"Pick whichever makes you feel better," Jim calls over his shoulder after him. It would be against his interests to point out that Bones very rarely has to be cajoled in any way to come along with him on any given outing. He's pretty satisfied with their current Stockholm-friendship situation, thanks. (And so is the rest of the Federation! Remember, McCoy, YOU'RE the one who got Jim onto the Enterprise in the fist place.)
"You're not even nervous about this shit anymore," he says as he joins the other man in the cockpit, sliding into the pilot's seat and fires up the pre-flight protocols.
McCoy actually cracks a smile. Begged or ordered; there's a conundrum to figure out. He'll take it though, save his answer for later just in case, because one never knows when he needs to throw this back in Jim's face somehow.
"I know how to medicate myself into a near-stupor." He doesn't actually do it, of course; whatever nervousness comes mostly evens out by the time they actually get out into space, where there is no real 'up' and 'down.' Harder to have a fear of flying and falling when there's no ground to fall on. (Ask him how crashing the swarm ship -- twice -- went. Both times, it took him a few tries to pry white-knuckled hands from the controls.)
There's a short communication from control; he relays the message with a sigh. "We're cleared. Our escort should be right behind us."
"Which you've never actually done," Jim says, almost sing-song. Engines engaged, Jim takes the ship out of the dock into Yorktown's local orbit - strong enough that a small craft like this needs to get the tiniest amount of slingshot to escape. "Mmm.." checking coordinates, confirming with the other ship. "Should be about an hour."
Impulse engines only for now; the warp drive on this thing isn't exactly Constitution-class, and it's smarter to be patient for the short trip and only drain dilithium if something happens to necessitate it.
He's not going to argue that particular point because Jim's right. The most McCoy has ever done for one of these trips was a bit from his flask -- and that hasn't been a necessity in awhile. Worst comes to worst, there's a flask in his special doctor-approved kit back there. (He has no doubts that Jim also knows it's there. He probably has a standing bet with Scott about how long it takes McCoy to break it out.)
He leans back in his seat, one eye on the control panel because one never knows when it'll all go to hell. Oh, good. An hour. Is that all?
"Anyone could have made this run." Which means, in McCoy's mind, that Jim's itching to do something and jumped to volunteer for any mission outside of Yorktown's borders. (Which means he might have to keep an eye out. Antsy Jim is Exploring Jim and Exploring Jim is Trouble Magnet Jim and Trouble Magnet Jim means that McCoy is really gonna have to break out that flask sooner rather than later.
"Yes and no," Jim says, leaning back in his seat. "It was open to Enterprise crew still here, because they wanted at least one person on the team to have experience with the area. And we're not on leave-- you can pick up shifts at the 'Fleet hospital here, but I have to take milk runs or they're going to make me spend every minute between now and when she's rebuilt stuck in an office doing diplomacy calls."
And that is one gigantic NOPE.
... Also, yeah, he's itching to do something. He's been doing a lot of bleak internal laughter at himself this week, faced with the reality of what being a Vice Admiral would have actually been like.
There's a part of him that almost laughs outright at the thought of Jim Kirk stuck behind a desk doing hours upon hours of diplomacy calls. It's not that doesn't think Jim has a hand for diplomacy -- he does, when he puts his mind to it. He's just... impatient. Not really cut out for staring at a desk. As it is, McCoy chokes a bit on the laughter and ends up shaking his head, crooked smirk in place.
"Yeah, I'd take milk runs, too." That's saying something, considering how much he hates these. (The company helps, okay.) Then a thought occurs to him and the expression he pulls is pretty damned disgusted. "God, I'm glad they don't try to foist diplomatic calls off on me."
Jim snakes one foot out to shove at McCoy's knee, sending him a mock-offended look that probably counts as pouting. (It's a rough life with this cute face, insert terrible Captain Kirk joke here, etc.) "I think I do my best diplomacy while running from incoming fire," he says. "You, though. You're a doctor, not a politician."
EEEEYYY. Jim grins at him.
"Though I dunno, even the Klingons were eager to give you back that one time. Maybe you could just annoy everyone into getting along."
