The Way Home

by Jane Seaton

Part 3 of 4

Once Chekov was gone, Kirk accepted the call and found that M'Benga was anxious to talk to him. "Two things, sir. I've just had a blazing row with Doctor McCoy. I know this isn't the time to bother you, but could you have a word with him?"

"Yes, of course. What happened?"

"We had a disagreement, about how I handled something in his absence. He was annoyed, maybe with reason, but he just announced that I might as well have his sick bay now and stormed out."

"Do you know where he went?"

"Nurse Chapel thinks he's probably in his cabin. I'm sorry, sir."

"Don't be. You do know what McCoy's so upset about?"

"Well, he didn't tell me, but from things Ensign Chekov said I can work it out."

"Okay. And the second thing?"

"My report on Ensign Chekov's injuries is on your board now..."

"Thank you, Doctor."

"...and I think you should look at it."

%%%

"Come!" McCoy was sitting at the desk in his cabin, with most of the contents of the desk spilt in untidy heaps around him.

"Looking for something?"

"Haven't you got anything more important to do than..."

"You're the second person to ask me that in less than twenty minutes. I wonder why both of you have such a low opinion of your importance to me."

"Chekov, huh? How is he?"

Kirk gestured toward the intercom. "Why don't you ask him yourself?"

"M'Benga's looking after him."

"I see."

"What does that mean?" McCoy demanded angrily.

"Doctor M'Benga isn't my chief medical officer. Since you're back on duty, I expect you to assess the fitness of my bridge personnel. You know them better..."

"Oh, don't let's play games, Jim. Do you really think Chekov wants to see me? And if you really want my opinion, I happened to overhear the row he had with Geoff in sick bay earlier. You should let him get back on duty."

"Make up your mind. If you're on duty and making medical recommendations about my crew I need you in sick bay, now."

"Once we get back to a Starbase, I'm not even going to be a doctor. You might as well have my resignation."

"Chekov hasn't made any complaint. I'm not going to proceed against you on the sole basis of your own report..."

"What did you threaten Chekov with?"

"What?!"

"I know you. You're not above a little persuasion to get your own way..."

Kirk balled his hand into a fist and slowly forced himself to relax it again. He had to admit to a shred of truth in what McCoy said, even if the accusation was misplaced. After all, he had overridden both M'Benga and Chekov to keep the ensign off the bridge, for no better reason than a personal discomfort with Chekov's misfortune.

McCoy watched him, suddenly concerned for his friend, over and above his own pain. Somehow he was unable to stop worrying about Kirk even while waving a hypothetical resignation letter under his nose.

"Honestly, Bones. He's aware of the position you're in and he was horrified that I'd even considered reporting it. That was why he didn't mention it to me himself. He's furious with you, and not just over this latest business, but it's on a personal level. You could try treating him a little more seriously now and then. If he had an opportunity to slug you, or if I'd let him pound a few Tien ships to shrapnel he'd probably be fine."

"Then why don't you?" McCoy asked quietly.

"I don't know," Kirk admitted. "It's not that I don't trust him, or that I blame him for what happened. I just know if it had been me we wouldn't be in this position now."

"Your faith in yourself is damned unattractive to us lesser mortals sometimes."

Kirk shook off the verdict. "Bones, you are going to go back down to sick bay and apologise to M'Benga. And if we do take casualties, you'll be on duty. All right?"

"I mean it, Jim. This isn't the first time you've given one of your ensigns a hard time because you can't sort out what you expect of yourself from what it's reasonable to ask of them. Have you read Geoff's report?"

"I don't have time at the moment for medical reviews."

"It's not any great length. Unless you don't want to have to admit it could happen to you..." McCoy leaned over the desk and swivelled his screen round so Kirk could see the report for himself. "Can you tell me you honestly believe you could have kept your mouth shut through all of that?"

McCoy watched the Captain's eyes as they raked over the list of brutalities.

