The Hand of Fate – Two – DizzyDrea

Sickbay was a hive of activity. Not entirely unexpected, considering what had just happened, but from what Chris could see, the injuries were mostly minor: burns, scrapes, scratches. He could even see a nurse using a bone knitter on someone’s wrist. Altogether, it was better than he had a right to expect.

He spotted Dr. M’Benga and Nurse Chapel at a bio bed across the room, so he headed straight for his CMO. His steps faltered slightly when he realized that M’Benga was treating Una.

Taking a deep breath, he approached the bed, glancing only briefly at Una before he looked up to see M’Benga smiling at him. Something uncoiled in his chest as he processed that smile. Her injuries must not have been so bad if he was smiling at his captain.

“Captain Pike, I was just getting ready to report to you on our injury situation,” M’Benga said. He stepped back slightly as Nurse Chapel continued to use a dermal regenerator on a cut on Una’s forehead. She nodded at him but kept her focus on Una.

“How is she?” Chris asked, not even bothering to disguise that Una was the reason he’d rushed to Sickbay at the first opportunity.

“Commander Chin-Riley is stable,” M’Benga said. “Her healing abilities activated the moment she arrived in Sickbay. We scanned her during that process, which provided some surprising and interesting data that I’ll review in more detail once the current crisis is over.

“She’s completely healed from the radiation exposure, but the blowback from the partial breach caused some damage to her left arm and shoulder. We’ll have to do surgery to correct that, but she’s also got a head injury.” Chris glanced at Una. The cut was healed, but she was still unconscious. “I’ve given her some medication to reduce any swelling as a result of the concussion, but we’ll have to delay surgery until we’re sure going under anesthesia won’t cause her more damage.”

“Christ,” Chris said, rubbing a hand over his face. “Is she unconscious because of the concussion, or is it something else?”

“Pelia told me that she hit her head pretty hard on the deck when the baffle plate started to blow,” Christine said as she set aside the dermal regenerator. “It didn’t knock her out right away, since she was able to get the emergency force field in place before she passed out, but it’s likely the brain swelling is what’s keeping her unconscious at the moment. Not a bad thing, since a busted-up shoulder can’t feel that great.”

“Having taken a shoulder injury once in training, I can verify that it hurts like a son of a bitch,” Chris said. He winced at the lack of filter but shrugged it off almost immediately. They both knew how close he and Una were—though maybe not the whole of it—so they wouldn’t question why he was behaving differently where she was concerned. “When do you think you’ll be able to operate?”

“If everything goes well, perhaps as early as this afternoon,” M’Benga said. “It must also be said that using her healing ability has exhausted her energy reserves. Yet another reason to move forward carefully. She’ll be fine, Captain. Nothing a little time and rest won’t cure.”

“Thanks, Joseph,” Chris said. The doctor just gave him a nod and a sympathetic smile. “What about the rest of the injured?”

“Mostly scrapes and bruises,” M’Benga said as he glanced around the room. About a dozen crew members were in various stages of treatment, but Chris suspected not all of them had been in Engineering. As if he could read his captain’s mind, M’Benga addressed his speculation. “We were already treating a few patients from a training incident, so it’s been a busy morning.”

“Training incident?” Chris asked.

“Yes, a donnybrook broke out during sparring this morning,” M’Benga said with a smile. “The instructor broke it up rather quickly, but there were quite a few cuts and bruises, despite the gloves everyone was wearing.”

Chris sighed. “I know we’ve been in the black longer than most of the crew has ever experienced, but I guess I didn’t realize how much of a toll it was taking on the crew.”

“They’re just bored,” Christine said as she leaned on the bio bed, crossing her arms and frowning. “They’ve done nearly everything there is to do on the ship, including Enterprise Bingo, so they’re just looking for something to break up the boredom.”

“Maybe I need to run more drills, if this is how they address their boredom,” Chris said with a frown.

M’Benga chuckled. “I’m sure they’d all enjoy that.”

“Lieutenant Noonien-Singh is standing in as first officer while Una’s laid up, so make sure you send her the names of those who were treated for the fight,” Chris said.

“Will do, Captain,” M’Benga said. “As for the accident in Engineering, there were eight crew members injured, which is far less than it could have been, considering it was Monday morning and Engineering would have been fully staffed.”

