Chapter 4

A Chapter by Calibaster

Dustin was seriously confused, and it didn't help that he'd been woken after only a few hours of sleep. At least he was only a little less confused than Coal Cassel, who added to his confusion, by the way. He'd definitely never met anyone who could feel heat, get so hot, and then turn so icy cold. But that was one of the least bizarre things.

Coal was good at the, "I can't remember anything" façade, which didn't seem too hard considering the circumstances. Dustin was extremely grateful for it too. He had pieced a few things together, he'd seen the new Star Trek not that long ago. But its not like the movie told you what everyone's job specifics were. And luckily that's the sort of thing you tell a person suffering from memory loss. At least that was what he had hoped, but after answering some of Coal's initial questions, Dr. McCoy decided that it would be much more helpful to the young ensign in his care if they were to read him his file. Besides, Ensign Chase had only known him since the academy.

Dustin tried everything he could to get the doctor to just let him talk to Coal, but did well at hiding his frustration when McCoy called the bridge and requested Ensign Cassel's file. Dustin was pretty sure the doctor had a few ulterior motives anyways.

There was a whistle and then a voice answered back over the intercom, "Dr. McCoy, there are no record of an Ensign Cassel in Star Fleet, let alone assigned to the Enterprise."

McCoy nodded, his suspicions confirmed. "I knew we had no one aboard with such a medical history."

"Would you like me to inform the captain?" the voice (was it Spock?) asked.

"Yes, and be quick about it. Also, look up any records for an Ensign Chace."

Dustin was considering running at this point, but he knew that wouldn't help at all. 'I must be dreaming anyways,' he thought.

McCoy pushed another button, "Security to med-bay."

Crap.

"Security?" Coal asked, and for once, Dustin wished that he wouldn't keep the façade up. They were sitting ducks!

Dustin heard the whooshing of the ship's automatic doors, and two men in red shirts entered the room, phasers in hand. "Should we take them to the hold?" one of the men asked.

"No," McCoy waved his hand at Coal, "I need to keep him under observation, and he is in no state to be moved. Just stand at the door."

Dustin found this act a little peculiar, but he was grateful for the doctor's worry and compassion above his worry of the security threat. He decided to stay quiet and by Coal's side until something happened.

A few minutes later there was another whoosh from the door and two more men came in, except this time one was in yellow and the other in blue. Spock and Kirk. Coal's eyes widened a little at the sight of the half Vulcan, with his pointy ears and slanted eyebrows.

"So what's this all about, Bones?" Kirk asked.

"Scotty found these two over by the warp drive. This one fainted so he brought him to med bay. His temperature was so high he melted the needle, Jim. He should be dead. I gave him a shot," Kirk cringed, "to bring his temperature down, and he basically froze."

"So what about him?" Kirk asked gesturing at Dustin.

"Well that boy is sure on heck of a liar. He made up a story, but there's no record of any one with their names in Star Fleet."

"I did a search on both of them. Nothing came up for the name Coal Cassel, but Dustin Chase brought up some fascinating results."

"Great. What were they?" McCoy asked impatiently.

"I found a few online profiles, news articles, and a missing person report from your planet's twenty first century."

They all turned to look at Dustin. "About that..." he couldn't think of anything to say. Obviously it was time to come clean, certainly they've dealt with stuff as crazy as his story before. "Wormholes," was the first thing that popped into his head.

"Wormholes?" Kirk looked skeptical, "You're saying that you got lost from the past to the future?"

"Uh ... Actually that wasn't exactly what I was going to say," Dustin said, he was thinking about the explanation for the missing person report, but he nodded, "but yeah."

"What about him?" McCoy gestured towards Coal.

"I appeared here and met him, I don't know who he is or where he came from." Dustin felt bad doing that to Coal, who was still shivering uncontrollably, but he had no other choice. It's not like he wanted to leave the poor young man hanging, and he would still help him if necessary.

"So is this memory loss a lie?" Spock looked straight at Coal.

"Yes." Coal nodded, teeth beginning to chatter, "I was pulled from my world, and ended up here ... It's not like I wanted to be here! ... sooooo c-cold!" He wrapped his arms around himself,"What did you do to me?!! I feel like I have a cold ... without the runny nose."

"Were you really dying of heat?"

"I can." Coal rubbed his arms, "but only if I let myself."

"So what's you're real name?" Kirk frowned as if considering all of the new information, "And how can you let heat kill you?"

"My name r-really is C-Coal Cassell. And, i-in essence, I am h-heat."

"You do not seem to be generating any heat at this time." Spock raised an eyebrow, "Considering that, how are you heat?"

"He did s-something to me!" Coal raised a shaking pale hand towards McCoy, his eyes accusatory.