"He didn't tell me any of this..."

"Well, what did you think they did to him?" McCoy demanded, just as Chekov had done earlier.

Kirk's reply was lost in the shrill of a red alert, but McCoy followed him out of the door, still arguing.

"So there was a way out, and Chekov was too stupid, or too frightened, or whatever, to see it. Where was my way out? What was I supposed to have done?"

Spock, already waiting for the lift, turned to see what the argument was about. The turbo lift doors slid open as if the car had been waiting just for Kirk.

"I don't know, Doctor. I just don't know. I've already said, maybe there wasn't a way out. It's an attitude, that's all. You keep going because you believe there will be something you can do."

"Okay, if I can't apply your approach, maybe Spock can tell me. What would you have done in our place, eh?"

"I would have had options that were not available to Mister Chekov," Spock answered assuredly. "As for your dilemma, Doctor, I appreciate the difficulty, but it seems to me you did what the Captain would have done. Only you are assuming that you have already failed. Perhaps the way out has yet to become apparent."

%%%

The Enterprise hung helpless in space, still an hour away from Tien space, her attacker poised like a hunting cat to see if she had any life left in her. Scott experienced a mixture of anger and despair that was almost paralysing. His station was buzzing as the damage reports came in from around the ship, or at least from those parts that were still able to contact the bridge.

"No reports of casualties, Captain, and the breach on deck twenty is isolated," Uhura said, bent intently over her equipment.

"Mister Scott?" Kirk prompted.

Scott swallowed and turned to look his Captain in the face as he gave the bad news. Just for the moment, he wouldn't have cared if Kirk had decided to hand out the classical response and slay its bearer. "Warp, impulse and thrusters are all out. The warp engines are fine, but there's no way to get power to the deflector dish, so we can't go anywhere. They've breached every Jeffries tube. The shields are disabled. Phasers and photon torpedoes are without power. We have insufficient power to use transporters. And those last shots buckled the shuttle bay doors, all of them. We can't even get a shuttle away. There are emergency bulkheads down carving the ship up into a half dozen isolated areas. We can't get through to main engineering for a start. Talk about divide and rule, it was calculated down to the last..." He trailed off into silence, shaking his head grimly.

"Then why don't they just finish us off?" Kirk demanded. "We're a sitting duck, damn it, a dead duck."

"Presumably they wish to take the ship in one piece," Spock suggested. "And I would judge that our attacker is fast and powerfully armed, far more so than we expected, but light on personnel. Perhaps they are awaiting reinforcements before boarding."

"Scotty, can we still..."

"We still have the capacity to destroy the ship ourselves. The anti-matter containment can be breached manually, if it comes to that. But with the Jeffries tubes out, we just can't channel the power from the engines to anything useful..." He fell silent, a deep furrow engraved between his brows. Then a smile lit up his face. "Ah, Ensign Chekov's not an engineer, after all. There's one thing he overlooked, or maybe he didn't know...If you'll excuse me, Captain..."

"Hold on, Scotty, whatever you're planning, can't you get one of your men to..."

"I'll have to get him started, but I can't do it myself anyway..."

Scott was half-way to the doors, his mind clearly on other matters.

"Mister Scott," Uhura broke in, "all the emergency bulkheads are down in the secondary hull..."

"And we don't know how much time we have," Kirk added.

"I know." Scott vanished into the lift, leaving the entire bridge complement to stare after him, not sure whether to let their hopes rise or not.

"It must have occurred to them that we have the option to self-destruct," Kirk said thoughtfully.

"Perhaps, from their observation of Doctor McCoy, they have concluded that we will choose not to exercise that option," Spock suggested. "If that is so, the doctor may have bought us valuable time."

Kirk put the problem out of mind and started ordering Tomson to break out hand weapons to the crew and select defensible positions, although against an enemy able to beam in anywhere, it seemed a hopeless task.

