The Enterprise bridge was filled with familiar status queries, equipment signals, and background chatter.  Mr. Scott turned from the viewscreen displaying Sagan I and tried not to appear as restless as he felt.  Commanding the Enterprise was challenging, but engineering was the job he preferred.

He considered calling Lieutenant Fisher in transporter control to ask her for another update on Captain Kirk and the landing party, but he knew she was capable and probably tired of his constant surveillance.  The transporter circuits seemed to be working fine.  The improved transporter was faster and flashier, although its basic performance remained unchanged.  Scotty had originally questioned the lack of backup confirmation circuits, but the Federation techs had insisted that the new system was perfectly safe without them.  Scotty didn’t trust any equipment that he hadn’t personally field tested, but his examination at the installing starbase had found no discrepancies in the system.
 

Uhura caught his eye as he glanced in her direction.  “The Saganites report that the captain, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy are beaming up now,” she relayed.

“Are they the first ones to beam up?” he asked.

“No, sir.  The security teams have already been beamed aboard.  The captain and the others are the last.  They are saying goodbye to the local leader.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”  Scotty looked relieved.  He wished Captain Kirk didn’t have to handle these diplomatic missions personally.  It always made him uneasy when Jim and the first officer left the ship together.

“Mr. Scott!” Uhura exclaimed.  “The transporter room is asking for medical assistance!”

“What?” He thumbed his chair arm intercom.  “Bridge to transporter room.  What’s going on down there?”

Lieutenant Fisher’s steady voice came on the line immediately.  “Sir, the captain and the rest of the landing party are—” She was cut off.

“Are what, Lieutenant?” demanded Scotty.

A brief pause answered his questions and Captain Kirk’s voice came on.  “We’re fine, Scotty.  We all have colds, and we need to be examined before we mix with the rest of the crew.  Standard operating procedure.”

Colds!  What next, Scotty thought.  “Have Nurse Chapel give me a report as soon as she can.”

“I will, Mr. Scott.  Kirk out.”

When Scotty glanced at Uhura, she looked puzzled.  “Problems, Lieutenant?” he asked.

“No, Mr. Scott,” she said abstractly and turned back to her communications console.

“Lay in a course for Asimov XV, Mr. Chekov,” ordered Scotty.  “Mr. Sulu, ahead warp factor two.”

The Enterprise obediently left orbit and headed for deep space.

                                                                                ******

“What do you mean, I can’t go in there?” stammered Scotty at the tall, blonde standing outside sickbay.  Nurse Chapel looked sympathetically at the frustrated commander.  “I’m sorry, but Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy are in strict quarantine.”

“Quarantine?”  Scotty looked worried.  “What for?”

“Apparently they contracted a non-threatening virus while on Sagan, and until we’re absolutely sure what kind it is and how infectious it is, no one sees them.”

“Can I talk to them?”

“Sure.  They will be in their cabins as soon as the tests are complete.  They might as well be comfortable if they’re going to be confined.”

Scotty agreed and left the temporarily sealed sickbay for the transporter room.  Lieutenant Fisher had reported some minor discrepancies with the new system and had temporarily logged it down.

He found the fair-haired woman under the transporter console.  “Well, Betsy,” he said, “what seems to be the problem?”

She looked up at her boss and frowned.  “Mr. Scott, I noticed a power spike in the transporter signal when I was beaming up Captain Kirk and the others.  I can’t account for it; all the equipment is fine.”

“Have you tried beaming something within the ship?”

“Yes, sir, and so far no power problems.”

Scotty looked wistfully at the exposed circuitry.  “Keep at it, Bets.  I’ll be on the bridge.”

                                                                *****

“Okay,” Uhura said as the sickbay door slid shut behind her, “what’s going on?”

Christine looked up from her desk.  “Going on?  Nothing’s going—“

Uhura placed her palms firmly on the desk in front of the chief nurse.  “Don’t give me any crap, Christine.  You know and I know that whoever talked to us from the transporter room wasn’t Captain Kirk, or at least the Jim Kirk we know.  What happened?”

