Chapter Text
~~+~~
When Danny Williams signed up for Starfleet, he was expecting to work on a space station. His mom ran a space station, and both of his uncles were assigned to space stations. His oldest sister got sent to a research facility, but it was on an icy rock in the middle of nowhere, so, really, a naturally-made space station.
Then the guidance counselor called him in to talk about his aptitude scores. Danny took one look at her bright happy smile, and immediately thought ‘Oh shit.’
“Don’t worry, it’s good news! You’re officer material!”
~~+~~
Danny hated San Francisco. Yes, he was raised on a space station, and no, he didn’t hate the open sky, thank you very much. The problem was the city was wet.
Danny like evolution; evolution worked. Humans crawled onto land millions of years ago, leaving their fishy ancestors behind, and then humans invented useful stuff like biospheres and space stations and sonic showers. There was absolutely no reason for any sane human to be wet in the twenty-third century.
At least there was one dry place, the San Francisco Underground Concourse, known affectionately as S-FUC. S-FUC had started as a grandiose urban renewal project for the old transportation tunnels and then devolved, as these things usually did, into a cheap bar district. It was in S-FUC, playing wingman to B’nkokua, his Aenar roommate, that Danny met Rachel.
Rachel was doubling in Xenobiology and Astrophysics, gunning for a science officer post on one of the new Constitution-class starships. And because Danny was young and stupid and in love, and because bonded cadets were assigned together, he married her. They served on the USS New Jersey, and then on the USS Honolulu, and then Rachel decided she didn’t want to serve with him anymore. Which meant Danny could ask to be assigned to a space station.
Unfortunately, he made the mistake of being heroic on Rigel VII and saving Captain Pike--and Captain Pike recommended Danny to be the next First Officer on the USS Enterprise.
The USS Enterprise, captained by McGarrett, who had already gone through three First Officers.
Danny didn’t understand why he was being punished for saving his captain’s life.
~~+~~
1. Jekuul IV (Prompt 10: They look so pretty when they bleed)
“I was negotiating.” Captain McGarrett was curled on his side, and Danny was most definitely not thinking about the large amount of blood soaking into the green sand of the temple courtyard.
“No, you were shooting; shooting is not negotiating.” He’d grabbed a strip of guylah cloth from the hands of a nearby statue, was now pressing it against the javelin wound in McGarrett’s side, in a rather futile attempt to prevent further blood loss. “And now you are bleeding, which, in case you were wondering, is also not negotiating.”
Their communicators whistled, and Danny fumbled his open with one hand.
“Last container is aboard.” Chin advised, “We’re re-calibrating the transporter, and then we can beam you up.”
“Well you better re-calibrate faster.” The guylah cloth was turning black from blood. “The captain’s been ‘diplomatically javelined’.”
McGarrett’s breathing changed; too shallow, too fast. “It...worked...didn’t...it...Number...One?”
Danny rolled his eyes, but before he could answer, he felt the icy tingle of the transporter beam.
~~+~~
2. Bgztl (Prompt 1: Let’s Hang Out Sometime)
Danny’s heart sank when he saw the twisted ruins of the catwalk. The damn rebels had thought of everything. He leaned against the rock wall, grunting at the twin flares of pain from broken ribs and a broken collarbone. He had to get to the security array--
There was an overhead power cable running to the array, lashed to what looked like a DL3 conduit. DL3 was thin, but strong; stronger even than polycarbon. Probably insurance against any storms whipping through the canyon.
He edged forward to the crumbling lip of rock, braced himself--and jumped. He grabbed the conduit, and--oh shit, fuck! Fuuuuck! He hung there, trying to breathe through the blazing shards of pain.
Danny forced his right hand to let go, forced himself to stretch out as far as he could, then grabbed for the conduit again. It hurt, oh fuckin’ son of bitch, it hurt. He did it again, and then again, trying not to think of the huge chasm of fucking rock below, and how fucking long the distance to the array had to be.
Everything began to swim, and no amount of blinking cleared his vision. And then--he reached to grab conduit and his fingers hit the protective plating of the array. Danny fumbled, fingers trying to find--there! The maintenance ladder!
He gritted his teeth, grabbed the closest rung with one hand, and hauled himself over, flailing for a moment before a boot hooked on a rung. He dragged himself up one rung, then two, and through a red haze of agony, felt around for the main maintenance hatch. He jerked it open. The movement made something crunch in his shoulder, followed by a fiery shard of pain. Now he just had to--fuck it.
Danny’s fingers had landed on the main power crystal. He closed his hand around it and yanked. It came free, and he dropped it, reached for his communicator.
