A Kestrel for a Star (Star Trek fanfiction)

Chapter 20

Kirk's face was still fresh in her mind when Kez hit the ground, face first.

"Sonofabitch, pointy-eared, idiot!" She cured with a groan, only stopping the curse short when she realised that she couldn't feel her face. That was when she realised she was laid in snow. Cold snow. Snow that was melting through her uniform faster than she could think, and the water left behind was being frozen to her skin by the vicious wind that whipped around the vast and vacant space.

Kez sat up to look at the icy, flat environment around her and horror struck her. Where the hell was she? And where the hell was Kirk? There was no crash-landed pod anywhere to be seen. She would have seen the contrast of the black metal against snow sticking out like a sore thumb.

Maybe I'm dead ...She thought, reaching to feel the back of her neck. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight ... nine, she counted as she felt the tally marks across her neck and shoulder. Not dead. Not yet anyway.

She tried to stand up but her stomach lurched and she doubled over. Her skin flickered like a candle that was lowly going to be blown out by the wind. It was an odd feeling, as if she was porting without thinking, like she was here but at the same time part of her wasn't.

She coughed and took a tame step forward, her foot sinking into newly fallen snow with a soft crunch.

She walked a short distance, her teeth beginning to chatter and the sickly feeling in her stomach increasing painfully.

"Kirk, you dummy. Where are you?" She muttered, her breath fogging in front of her like a cloud in a summer sky.

Kez closed her eyes tight and ported, fixing Kirk's face in her mind, every detail of it.

When she reappeared, the flickering of her skin was worse. Apparently, this is what happened when you ported off a ship while it was at warp. But still no Kirk, unless he had become a snowflake. She sighed and ported again, wondering if eventually she would just disappear from the fabric of this reality due to over porting. Sounded like a great way to go.

Eventually she collapsed in the snow, on her knees, cold, weak and flickering as if only her soul was present and not her body. She was practically translucent, like a hologram with a bad signal.

She gasped and clutched the snow, not feeling the cold as her hands slipped through it without breaking the surface.

Kez looked up, her eyes watering only to find she was at the top of a snow-dune and below her, snuggly tucked away and out of the wind was a small Starfleet outpost station. She squinted wondering if she was just imagining it, delirious from porting and the cold. She thought it was worth one more try, even if it killed her. She pictured Kirk's face and ported one last time.

Kirk was having a hard time of life since he had landed. He'd been chased by alien creatures, met a Vulcan from the future who claimed to be Spock, and his best friend, joined minds with him and then walked halfway across the planet through the snow to find the Starfleet outpost station that they were now stood in. Their welcome hadn't been so friendly. They'd discovered Montgomery Scott, an expelled Starfleet engineer and physicist who Spock claimed to know from his alternate reality in the future. Kirk had just finished listening to Scotty tell a story involving an Admiral's prize beagle and how he had used it to try and prove a theory on long-range transwarp beaming which has ultimately gotten him exiled here.

"So what happened to the dog?" Kirk asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose. It had been a long day and he needed a stiff drink.

"I'll tell ye when it reappears. I'm convinced it will, one of these days." Scotty mused thoughtfully, turning on his chair carefully.

Suddenly there was a crackle of energy from somewhere near the ceiling and all three men looked up suddenly. There was a blast of cold air as if someone had opened a window and a few fluttering snowflakes before a mass dropped from the ceiling and onto the floor.

Kirk stood in shock for a moment looking at the form that was only just recognisable as Kez. She was barely there, like a form made of water, her skin was see through and flickering like it was its own pulse.

Finally he snapped out of his state of shock, "Kez!" he ran to her, sliding on his knees so that he could comfort her curled up body.

Her eyes flashed open and she kicked away from him, "Don't touch me!" She cried, but her voice didn't come from her body, it echoed in the room.

Kirk sat with his hand held out as Spock came up behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder, "She's right Jim, if you touch her now, you too will be pulled into the rips between reality that Kestrel ports through."

Kirk sat back feeing a painful pull in his chest as he watched Kez struggling for breath and curled up, shaking as slowly, colour leaked into her skin and hair and her body became more defined. After five painful minutes Spock finally let go of Kirk's shoulder and he moved forward, reaching out to touch Kez's arm. Her head snapped up and Kirk watched the wild look leave her cold brown eyes slowly until she sighed, tipping her head back to press it against the wall. Kick slid up beside her and sat with his back also against the wall, the way they used to when they got too drunk and ended up locked out, laughing and slurring out stories until the early hours.

"Rough time?" He finally asked as she lolled her head in his direction to look at him.

"Nah! I mean porting off a ship at warp is my favourite thing to do, especially in a fit of pure rage." She choked on her laugh.

"Always reckless, even in this reality," Spock said, his eyes soft with a vailed and hidden emotion.

Kez raised an eyebrow and turned to Kirk, "Who's this guy?"

Kirk laughed and got to his feet, reaching down to pull Kez up too, "Boy have I got something to tell you."

Kez looked the way Kirk had felt when he first tried to make sense of the situation. And Scotty was even more dumbfounded.

"So you're from the future? As in my future? Or a different reality?" She asked finally asked.

Spock chuckled, "I am from your future, don't worry, you still have nine strikes."

Kez puffed out her cheeks in relief, "Good, I thought I'd suddenly have to be doing a lot of bullet dodging." She laughed. The idea of dying in the near future didn't sit well with her, especially after she had just risked everything to save Kirk.

Spock laughed, "Am I also to presume that you are not yet the Ambassador of Sytron yet? Kirk did not know he is yet to be Captain of the Enterprise."

Kirk and Kez stood there still and silent, motionless apart from the flicker of Kirk's eyes in Kez's direction to read her face of its emotions.

Scotty cleared his throat, "Sytron? Wasn't that the plant the Federation had to destroy all them years back because of militants?"

Silence again as Spock began to understand, "I am sorry for your loss," was all he could manage to say.

"Don't be." Kez said quickly, snapping out of her trance, "I can't remember it, I was only a newborn baby." She moved uneasily not making eye contact before sighing, "Sorry to cut this short but we really need to get off this planet and preferably do it before Spock, our Spock, does something rash and stupid. No offense."

Future Spock just nodded politely then turned to Scotty, "Mister Scott, what if I told you that your theory was correct? That it is indeed possible to beam from a fixed point onto a ship traveling at warp speed?"

Scotty snorted, "If such an equation had been discovered and verified, I'd 'ave heard. I haven't heard of any such development."

"The reason you haven't heard of it, Mister Scott, is because you haven't discovered it yet," Spock concluded, a slight twinkle in his eye.