Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Trek, much as I would like to. I only own Ensign Wilkes, in all his red-shirted, expendable glory.

Chapter One

“Hey, Jim, guess what?” Doctor McCoy stepped out of the turbolift and sauntered over to the side of the captain’s chair, grinning cheerfully.

“What is it, Bones?” Kirk asked, turning curiously to look at his CMO. This had been a typically routine day so far, and he welcomed the doctor’s intrusion into the humdrum activity of the bridge.

“It’s Christine,” the doctor replied slyly. “I’ve just discovered that she has a crush on a certain member of the crew,” the doctor chuckled, “and you’ll never guess who it is!”

Kirk sighed. “Spare me the guessing game, Bones. Please.”

McCoy looked slightly put out, but leaned in closer and, as though he were letting slip some terrible secret, said softly, “Spock!”

Kirk raised both eyebrows in surprise. He stared at the doctor. “You’re kidding me.”

“I’m not!” McCoy swore. He grinned again. “It seems that our pointy-eared friend has got himself an admirer.”

Kirk closed his eyes in disbelief. “You won’t torment him over it, will you?” he asked after a minute.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” replied McCoy with a smirk that Kirk could have sworn was diabolical. He let out a short laugh. “Would you believe it, though? The irony! There aren’t that many women on this ship, relatively speaking. Christine’s not bad-looking. She could probably have just about any guy she wanted. But somehow she manages to single out the one man who’s totally oblivious!”

Kirk began to feel pity for the poor nurse. “You ought to tell her,” he warned, “before she gets her hopes up too high.”

McCoy shrugged hopelessly. “I did! She wouldn’t listen. Insisted that Vulcans must have some feelings—that they must, at any rate, know about love, if they don’t reproduce asexually! Which,” he admitted, “I’ve wondered myself at times.”

Just then, the conversation was interrupted by the helmsman’s voice. “Captain, we should arrive at Equus III in thirty minutes.”

“Excellent,” Kirk replied, standing up. “Bones, I want you to beam down with me and Ensign Wilkes to collect the vegetation samples—“

The doctor was shaking his head firmly. “No way, Jim.”

Kirk grinned. “It’s okay, Bones; the transporters will be down for the next few days. Some sort of equipment failure. We’ll be taking a shuttlecraft.”

“I know. I’ll go down, all right, but you are staying right here.”

Kirk looked surprised. “What do you mean?”

McCoy leaned in close and lowered his voice. “I mean that you have seen far more than enough excitement during the past two weeks. You may remember that after that disastrous affair on Altair II you promised me you wouldn’t accompany any more landing parties unless absolutely necessary for at least a month. That month isn’t up yet, and you are going to stay aboard this ship and get some much-needed rest, not go running around wearing yourself out on some away mission.”

Kirk looked exasperated. “Come on, Bones; I feel fine! The only problem with me is that I’ve been cooped up on board the Enterprise for too long.”

The doctor remained adamant. “You are not going down to Equus III. I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss about it, Jim; gathering vegetation specimens isn’t known to be particularly exciting work. I think we’ll be able to manage without you, somehow,” he added dryly.

Kirk sighed in resignation. “I don’t suppose I’ll be able to sway you, will I?”

McCoy shook his head firmly.

Kirk nodded and smiled a little. “You’re too stubborn for your own good, Doctor. Very well, I’ll stay on the Enterprise. Just as long as I can come to the shuttlebay to see the three of you off.”

McCoy’s eyes narrowed. “Three of us? The last time I checked, Wilkes and I only make two.”

Kirk grinned devilishly. “Maybe so, but you, Wilkes and Spock make three.”

The doctor groaned. “Please tell me you didn’t say that.”

“Sorry, Bones.” Kirk’s cheerful manner had made an abrupt return. “If I’m not going, I have to make sure there’s someone in that landing party who knows what he’s doing.”

McCoy scowled. “Jim Kirk, you have a sadistic streak a mile wide.”

“Well, you know what the Klingons say…” the captain smirked. “‘Revenge is a dish that is best served cold.’”

The doctor frowned. “That doesn’t make much sense, you know.”

Kirk shrugged. “It’s Klingon. Did you expect it to?”