%%%

Ensign Chekov was pacing up and down in the limited confines of his cabin, trying to sort out from the announcements over the all-ship channel the seriousness of their predicament. The urge to report with all speed to the bridge was almost overwhelming. Against that the uncanny stillness of the ship's fabric left no doubt that the Enterprise was adrift. What use would a navigator be on a ship that wasn't going anywhere? The most he could be was a target for recrimination.

Someone hammered on his door and he jumped, startled and concerned. As it opened Montgomery Scott slid through the gap at the first possible moment. "I need you!"

"I'm not..."

"I dare say you're not back on duty yet, and I reckon I've got thirty engineers who'd do this job better than you but they're all trapped where I can't reach them, so get up off your backside and prove me wrong." He took the ensign's arm and yanked him unceremoniously out into the corridor. "Get down to my cabin and fetch the roll of tools in the locker under the bunk. It's red, with MS-4 stencilled on it. You can't mistake it. Take it to the access hatch on deck seventeen, sector G4." He paused and touched Chekov lightly on either shoulder, gauging how far apart his hands were. "Yes, you'll do. And bring the first person you see who's no broader across the shoulders than you are. That crawlway's damn narrow... And bring your communicator. Get to it. I'll tell you what to do from the bridge."

He was gone at a run. Chekov, recovered a little from his surprise, set about obeying his orders. Whatever Scott wanted him to do, at least it was better than waiting in his cabin.

He found the roll of tools with no trouble. Tucking it under his arm, he exited the engineer's cabin. Seventeen G4? He turned towards the turbo lift and noticed a slim figure also awaiting transport. Concentrating on whether the back fitted Scott's requirements, and deciding that it did, he failed to register that it was McCoy until the doctor turned to see who was there.

Chekov blanked out his reluctance to talk to the medic. "Doctor, are you busy?" If he could only keep it brisk and businesslike, he told himself, he might be able to keep his temper.

"Not until...unless we start taking casualties."

"Mister Scott wants me to do something and he told me to get someone to help."

"Just tell me what to do."

The turbo lift arrived. Chekov said firmly, "Deck seventeen, sector G4."

"If this is engineering..." McCoy started doubtfully.

"I don't think it's very technical," Chekov reassured him. "He wouldn't have asked me if it was difficult... or important." He felt anger constricting his throat.

"Why not?" McCoy retorted, more sharply than he'd intended. He fell silent and stared at the floor. Chekov stole a glance at the other man, then shifted the canvas roll and hugged it defensively across his chest. The lift halted with uncharacteristic clumsiness and the doors parted a few metres from the access hatch that Scott had specified. Chekov pulled the cover clear and looked up and down inside. He backed out again, his face tight with concern, and pulled out his communicator. "Mister Scott?"

"Aye? Are you at the hatch?"

"Yes, sir, but it's a mess in there..."

"I know. It's a back up link. That big conduit, the white one with the blue double spiral, can carry power from the warp engines to the deflector dish. Only I abandoned it, because the access in there is so poor. But I never removed the conduit, for the same reason."

"So, you need to switch the power through there..."

"The conduit's cut, about four metres below your level. You'll need to patch it. You've got all the tools you need, but it's a tight squeeze and there're other services going through there. That's why I had it cut, to make room for one or two additions. Start climbing down. Did ye find someone to help you?"

"Yes, Mister Scott," Chekov answered, already stepping onto the ladder. Unlike most of the between decks spaces on the ship, tight but clear of junk, this narrow chimney was festooned with cables and pipework. The awkward loops and corners seemed intent on obstructing him.

"D'you need me down there too?" McCoy asked reluctantly, watching Chekov disappear into the depths.

"Yes, sir. I think you'll have to hand me the tools." Chekov paused to hook the roll over a rung of the ladder. "It gets tighter. Could you bring it down as far as you can, please?"

McCoy, Scott thought ruefully. Why the hell did he have to ask McCoy..?