McCoy swats at the offending foot, grumbling under his breath at the idiocy of those comments. Diplomacy under fire, his ass. He's there for most of the shit Jim pulls and he'd hardly call much of that diplomacy. (He's also, to quote a passing comment he once overheard and didn't much appreciate, a "cranky old bastard" with a slightly cynical worldview, so Jim's attempts at diplomacy might not actually be so awful.)
He leans back in his chair and snorts -- and chooses to take that statement in the complimentary way in which it was obviously intended. "Klingons never knew what hit 'em."
Jim is, to collective bemusement (and sometimes horror), a pretty good diplomat. What he lacks in innate political finesse he makes up with social intuition and leech-like determination. But his kind of diplomacy is a particular invention of space exploration-- active, haphazard, often conducted while fleeing death. He doubts it would translate well to a more .. traditional setting.
"That I'll agree with." He mimes a very dramatic hypo-spray injection. You know, versus the imaginary Klingon warriors in the shuttle with them.
In other words, Jim's like a dog with a goddamn bone when he gets it in his head to do something, which can be a good thing. Earth's still around. Yorktown didn't implode. (Wonder of wonders there. Sometimes McCoy can't quite believe how that all turned out.) His particular brand of diplomacy nearly always hinges on Kirk not knowing how to give up.
Again, mostly a good thing -- until what Jim wants runs contrary to what McCoy is aiming for. (As in keeping himself in one piece. That usually helps.)
He stares at Jim, not quite appreciating the dramatic reenactment of a regular injection. "You're a child."
Jim is still oscillating between two extremes post-resurrection, but at least not so wildly as before. Sometimes he feels invincible - he was dead, then he wasn't; Bones fixed it. Bones fixed death. Is that going to happen again? Holy shit, hopefully not. He doesn't want to be in that position, and he doesn't want to put his best friend through it, but all the same, it's the definition of kicking a no-win scenario's ass.
Other times he feels a bleakness without end, dreading repeating the experience. He resents those times. Keeping himself in one piece can't be a priority above protecting his crew, and he can't hesitate.
Meanwhile: he smiles. "I'm a thirty year old captain," Jim corrects, as smug as can be. "And you're still here."
--Still sounds smug. But also very fond, because Bones is still here. After all these years and all the shit Jim's pulled. It's such a nice moment, until a warning beep from the console pulls his attention forward.
Yeah, thanks for making him feel old there, Captain. Thirty, ugh. Somehow, years had passed since that first meeting and, yeah, he's still here. There's no need to go all... mush on him, okay? Besides, Jim would be lost without him -- or, at least, he likes to believe that. McCoy shakes his head, ready to respond to that (with something cutting and completely in-character, because that's how these conversations go every time) when that 'beep' interrupts him.
He sits up, turning toward the controls. "'Huh' as in 'fascinating'," and, yeah, he's poking fun at Spock because he can, "or 'huh' as in 'we're all about to die'?"
He'd like to know the appropriate panic level here.
"Aaahhh... Well it could be fascinating," the last word said with a pretty good impression of Spock's spiteful deadpan, because tormenting his first officer in absentia is still something he indulged in even if he's grown enough to chastise people for doing it to the Vulcan's face, "It's an unknown energy pattern in our flight path. Huh."
Jim taps the controls and skims through a readout, shining displays rolling over equations. He opens a channel to their escort ship and chats about changing their course to skirt around it, though they agree to slowing down to get a look at the thing.
"Too bad we don't have a probe," Jim muses. "Though I bet we could pick one up on the station to drop on our way back."
"Unknown energy pattern," McCoy repeats in a deadpan almost to rival what Spock could pull off on a good day. (If there's anything to be said for one Leonard McCoy, it's that he can put a hell of a lot of inflection in his voice when he decides he needs it -- and the same holds true in reverse. Whatever tone he needs to convey an appropriate message in just a few words... It's a gift.) It doesn't sound like he's thrilled, to say the least.
He doesn't even bother looking over the readouts while Kirk makes plans with the other ship; that's not even close to his area of expertise. Sure, in a pinch, he could make more than just heads or tails of it, but Jim's already taken a look and decided on a course of action.
"It doesn't occur to you that maybe poking it with a stick is a bad idea?" Maybe it doesn't like probes, Jim. You ever thought of that? Huh?
