even the stars have made us blind (part TWO)
TITLE: even the stars have made us blind
FANDOM: star trek (xi)
PAIRING: pavel chekov/ofc (amelie colt)
RATING: pg-13
SPOILERS: star trek xi
WARNINGS: language; mild sexual imagery
WORD COUNT: ~5,500 (total) ~3,100 (this part)
DISCLAIMER: star trek belongs to roddenberry and paramount. anyone you don’t recognise is bastardised or is mine.
SUMMARY: Amelie Colt is the chief cryptographer aboard the Enterprise. When the Enterprise answers a distress call and finds the vessel destroyed, she is sent aboard to try to find out what happened.
A/N: Please, PLEASE forgive the ridiculous plot devices used. This was a request for wannabeacullen. Hence the particularly Mary Sue-esqueness of Amelie (but the person she is based on is actually like that :O So, it's not my fault...)
partONE
Amelie was already in the transporter room when Chekov arrived, one of the redshirts helping her into her EV suit. He was handed another EV suit and allowed himself to be helped into it. Helmet in hand, Amelie turned to him, surprise registering on her face.
“Pavel! Are you coming too?”
The redshirt zipped up and strapped closed the EV suit around his neck, preventing him from answering for a moment. “Da. The captain says That you will need a numerical code to get into the system.”
“Alright! Ready, you two?” Commander Scott seated himself behind the control desk, and Amelie and Chekov positioned themselves on the trasnporter pad. “So, I’ll be hopefully setting you doon on the bridge, but Star Fleet records on Denaati warbird designs are not that good, so… We’ll see.”
“We’ll see?” echoed Amelie, pausing as she raised her helmet.
“Aye, well, there’s no one aboard, so you should be fine.” Scotty grinned at them. “All good? Okay, transporting in five, four, three, two…”
They rematerialised in a dark, dank room on the Denaati ship. Amelie pulled out a testing strip and snapped it. The fluid showed up red, even through the helmets.
“Great. No oxygen.”
They looked around, activating the lights on the helmets. There was a operating desk near the far wall, which they approached warily, keeping a weather eye open for any falling debris or hanging electrical wires. Amelie sat down behind it, and frowned at the panels. Chekov looked over her shoulder; it was covered in moving, flickering shapes, which he could barely make out, let alone understand.
“Is that Denaati?”
“Yeah,” replied Amelie, hands hovering about the panels as she tried to work out what she should press. “Their alphabet translates a little into the Western one - better into Russian,” she added, and pride glinted in Chekov’s chest.
“Of course,” he said. “The Russian’s invented the alphabet.”
She snorted, and ignored him. “They write right to left, using a runic system - damn, but Maka is easier to understand than this shit.”
He blinked. Amelie hesitated a moment longer, indecision tearing at her, but she quickly tapped at several keys. Chekov held his breath, and listened to the creaking of the ship around them. He remembered what Spock had said about the ship’s AI.
“Okay…” He looked back at the panel, and saw that the squiggly lines and dots had changed to something completely different. “You up for some code cracking, Pavel?”
“Da,” he said, sitting down on the chair space that Amelie made for him. “What do I do?”
“Well,” Amelie unclipped a note PADD from the front of her EV seat and slid the stylus out from the side, “Denaati warbird access codes are always the ship’s name, which, in this case is… Krontiaylus Dehgighuy.”
Chekov stared at her. “What does that mean?”
“We will be justified by your blood.” She caught his look. “The Denaati are great warriors, and great poets. They seem to be one of the few species who have managed to carry pieces of both beyond battle songs.
“Anyway, each ship uses a different numerical encryption system; but as the alphabets are similar, the numerical systems of Denaati and Earth are identical. Probably due to the fact that they have ten fingers are well.” She was scribbling in the PADD, presumably the translation of the runes on the screen. Amelie handed it to Chekov, who frowned at the scrawled name of the ship and the corresponding numbers.
His communicator chirruped. “Enterprise to Chekov. How’s it going?”
“Ensign Colt has managed to get us to a code screen, sir,” he replied, still staring at the PADD. “I am attempting to - figure out - the code now.”
“Good work, Ensign. Keep it up.”
“Enterprise out.”
