Published: Sunday, May 4, 2014 (MAY THE FORTH BE WITH YOU!)

Beta-Reader: AureliaRogers, whose brainstorming help has been frankly awe inspiring.

Notes: No, I don't own Star Trek. I did learn "London Calling" on the piano, however (or at least most of it; I still have trouble with a handful of measures before the last part and therefore skip them for now), and played it for my grandmother on Friday. She liked it a lot. Does that count?

Okay, in all seriousness: This chapter is major. Just like last chapter, it's really setting up the background for the rest of the story. If I mess these next few chapters up, there's not much I can really do later to regain its awesomeness. On that note, it's really important at his juncture for you guys to tell me if there's something you think I did a bit off. If I think about it now and fix it, it will be so much easier to address mistakes that might pop up later. And if you can't find anything you dislike, leave a review anyway to tell me so. Or, heck, find a spelling mistake. I always leave a few of those! It's really awesome how nice you guys are (no, seriously, you guys are too nice; I still haven't had anyone comment just to tell me that they hated the whole thing, which almost leaves me disappointed, lol), but try really hard to find something you didn't like. Please. Pretty please? ^_^ Thank you in advance, all you lovely critics!

Chapter Five

The Drop

Leonard McCoy growled at one of the numerous security officers while simultaneously inserting an anti-infection hypo into an engineer who had gotten cut on a piece of equipment during the initial assault. "What part of I need you to find officers who might be unconscious from the attack did you not understand?" he asked in frustration.

The security officer shook his head, looking as if he were desperate to get away from the southern doctor. "Look, I'm sorry, sir, but I have other duties to attend to."

"Look, get it through your thick skull," the doctor bit off venomously. "As it is, too many officers are trying to work through serious injuries or are laying unconscious in remote sectors of the Enterprise. I also have too many nurses currently working to treat those hit by the initial impact to spare one to play hide-and-seek on a warp ship. As acting Chief Medical Officer, I'm ordering you to find yourself a copy of the crew roster and make sure each officer is accounted for."

Leonard McCoy slapped his next patient on the back and pointed him to a nurse. After the initial chaos of finding out that his original CMO was dead, Bones had quickly claimed seniority and set up a no nonsense system. Currently, the officers in the wrecked medical bay were standing in intimidated, orderly lines, patiently awaiting their turn to be diagnosed by one of the senior medical staff before handed over to a medical professional with the ability to treat the injury.

". . . Yes, sir," the security officer said with less than total enthusiasm. He slipped out through the lines of Starfleet personnel to access one of the few undamaged terminals in the medical bay and place his new orders, searching through the roster and having the AI computer seek them out.

Bones quickly narrowed his eyes at an officer in a plain black uniform undershirt who had started to edge away toward the door while cradling a broken arm (most likely an engineer, as absolutely nuts as that lot were). The officer in question swallowed audibly and jumped back to his place once he caught Bones' deadly gaze peering after him. He laughed nervously when his turn arrived a moment later, sweating bullets under the unimpressed Nurse Chapel, who had quickly gained Bones' regard.

Bones shook his head, having long since accepted the headache of his current set of circumstances. And he'd told them, all of them, of the dangers of space. Did they believe him? Nooo. Well, now they would, he thought. Grimacing, he called out toward Nurse Chapel, who had already kicked the probable engineer forward to treat a man in science blues.

"Chapel!" he called, waiting as she whirled around to keep one eye on him as she bandaged the burned science officer who had been unlucky enough to have been near one of the hot damage zones. The burns looked moderately serious, but Chapel was taking care of the problem neatly. "I'm going up to the Bridge to see what the situation is. You're in charge!"

"Sir, Hendrickson is next in the line of medical command," Chapel called over her shoulder. She pointed her head toward the medical officer currently laying unconscious in the corner of the med bay, narrowly avoiding being stepped on by the crowded feet that shuffled around him.

