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spacedogfromspaceTrapped in a Cave by Pterodactyls
Fictober22
On an away mission gone wrong, Chekov finds himself alone, trapped in a cave by pterodactyls, with nothing but a broken phaser and a communicator with no signal.
Fandom(s): Star Trek TOS
Character(s): Pavel Chekov
Tags: Genfic, Survival, Dinosaurs
Rating: Teen+
Content Warnings: N/A
Word Count: 1718
Type: Oneshot, Standalone
Collection: Fictober22, or, Pavel Chekov's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Month
Written for Fictober 2022
Day 6: “Adaptable, I Like That.”
Chekov was in deep trouble. The away mission he was on had gone very, very wrong. At the present moment, he was alone in a cave with nothing but a malfunctioning phaser and a communicator that couldn’t get any signal. He was separated from the rest of the landing party when a flock of pterodactyls descended on them. Luckily for his teammates, the pterodactyls didn’t follow them to the beam-up point. Unfortunately for Chekov, the reason they didn't follow the others was because the beasts were following him. Now, holed up in a cave with an entrance large enough for a scrawny human but too small for the large avians, Chekov was left to come up with a solution to his predicament under his own resources.
His original plan was to stay in the cave and wait it out; surely the pterodactyls would lose interest and leave eventually. However, it had been 36 hours since Chekov had first taken refuge in the cave, and the pterodactyls were still camping out, waiting for him like an obnoxious Call of Duty player. Not wanting to risk taking too much time - he worried that the Enterprise would give up on him and leave orbit before he could contact them - Chekov got to work coming up with a more active plan of escape.
He had already tried to repair his phaser. That would have been the simplest way out. Just a few zaps from the safety of the cave would have neutralised the creatures long enough for him to get to the rendezvous point. Unfortunately, the phaser wasn’t just broken, it was missing its focusing lens entirely. When he tried to fire the phaser, the energy was scattered in a wide arc rather than a narrow beam, and even on the highest setting the energy was too diffused to have any effect on the pterodactyls.
“Well, great.” Chekov muttered to himself, leaning against the damp cave wall. “I have a useless phaser and a useless communicator, nobody knows where I am, or even that I am alive.” He tried his communicator for a signal, as he had done a hundred times before. Frustrated at the continued lack of signal, he threw his communicator across the cave. It broke with a sharp crack against the opposite wall, and it fell to the ground with its innards exposed. Something glinted in the dying light that still managed to seep into the cave.
Chekov stared at it. “You know, that just might work.”
He set to work, starting a fire with what little kindling he could scavenge without leaving the cave. It was a difficult task due to the humidity, but a childhood of wilderness survival camp gave him the edge he needed for the task. He stoked the fire, hoping to get some very hot embers burning.
While waiting for the fire to heat up sufficiently, he dissected the broken communicator, salvaging a small, clear sheet of material. It looked and felt like glass, but Chekov knew that it was really a polyurethane compound - more crack and scratch resistant than glass would have been. It also had a far lower melting point.
Being careful not to burn the material, he held it over a few hot embers, allowing it to soften sufficiently enough to become malleable. He formed a circular convex shape the size of a fingertip, and while the material was still soft, used a sharp piece of broken communicator to cut away the excess.
“Good,” Chekov breathed, examining his handiwork after it had cooled. It looked a lot like a focusing lens. Now it was just a matter of whether it would act like one.
He took the phaser and popped open the maintenance panel. Luckily, the only piece missing was the lens, so all he had to do was fit his improvised part into the phaser, bending a few metal prongs to hold it in place. By the time he had assembled it, night had fallen. If his repairs worked, he could leave this cave in the morning, and if he was lucky, the Enterprise would still be waiting for him with a lock on the beam-up point.
With a deep breath, Chekov pointed the phaser towards the opening of the cave. The thought of the phaser exploding in his face briefly crossed his mind before he shook his head and fired. A narrow beam of energy emerged, spiking off into the night. It wasn’t as focused as a properly functioning phaser, but it would work.
Chekov stood in shock for a moment. “It works.” He breathed, letting out a burst of hysterical laughter. “It works! It actually works! I’m going to get out of here!” He started shouting towards the cave entrance. “You hear that, you flapping, screaming motherfuckers? You better start running because as soon as the sun comes up I’m gonna start blasting! No prisoners!”