"Who's got a stick?" Total innocence. "Come on, Bones. You're a scientist. Nobody ever found a new, better surgical technique without getting a look at anything." So what if they're in a tin can! Everything is fine.
They slow past the area marked for the reading, though like most energy disturbances, it doesn't look like much of anything. There's a kind of barely-there shimmer, like one of those magic eye posters from the ancient 20th century that briefly regained ironic popularity when Jim was in the fifth grade. The computer beeps at him and Jim leans over the panel.
"Huh." He doesn't say anything to McCoy, but flips the channel to the other shuttle open again. "Are you getting a reading like you're being scanned?" he asks, and the other pair confirms. Yep.
"That's weird," Jim says, conversational, to his companion.
He hates it when Jim has a point. Yes, yes, he's a scientist and he's damned good at what he does, too. Wouldn't be Chief Medical Officer of a starship if he wasn't and he can named a few times, right off-hand, when his, uh, scientific acumen (and other assorted medical tools) pulled their collective asses from the fire.
Except they're not on the Enterprise. They're in a glorified shuttle.
This time, he leans forward and does look at the readouts while Jim speaks to the kids in the other shuttle. Energy disturbance, check. Being scanned, double-check. Wonderful.
"Yeah, that's weird." There's a sort of resignation in his tone, because Jim and weird go hand and hand and there's no way in hell they're just going to back away now, is there? "I guess that means we're going to poke it."
Go for it, Captain. He updated his will after the whole blowing-up-the-ship-and-crash-landing-on-a-desolate-planet bit. He's good to go.
i am also jealous of past-me and would like to return
Jim makes a thoughtful noise, attention moving between the readout and the odd energy spot on the viewscreen. It's clear he wants to poke it.
"If we were in the Enterprise it'd be a no-brainer," he says after a moment of contemplation. "But this craft doesn't have the correct equipment to even record or monitor it properly. We'll see what we can cobble together on the research outpost and take another pass at it on the way back."
He relays this decision to the other team, and they map their flight paths around it at a staggered pace, expecting their limited sensors to lose it in short order. But. This does not happen.
The other shuttle opens a channel. "Captain, are you picking up the same thing? Is it.. following us?"
"Yes, Lieutenant, we're getting the same readings. Head about fifty meters out your starboard side away from us and go to maximum impulse, I want to see which of us it's latched onto."
"Aye sir."
i know the feeling; i did the same after my vacation
McCoy's hands hover above the control panel -- not that he'd do anything of any real purpose right now but it's better than sitting on his hands, right? -- while Jim contacts the other shuttle. Honestly, he agrees with his captain on this one. It does need some investigation but they're woefully under-equipped for it here. He nods, acknowledging the order silently, and does as asked -- for once not offering an opinion, if only because it aligns with exactly what they're doing.
But when the operations crew contacts them, McCoy's rather easy-going moment is immediately squashed. Too good to be true. He knew it. He double-checks the readings and just manages not to make a comment about their luck.
He doesn't want to jinx it in case that... thing... out there is following them.
It doesn't stop him from leveling A Look in Jim's direction. Who do you think it's following, huh? It would be just their luck.
Jim deliberately Does Not Look at Bones for a little while, moving the shuttle in a different heading, watching the readouts. Sttooop looking at him like that, for the love of god.
"It's not like I asked it to follow us," he blurts after a tense minute. Because yeah, it's definitely following their shuttle. Jim's hands fly smoothly over the controls, investigating. He sends another message to the ops shuttle before saying, "Hold on," to Bones, and then suddenly taking evasive maneuvers.
He'll look at Jim however he wants to look at Jim and right now, he's all about slightly disgusted and incredulous. This was supposed to be a milk run. Easy. Drop off supplies, check on a few scientists and operations crew at some outpost in not-hostile space. (All space is hostile, he reminds himself.)
"I'm never going anywhere with you again." He says it even as he starts working on the sensors, taking whatever readings he can come up with, and mostly just staring at this goddamn energy disturbance. Maybe it's not hostile. Maybe it's just... a whirlpool of energy in space, naturally occurring thing that isn't any danger to anyone... and who is he kidding? Maybe it just has a taste for good bourbon. Who doesn't? "I'm not picking up anything we haven't already seen yet." See? He's doing something. Scanning things. Failing at finding anything useful. That sort of thing.
