Delta Vega | Friday FT
Lately it seemed to Jim as if all he was destined to do was to endure painful falls from very high places.
Vision and consciousness returned simultaneously, though not efficiently, as he struggled to free himself from the encumbering safety harness. He had not gone quietly. At least he had departed the Enterprise secure in the knowledge that sedation had been administered by someone other than Bones McCoy. The good doctor might have disagreed with him on strategy and chosen to side with that pointy-eared usurper, but he had also opposed the need to ban Jim from the ship.
"I can keep him quiet and out of trouble while he's on board," McCoy had insisted.
"With all due respect for your medical expertise, Doctor," acting Captain Spock had responded, "from what I have seen and know of Lieutenant James Jim, short of placing him in permanent stasis it is not possible to do either. And even then I would have my doubts."
Groaning, Jim pushed himself forward out of the deceleration chair and tried to focus on the bank of blinking instrumentation in front of him. Other than insisting that he was alive and more or less in tact, which conclusion he had already reached independent of mechanical confirmation, the readouts were not especially informative.
A quick look around indicated that he was in a standard one-person survival pod. He ought to have been flattered that the Enterprise had dropped out of warp long enough to deposit him wherever the hell he presently was, but for some reason he was less than thrilled. No doubt the pain in his shoulder had something to do with his lack of appreciation. At least he had been put down somewhere inhabitable.
When he finally managed to squirm completely free of the couch and peer out the single port, he discovered that while his present venue might be habitable, it was anything but inviting.
Spread out before his gaze was a pale vista of ice, snow, slopes of raw rock, scudding dark clouds, and a lowering sky that loomed over a landscape that was anything but benign.
Welcome to the resort world of Antarctica Twelve, he told himself bitterly. Somewhere far out in space a certain Vulcan commander unexpectedly raised to the rank of captain was no doubt smiling at his younger colleague's predicament.
No, Jim corrected himself. Spock might be logical to the point of indifference, but he was not vindictive. That would have been un-Vulcan. Whereas he, Jim, felt completely comfortable raging against the situation in which he currently found himself. Leaning toward the hatch, he winced and caught himself as his shoulder protested.
"Oh-that sonofabitch." Reaching up, he felt the throbbing joint. A strain suffered on touchdown, he decided. At least nothing was broken.
Turning toward the pod's nearest pickup, he began with the most obvious and necessary question. "Computer, where am I? And don't tell me you're incapable of responding, because I'm just in the mood to pound the circuits out of something."
Ignoring the empty threat, the pleasant synth voice responded with gratifying promptness.
"Current location is Delta Vega, Class-M planet, unsafe. You have been ordered to remain in this pod until retrieval can be arranged by Starfleet authorities. Please acknowledge."
"Bite me. How's that for acknowledgment?"
Wonderful, he thought. Another glance out the port confirmed what he could recall from studies of the world on which he found himself. Empty, hostile, unpleasant.
Well, it couldn't be any more empty, hostile, or unpleasant over the next hill, and he was damned if he was going to sit in one place and suck survival concentrates until the six-legged cows or whatever organisms dominated this part of the planet came home.
The fact that he was clad in cold-weather gear showed that his marooners had prepared him as best they could for his abandonment. He felt confident that he wouldn't freeze if he took a little hike. Slapping a hand down on the appropriate corner of the console caused the pod's canopy to rise. Frigid atmosphere slapped right back, stinging his face and turning his breath to vapor. It might have reminded a more wistful traveler of the Pacific fogs that still sometimes swept over San Francisco. Jim was not in a wistful mood.
"Warning," the mechanical voice piped up immediately. "You have been ordered to remain in your pod until you are retrieved by Starfleet authorities. Your location has been recorded and sufficient supplies are available to sustain you until that occurs. Except in the case of an emergency, unwarranted excursion in this vicinity is not recommended. This area has been deemed unsafe."
"Of fucking course it has! I'm stranded in a goddamn ice world!" Jim said, moving back down into the pod and pulling the canopy closed. He needed to get a signal out of here, get someone to come get him. He leaned over the panel, trying to figure out what to connect and where to hook up to possibly make this computer send out a signal to communicate.
"Come on, you bastard! Come on!"
Working quick, he bent wires, exposed innards and cursed up a storm while he tried to be intelligent and rational when certain death was probably at hand.
[NFB but open! Jim's managed to jigger the computer into being a communciator through ~ science ~. If you wanna get a call from him, you'll pick up your phone to an unknown number and Jim cursing before he realizes who it was. Taken from the ST novelization.]