Before the startled nurse could answer, the door opened and Lieutenant Fisher entered the room.  “Oops,” she said, looking at the two women facing each other.

Uhura frowned at Christine.  “Noting going on, huh?  I suppose the two of you are getting together to organize a Women in Starfleet luncheon?”

“Nice move, Fisher,” Chapel said sarcastically.

Engineering’s second in command glared at the nurse.  “Well, excuse me, ‘Doctor’ Chapel, you didn’t tell me to use the secret knock.”

“If you’d use your brain just once for something besides a bench warmer—“

“Ladies, please!” Uhura shouted above the din.

Chapel looked sheepish.  “We really were going to tell you, Uhura.”

“That’s right,” Fisher agreed reluctantly.  “Pretty soon Scotty’s going to want to talk to them, and that’s going to be tricky.”

Uhura looked at them suspiciously.  “What did happen to Captain Kirk and the others?”

“Come with us,” instructed Chapel.

By the time they reached the captain’s door and punched in the quarantine unlock code, Uhura thought she was prepared for anything: evil duplicates, half-phased apparitions, Siamese triplets.  What greeted her was something entirely different.  Fortunately, her exclamation went unheard in the deserted hallway, and Betsy made her transit through the door precipitant.

Uhura stumbled into the room and her eyes focused on the unusual person talking to himself in the center of the room.  She noted the lock of errant hair handing down over his forehead, the bags beneath his eyes, and the slightly pointed ears.

His arms were too short for his big hands.  The gray tunic hung oddly on a gaunt frame that contrasted with the muscular thighs that Uhura recognized immediately.

“Captain Kirk!” she gasped.

“And Mr. Spock,” added Chapel.

“And Dr. McCoy,” finished Fisher.  “All three of them got beamed up as one person.  When they saw what happened, they ordered us to keep it confidential until it could be corrected.”

“How awful!” Uhura said.

“They seem to think so,” agreed Fisher.  “Christine had enough trouble getting a date with Spock when he was by himself."

Before the nurse could retaliate, Uhura asked, “Can’t we send them back down and beam them back up separately?”

“No,” interjected Spock/McCoy/Kirk.  “The transporter is not designed to split one person into three.”

“Well, it seemed to do just fine putting three into one!” retorted McCoy/Kirk/Spock.

“Gentlemen,” Kirk/Spock/McCoy interrupted himself.  “The two of you are giving me a headache.  I can’t command this vessel if  I’m not at my peak.  Anybody want to wrestle?”

Fisher ignored them.  “I’ve tried everything and the transporter checks out fine.  Whatever caused this can’t be duplicated here.”

“Can’t we just tell Scotty what happened?” asked Uhura, trying to concentrate as the odd triad wrestled itself repeatedly to the ground.

“Think, Uhura,” pleaded Chapel.  “What’s the first thing Mr. Scott will have to do?”

Uhura thought carefully.  “Report the situation to Starfleet.”

“Right, and then?”

“They’ll send someone from the science academy to investigate and -- I see what you mean.  It could take years.”

“We don’t have years.  When they first beamed aboard, their physical differences were much more pronounced.  Whatever happened to them hasn’t stopped yet.  Within 24 hours their three physical bodies will be totally integrated, and then I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to separate them.”

Uhura looked hopeful.  “It shouldn’t bee too difficult to get back to Sagan I, discover what happened to the landing party, and fix it without any of the crew becoming suspicious.”

“Brilliant,” said Fisher, “and all this time I thought you were on the bridge because of your legs.”

“I need a drink,” said McCoy/Spock/Kirk as he pulled himself up off the floor.

“Actually a game of three-dimensional chess would be much more relaxing,” Spock/Kirk/McCoy suggested.

“Hey, have you guys seen my Orion slave girl video collection?” Kirk/McCoy/Spock asked with enthusiasm, eyeing the three female officers in his cabin.

The three women exchanged wary looks.