"You and your ..." McCoy considered Dustin, "Companion lied to me, so if it's anyone's fault, it's yours." Even though the doctor seemed angry, his eyes betrayed him, snatching worried glances at the screen above Coal. Dustin looked at it, and could see that it had a sign warning of hypothermia.

"Are you usually warm?" Spock was looking with interest at the screen.

"Y-yes!" Coal snapped, his lips were turning blue, "I can control heat, but I can't control anything when I'm like this!"

"That's what you get for making up some ridiculous lie instead of coming clean," Bones muttered under his breath.

Dustin and Coal downcasted their eyes. Dustin wasn't exactly sure why neither of them chose to stick with the truth. Dustin realized that Coal must have been as used as him as getting into odd situations and trying to pretend like he belonged there. "Can you try to warm yourself up?" Dustin had gotten off of his perch on the bed, and under the watchful eyes of security, walked all the way over to Coal.

"I-I am!!" Coal's breath showed in the air, making it clear that he was cold enough to freeze the air around him. Suddenly he stopped shivering, and breathed a sigh of relief, "I can't feel it anymore. I think it's okay now." His breath still showed, and Dustin knew from the signs that he had hypothermia. McCoy obviously knew too, because he ran from the room suddenly, shouting something like,

"CHAPEL!!" The female nurse followed him out, leaving only the security team, Dustin, Captain, Spock and Coal. Dustin wanted to do something, but wasn't sure how his powers could affect temperature.

"Why'd he run off like that?" Coal asked, still kind of shivering. "I feel fine."

"You've got hypothermia," Dustin replied. He glanced at Kirk and Spock. Spock left to go help Dr. McCoy. Dustin knew that although Spock would probably help the doctor tremendously, he'd serve more to annoy him. Maybe there was something Dustin could do. McCoy had neutralized some alloy in Coal's blood, maybe he could neutralize that.

He glanced back at Kirk, who was watching them. He would have preferred not having any one as an audience, but oh well. He put his hand on Coal's shoulder and closed his eyes. He'd helped Cynthia out often enough that he was quickly able to find what was off with Coal's blood. A minute later the compound McCoy had injected Coal with was completely broken down.

"What did you do?" Coal asked.

Dustin opened his eyes to find that Kirk had called Spock and McCoy back into the room, and all eyes were on him.

"I, uh... well, I helped neutralize the compound Dr. McCoy injected you with," he said, directing his words to Coal, eyes on the ground.

"And how exactly did you do that?" the words sounded kinda harsh, but Dustin knew McCoy was curious from a medical point of view.

"His body would have broken it down and gotten it all out of his system eventually, I just sorta helped it along. Kinda like an extra enzyme or catalyst, I think. I've only actually taken high school chemistry."

"Fascinating," Spock said. "And how did you act like an enzyme?"

"Um," Dustin really hated having so much attention on him. It was so much easier when had a story to tell or had worked out what he was going to say. And it was especially difficult when people were asking him about something he could hardly explain even when he gave it a lot of thought.

"I, ... tried really hard?" He looked up guiltily, hoping that was enough.

"You just tried really hard and it sort of happened?" Bones asked, or more restated.

"Kind of," Dustin was getting a little frustrated. "I don't really know how. Believe me, I'm dying for a scientific answer myself. I call it magic because I just don't know. Honestly you could do whatever you'd like, short of cutting me open, to figure it out."

"Captain, Dr. McCoy stated that the boy was a calm liar, it seems only logical to assume that he is telling the truth."

"Yes, thank you for that, Spock," Kirk said rather sarcastically.

"So what do you want us to do, Jim?"

"Well, if this "magic" is anything to go by ..." Kirk looked thoughtful, "We should probably put them in the brig, just to be safe."

"OH NO!" Coal stood up, "I am not going behind bars again!!"

"Again?" Spock's eyebrow climbed his forehead.

"It was a prank." Coal looked at the ground, "One that I was on the receiving end of."

"Well if it is any consolation, our brig is devoid of bars," Spock stated.

Coal thought it over for a moment, "No, it's really not any consolation, I'd still be locked up. A brig is still a brig."

Kirk frowned, "You really have no choice though. Security take them to the brig."

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© 2015 Calibaster

Author's Note

Can you tell us apart? ... Me neither.

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LunarSong

Well, I definitely wrote, "If it's any consolation, our brig is devoid of bars." Haha. I also definitely wrote the stuff with Dustin helping Coal and having to explain it... But um, I've realized... So now we're having it so that they are book characters... But in this... Star Trek was supposed to actually be in the future. I don't know if I want to change that though, but we need an explanation.