Chapter 7: Every Loss Eternal

"Now! Now! Now! Do it now!" Jim yelled over the comms and I still felt like I wasn't breathing. Jim couldn't die. Jim wasn't even supposed to be here in space, let alone on an away mission. Rationally, I suppose I knew that one day he would be. Almost everyone in the fleet was at some point unless they were working desk jobs back on earth, and even then it was no guarantee. More than that, it was Jim's aim to be a Captain and, even after the events of yesterday, I maintained that he would make a great one, but what with the ways of space, that would involve a considerable risk to his life.

I just hadn't realised how attached I was to Jim, and how ill-prepared that made me to deal with it.

"Hold on. Hold on." Chekov's voice came over the comms and it was all I could focus on, "Compensating gravitational pull and... Gotcha! Oh! Yo moyo!"

"Mr Chekov," I called, proud of myself for the fact that my voice did not shake, "are Kirk and Sulu aboard the Enterprise?"

"Aye, Miss Carrol,"

Well thank fuck for that. I breathed out a sigh of relief, my posture immediately relaxing slightly in the chair as I shut the comm off. Glancing round the bridge I nodded to everyone who looked about as nervous as I felt. We were sort of redundant, sat here. Away from what seemed to be the main body of the action. I may technically be in charge right now – by some bizarre twist of fate – but I was in no way qualified to decide what the ship did next while we waited for Spock to return. He appeared to have beamed down to the surface almost immediately after Jim and Sulu got back on board, and there was nothing we could do but wait. Pike, unfortunately, seemed to be trapped indefinitely with the Romulans.

There was nothing we could do for now but wait.

Clearing my throat, I addressed the bridge. "Maintain standard orbit, we do not leave until Commander Spock and the Vulcan High Command are on board."

It was the only call I could make, given the circumstances, but I turned to Giulia all the same, who had only grown more worried as time dragged on, and the singularity at the heart of Vulcan worsened. I thought of what she'd said as Chekov left the bridge.

"Miss Booth, update on the singularity?" I dreaded the answer even as I asked the question.

"We have minutes at most," she said, and I turned again to look at Vulcan. Whatever Spock was thinking when he beamed to the planet, he must have known the kind of time frame he had in which to do this. Minutes.

The door to the turbolift opened again, and Sulu and Jim stepped out. No longer in their spacesuits, and both looking more haggard than they had been before their space-diving excursion. There was a cut above and below Jim's eye and a redness that told of a bruise arising there later, but it didn't seem to be bothering him. The both of them moved forward and I immediately vacated Sulu's seat, moving instead towards my best friend. Remembering my ongoing attempt at professionalism, and the fact that I was technically in charge, I did not hug him, even though I wanted to. Instead, my eyes shone while my voice was level.

"Are you alright… Cadet Kirk?"

He nodded, but his eyes were harder than I'd ever seen them, and I didn't think it had anything to do with the black eye he was developing. He waved a hand at me, and my eyebrows furrowed as I noted it looked swollen. I reached out for his wrist and pulled it gently towards me to examine it closer. I was no medic, but I was no fool either. Jim was as disinterested as ever in his physical wellbeing.

"Is Spock out of his mind, we need to get-,"

But he was cut off by the Commander's voice over the comms. "Spock to Enterprise. Get us out now!"

"Speak of the devil," I murmured, but internally I was sighing in relief. Minutes. He'd done it in minutes, and we could get far away from this god forsaken part of space as fast as possible. I did not want to get us sucked into a blackhole if I could help it. I let Jim's hand drop and turned back towards the main navigation console.

"Mr Sulu, I recommend as soon as Spock and the others are on board, you get us out of here. Follow the Narada," I said firmly. Though he looked shocked at my shift in demeanor, he nodded. I left the comm-line open, waiting for an update from the transporter bay, and hoping to any gods that Spock would just get back and we could get out of here.

"Locking on you." Chekov called, as the status of the planet continued to deteriorate further, and an alarm started going off. I had never in my life heard so many alarms. "Don't move. Stay right where you are."

Chekov started counting down but paired with the ever-worsening warning of seismic activity on the screens all around me, it felt nothing less than ominous.

"I'm losing her. I'm losing her, I'm losing her! No, I've lost her."