%%%

Chekov climbed down a few metres farther in silence then stopped. "Mister Scott," he reported, "I've reached the break in the conduit. I'm at eye level with it but I can hardly move my arms to do anything."

"Aye, I thought that would be the problem. Now, you're not going to be able to make a proper job of it and when we channel the power through it, everything else in that space is going to be fried, but you need a good enough connection to keep the power flowing."

Chekov looked at the six inch gap between the two cut ends of the conduit, the highly engineered structure visible within and the knife-like edges of the casing. It didn't have the appearance of a system that could be jury-rigged with the contents of one tool roll and the minimal skills of an off-duty ensign. "What about the black cables which are in the way?" he asked. Clearly the conduit had been cut to permit their installation. They had a high-tension, purposeful look about them.

"They only supply power to the turbo shaft next to ye. I've isolated them. You can cut those for starters. There's an optical cutter in the tool pack. It's blue and..."

"I know. Doctor? There should be a laser cutting tool in the roll. About twenty centimetres long, with a blue handle..."

"This thing?"

Chekov reached above his head, and felt the cold, solid weight of the cutter in his palm. "Thank you, Doctor."

"Chekov." Chekov couldn't tell what McCoy was feeling from the distorted rumble of his voice in the tight space. He forced himself to stand still and listen. "You don't have to be so damn polite. Just tell me what to do."

%%%

There was no response as Chekov got back to work. The cable was out of the way in seconds. Chekov frayed its ends into two fringes of synthetic-coated wires and hung the cutter over one of the hooks thus created, bending the end up for safety. He had a feeling that Mister Scott wouldn't take kindly to his personal tool kit being scattered at the bottom of an access shaft. As an afterthought he hung his communicator there too.

"I've done that."

"Right, now tell me exactly what you can see, every wire and fixing..."

%%%

As Chekov carefully inventoried the condition of the broken conduit, aware that he was about to become intimately acquainted with every item, Scott tried to picture the set up in terms of what the ensign would need to do to fix the thing well enough. Another part of his mind was following the repair teams at work all over the engineering decks, where the bulk of the damage had been done.

"Can ye get your hands inside the conduit and loosen the module in the upper section?" he interrupted Chekov to ask, cursing himself for having left the shaft in such a mess.

There was a pause. Chekov reported, "No," rather shortly, as if he'd injured himself in the attempt.

"All right. Each module provides a high intensity magnetic lens to focus the initial power beam and keep it congruent. There's one module missing and the gap between the two adjacent modules is too great. The beam will dissipate. There's a magnetic coil in the servo mechanism for the turbo lift next to you. You can reach it through the hatch about a metre above you, on your right. See it?"

Chekov picked up his communicator again and pulled himself up a couple of rungs on the ladder. "Yes, sir." The hatch slid aside and he was looking into the pitch black of the lift shaft.

"Doctor? Is there a torch in the kit?"

"When you can see, you'll find the coil just below the hatch. It's in a black casing." He waited for Chekov to find a light source, fighting the urge to snap at the navigator to hurry.

"You're bleeding," McCoy complained as he handed the flashlight to Chekov.

The ensign ignored him. "And a multi-driver, cable cutters, some insulating tape..." Chekov was trying to think ahead, to anticipate Scott now. This process was painfully slow, compared to Scott's original haste. He wished he knew what was happening, that he was up on the bridge, not stuck in this rabbit hole.

"Got it? Right then, you'll need to disconnect the coil..."

"I can't see anything that looks like a coil, Mister Scott."

"For God's sake, man, it's not what it looks like. It's where it is, with the servo displacer. Function, didn't I ever tell you, engineering's a matter of function, not form."

"I've got it." The ensign sounded defensive. The flashlight bumped on its strap around his wrist, swinging alternating light and darkness across the connections he needed to break. After a few seconds of clumsy fumbling, he shut his eyes and concentrated on doing it by touch. A moment later he was pulling the flat black plastic box after him into the access way. It was wider than the broken conduit and deeper than the break in the casing. "I'll take it out of its case, shall I?"

