The second you reached the surface, you dearly wished you were back inside the caverns. The rain had turned to hail, and the wind was now raging an assault on every upright thing. It was blacker outside than even the dark cave had been, and you felt Spock stagger at the change in weather.
"Put me down!" you yelled over the wind. "We're not going to make it far like this!"
"You stand no chance at all of walking alone in this weather!" he shouted back. "You would be dead within minutes!"
"Spock, in this stuff, we'll be dead in half an hour anyway!" you snapped. "Whatever happened to your famous Vulcan logic?!"
He didn't answer as he staggered forward over the half-frozen landscape, and you wondered if he'd even heard you over the terrific thundering of hailstones. Not to be ignored either way, you dug your nails into his shoulders and pushed yourself away from him. His weakening grip broke, and you successfully fell smack to the ground, rolling over once or twice from the force of the wind. Damn, how was Spock still standing?! You came to rest on top of a sharp object you presumed to be a rock and winced in fresh pain, not only from the thing now digging into your spine with a jagged vengefulness, but also from your reaggravated internal injuries.
You heard Spock shout something at you, but you were presently five meters apart, sufficiently far to pretend you hadn't noticed anything. Instead, you rolled off of the item cutting painfully into your flesh, intent on standing up, but you froze. Hand shaking slightly, you touched the one loop on your belt still weighted down by a tool, the tool that had been poking you so aggravatingly seconds before. You still had your phaser! That had been, of course, absolutely useless in the cavern, but up here-
An insane idea entered your brain, so ludicrously unreasonable that it just might work. Still shaking, as much from nerves now as pain and cold, you got on your knees, squinting at the mud-stained phaser dials. If only you could get this right . . .
A pair of hands suddenly gripped your shoulders tightly, whirling you around.
"(Y/N)!" Spock's voice was raised more than was truly needed, and he gave you something akin to the Vulcan version of a glare. "What were you thinking?!"
"Never mind that!" you yelled, pushing his hands away. "I've got an idea! Look!"
You held up your phaser, and his gaze slid to it briefly before returning to you, an expression of mild befuddlement in his eyes.
"A search party would have been forced to beam up by now, right?!" you shouted. "If they're still searching, it's with the Enterprise's scanners! There's a good chance they've already done this vicinity, so we need to call their attention back to it!"
"Are you suggesting-"
"Yes! It's the only way!"
He hesitated, squinting at you against the nearly horizontal hailstorm, then nodded ever so slightly. "Set it for overload, (Y/N)! When you throw it, throw it into the wind!"
You didn't waste time replying. Adrenaline had finally kicked in, making you oblivious to the decreasing temperatures and the increasing agony. You had no idea if Spock was blessed with the same immunity, but even if he wasn't, it wouldn't matter for much longer anyway, one way or another. Precisely as you adjusted the final knob and the phaser began to emit the first sign of overload (a whining hum that cut through even the thunderous ruckus of the storm), the wind shifted just enough that it caught your hand at the wrong angle. The weapon went flying from your grasp and soon vanished within the muck churning around your feet in a slimy current. There was a split second in which your mind erupted in panic, then you dropped back to your knees, plunging your hands into the flood and feeling about frantically.
"Oh, please no, please no, no, no, please, oh please, please, please, no!" you whispered desperately, raking the slippery grime beneath the water with your fingers as if you were trying to dig a hole.
At last, after a few terrible moments of anxiety, your fingernails scraped metal. You wrenched the phaser free of the mud, screwed up your face against the now positively ear-piercing shrill, and hurled the device as hard as you could in the direction of the hailstones whipping past your cheek. Both you and Spock flung your arms over your heads and dropped face-down in the mud with a splash, and the phaser exploded somewhat closer that would have been safe. An upsurging wave rippled through the flood with such force that you were knocked completely over, slamming into Spock's side as a wave of searing heat blasted over you. The landscaped blurred, then began to darken. Not for the first time, your last clear image before blacking out was a pair of beautiful brown eyes sliding in and out of focus above you.