Bones' brow furrowed as he tried to see what she had been pointing toward. It was a second later that he came to the proper realization. "Wait, you mean the kid that fainted at the sight of that compound fracture?!" he yelped unbelievingly.

"That's the one, sir," Chapel replied with a unimpressed monotone. "I shared Xenobiology 101 with him at the Academy."

Bones swung his head back around to look at the kid, and then back at Nurse Chapel. ". . . I'm going up to the Bridge to see what the situation is. You're in charge," he repeated, this time pinching the bridge of his nose to sooth his sudden headache.

"Yes, sir!" she chirped with a cheery smile before returning to her next patient.

Bones strode to the lift, the Starfleet personnel giving him a wide berth in frightened respect. He allowed a small smirk of satisfaction to twitch across his lips as he caught sight of the security officer from before checking another name off of the crew roster. The turbolift doors enclosed the capsule around him and he pressed the touchscreen button for the Bridge.

He started to mentally prepare his immediate report to inform the captain (who was Spock, of all people!) how the medical bay was currently operating. He walked onto the Bridge without anyone paying the slightest attention, all of them fully focused on the images on the main screen. The ship's camera was currently focused on three distant figures free-falling through the atmosphere of the desert planet below them. To the side, Bones could recognize a series of frequencies representing their vital signs.

The acting Chief Medical Officer moved toward the captain's chair, waiting for the vulcan's current occupation to be finished with so he could impart his quick report and then flee back toward the medical bay, where all chaos was controlled. The human blinked for a moment, pausing mid-stride. With disbelief, he whirled around toward the screen again, allowing an expletive to fall from his mouth, followed by, "Jim!"

~ oOo ~

The speed of the fall was almost unbelievable, faster than anything else Kirk had ever experienced outside of a starship. It was only the space suit enclosing his fragile human body that was keeping his organs in their proper places. Still, James had already gone through this once, and the second time around was only a smidgen less intimidating than the first.

"Distance to target: five thousand meters," Kirk reported without much concentration, keeping a close eye on the officers at either side of him.

"Four thousand six hundred meters from the platform," Chekov's voice echoed through his helmet from the Enterprise.

James Kirk knew that he had to time this just right, or else both he and Olsen were both going to get burned in a fire so hot that not even their microscopic waste would remain. Which was unacceptable, especially considering that he had advance knowledge of the future.

"Forty-two hundred meters to the target," Sulu reported, professionally brisk but still somewhat breathless.

Kirk turned his gaze away from Olsen and returned it to the platform below. "Four thousand meters," he said, not bothering to note anything but the thousands. Honestly, he would rather have knocked the man out and left him on the shuttle for the Romulans, but that would have been wrong on so many levels. So, troublesome secondary plan it was. His eyes were drawn to the desert planet rapidly growing beneath them, turning from a giant sphere into a flat land mass.

"Three thousand meters," Sulu said. Kirk made a note to keep a close position next to the officer in case he lost his parachute again. It was the most odd feeling he had ever experienced, knowing what was going to happen before anyone else did. A burden the likes of which he had never shouldered before made itself known once again for the thousandth time. It was the mental stress of being utterly alone in his responsibility that was the worst of it. He suddenly could understand the older Spock much better.

"Three thousand meters," Olsen echoed giddily.

Kirk waited a moment, before he quickly followed with, "Two thousand meters." Their uncontrolled drop was beginning to speed up even more, and therefore the reports of distance were coming rapidly from all sides. They were fully immersed in the atmosphere, with gravity placing its influence on the falling trio in its strongest form instead of its weaker pull in the outer atmosphere were they were almost outside of the planet's gravitational effect.

"Pull the chute," Sulu said.

Kirk kept an hawk like gaze on Olsen, every motion from the figure falling a short distance to the side of him causing a thrill of adrenaline to burst through his system. The moment that the time traveller saw the man shift to fall faster, Kirk pulled his own arms closely to his sides and sped down beside him. The feeling of nausea that immediately followed –– the space suit unable to fully compensate for a fall of this force –– forced him to swallowed thickly. His blurry vision recovered after a moment and he and aimed for Olsen's rapidly dropping form.

