Two Captains

Chapter 14

I make it back to the bridge just in time to see Spock sitting in the Captain's chair.

"Dr. Puri," Spock says on a comm. "Report."

"It's McCoy." I hear Bones's voice. "Doctor Puri was on Deck Six. He's dead."

Spock hesitates before he responds.

"Then you have just inherited his responsibility as Chief Medical Officer."

"Yeah tell me something I don't know!" Bones answers before signing off the comm.

After about a minute of silence, I see a small drawing of the drill and three small dots descending down towards the bottom of it. One dot is red with a label attached to it. The dot is labeled as "Olson." The blue dot slightly above it is labeled as "Kirk", and the yellow dot which is practically right next to Kirk is labeled as "Sulu".

"Away Team is entering the atmosphere, sir." Chekov informs, looking at the screen. "20,000 meters."

After a minute or so of more silence, Chekov speaks up again.

"Approaching the platform at 58-hundred meters."

"Kirk to Enterprise," Jim says over a comm. "Distance to target; 5,000 meters."

"Crap they're moving fast." I mutter next to Spock. "They're gonna need to pull their chutes soon if they're going to make it onto the platform and not get sucked into the drill below it."

Spock nods slightly.

"Did you just agree with me?" I say, looking at him and giving him an incredulous look as he continues to look at the screen.

"46-hundred meters from the platform." Chekov says.

"41-hundred meters to target." Sulu says over the comm.

"4,000 meters." Jim says.

"3,000 meters." Olson speaks up. "3,000 meters." He repeats.

"2,000 meters." Jim says.

"Pull the chute!" I hear Sulu say to Jim and Olson.

On the screen I see that Sulu and Jim have pulled their chutes but Olson hasn't.

"2,000 meters." Olson says.

"Didn't Kirk already say that...?" I hear someone in the back mutter.

"Come on, pull your shoot Olson!" I hear Jim say to him.

"No not yet. Not yet. 15-hundred meters!"

"Olson, pull the chute!" Sulu says, but Olson doesn't and lets out a 'yee hah!'

"Olson damn it, pull the chute or you're going to die!" I speak into the comm. "Pull the bloody chute!"

"1,000 meters!" Olson says, ignoring us.

Shortly afterwards I see that Olson has pulled his chute, but pulled it way too late. I hear him give out a shriek as he slams against a piece of metal beam on the platform, bounce off of it, swing down near the drill, and suddenly disappear.

"Olson!" Jim says.

"O-Olson is gone, sir!" Chekov stutters, open-mouthed.

"Son-of-a-bitch had the charges!" I mutter, placing a hand on my forehead and slightly pacing back and forth. "Spock what the hell do we do now? Sorry...Captain." I correct myself. I pause and take my hand away from my forehead, stopping and looking at him. "I'm not the Captain, but I seem more stressed out than you are..."

"I am Vulcan." He answers.

"Not completely." I respond quietly.

He looks at me and narrows his eyes. "I have never met a human like you before."