He braces himself nicely, because when Jim goes for evasive maneuvers, he doesn't usually mess around. He could end up ass-over-kettle and sideways all in one shot.
"You've said that so many times it's lost all threat," Jim says, and no, he's not messing around-- but the internal gravity dampers are working, even if sci fi movie physics cause them to sway slightly this way and that within the cabin. Bones is very good at scanning things, also, good job, Bones.
Jim takes the shuttle in a full circle, putting them behind the phenomenon and coming to a full stop on a higher heading than they were previously. "Alright," he murmurs, watching the readouts. "Looks like it's stopped. We'll come around the long way and meet up with the other shuttle. Hopefully this thing won't move much before we can get back." But he's going to send a message about it back to Yorktown, anyway. Maybe they'll send somebody out to look at the thing right away, who knows.
One never knows when their luck might hold true; the dampers could decide to go just as Jim's trying to lose this thing. At least the scanners are still working and they still have an escort ship and they have the ability to communicate. Nothing has broken. (Yet.)
McCoy hums under his breath at that. Makes sense, all of that, and he's more than willing to follow Kirk's lead here. (If he hadn't been, he wouldn't be serving on his ship.) He's checking his own readouts, running new scans, and just generally confused... and curious. He's finally fallen on the side of curiosity. "So why'd it follow us in the first place?"
"Maybe it wants your bourbon," Jim says faux-thoughtfully, a moment that would be creepy if it wasn't born out of simply knowing each other for too long and having the same stupid sense of humor.
He speedily navigates them away from the anomaly, catching up and checking in with the other shuttle. They don't have any tag-alongs this time, too far away for the thing to lock onto them, apparently.
"It could just be lonely."
ah, the joys of tagging while Benadryl is kicking in...
He inclines his head and shrugs one shoulder. Who doesn't want some good bourbon? Maybe even creepy energy disturbances that like to follow shuttles around need a good drink now and again. They'd managed that sort of ridiculous same-thought-thing often enough that McCoy would have almost been alarmed had Jim not mentioned it sooner rather than later.
(And he knew that Jim knew it was there.)
"Lonely, my ass," he mutters as he turns to the readouts again. He's not actively scanning this time, but he is combing through whatever they picked up with a fine-tooth comb. Curiosity has finally won out over not poking things with sticks(and he would like to be as prepared as possible, should Jim decide to take a closer look on the way back. He's checking flight paths of both their own and the other shuttle, every sort of scan they conducted, and even idly pinging surrounding space, looking for anything out of place. "So why us?" He taps the console with one finger for a moment; he's almost talking to himself at this point. "The other shuttle was closer to it at one point than we were."
Jim's right about one thing: McCoy's also a researcher, a scientist, and when his curiosity is pinged for whatever reason, he doesn't let it go easily.
"Dunno," Jim says, glancing at the readings as he sets a new course back on their original heading. "It could have a certain area that serves as a.. head, or central perception hub, that 'saw' us first. It could be sensing energy-- we've definitely got different radiation footprints given the different things we've been exposed to out there."
(This many years in, Jim can say the word radiation without feeling like he has to brace himself against feeling weird. Three cheers for progress?)
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"You're not even nervous about this shit anymore," he says as he joins the other man in the cockpit, sliding into the pilot's seat and fires up the pre-flight protocols.
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"I know how to medicate myself into a near-stupor." He doesn't actually do it, of course; whatever nervousness comes mostly evens out by the time they actually get out into space, where there is no real 'up' and 'down.' Harder to have a fear of flying and falling when there's no ground to fall on. (Ask him how crashing the swarm ship -- twice -- went. Both times, it took him a few tries to pry white-knuckled hands from the controls.)
There's a short communication from control; he relays the message with a sigh. "We're cleared. Our escort should be right behind us."
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Impulse engines only for now; the warp drive on this thing isn't exactly Constitution-class, and it's smarter to be patient for the short trip and only drain dilithium if something happens to necessitate it.
