Chapter Text
Chapter 2
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…”We’re ready.”...
Before Uhura was an absolute mess of wires and circuits, with the insides of PADDs stuck where Rand suspected much more sophisticated equipment, left behind in their mad dash, should have gone. Rand affixed the last wire at the indicated height, and Uhura worked for ten more seconds.
“That’s it!” she said, a disciplined voice with triumph riding it. She scrambled out of the mobile crouch she’d been in for the last three hours and reached for the wired-in communicator.
Inanely, Rand thought that however Uhura was toning her thighs, to have that kind of endurance, she wanted in.
“You think you have it?” Rand asked, out of nerves rather than doubt.
Uhura made some fine adjustments to the communicator dials. “I know I have it,” she said evenly, distracted for the first time. “I had to tear too much apart to try again with a second configuration.”
Ask a stupid question, Rand thought, and willed herself to calm as that answer really registered. All or nothing, because the window was now and Uhura hadn’t had a chance to double-check anything.
Uhura finally spoke. “Uhura to Enterprise Come in, Enterprise. Enterprise, this is Lt. Uhura requesting emergency beam up of all crew. Repeat: Emergency beam up of all crew.”
It seemed like forever before the bright, brisk voice came back. “Aye lass, Enterprise reads you. Immediate beam up not possible unless transponder distance is increased. Repeat: Increase transponder spread for emergency beaming.” Then, without a breath he continued into, ”The transponders are in two knots, both too tight to get a clean signal on anyone. We were expecting nothing but the laser beacon until gamma at least. What’s happened?”
Rand was a little surprised at how little detail Mr. Scott required from Uhura about events before he was speaking to her as if they were deciding between them as to what would work. Rand even found herself resenting it, just a little. She had thought Mr. Scott would have orders for them, but he was scheming with Uhura for their next steps.
This is what trusting the officer on the spot looks like, Rand thought dully. Right.
Her friend Nyota was giving orders to the acting captain of the Enterprise. Sort-of. Her very shock-filled day wasn’t wanting to compute another idea that strange.
In a very short time Mr. Scott was saying, “I have four things I can do now, rather than wait for you to spread them out,” speaking quickly and sharply
“You ladies can spread out from Ortez so your transponder signals don’t overlap and I can beam you three up now to–.”
“Next.” Uhura said, dangerously.
“Number two ends with us both in the dock.” They discussed that the captain had forbidden anyone else to beam down under any circumstances, and that they were prepared to ignore that if it would actually help.
However, with the planet’s slow rotation, the area was in a long, dim twilight, and it would be impossible to beam anyone in surreptitiously, or land a shuttle stealthily. Mr. Scott and Uhura both agreed bloodlessly, in Rand’s opinion, that beaming redshirts directly into camp would just get everyone’s throats cut before the transporter effect let go, so – out, even though Mr. Scott sent a unit to stand by in the transporter room.
“I can beam the whole tangle of the other group aboard with the cargo transporters. The safety margin on that is low, though, for sentients. Too low, though I’ve had an idea about differentiating transponder signals I’ve been thinking on – it’s never been tried. I’d be more than the next cycle implementing it. Even if it works, it’ll be rescue two windows down.”
“Scotty, I don’t think they have that kind of time.”
“Aye, understood. We’ll get it started now anyway, as a safety net.” After five seconds he was back saying, “You ken what the next one is.”
“Isolate Mr. Spock by his unique physiology and beam him aboard alone.”
“Ach, lass, and you know how our Mr. Spock would thank me for that.”
“These are primitives, we said it, Scotty. They might slit the rest’s throats if we beam just Spock aboard. They’re quick. Mr. Spock is badly injured, though.”
There was the first pause in the conversation, and after a beat Rand realized Scott was either waiting for Uhura’s decision or waiting for her to agree with him without pushing her, even as the seconds ticked away.
After only a couple of ticks, Uhura said, “Understood, sir. We’ll be working on a way to have those transponders spread by the next window.”
Uhura had reeled off a list of supplies at almost first contact, and she asked, “Can you low-beam a protoplaser with our stuff? Ens. Ortez has arterial bleeding.”
The other gear sparkled into appearance flat on the ground on the far side of the trunk, dimmer and longer than Rand had ever seen a transporter work.
