{Star Trek/DOOM} A Million Second Chances (2/2)
Continued from here: Part 1
Part 2:
Life falls into a new routine for the ship's doctor. He loves that he has his family and friends all in one place, where he can make sure everyone is safe. For this reason, he almost protests when Samantha is assigned her first away mission.
He doesn't actually ever say anything, though. Sam can still dish out a verbal beat down, and in their time apart, she has picked up some...colorful vocabulary.
They reach a compromise without ever talking about it. She puts up with his fussing, and he doesn't try to stop her. He always worries when she's gone, though.
He lost her once already. He doesn't think he could bear to lose her again.
~@~
She's down on the surface of some green planet, and, last he heard, having a grand old time at it. She's been doing this for months, now, and he's gotten used to it, kind of. He's still absently listing the things that could go wrong in the back of his head, though, when Jim walks into Sickbay.
“You look fine,” he says, squinting at his captain.
“Um,” Jim says, and it's so unlike him that Bones immediately drops the folders he was looking at to give Jim his full attention.
“'Um', what?” he asks, more or less calmly.
“We, uh. We haven't heard from the away team. They...missed their check in.” Jim refuses to meet his eyes.
There's a slow anger burning in the pit of his stomach. “Right,” he says, and leads the way to the bridge. By the time they get there, a terrorist group is on-screen demanding the Enterprise as ransom. They want control of the ship, and thus Federation access codes or something, he's not listening. He meets Sam's eyes through the screen.
She smiles at him, and then they punch her in the stomach. One holds a knife to her face, and says, “You have two hours to give us an answer. Or else.” And he slices her cheek a little.
They cut communication, and the crew do a little research. This is the head honcho of a multi-planet anarchist group, determined to bring down the Federation. They're all wanted criminals, and previously, no one quite knew where the higher-ups had their base, though now, it's painfully obvious.
Jim engages standard response; he sends a security team. It's a full compliment, but the terrorists were expecting it. They're not an intergalactic mob for nothing.
The team beams into an ambush, takes heavy damage, and beams right back out again.
A second team, including uninjured members of the first, beams to a separate location, but they can't get past the barricade.
Bones is gripping the back of Jim's chair so hard his knuckles are white and the chair is creaking. When the second team suffers casualties and is forced to retreat, he swears under his breath.
They are hailed again.
“Nice try,” says the leader, and Bones takes a second to memorize the guy's face. He also notes the guy to his left, the one who'd cut Sam. The leader is still talking. “Unfortunately, because of your silly choices, we're gonna hafta make an example.” The Cut guy pulls Sam forward and pushes her onto her knees. “You got twenty minutes, or she dies, and another hostage every ten minutes after that,” he says, and laughs.
The communication cuts, and he says, “Jim.”
“Can you do it?” Jim asks.
He snarls, and Jim says, “Go.”
He leaves the bridge and doesn't look back.
~@~
It doesn't take long to load up. He's kept his guns in good repair and his blades sharpened. He knows how to conceal, and by the time he walks out the door, black-on-black, he's carrying a lot more than he appears to be.
Jim meets him in the transporter room, and does a double take.
“She'll be all right,” he says, but it's hollow.
“She will; I'm making sure of that.” His accent is gone, but he doesn't really notice, and no one else does, either. “I told you I'd end it.”
He gets on the pad, and swings his huge gun around. The biolock activates. “RRTS Special Ops clearance verified. Handle ID: Reaper.”
The transport activates.
“Dammit!” Jim rages back on the ship. “You said marine! You said marine, not fucking Special Ops! Fuck!” He goes to punch a wall, but remembers just in time that the doctor isn't there to fix broken fingers anymore.
Instead, he goes back to the bridge.
It's a good thing he does, because he gets there just in time to hear Bones say, over the intercom, “...killcam active?”
“Confirmed,” Spock says. “We have visual.”
“Good,” Bones says, “'cause I'm cutting sound.”
Jim stalks over to watch the video feed over Spock's shoulder. He doesn't order it on main-screen, and it's a good thing. The first few bodies, the innocent villagers, fall incapacitated, non-fatally wounded, or merely unconscious. The guys inside the complex aren't so lucky.
After a minute or so, Jim can't watch anymore. He turns away.
“Captain,” Uhura says, “we're being hailed.”
“On-screen,” he orders, and it's the idiots again.
“I don't know what your game is or what you're doing, but stop it!” He's crazy, eyes wide and wild. “Call them off! Stop it! We'll kill them! I'll kill her!”