Amelie stood up as Chekov went back to code-breaking, looking around the room. It was far too small to be the bridge, but she forgave Scotty for putting them in the wrong place. They were able to access the computer grid, anyway, and that was all they wanted to do. Get in, find out what happened, and get out. She shivered - being in a place where people had died gave her a weird feeling.
And that was a good point. The ship was devoid of life forms; yet there were no bodies in this room. Where exactly were they in the layout of the ship?
“I have it!” She turned around at Chekov’s exclamation, and hurried back to the computer. Written underneath the number sequence - in far worse handwriting than her own, Amelie was happy to say - was a corresponding alphabet. She looked up, and caught Chekov’s gaze. She shrugged.
“Cool. You’re the maths genius.”
She sat down and tapped in the necessary code. The computer blinked - they held their breath, waiting for the alarms to blare and some security system to activate, killing them both - and filled with long lines of runes. Amelie let out her breath in a long whoosh, grinning over at Chekov.
“We’re in.”
She squinted at the text, mumbling under her breath. She tapped the screen a few more times, changing the display; Chekov got the impression that she was working her way through the system, trying to find the logs. A sudden, horrible grinding sound caught his attention, just as his communicator bleeped at him.
“Chekov!” It was the captain, and he sounded worried. “Get the hell out of there! The AI seems to have activated the crumple-thing…”
Chekov’s eyes widened as he saw the far wall buckle in on itself. Amelie looked up as well, swore viciously and fumbled for something strapped to her suit.
“Nyet! No time! We move, now.” He grabbed at her arm, but she slapped him away, slamming an information downloader on the computer screen.
“We’ve got this far; I’m not just letting it go!”
“There’s no time…”
The metal screamed as it collapsed, Amelie and Chekov froze suddenly as they watched impending doom twist its way towards them. The light on the downloader flashed green, and Amelie grabbed it. Chekov grabbed her, and they stumbled and scrambled across the room towards the door, no longer caring about any other dangers. The door needed a code to open it; Amelie tapped at it furiously, trying various sequences, until Chekov pulled her backwards and shot it with his phaser. Kicking at the door until it shuddered open a gap, they wrenched at it until it was far enough open for Amelie to slip through.
Chekov looked over his shoulder, and his fingers slackened on the door. The walls, floor and ceiling were collapsing in on themselves, and were mere feet from him. He could hear Amelie swearing and yelling at him to pull the fucking door, now, but he couldn’t make himself move.
On the other side of the door, Amelie put both feet against the far door frame and heaved with all the might of desperation. The gap widened enough for Chekov to fall through and scramble backwards away from the fast approaching crush of metal. Amelie let go, landed on him, and the door slid shut. But there was little time for relief; the door and wall bent before their very eyes. Scrambling upright, they cast about desperately for a way out.
They were in some kind of supply closet; the walls were lined with shelves, offering no hatch for them to break through. Then, Chekov spotted a hatch in the ceiling. He yanked it open and hauled himself into it, reaching down to help Amelie up as well. The shaft collapsing behind them, they crawled frantically forward.
Kirk was on his feet. Uhura had been attempting to get through to Chekov or Taylor's communicator, Sulu to find their locator, each with little luck. He watched with something akin to despair as the whole wing crumpled and dislocated from the rest of the ship, floating off into separate orbit.
“Sir, I think I’ve found them!” Sulu looked up at Kirk, who’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “They’re in a shaft, just inside the ship.”
“Try and open a channel.”
When the wing dislocated from the ship, there was no forcefield, no deadlocked door at the end of the shaft. The pressure of the vacuum was incredible; both of them slid down the shaft a good way before Amelie caught hold of something and wrapped her legs around Chekov to stop him from slipping out. He reached around her to grab onto the other side of the shaft, and they clutched at each other and the walls and hoped to outlast the removal of the atmosphere.
Some time later, the pressure on them decreased and gradually disappeared altogether. Experimentally, they let go of the shaft - although not of each other - and found that they merely floated. Carefully, they began working their way back towards the ship, occasionally bouncing off the walls. The comm system was broken, or something was blocking it, because they couldn’t hear one another, let alone the Enterprise. It didn’t matter, though, as they had reached a door and concentrated on opening it.