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He leans back in his seat, one eye on the control panel because one never knows when it'll all go to hell. Oh, good. An hour. Is that all?
"Anyone could have made this run." Which means, in McCoy's mind, that Jim's itching to do something and jumped to volunteer for any mission outside of Yorktown's borders. (Which means he might have to keep an eye out. Antsy Jim is Exploring Jim and Exploring Jim is Trouble Magnet Jim and Trouble Magnet Jim means that McCoy is really gonna have to break out that flask sooner rather than later.
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And that is one gigantic NOPE.
... Also, yeah, he's itching to do something. He's been doing a lot of bleak internal laughter at himself this week, faced with the reality of what being a Vice Admiral would have actually been like.
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"Yeah, I'd take milk runs, too." That's saying something, considering how much he hates these. (The company helps, okay.) Then a thought occurs to him and the expression he pulls is pretty damned disgusted. "God, I'm glad they don't try to foist diplomatic calls off on me."
Talk about a disaster.
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EEEEYYY. Jim grins at him.
"Though I dunno, even the Klingons were eager to give you back that one time. Maybe you could just annoy everyone into getting along."
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He leans back in his chair and snorts -- and chooses to take that statement in the complimentary way in which it was obviously intended. "Klingons never knew what hit 'em."
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"That I'll agree with." He mimes a very dramatic hypo-spray injection. You know, versus the imaginary Klingon warriors in the shuttle with them.
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Again, mostly a good thing -- until what Jim wants runs contrary to what McCoy is aiming for. (As in keeping himself in one piece. That usually helps.)
He stares at Jim, not quite appreciating the dramatic reenactment of a regular injection. "You're a child."
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Other times he feels a bleakness without end, dreading repeating the experience. He resents those times. Keeping himself in one piece can't be a priority above protecting his crew, and he can't hesitate.
Meanwhile: he smiles. "I'm a thirty year old captain," Jim corrects, as smug as can be. "And you're still here."
--Still sounds smug. But also very fond, because Bones is still here. After all these years and all the shit Jim's pulled. It's such a nice moment, until a warning beep from the console pulls his attention forward.
"Huh."
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He sits up, turning toward the controls. "'Huh' as in 'fascinating'," and, yeah, he's poking fun at Spock because he can, "or 'huh' as in 'we're all about to die'?"
He'd like to know the appropriate panic level here.
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Jim taps the controls and skims through a readout, shining displays rolling over equations. He opens a channel to their escort ship and chats about changing their course to skirt around it, though they agree to slowing down to get a look at the thing.
"Too bad we don't have a probe," Jim muses. "Though I bet we could pick one up on the station to drop on our way back."
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He doesn't even bother looking over the readouts while Kirk makes plans with the other ship; that's not even close to his area of expertise. Sure, in a pinch, he could make more than just heads or tails of it, but Jim's already taken a look and decided on a course of action.
"It doesn't occur to you that maybe poking it with a stick is a bad idea?" Maybe it doesn't like probes, Jim. You ever thought of that? Huh?
back from vacation, travel killed me @_@
They slow past the area marked for the reading, though like most energy disturbances, it doesn't look like much of anything. There's a kind of barely-there shimmer, like one of those magic eye posters from the ancient 20th century that briefly regained ironic popularity when Jim was in the fifth grade. The computer beeps at him and Jim leans over the panel.
"Huh." He doesn't say anything to McCoy, but flips the channel to the other shuttle open again. "Are you getting a reading like you're being scanned?" he asks, and the other pair confirms. Yep.
"That's weird," Jim says, conversational, to his companion.
i'm jealous of your vacation, tho
Except they're not on the Enterprise. They're in a glorified shuttle.
This time, he leans forward and does look at the readouts while Jim speaks to the kids in the other shuttle. Energy disturbance, check. Being scanned, double-check. Wonderful.
"Yeah, that's weird." There's a sort of resignation in his tone, because Jim and weird go hand and hand and there's no way in hell they're just going to back away now, is there? "I guess that means we're going to poke it."
Go for it, Captain. He updated his will after the whole blowing-up-the-ship-and-crash-landing-on-a-desolate-planet bit. He's good to go.
i am also jealous of past-me and would like to return
"If we were in the Enterprise it'd be a no-brainer," he says after a moment of contemplation. "But this craft doesn't have the correct equipment to even record or monitor it properly. We'll see what we can cobble together on the research outpost and take another pass at it on the way back."