“Sorry,” Kirk says, meaning no such thing. “I've got no contact with him. Can't tell him a damn thing.” He pauses, looks thoughtful. “Not sure I want to.”
The man screams something incomprehensible, and takes two steps forward to aim the gun at Samantha's head.
She sweeps his feet out from under him. She hasn't got her hands or mouth free, but she gets her hands in front of her and takes his gun away.
He calls her a few names, and she can't free a hand to lower the gag enough to respond.
It doesn't matter; the guy is cut down by a hail of bullets below the screen. Fuck, Jim thinks. Those were his kneecaps. Aiming to disable, or torture shots? He really doesn't want to know the answer.
There's a few more seconds of strafing, and a few more screams, and then the clatter of a gun hitting the floor. McCoy, no, Reaper, slides into frame, and right back out the other side. Sam's ropes are cut from that direction, and she throws herself off-screen, and, unless Jim misses his guess, into her brother's arms.
There is murmuring too indistinct to make out, and then the siblings cross into frame. McCoy leans down to retrieve his giant gun, and really, Jim wonders, does it need to be quite that big? He shoulders his weapon, grins at the camera and says, “Clear.”
Sam smacks him on the back of the head.
“Ow!” he complains.
“You both okay? No bullet holes?” Jim asks. There's blood on Sam's uniform, but he doesn't think it's hers. It's too hard to see blood on McCoy's black clothes, but he knows it's there.
You don't gun down fourty-odd people and not get blood on you.
“We're fine,” Sam assures him, still clinging to her brother. He catches the safety, swings his gun across his back, and picks her up in a smooth movement.
“Stop manhandling me already!” she laughs, and he sticks out his tongue in the most immature display the doctor has ever been seen to indulge in. Sam just seems to bring out that side of him.
Jim gives the order to transport them, and the rest of the hostages (the only other life signs left in the place, god, Bones), back aboard. Bones is saying, “Hey, I just saved your life; I have manhandling rights!” as they disappear from the screen.
“Cut communication,” Jim says. The main screen is replaced by the regular view of stars, and the planet below. He staggers to his feet.
“Captain?” Spock asks, also on his feet.
“Ready room,” he says, and doesn't add, throwing up.
Spock can figure that bit out himself.
~@~
“You said you were a marine,” Jim accuses later. The siblings are eating dinner, but Jim can't bring himself to look at food right now, though he has a mug of coffee.
“Yes,” Bones says. “I was.” He's clearly a bit confused as to where this all was going.
“You said marine, not Special fucking Ops,” Jim clarifies. “Not RRTS, not Reaper, not that entire Mars fiasco. You said 'team medic', not highest fucking kill count on record.”
Bones sighs. “I don't like killing. That doesn't mean I'm not good at it. I don't kill innocents, not if I can help it. I don't kill civilians, and I never, under any circumstances, kill kids.”
“And Mars?” Jim throws at him. “Or was that a different Reaper than the one we learned about? It was the same team, because they discontinued RRTS Special Ops after that. Are you gonna tell me that wasn't you?”
“No,” he sighs, “that was us.”
“I was in danger up there, from a mutagen,” Sam puts in. “He saved me. Well, and the earth, but mostly me.”
“We were both infected,” Bones continues. “We're strong, we're quick, and we apparently heal too fast to age properly. Also too fast to get properly drunk, which is no kind of fun.”
The twins both stare at him, and he looks back blankly. “So you're, what, two hundred some-odd years old?”
Bones blows out a breath. “Yeah, something like that. I lost track of Sam about ten years after Olduvai. I've been looking for her since then.”
Jim blinks. “Wow. You weren't kidding when you said you hadn't seen each other in forever, were you?”
“No,” she says, and leans over to bump the doctor's shoulder.
“And you know what's really sad?” Jim asks. “Finding out my CMO is an immortal legendary killer is so not the strangest thing that's ever happened to me.” He frowns into his mug. “It's not even the strangest thing this year.” He ponders a moment, then announces, “I need a new, less interesting life.”
“No you don't,” Bones says with certainty. “Without the Enterprise and all our fun, near-death adventures, you'd be bored within a week.”
Jim sighs. “I don't think I'm going to talk to you anymore.”
Sam snickers, and then asks how the two of them ever met, anyways.
Bones sits back and listens to his sister and his best friend sharing embarrassing stories of which he's the subject. He can't even find it himself to be mad.
This is how life is supposed to go, he thinks.