“Ladies,” said Fisher, “what do you suppose would happen if you crossed a man who had powerful sexual urges every seven years with one who gets the hots every seven seconds?”

Uhura and Christine looked suddenly worried.

“Run for it!” yelled Christine.

Outside the locked door, Fisher had an idea.  “I think one of us should stay here just in case he tries to hurt himself.”

Chapel looked at her with a smirk.  “Nice try, Fisher.  Now, let’s get out of here and get to work.”

With a sigh, Lieutenant Fisher followed the other women down the corridor.

                                                                        *****

Scotty looked doubtfully at Uhura.  “Are you sure about those orders, lass?  Starfleet wants us to go back to Sagan I?  Why?”

“Why?” echoed Uhura.  “Uh, to research the virus the landing party contracted.”

Scotty sighed.  “Okay, lads, you heard the little lady.  Let’s turn this ship around.”

“Aye, sir,” acknowledged Sulu, and soon the viewscreen displayed a new vista of stars.

“Lieutenant Uhura, patch me through to the captain,” instructed Scotty.

“Aye, sir,” she responded, her fingers flying over the controls.  “Captain Kirk, this is the bridge.  Come in please.”

“Kirk here,” answered a voice that didn’t remotely sound like Captain Kirk.

Uhura smiled apologetically.  “Poor connection,” she told Scotty.

The three men were fortunately quiet as Mr. Scott informed them of the new orders and inquired as to the captain’s health.

“Fine, Ah reckon.”

Before Scotty could question the captain’s suddenly southern accent, Uhura broke the connection.  I can't keep this up much longer, she thought.

“Sagan I orbit in one hour,” reported Sulu, and Scotty’s attention was diverted to organizing a landing party (in life support suits) to retrace Kirk, Spock, and McCoy’s planetside activities.

In Captain Kirk’s cabin, a frustrated Christine Chapel was trying to determine the real cause of the problem.

“Did the three of you receive any artifacts, equipment, or gifts that could’ve affected your beam up?”

The combined commander looked at her with hazel eyes.  The Vulcan characteristics were being absorbed by the dominant Terran influence.  “No,” one of them said, “we didn’t bring anything with us.”

“Except the good wishes of their leader,” McCoy/Spock/Kirk said.

“A fascinating individual,” Spock/Kirk/McCoy determined.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about what he said,” Kirk/McCoy/Spock added.

Chapel grasped at the straw.  “You mean all three of you talked to this man, and you were all thinking about him when you beamed up?”

They nodded.  “He called us the three-who-are-one and wished us long lives and continued success…”

“Together!” McCoy/Spock/Kirk realized.

Christine opened her communicator.  “Lieutenant Fisher, this is Nurse Chapel.  Come in, please.”

When Lieutenant Fisher responded, Christine explained the situation.

“You think their frame of mind triggered the consolidation?” The engineer sounded skeptical.

“Yes, I do.”  Now all you have to do is reconfigure the transporter to separate them using brain wave activity as the key.”

“All I have to do—” Betsy sighed.  Another pair of legs heard from, she thought.  “Okay, but you two have to keep Mr. Scott out of my hair if I’m going to get these circuits reversed in time.”

“A piece of cake.”  She signed off quickly because Kirk/Spock/McCoy was heading toward the door.

“You have to stay here,” she explained.  “If Scotty finds you, we’ll never get you apart.”

They listened and finally agreed, but it was obvious that the merger of three great minds was making one confused muddle.  Chapel hoped they could return them to normal in time.

She left the room and ran smack into—

“Mr. Scott!”  She was surprised to see the acting commander at Captain Kirk’s door, which slid shut, unlocked, behind her.

“Miss Chapel,” he said sternly, “what’s going on here?”

She looked around helplessly.  “Sir?”

The generally calm man sounded angry.  “Why can’t I see the captain?”

“Infection.”  She didn’t sound convincing.

“Nurse Chapel, did you or did you not just leave that room?”

Chapel’s answer was delayed by the sudden appearance of Uhura behind Scotty at the end of the hall.

