3So you'll notice the chapters are fairly short right now, when I'm done more of the story I'll compile chapters together but for now, don't want to leave anyone hanging!
Enjoy. Please review, please please please. They are my oxygen.
...
"Captain, if you would be so kind as to refrain from distracting me from important matters," Spock stated as he glared at Jim, grinning impishly from the Captain's chair.
Well, not quite glaring, Jim thought. But Spock's eyes were narrowed and his jaw was tight, in ever so slight increments. To his credit, Spock had kept his voice level and his posture no more rigid than usual.
Jim grinned widely. It was as close to mad as Spock ever got.
"C'mon, Spock," he groaned loudly. Over at his station, Sulu smiled slightly. The Captain was such a child. "Nothing wrong with simply exercising my hand-eye coordination," Kirk added.
Spock was silent for a moment. "Throwing your Terran peas at my head in an effort to elicit an emotion from me is only an exercise in my patience, Captain."
"Captain?" Sulu asked. Kirk quickly swung his chair to face him.
"Yes?"
"Do you wish me to notify McCoy that you are in need of treatment for burns?"
Kirk's eyes narrowed. "I'm not burned, Sulu what do -" he paused. "Oh, very funny Lieutenant."
Jim swung his chair in a slow circle. "I am being harassed by my own crew!" he proclaimed indignantly, tossing a pea in Sulu's direction. "I came to have a good time and instead feel attacked! The disgrace of this," he complained loudly, flinging more peas at Spock's head. Spock, for his part, gracefully ignored the peas raining down on his head and console.
"Keptin," Chekov chimed in. "I believe you know that old English saying, one about the taste of your own medicine?" Chekov struggled to keep his grin in check.
Jim sighed dramatically. "You too, Chekov? Really?" he said. Jim flung more peas at various crew on the Bridge with a pout on his face.
The doors to the Bridge swooshed open and Uhura quietly sighed in relief. A break from this melodramatic soap opera, that's what she needed. McCoy stalked in, right up to the Captain's chair.
Leonard looked at the bowl of peas in Kirk's hands, then glanced around the room, then back at the bowl, and finally met Jim's eyes, crinkled from a large grin.
McCoy raised his eyebrow ever so high. His chronometer beeped just then, and in a blink he had his hand around Jim's forearm, yanking him up and out of the chair. "It's time for your physical, Captain."
Kirk set the bowl of peas on the ground. "I'm on duty, Doctor McCoy. I'm busy, I can swing down there later."
"Too bad your shift is ending in thirty seconds," McCoy said smugly. "And you'll just 'swing by later'? Sorry, but I call bullshit."
Kirk shook his head, mouth twisted in a frown. "Swear words are distracting, Bones. There are people here who wish not to be distracted from important matters," he said primly, twisting his head not-so-subtly in Spock's direction.
McCoy sighed. "Just one month, Jim. Can I have one month where you don't make this difficult?"
"My health was fine last month, it'll be just as fine this month," Jim said, itching for this to be over. He'd swing by later, really. (He knows he won't).
"We've also been to two planets since last month! Who knows what alien STDs you've picked up!" Leonard practically yelled.
Jim winced at the noise, and at the fact that if the rest of the crew on the Bridge weren't listening before, they certainly were now. He knew his reputation for, ah, sleeping around was equal to, if not more well-known, than the fact that he was Captain of the Enterprise.
"Really Doctor McCoy, later I – "
"Keptin." Chekov said.
" – yes Chekov! What is it?" Kirk leapt at the distraction, settling back into the command chair.
"We have reached Star System 76L, Keptin," Chekov announced.
Jim straightened in his chair. "And I've only aged five years. Spock, what planets and surprises do we have in this System?" It had been two weeks since their visit to Wishta, capital of Rihite. A fun time, a lovely woman (or five), and then two weeks of the black, yawning pit of the final frontier. Kirk loved space, but he was less enthusiastic for the sheer boredom it sometimes gave.
McCoy stared at his friend. Too many years of friendship, and he still marveled at how Kirk went from goof to serious and driven in a blink of an eye.
"There are four Class D planets, two Class H planets, as well as two other planets, Class K and Class M, respectively," Spock said as he brought up a chart of the planets. "The only life forms in this system are the Olids, living on the Class M planet the Federation names Torrel V. They are a fairly primitive humanoid species, currently at the development level of Humans in the eleventh century."
Kirk sighed. "And Starfleet wants us to go down there and map out more of their culture? Doesn't that go against the Prime Directive a bit?"
"Only if we interact with them, Captain," Spock responded.
At that, Jim rubbed his hands together gleefully, looking around the Bridge. "Invisibility! So many possibilities!" He paused. "I will lead the first away team down." Spock wanted to protest, knowing by protocol that a Captain did not go on non-diplomatic away missions, yet he knew it was futile before he ever opened his mouth.
"Chekov, have you found a good place to land for primary sweeps?" Kirk asked.
Chekov hesitated. "Yes, sir. But…. I am not reading any life forms on the planet, Captain," he explained with a hint of panic.
Kirk narrowed his eyes. "None? Due to interference, perhaps?"
Pavel shook his head. "N-no, sir. We are quite close to the planet. From this distance, no distortion would affect the whole planet."
Kirk's jaw tightened. A planet's worth of people didn't just disappear. "Any chance of visuals?"
Chekov nodded and brought up closer images of Torrel V. Someone on the Bridge gasped. Jim stared. What had once been great cities, were now crumbling stone and brick, overgrown by plants and entangled in vines. Any people living on the planet had been gone a long time, it seemed.
"Captain, the last visit Starfleet made here was fifteen years ago. Judging by the regrowth, this planet's population perished fourteen years ago." Spock's voice was tight, but those who noticed did not comment.
"What can kill a planet in a year?" Jim wondered aloud.
"Nothing good, that's what," McCoy grumbled. "And that means full haz suits."
….
"Jim! What did I just say! Haz suits, wear the damn haz suits!" McCoy shouted as he sped up to catch up with Jim.
Jim swung around to face Leonard. "Bones! Bones, you don't need to mother hen. Any viruses would have died out by now, there is no trace of harmful radiations, the air almost exactly like Earth's, there's nothing to worry about."
McCoy barked a short laugh. "Of course there's something to worry about. Something killed a hundred million people." McCoy felt sympathy as he saw Kirk's eyes tighten. It had been some time since Vulcan, but the experience of watching a planet die was not one anyone could ever forget. And coming to a planet where all its sentient beings had vanished, well, it was sure to put them all on edge.
McCoy softened his expression. "Alright," he said. Sharpening his look into a glare, he added "But don't think you're getting out of that physical."
Jim rolled his eyes and gave a small smile. "See you in fifteen hours, Bones. Don't set my ship on fire while I'm gone."
And with that, he turned and strode into the transporter room. Jim almost hesitated. Maybe he should have asked Bones for a quick hypo for his headache. His head pounded and pulsed and he could really use a nap about now. But, there was a planet to explore, and he would never let a trivial headache interfere with his job. He stepped onto the transporter pad with his team, looked at the Ensign overseeing the beam-down, and nodded.
"Energize."