Of course, that's about when the alarm sounds, and the next emergency begins.
End
Part 2:
Life falls into a new routine for the ship's doctor. He loves that he has his family and friends all in one place, where he can make sure everyone is safe. For this reason, he almost protests when Samantha is assigned her first away mission.
He doesn't actually ever say anything, though. Sam can still dish out a verbal beat down, and in their time apart, she has picked up some...colorful vocabulary.
They reach a compromise without ever talking about it. She puts up with his fussing, and he doesn't try to stop her. He always worries when she's gone, though.
He lost her once already. He doesn't think he could bear to lose her again.
~@~
She's down on the surface of some green planet, and, last he heard, having a grand old time at it. She's been doing this for months, now, and he's gotten used to it, kind of. He's still absently listing the things that could go wrong in the back of his head, though, when Jim walks into Sickbay.
“You look fine,” he says, squinting at his captain.
“Um,” Jim says, and it's so unlike him that Bones immediately drops the folders he was looking at to give Jim his full attention.
“'Um', what?” he asks, more or less calmly.
“We, uh. We haven't heard from the away team. They...missed their check in.” Jim refuses to meet his eyes.
There's a slow anger burning in the pit of his stomach. “Right,” he says, and leads the way to the bridge. By the time they get there, a terrorist group is on-screen demanding the Enterprise as ransom. They want control of the ship, and thus Federation access codes or something, he's not listening. He meets Sam's eyes through the screen.
She smiles at him, and then they punch her in the stomach. One holds a knife to her face, and says, “You have two hours to give us an answer. Or else.” And he slices her cheek a little.
They cut communication, and the crew do a little research. This is the head honcho of a multi-planet anarchist group, determined to bring down the Federation. They're all wanted criminals, and previously, no one quite knew where the higher-ups had their base, though now, it's painfully obvious.
Jim engages standard response; he sends a security team. It's a full compliment, but the terrorists were expecting it. They're not an intergalactic mob for nothing.
The team beams into an ambush, takes heavy damage, and beams right back out again.
A second team, including uninjured members of the first, beams to a separate location, but they can't get past the barricade.
Bones is gripping the back of Jim's chair so hard his knuckles are white and the chair is creaking. When the second team suffers casualties and is forced to retreat, he swears under his breath.
They are hailed again.
“Nice try,” says the leader, and Bones takes a second to memorize the guy's face. He also notes the guy to his left, the one who'd cut Sam. The leader is still talking. “Unfortunately, because of your silly choices, we're gonna hafta make an example.” The Cut guy pulls Sam forward and pushes her onto her knees. “You got twenty minutes, or she dies, and another hostage every ten minutes after that,” he says, and laughs.
The communication cuts, and he says, “Jim.”
“Can you do it?” Jim asks.
He snarls, and Jim says, “Go.”
He leaves the bridge and doesn't look back.
~@~
It doesn't take long to load up. He's kept his guns in good repair and his blades sharpened. He knows how to conceal, and by the time he walks out the door, black-on-black, he's carrying a lot more than he appears to be.
Jim meets him in the transporter room, and does a double take.
“She'll be all right,” he says, but it's hollow.
“She will; I'm making sure of that.” His accent is gone, but he doesn't really notice, and no one else does, either. “I told you I'd end it.”
He gets on the pad, and swings his huge gun around. The biolock activates. “RRTS Special Ops clearance verified. Handle ID: Reaper.”
The transport activates.
“Dammit!” Jim rages back on the ship. “You said marine! You said marine, not fucking Special Ops! Fuck!” He goes to punch a wall, but remembers just in time that the doctor isn't there to fix broken fingers anymore.
Instead, he goes back to the bridge.
It's a good thing he does, because he gets there just in time to hear Bones say, over the intercom, “...killcam active?”
“Confirmed,” Spock says. “We have visual.”
“Good,” Bones says, “'cause I'm cutting sound.”
Jim stalks over to watch the video feed over Spock's shoulder. He doesn't order it on main-screen, and it's a good thing. The first few bodies, the innocent villagers, fall incapacitated, non-fatally wounded, or merely unconscious. The guys inside the complex aren't so lucky.
After a minute or so, Jim can't watch anymore. He turns away.
“Captain,” Uhura says, “we're being hailed.”
“On-screen,” he orders, and it's the idiots again.
“I don't know what your game is or what you're doing, but stop it!” He's crazy, eyes wide and wild. “Call them off! Stop it! We'll kill them! I'll kill her!”