Once they did, the release of atmospheric pressure almost sent them sailing back again, but Chekov grasped the opening and pulled himself through, dragging Amelie through after him. Together, they forced the hatch closed again, and collasped against it, breathing hard. After a moment or two, Chekov kicked in an entrance to a corridor and they dropped through. Amelie's helmet lights had broken, but Chekov’s were still working, and he took her hand to help guide her through the darkened corridors.
They eventually made it to what appeared to be the bridge. Amelie, with Chekov’s help, found what looked to be the main station, and started tapping away furiously. Chekov kept a look out for any signs of the ship attempting to crush them. He hoped that it was unlikely, as the bridge was the hub of the ship, and so the AI wouldn’t want to destroy it… hopefully.
He was so busy checking for signs of denting that he completely missed the sounds of running feet until something hard and heavy smashed into him, knocking him to the ground. Something - presumably meant to be in the image of a Denaati, but it had one side of its face ripped off and Chekov could see the metal and wiring beneath it - wrapped its long fingers around his neck, and even through the EV suit he could feel it crushing his windpipe.
The android was horrendously strong, pinning him to the ground with terrifying ease as it suffocated him. Then, four quick blasts of light and the android fell off him, head one huge, gaping hole. Amelie still had her phaser held at the ready, although she was shaking slightly. Coughing, Chekov rolled away and staggered to his feet.
“Almost got it.” Amelie was back at the computer. She hit a few more commands, then looked up expectantly. Chekov followed her gaze, and saw a hologram of a Denaati. He was grateful for the inbuilt UT in the EV suit, because otherwise he would have had no idea what he was saying.
“The computer has taken over the ship. It had expelled the weapons corps! How can we be expected to fight the Keth without any weapons?
“It has taken the engine room, and the starboard bow. The remaining crew are trapped in the port and the fo'c’sle, which are under heavy attack from Keth ships. Why has Ghuy turned against us? We can only pray that Ju will save us.”
The hologram flickered and died, just as there was a sudden jolt, sending both of them crashing to the floor. Amelie hit a button, and the shutters opened on the viewscreen.
“Captain!” The Enterprise had been unable to establish contact with the away team, but they had managed to re-establish the vitals link with the EV suits. They had tracked the progress of the two ensigns across the ship, Spock announcing the arrival of the download initiated by Amelie. Now, however, engines were firing and the ship was slipping out of orbit, heading on a collision course to the planet below.
“Scotty!” Kirk yelled into the comm. “Scotty, have you got them?”
“I cannot get a signal from them, sir!” came the anguished reply from the Scotsman. “Something must be blocking our sensors!”
With the sickening dread of earlier that day returning to his stomach, Kirk watched in horrified fascination as the ship cartwheeled gracefully into the planet’s atmosphere.
“Get a medical team down there,” he said, voice flat and hard.
“Jim, the probabilty that they will survive the crash is…”
“Get a team down there now,” Kirk interrupted, through gritted teeth. “I don’t care how bad the odds are. His mother’s going to have something of him.”
Spock didn’t argue, glancing at Uhura to send the message through the comm.
Kirk went back to watching the ship burn through the atmosphere, the skin around his nail beginning to bleed.
Chekov opened his eyes slowly, sunlight shining directly on his face. Turning his head was painful, but he managed to roll over into the shade. His helmet screen flashed, informing him that he had only twenty minutes of oxygen remaining. His head thunked back against the wall of the bridge, an action which he immediately regretted. Fatalistic at best, he reached for his oxygen test strip, and snapped it.
The fluid remained clear.
Chekov blinked, squinted, and shook it. The colour did not change.
Hesitant to remove his helmet, but knowing that he would suffocate one way or another, he unclipped it and pulled it off. He took one dubious breath, and then another, and another. The atmosphere was breathable!
Remembering Amelie, he dragged himself over to her and carefully removed her helmet as well. She was breathing, which was a relief, so he shook her and called her name. Groaning, she opened her eyes, hand going to her head.
“Pavel? Where are we?”
“On the planet’s surface, I think.”