“Agreed,” Chris said. “Thanks for the update. When you finish your report on the injuries from Engineering, send it my way. I’ll add it to the report that I’m compiling for Admiral April.”

“Of course,” M’Benga said. He paused and looked at Chris speculatively. “She’ll be fine. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Chris said, unwilling to say more because he was perilously close to giving something away that he promised himself he’d never say out loud to another soul.

M’Benga didn’t say anything, just patted him on the back as he retreated to his office.

Christine smiled at him. “Feel free to stay as long as you like, Captain. I’ll be monitoring her from my station, so I’ll know if anything comes up.”

“Thanks, Christine,” Chris said.

He watched her walk away, then turned back to look at Una. His crew wasn’t stupid, so they probably already suspected a deeper attachment between them than what they showed on any given day, but thankfully none of them had said anything yet. He made a mental note to add a commendation for each of them in his report to Admiral April. Taking a deep breath, he moved to Una’s right side and picked up her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“For the record, losing you isn’t a fair price to pay for averting my fate,” he whispered, leaning over her. He threaded his fingers through her hair, still caked with soot and debris from the accident. “But thank you for looking after my ship and her crew. I think I owe you more than I could ever repay. For now, though, I’ll sit still for the lecture you’re no doubt going to give me when you wake up, for worrying about you.”

He bent over and placed a small, sweet kiss on her forehead, just where the dermal regenerator had repaired the skin. He straightened up, glancing around to find that no one was paying him any attention. Grateful for that, he cleared his throat and took a step back. If he didn’t leave now, he might not be able to, though what he really wanted was to sit right down and hold her hand until she woke up.

Instead, he turned and left Sickbay. With every step, his boots felt like they were filled with lead, but he had a job to do. He needed to figure out why this had happened before it was supposed to, and why Una was the one caught in the baffle plate rupture instead of him.

He acknowledged to himself as he entered the lift that he might never understand why the accident had happened today rather than some undetermined date in the future. It didn’t stop him from wanting to know, but he also knew he might have to accept that it wasn’t part of his fate to understand the why of it all.

Fuck fate, he thought. He’d lived under a black cloud for so long that it had become part of his life. Now he had a chance to make his future what he wanted it to be instead of waiting for fate to fuck him over. He was damn well going to take it, too.

~0~

Instead of returning to the bridge, Chris decided a detour to Engineering might be in order. He didn’t really want to see the scene of the crime, as it were, but he also knew that he needed to know exactly what had happened and why, and what his crew was doing to fix it in the short term so they could return to Earth.

When the main doors to Engineering slid open, they revealed a somewhat scorched but still quite functional compartment. He could see the emergency bulkhead still closing off half of Engineering, but there were people on the other side in protective suits; either investigating or repairing the damage, he wasn’t sure which.

Spotting Pelia at a station across the room, he headed directly for her. Spock, who was standing beside her, saw his approach first.

“Captain,” he said with a nod.

“Spock, Pelia,” Chris said, returning the nod. “Anything new to report?”

“We have nearly finished venting the radiation from the compartment,” Spock said. “There is enough of it vented for us to inspect the damage and prepare a plan for emergency repairs.”

“Any idea what caused the breach?” Chris asked.

Pelia huffed. “That baffle plate showed some metallurgical weakness when we examined it. The failure was just a matter of time.”

“So, basically, someone installed a ticking time bomb on my ship,” Chris said. That wasn’t as comforting as he thought it would be, because while the mistake wasn’t his or his crew’s, it was someone’s mistake, and people had very nearly paid for that mistake with their lives. “Any idea why it wasn’t caught before the materials reached the ship?”

“I have tracked that batch back to the shipyard, Captain,” Spock said when Pelia pressed her lips together. “It appears that the entire batch was cleared through the supply chain without inspection. The appropriate boxes were checked on the bill of lading, but there was no inspection certificate included with the parts that reached Enterprise.”

“It is an oversight that I will be taking up with Fleet command personally,” Pelia said. “It is unconscionable to put people at risk in this way, something I plan to remind them of. At volume.”

