed decks had been cleared of the wounded and the dead: seventy-nine of the former and fifty-six of the latter, all told. Crucial equipment had been dismantled and packed, and supplies loaded. Shuttle after shuttle had departed for Bains II, a temporary camp established. Kirk said his farewells to Uhura, and Scott, and Bones. His footsteps echoed in the empty, silent corridors and cavernous shuttle bay.
Kirk pressed on, past the pain engulfing his every movement, past the dizziness, the iron in his throat, the strange, creeping sense of cold.
His ship. His crew. His senseless, unrelenting tragedy.
The Columbus was departing for its last trip, the roar of depressurization on the other side of the blast doors loud in the silence. The final shuttle would be Kirk’s alone, shared only with a final complement of equipment, odds and ends requested by his officers already on the surface.
The captain, the last aboard. As it was supposed to be.
He was shoving a heavy crate of dermal regeneration paste into the Galileo’s cargo hold when something in his broken body gave out. The throb of pain in his side had been an unrelenting constant since the explosion, but the new stab of agony was vicious. Kirk forced the crate clumsily over the lip of the cargo bay with his shoulder, then collapsed against the outer hull, his eyes filling with involuntary tears as he clutched at his side and waited futilely for the sharp, searing pain to subside. He coughed and there was blood his mouth. The cargo bay was spinning dizzily.
Didn’t matter. Couldn’t matter. It was just him now, alone in the belly of his dying ship. He had to stand up. Keep going. Finish the work. He had to—
“Jim!”
Spock’s hands were on Kirk’s shoulders, steadying him. Surely, Spock had already gone—surely Kirk would have known. Kirk staggered and Spock caught him in an awkward embrace.
“I thought you’d left,” Kirk said.
Spock’s brow furrowed at the rasping sound of his voice. It occurred to Kirk that perhaps the damage the railing had dealt his ribs was worse than he’d thought.
Cascading structural failures, his mind supplied.
Forcefields, failing, the computer said. Loss of hull integrity in…twenty-two minutes.
“You are injured,” Spock said.
Kirk staggered out of Spock’s grip. “I’m fine,” he panted. “I have to—I have to—” He didn’t bother to finish. Instead he stooped dizzily to pick up another crate, this of spare subspace relay coils.
The crate was plucked from his hands as if it weighed nothing and slotted in the Galileo’s hold among the others. Strong hands closed around his shoulders once more. “Jim. Stop.”
Spock stared at him. Kirk stared back. It was just the two of them left in the shuttle bay. In the entirety of the empty ship. Spock swallowed, and shifted his grip, the pad of his thumb grazing along the exposed skin at Kirk’s collar. Kirk closed his eyes, briefly. Here again was the comfort Spock offered. The comfort he couldn’t accept.
And then Spock was steering him toward crates still lined up against bulkhead. Kirk sank onto one with a groan he couldn’t suppress and leaned against the bulkhead. He coughed again. Swallowed more blood. The pain had metastasized into a living thing inside him. He wanted it to stop—wanted it all to stop.
Spock knelt beside him. “Jim,” he said. “Let me help.”
Kirk had meant to protest anew. But with those three words, all protest failed him.
Spock gently tugged at his uniform shirt and the black undershirt beneath it, his fingers grazing the bare skin of Kirk’s stomach as he pulled them up to see Kirk’s side. Even through the pain, Kirk shuddered slightly under the touch.
“Jim,” Spock whispered.
No wonder. Kirk’s left side was black and purple, the darkest stretch of bruising spanning his ribcage where he’d folded around the railing four hours before, the indentations of shattered ribs visible beneath the mottled skin. Kirk inhaled and the fire ran rampant again.
“I hit the railing,” Kirk said blandly.
Spock let Kirk’s shirt drop. “I shall inform Doctor McCoy that his services are required. There is still time to recall his shuttle.”
“No.” Kirk caught Spock’s hand as he moved for his communicator. “No, Spock. You can’t.”
Spock stilled, his brows drawing together. “If you intend to insist again that you are fine—“
“I’m not fine,” Kirk interrupted him. Obvious as perhaps it was, it felt like a confession, the dearest one he’d ever made. “I’m not fine, Spock. But in front of the crew, after what’s happened, I have to be. I can’t let them see Bones coming back for me. You know that as well as I do.”
Their hands still clasped, Spock’s fingers tightened around Kirk’s. Spock’s gaze was guarded. “Wait here, a moment.”
“Spock?”
Spock released his hand and stood, then ducked into the Galileo. He returned with a medkit, the kind that was stocked in every shuttlecraft.
“I cannot hope to do for you what Doctor McCoy would. But I believe what field training I have should suffice to keep you on your feet, as it were, until the doctor has the chance to conduct a full examination.”
Loss of hull integrity in…eighteen minutes, the computer said.
Kirk nodded wordlessly. He had been avoiding Spock, avoiding whatever aid he could offer. Had been prepared to power through the pain, to ignore every signal of alarm his body sent him, but now…he didn’t have to. It was his ship, his crew, his senseless disaster, yes—but he was not alone. He never had been. He closed his eyes, and for the first time since the explosion, relinquished control.
Let me help. Words to be recommended above all others, Kirk had once said, even I love you. Or perhaps they meant the exact same thing after all.