Uhura’s panic-stricken face relayed her dismay at letting Mr. Scott out of her sight.  Too late, she’d realized his goal and had vainly tried to intercept him.

“Oh, Mr. Scott!” wailed Christine suddenly, throwing her arms around the surprised man.  Together they spun around in the hall, Scotty’s head pressed tightly against her bosom as she released great sobs of despair.  “I can’t take it anymore!”

“Murse Mapfel!” Scotty mumbled, but what followed was impossible to make out between Chapel’s banshee screams and the amount of her anatomy pressed against his face.  He couldn’t see the frantic non-verbal exchange between Chapel and Uhura that told the communications officer to get Kirk/Spock/McCoy out—fast!

Uhura slipped around the spinning couple and extracted the Enterprise triarchy.  She tugged the curious man down the hall.

Scotty managed to break free, disheveled and gasping for breath.  Chapel’s wailing ended in a high-pitched shriek, and she collapsed melodramatically on the floor.

“It’s okay, lass,” he comforted her as he helped her up.  “I know it’s a lot of pressure on you with the doctor out of commission.”

“That’s not it,” she sobbed.  “It’s the captain.  I can’t find him anywhere!”  She collapsed again, giving Uhura time to get the captain out of sight.

                                  *****

“What’s happening now?” inquired Fisher as she climbed from beneath the transporter console.  She looked up with surprise at the crewman Uhura had in tow.  “What’s he doing here?”

Uhura looked with compassion at the combined trio.  “Scotty insisted on speaking to the captain personally.  He was getting suspicious of the recorded tapes of Kirk and Spock that I’d been feeding him.”

Fisher didn’t ask for details.  “Well, we can’t keep him here.  Your cabin or mine?”

“Mine,” said the senior officer, “but we have to be careful.  Scotty will have security looking for them.”

“Them?”

“Him.  It.”  Uhura was unnerved.  “Let’s get out of here.”

Cautiously they made their way to Uhura’s cabin with Fisher scouting the corridors and Uhura pulling the captain behind her.

Neither was prepared when Chekov’s door slid open between them, and he stepped into the corridor.  He surveyed the odd scene and looked at Uhura.  “Shouldn’t you be on the bridge?”

“I’m on my lunch, Ensign,” she said as she passed, arm in arm with the Kirk/Spock/McCoy conglomerate.

“Who’s your friend?” he asked.  Uhura stopped, and Fisher contemplated slam-dunking Chekov’s pointed little head against the deck.

“You know me,” said the stranger.

“You do look familiar.  Have we met?”

Uhura flashed Fisher a panic-stricken look.  “He’s new,” she said.

“What’s his name?” Chekov asked, waiting for an introduction.

“Smith,” said Uhura.

“Jones,” said Fisher.

“David Smith Jones,” clarified Uhura with a sharp look at Fisher.  “We’re taking him to sickbay.”

“Pleased to meet you, David Smith Jones,” said Chekov with a manly handshake.  He turned to Lieutenant Fisher.  “Why is he going to sickbay?”

Uhura ignored him and guided the new crewman down the hall, but Fisher couldn’t resist a parting shot.  “Contagious impotency,” she said with a smug smile.  The last they saw of Chekov, he was standing in the corridor, staring helplessly at his hand.

 
                                              *****
 
 

“I just dropped off the brainwave patterns from their medical records.  Betsy is almost ready,” said Chapel as she entered Uhura’s cabin.  “How are things on the bridge?”

Uhura moaned with exhaustion.  “Mr. Scott is convinced that because he can’t find the captain and the others on the ship, they must have beamed back down to the planet once we achieved orbit to track down the virus themselves.  He thinks it something they would do.”

Christine nodded.  It did sound like something the three of them would do.  “We have one other problem.”

“Our encounter with Chekov?”

She shook her head.  “No, he’s convinced that he has some dreaded disease and is trying to get every sweet young thing on board to cure him.  No, the real problem is that Scotty has security posted in the transporter room.”

Christine looked thoughtful for a moment.  “What we need is a little diversion.”

