I waited and waited for the blast to come, but as time ticked by, nothing happened. Slowly, I opened my eyes again and looked around at the room of equally scared and confused people.
"Their weapons have powered down. Sir." Sulu looked down at his con.
"Enterprise! Can you hear me?" A familiar Scottish accent sounded throughout the ship.
Jim's face lit up when he heard his friend's voice. "Scotty!"
"Guess what I found behind Jupiter."
"You're on that ship!" Jim cheered when he realized what was going on. Somehow, someway, Scotty was on Marcus' vessel.
Scotty kept his voice low as he spoke, presumptuously to remain undetected by the other crew members. "I snuck on. And seeing as I've just committed an act of treason against a Starfleet Admiral, I'd really like to get off this bloody ship. Now beam me out!"
"You're a miracle worker." Jim praised the former Enterprise engineer. "We're a little low on power right now. Just stand by."
"Stand by. What do you mean, 'low on power'? What happened to the Enterprise?" There was a pause and then a faint noise in the background. "Call you back."
With that, Scotty was gone. Turning back to the rest of the bridge, Jim jogged over. "Spock. Our ship, how is she?"
"Our options are limited, Captain." Spock laid out what we had to work with. "We cannot fire and we cannot flee."
Jim nodded as he took a moment to process the information. "There is one option. Uhura, when you get Scotty back, patch him through. Mr. Spock, you have the conn."
As Jim headed for the doors, Spock and I walked after him onto the turbo lift. "Captain, I strongly object-" Spock started.
"To what?" Jim asked as the lift doors slid closed. "I haven't said anything yet."
"Since we cannot take the ship from the outside, the only way we can take it is from within." Spock used his deductive reasoning. "And as a large boarding party would be detected, it is optimal for you to take as few members of the crew as possible. You will meet resistance, requiring personnel with advanced combat abilities and innate knowledge of that ship. This indicates that you plan to align with Khan, the very man we were sent here to destroy."
As the lift doors opened again, the three of us stepped out and began to make our way to the med bay where Kahn was. "I'm not aligning with him, I'm using him." Jim corrected. "'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.'"
"An Arabic proverb attributed to a prince who was betrayed and decapitated by his own subjects." Spock pointed out.
"Still, it's a hell of a quote."
"I will go with you, Captain." Spock volunteered himself.
I nodded in agreement. "As will I, should you require my assistance."
"No, I need you on the bridge and you in the med bay." Jim refused us both.
"I cannot allow you to do this." Spock grabbed Jim's shoulder to stop him. "It is my function aboard this ship to advise you on making the wisest decisions possible, something I firmly believe you are incapable of doing in this moment."
"You're right!" Jim snapped. "What I'm about to do, it doesn't make any sense, it's not logical. It is a gut feeling. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. I only know what I can do. The Enterprise and her crew need someone in that chair that knows what he's doing. And it's not me. It's you, Spock."
With his rant over, Jim turned and walked into the med bay. I looked up at Spock for a moment, who was frozen in place, before entering the med bay as well. I knew what Spock would do. He would go back to the bridge and man the ship because he knew it was what Jim needed; what this ship needed.
The red alarm lights flashed through the med bay, giving it an eerie feel; but despite that, it looked in perfect shape still. Walking over to Bones, who was still in his grey uniform, I took his hand in mine and squeezed tightly. "Really thought I was going to die about five minutes ago," I told him. "Glad I didn't...glad you didn't, either."
Bones flashed me a faint smile before looking over his shoulder at Jim. "What's he going to do?"
"The only thing left that he can do." I answered.
Walking over to the biobeds, Jim stopped in front of Kahn. "Tell me everything you know about that ship."
"Dreadnought class." Kahn spilled the details without even needing to be asked twice. "Two times the size, three times the speed. Advanced weaponry. Modified for a minimal crew. Unlike most Federation vessels, it's built solely for combat."
Jim nodded as he continued to mask how he was really feeling. "I will do everything I can to make you answer for what you did. But right now I need your help."
"In exchange for what?" Kahn inquired.
"You said you'd do anything for your crew. I can guarantee their safety."
"Captain. You can't even guarantee the safety of your own crew."
Hearing a faint beeping, Jim and I looked over to where Bones was now sitting at a desk with a tribble splayed out in front of him. "Bones, what are you doing with that tribble?" Jim asked.
"The tribble's dead." Bones answered. "I'm injecting Khan's platelets into the deceased tissue of a necrotic host. Khan's cells regenerate like nothing I've ever seen, and I want to know why."
As Jim and Kahn exited the med bay, I walked over to Bones to see what exactly he was doing. "You are brilliant." I stared in awe at the experiment in front of me. "His cells were some of the most fascinating I've ever seen. I was trying to figure out why the regeneration was occurring at such a rapid rate but I was rudely interrupted by someone deciding to stick his hand inside of a torpedo before I got anywhere substantial."
Bones looked up at me sheepishly. "Yeah, sorry 'bout that."
"I'm kinda jealous that I didn't think to inject the blood into a dead host." I pulled up a chair and sat down beside him. "To be fair though, when I was working on it there weren't a whole lot of viable, dead bodies strewn throughout the ship."
"Well, you're here now." His eyes drifted back down to the dead tribble. "And good thing, too, because I need your expertise."
I smiled wide. "Nothing that's ever come out of your mouth has turned me on as much as that just did."
While the remainder of Jim's plan was relayed to Bones and me through the communicators from Spock, the two of us worked at trying to figure out as much as we could about Kahn's blood and why it worked the way it did.
In between worried rants about how Jim and Kahn launching themselves from our ship to Marcus' ship was a terrible idea, I prepared slides and handed them to Bones so he could observe them under the microscope.
"We haven't worked together like this since the academy." I almost laughed as I checked the tribble's vitals. "What a weird three years."
Bones nodded before tilting his head down and peering through the microscope's lens. "I see what you're talking about...some of these cells are extremely irregular," he commented.
"Let's just hope this stuff has a high virulence and spreads like the damn plague." I sighed as I took the slide Bones had just finished with and set it aside with the others. "If that tribble shows any signs of life then we're working with something big here."
Once Bones and I had done everything we could in means of observing and analyzing the blood sample and the tribble, Bones changed back into his blue uniform and the two of us headed back up to the bridge.
Spock sitting in the Captain's chair was a sight that brought back faint memories of my very first time on the Enterprise. Stepping onto the bridge, I overheard Spock saying something about the ships being lined up and there being a vast debris field between the two.
"Tell me this is gonna work." Bones kneeled down beside Spock.
"I have neither the information nor the confidence to do so, Doctor."
Bones rolled his eyes at the Vulcan. "Boy, you're a real comfort."
"Okay, okay! I'm set to open the door." the sound of Scotty's voice brought some comfort to the situation for me.
"Spock, pull the trigger." Jim's voice was the next to be heard.
Spock paused for a moment and I could tell he was trying to decide last minute if he was doing the right thing or not. "Yes, Captain." he eventually spoke. "Launching activation sequence on three, two, one."
With the press of a button, Jim and Kahn were launched into space. Everyone's survival relied solely on them and Scotty now. The Enterprise was helpless, stranded, weak. All we could do now was watch and wait for whatever was going to happen