Hello!

As I mentioned before, this is my first chapter fic, and though the going has been tough I do not plan on abandoning it. This is the first re-publishing of a few, and I'm going to change the tense and hopefully make an update. I am also thinking about moving over to ao3 so if you have any feedback on that it would be great. Anyway, enjoy!

There is another sky

Ever serene and fair,

And there is another sunshine,

Though it be darkness there...

Prologue

Space. The unknown. The void. All of it teeming with brightness of a thousand cities and yet light years beyond the reach of one's fingers. The barren darkness contrasted with the light whose every brilliant flicker spoke of possibility. An ocean of wandering stars with storms of vibrant nebulas painted across the sky, and the feeling of both feeling no larger than a grain of sand on an infinite beach and feeling like the cosmos themselves for simply being a part of something so vast. Something improbable, incomprehensible and by every means impossible. The consuming whole that promised both life and death in concert to anyone who dared to pluck its strings. The promise of nothing and forever; darkness and silence.

I think I'm going to puke.

Doctor McCoy liked the med bay for two reasons: One, because anyone who set foot in here had to do exactly what he said (Jim) and two, there are no windows. Windows meant Space, and Space meant death and he wanted to be as far away from death as possible, unlike some people (Jim), thank you very much. Of course, because the universe had chosen to love him of all people, the moronic, suicidal captain in charge of this mission (Jim) made sure McCoy is out of the med bay by 0532 every morning. And since this day is the first anniversary of said mission, the captain is dragging his ass down to an alien planet for the party.

Fantastic.

It doesn't matter how many times he'd told Jim about the dangers of space, let alone the dangers of alien planets in space, let alone the diseases that could possibly be on those planets; diseases that could possibly be brought on to the Enterprise if some unlucky person were to pick it up, in which case everyone else would pick it up and die a terrible bloody death and never see Earth again.

James T. Kirk. That lousy, farm-bred, son of a-

His communicator buzzed right at that moment. It rattles the table slightly.

"Bones, the landing party leaves in ten minutes."

Speak of the devil.

"Bones, are you there?"

Leonard scooped the device off the medical table and opened it.

"I wish I wasn't."

He practically heard Jim smirk over the comm.

"Oh come on Bones. It'll be an adventure!"

Hadn't he heard that one before?

5 years in space? Come on Bones, it'll be fun. An adventure!

It'll be good for you.

McCoy lodged the communicator between his ear and shoulder so he can finish prepping his med case. He felt no guilt when he picked up a clean hypospray and packed it in next to several vaccinations.

"Oh yeah," He responded, searching for his container of plant based acids, "An adventure, I'm sure of it. Like the Aurora?" Damn space hippies.

Jim sighed. "Just be there Bones. Kirk out."

Well he doesn't really have a choice does he?

Leonard checked his kit for a final time. The planet is mostly dry, so that means any plant life is scarce, and probably has developed some sort of bizarre, strange, terrifying way to protect itself, and any life form will have developed itself around those bizarre, strange, terrifying things. So besides standard first aid, an extra scanner and tricorders for the landing party, some general vaccines against various venoms would be a smart thing to have, which he does. About 20 of them. But of course, since Kirk is a walking catastrophe waiting to happen, he doubts it will be enough. Though it is enough to fill the case.

Damn. No room for the extra scanner.

He'd even ordered the plus size medpacs. Aww, to hell with it. He didn't want to reorganize the whole damn thing. He clicks the silver case closed and makes his way to the shuttle hangar, shoving the small device in his pocket.

He would like to think he'd prepared enough, and to some extent he did, but McCoy knows the universe doesn't like him that much. They were getting weird readings from that planet. Readings that none of them, not even Spock really understood. Though what Spock did say they were on frequencies they used on Old Earth. That meant not only was something alive down there, it might know that the Enterprise was alive out here.

Why I agree to these things is beyond me.

We are all going to die.

Damn it, Jim.