The Vulcan elders who Spock had been determined to rescue, and the Vulcan commander himself all showed as safely on board, but still it came with such awful loss. Behind me, Uhura gasped audibly, but I was unable to form words. The air on the bridge was thick and heavy as we processed what had just happened, but we couldn't linger near Vulcan as it started to pull in on itself in a cloud of lightning and dust and flashes. As per my command, Sulu immediately got us out of the radius of the blackhole, setting the course back for earth, the same trajectory the Narada had been on.

Unsure what to do, I leant heavily against the railing, and resigned myself to Spock's return. I suppose Jim sensed my distress at the insane events of the last… god, it can't have been more than half an hour, but I already felt lifetimes different from the Ensign that had set off this morning. Lifetimes different again from the girl who'd passed a test and gained a commission yesterday. But Jim grabbed my hand with his uninjured one and gave it a soft, reassuring squeeze. My throat closed up as I looked back at him. He was so out of place in his black undershirt. The rest of us all in uniform; cadets and officers alike. But the familiarity of Jim like this…

This was Jim whose bed I had lounged on as we both went over command protocols for the bridge. This was Jim who showed up late to the bar still in his uniform but with his jacket unbuttoned because his class ran late. This was Jim who ate lunch outside with me, and Bones, and Jeremy, and made us laugh with the stupidest jokes ever, while Leonard griped about them.

This was the Jim that made me feel like just maybe, despite it all, everything might end up fine.

Clearing my throat, I looked up at him, frowning at the up-close view of the mark on his face. It was already reddening and a little swollen. "You should- you should get to the MedBay, Cadet Kirk."

Much aside from the fact that I thought the last thing needed right now was another altercation between Spock and Jim, I knew he was probably hurting more than he let on. The first time I'd met him had been a barfight where he'd proceeded to flirt with me despite what had looked like an almost broken nose and a bottle over his head. Throughout the academy squabbles he'd got into were dealt with after the problem had gone away, but that wasn't how things worked on Starships.

He looked like he wanted to hesitate, but I saw his eyes flicker down to my badge. I had a rank, and I had the conn. He had neither. Not that it was out of character for Jim to argue with a superior officer – let alone me – but I think he saw the value in not being on the bridge when Spock came back.

"Aye, Ensign Carrol." His fingers tightened round mine again, and I still took comfort from it, before they were gone, and he disappeared through the doors to the turbolift. Not a moment too soon, it seemed, for the bridge door slid open and Spock reappeared barely a minute later, Chekov right behind him. Spock's face was hard, and his eyes barely glimmered beneath those Vulcan eyebrows. I had cried for days when my father had died. Inconsolable in my loss of my most beloved parent. Spock's loss, which was surely brutal and raw and should be raging within him, yet he showed no outward affects.

He looked to me, stood in front of the Captain's chair that I couldn't bear to sit in, "C-captain on the bridge," I stammered, relief flooding me as I moved back towards my station. His face remained hard as he nodded at me and took a seat in the chair.

"What is our status, Ensign Carrol?"

"I, uh," I swallowed hard, I could do this. I briefly flickered my eyes over my console, the information and the quick math going on in my head distracting me from the planet we'd just seen die. "We are out of the reach of the singularity, Captain. Preliminary assessment of Nero's trajectory suggest he is headed towards the Sol system. We have set a course to-,"

"We are going to join the rest of the fleet in the Laurentian system." That was not in the same direction. Not to mention the fact that it was practically halfway across the quadrant.

"Sir, I-,"

The look Spock shot my way silenced me. It was more than enough to remind me I was just barely an Ensign. He was the captain, who had just lost his entire planet and his mother, and we were going to re-join the fleet.

"Yes, sir," I nodded, buttoning down on my protest as Chekov and Sulu changed our course. My face must have been beet red, and I blamed Jim for my insubordination – maybe he was contagious in his recklessness. Or maybe, just maybe, I didn't think re-joining the fleet would achieve anything. It didn't take much to work out that if Nero was headed towards the central systems, with Pike on board, then it made sense for him to target where he too had come from.

Earth.

"Acting captain's log, stardate 2258.42. We have had no word from Captain Pike. I have therefore classified him a hostage of the war criminal known as Nero. Nero, who has destroyed my home planet and most of its six billion inhabitants. While the essence of our culture has been saved in the elders who now reside upon the ship, I estimate no more than ten thousand have survived. I am now a member of an endangered species."

