Breaking Bones

Chapter 8: Rescue Mission

Despite everyone's current anger or hatred towards Jim, he was making for a good captain thus far, announcing to the ship plans to hunt down Nero and save Captain Pike and putting all officers on the bridge to work in locating Nero's ship. The sudden "invention" of trans warp beaming was certainly a new advantage for the Enterprise, but it would do them no good if they couldn't track Nero's ship somewhere in the vastness of space. To everyone's utmost surprise, it was Chekov who seemed to come up with the solution. 

"Captain! I think I know how to find Nero." The senior officers all seemed hesitant to hear to young cadet out, but Ana didn't see anyone else jumping up with any ideas. 

"Go ahead, Chekov. What's your idea?" 

"Based on the Narada's course from Vulcan, I've projected that Nero will travel past Saturn. If we could drop out of warp behind one of Saturn's moons, say Titan, the magnetic distortion from the planet's rings would make us invisible to Nero's sensors. We could follow him to Earth by staying in his blind spot and beam onto the ship without him ever knowing." The senior officers had all been stunned into silence. Uhura and Tonks tried to work through the science in their heads, trying to make a quick determinate if Chekov's logic was correct. Bones went ahead and said what everyone else was thinking. 

"Wait a minute, kid, how old are you?" 

"Seventeen, sir." 

"Oh, oh great. He's seventeen." Jim gave a Leonard a look telling him to chill out for a second as Talia finished up the calculations in her head. 

"He may only be seventeen, but I think he's right. I'd need someone in quantum physics to confirm it, but the math all checks out in my head." 

"I can confirm it, and Mr. Chekov is correct." All eyes turned to Spock as he calmly made his way over to the group on the bridge. It was quite the turnaround from his previous state on the bridge, but no one was complaining.

"I have reviewed his telemetry. If Mr. Sulu can maneuver us into position, I can beam aboard Nero's ship." 

"I can't have you do that, Spock." 

"Romulans and Vulcans share a common ancestry. Our cultural similarities will make it easier for me to access their ship's computer to locate the device. Also, my mother was human, which makes Earth the only home I have left." 

"Then I'm going with you, Spock." Anatalia couldn't help but roll her eyes at the brashness with which Kirk continued to conduct himself. She quickly stepped forward to the center of the group, all attention turning in on her. 

"Okay, no. This has got to stop. I am CSO and I have already lost one captain because we let him hand himself over to Nero knowing he likely wouldn't make it back. I am not losing another captain today."

"Ana--" 

"No Jim! It is my job to protect the occupants of this ship. Captains don't go on landing parties. We have people for that. My people, to be exact. You want to beam someone onto that ship to grab Pike it's going to be me, or one of my own. This is not up for debate." 

"You're right, it's not. So as Captain, I am ordering you to stand down. Spock and I are going to beam onto that ship, and you are being inserted as acting captain in our stead."

"Excuse me?!" 

"If anything goes south, you do your job. Get everyone else out of here safely. That's an order." Jim took Anatalia's prolonged silence as his queue to depart from the bridge with Spock, Uhura and Scotty following them close behind. Even after the group had boarded the turbo lift and disappeared from sight, Talia was still frozen in place on the bridge, her jaw somewhat slack and her mind completely empty.