----------

Around forty minutes later, Doctor McCoy found himself reluctantly entering the shuttlebay alongside Jim Kirk. The shuttlecraft Galileo was nearly ready for departure; Ensign Wilkes was just climbing inside. As they approached, Spock came around the side of the shuttle. Upon seeing the pair, he addressed Kirk with his customary formality. “Captain. Now that Doctor McCoy has arrived, we are nearly ready for departure.”

“Very well, Spock,” Kirk replied, and as Spock went to board the shuttle he turned to McCoy. “Bones, you’ve got those antidotes?”

“Right here, Jim,” McCoy replied, patting the medical kit he was bringing down. The report of the last ship to visit Equus III had noted the presence of mammalian predators, called rytla, whose fangs secreted a lethal poison. As the creatures only came out at night the landing party didn’t anticipate coming into contact with them, but everyone involved had agreed that it would be wisest to take the precaution of having several doses of antidote handy.

“Then I won’t hold you up. Go ahead, Bones; I’ll see you in a couple of hours. Have fun,” he added with an impish grin.

McCoy rolled his eyes as he climbed aboard the shuttlecraft. “When pigs fly,” he grumbled to himself.

Onboard the Galileo, Ensign Wilkes was already in the pilot’s seat, and Spock was examining a tricorder in the rear of the shuttle. McCoy settled himself down in the farthest seat from Spock, trying his best to ignore the Vulcan’s presence. That was the only way, he was sure, he would be able to get through this event without going crazy.

After a few minutes Wilkes spoke up. “Doctor, Commander, we have received permission to depart.”

“Engage, Ensign,” Spock replied without looking up.

“At least we don’t have to transport down,” McCoy muttered to himself as the shuttlebay doors opened and the craft lifted off. “Thank God for small mercies.”

Spock looked up from the tricorder, one eyebrow raised. “Doctor, your persistent fear of the transporters is entirely irrational.”

“So I’ve heard,” McCoy replied sourly.

“There are many complex safety features built into the Enterprise’s transport system,” Spock lectured. “The chance of any accident’s occurring is approximately one thousand, two hundred forty-three to one. In contrast, the probability that this shuttle will crash, most likely killing all three of us, is much greater: I would estimate a probability of five hundred seventy-two to one.”

McCoy gritted his teeth. “Guess what, Spock?”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“Shut up!”

Perhaps because he was so startled at being addressed in that manner, the Vulcan fell silent. The only sound now was that of the shuttlecraft’s engines as they powered up. Steered by Ensign Wilkes’ skilful handling, the Galileo rose from the shuttlebay floor and flew out into the starry void.

But it wasn’t really a void, since the green and blue surface of Equus III, swirling with white clouds, occupied about one third of the shuttle’s viewscreen. McCoy gazed at it in wonder, the peaceful sight calming him down somewhat. No matter what Spock said about the relative safety of transporters and shuttlecraft, there could be no argument over which method of transportation offered the better view. Not that Spock was likely to appreciate something as emotional as admiring a scenic landscape. McCoy snuck a glance back at the Vulcan and found that, sure enough, Spock was still fully engaged in adjusting the settings on a tricorder.

For the next twenty or so minutes, there was silence in the shuttlecraft. Spock busied himself in checking that all of his scientific equipment was in order, Wilkes piloted the shuttlecraft and McCoy watched as the planet grew ever larger on the viewscreen. Funny, really, how apart from the basic shapes of continents the planet really didn’t look too unlike Earth from this distance. This fact caused the doctor an unexpected pang of homesickness, as he remembered the first time he had looked upon the Earth from space. How long had it been, anyway, since he had stood on his home planet? McCoy wasn’t sure. The Enterprise had occasionally taken shore leave on Earth, but he didn’t think the last occasion had been particularly recent.

The shuttle shook slightly. McCoy glanced at the viewscreen saw that they were now descending through the cloud layers that covered the planet’s surface. “What’s going on?” he asked no one in particular.

“Ensign?” Spock asked, finally looking up from the tricorder.

“Um, we’ve encountered some atmospheric disturbance,” Ensign Wilkes replied, checking some readings.