Scott forced himself to be patient. Chekov had been pushed around enough of late. "Hold on. You can put it in place as it is. The beam will just punch a hole through it."

"It's too big."

"Right. The case is full of a reducing agent. When you expose it to the atmosphere it's going to flare. Make sure you're not looking at it. You'll have to use a cutter on the case..."

"Doctor, are there some goggles in..."

"We don't have time, lad."

Chekov swallowed, wedged the case between two unimportant looking lengths of pipe, held the cutter in place and turned his head away as he ran the tool around the edge of the coil. The flare was intense enough for the reflected light off the walls to leave afterimages of the blood vessels in his eyelids. He blinked and touched the remains of the case carefully. It burnt his fingers.

%%%

Scott glanced across at the Captain. Everyone else was concentrating on the slow circling of the Tien warship and the scanners that still reported no sign of reinforcements for their attacker. Uhura's broadcasts to the enemy remained unacknowledged, and her maydays jammed.

Kirk responded with a quiet, "What's happening, Mister Scott?"

"We're re-establishing a backup link to the deflector dish. The problem is all my men and the components it really needs are where we can't get them."

"Then who..."

"Ensign Chekov."

"Why, in God's name?" Kirk demanded angrily. "He isn't even fit for normal duty, let alone clambering around in access shafts."

"That shaft's a right pig, Captain. It twists and it's narrow and full of junk. Chekov's not sae broad across the shoulders and M'Benga said he'd lost some weight. If I had one of my wee lassies up here, I could send her, but..."

"All right, I understand your reasons."

"Well, it wasn't only that. I thought it wouldnae hurt him to do something to help us out of this mess..."

"Mister Scott!" Uhura protested. "That's not fair. It wasn't his fault..."

"I don't say it was. But I doubt he feels sae sure as we do about that. And in his place I'd rather be doing something than be stuck brooding in my quarters." Scott looked rather defiantly at his Captain.

Kirk took a deep breath and keyed a link into the comm pad on the arm of his chair.

"It's none too technical, Captain. He'll be fine if he keeps his head," the engineer attempted to reassure him.

"Chekov?"

"Yes, Captain?" The ensign's surprised voice was broadcast to the bridge.

Kirk realised that he didn't know what to say. To emphasise that he trusted Chekov to do whatever was necessary would only plant the suggestion that he might not have trusted him. "I hope you don't mind us listening in. We're rather relying on you."

"No, Captain. Mister Scott, I think it's cool enough to handle. Now I connect it?" The device had slid out easily, bringing leads and connections with it, and it slipped into the gap in the conduit, sitting like a doughnut in a stack of saucers. He flexed the hand that still held the cutter in a death grip.

"That's right. To the modules either side. You've got eight leads on the coil itself, input and output on the phase control, and the main power supply. D'ye know what you're doing?"

"Yes." All unaware of the breath released by his captain at the confidence in his voice, he pushed the coil over to one side and started linking it in to the lower module. It was an infuriating struggle to reach round to the back of the conduit, where all the connections seemed to be.

"When you've finished there's a roll of duranium foil in the tool bag. Get that."

Chekov passed on the instruction to his assistant while making the last couple of connections. Kirk and Scott caught each other's eye but didn't comment on the way the young ensign was calmly ordering McCoy around.

Chekov pushed at the coil doubtfully, certain that it had to be perfectly lined up to work, and that the intense magnetic field surging along the conduit would tend to send it skidding sideways. He'd have to wedge it somehow.

"Got it? Right then, you'll need to cut a piece of foil large enough to go round the conduit and overlap, but not by more than a couple of centimetres. You'll have enough difficulty handling it in there as it is. And it has to be wide enough to overlap the ends of the conduit by as much as possible, except you'll have to cut round the clamps at the back of the conduit, d'you see?"