Spock worked carefully but efficiently. He eased Kirk’s uniform shirt and undershirt over his head. The graze of his fingers was feather-light against Kirk’s skin as he explored the damage, turning him slightly this way or that to gain a better reading on the medical tricorder. He couldn’t heal the broken ribs without the equipment from Sickbay that now filled a tent on the planet’s surface, but hypos and a dermal regenerator could ease the pain and cease the trickle of internal bleeding that had left Kirk bleary and cold and choking up blood. Then Spock sat down on a crate beside him and wrapped his chest carefully in osteo-regenerative bandages that would hold everything in place and prevent further damage until Bones could work his magic.
At first, Kirk endured the pain of Spock’s ministrations with clenched teeth, staring straight ahead into the empty shuttle bay. But as the hypos kicked in and Spock’s work proceeded, Kirk found himself relaxing. Spock’s hands moved deftly, gently, from Kirk’s side to his shoulder to his back as he wrapped the bandage around Kirk’s bare torso. Irrationally, absurdly, Kirk didn’t want him to stop.
Perhaps Spock felt something of the same, for one hand lingered on the bare skin of Kirk’s shoulder even after he had secured the last of the bandages.
Kirk inhaled, marveling at how little pain sparked along his ribcage, and managed to say, “Thank you.”
Spock shifted. He seemed to notice for the first time that his hand was still caressing Kirk’s shoulder and went to pull away, but Kirk put his own hand atop Spock’s and held it there. It was only the two of them left in the shuttle bay. In the entire ship.
“I mean it, Spock,” Kirk said, holding Spock’s gaze. “Thank you.”
Spock’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. His tongue darted out to moisten his lips. “There is no need to thank me, Captain.”
Maybe it was the cocktail of hyposprays making its way through his bloodstream, or maybe it was the sudden, heady relief from the pain, or maybe all that had happened had simply robbed him of any sense of restraint. Kirk slid his hand up and cupped Spock’s face. Spock stared at him, surprised, but did not move to pull away.
“Yes,” Kirk said roughly. “There is.”
Kirk’s thumb moved lightly over the sharp line of Spock’s jaw. Spock inhaled sharply. It would have been easy enough to lean in and close the distance between them. To let his hand snake around to the back of Spock’s neck and pull him close and taste him. The way Spock was still gazing at him, lips slightly parted, each breath coming fast and short, Kirk even entertained the possibility that Spock wanted him to do exactly that.
Far off above their heads, a klaxon sounded. A warning. Structural integrity failure imminent. Forcefield failure initiating, the computer said. Loss of hull integrity in five minutes.
It wasn’t the time.
Kirk pulled away, and stood. Spock rose with him.
“I shall load the remaining cargo and prepare the shuttle,” Spock said. “Please…rest.”
Kirk nodded. Soon enough, he’d be on the planet’s surface, where he’d have no choice but to be whole and strong before the crew. He pulled his shirt back on. He let Spock load the remaining crates, including the two they’d been using as seats. Then he let Spock help him up the ramp to the Galileo.
Most of the space in the cabin had been filled with spare equipment, stacked and bundled for transport. Enough, hopefully, to see the remainer of his crew through a week on a marginally hospitable planet, provided no other disaster struck. They settled into the free seats at the helm.
The countdown timer, visible in the helm console, ticked closer to the point of no return. When the breach containment fields failed, there would be—what had Spock said—a seventy-four percent chance the cascading structural failures that resulted would take the ship with them. Kirk watched the seconds tick down as the Galileo broke free of the shuttle bay and sailed into space. An odd sense of calm descended over him. His crew. His ship. His responsibility, until the end.
Spock’s hand found his. His grip was warm and strong. Hand in hand, they stared at the rear viewscreen, where the Enterprise hung in space, empty, askew, her saucer blown open. The hull containment fields flickered. Kirk squeezed Spock’s hand. Spock squeezed back.
Thirty seconds. Ten. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
The viewscreen flared bright as the forcefields gave out and the Enterprise vented fiery atmosphere from a dozen decks.
When it was done, the Enterprise still hung in space, lame and dark, a larger hole in her side than there had been before. But she had survived. Against the odds, she had survived.
Spock’s hand was still in Kirk’s. Slowly, Spock’s head swiveled toward his too, his dark gaze meeting Kirk’s in more understanding than words could express.
Kirk brought his free hand up and cupped the back of Spock’s neck and pulled him close. Their lips met, and the sensation that erupted through Kirk—through Spock’s touch—was as bright and forceful as the explosion that had brought them there.
The Enterprise fell away as the Galileo traveled on, toward Bains II, where what remained of his crew awaited him. Soon enough, the great white-gray orb of the planet loomed on the viewscreen. They descended, the atmosphere resolving into a smattering of continents scattered across a half-frozen sea, and a chain of barren, rocky islands near the equator. Finally the Galileo descended into the camp. Already the crew was surrounding the craft, scared, determined, huddled in blankets and shivering in the wind. Waiting on his word.
“Well, Mr. Spock,” Kirk said, with a slight smile. “Shall we?”
“Are certain you’re alright?” Spock said.
Kirk gazed out at the crew crowded all around, and thought of the bodies and the wreckage and the empty, airless Enterprise hanging in space. It would be a long, cold, painful week ahead. Even through the hypos, his side throbbed dully, a reminder that some debts still remained to be paid.
“No,” Kirk said honestly. “But I will be.”
Spock squeezed his shoulder. Then, at Kirk’s nod, he opened the hatch. They stepped out into the camp together.