Your first thought upon stirring: Well, this is getting familiar.
You were laying half-buried in rubble and debris, and the air was so thick with dust that you could barely see a meter in front of you, let alone to the ends of the corridor. The hall was dark except for the flashing red of emergency lights, and what with all the dust, they didn't give much to your visibility. Seriously, why was there so much dust on a starship?! This was worse than an old-fashioned sawmill! (You chose to ignore the fact that metallic dust was probably a lot more dangerous than sawdust.)
The next thing you took note of was your own condition. You were definitely covered in more bruises than you could count, but thankfully, there didn't seem to be any major injuries. You struggled to stand, but quickly realized that while it wasn't crushing you, the beam laying across your legs was pinning you quite firmly in place. You at once tried to move it, but the angle was awkward, and you couldn't even budge it a millimeter. Oh, well – at least you weren't dead or dying for once.
There was an unexpected bout of coughing from somewhere to your right, and you suddenly remembered Spock.
"Spock!" you yelled, accidentally swallowing a decent amount of dust from the air.
You paused for your own coughing fit, and there was a sudden crunching noise that sounded as if Spock had leapt to his feet somewhere in the debris.
"(Y/N)!" His voice was slightly muffled, and you guessed he was using his sleeve or something to keep the dust out of his lungs. "Where are you?"
Taking the idea, you grasped an already torn part of your shirt hem and ripped it entirely loose. Holding the piece of fabric over your nose and mouth, you called out again.
"To your left! Are you hurt?"
"There appears to be no serious damage. Are you likewise unharmed?"
"Pretty much, but there's a beam sort of pinning me down! Can you help?"
The sound of nearing footsteps met your ears, and the beam suddenly pressed painfully down on your knees.
"Ow! Spock, I think you're standing on the beam!" you yelped, wincing.
Immediately, the pressure released, and with a few more footsteps, Spock's figure knelt down at your side.
"My apologies. Did I injure you?"
"No, I'm fine. But I'd be a lot more fine if we could get this stupid beam off me. I can't reach it well enough to make any real impact on its position."
"Remain still."
He slid his hands to the underside of the beam, and with his more opportune position, he was able to heft the obstruction long enough for you to pull your legs out from beneath it. Relieved, you rubbed your kneecaps and looked over at Spock gratefully.
"Thanks, Spock. I owe you one."
His eyebrows contracted. "Owe me one of what?"
You laughed. "I owe you a favour, Spock. It's another human phrase."
Strangely, he frowned somewhat deeper. "A favour," he repeated, more to himself than to you.
"Yeah . . ." you said slowly. "So, should we do something about getting out of here?"
Spock seemed to bring himself out of some sort of internal contemplation and looked around the corridor as best he could. The dust was showing no real signs of settling, so visibility remained at pretty much nil.
"We do not seem to be in any imminent danger," he said after a moment.
"Great," you said. "We need a change of pace. But besides that‒"
You broke off. Two loud crashing sounds echoed from the farthest ends of the corridor. You and Spock turned your faces from one direction to the other, then as one, you both stood.
"Emergency bulkheads," you said quietly. "You and your voice of doom. I'd say our danger just became a lot more imminent, Spock."
"Correct," he agreed, reaching up to wipe a trickle of blood from his lower lip. He must have caught the edge of something during the impacts. "If this corridor's air pressure is dropping swiftly enough for emergency bulkheads to activate, then it is probable that there is some form of air leakage, as well as a nearby hull breach."
"And that means we need to get out of here as soon as we possibly can," you concluded. "If we don't, we're going to wind up in an obituary under 'death by asphyxiation'. Not my idea of a great future."
Spock's lips twitched ever so slightly. "I would tend to agree with you on that particular matter."
"Then let's find a way out," you said. "Well, the other corridors are now blocked off." You glanced up and down in the dusty darkness, coming to a freshly unpleasant realization. "And – oh, damn. I knew I shouldn't have taken this shortcut."
"There are no doors leading from our present location."
Way to caption exactly what you'd been thinking. Spock knelt down beside the wall to your left and began running his fingers along the metal. You watched him, bemused.
"Being stuck means we should sit here and stroke the walls?" you asked, perhaps a bit more sarcastically than you had meant to.
Thankfully, Spock didn't seem the least bit fazed by your words. "You are intelligent enough for me to hope that was a joke," he said, not ceasing in his bizarre actions. "There is an access point to the Jefferies tubes in this corridor, and I believe‒" there was a click "‒I have located it."
You stepped over some wreckage and bent down to help. Together, you and Spock removed a panel from the wall and pushed it to the side. Silently, you looked into the dark void you had exposed, then back up at Spock.
"I thought the Jefferies tubes had lighting."
"It would seem that the emergency lights are nonfunctional in this section of the tunnels," Spock agreed. "Are you familiar enough with their layout to precede me?"
"Judging by the fact that I had to ask you why you were petting the walls to learn there was even an access point around here, I'm going to say no," you said, sitting back on your heels. "You'd better go first. And I'm sorry in advance."
Spock had already started into the Jefferies tubes, but he paused, glancing back at you, over his shoulder. "What for?"
"For all the times I'm going to accidentally run over your heels," you said, ducking your head under the entryway after him and grinning at his indistinguishable face.
"Ah. In that case, you are forgiven . . . in advance."
You couldn't see his eyes in the darkness – or anything else, really – but you had a feeling that if you could have, you would have seen that inexplicable light that they seemed to gain whenever he showed an inclination of his human side, especially a sense of humour.