Chekov yelled at the pterodactyls hysterically until he was too exhausted to continue. He tried to get some sleep, but with the anticipation for the coming morning, he couldn’t catch any. When the sun finally rose high enough to light up the area outside the cave, Chekov picked up the phaser and prepared to take aim. He had a second thought, and switched the phaser to the stun setting. The pterodactyls were trying to eat him, but they were just hungry animals. They didn’t need to die, they just needed to be subdued long enough for him to get off this god-forsaken planet.
There were two pterodactyls that he could see from within the cave. They were standing near the entrance, peering in at him. They must have heard him approaching. He took careful aim, and fired at one of them. It went down instantly, and he quickly redirected the beam toward the other before it could react. With the two of them down, he poked his head out of the cave, and saw another two a little further removed from the entrance. They appeared to be sleeping. Chekov paused for a moment, considering leaving the two sleeping animals alone and sneaking past them. But he couldn't risk them waking up and attacking him. He took out the one perched on a nearby rock first, then the one resting in the branches of a tree. The latter fell with a resonating thump, and Chekov winced, hoping it wouldn’t be badly injured from the fall.
Seeing no sign of more pterodactyls, Chekov ventured out of the cave. Suddenly, he heard a leathery flapping sound, and a shadow engulfed him. He spun around just in time to see the terrifying creature before it bowled him over, pinning him to the ground. It had one foot planted on Chekov’s legs, and the other on an arm, and the sheer weight of the thing made Chekov very glad that it hadn't landed on his torso. The bird shrieked at him, and its large jaws descended on his face. Chekov brought up the phaser and shot a beam down its throat. It seized, then collapsed.
Unable to breathe due to the weight of the stunned pterodactyl, Chekov immediately started wiggling his way out from under it's limp body. Luckily, he was able to escape, and Chekov sat on the ground beside the beast, catching his breath while covered in sweat and dirt. He surveyed the area for more surprise pterodactyls, but it seemed that the coast was clear, at least for the moment.
After a minute, Chekov got up, dusted himself off, and jogged through the trees back towards the rendezvous site. He stepped in a creek and flooded his shoes, one of which later got pulled off of him while crossing a boggy area, but he didn’t care. He was so, so tired, and so, so close to safety. He held back his relief once he got to the designated beam-up location. He didn’t want to get too ahead of himself, he didn’t know whether the Enterprise was still waiting for him or not. But to his immense relief, it wasn’t long before he was engulfed in a particle beam and lifted from the planet.
Upon materialising on the Enterprise, Chekov collapsed on the floor of the transporter room, laughing with relief. Scotty was immediately crouching over him, assessing him for injuries. Shortly after his arrival Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy burst into the room, looking as if they had sprinted over from the bridge and sickbay, respectively.
“He doesn’t have any major injuries,” Doctor McCoy said with relief after scanning his patient with a medical tricorder. “Just a few cuts and bruises, dehydration, lack of sleep. Needs some food in him, too.”
Kirk sighed in relief. “Dammit, Chekov, what happened to you down there? We thought you were dead! Tell me everything.”
“With all due respect, sir,” Chekov croaked from the floor, “I am about to pass out from exhaustion.”
Kirk was about to protest, but was stopped by a sharp glare from McCoy. “Right,” he acquiesced. “I’ll let you get rested and recovered, but then I’m going to need a full report.”
“Yes, sir,” Chekov said, popping off a salute before promptly passing out.
He woke up in sickbay, feeling sore, but well rested and very clean. Apparently, Doctor McCoy had dumped him in the sonic shower for a few minutes before putting him in a bio-bed, and Chekov was grateful for it. The dirt, grime, and sweat from the past few days had been unbearable.
Captain Kirk visited him, and Chekov gave his account of what had transpired down on the surface. Kirk was apologetic about the malfunctioning equipment, but impressed by Chekov’s ingenuity in the situation.
“Adaptable, I like that,” he told Chekov. “I’ll have you commended for your resourcefulness.”
“Thank you, sir.” Chekov replied.
“You know, you’d do good in engineering. Maybe I should be giving you a red shirt.”
Chekov winced. “Actually sir,” he said hoarsely, “I am almost certain that if I had been wearing the red shirt I would not have made it out of that cave.”
Kirk smiled. “Guess we’ll just have to keep our star navigator on the bridge, then.”
“Thank you, sir.” Chekov looked forward to returning to his usual duties. His usual, non-life threatening duties. He drifted back off to sleep, dreaming of astro-navigational calculations.