“I’ll try to get a clear signal, but at low power the tech does’na always fare well–,” Mr. Scott said, apparently at the transporter station rather than the Bridge now.
The security ensign was protesting weakly that they shouldn’t endanger themselves for him, but Uhura told him in a no-nonsense voice to be quiet and do as he was ordered.
“Have a care for yourselves, too, lass,” Mr. Scott said, before the connection went quiet, and another faint glow settled beside Ortez’s supine form.
The device made it, and worked when Uhura switched it on. The time for talking to the ship was up.
Uhura immediately went and elevated Ortez’s arm again, even before helping him up a bit from his sprawl. “Scotty did it,” she said softly, and Ortez, who was becoming glassy-eyed as time passed, nodded and smiled a little. “Yes, ma’am.”
Uhura knelt and hugged him gently, and they exchanged some quiet words as she applied the little device and then some regular sealant to the worst of his cuts. It must have helped the pain because he dozed off when Uhura left him.
Then the Chief was back, a whirlwind spinning over to the new supplies, taking them to her piece-meal communicator and dumping them beside her earlier destruction. She never even took a moment to rest.
“I cannot believe you just did that,” Rand said incredulously, feeling herself start to smile. It was amazing and funny and incredible. That warm, thoughtful Nyota could turn into the force moving through this day, in that little body… of course Rand could do this. Of course she could be an officer…
“What?” Uhura asked, going down among her bits and pieces again.
Rand made a gesture and laughed. “This. All of this. Everything. You hid us and made that,” a gesture at the bastardized communication array, “ just in time, and you were giving orders to Mr. Scott and you fixed Ortez! Nyota, you’ve been holding out on everybody.” Rand smiled at her warmly. “Not one of us ever knew–”
Without looking around, Uhura interrupted in a tone of voice Rand thought only the captain had. “Control yourself.”
Rand gasped, quieting, and the voice continued, “The others are in immediate danger and we are far from safe. You are not finished, understand? We are not done.”
There was a flash of resentment, and a great yelling piece of her that wanted to break from somewhat gasping laughter to sobs, but Rand had been prepared for this, too. In the sense of “given tools and training to deal with it”.
Not much. Not yet. But, “You will lose it some time when you’re new. Just accept it and control it and move on.” Right.
Somehow, Janice Rand made herself just – stop. Her breathing evened.
“Yeoman Rand. You with me.”
Rand composed herself, tightened her shoulders and her lips and raised her head. “I’ve got this,” she said quietly, and waited for orders.
In time, she got them.
~~
It felt very cold outside the protection of the angry magnolia, the pleasant briskness deepening uncomfortably as the sun went down. The edge of the plateau had low growth that had provided cover for her, particularly color-coded for her uniform, but the shallow arroyos and scattered small rock formations offered no protection from the wind once she left it.
The wind was cutting through her uniform, and her legs felt numb on the outside. It kept her from feeling the crisscross of new, deep scratches she’d acquired escaping from their shrubbery base. She was trying not to let any of it matter. “Target fixation is a tool you can use, in the right circumstances.” Right.
The planet had no sister satellites, so the slowly gathering dark was thick. Forget the contact window – if she didn’t do this in time, Rand wouldn’t be able to navigate the plateau at all. Watching the Erethii, Uhura thought they would only get one chance at getting the captives out, and the timing was so close.
Rand tried not to think of all the ways it could get tangled, and tried to concentrate on her route out into the open land. The hardest part so far was getting close enough to the native camp without exposing herself.
The hardest part so far was accepting that Uhura meant it when she said the priority was to get the captain, and Mr. Spock if possible, out, at the expense of the others if necessary. Security’s job was to protect those two, and if they had to do it by staying behind while the captain escaped then it was Rand’s job to let them.
Uhura hadn’t said it like that, but those were Rand’s orders because that’s what she now knew were standing orders for the rescue of a captain and their party. Saying that it was incredibly cold had only gotten her another, “Are you with me, Yeoman Rand?” and Rand’d had to settle down and breathe and take that instruction out into the falling night with her.