Amelie blinked at him, then sat up. “We’re alive?” She checked herself. “Oh my God. We’re alive.” She let out something that could be termed a whoop - Chekov really wished she hadn't, his head felt like it was splitting - and grabbed his face, pressing her lips to his. There was a shocked, charged moment after she let go, realising what she had done and staring at him with wide eyes, before he leant in and kissed her back.
It was messy and awkward and perfect, all lips and teeth. She giggled when their teeth collided as he pressed her mouth open, tongue darting in. Elegant and practised it was not, but they were both ethusiastic and more than willing. She tugged her gloves off without breaking off the kiss, and ran her hands into his hair; he pulled her towards him, under him. He felt her fingers at the neck of his suit, and moved off her slightly.
“I haven't got anything,” he said, voice halting, as she undid the straps and the zips. She looked at him through her eyelashes, biting her lip.
“Me neither,” she replied, softly. “But I want - I want…”
He kissed her again, and allowed her to push off the top half of the EV suit, helping her undo hers. The process was slow, much puntuated with kissing and barely-touching with terrified, eager hands. He cupped her face with both of his, long fingers sliding behind her ears and into her hair, and kissed her, long and slow and hard. She moaned slightly, and whimpered a little, pushing up against him and wrapping her arms around his neck. Unable to keep his hands still, he stroked her shoulders and upper arms, skittering around her chest to smooth her sides and stomach. She giggled and flinched away from his questing fingers; he smirked against her mouth. Continuing down, he slid his fingers under the lower half of her EV suit, easing, teasing it off her.
They had lost the vitals lock. It hadn't come up flashing “TERMINATED”, which was something of a comfort, but Kirk couldn’t understand why it was taking Scotty so long to get an away team down on the planet’s surface.
“There’s some sort of EM interference, Captain.” The engineer’s voice was crackly over the intercom.
“That would explain why we can’t get a sensor reading, Captain,” interjected Sulu. “And why we lost the vitals.”
Kirk scowled at the floor, but knew that he couldn’t take his frustration out on the crew. “Keep working on it, Scotty.”
“Aye, sir.”
Spock was down in the transporter room, working with Scotty to try and recalibrate it and work through the interference that was stopping them reaching the surface. Kirk tried not to think about how the two ensigns might be injured, down in the wreckage of the ship.
Amelie lay flat on the floor (or the flatest part of the craft, at least. It may once have been a wall), hair loosening from its thick plait as Chekov mapped out her skin with his mouth. They had both sustained bruises and minor abrasions from the crash - the EV suits were incredibly resilient - and he had insisted on making sure that she wasn't badly hurt. And now... her breath hitched when she felt his hands on her hips, and his lips graze her navel. His breath was hot through the waistband of her trousers, and she felt her heart pound in her chest. But he didn't go any further, ignored the heavy heat uncoiling in her stomach, and replayed his journey to her mouth. She pushed her hands up his shirt, and they kissed, long, slow and leisurely.
They finally managed to beam down onto the surface, and due to the lack of communicators they resorted to shouting. McCoy did not approve.
Chekov's head jerked upright at the sound of his name being called. Swiftly, they dressed, smoothing down clothes and attempting to breathe normally. Chekov helped Amelie replait her hair, and gave her a lift to the gap in the ceiling. Looking around, they found that they had crashed in the middle of a lake; the medical team on the far shore did not look impressed.
"Sooo..." Rachel sat down at Amelie's table, breakfast (coffee, toast, Rice Krispies) in front of her. "What happened?"
Amelie looked up at her, and then back at her PADD. She had to learn all this for Wednesday... "When?"
"On the ship? With that Russian ensign?"
Amelie fought back a blush, and got the impression she failed miserably. Rachel's grin was far too evil.
"You did it, didn't you?"
"Did what?"
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Do you really want me to answer that question?"
"Okay! Okay. No, we didn't."
"But you wanted to."
"Shut up!" Amelie hissed, looking around to make sure no one could hear her. Rachel's gloating voice was really far too loud.
"Aw... you do! So, what did happen, then?"
"Nothing..." Amelie shifted uncomfortably. "Nothing dirty. Not like your mind."
"Heavy petting?" Rachel made a question sound like a statement. Amelie blushed. Rachel whooped. "Aww.....! You're so cute!"