We had settled into warp again, the journey back from Vulcan far quieter than the one out, save for Spock's incredibly dire Captain's log. There was a beep as he signed it off, before standing up, and wordlessly leaving the bridge. I chanced a look back at him, and just before the turbolift door closed Uhura slid in beside him.

What was that about?

I stored it away to quiz Uhura about it much later, when this was all over and we could celebrate our successes rather than our failures. I went back to puzzling over the readings on the screen in front of me, before swivelling in my chair.

"Chekov," I called, and he glanced up at me, "How's your calculation looking?"

He shook his head, "The same as yours, Miss Carrol." I bit my lip, looking back over the data readings.

"We have to inform Starfleet command," I said, frowning as I turned back around. "If he continues for earth… how long do the engineering team have to repair our subspace comms so we can contact them, before Nero gets to earth?"

Before Chekov could answer my question, Uhura stepped out of the turbolift, and almost simultaneously Kirk and Bones came through the other door. Kirk looked around the bridge for Spock, and his eyebrows furrowed in a familiar confused expression when he did not find him. Technically, there were no vital personnel on the bridge, seeing as Spock hadn't appointed a first officer, which was a violation of protocol.

Something that Spock, and his love of regulations and rules, ought to have thought about before he'd wandered off.

Jim's hand was wrapped up tight now, and the swelling on his eye had gone down from whatever medical treatment he'd received. He looked far calmer and surer of himself now. More like the boy who was certain he had all the answers and, in the absence of the commander, Jim headed or the only free seat on the bridge.

"Jim, that's not your seat," I called over my shoulder, as the tell-tale beep of his access code being denied sounded.

"It's the only seat," he said evasively, giving up trying to get his own credentials into the chair, and instead taking in all the information on the main viewscreen.

"On your head…" I murmured, rolling my eyes, getting back to working out whether a message could get to Starfleet command before Nero got to earth. And whether or not they'd even be able to do anything about it. A shadow appeared at my side, and tilting my head up, I saw Bones. Arms crossed over his chest as he looked down at me.

"You still alright, Roxy?"

"Stop mothering me, Bones, I'm fine," I muttered under my breath, and was granted a chuckle as he gave me an affectionate pat on the shoulder.

"If you say so…"

Leonard knew me pretty well. Well enough to know that the events of this morning must have had me shaken up, but he also knew better than to psychoanalyse me. He was right, that the events of today had been bad and pushed me far and away out of my comfort zone, but with a problem to solve, I was able to compartmentalise the issue somewhat.

Joining Starfleet had meant becoming comfortable with a certain level of risk, both to yourself and to those you cared about. I hated seeing my friends in danger, and in pain. I'd felt like the black hole might as well have swallowed me whole when I had been unsure if Jim was about to die. I hadn't been able to stop my hands from shaking when we did evasive manouveours around the ships and bodies of our fellow cadets. People who were more likely than not our friends.

This was hardly just another day in the fleet, but it had already taught me more than any simulation had ever managed in three years of academy training.

As I turned to reassure Bones more thoroughly, Chekov called out announcing Spock's return, and the bridge was immediately all business again.

"Have you confirmed that Nero is headed for Earth?"

"Their trajectory suggests no other destination, Captain," said Uhura from behind her station. She seemed far more guarded as she spoke to him now, especially considering he didn't look back at her as she said it.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Spock also sounded frosty when he spoke to Uhura. Frostier than what had seemed to be his usual, that is. Today hadn't exactly been a usual day, though, from the tribunal to the distress call to the disaster, so I wasn't really in a place to judge. But when I saw the hurt look on Uhura's face the insatiable gossiper in me couldn't help but be curious.

Jim was almost lounging in the Captain's chair, but it was not the same as he had done in the Kobayashi Maru chair yesterday. He looked serious, instead of cocky. The expression on his face was one I'd only ever seen in the command classes we shared, particularly the rare ones with Pike where Jim was rapt with attention. His sharp mind trying to work out every possible solution to whatever problem Pike presented us with.

"Earth may be his next stop, but we have to assume every Federation planet's a target," he reasoned.

Rather than acknowledge Jim's point, Spock didn't even look his way as he started to pace the bridge.

"Out of the chair."