“Sorry,” Kirk says, meaning no such thing. “I've got no contact with him. Can't tell him a damn thing.” He pauses, looks thoughtful. “Not sure I want to.”
The man screams something incomprehensible, and takes two steps forward to aim the gun at Samantha's head.
She sweeps his feet out from under him. She hasn't got her hands or mouth free, but she gets her hands in front of her and takes his gun away.
He calls her a few names, and she can't free a hand to lower the gag enough to respond.
It doesn't matter; the guy is cut down by a hail of bullets below the screen. Fuck, Jim thinks. Those were his kneecaps. Aiming to disable, or torture shots? He really doesn't want to know the answer.
There's a few more seconds of strafing, and a few more screams, and then the clatter of a gun hitting the floor. McCoy, no, Reaper, slides into frame, and right back out the other side. Sam's ropes are cut from that direction, and she throws herself off-screen, and, unless Jim misses his guess, into her brother's arms.
There is murmuring too indistinct to make out, and then the siblings cross into frame. McCoy leans down to retrieve his giant gun, and really, Jim wonders, does it need to be quite that big? He shoulders his weapon, grins at the camera and says, “Clear.”
Sam smacks him on the back of the head.
“Ow!” he complains.
“You both okay? No bullet holes?” Jim asks. There's blood on Sam's uniform, but he doesn't think it's hers. It's too hard to see blood on McCoy's black clothes, but he knows it's there.
You don't gun down fourty-odd people and not get blood on you.
“We're fine,” Sam assures him, still clinging to her brother. He catches the safety, swings his gun across his back, and picks her up in a smooth movement.
“Stop manhandling me already!” she laughs, and he sticks out his tongue in the most immature display the doctor has ever been seen to indulge in. Sam just seems to bring out that side of him.
Jim gives the order to transport them, and the rest of the hostages (the only other life signs left in the place, god, Bones), back aboard. Bones is saying, “Hey, I just saved your life; I have manhandling rights!” as they disappear from the screen.
“Cut communication,” Jim says. The main screen is replaced by the regular view of stars, and the planet below. He staggers to his feet.
“Captain?” Spock asks, also on his feet.
“Ready room,” he says, and doesn't add, throwing up.
Spock can figure that bit out himself.
~@~
“You said you were a marine,” Jim accuses later. The siblings are eating dinner, but Jim can't bring himself to look at food right now, though he has a mug of coffee.
“Yes,” Bones says. “I was.” He's clearly a bit confused as to where this all was going.
“You said marine, not Special fucking Ops,” Jim clarifies. “Not RRTS, not Reaper, not that entire Mars fiasco. You said 'team medic', not highest fucking kill count on record.”
Bones sighs. “I don't like killing. That doesn't mean I'm not good at it. I don't kill innocents, not if I can help it. I don't kill civilians, and I never, under any circumstances, kill kids.”
“And Mars?” Jim throws at him. “Or was that a different Reaper than the one we learned about? It was the same team, because they discontinued RRTS Special Ops after that. Are you gonna tell me that wasn't you?”
“No,” he sighs, “that was us.”
“I was in danger up there, from a mutagen,” Sam puts in. “He saved me. Well, and the earth, but mostly me.”
“We were both infected,” Bones continues. “We're strong, we're quick, and we apparently heal too fast to age properly. Also too fast to get properly drunk, which is no kind of fun.”
The twins both stare at him, and he looks back blankly. “So you're, what, two hundred some-odd years old?”
Bones blows out a breath. “Yeah, something like that. I lost track of Sam about ten years after Olduvai. I've been looking for her since then.”
Jim blinks. “Wow. You weren't kidding when you said you hadn't seen each other in forever, were you?”
“No,” she says, and leans over to bump the doctor's shoulder.
“And you know what's really sad?” Jim asks. “Finding out my CMO is an immortal legendary killer is so not the strangest thing that's ever happened to me.” He frowns into his mug. “It's not even the strangest thing this year.” He ponders a moment, then announces, “I need a new, less interesting life.”
“No you don't,” Bones says with certainty. “Without the Enterprise and all our fun, near-death adventures, you'd be bored within a week.”
Jim sighs. “I don't think I'm going to talk to you anymore.”
Sam snickers, and then asks how the two of them ever met, anyways.
Bones sits back and listens to his sister and his best friend sharing embarrassing stories of which he's the subject. He can't even find it himself to be mad.
This is how life is supposed to go, he thinks.
Of course, that's about when the alarm sounds, and the next emergency begins.
End