FANDOM: star trek (xi)
PAIRING: pavel chekov/ofc (amelie colt)
RATING: pg-13
SPOILERS: star trek xi
WARNINGS: language; mild sexual imagery
WORD COUNT: ~5,500 (total) ~3,100 (this part)
DISCLAIMER: star trek belongs to roddenberry and paramount. anyone you don’t recognise is bastardised or is mine.
SUMMARY: Amelie Colt is the chief cryptographer aboard the Enterprise. When the Enterprise answers a distress call and finds the vessel destroyed, she is sent aboard to try to find out what happened.
A/N: Please, PLEASE forgive the ridiculous plot devices used. This was a request for wannabeacullen. Hence the particularly Mary Sue-esqueness of Amelie (but the person she is based on is actually like that :O So, it's not my fault...)
partONE
Amelie was already in the transporter room when Chekov arrived, one of the redshirts helping her into her EV suit. He was handed another EV suit and allowed himself to be helped into it. Helmet in hand, Amelie turned to him, surprise registering on her face.
“Pavel! Are you coming too?”
The redshirt zipped up and strapped closed the EV suit around his neck, preventing him from answering for a moment. “Da. The captain says That you will need a numerical code to get into the system.”
“Alright! Ready, you two?” Commander Scott seated himself behind the control desk, and Amelie and Chekov positioned themselves on the trasnporter pad. “So, I’ll be hopefully setting you doon on the bridge, but Star Fleet records on Denaati warbird designs are not that good, so… We’ll see.”
“We’ll see?” echoed Amelie, pausing as she raised her helmet.
“Aye, well, there’s no one aboard, so you should be fine.” Scotty grinned at them. “All good? Okay, transporting in five, four, three, two…”
They rematerialised in a dark, dank room on the Denaati ship. Amelie pulled out a testing strip and snapped it. The fluid showed up red, even through the helmets.
“Great. No oxygen.”
They looked around, activating the lights on the helmets. There was a operating desk near the far wall, which they approached warily, keeping a weather eye open for any falling debris or hanging electrical wires. Amelie sat down behind it, and frowned at the panels. Chekov looked over her shoulder; it was covered in moving, flickering shapes, which he could barely make out, let alone understand.
“Is that Denaati?”
“Yeah,” replied Amelie, hands hovering about the panels as she tried to work out what she should press. “Their alphabet translates a little into the Western one - better into Russian,” she added, and pride glinted in Chekov’s chest.
“Of course,” he said. “The Russian’s invented the alphabet.”
She snorted, and ignored him. “They write right to left, using a runic system - damn, but Maka is easier to understand than this shit.”
He blinked. Amelie hesitated a moment longer, indecision tearing at her, but she quickly tapped at several keys. Chekov held his breath, and listened to the creaking of the ship around them. He remembered what Spock had said about the ship’s AI.
“Okay…” He looked back at the panel, and saw that the squiggly lines and dots had changed to something completely different. “You up for some code cracking, Pavel?”
“Da,” he said, sitting down on the chair space that Amelie made for him. “What do I do?”
“Well,” Amelie unclipped a note PADD from the front of her EV seat and slid the stylus out from the side, “Denaati warbird access codes are always the ship’s name, which, in this case is… Krontiaylus Dehgighuy.”
Chekov stared at her. “What does that mean?”
“We will be justified by your blood.” She caught his look. “The Denaati are great warriors, and great poets. They seem to be one of the few species who have managed to carry pieces of both beyond battle songs.
“Anyway, each ship uses a different numerical encryption system; but as the alphabets are similar, the numerical systems of Denaati and Earth are identical. Probably due to the fact that they have ten fingers are well.” She was scribbling in the PADD, presumably the translation of the runes on the screen. Amelie handed it to Chekov, who frowned at the scrawled name of the ship and the corresponding numbers.
His communicator chirruped. “Enterprise to Chekov. How’s it going?”
“Ensign Colt has managed to get us to a code screen, sir,” he replied, still staring at the PADD. “I am attempting to - figure out - the code now.”
“Good work, Ensign. Keep it up.”
“Enterprise out.”