He relays this decision to the other team, and they map their flight paths around it at a staggered pace, expecting their limited sensors to lose it in short order. But. This does not happen.
The other shuttle opens a channel. "Captain, are you picking up the same thing? Is it.. following us?"
"Yes, Lieutenant, we're getting the same readings. Head about fifty meters out your starboard side away from us and go to maximum impulse, I want to see which of us it's latched onto."
"Aye sir."
i know the feeling; i did the same after my vacation
But when the operations crew contacts them, McCoy's rather easy-going moment is immediately squashed. Too good to be true. He knew it. He double-checks the readings and just manages not to make a comment about their luck.
He doesn't want to jinx it in case that... thing... out there is following them.
It doesn't stop him from leveling A Look in Jim's direction. Who do you think it's following, huh? It would be just their luck.
z_z
"It's not like I asked it to follow us," he blurts after a tense minute. Because yeah, it's definitely following their shuttle. Jim's hands fly smoothly over the controls, investigating. He sends another message to the ops shuttle before saying, "Hold on," to Bones, and then suddenly taking evasive maneuvers.
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"I'm never going anywhere with you again." He says it even as he starts working on the sensors, taking whatever readings he can come up with, and mostly just staring at this goddamn energy disturbance. Maybe it's not hostile. Maybe it's just... a whirlpool of energy in space, naturally occurring thing that isn't any danger to anyone... and who is he kidding? Maybe it just has a taste for good bourbon. Who doesn't? "I'm not picking up anything we haven't already seen yet." See? He's doing something. Scanning things. Failing at finding anything useful. That sort of thing.
He braces himself nicely, because when Jim goes for evasive maneuvers, he doesn't usually mess around. He could end up ass-over-kettle and sideways all in one shot.
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Jim takes the shuttle in a full circle, putting them behind the phenomenon and coming to a full stop on a higher heading than they were previously. "Alright," he murmurs, watching the readouts. "Looks like it's stopped. We'll come around the long way and meet up with the other shuttle. Hopefully this thing won't move much before we can get back." But he's going to send a message about it back to Yorktown, anyway. Maybe they'll send somebody out to look at the thing right away, who knows.
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McCoy hums under his breath at that. Makes sense, all of that, and he's more than willing to follow Kirk's lead here. (If he hadn't been, he wouldn't be serving on his ship.) He's checking his own readouts, running new scans, and just generally confused... and curious. He's finally fallen on the side of curiosity. "So why'd it follow us in the first place?"
Maybe it just likes good bourbon?
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He speedily navigates them away from the anomaly, catching up and checking in with the other shuttle. They don't have any tag-alongs this time, too far away for the thing to lock onto them, apparently.
"It could just be lonely."
ah, the joys of tagging while Benadryl is kicking in...
(And he knew that Jim knew it was there.)
"Lonely, my ass," he mutters as he turns to the readouts again. He's not actively scanning this time, but he is combing through whatever they picked up with a fine-tooth comb. Curiosity has finally won out over not poking things with sticks(and he would like to be as prepared as possible, should Jim decide to take a closer look on the way back. He's checking flight paths of both their own and the other shuttle, every sort of scan they conducted, and even idly pinging surrounding space, looking for anything out of place. "So why us?" He taps the console with one finger for a moment; he's almost talking to himself at this point. "The other shuttle was closer to it at one point than we were."
Jim's right about one thing: McCoy's also a researcher, a scientist, and when his curiosity is pinged for whatever reason, he doesn't let it go easily.
tbh that's impressive for benadryl
(This many years in, Jim can say the word radiation without feeling like he has to brace himself against feeling weird. Three cheers for progress?)
"I like it. It's cute."
Jim, no.
i appreciate that, considering some of the weird punctuation that tag ended up with
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my dog 'helped' on this one; she sat on my shoulder and watched. this tag Molly-approved.
what a good doge
one of two best dogs. Gizmo and Molly: Best Dogs.
👍
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i'm alive
alive is good. i'm glad.