"Mister Scott, how critical is the position of the coil..."

"Not very. It's only keeping the beam coherent. When you patch the conduit with the foil, that should do it."

When Chekov released the clip around the roll of foil it flew open with unmanageable energy and hit him in the face, then settled down in a configuration that used up all the available manoeuvring space around the severed conduit. He managed somehow to get the measurements he needed and cut out the basic patch. The notches for the clamps would come easily out of the four corners, provided the seam could go at the back... If the seam was anywhere else, he'd never be able to bend the foil to manoeuvre it around the clamps. He suspected that this was one of those puzzles in 3D geometry that the right person, Sulu, probably, would see a way round instantly, but a solution, if there was one, eluded him.

"Mister Scott, how am I going to fix the edges together?"

"Weld it, lad. There's a contact welder in the kit."

"Doctor? There should be a contact welder... it's black, with a large yellow control panel..." Chekov relayed the description up the shaft and was rewarded with the tool in question. He experimented with it, to see if he would be able to use it while holding the resilient foil in place. The conclusion he came to was unwelcome. He would need two hands, to use the welder and hold the foil. His right hand and the welder were no problem, but his left hand had to slip in behind the conduit and the gap at the back wasn't wide enough. Or at least it was now, but it wouldn't be once he replaced the missing casing with the duranium foil. He could get his hand in but he wouldn't be able to get it out again. And he didn't know how much heat the welder would generate.

"Doctor, is there any sort of protective cloth, a glove, or a welding apron..." While McCoy looked, Chekov cut away the corners of the foil, committing himself to the risk of welding himself into the shaft as a permanent fixture.

"Chekov! There isn't anything."

"It isn't important, thank you." Holding one end of the foil firmly with his left hand, he began to wrap it around the ruptured conduit. By the time it fed through the narrow gap at the back to complete the cylinder, fighting him every inch of the way, his left hand was achingly tired. He could almost visualise the Tien surgeon's repairs tearing apart. His right hand brought the welder back behind the conduit. He could move it far enough to secure most of the join. An experimental tug on his left hand confirmed his worst fears but he refused to acknowledge them for the moment.

"Mister Scott?"

"Aye?"

"I'm ready to do it, but..."

"What?"

"It doesn't matter."

He could almost hear the engineer thinking, imagine Scott seeing the exact layout of the shaft in his mind. "I see. Once ye've fixed it, your arm's trapped behind there..."

"Is there anything in the kit I can use to dent the bulkhead at the back? It only needs a millimetre or so."

Scott reflected that the bulkhead was unlikely to give in response to anything in the lightweight emergency tool roll he kept in his cabin, while distorting the conduit itself risked setting up interference which would wreck the beam. His attention was momentarily distracted by Spock's voice.

"I have detected what might be the approach of additional Tien vessels."

"ETA, Spock?" Kirk snapped.

"Unknown as yet."

Kirk nodded sharply to his engineer.

"Go ahead and fix the seam," Scott ordered, telling himself that there were at least a half dozen ways to get the lad out of this trap. Sulu took his eyes away from the fuzzy image of the approaching Tien ships to look at Kirk in disbelief.

Chekov also had his doubts about the flexibility of the Enterprise's bulkheads, to which he now added a rueful, and somewhat surprised respect for Montgomery Scott's firmness of resolve. "Yes, sir."

%%%

McCoy smelt burning skin and a shock of nausea hit him. The memory of that bitter stench had overlain every breath for the last three weeks. "What the hell are you doing?"

Chekov didn't answer. His jaw was clamped shut around a mouthful of his uniform shirt. Once he was sure that the join was made he took a deep, slow breath and relaxed his agonised hold on the rebellious foil. Then he put his free hand over the pick up on the communicator and started to lie as convincingly as he could. "Doctor, I need something else, from Mister Scott's cabin. It's in a black..." His voice caught on a stab of pain as he moved his trapped arm involuntarily.