“Security array has been disabled. Get the Ambassador out of there.”
He pulled himself up the last two rungs, and then half-fell, half-sprawled across the top baffling plates. His entire side felt like liquid fire, and something wet and sticky was running down his chest.
“The Ambassador and her party are safely aboard.” Chin’s voice came through the communicator, a note of disbelief behind his usual professionalism. “She wants to know what took so long.”
~~+~~
3. Graxos II (Prompt 4: Running Out of Time)
Danny trudged back to the shuttle, irritated. If he’d been working on a space station, he wouldn’t be hot and thirsty and his thumb wouldn’t be throbbing.
Captain McGarrett was loading samples into one of the outside compartments of the shuttle. “I thought you were collecting samples.”
“I was collecting samples, but then,” He held up his left hand, “I got jabbed by one of those Jamal-something-or-other trees.”
“Let me guess this straight.” McGarrett smirked at him. “You stopped because you cut yourself--on a plant?”
“You may not realize this, but StarFleet actually does have xenobotanists, and those xenobotanists file reports, and StarFleet regulations say we are supposed to read those reports before we go traipsing across a planet.”
McGarrett’s smirk widened, “Traipsing?”
“Yes, traipsing, because--” Danny stopped, checked the countdown. “Forget it, I only have seven minutes left.” He entered the shuttle, walked over to the small compartment that held the field kit.
Which wasn’t there.
Danny stared at the empty cabinet, because there was supposed to be a field med kit right there, and in that kit was supposed to be an anti-venom hypospray. Which he was supposed to take within twenty minutes of being stuck by the thorn of the Jamal-whatever tree.
He now had--five minutes.
Maybe the emergency locker? He hoped so because his thumb--actually his whole left hand now--throbbed like a son of a bitch, He opened it.
Emergency shelter, emergency food, emergency water.
No med kit.
Four minutes.
Maybe Captain-I-would-rather-eat-verraine-worms-then-use-a-field-dressing-McGarrett was using it?
Walking to the door of the shuttle was...interesting. The floor kept doing an odd pitch-roll and Danny was pretty sure the shuttle walls shouldn’t be vibrant pinks and purples.
He reached the door, and since standing suddenly seemed like a very exhausting thing to do, he leaned against the doorframe. “Captain?”
McGarrett grunted, loading the container of rocks--and seriously, why did Science Officer Jenna always request rocks?
“Yes?” McGarrett swung another container in.
it occured to Danny he had been about to ask a question. An important question about… something.
Oh, yeah, the med kit.
“Officer Williams?” McGarrett was giving him a funny look.
“Field med kit?” Danny sighed, because McGarrett was still looking at him funny instead of answering, which really, was so not helpful. Unlike the door frame. He patted the door frame, because it was being a very good doorframe. “Anti-venom?”
Wait, was he asking the Captain--or the door frame? It seemed like a very important distinction, but then the world kind of all tilted sideways--and everything went black.
~~+~~
4. Graxos II (Prompt 7: I’ve Got You/Support/Carrying)
Danny gave a small gasp, then started breathing again. Steve’s shoulders slumped with relief, and he put the hypospray down, glanced at the medical tricorder.
|
Raise Inferior Distal End (Bipedal) Hydrate Intravenously (Carbon Life Form) Iodine Bath (All Jazuur Lifeforms) Seek Immediate Medical Help (Horta) Activate |
Steve unpacked the breathing mask and the hydration pump. He placed the breathing mask on Danny’s face, slid Danny’s right hand into the sleeve of the pump, hit the ‘Activate’ on the tricorder.
A moment later, the med tricorder chirped.
|
Breathing Mask - Activated Hydration Pump - Activated Scan Patient |
Steve jogged up the loading ramp, heaved some sample containers over, folded down one of the cots. He went back, crossed Danny’s arms across his chest, and picked him up. Danny was totally limp in his arms, and Steve was not thinking about that, or how Danny had stopped breathing by the time Steve found the anti-venom spray.
He placed Danny in the cot, made sure his arm was still seated in the hydration pump, then grabbed two blankets from the emergency locker, tucked them under Danny’s legs. He tapped ‘Scan Patient’ and Danny’s vital signs began to scroll across the screen. He watched the numbers for a couple of minutes, before finally relaxing a little.
Danny’s vital signs were slowly, but steadily, improving.
Steve dropped onto the nearest crate, scrubbing a hand over his face. That has been close--too damn close. And how had Danny even found a jamalkayanillia tree? They were supposed to only grow in the coastal zones of this planet.
