Scotty was not at all concerned about the fact that the critical components of Excelsior’s over-engineered, over-complicated, easily sabotaged transwarp system were clacking in his pocket. It was absurd how easy this was. It would have made him incandescently angry, once. A pocketful of bolts, and he’d brought a Starship to its knees.
Not that they knew that, yet.
The engineering staff gave him respectful nods as he walked by with his contraband—a deference that smelled of condescension, and put his hackles straight up. He knew perfectly well that his body wasn’t what it had been; the years of abuse it had taken, muscles and bones and mind, were aches he couldn’t ignore. But he could feel their gazes between his shoulders, and their whispers behind his back. It was precisely the way you’d treat your dottering nan, puttering around her garden.
They pitied him as a relic of the past.
As if he hadn’t trained half of them. As if his fingerprints weren’t in the design of the systems of this and every other starship. As if the mathematics of fucking transwarp, of which they were so bloody proud, didn’t have his name beside it. (To his great annoyance because it was ridiculous.)
So no. He wasn’t particularly fussed about the spectacular way in which he and the Enterprise and all the rest were about to pull down Excelsior’s pants and tie them ‘round her captain’s ankles.
He beamed off the Excelsior with a sigh of relief that he’d never step foot on it again. The Enterprise would be his final starship, and that felt fitting.
Spock’s peace was on the line, and he was certain of what he needed to do. The rest of anything else he might feel didn’t matter. Afraid, or mournful, body weakening, heart clenching. None of that was even important enough to register. It was like staring into the cold North Atlantic sea, and knowing you had to jump. That kind of conviction was rare in his life, and utterly clarifying when it came.
Certainty.
(Because he had jumped, to save the crew, and when his strength was gone he’d been jumped after too.)
(Because Spock would do it for him—had done—logic be damned.)
He had no illusions. Assuming they survived this misadventure, there was a court martial at the end of it, and his career wouldn’t survive another. That was fine. Prison was likely; he doubted he’d survive there very long. Closing walls and creeping nothingness were his old, old enemies, and they would take him down. But that was fine too.
His only grief was that he was breaking every promise he’d ever made to Corry. About retiring, about coming home, about buying that boat together and growing old. Or older, at any rate. But the same certainty that told him he was doing the right thing also told him that Corry would understand. To his very bones, beyond the need for words, Corry would know why Scotty had to do this.
There wasn’t a word for it. He’d stood beside Spock for decades, but this had nothing to do with their private friendship. This wasn’t history. This wasn’t obligation. Loyalty, maybe, was the nearest word, but even that was weak. There were souls who walked the universe with you, and it was unthinkable to abandon them, even in death.
He stepped onto the Enterprise, one last time. He was wearing a Starfleet uniform, but he wasn’t the Chief. He wasn’t even an officer. No, today he was a saboteur and pirate, for Spock’s sake. For McCoy’s. For Kirk and Sulu, Chekov and Uhura. And maybe for himself.
Somewhere, in some closet, Corry still had what was now ill-fitting pirate regalia from another entirely necessary and possibly unwise bit of buccaneering. He wished he would have brought it with him; it would have made Cor laugh his ass off. Instead, he reached into his pocket, around the bolts, and clicked his penlight on and then off again. Then he looked up at the silent core he was about to bring to life and got to work, because whatever was left of Spock needed him, and that was reason enough.