"Hang on a minute." He heard McCoy move down a couple of rungs closer on the ladder.

"Have you finished, man?" Scott demanded.

"Yes." Chekov hesitated to say that he was trapped, for fear that McCoy would refuse to leave.

"Okay, then you've got to get clear. Can you free your arm?"

Chekov wondered if Scott would believe him either, if he pretended he was leaving the shaft.

"What's the position, Mister Scott?" Kirk wanted to know.

Scott read all he needed to into Chekov's hesitation at the other end. He turned down the microphone so Chekov wouldn't be able to hear him. "We've got warp drive, but Chekov's trapped in the shaft, and he'll not survive..."

"None of us will survive if we don't get out of here," Kirk objected. "When I say we have to go, that's it." He'd given up on the hope that the Tien might be less than totally hostile the moment they'd been attacked an hour outside Tien space.

"Yes, sir." Scott replied mechanically.

"Have you got yourself stuck?" McCoy was demanding meanwhile, loud enough for everyone on the bridge to hear. Then the communicator went dead again.

%%%

"I'm just... yes, I'm stuck. Will you get out of here, Doctor? When they use this conduit to power up the deflector dish, anything in the shaft is going to be finished. You can't help by..."

"How're you trapped? Is it just your hand?"

"Yes." Chekov felt an overwhelming weary hopelessness at the impossibility of persuading McCoy to do anything he didn't want to.

"I'll come down and help..."

"You can't do anything, there's no room. Even if you could come down head first, there's too much garbage in the way."

"Can you reach the hand that's stuck?"

"Yes." Something struck Chekov sharply on the head, and he looked up, amazed that he felt calm enough to be annoyed by it. McCoy tapped him again with the can of lubricant. "Try that before you decide to martyr yourself."

He sloshed the gel over his wrist and yanked violently. The movement ripped at skin burnt by the welder and the lubricant stung worse than McCoy's insults. "God!"

"No luck?"

"No!"

"Okay, then we need to make your hand a little flatter."

Kirk had lost patience with the silence from the access shaft.

"Bones, we're going to have to use the conduit any time now. Will you get out of there, now, damn it!" The Captain's outburst produced zero audible response from either of the two men below decks.

"Have you still got that cutter?" McCoy asked intently.

"What d'you want me to do? Amputate my hand?" Chekov said it with numb disbelief.

"If necessary. To start with, you have to slice the muscle at the base of your thumb, right down to the bone, and..."

"I don't think I can."

"You know I once had to talk Jim Kirk through removing his own appendix without a local anaesthetic..."

There was a moment of disbelieving silence. "Why?" Chekov said eventually.

"So that I could hold him up as an example to nervous ensigns in situations like these, of course. If you don't get on with it, I'll be forced to make up even more ridiculous stories until you do, so come on and spare us both the embarrassment."

He heard an exclamation of pain and the crash of something bouncing from one obstruction to another as it fell down the shaft.

"What else is there in this damn tool kit you can use to..."

"No, it's all right, I'm out. But I can't climb up very quickly. Get clear, get out of my way..."

McCoy froze for one dreadful moment, not knowing whether he believed Chekov or not. Then he started back up the ladder, too scared to look down and see if Chekov was following.

"I dropped my communicator too," Chekov called after him. "When you get out, tell Mister Scott it's clear, he can use it."

%%%

"The Tien ships will be within phaser range in fifteen seconds," Spock announced, as calmly as ever.

"Mister Scott..."

"Damn it, I didn't mean for this to happen..."

Kirk cut off his complaint. "Mister Sulu, prepare to move, maximum warp, on my mark."

"Aye, sir."

"We need warp power..." Kirk hesitated for a mere fraction of a second, "now!"

Enterprise launched herself into another space in the teeth of her enemies. An accompanying dull boom reverberated through the framework of the ship.