The young cadet managed to enjoy what little of Olsen's shocked expression he could see through the thick tinted visor before grasping the parachute handle and yanking it harshly. He continued on past Olsen, who had suddenly jerked to a descent so slow it almost seemed to be a total stop when compared to the crazy free fall from before. It was only a moment later that Kirk pulled his own chute, just in time to crash onto the drill.

He fought with his parachute for a moment, before pressing the button to retract it back into its case upon his back. He took a heaving breath and tried to recover a bit of energy from the intensive act of rescue, totally unused to the stress that it had placed on his body. It was already highly unrecommended to free fall this high up any atmosphere, and purposefully falling faster had been totally beyond his expectations, even taking into account the fact that he had already done this fall once.

"Well," he muttered, pulling himself onto his elbows, "That went so very well."

Olsen landed a minute later, followed by Sulu –– just in time for a pair of Romulan guards to come out of the metalwork and proceed with the remembered struggle.

~ oOo ~

The Vulcan could only obey his orders, to listen to Kirk's advice. And Kirk had said that the only way to prevent Nero from immedietly realizing that Pike and Kirk were sabotaguing the drill was to forcefully attract his attention. And, Kirk had added, Spock was likely the only one to be able to distract Nero from his current goal. For a while, at least.

"Hail them," Spock ordered, ignoring the outburst of the acting Chief Medical Officer behind him. If he recalled, Leonard McCoy was a personal friend of James Kirk, and had been known to support him despite all the trouble the cadet seemed to attract. Still, that had little importance now.

Uhura gave him a strange look, but turned around and operated her terminal. She moved the low resolution camera of the drill surface to the side and replaced it with a feed of the inside of the Narada.

"This is Spock. I wish to speak to Nero," Spock said, standing up from the captain's chair. Proper position or not, it did not feel right somehow to sit upon that chair. A human feeling, certainly, but one that Spock could not disregard.

He could only hold the hope that Kirk would be able to 'stall' Nero for a period of time suitable for Captain Pike to prevent the usage of the red matter –– a weapon that he had heard of only from the unreliable Cadet Kirk. He was completely out of his depth here, and more than willing to admit it if there was anyone he trusted enough to say it to. He tapped his earpiece and connected directly to Kirk's helmet communications unit, ignoring the rough sounds of the scuffle on the drill below with some effort.

The picture was fuzzy for a moment, before it cleared. "Spock," Nero said curiously, leaning toward the camera. "What's this about? Your captain has already surrendered and should be nearly here." His brow was furrowed intensely in confusion and some concern. After all, a deal had already been brokered and the Enterprise was helpless. Why would they contact him?

"I was uncertain you would answer me, knowing the offensive capability of your ship compared to ours," Spock responded, what the humans called 'buying some time'.

"Yes, and tell me why I am bothering with this," Nero demanded. "Your captain is expected any moment, and you are coming dangerously close to regaining a status as a target for us."

"The Enterprise's captain has always taken risks," Kirk offered. "This is just another in a long line of gambles."

Spock hadn't the first bit of understanding about what Kirk was referring to. The Enterprise had only its Captain on the bridge for a few minutes before Pike had left. And Spock certainly could not be called reckless. Who, then, was Kirk talking about? He almost refused to repeat Kirk's ludicrous claims. Then he remembered the moment that Pike had simply asked, "Can I trust you?" and then the captain had. If Pike –– an excellent judge of character –– had found Kirk worth placing trust on, Spock could only do the same until circumstances provided proof positive to the contrary.

"The Enterprise's captain has always been known to take risks. I find it fitting that I also carry on the tradition and take what the humans call a 'gamble'," Spock said.