Vision and consciousness returned simultaneously, though not efficiently, as he struggled to free himself from the encumbering safety harness. He had not gone quietly. At least he had departed the Enterprise secure in the knowledge that sedation had been administered by someone other than Bones McCoy. The good doctor might have disagreed with him on strategy and chosen to side with that pointy-eared usurper, but he had also opposed the need to ban Jim from the ship.
"I can keep him quiet and out of trouble while he's on board," McCoy had insisted.
"With all due respect for your medical expertise, Doctor," acting Captain Spock had responded, "from what I have seen and know of Lieutenant James Jim, short of placing him in permanent stasis it is not possible to do either. And even then I would have my doubts."
Groaning, Jim pushed himself forward out of the deceleration chair and tried to focus on the bank of blinking instrumentation in front of him. Other than insisting that he was alive and more or less in tact, which conclusion he had already reached independent of mechanical confirmation, the readouts were not especially informative.
A quick look around indicated that he was in a standard one-person survival pod. He ought to have been flattered that the Enterprise had dropped out of warp long enough to deposit him wherever the hell he presently was, but for some reason he was less than thrilled. No doubt the pain in his shoulder had something to do with his lack of appreciation. At least he had been put down somewhere inhabitable.
When he finally managed to squirm completely free of the couch and peer out the single port, he discovered that while his present venue might be habitable, it was anything but inviting.
Spread out before his gaze was a pale vista of ice, snow, slopes of raw rock, scudding dark clouds, and a lowering sky that loomed over a landscape that was anything but benign.
Welcome to the resort world of Antarctica Twelve, he told himself bitterly. Somewhere far out in space a certain Vulcan commander unexpectedly raised to the rank of captain was no doubt smiling at his younger colleague's predicament.
No, Jim corrected himself. Spock might be logical to the point of indifference, but he was not vindictive. That would have been un-Vulcan. Whereas he, Jim, felt completely comfortable raging against the situation in which he currently found himself. Leaning toward the hatch, he winced and caught himself as his shoulder protested.
"Oh-that sonofabitch." Reaching up, he felt the throbbing joint. A strain suffered on touchdown, he decided. At least nothing was broken.
Turning toward the pod's nearest pickup, he began with the most obvious and necessary question. "Computer, where am I? And don't tell me you're incapable of responding, because I'm just in the mood to pound the circuits out of something."
Ignoring the empty threat, the pleasant synth voice responded with gratifying promptness.
"Current location is Delta Vega, Class-M planet, unsafe. You have been ordered to remain in this pod until retrieval can be arranged by Starfleet authorities. Please acknowledge."
"Bite me. How's that for acknowledgment?"
Wonderful, he thought. Another glance out the port confirmed what he could recall from studies of the world on which he found himself. Empty, hostile, unpleasant.
Well, it couldn't be any more empty, hostile, or unpleasant over the next hill, and he was damned if he was going to sit in one place and suck survival concentrates until the six-legged cows or whatever organisms dominated this part of the planet came home.
The fact that he was clad in cold-weather gear showed that his marooners had prepared him as best they could for his abandonment. He felt confident that he wouldn't freeze if he took a little hike. Slapping a hand down on the appropriate corner of the console caused the pod's canopy to rise. Frigid atmosphere slapped right back, stinging his face and turning his breath to vapor. It might have reminded a more wistful traveler of the Pacific fogs that still sometimes swept over San Francisco. Jim was not in a wistful mood.
"Warning," the mechanical voice piped up immediately. "You have been ordered to remain in your pod until you are retrieved by Starfleet authorities. Your location has been recorded and sufficient supplies are available to sustain you until that occurs. Except in the case of an emergency, unwarranted excursion in this vicinity is not recommended. This area has been deemed unsafe."
"Of fucking course it has! I'm stranded in a goddamn ice world!" Jim said, moving back down into the pod and pulling the canopy closed. He needed to get a signal out of here, get someone to come get him. He leaned over the panel, trying to figure out what to connect and where to hook up to possibly make this computer send out a signal to communicate.
"Come on, you bastard! Come on!"
Working quick, he bent wires, exposed innards and cursed up a storm while he tried to be intelligent and rational when certain death was probably at hand.
[NFB but open! Jim's managed to jigger the computer into being a communciator through ~ science ~. If you wanna get a call from him, you'll pick up your phone to an unknown number and Jim cursing before he realizes who it was. Taken from the ST novelization.]