Creative Writing: USS Zenith

As time went on, and Danielle continued to excel in her work as an Engineer, quickly rising to Scotty's "right hand man." Things had been fairly quiet since she had arrived on the Enterprise, though, and she was getting a little tired of the daily monotony, especially since she was experiencing intermittent spasms in her hand that was limiting what she was able to do. Mr. Scott knew that she was bored, and when they came upon a seemingly dead Federation starship, the USS Zenith, he received permission to allow her to come along.

Besides herself, the landing crew consisted of the Captain, Mr. Spock, Mr. Scott, and a number of other crew members. They beamed over, not knowing what they would find.

Spock began his scans, "No life signs,

She turned the other direction so as to not watch him leave--it was too hard. Then she heard him call, "Danielle!" She turned back around. "I'm sorry." He said.

"Me too." She replied, tears still running down her face. For a few seconds they just stood there, accross the room from one another, staring at each other through the sparks and small fires. Then she started walking toward him, saying, "Oh what the hell, we're gonna die anyway."

He watched her, quizzacly, and when she reached him, she grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him in for a kiss. To her surprise, he kissed her back. They were so out of touch with everything except eachother, that when they finally stopped, much to their chagrin, they were in the Enterprise transporter room.

Everyone in the room was standing there awkwardly, staring. Kirk pushed her away and cleared his throat and Danielle turned beet red and ran out so fast she almost left a trail of light behind her.

"Well...that just happened..." Uhura said under her breath. Kirk, Spock and the remaining crewmen stepped off the transporter pad, and Kirk gave her the "Shut up"

"There was no response."

"They kept firing. They seemed really intent on destroying the Zenith." Sulu added, "We didn't want to but they've been destroyed, sir."

He turned his head to see them as he walked, "Thank you. Your actions today were commendable." Then he got back to business. "Uhura, get a message to the Duvall to report to Med Bay for physicals. I think she took the most hits over there."

"Aye sir."

Later that night, Kirk rang the bell to Danielle's room. He heard a faint, "Come in," so he walked through the door. He found her on her bed lying on her side with her knees bent, still in her messed up uniform. She had one pillow under her head and she was clinging to another as if for dear life. He could tell she had been crying.

"Lieutenant..." He said.

"Captain, I'm--I'm sorry," she sniffed, "I can't get up."

"You can't get up?"

"I can't move...I just....I can't. It's too much."

He knelt down by her bed so that his face was level with hers, "You did good today, Duvall. For your first landing mission, you got thrown right into the fire and you did