She’d set the distraction device Mr. Scott had beamed down, that Uhura had modified, a good two miles along the flat surface of the plateau in the other direction, first. The trigger was in her hand, which was the only part of her sweating, given the temperature.
Creeping closer to the loud native voices and the light of their fire, in the shadow of their make-shift shed, she looked around at the very empty night, and had a sudden reevaluation of the life choices that had brought her here. She thought she could be an officer? Her job was to file reports and fetch meals and run errands, not this– this–
Then she made that terrified part of herself shut up, again, and concentrated. She slipped a few feet closer to the back of the shed-thing, almost close enough. She could hear the captain going on about the complete disposability of Ens. Tucker and his own incredible importance, they should take him next, not that useless child of a guard–
Apparently the Universal Translator was working.
“Don’t worry,” Uhura had assured Rand, after letting her orders settle and before letting her go. “Anytime you go to rescue the captain, you can plan on him being halfway out before you get there. He knows we’re always waiting for him and he’ll make the most of any chance you give him to get everyone away.”
Peering through the back of the hut, Rand saw Tucker being dragged out to be tied to the poles. The captives were in a line again, and Mr. Spock was back in it, a huddle of barely-sitting limbs that the natives hadn’t even bothered to bind.
The others were bound hand and foot, clothes stripped to varying degrees and with differing amounts of blood and bruising on them. The captain was naked and bloody and looked ready to kill the next thing that came close to him.
The Erethii seemed to think so, too, because the thin-bladed spears were more in evidence. And if Tucker was tied when she tripped the switch– That was– that–
That was not her problem. She had her orders. Right.
And she’d trust the captain to do his bit.
When the moment came, she did hers.
The Erethii responded to the loud light show out on the flatland with awe and some fear, but they were quickly organized and running toward it. They only left four guards. With a deep breath Janice announced herself, crouched and stuffed everything from her bag under the hut ‘wall’ closest to her – several phasers and a number of knives – and made sure some of the captives were immediately cutting others free.
Then she turned and ran.
That was why, to her bemusement, she had been sent on this particular part of the mission. No, “I need you to volunteer-” or “I can’t order you to do this–” involved. Just, “How fast is your mile?” out of nowhere, and then, “So you’ll be making the run.”
Rand had the thought that she was probably beating her own best time tonight as she returned to the angry magnolia and went back in, this time through the tunnel Uhura had burned for her with her phaser once the fireworks went off and another light on the hill wouldn’t matter.
Rand stormed in and collapsed, full of adrenaline and wild night and alien air, then asked if Uhura really thought this would work as she scrambled back up for a view. Uhura said through gritted teeth, standing at the enlarged view slit, “If he’ll just go.”
Still wild and now uncomprehending – she didn’t just do that for nothing – Rand looked herself and understood. Things were proceeding in some quarters – the four Erethii guards were down, and ironman Ens. Peters was hoisting Mr. Spock over his shoulder, but the captain, the captain was–
– cutting Tucker down from the poles while Giotto held his arm in attempt to drag him away. As Tucker came down, so did Ens. Peters, though, to one knee as he lost his balance under the half-Vulcan’s dense body. Mr.Spock ended up in a limp heap on the ground.
The captain tossed Tucker at Peters, who to his credit caught and hoisted her and began sprinting after the others.
Rand thought Mr. Giotto might be reconsidering some of his life choices, as the Erethii found nothing at the sight of all the lights and stopped to howl out a raucous protest about it, and Captain Kirk reclaimed his arm and turned back.
The captain never slowed down, though, as the Erethii went silent again, running back toward their camp faster than they’d left it. He did some kind of roll and came up with Mr. Spock on his shoulders, and found a sprint. Mr. Giotto came behind him as they all ran into the dark, away from the Erethii and trying to put space between one another.
Some of the Erethii found a faster gear, realizing their prey was escaping. At some probably Kirk-calculated distance they all stopped. Peters and he put down their passengers, and they all stopped fanning out from one another and stilled at hopefully-sufficient distances. Mr. Giotto stood squarely between Kirk and the oncoming Erethii.
The leading Erethii were only five yards out. Uhura made a hurt noise as Captain Kirk broke the grid formation to step towards Mr. Giotto, but then the transporter effect swept over them all.