"He's right, though," I spoke up, and Spock looked at me directly, but I refused to waver again. Jim came to stand next to my station, and I glanced at him, grateful for his support. "Having Captain Pike might suggest why earth is his next target, but an attack on Vulcan followed by an attack on Earth is an attack on the Federation."

"Well, if the Federation is a target, why didn't they destroy us?" asked Chekov, looking between me and Sulu.

"Why would they?" said Sulu, as Spock continued to pace around the bridge. "Why waste the weapons? You know... we obviously weren't a threat."

"That is not it," Spock said as he reached the front of the bridge. It was fascinating to watch him try and work it out. "He said he wanted me to see something. The destruction of my home planet."

"How the hell did they do that, by the way?" Bones interjected, "Where did the Romulans get that kind of weaponry?"

"The engineering comprehension necessary to artificially create a black hole may suggest an answer." He turned round to address the bridge as a whole again, all of us enthralled as he worked through Nero's motivations and his methods. "Such technology could theoretically be manipulated to create a tunnel through space-time."

"Dammit man, I'm a doctor, not a physicist," Bones drawled, but even he had to know what space-time tunnels meant. Doctors may not study advanced astrophysics like some of the rest of us, but that one was fairly obvious. "Are you actually suggesting they're from the future?!"

"If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

"How poetic," griped Bones, unwilling to admit that Spock did have a point. Even I thought time-travel, of all things, was a little farfetched. It was the kind of thing you heard of in really old Sci-Fi movies. We had determined that it was possible, certainly, but no one was capable of time-travel yet. Moreover, the Federation had already planned for the day that someone did manage to get time travel to work in the charter, because weaponised time-travel would be frankly the worst thing ever. Therefore, it was almost unthinkable to wrap my head around the fact that one day, someone would develop time-travel and come back… here. To the time I happened to be living in.

"Then, what would an angry, future Romulan want with Captain Pike?" asked Jim, accepting that Spock was probably right, but sarcasm dripping from his tone all the same.

"As Captain, he does know details of Starfleet's defenses," Sulu pointed out, and I nodded, swivelling again in my chair to address Spock.

"Which would also mean he could take out the federation's subspace relays," I said, "stop us communicating with the rest of Starfleet."

"What we need to do is catch up to that ship," Jim said, pushing off my console, "Disable it, take it over, and get Pike back."

"Oh, so nothing too difficult then?" I rolled my eyes. Jim always rattled off these longwinded elaborate plans like they were the simplest thing in the world. I loved his ambition, but he was still working on actually helping out with performing the minutia of his plans. Instead he barrelled forwards, often dragging me with him. Admittedly I didn't usually complain, but it was not the way to do things today.

"We are technologically outmatched in every way," Spock said, "A rescue attempt would be illogical."

"Nero's ship would have to drop out of warp for us to overtake him." Chekov pointed out.

"Then, what about assigning engineering crews to try and boost our warp gear?" Jim started, to elaborate on his plan, making it seem a little more feasible. While that was certainly possible, it couldn't be done on the timescale the plan needed. Not with the damage the ship had sustained back at Vulcan.

"Remaining power and crew are being used to repair radiation leaks on the lower decks-,"

"Okay, alright! There's got to be some way-,"

"-we must gather with the rest of Starfleet, to balance the terms of the next engagement."

Spock saw the issue too, and the two of them started to speak over each other, the rest of us unable to get a further word in edgeways as it turned into a two-man argument.

"There won't be a next engagement!" Jim snapped, "By the time we've gathered, it'll be too late. But you say he's from the future, knows what's going to happen, then the logical thing is to be unpredictable."

Spock arched a pointy brow at Jim, before looking at all of us. Clearly he had reached some conclusion the rest of us had not yet managed in our planning session. "You are assuming that Nero knows how events are predicted to unfold. To the contrary, Nero's very presence has altered the flow of history, beginning with the attack on the USS Kelvin, culminating in the events of today, thereby creating an entire new chain of incidents that cannot be anticipated by either party."

Oh.

"An alternate reality?" Uhura breathed, and I looked from her to Spock, to Jim, as the realisation dawned on all of us. The fragility of whatever our lives had been had shifted some twenty-years ago. Somewhere in a different universe, there were different versions of us, 25 years older, leading completely different lives. The possibility was too much to wrap my head around, but Spock just had to confirm it.

"Precisely.

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