"Tell––Ow! Sulu, behind you!––tell him that Starfleet recognized the singularity of the red matter. We have––" Kirk collided with something, a sound traveling through the microphone that could only be one individual crashing into another in a violent manner, before continuing, "––the knowledge of where he came from; everything."

Starfleet had no such thing. It could only say that Nero was Romulan, and there was a vague report about a lightning storm in space, but Nero claimed to be outside of the Romulan Empire. His ship's technology was at least a century ahead of all current ship designs somehow, and Spock didn't even recognize half of the systems on it. Kirk gave a short sound of pain, breath hissing in and out rapidly, before roaring and charging back into the fight more energetically than ever.

Spock's face didn't even twitch. He was already (worryingly) becoming accustomed to the bizarre claims of Cadet Kirk, and this was just one in a larger series. A series that, Spock was beginning to fear, was only the beginning of a larger trend.

"Starfleet has knowledge of your origins," Spock said to Nero. "We recognized the signature of the singularity."

It was not even truly a lie, Spock consoled himself. Kirk was a member of Starfleet and could speak on behalf of the entire organization, in theory. To all appearences, Cadet Kirk had a puzzlingly thourough understanding of Nero. Therefore, Starfleet knew a great deal about Nero, then, if one could shift their perspective a bit. Spock suddenly felt somewhat sick. He had only known the Cadet for less than one earth day, and yet already he was breaking (or, at least, bending) the Vulcan commitment toward complete honesty.

Nero looked startled for a moment. Spock had managed to hit an undefended emotional target. Then Nero bore his teeth in a terrifying mockery of a smile. "So you know the devastation that I will prevent with my actions today?" he rasped.

"I see nothing but the devastation that you are about to inflict upon my planet," Spock replied without hesitation.

"Nice one, Spock, you're getting the hang of this," Kirk commented below. "And we haven't gotten any Romulan reinforcements down here on the drill yet either. We only need a few moments longer."

"You destroyed my planet!" Nero burst out, spitting each word as if it were its own jagged verbal dagger.

What? But Romulus was still alive. Had this entire thing been borne of a misunderstanding? It was Spock's duty, then, to clarify the situation and dissapate the emergency.

"Spock, I know what you're thinking. Just shut up," Kirk's helpful commentary interrupted him just as he began to speak. "Tell him that it wasn't your fault."

This was ridiculous. How could he be faulted for the destruction of a planet that still existed? Whose system he had never entered? Wait. Spock's eyebrow twitched, his posture shifted, betraying his internal realization. Romulus, destroyed. The technology of the ship. Nero's strange knowledge of him. But the idea was unprecedented, only a theoretical scientific anomaly. It was impossible, surely ––

"Nero!" one of the Romulans on the Narada roared. "Their captain has escaped! He's in the Jellyfish!"

Nero whirled around in shock, then sent a blood curdling glare at the camera. "You'll pay for this," he promised. "But not until I have your captain scream." With that, the screen faded to black.

Spock had gained only a few minutes. In those minutes, however, he had finally recognized the nature of the current situation. The recognition that had eluded him before.

The instruments on the bridge erupted with a cacophany of noise, reporting a return of long range communications and transporter capabilities. Uhura responded the very second that her comm unit was restored fully with the evacuation message she had already prepared. The pixelated view of the drill below showed the drill itself exploding in a fireball of epic proportions, the long hanging machine swaying back and forth wildly with the force of the explosion.

"We're done!" Kirk said unnecessarily, "Beam us up! Beam us up! Beam us up! Sulu lost his chute!" The camera veered away from the drill to a trio of dots falling below, only two parachutes above them. It appeared that Kirk had grabbed one arm and that Olsen had grabbed Sulu's other, the parachutes not fully prepared for the weight and bumping into each other.

The transporter team was able to quickly lock onto the trio, beaming them aboard with little trouble, where they thumped on the transporter pad––just in time for Spock to jump onto the pad and order the operator to send him to the Elders.

Next Chapter: Evacuation

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