He’d almost lost his Number One.
Again.
Eighteen months ago, Steve had been handed his dream assignment; command of the U.S.S. Enterprise, a new Constitution-class starship. Even better, Clay Garcia would be his First Officer.
He and Clay had gone through the academy together, been roommates the last two years, and gotten their first assignment on the same ship. Even when their careers took them in different directions, they’d stayed close. When Starfleet announced the Captain for the new ship, Clay was the first to call and congratulate him.
Four months into their assignment, Clay was diagnosed with Jakayer disease. Steve bent a lot of regulations, and broke a few more, in order to keep Clay on the Enterprise for the last three months of his life. Clay had been orphaned on Tarsus IV. Steve couldn’t save him, but he could at least make sure Clay died surrounded by people who cared about him, instead of dumped in some Starfleet hospital to die alone.
The next ten months had been hell. The Enterprise was assigned a new First Officer; the latest darling of the Starfleet command--and a belligerent, unlikable drunk. The crew had worked hard to get her to quit, and Steve had worked equally hard to somehow never quite notice their insubordination.
She’d been replaced by an insufferable asshole who’d gotten into a personal beef with Kono--and then had expected Steve to back him up, just because he had a higher rank than her.
After that guy quit, Steve got a rather lengthy dressing down by Starfleet Command--and Danny Williams. In the past month and half, Steve had learned one thing; Danny was very, very different from calm, quiet, unflappable Clay, but--
Danny’s eyes fluttered open--and he immediately reached up to take off the breathing mask.
“Just relax, Danny.” Steve grabbed his wrist, which was still worryingly puffy. “You gotta give the anti-venom some time to work.”
Danny rolled his head sideways, giving him a bleary, puzzled look, and that’s when Steve realized he’d called him ‘Danny’ instead of ‘Number One’ or ‘First Officer Williams’.
“Captain?” Kono slung her sample bag down, looked from Danny to Steve with concern. “Did you try to kill him, again?”
Steve stood up, started tugging down the straps, so he could secure Danny and the cot, “I haven’t--”
“You sent him to shut down that security array.” Second Science Officer Jeff Morrison scooped up the med tricorder, “Pretty sure ‘suicide run’ means “trying to kill him’. Also, can we please limit the number of rocks? Rocks are heavy. Oh, wow, a Jamalkayanillia tree? Really? I thought those were only a coastal species.”
Steve clipped the straps together, trying to make sure they were tight, without jostling Danny too much. “It wasn’t a suic-”
“Yeah, it was, Boss.” Kono stuffed her collection bag into a nearby container, and pulled a cargo net over it. “Come on, Jeff, sooner we get everything battened down, sooner we can get Danny back to medical.”
~~+~~
5. Enterprise (Prompt 13: Breathe in, breathe out)
Danny woke to the one sound no officer wants to hear--the ear splitting fire klaxon. He scrambled out of bed, hit his quarter’s comm panel, and hauled on his uniform. “Williams to Bridge. What’s going on?”
“Not sure.” Chief Helm Officer Lukela’s voice was clipped. “It’s a manual alarm, coming from the auxiliary life support systems in the second hull, but that section is usually unmanned.”
“Tell the Captain I’m heading down there.” Danny ran out of his quarters, and into the nearest turbo lift. He pulled up the ship’s schematics in his head. Secondary life support sat just behind the main engineering bulkhead, which meant the fire suppression system would have everything on Decks 15 and 16 aft of the bulkhead locked down. “Pump room, deck 15.”
He yanked on the red lever next to the door, and a couple of rebreathers dropped to the floor. The lift doors opened.
Anya, an Andorian cadet, and El, a Saurian who worked in Engineering, were both staring at the steps leading up to the maintenance hatch.
El turned. “We can’t open it without officer approval.”
“First, we are going to have a refresher on basic fire protocol.” Danny handed them each a rebreather. “That is a fire alarm, and a fire alarm means you wear a rebreather. Capice?”
El nodded, Anya squeaked, and they both slipped on their rebreathers.
Danny slipped his on as well, took the steps two at a time, and hauled the hatch open. The maintenance tunnel was narrow and tight and lit only with blue emergency lights. The tunnel was designed for the bi-weekly inspection of the secondary hull, so ran directly under it--and straight through the engineering bulkhead.
Anya and El followed him, and Danny signaled for them to close the hatch. He hurried as fast as he could in the cramped space, and soon began breathing in moist, salty air--which meant the rebreather had turned on. It aslo meant there was smoke--and possibly chemicals--in the air.