Chris chuckled, though nothing about the situation was remotely funny. “I’ll give Admiral April a heads up. He might want to join you.” Pelia nodded. “Repairs?”

“We are still assessing the damage,” Spock said. “Despite appearances, there is not as much damage as there should have been. Commander Chin-Riley’s timely actions did more than save lives. She may very well have prevented the warp core from exploding. Enterprise would not have survived such an event.”

Chris crossed his arms over his chest as images of a fate he was no longer sure was his flashed through his mind. A baffle plate failing, venting Delta radiation into the compartment. Evacuating the crew. Closing the emergency bulkhead. Fire. Burns. Pain. It all piled onto him, one image after another until he could feel the weight of it as though someone had parked an elephant on his chest.

He saw Spock frowning at him, no doubt aware of where his thoughts had gone. He shook his head, purposefully uncrossing his arms and flexing his fingers as he took a deep, steadying breath. At some point, he was going to have to sit down and deal with all of it, but now was definitely not that time.

“Based on the scans we’ve already completed, I’m estimating we’ll have that baffle plate repaired within six hours,” Pelia said, cutting through the miasma of images and feelings, bringing him back to the here and now. “The greater concern is that there was more than one baffle plate installed during the last refit, and they all came from the same batch.”

“So, any one of them could fail at any time,” Chris said. “You’re going to inspect them all, correct?”

“Already underway, Captain,” Spock said. “Thus far, none of them are showing the same weakness as the one that failed. Providing that remains the case, we should be able to get back underway once the repairs are completed.”

“We don’t have enough supplies on board to replace all of them,” Pelia said, “and it would take us days to do that work if we did. I would prefer not to engage the warp drive until all the baffle plates have been replaced, but I also understand that without warp, it will take us a month to return to Earth.”

“I’m not asking you to take an unnecessary risk with the ship or the crew, Pelia,” Chris said. “But we also can’t stay out here without a warp engine. It would leave us vulnerable to attack from any number of hostiles. So, given that, what do you suggest?”

“Low warp,” Pelia said immediately. “We run at low warp and stop for no less than two hours every four hours to cool the engines.”

“At that pace, it would take us roughly a week to reach Earth,” Spock said. “It would also require a level of vigilance from the crew that might be taxing.”

“The crew has trained for these types of emergencies, so I’m sure they’ll all rise to the occasion,” Chris said. “Pull in as many crew as you need to fully staff Engineering. We’ll run double shifts if we have to. Just make sure everyone takes their allotted breaks and keep an eye out for fatigue. We don’t want to compound our issues by wearing the crew out before we reach spacedock.”

“How is Commander Chin-Riley?” Spock asked.

Chris chastised himself for not saying something sooner. He knew Spock and Una were close. “Una’s going to be okay. Her healing ability activated as soon as she reached Sickbay, so any radiation exposure she had had already been healed by the time Doctor M’Benga started treating her. She’s got a shoulder injury that will require surgery, and they’re managing a concussion she suffered when she hit the deck after the initial failure, but he thinks she’ll make a full recovery.”

“I am grateful to hear it,” Spock said. “She saved many lives with her quick action.”

“I know,” Chris said. “I intend to put her in for a commendation for her actions during the failure. As for the rest of the wounded, they were all being treated while I was there. Nothing life-threatening; mostly just bumps and bruises. On the whole, we came out of this a whole lot better than I’d have expected.”

“You have a fine crew, Captain,” Pelia said. “It’s down to your leadership that we’ve come through this as well as we have. Now, get back to the bridge so I can get back to work. The repairs aren’t going to happen by magic.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Chris said, smiling. “Keep me posted. I expect I’ll have a message from Admiral April when I get back to the bridge. If there’s anything you need to know, I’ll pass it along.”

“Thank you,” Pelia said. She made a shooing motion. “Now go. As the young people say, we’ve got this.”

Chris didn’t respond, just waved her off and headed out of Engineering. The knowledge that they were far better off than he’d expected was settling into his bones, relief washing through him and leaving only calm confidence behind. They’d get the ship home, and then the real work could begin.

~0~

Cast (from top right):
Anson Mount & Rebecca Romijn, Babs Olusanmokun, Jess Bush, Carol Kane, Christina Chong, Ethan Peck, Adrian Holmes