Spock quickly stood and approached the front of the shuttle, easily maintaining his balance even as the Galileo rocked again, with more violence. The Vulcan peered over the helmsman’s shoulder at the science readings. “It seems that a lightening storm is about to occur,” he observed as calmly as though he were discussing the weather. Which, technically, he was.

McCoy scrambled up behind the other two as the shuttle rocked again. The viewscreen was completely covered in a mass of dark clouds. “Will we still be able to land?” he demanded.

“We shall attempt to stay as close to our original course as possible,” replied Spock, flipping open his communicator. “Spock to Enterprise.”

“Kirk here,” replied the captain immediately. “Spock, we can see that you’ve run into some turbulence. The storm sprang up so suddenly we were unable to anticipate it. Are you all right?” His voice was crackly and distorted, as though the atmospheric disturbance was tampering with the communicator’s signal.

“We are unharmed so far, Captain. We intend to keep as close to our original course as is possible at the moment—“

“Spock, I can’t hear you clearly,” Kirk’s staticky voice cut in. It was difficult to make out his words above the crashing thunder that was now sounding outside the shuttlecraft. “The transmission… when you… planet…” Then suddenly, the communicator went dead.

At precisely that moment, the shuttlecraft bucked and spun wildly and the three crewmen were thrown from their seats. Spock managed to grab onto edge of a control panel, but McCoy was flung to the rear of the shuttle, and Ensign Wilkes was smashed headfirst into the ceiling with a sickening crack.

Spock pulled himself into the seat in front of the control. “We’ve deviated from our course!” he yelled over the rolling thunder and howling wind. “We may have difficulty in landing.”

McCoy staggered back to the front of the shuttle as the floor rocked beneath his feet. He crouched anxiously beside the prone form of Ensign Wilkes. A moment later he grimly raised his head. “He’s dead, Ji—Spock.” The doctor swore loudly. This mission had hardly gotten off the ground (well, more literally, onto the ground) and already a man had died.

Just then the clouds on the viewscreen parted and McCoy could see that they were hurtling toward the ground at a dangerous speed. Spock was attempting to slow the shuttle but was met with little success. “I cannot slow her against the wind,” he called, still struggling with the controls.

McCoy joined him at the console. He had had only very limited experience with piloting airborne vehicles of any kind, but he could tell where the steering mechanism was. Taking it his hand, he jerked it far to the right. The shuttle veered away from the forest over which they were coming down and toward a wide body of water—a river, it looked like—that was a short distance away. “Our only chance is to come down in the water,” he said in response to Spock’s questioning glance. “The fall probably won’t kill us this way, but we’ll have to get free of the Galileo pretty fast, and hope there aren’t any huge rocks to dash our heads against. Quick, let’s grab the emergency supply kits so we can—“ He had already started moving for the aforementioned kits but stopped when he realized that Spock had frozen and was not following his lead. “What is it, Spock?”

Spock hesitated for a moment, and then admitted, “I cannot swim.”

McCoy just stared at him for a few seconds as the shuttle continued to plummet downward. “Well, this is a fine time to tell me!” he snapped, and reached down to grab the supply kits, mentally slapping himself. Of course a man from a desert planet wouldn’t be able to swim! He thrust a box of emergency supplies into Spock’s hands. “I guess you’ll just have to learn quickly!”

Spock nodded and moved toward the side of the shuttlecraft, preparing to open the door as soon as they were near enough to the water. “It would be best, I believe, for us to jump from the shuttle while we are some distance from the surface of the water.”

McCoy nodded. “I’m ready when you are,” he muttered grimly, joining Spock by the door and preparing to make the leap. He wondered how he would be able to hold onto both his medical kit and the emergency supply kit while swimming.

Then they were careening over the surface of the water. Fifteen feet above it, ten feet, five—

“Now,” said Spock, pressing a button on the wall that caused the shuttle door to open. They were instantly lashed by the torrent of rain that poured from the gray, flickering sky.

Spock hesitated for only a second before flinging himself out of the shuttle. His dark form vanished almost immediately into the dark spray below. As the Galileo continued to plunge downward, McCoy knew he had only moments to follow. The doctor took a deep breath and then hurled himself into thin air.

Writer’s Note: This is my first attempt at a more “serious” story, and I would really like constructive criticism telling me how I can improve. So please review!