Amelie stood up as Chekov went back to code-breaking, looking around the room. It was far too small to be the bridge, but she forgave Scotty for putting them in the wrong place. They were able to access the computer grid, anyway, and that was all they wanted to do. Get in, find out what happened, and get out. She shivered - being in a place where people had died gave her a weird feeling.
And that was a good point. The ship was devoid of life forms; yet there were no bodies in this room. Where exactly were they in the layout of the ship?
“I have it!” She turned around at Chekov’s exclamation, and hurried back to the computer. Written underneath the number sequence - in far worse handwriting than her own, Amelie was happy to say - was a corresponding alphabet. She looked up, and caught Chekov’s gaze. She shrugged.
“Cool. You’re the maths genius.”
She sat down and tapped in the necessary code. The computer blinked - they held their breath, waiting for the alarms to blare and some security system to activate, killing them both - and filled with long lines of runes. Amelie let out her breath in a long whoosh, grinning over at Chekov.
“We’re in.”
She squinted at the text, mumbling under her breath. She tapped the screen a few more times, changing the display; Chekov got the impression that she was working her way through the system, trying to find the logs. A sudden, horrible grinding sound caught his attention, just as his communicator bleeped at him.
“Chekov!” It was the captain, and he sounded worried. “Get the hell out of there! The AI seems to have activated the crumple-thing…”
Chekov’s eyes widened as he saw the far wall buckle in on itself. Amelie looked up as well, swore viciously and fumbled for something strapped to her suit.
“Nyet! No time! We move, now.” He grabbed at her arm, but she slapped him away, slamming an information downloader on the computer screen.
“We’ve got this far; I’m not just letting it go!”
“There’s no time…”
The metal screamed as it collapsed, Amelie and Chekov froze suddenly as they watched impending doom twist its way towards them. The light on the downloader flashed green, and Amelie grabbed it. Chekov grabbed her, and they stumbled and scrambled across the room towards the door, no longer caring about any other dangers. The door needed a code to open it; Amelie tapped at it furiously, trying various sequences, until Chekov pulled her backwards and shot it with his phaser. Kicking at the door until it shuddered open a gap, they wrenched at it until it was far enough open for Amelie to slip through.
Chekov looked over his shoulder, and his fingers slackened on the door. The walls, floor and ceiling were collapsing in on themselves, and were mere feet from him. He could hear Amelie swearing and yelling at him to pull the fucking door, now, but he couldn’t make himself move.
On the other side of the door, Amelie put both feet against the far door frame and heaved with all the might of desperation. The gap widened enough for Chekov to fall through and scramble backwards away from the fast approaching crush of metal. Amelie let go, landed on him, and the door slid shut. But there was little time for relief; the door and wall bent before their very eyes. Scrambling upright, they cast about desperately for a way out.
They were in some kind of supply closet; the walls were lined with shelves, offering no hatch for them to break through. Then, Chekov spotted a hatch in the ceiling. He yanked it open and hauled himself into it, reaching down to help Amelie up as well. The shaft collapsing behind them, they crawled frantically forward.
Kirk was on his feet. Uhura had been attempting to get through to Chekov or Taylor's communicator, Sulu to find their locator, each with little luck. He watched with something akin to despair as the whole wing crumpled and dislocated from the rest of the ship, floating off into separate orbit.
“Sir, I think I’ve found them!” Sulu looked up at Kirk, who’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “They’re in a shaft, just inside the ship.”
“Try and open a channel.”
When the wing dislocated from the ship, there was no forcefield, no deadlocked door at the end of the shaft. The pressure of the vacuum was incredible; both of them slid down the shaft a good way before Amelie caught hold of something and wrapped her legs around Chekov to stop him from slipping out. He reached around her to grab onto the other side of the shaft, and they clutched at each other and the walls and hoped to outlast the removal of the atmosphere.
Some time later, the pressure on them decreased and gradually disappeared altogether. Experimentally, they let go of the shaft - although not of each other - and found that they merely floated. Carefully, they began working their way back towards the ship, occasionally bouncing off the walls. The comm system was broken, or something was blocking it, because they couldn’t hear one another, let alone the Enterprise. It didn’t matter, though, as they had reached a door and concentrated on opening it.
