Nightshift 49: Homeworld - U.S.S Enterprise

[hes-deadjim.livejournal.com]

[From here]

McCoy had just been thinking the same thing. They didn't have any proof that scent could travel through those doors, but there was no point in risking it. Exposed food and exposed, fresh blood was too tempting a target to just about anything with a set of fangs. If they could get beamed all over, just by going through an entryway, there wasn't any reason why the native creatures here couldn't do the same. They hadn't seen any sign of them yet, not even a corpse, but he and Spock could've been exceedingly lucky so far.What about the others?

He was starting to acutely feel the silence. Even when Jim or Spock split the landing party into teams, all the away teams still kept audio contact, checking in at least every hour and making any reports or immediate notes among themselves. Without even a primitive radio, they were running blind out here. Maybe they'd been fortunate themselves, but it could be a different story for the Captain and Chekov. The same incredible luck that enabled Jim to escape odds stacked against him tended to have another side to it: if Jim wasn't the one looking for trouble, trouble usually found him anyway. This time, they wouldn't have any way of knowing it.

What was Jim up to right now? McCoy wondered all the same. Probably wondering the same thing. With their luck, they could very well run into him with all this blasted teleporting around. He just hoped he was still in one piece.

The doctor opened the door, closed his eyes again, and stepped through. The warp couldn't have taken much more than a second, less of a delay than a transporter and unnervingly smooth when it came to moving them. When McCoy opened his eyes again, he was standing in an office. It took a second for that to settle in, that this wasn't the institute. It was well lit, a few books scattered around, memory tapes and his chair, along with the few brandy's that were gathering dust behind the sliding glass. It was sickbay. It was also his office. Once again he could feel that faint hum under his boots.

He found he was much too surprised to feel any nausea or dizziness, stunned silent instead. He looked backwards slowly. Spock was right there with him, proof enough that he hadn't somehow dreamt up the past few days or his existence.

"We're back?" he managed. Not the most intelligent reaction, he knew his office and his sickbay inside and out, probably more so than his own quarters. He knew the distant thrum of the engines and the white noise that the ship made around him. There wasn't any doubt where they were. The doctor took a hold of himself. There wasn't any time to waste. He'd been missing for several days now: he'd have plenty of time to worry about how he got back later. He had to report in.

McCoy strode over to the wall speaker. He pressed the button. "McCoy to Bridge."

There wasn't any answer, no Uhura or Spock or Jim's voice on the line. There wasn't even static, just a dead silence.

Night 49: Equipment/Chemical Storage

[doneinthree]

[from here]

...Or not. After Kirk shook off the sudden disorientation (a side effect of the creature? But it hadn't touched his skin), he felt first the distinct lack of rain on his hood, and then opened his eyes to... a room. "What the—?" He brought his flashlight up, illuminating wall-to-wall cabinets and forbidding warning labels, and feeling a strange deja vu to the last time he'd sneaked into one of the Academy's laboratories after hours.

Although, unlike that time, "anticipatory excitement" didn't seem at all appropriate to describe his mood right now. Kirk moved in further, cautiously, as if he expected their surroundings to flicker and shift at any moment, like that night IRIS had control of the intercom. But no. Everything appeared solid under the beam of his flashlight, and the storm beyond the walls still rumbled as loud as ever.

He looked back to see Roxas and Chekov with him, and the door closed behind them. "Where are we?"

Night 49: File Room 1

[full-score.livejournal.com]

((From here.))

As soon as Claude stepped through, he reached out toward the side, half-expecting, half-hoping to find the same cabinet he'd bumped into earlier. When his fingers brushed against a shockingly cold, metal surface, however, Claude felt himself grow tense. Was this place...different? Gritting his teeth, he ran his hand along what he soon realized were rows of filing cabinets stacked on top of each other, their handles poking out from the metal at seemingly precise intervals. No simple storage cabinets, no plastic boxes, no bottles of pills. Before he'd realized it, he'd reach the end of the dark room, and he painfully smacked his forehead against another row of filing cabinets ahead.

Moisture stung at his eyes as he leaned against the wall. Using the heel of his palm, he rubbed at the place on his head, and was grateful to find he hadn't cut himself or anything. Not that it exactly mattered when he'd already gone through so much tonight, but he was already frustrated enough without any lasting proof of what he'd just done to himself.

As much as he didn't want to admit it, though, it definitely looked like he was getting tossed to different places in the building each time he stepped through a door. It almost reminded him of the Field of Intelligence back on Nede, except there were definite pads for him to step on before he got transported somewhere else, and he hadn't been on the verge of going blind. Back then, there'd been some logic behind where people got sent, but here? Claude wasn't so sure he could count on anything to be so cut and dry in Landel's.

Claude turned toward where he'd come from. Thankfully, this room was pretty small, which meant there was a lot less ground to cover to the door. At this rate, he wasn't sure how long he'd be able to hold out before he ran out of strength. Maybe his luck would pick up before it came to that point. He had to keep telling himself that, at any rate.

He closed his eyes when his sweaty palm reached the door's handle again, and he forced himself to open it once more.

((To here.))

Night 49: Nurse Lounge

[vstheworld]

[From here]

A slightly larger and comfier-looking room greeted the pair next. A couch and several cushy chairs littered the space, along with a table, chairs, and a large cabinet, among other things. Definitely wasn't the worst place they could have ended up in, Scott thought. They could have ended up in a fridge or something.

Speaking of fridges. "Anything you wanna grab from in here? I kinda want to see if there's anything in there," Scott said with a little grin, gravitating toward the side of the cabinet where a mini-fridge sat. If he knew mini-fridges, he knew they tended to contain at least one of two things: alcohol or pop. With the former, he didn't want any, but he could think of at least a few people who probably would. With the latter, he didn't really like the fizziness, but hey, there could be free power-ups in them, at least!