~~
“Move, lass,” was the first thing Rand heard when the bright lights of the ship were back in her eyes. She moved. Out of the way of medical personnel, it turned out. She wasn’t hurt, so she took a shock blanket and put her back to the wall and just let herself stand there and breathe.
Who could’ve known breathing would prove to be such a useful skill for an officer-candidate?
The captain was almost roaring as he repelled the medics trying to guide him to a stretcher. He won free and ignored the fact that he was mother-naked, and dove for the crumpled limbs that were Mr. Spock. Apparently things were catching up with him, finally, too, though, because as he flew into a crouch there, the captain suddenly swayed, then went over backwards and sat down, very hard.
While he was still looking dazed from the impact and the transport – and whatever caused half of his face to be blood-covered, Rand thought, and being dehydrated and cold and, oh, being tortured? and god, so many things – he abruptly wrapped his arms under his bare thighs to hold himself in a ball as he shuddered, hard, then jerked several times, then was gasping for a breath he didn’t seem to be finding.
McCoy knelt a lot more carefully beside the captain, at Mr. Spock’s side. He still had his pants, if not his shirts, even after the day. He put a hand on the captain’s shoulder and said very quietly, “Jim, breathe. Just be still for a minute, all right. Just breathe. The medics and Dr. M’Benga are right here. Let them take him. You, all of us, we just need to stop for a minute, all right? Breathe.”
The quick hand Kirk put on Mr. Spock’s wrist, and the almost imploring look on his face when he looked back at Dr. McCoy, made Rand jerk herself away from her voyeurism. She needed a chance to be still for a minute, too. The bright, clean lines of the transporter room with its orderly medics didn’t even seem to be real.
Eventually there was a gentle hand guiding her to step off the transport platform, and she wondered why she hadn’t already done that, but Christine wasn’t acting like she was stupid, at least. She was just “tutting” a little, which was a very Christine thing to be doing. Rand wondered if the other transporter rooms were as loud as this one.
Then suddenly there was a warm, soft, small form wrapped around her from the other side, almost around her neck, and her friend Nyota looking up at her, beaming and almost laughing and almost crying a little.
“Janice! We did it! Oh, Janice, we did it, we got them all home!” A hard squeeze jolted Rand into almost-laughing back, even though she still felt not-quite-there. Then, “Christine, be gentle with her, she was amazing,” and the soft warmth detached itself and disappeared.
Eventually they all made it to sickbay. Eventually, Rand swam up through her exhaustion and what no one had been rude enough to call shock – to her face – and came around enough to realize she was sitting with a different blanket and a med tech, who she could feel had already gone over her with a protoplaser and was starting at her face with a dermal regenerator. As cut-up as she’d been, she realized he must have been doing this for a very long time.
She drank some of the water she found she was holding and asked after Uhura and the others. The tech tried not to tell her anything beyond how all right the group was after all they’d been through, but that made her too mad for him to persist, so he calmed her again and quietly told her there were two death-casualties.
Before her mind could fully present Hadley and Mr. Spock to her horrified inner sight, the tech said it was Hadley and Haska.
Guilt and relief hit her at about the same time. Haska. It hurt to lose Haska. The only other non-human, the “different” one among the different ones, he’d apparently invited too much interest, too.
Just – if it had been Mr. Spock… She wasn’t sure what the captain would do. The tech ignored her reaction and started working again, and said both the captain and Mr. Spock were staying in Sickbay for the night.
I'm still in shock, she thought a little later, when she realized the tech was still moving her around like a doll and it hadn’t yet occurred to her to even give him specific instructions, yet. Without them he was sealing every nick on her. It was up to her to refuse care on the little things, when there wasn’t an emergency and the techs had time. She rallied enough to throw him off, realized she was conveniently propped on a biobed, and went to sleep.
She didn’t stay in Sickbay, though, and it was only two nights later that she and Nyota and Christine and Lia and Charlene got together for a night of music and singing and very old spirits and very good wine.
Nyota toasted her until Christine made her stop, they were drinking all the white, and wouldn't let Janice even get started in return.
They drank and laughed and toasted absent friends and cried, just a little, and the rest told her stories they swore were true, and Janice woke feeling incredibly hungover but also feeling tested and tried and not found wanting.
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