In The Aftermath: A Star Trek Fanfiction

Chapter One

Kirk pressed repeatedly on the comm button of the command chair.

"Spock? Spock do you copy? Spock?" he said fretfully into the microphone. The officer had been mid sentence when there had been a suspicious noise, and the steady timbre of the commander's voice had cut out suddenly.

"We just lost contact, sir, he can't hear us" Uhura said from her seat on the bridge, turning only long enough to give the message to Kirk before swiveling back to the screen and pounding furiously on the keyboard.

"Dammit!" Kirk swore under his breath. This was the last thing he needed. This was supposed to be a simple away mission; send a landing party down, take pictures or scan things with their tricorder or do whatever it is science officers do on away missions, and beam back.

How was he supposed to know that the planet actually had a working society, a hierarchy, and that they wouldn't be so friendly to the Enterprise's first officer.

"Is there any way we can beam him up?" Kirk asked to no one in particular.

"Negative, sir, we're already having trouble tracking Commander Spock on the planet's surface, we simply do not have the computing power to beam him back without risking injury" Chekov chirped from his console. His amber curls bouncing as his head turned to watch the many screens that information was coming in from

"Can we beam someone down?" Kirk immediately followed.

"Possibly, Keptin, but I cannot guarantee zhat it will be safe-" the russian started, but he was cut off my a certain snarky doctor.

"You can't be serious, Jim! Spock was taken hostage, we all know that much, whether we've confirmed it for a fact or not, and he's not easy to catch. Now you want to beam someone else down there and get another one captured?!?" Bones demanded incredulously.

"No" Kirk breathed, "I want to beam myself down there" He stood up from the captain's chair and crossed the bridge.

"Jim!" Bones shouted, "Jim, you're crazy!" he trailed him into the lift.

"Jim, you can't possibly think this is a good idea!" Bones snarked.

"I don't, but I know Spock's in trouble, and when have I been known for good ideas?" Kirk said.

Bones snorted derivatively and muttered something under his breath, but continued his argument.

"You know what Starfleet's gonna say. You shouldn't beam down and try to steal Spock back right away, that whole 'peaceful negotiation' is their thing"

"If it was me hostage, I would hope that's exactly what you would do, but Spock's life could be on the line"

"And he's any better than you?" Bones demanded.

"Bones, he's almost died several times on my account, I'm not going to let him go because I didn't have the moxie to beam down to this stupid planet and save him"

Bones noticed a pained look in Jim's eyes for a moment. As if he was flashing back to an unpleasant memory. Bones wondered which one. Was it the time Spock nearly died in the destruction of his home planet? or that mad plan where he nearly crashed the Jellyfish directly into the Narada's hull? or perhaps it was the time he'd nearly perished in a volcano. Or that time he had chased Khan wildly across downtown San Francisco (though Jim was temporarily dead for that one, he heard about it later, and was astounded).

Perhaps it was all four, Bones wondered, flashing through his Captain's eyes.

Bones pitied him, but he wasn't about to let him get away that easy.

"Since when do you care about Spock so much?" Bones snipped.

"Since when have I not?" Kirk quipped, shooting Bones a dirty look.

Bones tried to come up with a response to that, but it was useless. Trying to argue that Jim didn't care about his crew was like trying to argue that tribbles are sterile.

Bones watched with a scowl as Jim stepped off the lift and towards the transporter pad. He had a nasty suspicion that his services as a doctor would be needed by the time Jim got back.

If he ever did...