Once they did, the release of atmospheric pressure almost sent them sailing back again, but Chekov grasped the opening and pulled himself through, dragging Amelie through after him. Together, they forced the hatch closed again, and collasped against it, breathing hard. After a moment or two, Chekov kicked in an entrance to a corridor and they dropped through. Amelie's helmet lights had broken, but Chekov’s were still working, and he took her hand to help guide her through the darkened corridors.
They eventually made it to what appeared to be the bridge. Amelie, with Chekov’s help, found what looked to be the main station, and started tapping away furiously. Chekov kept a look out for any signs of the ship attempting to crush them. He hoped that it was unlikely, as the bridge was the hub of the ship, and so the AI wouldn’t want to destroy it… hopefully.
He was so busy checking for signs of denting that he completely missed the sounds of running feet until something hard and heavy smashed into him, knocking him to the ground. Something - presumably meant to be in the image of a Denaati, but it had one side of its face ripped off and Chekov could see the metal and wiring beneath it - wrapped its long fingers around his neck, and even through the EV suit he could feel it crushing his windpipe.
The android was horrendously strong, pinning him to the ground with terrifying ease as it suffocated him. Then, four quick blasts of light and the android fell off him, head one huge, gaping hole. Amelie still had her phaser held at the ready, although she was shaking slightly. Coughing, Chekov rolled away and staggered to his feet.
“Almost got it.” Amelie was back at the computer. She hit a few more commands, then looked up expectantly. Chekov followed her gaze, and saw a hologram of a Denaati. He was grateful for the inbuilt UT in the EV suit, because otherwise he would have had no idea what he was saying.
“The computer has taken over the ship. It had expelled the weapons corps! How can we be expected to fight the Keth without any weapons?
“It has taken the engine room, and the starboard bow. The remaining crew are trapped in the port and the fo'c’sle, which are under heavy attack from Keth ships. Why has Ghuy turned against us? We can only pray that Ju will save us.”
The hologram flickered and died, just as there was a sudden jolt, sending both of them crashing to the floor. Amelie hit a button, and the shutters opened on the viewscreen.
“Captain!” The Enterprise had been unable to establish contact with the away team, but they had managed to re-establish the vitals link with the EV suits. They had tracked the progress of the two ensigns across the ship, Spock announcing the arrival of the download initiated by Amelie. Now, however, engines were firing and the ship was slipping out of orbit, heading on a collision course to the planet below.
“Scotty!” Kirk yelled into the comm. “Scotty, have you got them?”
“I cannot get a signal from them, sir!” came the anguished reply from the Scotsman. “Something must be blocking our sensors!”
With the sickening dread of earlier that day returning to his stomach, Kirk watched in horrified fascination as the ship cartwheeled gracefully into the planet’s atmosphere.
“Get a medical team down there,” he said, voice flat and hard.
“Jim, the probabilty that they will survive the crash is…”
“Get a team down there now,” Kirk interrupted, through gritted teeth. “I don’t care how bad the odds are. His mother’s going to have something of him.”
Spock didn’t argue, glancing at Uhura to send the message through the comm.
Kirk went back to watching the ship burn through the atmosphere, the skin around his nail beginning to bleed.
Chekov opened his eyes slowly, sunlight shining directly on his face. Turning his head was painful, but he managed to roll over into the shade. His helmet screen flashed, informing him that he had only twenty minutes of oxygen remaining. His head thunked back against the wall of the bridge, an action which he immediately regretted. Fatalistic at best, he reached for his oxygen test strip, and snapped it.
The fluid remained clear.
Chekov blinked, squinted, and shook it. The colour did not change.
Hesitant to remove his helmet, but knowing that he would suffocate one way or another, he unclipped it and pulled it off. He took one dubious breath, and then another, and another. The atmosphere was breathable!
Remembering Amelie, he dragged himself over to her and carefully removed her helmet as well. She was breathing, which was a relief, so he shook her and called her name. Groaning, she opened her eyes, hand going to her head.
“Pavel? Where are we?”
“On the planet’s surface, I think.”
