Cabin Pressure (Star Trek: TOS story)

K/S Fanfiction
Title:	Cabin Pressure
Author(s):	Alexis Fegan Black
Date(s):	1986
Length:
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	Star Trek: The Original Series
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Cabin Pressure is a Kirk/Spock story by Alexis Fegan Black.

It was published in the print zine Naked Times #11.

Summary

"Kirk and Spock are stranded in a crippled shuttlecraft, far from known starlanes and slowly running out of air."

Reactions and Reviews

The final story in the zine, CABIN PRESSURE, is exactly what the title implies. Set on a drifting shuttlecraft, the story deals with how a life can flash before one's eyes when one is facing imminent death. Some excellent dialogue in a simple plot which had me turning the pages in eager anticipation.

Kirk and Spock are dying. Their shuttle, light- years away from the ENTERPRISE, and from established space lanes, has been irreparably damaged. They have enough food to last several weeks. They have enough oxygen to last 13.7 days.

You would think they would waste very little of that precious time and would fall into each others arms confessing and copulating, right? Sorry. Both are so sincerely depressed and having so much difficulty coming to terms with the situation, they sleep most of the time they have left. Dreams take them into each other’s arms in bizarre ways as dreams are wont to do, but they wake only to their shared despair. They speculate, as only the doomed can do, of the prospect of an afterlife. Their efforts are futile. They would prefer life. It is only as Kirk’s human heritage causes his breathing to become labored before the thinning air effects Spock that the Vulcan throws caution to the wind. Determined they will die truly together, Spock takes the initiative and makes love to his soulmate.

He awakens, looking into Kirk’s eyes and expressing his relief that there is, indeed, and afterlife and the two of them have made it there together. But as he turns, he sees that half the viewscreen is filled with the majestic bulk of the ENTERPRISE and an umbilical tethers their shuttle to the ship. The future is theirs again.