Uhura grinned at her friend.  “You could always do your hysterical female act again.”

Chapel didn’t smile back.  “No, I don’t think that would work on a security guard; he’d never let me get close enough.  Same reason a tranquilizer is out of the question.  We’ve got to be devious.”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Uhura said.  “Why don’t we just confess everything and throw ourselves on Mr. Scott’s mercy?”

“And what about Kirk, Spock, and McCoy?” asked Christine, indicated the sleeping form on Uhura’s bed.

“Okay,” agreed Uhura, “one diversion coming up as soon as Bets is ready.”

When the communicator beeped and the harried engineer whispered that the transporter was reconfigured, they woke Kirk/Spock/McCoy and proceeded to the transporter room.

Ensign Marks never stood a chance.  From the moment Uhura staggered through the door with her uniform ripped and her hair hanging in her face, the security guard became involved in rescuing the damsel in distress.

“Help me!” she cried, sagging weakly against the door.

“What happened?” the young man asked as he rushed to her side.

“A stranger…” She gestured down the hall.  “I’ll show you.”

Ensign Marks looked at Lieutenant Fisher behind the console.

“Go on,” she offered.  “I’ll stay here.”

Uhura led the Ensign around the corner just as Chapel pulled the composite commander into the transporter room.

“Are you ready?”  Chapel asked Fisher.

“Ready?” echoed the threesome.  “Where’s the bridge?”

Fisher glanced at the confused trio.  “They’re fading fast.  I hope that we’re not too late.”
As Christine helped Kirk/Spock/McCoy onto the transporter pad, Uhura ran back into the room.  “Quick!” she exclaimed, “Scotty’s right behind me!”

“Seal the door!” ordered Betsy and began frantically manipulating the transporter controls.

Uhura sealed the door and heard Mr. Scott slam unexpectedly into the usually automatically opened door.

Chapel jumped from the transporter as Kirk/Spock/McCoy disappeared in a shower of flickering lights.

Even with Scotty banging on the door, Betsy waited for total transfer before bringing them back, one at a time, from the planet’s surface.

McCoy, the last to beam up, solidified as Uhura released the door.

“What’s going on here?” Kirk demanded as his red-faced chief engineer came barging into the room with an embarrassed Ensign Marks on his heels.

Scotty looked at the three silent women before replying.  “I’m not sure, sair, but if these lasses aren’t in the thick of it, I’ll eat a warp drive converter.”

“Welcome back, Captain,” Uhura said with a big smile. “Glad to see you feeling better.”  Whatever happed to them was worth it now; everything was back to normal.

                                                                                *****

The conference room was unusually quiet as Chapel finished the last part of the official report.  Kirk looked surprised at his unrecalled merger with his senior officers.  Spock seemed deep in thought, and McCoy didn’t say a word.

Scotty looked tired.  “The inquiry is concluded,” he informed the computer.

“Actions against any officers to be filed?” inquired the machine.  Everyone looked at Kirk.

“None,” he said.  “All crewmen acted in compliance with my orders and have apologized to Lieutenant Commander Scott for their rather creative solutions.  The transporter malfunction has been reported to Starfleet and backup circuits are being installed.  Case closed.”

Uhura breathed a deep sigh of relief and smiled in appreciation at her commanding officer.  Somehow they’d have to make it up to Mr. Scott.

“Thank you, Captain,” Lieutenant Fisher said, voicing the gratitude they all felt as the senior officers started to leave.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said.  “Without you, who knows who we’d be right now.  Right, Mr. Spock?”

The Vulcan looked at the group.  “Ah reckon,” he said in a deep voice and left the conference room.

The three women stood petrified.  “Well,” said Fisher finally.  “I guess you have to have a brain to be able to differentiate the correct brain waves from medical records.”

“What!” replied Chapel.  “If your transporter had worked, we wouldn’t have a Vulcan who thinks he’s from Georgia!”

“Oh no,” moaned Uhura.  “Here we go again.”

The End?

February 28, 1987                 Published in the Women's List