Amelie blinked at him, then sat up. “We’re alive?” She checked herself. “Oh my God. We’re alive.” She let out something that could be termed a whoop - Chekov really wished she hadn't, his head felt like it was splitting - and grabbed his face, pressing her lips to his. There was a shocked, charged moment after she let go, realising what she had done and staring at him with wide eyes, before he leant in and kissed her back.
It was messy and awkward and perfect, all lips and teeth. She giggled when their teeth collided as he pressed her mouth open, tongue darting in. Elegant and practised it was not, but they were both ethusiastic and more than willing. She tugged her gloves off without breaking off the kiss, and ran her hands into his hair; he pulled her towards him, under him. He felt her fingers at the neck of his suit, and moved off her slightly.
“I haven't got anything,” he said, voice halting, as she undid the straps and the zips. She looked at him through her eyelashes, biting her lip.
“Me neither,” she replied, softly. “But I want - I want…”
He kissed her again, and allowed her to push off the top half of the EV suit, helping her undo hers. The process was slow, much puntuated with kissing and barely-touching with terrified, eager hands. He cupped her face with both of his, long fingers sliding behind her ears and into her hair, and kissed her, long and slow and hard. She moaned slightly, and whimpered a little, pushing up against him and wrapping her arms around his neck. Unable to keep his hands still, he stroked her shoulders and upper arms, skittering around her chest to smooth her sides and stomach. She giggled and flinched away from his questing fingers; he smirked against her mouth. Continuing down, he slid his fingers under the lower half of her EV suit, easing, teasing it off her.
They had lost the vitals lock. It hadn't come up flashing “TERMINATED”, which was something of a comfort, but Kirk couldn’t understand why it was taking Scotty so long to get an away team down on the planet’s surface.
“There’s some sort of EM interference, Captain.” The engineer’s voice was crackly over the intercom.
“That would explain why we can’t get a sensor reading, Captain,” interjected Sulu. “And why we lost the vitals.”
Kirk scowled at the floor, but knew that he couldn’t take his frustration out on the crew. “Keep working on it, Scotty.”
“Aye, sir.”
Spock was down in the transporter room, working with Scotty to try and recalibrate it and work through the interference that was stopping them reaching the surface. Kirk tried not to think about how the two ensigns might be injured, down in the wreckage of the ship.
Amelie lay flat on the floor (or the flatest part of the craft, at least. It may once have been a wall), hair loosening from its thick plait as Chekov mapped out her skin with his mouth. They had both sustained bruises and minor abrasions from the crash - the EV suits were incredibly resilient - and he had insisted on making sure that she wasn't badly hurt. And now... her breath hitched when she felt his hands on her hips, and his lips graze her navel. His breath was hot through the waistband of her trousers, and she felt her heart pound in her chest. But he didn't go any further, ignored the heavy heat uncoiling in her stomach, and replayed his journey to her mouth. She pushed her hands up his shirt, and they kissed, long, slow and leisurely.
They finally managed to beam down onto the surface, and due to the lack of communicators they resorted to shouting. McCoy did not approve.
Chekov's head jerked upright at the sound of his name being called. Swiftly, they dressed, smoothing down clothes and attempting to breathe normally. Chekov helped Amelie replait her hair, and gave her a lift to the gap in the ceiling. Looking around, they found that they had crashed in the middle of a lake; the medical team on the far shore did not look impressed.
"Sooo..." Rachel sat down at Amelie's table, breakfast (coffee, toast, Rice Krispies) in front of her. "What happened?"
Amelie looked up at her, and then back at her PADD. She had to learn all this for Wednesday... "When?"
"On the ship? With that Russian ensign?"
Amelie fought back a blush, and got the impression she failed miserably. Rachel's grin was far too evil.
"You did it, didn't you?"
"Did what?"
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Do you really want me to answer that question?"
"Okay! Okay. No, we didn't."
"But you wanted to."
"Shut up!" Amelie hissed, looking around to make sure no one could hear her. Rachel's gloating voice was really far too loud.
"Aw... you do! So, what did happen, then?"
"Nothing..." Amelie shifted uncomfortably. "Nothing dirty. Not like your mind."
"Heavy petting?" Rachel made a question sound like a statement. Amelie blushed. Rachel whooped. "Aww.....! You're so cute!"