a call to arms
The war begins on a Wednesday. It's sunny outside, warm, and cadets are lounging on the lawn in between their classes in their bright red uniforms. The low hum of chatter is pleasant and only permeated by a few girlish squeals and loud laughs that echo slightly. It really is the most boring, normal, lovely Wednesday. People have plans for the weekend - going out on the town, staying in and watching the game, sleeping for twenty four hours straight.
Then, the sky begins to darken.
Lauren's at Starfleet Medical when the walls begin to shake. It takes only a few moments, and a loud, ear-shattering boom makes the screams start. Hypos slide off the tables and smash into hundreds of pieces as the ground beneath her begins to tremble - then it's gone. There is complete silence for long, long moments until an almighty crash sends all that are standing sprawling to the floor. It's terrifying and deafening and so, so confusing - the lights are out and the ground feels like it is going to open up and swallow them whole. Lauren McCoy smacks head-first onto the floor. For a time, she knows nothing more than the darkness and silence of her own mind.
She wakes up in a biobed with an emergency light shining dully into her eyes. She wakes up just as the war is beginning. It's late, or maybe it's just too early. Her head is pounding something terrible, and she lifts a hand to discover her forehead's been wrapped haphazardly; blood is already beginning to seep through again. It's hard, getting back on her feet. Lauren staggers and swears and fights her way past the nurses stationed at the entrance of her doorway, apparently there to make sure she doesn't slip away. They're not a problem to take care of - she always carries a hypo in her pocket.
She makes it to the council, where a sea of red - uniforms and blood alike - engulfs the entire space. The admiral's voice is being enhanced - she could hear it echoing throughout the campus as she ran, but it is only now that she can make out what he is saying.
"The Romulans have declared war on the Federation. I order all officers and cadets to stations - we counter immediately. Get your ship assignments and report. Dismissed."
She barely has the patience to listen to him - the hospital was teeming with crying, bleeding kids. The same hospital that, incidentally, did not house the one crying, bleeding pain in the ass kid that Lauren herself was most interested in. She could barely distinguish one redshirt from another in the stampede that thundered out of the hall, all looking panicked and unsure and so damn helpless. Their faces accurately expressed what she herself was feeling - until a hand landed on her shoulder and made her jump. "Easy, doctor," Captain Christopher Pike soothed, looking every bit as tired as he probably felt. "You're dirtside, McCoy. I just wanted you to know I'm keeping my end of the deal. We'll need you here."
It's what she damn well wanted. Space was disease and danger, wrapped in darkness and silence. The only way she'd allowed herself to get recruited was if Pike promised to never make her get on one of the flying death traps - she was now getting her wish.
She thought she'd feel happier about that.
"C'mon, Kirk, pick up your damn phone," she mutters as she paces the quad, eyes scanning the lines of redshirts heading towards the shuttle bay. There's no answer - Jocelyn Kirk's stupidly cheerful and utterly annoying answering message picks up instead of the stupidly cheerful and utterly annoying woman herself. Despite the pounding in her head, Lauren takes off as fast as she can make her legs move towards the shuttle bay. "Move, outta the way! Move!" She yells to be heard as she shoves her way past the masses. "Kirk!" She's fine. She would have been in the hospital if she wasn't. The stupid girl's just let her phone die again and - "Oof! Hey, watch it," Lauren complains as she made bodily contact with-
"Kirk," she growls, panting for breath and shaking her head to rid herself of the dizziness that's clouding her mind. She waves her phone in the girl's face. "Ever heard of picking up your damn comm?"
"Bones!" comes the, as always, cheerful reply. Kirk's voice is oddly strained - stress, probably. Everyone is harried and stressed. After all, a war has just begun. "I was looking for you! Where've you been? I lost my phone - it may have, ah, been a little squashed when I fell on it earlier." There's the patented Kirk Grin that frankly makes Lauren want to either slap her silly or hug her until she can't breathe. Though, the latter might be more because it feels like the world was ending, just a bit. "They didn't call your name, Bones. What ship are you on? Don't worry, I can get us on the same one. I mean, you're not going where I'm not, so if I can just hack into- mmmph!"
Lauren doesn't remove her hand from over Jocelyn's mouth. "I've been stationed dirtside, Joce. Pike made sure of it." It isn't guilt she's feeling when Kirk's expression falls before it hardens into the smiling mask she's constantly wearing. "Look, kid, I just wanted to make sure that - that you were okay. And to give you this." She hands over a package of chewable meds. "I know you won't let a hypo near you while I'm not there, so I thought... I thought I might give you that. Just in case. You won't need it. Aw, shit, sorry, it was a stupid idea, here," she made to take them back, but got a stinging slap to the hand for her trouble. "Ow! Goddamnit, Kirk, whaddya-" and stumbes as the blonde's arms wrap around her neck in a bone-crushing embrace. "Er, um, Kirk-" the little limpet just squeezes harder, until Lauren gives up and absolutely does not clutch her back just as tightly.
"Be safe, brat."
If her eyes are watery, it's only because the exhaust from the death traps, otherwise known as shuttles, are toxic and make her eyes irritated. For once in her life, Kirk doesn't comment on it - it's amazing what three years of sometimes forced and most times amazing friendship will do. Lauren stays rooted to the spot as they separate, as Kirk nods and smiles and moves toward her assigned shuttle, bound for the USS Enterprise. She watches until she sees Kirk disappear into the shuttle, until the doors close as the shuttle prepares to take off.
She gets to stay dirtside. She doesn't have to go into space where every moment is a risk, where one thing goes wrong and everything is catastrophic. She doesn't have to go into the black abyss.
But fuck if she doesn't want to.
"Aw, dammit." Well, at least the cargo hold doesn't have any windows.