They passed the bulkhead, demarcated by slashes of reflective paint on a maintenance hatch. It was growing colder and colder, and that worried Danny, a lot.
Cold meant zycrex crystals.
Ships still carried zycrex crystals to suppress fires, but all modern ships carried fancy suppression systems that were supposed to prevent the need to use such toxic crap. Even the USS New Jersey, a rust bucket that should’ve been retired years ago, had fire suppression systems.
Ahead he saw something silver, then realized it was Chief Engineer Lou Grover, in a fire resistant suit. He was wearing a rebreather with a full face hood, and was on his stomach, hands deep in an access hatch, an engineering case within easy reach.
Danny crouched beside him, and fuck, it was cold. Shouted through the rebreather. “What do we got?”
“Aux bio two and three are toast. Main fire suppression system is offline. We had to--” Grover shouted back, as he continued to twist, changing out each of the solid state relay switches. “manually force a lockdown, flush the compartment.”
Shit. They’d flooded auxiliary life support with zycrex.
“Back up fire suppression?” Danny dug in the engineering case, passing him the new relays. Red C21, Gray N27, another Red C21.
Grover was replacing the relays as fast as Danny could hand them to him, “Also offline. Same with aux bio one and four--”
“Cracked power coupling?” It sounded like it to Danny, which meant an easy repair. He waited for Grover to snap the last new relay in, then Danny connected the leads to the engineering PADD, handed it over.
“Probably, but--” Grover connected the leads to the panel, “we had a compartment breach. Aux power banks are flooded, too.” He twisted, thumbing in the security override code, then tapped the PADD, starting the reboot process to hopefully bring the fire suppression system back online.
Fuck. Half of auxiliary life support was down, their back up fire suppression system for engineering and life support was down, and the power banks for auxiliary life support were compromised. If the Enterprise followed the design of his last ship, that meant power to both the ship’s primary water supply, as well as the shuttle bay, was majorly fucked up.
“I’ll replace the power coupling.” El reached for the engineering case. “I’m a Saurian.”
Danny and Grover exchanged a look. Saurians were much, much tougher when it came to smoke and chemicals, but zycrex was nasty shit.
Grover nodded, “I got the suit. I’ll go with you.”
“No.” Danny glanced at the PADD. The main fire suppression system was still booting up--and shit, it was hard to give orders shouting through a rebreather. “Give me the suit. You get the main system online.”
Not that he really wanted to crawl around in zycrex, wearing nothing more than a fire suppression suit and a rebreather, but two could replace a cracked power coupling faster than one--and thanks to the New Jersey, he was really, really good at replacing power couplers.
Grover wriggled out of the suit, and Danny pulled it on. They exchanged rebreathers, and Danny snapped the face hood down. El was already running back the way they’d just come, and Danny sprinted after him.
El crouched at the painted hatch, and opened it. The panel gave a protesting screech as it slid aside, revealing a small room with a crap load of power banks--and a floor covered with grey-green zycrex crystals.
El scrambled down, Danny passed down the engineering case, then slid down the ladder. They both grabbed testers, began working their way down the bank.
Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck. They had four cracked power couplers, and that? Was so, so not good. Every coupler was designed much like a fuse. If there was a backwash of power, the coupler would crack, safeguarding the rest of the bank.
El grabbed the tool that engineers called ‘the square’, levered up the four corner guards, pulled out the first coupler. Danny handed him a new coupler, and El slid it in, levered down the corner guards. While El levered up the corner guards for the next coupler, Danny punched the override button, then flipped the new coupler on.
He turned and handed El another new coupler. It was a familiar dance thanks to serving on the USS New Jersey--though they’d never had to deal with more than three cracked power couplers.
Half way through replacing the third one, his rebreather gave out, unable to keep up with the outgassing from the zycrex. Each breath burned his throat and lungs, but Danny kept gamely working. He gasped in air as he punched the override, flipped on the new coupler, passed the fourth and final coupler to El, who slid it in. Danny sucked in another burning lungful, stepped sideways, and waited for El to bring the coupler on line.
He tried to drag in air, his vision swimming, as he yanked open the main control board, fumbled for the safety override switch. He found it, threw it--
The power bank came back on.
Oh fuck, he could not breath. He motioned for El to leave first, then stumbled over, grabbing the ladder. He struggled to take in one more lungful, his arms and legs suddenly heavy, and it took everything Danny had to drag himself up.He lost count of rungs--six, seven? Then hands grabbed him, pulled him through the hatch and somebody ripped his rebreather off, slapped a new one on. Wet, salty air flooded in and Danny took one grateful gulp--and passed out.
~~+~~