String Theory_ Fusion (Book 2) - Kirsten Beyer [26]
Suddenly, the pain was everywhere.
His right arm was on fire. Tuvok had suffered his fair share of plasma and radiation burns in the years he had served in Starfleet. He estimated that the burn on his right arm was probably third-degree, while the one that covered much of his chest was second-degree. Mentally cataloguing the rest of his body, he realized that he couldn’t feel his left leg. His first thought was nerve damage. A sharp blow to his cervical spine could account for the lack of sensation, but as he turned to focus his one good eye on his left leg, he realized that he simply could not see it.
What he could see was that the circle of light, which had begun its tentative expansion, had snapped back to the small spot surrounding his feet.
And then, the light was extinguished.
Tuvok lay on the floor of his shuttle. It was cold in the cabin. It was logical to assume that his body had not been the only thing ripped apart in the explosion, which was the last thing he could remember. But he could breathe. Whatever the damage to the shuttle, wherever he was, he was grateful that he had not yet been exposed to the vacuum of space.
He gingerly raised his left arm and again began to explore his face. Wherever he had just been-in a dream, or in an alternate reality created by the presence that had drawn him here-he had not imagined the severity of his injuries.
He tried to sit up. The shock of sensitivity in the exposed nerve endings of his abdomen that had been flayed by the plasma explosion beneath the main console of the shuttle almost caused him to lose consciousness again.
Taking as deep a breath as the pain would allow, he attempted to slowly turn his head slightly down and toward the left. He could move his neck. That was a good thing. Perhaps the lack of feeling in his lower left extremity was not the result of cervical damage after all.
Though the shuttle’s standard and emergency lighting systems were obviously damaged beyond repair, there was a faint bluish glow present in the cabin. Allowing his eye a moment to adjust to what little light there was, he peered into the dimness around him, hoping to assess the injury to his leg. He was not startled, more disappointed when he made out his left leg bent at an impossible angle at the knee, jutting up toward his thigh. Obviously it was broken, almost in half.
He tried to calculate the odds that from his present position he would be able to pull himself through the cabin and find the emergency medical kit that came standard with every Starfleet shuttle. They were dismally low. But even this was not enough to completely shatter his resolve.
He had managed to grab hold of a random piece of solid metal within range of his left hand and force the resulting wave of nausea to a section of his mind that could ignore it before he realized that the physical injuries he had just sustained were not the only part of the vision he had just experienced that was real.
The music that had become as much a part of his mind and body as the air he breathed and the blood that flowed in his veins had left him. The presence that had become his constant companion was gone. He tried to focus on it, willing it to appear again in his mind. But the torrent of pain overwhelmed every other aspect of his consciousness, leaving no room for such exertions.
For the first time in his entire life, Tuvok felt the loneliness that his Vulcan discipline had never before allowed him to experience. He didn’t know why he could no longer sense or hear the presence. Perhaps the injuries to his body actually paled in comparison to the physical injuries of his brain. It was likely that the music was still present. He had felt a tentative connection forming only moments ago. But if the centers of his brain that linked him to the alien presence had been damaged, that would more than account for his inability to hear them now.
All he knew for